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| 12 wins in arena! |
So I achieved my first 12-win arena run in
Hearthstone. I just wanted to post this to brag ... and to write down my thoughts on the drafted deck that I used.
The Deck
First of all, here is the deck:
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| The full deck |
For the early game, I had a LOT of 2-mana cards, which made me think that this deck's mana curve was somewhat low. In fact, 40% of my cards cost 2 mana or less. I would think that a mage would want more turn 1 plays and reserve turn 2 for her hero power, but that didn't turn out to be the case.
The drafting of the Mad Scientist was unfortunate given that I only had one secret in this deck, namely Duplicate.
Beyond that, however, the rest of the deck curved out nicely with strong minions and good spells that can take me to the late game.
My choice of spells, now that I think of it, leaned very heavy on the Freeze size. One of them was my all-time favorite spell of every Blizzard game whatsoever ... Blizzard. Frostbolt is also a must-have in any Arena Mage deck, so I had two of them. The other freeze spells were Ice Lance, Frost Nova, and Cone of Cold. A Fireball and the dreaded Flamestrike rounded out the removal.
But contrary to popular belief, Mages aren't just about the spells, so I made sure to balance the deck with enough minions for board control. I usually aim for a 2:1 ratio of minions to spells, and this deck was pretty close. Funny thing, though, is that for Mages, I usually tilt that ratio more toward spells, but this deck was tilted toward one more minion.
I won't go over the minions, except to say that it's a very good mix of value and trade-up potential. One notable choice was the legendary pick, Baron Geddon, but I'll talk about him in a little bit.
Why Freeze may be underrated
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| Whether it's my favorite spell or my favorite game company, there's only one name to remember ... |
I thought about why Freeze is so good in Arena, more so than in constructed play, and I came up with this theory.
First of all, I thought about what the "opposite" of Freeze was, which was essentially Charge. When a minion is summoned, it needs one turn before it can attack, which is usually referred to as "summoning sickness." Charge effectively negates the summoning sickness, which allows the card to attack the same turn it is played.
Now think about how valuable the Charge mechanic is in the game. It is so valuable, cards with Charge generally have lower stats than other cards with equal mana cost, but without Charge. Getting rid of the summoning sickness is that good and can affect the board in powerful ways. It's the main reason why Charge is a staple in decks that emphasize tempo and/or aggro.
Now if you compare summoning sickness to Freeze, they're two different effects, but they both do the same thing, which is that they prevent the target from attacking for one turn. This is why I consider Freeze to be, in effect, the "opposite" of Charge. What Charge removes, Freeze causes, and if you can inflict the equivalent of "summoning sickness" on your opponent's minions, that's a huge gain in tempo.
OK, but you may be asking why Freeze is so good in Arena but not as popular in constructed. I personally think right now in Arena, the current metagame is to emphasize value over tempo. That's why, in
Trump's Arena List, for example, cards with Freeze are not rated very highly.
But I now think it's a mistake to overlook Freeze cards. There will be many, many situations where your opponent has board control, or the two of you are wrestling for board control, and you need to get your minions out safely. Your opponent may have more valuable minions on the board, but if they're frozen, they're doing no good for one turn, and that gives you enough time to turn the tables. Or if your opponent is close to getting lethal damage on you, you can buy enough time to topdeck the answer you need. Or if you can't remove this one big fat minion in a single turn, freeze it and proceed to use two turns to remove it.
Note that although Freeze is a great tempo mechanic, it's usually not a good value play, since if you have to spend a card freezing a target, then another card killing it, that's a 1-for-2 play that will result in you losing cards overall. But when combined with strong minions and good plays that trade up in value, Freeze can be a real game-changer and can leave your opponent with a handful of (hopefully useless) cards and no board presence. And that's a terrible position for your opponent to be in, which is good for you, of course.
(In constructed play, however, usually the opponent will have such good card synergy that he or she can overcome any tempo advantage that Freeze Mages gain. I think that's why we don't see more Freeze Mages in the current constructed metagame.)
The bottom line is that, in Arena where card synergies are hard to come by, Freeze can synergize with good value play and put you ahead. And that can be just as good as plain old removal, which in my opinion often comes down to all-or-nothing decision. In other words, either kill the target in one turn, or leave it alone. That's not a very flexible playstyle.
Best card in the deck: Frostbolt
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| OPbolt |
So because I spent so much time praising the Freeze mechanic, this is a good time to go over what I think the best card in my deck is. And I swear, this card is incredibly overpowered. 3 damage for 2 mana is already rather strong, but the fact that it also freezes its target is very useful. It means I don't always have to target minions that will be killed in one turn, as I mentioned above. Instead, I can also target big minions (like Boulderfist Ogre) that I won't kill in one turn but I'll get to later on. It's got both early game removal and late-game control use, and that makes this card a staple in any Mage Arena deck.
Biggest surprise: Frost Nova
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| More useful than you might think |
3 mana for something that doesn't kill anything and doesn't do damage might seem like a waste, but I swear, this card has saved me more than once. For instance, I might have Flamestrike or Blizzard in my hand but I obviously can't play them until turn 7 or 6, respectively. So what do I do? Frost Nova, maybe play a 2 mana minion (which I had a lot of), and give myself enough time for the value play next turn.
The key, of course, is that I need to plan out what my next turn is, and that play better be a good one. Otherwise, the time I bought with Frost Nova is completely wasted.
For example, say the opponent has three minions on the board and I have none. But I have Mind Control Tech in my hand, so I play Frost Nova plus a cheap minion just to have some token presence on the board. The opponent may be tempted to play a fourth minion, especially if he or she doesn't have a removal card (or doesn't want to waste it on such a cheap minion). BAM, the next turn I deploy the TC130 Mental Dislocator. (The cheap minion is key to baiting out the opponent's fourth minion. Without any board presence, the opponent will not want to overextend his or her position.)
The Dream Combo
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| Great value |
Duplicate plus taunt is always a great combo. And Sunwalker is one of the better taunts in the game. Thus, getting this combo meant I had the potential to get two more Sunwalkers in the late game, which is huge.
If I remember correctly, I was able to play this combo twice. The first time it worked as intended, but the second time was the more interesting situation ...
I had a damaged Sunwalker, a Duplicate, an Abusive Sergeant, and one other minion on the board vs. a Hunter with no board presence. He played Unleash the Hounds and was just about to kill my Sunwalker, but stopped at one health and didn't attack at all with his last Hound. Smart guy, I thought. Instead, he played an Explosive Trap, which would wipe my board considering the other two minions also had low health. This was a smart play; I can't trigger Duplicate on my turn, which meant if I triggered his trap, I would lose all my minions needlessly.
So I killed his last Hound with one of my minions, then simply passed the turn.
He then proceeded to play Multi-Shot, which killed both my Sunwalker and my Abusive Sergeant. Great, I figured, since I remember playing Sunwalker first, which means on a simultaneous kill, the Sunwalker will be counted first, right? Wrong, Duplicate triggered on my Abusive Sergeant instead! Arrrgh! Oh well, two Abusive Sergeants is a pretty nice consolation prize.
Most Useless Card
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| Surprised? |
This legendary turned out to be the most useless card in my deck. But why is that? Surely his special ability has the potential to clear boards and leave him standing as the sole threat, right?
It hardly ever worked out that way. First of all, by the time I could play him, my opponent usually has minions on the board that have more than 2 health. Second, 5 health for a 7 mana minion is rather fragile, so he must clear the board or else he's vulnerable to an unfavorable trade.
Third, the idea is that, in a situation where my opponent and I are wrestling for board control, I can play Baron, use my minions already in play to reduce the opponent's minions to 2 health or less, then end the turn with a cleared board and Baron remaining. But I only got to do that once during my Arena run, and of course, my opponent easily responded with a removal (Shadow Word: Death, if I recall correctly).
Anyway, I chose him because the other two choices were The Black Knight or The Beast:
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| The alternatives |
I wasn't going to choose a 9/7 minion that was both vulnerable to hard removal like BGH and had a negative Deathrattle, so The Beast was out of the question.
But what about The Black Knight? I thought that since I was playing a Mage, I would have enough answers to taunts that I didn't need The Black Knight's special ability. Moreover, I thought taunt removal would be too situational, which would essentially make this card a higher cost Chillwind Yeti.
In retrospect, I should have chosen The Black Knight because although I probably didn't NEED such hard taunt removal, having it in my arsenal would have been very useful and very powerful whenever the opportunity arose. And like I mentioned before, the opportunities for making the best use out of Baron Geddon were much fewer than I anticipated. In contrast, taunt minions are played often in Arena, which means there would have been plenty of opportunities for The Black Knight to strike.
Matchups
As you can see from the screenshots, I did go 12-2 in this Arena run. I don't remember much from the wins, except the last win where I played against a Hunter. (This was the same Hunter that successfully avoided my Sunwalker/Duplicate combo that I mentioned before.)
But I do remember the two losses. The first one was against a Paladin, and he was able to get enough early game board presence to dictate the entire pace of the game. Drawing two Truesilver Champions also helped. Meanwhile I was incredibly unlucky with my card draw, and I couldn't get enough removal in time.
The second one was against another Mage. I swear, this opponent must have had nothing but removal and a few minions, because she played a total of 3 Frostbolts, 2 Flamestrikes, a Blizzard, and a Fireball. Even then, I kept the game close enough to the point where we were both in a topdeck situation. Yep, Mage OP, Frostbolt OP, Flamestrike OP, Fireball OP, you get the idea.
One more thing. I did get two "wins" from opponents who dropped out, probably due to server latency issues. Oh well, a win is a win.
The Reward
So what did I win from this amazing Arena run? Well ... it was kind of a letdown:
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| The spoils of war |
I mean, 420 gold is pretty good. Plus a golden Rare card, especially one that is a useful spell, is not too shabby. But I was hoping for something a little more ... epic. Like a golden Epic card, preferably an Epic card which I don't have yet (and there are plenty). Or maybe an extra deck of cards, although I guess with the gold I got, I could just buy four packs.
Oh, and I forgot to capture the screenshot of the pack that I opened, but there wasn't anything remarkable.
Anyway, none of that takes away from the pride of finally claiming my first 12-win Arena run!
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