Hearthstone: My first 12-win arena run

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:

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

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

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

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

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

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:

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:

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!

Transformers: Why can't I stop watching?

(I'm going to revive this blog by expanding it. It won't just be about video games anymore. It will also be about nerdy pop culture, such as movies, TV shows, and the people like myself whose lives revolve around it.)

So I just saw the latest Transformers movie, Transformers: Age of Extinction.

What else can I say that the movie reviewers haven't already said so far? Rotten Tomatoes currently has a 17% rating on the movie. Most people say the movie sucked. Fans of the Transformers franchise will continue to complain about how Michael Bay is ruining everything just for money.

And yes, the movie was loud, full of action, light on plot, corny, and overly long.

But why do I keep watching? I'll get to that, but first, I'll just touch upon a few things that were wrong with the movie. (Minor spoiler alert, but I promise it will be minor.)

Optimus Prime: You got the touch ... no more

If you thought he was pissed in #3, wait til you see him now.

Yep, once again they took the iconic Optimus Prime, who represented everything that is noble, courageous, and downright awesome in an Autobot, and made him so aggressive, he's bordering on psychopathic. Yeah, I get that he's been through a lot, as the movie's plot unfolded, but am I supposed to feel sympathy for him? I can't since the Michael Bay movies never seem to give the Transformers themselves more than token personalities. That makes it hard for me to really respect him as a protagonist.

The other Autobots, as usual, were just props without much personality. Except for Hound, whose brash war veteran shtick I kind of liked. They also had a Japanese Autobot named Drift. You know he's Japanese because he looks like a samurai, talks like a samurai (complete with the Asian stereotypical accent), and fights like a samurai. (He was voiced by Ken Watanabe, though, which was good.)

And of course, they still had Bumblebee, only without Shia LeBeouf this time, so it feels like something was missing there. (Though the absence of LeBeouf is kind of welcome this time around. He was good in the first movie, but beyond that he became less and less tolerable.)

Then of course there were the Dinobots, which were finally introduced in this movie. They were OK, in my opinion, but they had even less personality than the original cartoon series, and that says a lot. They also just kind of haphazardly came into the picture without much storyline build-up, but hey, who watches the Transformers movies for deep plot?

Another grand conspiracy

Sector 7, from the first movie: The truth is out there

Once again, they took a phenomenon that happened on Earth, namely the extinction of dinosaurs, and tied it to some grand conspiracy that was committed by the Transformers eons ago.

OK, but the first movie supposedly had the Transformers looking all over the galaxy for the Allspark, which meant that its resting place, namely planet Earth, was just some random planet to them. But then, surprise! The second movie reveals that the Transformers visited Earth a long time ago because they were seeking energy. Then the third movie had something to do with a discovery of a Transformers vessel on the dark side of the moon.

See where I'm going here? The Transformers have been to Earth so many times throughout history, we might as well claim that every major event in the history of planet Earth was somehow the responsibility of the Transformers. The Ice Age, the Mayans, Atlantis, they're all the work of the Transformers, right? Who knows? Maybe global warming is just a nefarious plot by the Decepticons to get rid of humanity. It's getting old, these conspiracy theories.

Humans flying through the air ... again

From Transformers 3: Remember all of the skyscraper acrobatics?

Again, we see humans flying through the air, only to be caught and rescued in mid-flight by the heroic Autobots. Michael Bay EXPLOSIONS! all around them, shrapnel flying, robots crashing into each other, all while the poor humans are being held in their grasp and somehow surviving all of the jostling and the flak with maybe a scratch or two.

I guess it wouldn't be a Bayformers movie without flying humans, but come on, can we get something different to keep the action and the thrills going? We can't keep getting the same old same old if you want us to continue suspending disbelief.

There are many other faults with the movie, but that should be enough for now.

And yet, I still watch

That says it all ...

So why can't I stop watching? Why did I pay frickin' $14.50 to watch the movie in 3D? (And why did I pay an astounding $10 for popcorn and Coke, which will end up as tasty but empty calories anyway?)

Because it's Transformers. Because I grew up with them as a kid. Because they're giant robots, led by a living truck with the voice that we all know and love. Because they transform, and that's SO COOL. I mean, whenever I see the Autobots rolling down the highway, I always get a warm feeling inside knowing that the good guys, all 100 tons of them, are coming into the scene, and they are going to save humanity from the evil and seemingly unstoppable Decepticons.

But I continue to watch mostly because it's wonderful escapism. There are hardly better ways to spend three hours of my life than to get away from work (which has been consuming my nights and weekends as of late), forget about that damned leg injury that is affecting my marathon training, forget about all of the anxieties as the father of an unborn son, and watch giant transforming robots go at it in the middle of densely populated cities such as Chicago and Hong Kong.

And when I finally came out of the movie theater, I looked at my watch and discovered that three hours had indeed gone by without me realizing it at all. Though the movie was long, the fact that it didn't feel long to me says something about how much I enjoyed the ride.

So yeah, that's why I'll continue to feed money into the whole Bayformers nonsense, which will probably mean that we'll see more, and the flaws will continue to be magnified, and the Transformers franchise will continue to be distorted in ways that we fanboys will complain about to no satisfactory end. And given that this latest Transformers movie has already made $400 million in its first weekend alone, I'm not the only one.

Kudos to the new cast

"OH MY GOD!!!" - The poor guy on the right

I must say that Mark Walberg, Stanley Tucci, and Kelsey Grammer alll turned in pretty good performances for a movie like this. It was a smart decision to retire Shia LeBeouf and John Turturro from the line of movies and bring in a new cast that bumps up the maturity by half a step. That's not to say that they didn't have to recite corny lines and make the best out of a script written by rank amateurs, but their acting skills were good enough to make up for the flaws in writing and characterization.

Li Bingbing on a promotional poster for the Chinese audience

(By the way, I thought the Chinese girl in this movie was the same one that played Blink in X-Men: Days of Future Past, but I was wrong. The former is Li Bingbing, but the latter is Fan Bingbing. Same first name and very similar facial features, but different actresses nonetheless.)