Coin Concede - Episode 441 “Knives at a Gunfight”
Edelweiss* WickedGood* Magesa*
Intro (~10 min)
Welcome to Episode 441 of Coin Concede, a Hearthstone podcast dedicated to making the competitive side of the game more accessible to you.
It is Thursday, April 4th, 2024 in the evening!
Coming to you from Gnomeregan, Ohio, it's me, Edelweiss!
From Northrend, Massachusetts, we have WickedGood!
From Teldrassil, California we have Magesa!
And from all around the world we have you, dear listeners.
Thanks for reviews
How's life and ladder? -
Edelweiss - Every day I’m shufflin
Wickedgood - Tried mage, got double dirty ratted twice, went back to rainbow dk, and I had a good priest arena run
Magesa - book of hours; in HS, missed 11x out of hubris, tried virus pally stuff; brief update on zarimi priest (you’re a scammy board deck not a clergy deck, also glacial shard); virus rogue is kind of hilarious, but definitely has weaknesses (though I saw a version with more removal, e.g. stick up)
The dragon druid:
https://twitter.com/jambrehs/status/1775623285822136723?s=46&t=rJDI9czIihi_vm-NdPHDpg
News Highlights -
- Duos
- Big content refresh
- Grab a Friend Preview event
- Rewards track refresh
- Shop Updates
- Also we forgot to mention the event last week (includes a note on the first quest)
Tournaments
- UNOFFICIAL MASTERS TOUR GROUPS:
- (based on how they seeded 2023 MTs)
- Group A:
- uikyou vs Jarla
- PRTHNCA vs gyu
- GROUP B:
- MoleStar vs GamerRvg
- reqvam vs 슬퍼하지마노노노
- Group C:
- mmf vs iNS4NE
- Furyhunter vs Tobyka
- Group D:
- DimitriKazov vs Bunnyhoppor
- Habugabu vs hemlock
- 64 player brackets in NA and EU (each)
Decksplanations
Evergreen:
Finding, Choosing and Adapting a Main Deck
Balancing sticking to a deck with bouncing around:
- Pros of sticking to a deck:
- Learning a single deck really well tends to lead to more success
- It also gives you access to a deeper level of strategy; that learning does then generalize to playing or facing similar types of decks
- It takes a lot of the uncertainty and pressure of finding a deck to chill with the same deck for a while!
- Cheaper crafting cost
- Gives you a broader sense of what you’re facing
- Might help you discover new styles of decks and be a more well-rounded player
- Sometimes you just can’t settle!
- How we personally find the balance
Knowing your goals in choosing a deck:
- Most importantly, it needs to work for you
- Play what you find fun!
- Your piloting comfort and style matters. You’ll have better success with an on-paper tier 2 or tier 3 deck you click with than an on-paper tier 1 deck you don’t
- That said, don’t necessarily give up on a deck instantly if it doesn’t click with you; you might just need to get up a learning curve, which could be worth it!
- Know the meta and your deck’s role in it
- Don’t ignore the meta you’re in or you’ll have a bad time. You have to find your fun while taking the game on its own terms
- How do you want to attack this meta? What are the general contours of it?
- Even if you are homebrewing, you still need to know the meta!
- Other considerations: tournament lineups (e.g. THL), learning a new style of deck, knowing thy enemy, wanting to counter a particular strategy, likelihood of imminent nerfs, avoiding mirrors, crafting cost, following a personal homebrew idea
- When is it time to give up the ghost and try something else?
- Consider a deck’s position in the meta
- What is the play experience of this deck like for you?
Netdecking
- d0nkey, HSR, VS, twitter (streamers, I would say ahirun…), discord, HS top decks, CC of course!
- How do I know if something’s bait?
- In defense of taking risks on unproven decks and archetypes (at least sometimes!)
- Evaluating an archetype and choosing a version
- You need to understand in a general sense the deck’s gameplan (ideal and alternative), how it wins, how it loses, and what each card is doing there
- Start by just reviewing the decklist before you jam it with these questions in mind
- Understanding the mulligan is a useful entry point to understanding the deck as a whole, because your ideal early game tells you a lot about the deck
- You may want to see what people are saying where you found the deck, check out vods, ask in a discord server, etc.
- All this said, at the end of the day you learn by playing, so before you get too into the weeds on details and tweaks, just pick any version and go play!
- Learning intentionally while playing
- Look at similar decks and see what cards are being swapped and what cards aren’t. What might be the rationale? (pay attention to date, winrate, rank bracket)
- Using card stats:
- Mulligan stats: don’t forget to check the keep rate!
- Drawn winrate: what this means, how to use it
- Played winrate: more misleading, use in context
- Try not to get into functional fixedness on cards (e.g. Zarimi played when active)
- Consider your experience playing: What do you wish you had more often? What’s dead in your hand? What beats you, and might something be able to change that? Is anything in your deck really just win-more?
- Tech cards (we talked about this a few months ago, so don’t need to linger especially if short for time):
- Streamer decks come from top legend, so their tech needs may differ from yours; doubly true for Masters Tour tournament decks
- Some matchups are just going to be bad
- Tech cards should be helpful in multiple matchups (unless one’s like 30%)
- You should try to figure out why a card is there before you decide to cut it
- If all this is very annoying to you, just queue into better matchups! (That is your official Magesa advice for this podcast)
Outro (~5min) - Thanks and contact!
We have many folks we'd like to thank - check out our THANKS! section on the website at www.coinconcede.com, where you can also find our contact info, our show notes, and our Patreon information!
-You can monetarily support our show at www.patreon.com/CoinConcede
-Join us every week live, by following us on twitch at twitch.coinconcede.com
-Join our community chats in our Discord at discord.coinconcede.com
And write in to our email at coinconcede@gmail.com
-Follow us on Twitter @coinconcede as well as like, share, and follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/coinconcede
-If you would like some CC swag, head on over to our shop at shop.coinconcede.com
BIG THANKS to our producers nmbrthry, Kresh, Beefsquatch, David P, Waalou, Jeremy T, bottlecaps, GrumpyMonk, TheBurgerClub, KercReagan, 4given1, ChrizzleyBear, and Tyleniphe!
Coin Concedes (Shout Outs):
CHEERS -
RAIDS -
SUBS -
WickedGood -
Edelweiss -
Magesa - all our first-time 11x players, the BGs team, Jambre for some crazy decks that also work somehow
Keep Calm and…
And if you see us on ladder…
“Coin Concede” WickedGood
“Coin Concede” Edelweiss
“Coin Concede” Magesa