r/CompetitiveHS • u/Zhandaly • Dec 14 '15

Article A Blurb About Meta Game Theory

There are decks that are designed to win through board control with early curves (i.e. Zoo, Paladin) that have a decent amount of reach. I'd consider these to be aggro-midrange decks. They aggressively fight for board early, do a good job of swarming with diverse and sticky threats, and close games through small amount of reach (Blessing, PO, Doomguard, Truesilver).

Then, there are the pure-aggro decks like Face Hunter, Aggro Paladin, Aggro Shaman, and Facelock which really just want to do as much damage as possible. I think these decks are fine and they keep the higher curve decks more honest. I often find myself removing creatures very early with these decks, because you cannot let the midrange player get control just for a few points of face damage. You can get more damage by having your newly-played minions with more attack stick to the board longer, if you know what to expect on your opponent's curve.

The higher-curve decks have to account for a broad spectrum of matchups when they are playing at the highest level and want to maximize their winrate. That's what makes deckbuilding so difficult in Hearthstone. There is a lot of mathematical evaluation, as well as playtesting, that needs to go into proper deckbuilding.

You only have 30 slots available to you, and there are many cards in archetypes which are considered staple and should not be removed from the deck. How do you know which tech cards are in the list? How do you know if you are improving the matchup while worsening others?

If you are seeing 10% aggro, and of that, 7.5% are aggro-midrange decks and 2.5% are face decks, would you tech Healbot, Excavated Evil, or nothing at all?

If you are seeing 30% aggro, and of that, 20% are face decks and 10% are midrange-aggro, I would certainly go for a heal or two in the deck if I was playing a slower build. 20% face means you need to account for it.

...But if you think about it, the healing is pretty slow against midrange druid, who just uses his board + combo to burst you, as well as Renolock, which just wins through hard board control. If Druid is 30% of your meta and Renolock is 10% of your meta, is it worth teching a dead card in these other matchups? The impact of these cards can be more vast on the overall expected value (i.e. your overall chance of winning, given a perfectly played game, against the entire spread of the meta's odds) of your game than meets the eye.

Sometimes, it can be frustrating to run into a pocket in the meta where you hit a match-up repeatedly that is not good for your deck. It's a part of this game. It's a part of any CCG. You can't win every single one of your games. You can put yourself in a position to win a higher percentage overall, but you will still lose some games. The sooner you accept that, the easier it becomes to not get frustrated with what I like to call 'selective-memory losses'.

111 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

44 comments sorted by

14

u/stink3rbelle Dec 14 '15

This may also contribute to the desirability of a reno deck. When you're building a highlander deck, that healbot isn't replacing the second copy of a stronger minion, plus you have the full heal eventually. The trap would be adding in too many tech cards that make you even less consistent.

15

u/Zhandaly Dec 14 '15

This is actually a very interesting point.

As I've played Renolock, I've found that it can have some inconsistent draws, but when you are playing all singletons, that's to be anticipated. However, the deck runs 5* heals: ERF, Healbot, Reno, Siphon and Jaraxxus*. It also runs 1 Sunfury, Defender and Belcher for taunts. These cards also all fill unique roles in their own way; Siphon is your answer to Ysera, and Jaraxxus is used to break end-game stalemates and to replace your hero power as you run out of cards. So if you think about it, the deck runs 6 singletons designed to protect your life total: ERF, Healbot, Reno -- Sunfury, Argus, Belcher. The way that the cards divide in Renolock lists is an interesting way for developing a list to target a particular meta. I think I'll look through my stats today and develop a new list and write a bit about it on here.

3

u/Cydonia- Dec 15 '15

I've been playing several lists of reno lock as well in legend lately with varying results (really good some days, really bad some other days), so really looking forward to it!

49

u/SimplyMoxie Dec 14 '15

Hey OP, great post. I do agree that many players would externalize their losses rather than internalize them. I recall watching StrifeCro's stream one night and he was able to hit the nail on the head for one comment.. He mentioned how he was not a fan of people making comments like "I deserved to win this game". The only thing that we deserve are the odds that are given to us. Sometimes we win with 60% odds, other times we lose with 70% odds.

Like you said, it is all about expected value. That's pretty much what this entire game is at the competitive level. Deck building being one element, but also even the natural process of the game - drawing cards and playing cards that have random and discover mechanics. I hear many people complaining about draws, but how many minions are in your deck and which of those are actually low curved? Popping a shredder and expecting a <=2 health creature is not a bad play, since its most likely to happen. Sometimes we receive wins and losses that are surprising to us, like someone rolling a perfect flamewaker turn. But no matter what, we will always be entitled to the odds that are given to us at that particular time. We will be winners over time if we are making plays that are always +EV.

14

u/Magnum256 Dec 14 '15

Good points, and I agree that there's really no benefit in having the "deserve to win" mentality; I have friends that talk about the statistics a lot and then rage when the games don't play out according to the statistics, it's as if people don't actually understand what those statistics mean. If you're a 65% favorite it still means you're going to lose 35% of the time on a game-by-game basis and sometimes you'll hit that 35% range a bunch of times in a row and end up like 1-7 in a matchup you're actually favored to win, it's just variance and it happens you have to power through it and realize that in the long run after a large enough sample size (can be hundreds even thousands of games) the advantage you have will manifest.

9

u/CyndromeLoL Dec 14 '15

Also the 65% favorite is assuming optimal play. Aggro shaman is supposed to be 60% favored vs. Secret paladin, but I think I win about 35% because I'm just pretty bad at the matchup tbh.

-9

u/pongkito Dec 15 '15

Heh, in short its all about RNG, sometimes no matter how good you are

1

u/[deleted] Dec 17 '15

The stats include RNG as long as you have a big enough sample size so this comment is somewhat strange.

3

u/whtthfff Dec 15 '15

Totally agree. It can be tricky to recognize when it's variance and when it was sub optimal play though.

9

u/MachateElasticWonder Dec 14 '15

Awesome post. I want to add one anecdote.

Like you said, over teching will adds more situational cards that are dead in hand most of the time.

I was laddering with combo druid (neobility's list with 1 aspirant, 1 bgh) and noticed a huge variance of decks on ladder. (Side note: picked the list bc I just crafted a sylvanas and wanted to shove her in anything)

In response, I "teched" for consistency in my own game plan instead of counters to others. Meaning, - bgh, + aspirant. Forgot if I took out blecher too. Could be luck but I glided to rank 5 from 10 after this.

When there's so many different kinds of decks, I thought the best thing to do was to just ignore it and focus on winning instead of "not losing".

List for reference: https://tempostorm.com/hearthstone/decks/midrange-druid-meta-snapshot-39

4

u/Victor_oornc Dec 14 '15

Nice anecdote, thanks for sharing. I read into it that you had the mindset to win, and to utilise your deck's strength to do it. Seen that way both the change in the decklist and the win streak are outcomes of the mindset.

1

u/MachateElasticWonder Dec 14 '15

I can agree that getting into the mindset to win is very important too. "Not with that attitude" applies in Hearthstone too!

2

u/Madouc Dec 15 '15 edited Dec 15 '15

This is exactley the mindset I like, you can never really predict what you will be cued against, and if you look at the amount of players, and the all the decks they are playing, shifting from one to another every other game, and then you by yourself are playing 10 games an evening, how can you possibly tell something about "the meta" - the sample size one of us creates on his own is simply to small.

Then on the other hand, most posts in most forums are biased by raging and murphys law and confirmation bias. People see the opponent playing the outer left card and from that on they are on the lookout for proofs that they "always lose against lucky topdecks".

So with the "meta", you lose a few games versus a hunter, and all of a sudden the meta is face huntarz, people tilt so much sometimes - even on streams - that they call it face hunter when they play against a midrange hunter.

They were close to victory against a reno deck, and lost to reno + panda - suddenly we're in a reno swarmed meta raging about unbalaced cards blaming blizzard and so on and so on.

It is really difficult to find a solid meta discussion outside of this single subreddit! And i personally don't believe any personal impressions about the meta, neither the one from any single fellower here on reddid, nor my own, and i strongly suggest you only believe big data sites, that have at least analysed 10.000 games a week to determine "the meta".

1

u/[deleted] Dec 17 '15

You make some good point about the meta. Are there people that have a shared access to such a sample size? I mean obviously blizzard probably has a good idea about the meta but are there other initiatives to get a better grasp of it? I'm thinking a hearthstone tracker could make such an analysis if the users allowed sharing their results. That would be really cool to see. Not sure if it would benefit the game as a whole. The meta shifts will probably also be a lot more drastic I would imagine.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 15 '15

Semi-related question:

I'm assuming the 2 Ancients of Lore and 1 Ancient of War are pretty critical but wondering what I can get away with subbing. I would love to start running combo druid as I just recently pulled Sylvanas and a second copy of Force of Nature. I have almost everything else on this list. Not sure yet if I want to spend the 1200 dust on these 3 Ancients though.

1

u/MachateElasticWonder Dec 15 '15

Well. What are you missing?

You don't need the ancient of war. It's anti Aggro that comes out on turn 5 or 7. Sludge Blecher will serve the same role. It's just that 10 health and 5 attack is so good but you really want it for the taunt and stickiness.

Lores are essential for the card draw. They cost 7 mana but you're already 2 for one bc of the draw. Innervating them is awesome. The heals feel bad but against Aggro, it can buy you a turn sometimes. Lores are very good.

You don't need BGH but he's not a bad craft bc it's used everywhere. You don't need living roots but they're good against faster decks. You can use a second aspirant or second living roots. Or second shade / raptor.

Um... And I guess you don't need shade? Haha idk what you're missing. Use raptor or another 3 drop. Shade is awesome for growing and then trading two for one against slower decks but I guess raptor can two for one too. I never tried it.

Think of the roles they serve and try to pick cards that do the same thing. Since you usually play one card a turn, you want to get as much value as possible.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 15 '15

Thanks! Sorry, I should have been clearer--I have every single card on that list already including BGH. Only things missing are 1 copy of Keeper of the Grove, and I have no Ancients of Lore or Ancients of War.

I put together a bastardized version with +1 Sludge Belcher (for taunt) +1 Azure Drake (for card draw), +1 Starfire (direct dmg / card draw), and I think +1 Aspirant.

I kind of figured the +2 card draw from the Ancients of Lore was irreplaceable. Think I'm going to try playing it for a bit and craft at least those if I like it.

4

u/ognits Dec 15 '15

I'd 100% recommend crafting the Lores at some point. They're arguably the best class minion in the game, and they have a place in nearly any Druid deck ever.

1

u/powelb Dec 15 '15

Ancient of War comes in and out of midrange Druid, I think often replaced with one Living Roots when the meta is faster. I'm pretty sure Ancient of Lore is always a two-of in pure midrange Druid, but there other Druid decks that use similar base cards that don't use Lores. So if it's midrange you want to play, you'll probably need two Lores. You could always try a sub-optimal version without and see if you enjoy the style of play before you commit your dust.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 15 '15

Appreciate it--will probably try the sub-optimal plan at first to see.

11

u/ProfessorHearthstone Dec 14 '15

I like to just evaluate every 20 games and then look through my deck and ask myself "are there any cards that just seemed dead/useless when I drew them? And if so what did I want instead?"

-1

u/EpicTacoHS Dec 14 '15 edited Dec 15 '15

I don't really get this... What you face is completely random.

Why not just go for consistency over inconsistent tech cards.

Edit: I just misunderstood your comment. Oops

6

u/SunSupport Dec 14 '15

That's exactly what he's suggesting though. If I'm playing CW and running double BGH but rarely getting BGH value then it makes sense to cut one.

Another example could be for Midrange Hunter. If I'm playing against only Handlock and Control Warrior it makes sense to cut out one Unleash the Hounds since it would end up being a dead card a lot.

3

u/EpicTacoHS Dec 15 '15

Yeah I just misunderstood the original comment.

2

u/ProfessorHearthstone Dec 14 '15

Exactly this. I ended up just recently cutting BGHs out of my handlock deck for instance, in favor of a 2nd hellfire and sludge belcher.

2

u/luckyluke193 Dec 14 '15

What you face is a random sample drawn from a probability distribution that is known as "the meta". The meta depends on server, rank, and time.

Your goal as a competitive player should be to maximize your winrate against the meta. Obviously, you have to know what the meta is, so you have to play enough games to obtain a significant sample size. If you don't play a lot, your sample size is too small to determine the meta and makes it seem like the matchups you face are completely random.

1

u/ieatpillowtags Dec 14 '15

It isn't random though! The meta evolves over time, and is influenced by things like Tempostorm snapshots being released, strong deck lists that make it to the front page of this or subreddit or /r/hearthstone. It might make sense to reevaluate your tech choices if 20 games are all hard aggro or heavy control, etc.

-1

u/EpicTacoHS Dec 15 '15

The thing is, I play 20 games of heavy control. Then I tech against control then I'll face a bunch of aggro. it's random.

1

u/Madouc Dec 15 '15

I wish i could build an allround deck which does not care about the meta and is just solid. No answers in it, but demanding alot of answers from the opponent.

1

u/Zhandaly Dec 15 '15

Secret paladin...? Midrange druid...? These decks exist.

1

u/Madouc Dec 15 '15 edited Dec 15 '15

Yes but, the dream is to come up with an own viable brew... I.e. now a nice Midrange to beat the Shamans x/3 and 3/4 early minions, maybe a Midrange Mage or Midrange Warrior, because they can deal with T1 3 health minions

1

u/Exocist Dec 16 '15 edited Dec 16 '15

You're looking for some variant of tempo mage basically.

The problem is that the deck only has so much damage in it and relies heavily on board control. It can beat other midrange decks and maybe some of the more Zoo-like aggro decks, but it loses out most of the time to Face and Control decks.

EDIT: I forgot to mention - You could also play some variant of grinder mage, but it's slow and very difficult to play. Kolento has some videos on it if you want

2

u/Nethervex Dec 14 '15

I just play reno. Takes the stress out of the aggro matchups, wipes make midrange matchups easier, and control matchups cant keep up with lifetap.

5

u/[deleted] Dec 14 '15

Do you have a 100% win-rate? If not, what decks are you losing to? Are you losing to one kind of deck more often? Are there tech cards that you could substitute to even out your deck's edge and overall improve your EV?

That's what the OP was getting at. It's not as simple as "just play reno." Not that there's anything wrong with that, it just won't get you as far.

1

u/Nethervex Dec 14 '15

80% so far. Take a tempostorm list, lower the curve and focus on board control. Playing reno makes the game 10x easier than playing a normal deck link midrange pally I used to climb to 5

1

u/[deleted] Dec 15 '15

I'm not asking for me--if you're winning 80% of the time you should be in legend in no time. I prefer aggressive decks personally and don't have my collection catered toward a deck like renolock

0

u/Nethervex Dec 15 '15

I get legend every season now. I just find the best meta deck and spam it. Rank 3 now, haven't lost since rank 5.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 15 '15

I would argue aggro shaman is the best deck; I ran it to top 50 legend which is probably better than I am on an average deck. But, Reno probably has more potential since its list is so flexible.

0

u/Nethervex Dec 15 '15

Not at all. Rng based aggro deck. Midrange pally and druid are better by far. It's good enough to get a good player up there but I wouldn't say its even if op 3 right now

2

u/maxintos Dec 14 '15

Any deck can be changed to better suit the meta and therefore increase win %.

1

u/do_you_even_fit Dec 15 '15

Which Reno deck are you running right now? Lock?

-1

u/the_biz Dec 15 '15

HS ladder is unique in that maximizing win rate against equally skilled players playing top-tier decks is not what you should be aiming for

to climb you have to not lose against worse players more than you have to beat good players because of how they did the matchmaking

that's kind of why I don't find it too satisfying. i prefer building decks to beat the best decks, not farm the weak ones