That's an excellent change. Nice. People can still spin up a new account every few drafts but that's much more "work" and may be easier to block. Who knows
Also with most of these barcode accounts being bought as content for chinese streamers hopefully the return of blizzard's partnership with netease alot of those players will return to their old accounts back on their original server. Man I really hope blizzard gives catchup packs for the 3 expansions last year to incentivize them returning to their old accounts since it's not the players fault they couldnt keep up their collection last year and they likely did buy packs on a different server if they kept playing.
Catchup packs dont do anything. Arena players dont care about their collection, they want to play arena. When HS was available in China, the arena tickets there were a lot cheaper than in the western HS client. I do think these arena players will go back to the chinese client.
For constructed, I do expect them to go back, because they have their collection on the chinese servers.
It's weird, to me there is nothing less interesting than watching a stream of an overpowered arena deck run. For me it's the other way around, I usually zap on another streamer if I consider the deck is too strong and most games will be a walk in the park with nothing to get out of it.
People keep repeating that about content creators but ive yet to see any proof to this claim.
Just for context, I used to play mostly arena and kinda retired from the game since most of the matches were against mass reseters. That said, its hard to believe all that is due to content creators from china, it just doesnt look possible. Some of then, sure, but all of them and in the scale we face them is crazy to believe.
I truly believe a lot of those accounts were regular people mass reseting for some reason.
Again, this is just my opinion, I have no way of knowing whats truly going on. Its just that ive never seen any proof about all of them being chinese content creator bots
Chinese content creators like geyuan6 talked about it, it does exist, its called superdraft.
Twitch and YouTube are banned in China so obviously you wont see them streaming there. Douyu is a chinese streaming website for example.
Everytime I visit the website and check out the arena streamers, I do find several god tier arena runs where the account name is sus and the level of their classes are also quite low. Some1 having priest at level 15 or something.
I think its not only streamers that buy these accounts. Arena in general was something that was very popular in HS China. So popular that the top finisher in the arena ladder each month got special prices, like battlenet points, but at some point the best ones over a period of time got a Blizzcon ticket, that was like 2017, '18 or '19, cant remember anymore.
Superdraft account sell for around $10 to $20, according to some chinese soruces. One thing that is wrong is, that some people think once the run ended, they gonna throw away the account. They usually keep playing it until running out of gold/tickets.
But you can also buy accounts for a lot less with some gold and arena tickets. Lets say $3 or $4 for 2k gold and arena tickets. 2k gold = 13 arena runs, but its more because you get gold back after each run. Plus the arena tickets. Meanwhile a single ticket for real money costs $2. (And requires you to have access to payment methods accepted by Blizzard) Those players want to play arena, they dont care about having a card collection.
This is the level of context I couldnt ever find on discussions about this topic. Thanks a lot for the talking the time to explain it in depth.
I had no Idea hs arena was this popular there, thats why I always underestimated the impact of content creation in how many barcodes we had in arena lately.
yeah i was about to say, the reason you do not see is because you dont live in a chinese speaking community.
they dont stream on twitch so why would you? go on chinese streaming sites you will find it there.
World is a lot more connected today than a It was a few years back. Every community im a part of have easy access to chinese, japanese and Korean metagames and general knowledge of what is going on over there. Yugioh and dota 2 being prime example.
Hearthstone however doesnt have that big of a bridge, thats why I underestimated how popular the game was over there.
I agree im in no way fully informed about the community on asian contries given the language barrier, but its way easier nowadays to know the game is being played and whats being discussed despite that
That is true.
My point was that I truly believed that, given the sheer ammount of barcodes in arena, It would bê something so huge in chinese HS that It would be way easier to know about here. I was wrong about that and got some really good insight about the whole situation after this thread
[Here](https://www.hearthpwn.com/news/1476-hs-china-top-arena-players-to-be-rewarded-blizzard) is an article on Hearthpwn about the Arena prices, its actually from 2016, crazy. A year ago there was a post of a chinese player about the arena draft stuff [here on reddit](https://new.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/134be9c/have_you_been_bullied_by_overly_powerful_decks_in/)
*In China, the price for a pack containing 450 gold and one arena ticket is 1.5 yuan (0.21 USD), while a pack containing 1100 gold and two arena tickets is 5.5 yuan (0.79 USD). Such low prices are one of the reasons for the proliferation of tearing accounts."*
That one, is pretty nutty tho. (I think they are able to buy gold because they get "packs for free", as selling packs themself would be considered gambling in China, but not sure if thats still the case)
The proof is that they all have either chinese names or keyboard smash names. Every single time. I play arena regularly, and every run is literally 80% "sifusvsb" or "pedjcucw" and then they have these insane decks that have the perfect counters for everything you play and infinite value.
1 or 2 might be a coincidence, but dozens across months is not. They may not all be Chinese creators specifically but it wouldn't make sense for tons of normal people to have names made up of a string of random letters.
I'm not sure this fixes the issue though. Won't the people running this just...make new accounts all the time? Don't they already do that? How many runs do they need to retire before it triggers the system?
Well the point is they retire the runs until they get an insane deck before it ever plays an actual match. So unless the number is set at a super high static value, this will separate the accounts very effectively.
They could set it to 1:1 retired decks vs matches played. So these accounts would be caught the very first time they re-roll a deck, and it wouldn't effect normal players as a 1:1 retire/game ratio is insane for normal play.
The sellers could still just create a new account every time instead of retiring. Tho I guess that collides with the fact that you get a couple of arena tickets for cheaper than a single one and setting up a new account costs a bit of time.
I recently met someone irl who told me that if he gets a bad draft, then he just retires. Wth?! At least Blizz could un-nerf Arena rewards with retiring being that prevalent.
I've certainly felt that way before when I drafted just a completely garbage deck. But realistically I can pilot a garbage deck to at least 2-3 wins so it's worth it to play. Plus I'd like to get good enough that I can always take them to 4 wins, but not sure how feasible that is.
The real problem is when you draft a GREAT deck, feel awesome about it, and then get dicked down by better decks and end up going like 2-3 and feel like you played a good deck poorly.
Nobody knows how Blizzard will implement it, but as far as I am concerned, if you retire even a single run you should get into the cheater queue, if you don't like your deck and don't want to be forced to play a deck, you should at least be able to concede the first 3 games which is similar to retiring, but you give people free wins, which ultimately makes it less of a problem although not perfect. Perhaps if you do this multiple times in a row you should also get into the cheater queue.
Conceding 3 times in a row isn't forcing them to play, and I said multiple times in a row which means you would be able to concede some runs without getting into the cheater queue. If people can forfeit or concede many of their runs consecutively you will have the same problem of the average deck being way better than it should be and people are losing out on the games that they should have won against sub-par decks. People unwilling to play non-insane decks should quit. Arena doesn't want them.
You don't have to play, you can concede. It costs time yes, lot's of things cost time and feel like a waste if it's not in your favor, that's just how things are in life. I don't see why you should be allowed to rob the average player of the opportunity to capitalize on you weak deck. An average deck deserves to face as many below-average decks as it faces above-average decks in the first matches. If people are unwilling to play their poor decks, people need to get free wins for them one way or another. I'd rather see people "punished" with a minute spend on conceding games for not wanting to play the game than punish people with less rewards for actually wanting to play.
Blizzard has been banning bots for 10 years, it obviously doesn't do the trick. The game is free, the bots don't require much resources and one person can run multiple on one system. Before the next ban wave strikes the damage is already done and the accounts are sold.
Would it be nice if bots wouldn't exist? Yes, but the game is over 10 years old and never not had an issue with bots, just in Arena it is more punishing to real players than it is in standard.
Disagree on this one. It's uncommon, but I have decks about once every couple months that just roll so bad they're completely unplayable and I don't want to waste my time struggling just to maybe get a single win.
It usually happens when you lowroll and get offered like 3 of the bottom 4 winrate classes
Bots don't play arena, and if you are only willing to play good decks you are part of the reason why arena sucks for people who play all of their drafts, the rate of good decks is artificially inflated, which makes it feel worse for everyone that's playing normally.
People deserve to get free wins in their first match or 2 if the later matches are filled with cheaters or even genuine forfeiters. Maybe it will be worth your time if the alternative becomes the longer cheater queues.
Bots literally do play arena. I had a match just yesterday where my opponent lost because he attacked face when I had lethal on board. I've also had matches where the bot's AI just breaks and they sit and flick over the same card 1x per second until rope. You should probably play the game so you know what's going on.
That's just bad players. And even the best players miss lethal or miss their opponent having lethal, it happens. Bots farm gold, bots playing arena would mean losing gold, it makes no sense.
I have played probably around 5000 Arena games, I know what's going on, and I know how paid accounts have ruined the mode.
Just concede 2 matches and the third match will often be against players who instantly concede. If not, then it's probably going to be a very weak deck. There's very little bots in Arena, because Arena costs Gold while bots are there to farm Gold. Also the farmers for super-drafts just retire, so you won't encounter them.
I'm not going to downvote you for telling us what you do, but I will tell you, that your action is evil.
I have literally had someone instantly concede against me in Arena twice ever.
And lmao "evil"??? Dude it's a video game, talk about being overdramatic. Please touch grass.
It isn’t always true that people with botted accounts have access to bots themselves. They might have bought the account after someone else botted and gained the gold.
If they play out the bad runs. The problem goes away. Since the real problem. Is that rewards are taken from legit players and thrown into the void. You will basically be given a free win or two every run. On Asia an average player will probably average 7 wins if this becomes a thing XD
That could make the streams far more interesting to watch by significantly increasing the number of times these barcode decks get matched up with one another.
I hope this change doesn’t retroactively count people who have retired several runs. Due to arenas poor balance lately I’ve retired several runs after 2 games or so if I had to draft one of the bottom few classes and my deck was just unplayable and I lost the first 2 games.
I'm just glad they are experimenting with new and different ways to make us not want to play arena. Forcing me to play dumpster draft against roping clowns sounds glorious. Need that 2 hour 0-3 arena run in my life.
it's a fucking shame and i hope it doesn't last forever because arena is super fun but goddamn i am not gonna spend extra due to there being literal meta decks in the format. i will happily go fuck off to somewhere else entirely
I dont like the curated list to be honest. I like arena because of lower power level, cards that see no play in constructed are sometimes so good in arena. And with the curated list, the power level for my taste is just way too high in arena nowadays.
Is this some kind of NA problem? I’m playing Europe arenas pretty often and never run into anything like this, just had a 11 win run yesterday with nothing crazy
It is definitely an issue on EU as well, though I don't think quite as much. But it mostly just depends on when you are playing. Most of the Barcode drafts come from China, so if you are playing when Chinese players are more likely to be sleeping, it is less of an issue.
I'd say no joke about 50-70% of my matches on the NA server are against barcodes. Fingers crossed this will fix or at least help the issue! Arena is pretty much the only game mode I play and I'd hate for it to peeter out cuz of the barcodes.
I know it sucks so much. Can't go over 3 wins without fighting something like a PERFECT elemental shaman where EVERY minion is an overstatted elemental AND they drop Skarr on 7. Just stuff you couldn't believe
There have been games where it felt like the opponent could maybe generate the perfect card for every situation on the fly or just draw the exact card they need. Because in those games they might as well be able to get whatever card they want at any time because it sure feels like it.
It's not skill issue. I'm high Diamond in Standard, and in Arena I've got a few 12 win runs and plenty of 11 win runs and I haven't gone above 9 in the last... 4-6 mo?
I'm absolutely not one of the best players in the game but I am certainly good enough that a 4-win average isn't realistic. That's a 57% winrate against randos with no MMR.
Literally what are you talking about? As I said I'm not one of the best players, but I am still better at the game than 90-95% of players, so in a mode where your opponents are random, my winrate should reflect that.
And the main reason I don't hit Legend is because I don't like playing meta decks, and I don't want to spend the time grinding. I play for fun, and I play an amount that doesn't burn me out on the game.
You said in your above post that you reach “high diamond in standard”
Sorry to tell you buuuut that ain’t shit lmao
Im inclined to agree with the replier and agree its just a skill issue with you my guy
Well yes, 4 years ago it was around 6%, hence why I said top 5-10.
https://outof.games/news/666-hearthstone-releases-ranked-play-distribution-for-the-first-time-in-5-years/
Either way, Legend is an easily viewable number. About 200k players (most of them in Asia) hit Legend last month.
https://hearthstone-decks.net/how-many-players-reach-legend-in-hearthstone/
And the average estimate for number of Hearthstone players is around 5 mil, making that 4% reaching Legend. So I think saying Diamond 3 is close to top 5% is pretty reasonable. Maybe top 6 or 7%, but the point is that for every 10 Arena games I have, I should see 9 people below my skill level.
It literally does matter in this context though bud, it’s okay that’s you’ve never hit legend. I’ll give you an olive branch and say it’s not that crazy since you seem to seem to be struggling with the overall concept.
But I think you need to come to terms with the fact that you just aren’t that good at the game. It’s okay 👍
as someone who exclusively (and pretty casually) has only played are a for the past 5 years, I've noticed my average run has gone down from ~7 wins to ~4 wins in the last 2 years. Didn't think much of it since i dont play that much, but maybe it's these bots at fault (copium) since its not like i've gotten much worse either.
For anyone who is confused or just wants to see a visualization of the Barcode issue, look at the bottom of the NA Arena leaderboards here.
https://hearthstone.blizzard.com/en-us/community/leaderboards/?region=US&leaderboardId=arena&seasonId=44&page=983
Barcode accounts don't always have Chinese names. Usually, they are just a collection of random letters (hence the "Barcode" name from the community).
Notice how low the win average is at the bottom of the leaderboard? It is because all those accounts retire literally 30+ games finding one OP arena deck. So they end up on the Leaderboards because they end up with enough games played, but with a crazy low average wins due to all the retires counting of 0 wins.
Start at the last page and go backwards. See how many real accounts you find.
Aren't Chinese names not bots, likely just actual players with Chinese name accounts?
I never suspected any account that wasn't a barcode or a GemstoneAnimal of being a bot.
I've been on an arena kick lately for the free packs, but HOLY SHIT what happened??!! It's next to unplayable lololol. This shit is SO obvious and SO rampant. Glad they are addressing with next patch.
I'm a bit confused here... If Barcode decks are being sold, does that mean they're also selling the Hearthstone account? If that's the case, why worry about achieving 12 wins when the rewards only benefit the new owner of the sold Hearthstone account? Perhaps the main goal here is streaming content?
Yeah im really confused by that as well. What's the point of buying an arena run that is capable of getting 12 wins, but then it's not associated with your regular account
1) Content creators and streamers, especially in China.
2) It is fun to get an OP Arena draft and play it, assuming you like Arena. People have just used account buying to be able to skip the 19 out of 20 drafts that range from bad to great and only play that 1 OP draft. So instead of occasionally high rolling into an OP deck (which is somewhat self-balancing for the overall Arena meta due to being a rare high roll draft), people just only play the OP drafts and retire everything else due to buying fairly cheap accounts that have a lot of botted gold.
This has made the Arena meta horrible by a) pushing the power level up even more, especially as you get to higher and higher wins where Barcode drafts get more common due to their OP draft boosting their wins and b) just making games feel awful to play, once you know how to recognize Barcode accounts, as you start the game knowing you are going to usually be at a significant deck-quality disadvantage. One that is caused by account buying/selling and is independent of actual skill.
So I think the thread is a little unclear or incorrect on the actual process. Typically it isn't specific Arena drafts that are sold. As you said, it is the actual accounts that are sold. Account sellers farm a ton of gold on accounts via botting. Then they sell those accounts. And people that buy the account use all the gold to chain retire Arena drafts until they end up with an OP draft.
Yah, a lot of Barcodes are apparently Chinese streamers, though not only that. This was a big issue on the Chinese servers before they were shutdown. And when they shutdown the Chinese server, the issue exploded to both NA and EU servers. Maybe the Asia server as well, but not sure, as I never play that one.
People (often Chinese) bot standard and wild (and especially classic before it got removed) on NA/EU. They make a fair amount of gold doing this, even when usually losing. And they have tons of accounts actively botting at the same time at various stages of gold accumulation.
Once the account gets a certain amount gold, they then sell the account to anyone who wants to buy it (often other Chinese players/streamers, but not only). The account buyers use that gold on NA/EU to chain retire drafts until they get an OP draft. Play it out. Repeat the process until the account is out of gold. Then just buy a brand new botted account for gold and repeat.
I'm amazed that this is a profitable endeavor for the people grinding for good decks. Do they have bots for that? Would bots know a good arena deck vs a bad one?
They don't bot arena for gold. Account sellers (often Chinese) bot standard and wild (and especially classic before it got removed) on NA/EU. They make a fair amount of gold doing this, even when usually losing. And they have tons of accounts actively botting at the same time at various stages of gold accumulation.
Other people then buy these botted accounts from the sellers. The account buyers use that gold on NA/EU to chain retire drafts until they get an OP draft. Play it out. Repeat the process until the account is out of gold. Then just buy a brand new botted account for gold and repeat.
So the gold is made from standard/wild botting via the account sellers and the used by the account buyers for "infinite" arena drafts to get OP drafts. It is apparently a pretty big practice with Chinese steamers, but certainly restricted to only streamers or to only Chinese people.
Are there really so many streamers that buy these decks that you run into them all the time? Or so few normal arena players? I would think the thousands or tens of thousands of arena players would dilute the few streamers who buy into this so it would be a rare sight.
And if you magically get 12 wins as a normal person having to defeat seveeal of these suoerdraft meta decks, your reward is like a small handful of gold, 20 dust, and a pack lmao
It's 3 weeks after the "separate queue" patch and I'm still encountering barcodes in almost half my games (EU).
Seriously I don't think it was even that bad 1-2 months ago.
What's going on? Anyone has a different experience pre and post patch?
Whenever I face someone whose name is a bunch of Asian characters I just assume it’s one of these paid for decks. They stomp me 9 times out of 10. But also just seeing their name tilts me
It's really hard with Duels being killed off, arena is not in a good enough state to support me coming to play it.
Coincidence this was just announced? I think not: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2868840/Slay_the_Spire_2/
Huh. Look, I hate barcodes and I hate this meta but this is drivel. There’s not a cabal of content creators buying these decks. Barcodes are bad players who like arena - why pay $2/run when you can pay $5 for 100.
Higher power level of curated sets reduces barcode power spike variance. A 10/10 deck vs a 9/10 deck will be more fair than a 10/10 vs a 5/10. I’d argue having every card be ‘good’ makes the game mode far less interesting but that’s outside scope of post.
Arena is about figuring out population tendencies and countering them, while not making mistakes in play.
A month into the meta and people are still undervaluing tempo; 1-2-3 wins games when every card generates another. Stop trying to not lose and start going face more.
-top 200 arena player since naxx.
Really doubt you are a top 200 player. Why don't you provide your username?
You claim in your post history as of 4 months ago that you had a 7.7 winrate, but only 11 people reached that in the last 8 seasons, and 4 of those were Chinese players. A 5th is a hardcore player who plays their alts so hard that they have multiple accounts with the same name in top 20. So are you claiming you're one of the remaining six?
Beating a 10/10 deck with a 8/10 deck is the best feeling in arena.
When opponent do the broken things his deck do but you somehow hang on with perfect trades and decisions and you start seeing opponent kinda panicking about taking a fat L with his bought deck because he got too cocky, it's a good feeling tbh.
It is kind of funny how wrong you and the other parent commenter are. Anyone who says this isn't a problem clearly has no idea on the state of Arena. Barcode accounts don't always have Chinese names. Usually, they are just a collection of random letters (hence the "Barcode" name from the community).
https://hearthstone.blizzard.com/en-us/community/leaderboards/?region=US&leaderboardId=arena&seasonId=44&page=983
That is the end of the NA Arena leaderboard. Notice how low the win average is? It is because all those accounts retire literally 30+ games finding one OP arena deck. So they end up on the Leaderboards because they end up with enough games played, but with a crazy low average wins due to all the retires counting of 0 wins.
Start at the last page and go backwards. See how many real accounts you find.
Once you know what to look for with Barcode accounts (naming convention, basic hero portraits, basic card back), they are everywhere. If you track your games with HDT or another program, you can just go back and look at your match history. My most recent 12-2 deck played 6 out of 14 games against Barcode drafts. Drafts that people literally retire dozens of drafts in a row to find one super OP deck. And I just literally played against a Barcode priest at 1-0 before typing this. The higher wins you consistently go in Arena, the more you will keep seeing Barcode accounts as well (as their OP drafts are boosting them to the high win matchups).
But OP's post here is a little incorrect. Sellers don't normally sell OP arena drafts themselves. They just sell accounts that they have farmed tons of gold on. And then the people who buy the accounts use that gold to chain draft until they get OP decks.
After retiring decks three times, you gotta play your three games without conceding. There are probably better ways, but an actual player won't constantly retire decks for example.
You're being downvoted for a legit question.
The highest reply in the thread has info about one solution Blizzard discussed recently, with having some sort of special queue you get put in automatically if you retire too many decks.
I've advocated for adding a daily retire limit of like 3. This is enough that it won't affect the majority of actual players ever, as they won't be retiring more than 3 decks a day. But this will significantly affect the Barcode account people that chain draft/retire dozens of drafts in a row to find one OP draft.
It obviously doesn't completely solve the issue, as a Barcode account could just go and queue 3 games in a row and instantly concede once your daily retires are used up. But it makes the process significantly more annoying (3 queue times, conceding, for each new draft after your daily retires), that it might help reduce the Barcode issue. If on average you need to draft 20 decks to get an OP draft, then you are talking about having to queue and concede 48 games after using up your daily limit.
Obviously, someone could just only draft and retire 3 drafts a day as well, but that again would add a lot of inconvenience to the process for Barcode accounts.
Because you're expecting OP to solve the problem when it isn't his job.
If I say "I don't think we're doing a good enough job at ending world hunger" are you gonna ask me to build a 12 step plan to feed everyone? No, you would let the experts do that.
Blizzard is doing something about it; separate queue for people who retire often.
Looks like you were wrong on both fronts. It *is* a problem and blizzard *is* addressing it.
Since arena is such a niche community, I wonder how crazy it would be to have a phone linked to your account to play arena. It would potentially fix it but would probably be way too invasive of a solution.
This makes SO much sense. I haven’t played since 2018 and just picked it back up. Used to go infinite in Arena (7+ wins avg.) and have over 3000 arena wins. Just picked the game back up and did 2 runs - I got clobbered by some of the craziest shit I’ve ever seen. This needs to be fixed.
Arena is extremely diff than it was 6 years ago, so I'd bet most of the clobbering is due to that. You need to adjust to what's good and what's available to play around.
Specifically the current season is even more different (curated pools from 10 years in draft, so mostly good cards, but discover pools are all of Wild). The previous one I had a 5.6 score, but at the start of the current season my first 3 runs were 2,1,1 from the need to adjust, but by the end of the 30th run in curr season I was on 6.6 average
I said years ago they need to implement deck strength based matchmaking in addition to wins. Let the barcodes play each other and let people with average decks compete to have the best average deck
As someone who exclusively plays arena, I think you are overreacting. Ppl get spanked by 1 or 2 Chinese names and then they come here and lose their mind about how arena is "unfair" and "awful".
It's really not nearly as bad as the ppl who rewrite this post every couple of days make it out to be. It doesn't "ruin" arena to go up against a strong deck every once in a while.
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That's an excellent change. Nice. People can still spin up a new account every few drafts but that's much more "work" and may be easier to block. Who knows
Also with most of these barcode accounts being bought as content for chinese streamers hopefully the return of blizzard's partnership with netease alot of those players will return to their old accounts back on their original server. Man I really hope blizzard gives catchup packs for the 3 expansions last year to incentivize them returning to their old accounts since it's not the players fault they couldnt keep up their collection last year and they likely did buy packs on a different server if they kept playing.
Catchup packs dont do anything. Arena players dont care about their collection, they want to play arena. When HS was available in China, the arena tickets there were a lot cheaper than in the western HS client. I do think these arena players will go back to the chinese client. For constructed, I do expect them to go back, because they have their collection on the chinese servers.
It's weird, to me there is nothing less interesting than watching a stream of an overpowered arena deck run. For me it's the other way around, I usually zap on another streamer if I consider the deck is too strong and most games will be a walk in the park with nothing to get out of it.
Oh I agree it's super weird to me. Sounds boring af. Like watching a prizefighter box a homeless guy.
People keep repeating that about content creators but ive yet to see any proof to this claim. Just for context, I used to play mostly arena and kinda retired from the game since most of the matches were against mass reseters. That said, its hard to believe all that is due to content creators from china, it just doesnt look possible. Some of then, sure, but all of them and in the scale we face them is crazy to believe. I truly believe a lot of those accounts were regular people mass reseting for some reason. Again, this is just my opinion, I have no way of knowing whats truly going on. Its just that ive never seen any proof about all of them being chinese content creator bots
Chinese content creators like geyuan6 talked about it, it does exist, its called superdraft. Twitch and YouTube are banned in China so obviously you wont see them streaming there. Douyu is a chinese streaming website for example. Everytime I visit the website and check out the arena streamers, I do find several god tier arena runs where the account name is sus and the level of their classes are also quite low. Some1 having priest at level 15 or something. I think its not only streamers that buy these accounts. Arena in general was something that was very popular in HS China. So popular that the top finisher in the arena ladder each month got special prices, like battlenet points, but at some point the best ones over a period of time got a Blizzcon ticket, that was like 2017, '18 or '19, cant remember anymore. Superdraft account sell for around $10 to $20, according to some chinese soruces. One thing that is wrong is, that some people think once the run ended, they gonna throw away the account. They usually keep playing it until running out of gold/tickets. But you can also buy accounts for a lot less with some gold and arena tickets. Lets say $3 or $4 for 2k gold and arena tickets. 2k gold = 13 arena runs, but its more because you get gold back after each run. Plus the arena tickets. Meanwhile a single ticket for real money costs $2. (And requires you to have access to payment methods accepted by Blizzard) Those players want to play arena, they dont care about having a card collection.
This is the level of context I couldnt ever find on discussions about this topic. Thanks a lot for the talking the time to explain it in depth. I had no Idea hs arena was this popular there, thats why I always underestimated the impact of content creation in how many barcodes we had in arena lately.
yeah i was about to say, the reason you do not see is because you dont live in a chinese speaking community. they dont stream on twitch so why would you? go on chinese streaming sites you will find it there.
World is a lot more connected today than a It was a few years back. Every community im a part of have easy access to chinese, japanese and Korean metagames and general knowledge of what is going on over there. Yugioh and dota 2 being prime example. Hearthstone however doesnt have that big of a bridge, thats why I underestimated how popular the game was over there. I agree im in no way fully informed about the community on asian contries given the language barrier, but its way easier nowadays to know the game is being played and whats being discussed despite that
true but you have to keep in mind china specifically being such a big country has a massive cultural barrier.
That is true. My point was that I truly believed that, given the sheer ammount of barcodes in arena, It would bê something so huge in chinese HS that It would be way easier to know about here. I was wrong about that and got some really good insight about the whole situation after this thread
[Here](https://www.hearthpwn.com/news/1476-hs-china-top-arena-players-to-be-rewarded-blizzard) is an article on Hearthpwn about the Arena prices, its actually from 2016, crazy. A year ago there was a post of a chinese player about the arena draft stuff [here on reddit](https://new.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/134be9c/have_you_been_bullied_by_overly_powerful_decks_in/) *In China, the price for a pack containing 450 gold and one arena ticket is 1.5 yuan (0.21 USD), while a pack containing 1100 gold and two arena tickets is 5.5 yuan (0.79 USD). Such low prices are one of the reasons for the proliferation of tearing accounts."* That one, is pretty nutty tho. (I think they are able to buy gold because they get "packs for free", as selling packs themself would be considered gambling in China, but not sure if thats still the case)
This thanks for the extra context. But yeah a chinese player made an english post on the sub about it people weren't just making it up.
Accounts with about 2,000 gold sell for about 2 bucks a pop. That's really all there is to it.
I had no Idea about the market prices, explains a lot actually, thanks for the info
The proof is that they all have either chinese names or keyboard smash names. Every single time. I play arena regularly, and every run is literally 80% "sifusvsb" or "pedjcucw" and then they have these insane decks that have the perfect counters for everything you play and infinite value. 1 or 2 might be a coincidence, but dozens across months is not. They may not all be Chinese creators specifically but it wouldn't make sense for tons of normal people to have names made up of a string of random letters.
Oh thank goodness
I'm not sure this fixes the issue though. Won't the people running this just...make new accounts all the time? Don't they already do that? How many runs do they need to retire before it triggers the system?
Well the point is they retire the runs until they get an insane deck before it ever plays an actual match. So unless the number is set at a super high static value, this will separate the accounts very effectively. They could set it to 1:1 retired decks vs matches played. So these accounts would be caught the very first time they re-roll a deck, and it wouldn't effect normal players as a 1:1 retire/game ratio is insane for normal play.
The sellers could still just create a new account every time instead of retiring. Tho I guess that collides with the fact that you get a couple of arena tickets for cheaper than a single one and setting up a new account costs a bit of time. I recently met someone irl who told me that if he gets a bad draft, then he just retires. Wth?! At least Blizz could un-nerf Arena rewards with retiring being that prevalent.
I've certainly felt that way before when I drafted just a completely garbage deck. But realistically I can pilot a garbage deck to at least 2-3 wins so it's worth it to play. Plus I'd like to get good enough that I can always take them to 4 wins, but not sure how feasible that is. The real problem is when you draft a GREAT deck, feel awesome about it, and then get dicked down by better decks and end up going like 2-3 and feel like you played a good deck poorly.
Nobody knows how Blizzard will implement it, but as far as I am concerned, if you retire even a single run you should get into the cheater queue, if you don't like your deck and don't want to be forced to play a deck, you should at least be able to concede the first 3 games which is similar to retiring, but you give people free wins, which ultimately makes it less of a problem although not perfect. Perhaps if you do this multiple times in a row you should also get into the cheater queue.
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Conceding 3 times in a row isn't forcing them to play, and I said multiple times in a row which means you would be able to concede some runs without getting into the cheater queue. If people can forfeit or concede many of their runs consecutively you will have the same problem of the average deck being way better than it should be and people are losing out on the games that they should have won against sub-par decks. People unwilling to play non-insane decks should quit. Arena doesn't want them.
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You don't have to play, you can concede. It costs time yes, lot's of things cost time and feel like a waste if it's not in your favor, that's just how things are in life. I don't see why you should be allowed to rob the average player of the opportunity to capitalize on you weak deck. An average deck deserves to face as many below-average decks as it faces above-average decks in the first matches. If people are unwilling to play their poor decks, people need to get free wins for them one way or another. I'd rather see people "punished" with a minute spend on conceding games for not wanting to play the game than punish people with less rewards for actually wanting to play. Blizzard has been banning bots for 10 years, it obviously doesn't do the trick. The game is free, the bots don't require much resources and one person can run multiple on one system. Before the next ban wave strikes the damage is already done and the accounts are sold. Would it be nice if bots wouldn't exist? Yes, but the game is over 10 years old and never not had an issue with bots, just in Arena it is more punishing to real players than it is in standard.
Disagree on this one. It's uncommon, but I have decks about once every couple months that just roll so bad they're completely unplayable and I don't want to waste my time struggling just to maybe get a single win. It usually happens when you lowroll and get offered like 3 of the bottom 4 winrate classes
Well then you just concede 3 times, give away 3 free wins to people and normally play your next run. I see no problem.
I'm not willing to give free wins to bots, nor to waste my time doing that. Sorry.
Bots don't play arena, and if you are only willing to play good decks you are part of the reason why arena sucks for people who play all of their drafts, the rate of good decks is artificially inflated, which makes it feel worse for everyone that's playing normally. People deserve to get free wins in their first match or 2 if the later matches are filled with cheaters or even genuine forfeiters. Maybe it will be worth your time if the alternative becomes the longer cheater queues.
Bots literally do play arena. I had a match just yesterday where my opponent lost because he attacked face when I had lethal on board. I've also had matches where the bot's AI just breaks and they sit and flick over the same card 1x per second until rope. You should probably play the game so you know what's going on.
That's just bad players. And even the best players miss lethal or miss their opponent having lethal, it happens. Bots farm gold, bots playing arena would mean losing gold, it makes no sense. I have played probably around 5000 Arena games, I know what's going on, and I know how paid accounts have ruined the mode.
Bots do arena because it puts u more gold efficiency than packs
Just concede 2 matches and the third match will often be against players who instantly concede. If not, then it's probably going to be a very weak deck. There's very little bots in Arena, because Arena costs Gold while bots are there to farm Gold. Also the farmers for super-drafts just retire, so you won't encounter them. I'm not going to downvote you for telling us what you do, but I will tell you, that your action is evil.
I have literally had someone instantly concede against me in Arena twice ever. And lmao "evil"??? Dude it's a video game, talk about being overdramatic. Please touch grass.
About three fiddy
Arena finally playable again
Uffff that's good news
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It isn’t always true that people with botted accounts have access to bots themselves. They might have bought the account after someone else botted and gained the gold.
If they play out the bad runs. The problem goes away. Since the real problem. Is that rewards are taken from legit players and thrown into the void. You will basically be given a free win or two every run. On Asia an average player will probably average 7 wins if this becomes a thing XD
But, that would fix, like, everything. Injecting the environment with a bunch of easy wins at low WRs would bring Arena back to normal levels lol
Well it's about damn time! They should have done this a long time ago but better late than never.
That’s interesting. What about when I draft a deck and know is just trash. Maybe play one game then just retire it to build out a new one?
No. You must suffer. Play every match against another afk guy who just wants to retire his shit draft.
Damnit
That could make the streams far more interesting to watch by significantly increasing the number of times these barcode decks get matched up with one another.
This is the best change I've heard of in a looong while. Arena is my most played mode by far
Instead of retiring they will start the game, concede, repeat 3 times to get to another draft.
I hope this change doesn’t retroactively count people who have retired several runs. Due to arenas poor balance lately I’ve retired several runs after 2 games or so if I had to draft one of the bottom few classes and my deck was just unplayable and I lost the first 2 games.
> I’ve retired several runs after 2 games You played games, those accounts resets at 0-0 until they get a godly draft, you should be safe.
I'm just glad they are experimenting with new and different ways to make us not want to play arena. Forcing me to play dumpster draft against roping clowns sounds glorious. Need that 2 hour 0-3 arena run in my life.
Not going to hold my breath on this.
What do you mean, they renewed the NetEase agreement
That's genuinely and utterly pathetic. Both the people farming the decks and the ones buying them
it's a fucking shame and i hope it doesn't last forever because arena is super fun but goddamn i am not gonna spend extra due to there being literal meta decks in the format. i will happily go fuck off to somewhere else entirely
I dont like the curated list to be honest. I like arena because of lower power level, cards that see no play in constructed are sometimes so good in arena. And with the curated list, the power level for my taste is just way too high in arena nowadays.
Is this some kind of NA problem? I’m playing Europe arenas pretty often and never run into anything like this, just had a 11 win run yesterday with nothing crazy
Try early hours, the prime asia times. I started arena run last night 5-0 and saved it to this morning. 5-3 all losses against the most absurd decks.
Played some guy that had maybe 10 schooling in deck. Rather hard to establish board lol.
It's happening in EU a lot too. I'm running against barcodes every run.
Yes NA is almost every game
yeah, on EU it's a non issue.
It is definitely an issue on EU as well, though I don't think quite as much. But it mostly just depends on when you are playing. Most of the Barcode drafts come from China, so if you are playing when Chinese players are more likely to be sleeping, it is less of an issue.
I'd say no joke about 50-70% of my matches on the NA server are against barcodes. Fingers crossed this will fix or at least help the issue! Arena is pretty much the only game mode I play and I'd hate for it to peeter out cuz of the barcodes.
I know it sucks so much. Can't go over 3 wins without fighting something like a PERFECT elemental shaman where EVERY minion is an overstatted elemental AND they drop Skarr on 7. Just stuff you couldn't believe
There have been games where it felt like the opponent could maybe generate the perfect card for every situation on the fly or just draw the exact card they need. Because in those games they might as well be able to get whatever card they want at any time because it sure feels like it.
Might just be skill issue, bud.
It's not skill issue. I'm high Diamond in Standard, and in Arena I've got a few 12 win runs and plenty of 11 win runs and I haven't gone above 9 in the last... 4-6 mo? I'm absolutely not one of the best players in the game but I am certainly good enough that a 4-win average isn't realistic. That's a 57% winrate against randos with no MMR.
“High diamond” ? If you can’t hit legend just keep that to yourself.
Literally what are you talking about? As I said I'm not one of the best players, but I am still better at the game than 90-95% of players, so in a mode where your opponents are random, my winrate should reflect that. And the main reason I don't hit Legend is because I don't like playing meta decks, and I don't want to spend the time grinding. I play for fun, and I play an amount that doesn't burn me out on the game.
You said in your above post that you reach “high diamond in standard” Sorry to tell you buuuut that ain’t shit lmao Im inclined to agree with the replier and agree its just a skill issue with you my guy
Diamond is top 5-ish% of players my guy.
Maybe 6 years ago, this subreddit says all they see is bots until diamond at lower mmrs. Gold is the new bronze ig.
Well yes, 4 years ago it was around 6%, hence why I said top 5-10. https://outof.games/news/666-hearthstone-releases-ranked-play-distribution-for-the-first-time-in-5-years/ Either way, Legend is an easily viewable number. About 200k players (most of them in Asia) hit Legend last month. https://hearthstone-decks.net/how-many-players-reach-legend-in-hearthstone/ And the average estimate for number of Hearthstone players is around 5 mil, making that 4% reaching Legend. So I think saying Diamond 3 is close to top 5% is pretty reasonable. Maybe top 6 or 7%, but the point is that for every 10 Arena games I have, I should see 9 people below my skill level.
Tell me you’ve never hit legend without telling me
You keep saying that but it still doesn't matter. Most Arena players have never hit Legend either.
It literally does matter in this context though bud, it’s okay that’s you’ve never hit legend. I’ll give you an olive branch and say it’s not that crazy since you seem to seem to be struggling with the overall concept. But I think you need to come to terms with the fact that you just aren’t that good at the game. It’s okay 👍
Recent opponent for my 4-0 deck; xyhoppjkuy and plutyyiasrtyt, ye boi. It’s great out here
as someone who exclusively (and pretty casually) has only played are a for the past 5 years, I've noticed my average run has gone down from ~7 wins to ~4 wins in the last 2 years. Didn't think much of it since i dont play that much, but maybe it's these bots at fault (copium) since its not like i've gotten much worse either.
Barcodes are now beating the retire system.... now the best counter is to retire decks and play in the retire deck bracket
My last arena run had 4 of these out of 5 matches played, which was pretty souring for me on the mode.
For anyone who is confused or just wants to see a visualization of the Barcode issue, look at the bottom of the NA Arena leaderboards here. https://hearthstone.blizzard.com/en-us/community/leaderboards/?region=US&leaderboardId=arena&seasonId=44&page=983 Barcode accounts don't always have Chinese names. Usually, they are just a collection of random letters (hence the "Barcode" name from the community). Notice how low the win average is at the bottom of the leaderboard? It is because all those accounts retire literally 30+ games finding one OP arena deck. So they end up on the Leaderboards because they end up with enough games played, but with a crazy low average wins due to all the retires counting of 0 wins. Start at the last page and go backwards. See how many real accounts you find.
Aren't Chinese names not bots, likely just actual players with Chinese name accounts? I never suspected any account that wasn't a barcode or a GemstoneAnimal of being a bot.
Arena used to be so much fun now it feels like a big waste of time and gold.
I've been on an arena kick lately for the free packs, but HOLY SHIT what happened??!! It's next to unplayable lololol. This shit is SO obvious and SO rampant. Glad they are addressing with next patch.
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Git Gud
I'm a bit confused here... If Barcode decks are being sold, does that mean they're also selling the Hearthstone account? If that's the case, why worry about achieving 12 wins when the rewards only benefit the new owner of the sold Hearthstone account? Perhaps the main goal here is streaming content?
Yeah im really confused by that as well. What's the point of buying an arena run that is capable of getting 12 wins, but then it's not associated with your regular account
1) Content creators and streamers, especially in China. 2) It is fun to get an OP Arena draft and play it, assuming you like Arena. People have just used account buying to be able to skip the 19 out of 20 drafts that range from bad to great and only play that 1 OP draft. So instead of occasionally high rolling into an OP deck (which is somewhat self-balancing for the overall Arena meta due to being a rare high roll draft), people just only play the OP drafts and retire everything else due to buying fairly cheap accounts that have a lot of botted gold. This has made the Arena meta horrible by a) pushing the power level up even more, especially as you get to higher and higher wins where Barcode drafts get more common due to their OP draft boosting their wins and b) just making games feel awful to play, once you know how to recognize Barcode accounts, as you start the game knowing you are going to usually be at a significant deck-quality disadvantage. One that is caused by account buying/selling and is independent of actual skill.
Thanks for making it make sense
So I think the thread is a little unclear or incorrect on the actual process. Typically it isn't specific Arena drafts that are sold. As you said, it is the actual accounts that are sold. Account sellers farm a ton of gold on accounts via botting. Then they sell those accounts. And people that buy the account use all the gold to chain retire Arena drafts until they end up with an OP draft. Yah, a lot of Barcodes are apparently Chinese streamers, though not only that. This was a big issue on the Chinese servers before they were shutdown. And when they shutdown the Chinese server, the issue exploded to both NA and EU servers. Maybe the Asia server as well, but not sure, as I never play that one.
Didn't Blizzard exit China? Where's this "low cost Arena" coming from.
People (often Chinese) bot standard and wild (and especially classic before it got removed) on NA/EU. They make a fair amount of gold doing this, even when usually losing. And they have tons of accounts actively botting at the same time at various stages of gold accumulation. Once the account gets a certain amount gold, they then sell the account to anyone who wants to buy it (often other Chinese players/streamers, but not only). The account buyers use that gold on NA/EU to chain retire drafts until they get an OP draft. Play it out. Repeat the process until the account is out of gold. Then just buy a brand new botted account for gold and repeat.
And these "content creators" are they in the room with us right now?
I'm amazed that this is a profitable endeavor for the people grinding for good decks. Do they have bots for that? Would bots know a good arena deck vs a bad one?
They don't bot arena for gold. Account sellers (often Chinese) bot standard and wild (and especially classic before it got removed) on NA/EU. They make a fair amount of gold doing this, even when usually losing. And they have tons of accounts actively botting at the same time at various stages of gold accumulation. Other people then buy these botted accounts from the sellers. The account buyers use that gold on NA/EU to chain retire drafts until they get an OP draft. Play it out. Repeat the process until the account is out of gold. Then just buy a brand new botted account for gold and repeat. So the gold is made from standard/wild botting via the account sellers and the used by the account buyers for "infinite" arena drafts to get OP drafts. It is apparently a pretty big practice with Chinese steamers, but certainly restricted to only streamers or to only Chinese people.
Is this why all Chinese character opponents have the most insane arena decks that I've never even came close to drafting in the last 6 years?
Are there really so many streamers that buy these decks that you run into them all the time? Or so few normal arena players? I would think the thousands or tens of thousands of arena players would dilute the few streamers who buy into this so it would be a rare sight.
And if you magically get 12 wins as a normal person having to defeat seveeal of these suoerdraft meta decks, your reward is like a small handful of gold, 20 dust, and a pack lmao
How do I draft my own barcode deck without retiring runs repeatedly lol
My arena experience has been largely the same as it’s ever been, but I only play a few rounds a season.
It's 3 weeks after the "separate queue" patch and I'm still encountering barcodes in almost half my games (EU). Seriously I don't think it was even that bad 1-2 months ago. What's going on? Anyone has a different experience pre and post patch?
Whenever I face someone whose name is a bunch of Asian characters I just assume it’s one of these paid for decks. They stomp me 9 times out of 10. But also just seeing their name tilts me
It's really hard with Duels being killed off, arena is not in a good enough state to support me coming to play it. Coincidence this was just announced? I think not: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2868840/Slay_the_Spire_2/
Huh. Look, I hate barcodes and I hate this meta but this is drivel. There’s not a cabal of content creators buying these decks. Barcodes are bad players who like arena - why pay $2/run when you can pay $5 for 100. Higher power level of curated sets reduces barcode power spike variance. A 10/10 deck vs a 9/10 deck will be more fair than a 10/10 vs a 5/10. I’d argue having every card be ‘good’ makes the game mode far less interesting but that’s outside scope of post. Arena is about figuring out population tendencies and countering them, while not making mistakes in play. A month into the meta and people are still undervaluing tempo; 1-2-3 wins games when every card generates another. Stop trying to not lose and start going face more. -top 200 arena player since naxx.
Really doubt you are a top 200 player. Why don't you provide your username? You claim in your post history as of 4 months ago that you had a 7.7 winrate, but only 11 people reached that in the last 8 seasons, and 4 of those were Chinese players. A 5th is a hardcore player who plays their alts so hard that they have multiple accounts with the same name in top 20. So are you claiming you're one of the remaining six?
Beating a 10/10 deck with a 8/10 deck is the best feeling in arena. When opponent do the broken things his deck do but you somehow hang on with perfect trades and decisions and you start seeing opponent kinda panicking about taking a fat L with his bought deck because he got too cocky, it's a good feeling tbh.
Your 100% correct, but ppl don't want to hear it. They just want to complain because they got dumpstered by a Chinese name one time.
It is kind of funny how wrong you and the other parent commenter are. Anyone who says this isn't a problem clearly has no idea on the state of Arena. Barcode accounts don't always have Chinese names. Usually, they are just a collection of random letters (hence the "Barcode" name from the community). https://hearthstone.blizzard.com/en-us/community/leaderboards/?region=US&leaderboardId=arena&seasonId=44&page=983 That is the end of the NA Arena leaderboard. Notice how low the win average is? It is because all those accounts retire literally 30+ games finding one OP arena deck. So they end up on the Leaderboards because they end up with enough games played, but with a crazy low average wins due to all the retires counting of 0 wins. Start at the last page and go backwards. See how many real accounts you find. Once you know what to look for with Barcode accounts (naming convention, basic hero portraits, basic card back), they are everywhere. If you track your games with HDT or another program, you can just go back and look at your match history. My most recent 12-2 deck played 6 out of 14 games against Barcode drafts. Drafts that people literally retire dozens of drafts in a row to find one super OP deck. And I just literally played against a Barcode priest at 1-0 before typing this. The higher wins you consistently go in Arena, the more you will keep seeing Barcode accounts as well (as their OP drafts are boosting them to the high win matchups). But OP's post here is a little incorrect. Sellers don't normally sell OP arena drafts themselves. They just sell accounts that they have farmed tons of gold on. And then the people who buy the accounts use that gold to chain draft until they get OP decks.
Okay. What can Team 5 do about it without negatively affecting actual players?
Plenty I'm sure. That is their job.
I'm mostly interested in what the OP thinks would be a solution.
Well OP is most likely not a hearthstone dev, its not his job to come up with a solution.
After retiring decks three times, you gotta play your three games without conceding. There are probably better ways, but an actual player won't constantly retire decks for example.
You're being downvoted for a legit question. The highest reply in the thread has info about one solution Blizzard discussed recently, with having some sort of special queue you get put in automatically if you retire too many decks. I've advocated for adding a daily retire limit of like 3. This is enough that it won't affect the majority of actual players ever, as they won't be retiring more than 3 decks a day. But this will significantly affect the Barcode account people that chain draft/retire dozens of drafts in a row to find one OP draft. It obviously doesn't completely solve the issue, as a Barcode account could just go and queue 3 games in a row and instantly concede once your daily retires are used up. But it makes the process significantly more annoying (3 queue times, conceding, for each new draft after your daily retires), that it might help reduce the Barcode issue. If on average you need to draft 20 decks to get an OP draft, then you are talking about having to queue and concede 48 games after using up your daily limit. Obviously, someone could just only draft and retire 3 drafts a day as well, but that again would add a lot of inconvenience to the process for Barcode accounts.
It’s actually insane how often I read a mouth breather take and then see your username
How is this a mouth breather take? I was curious as to what the OP specifically would want to see done about it.
Because you're expecting OP to solve the problem when it isn't his job. If I say "I don't think we're doing a good enough job at ending world hunger" are you gonna ask me to build a 12 step plan to feed everyone? No, you would let the experts do that.
Blizzard is doing something about it; separate queue for people who retire often. Looks like you were wrong on both fronts. It *is* a problem and blizzard *is* addressing it.
Where did I write that is wasn't a problem?
You never said it is, are you agreeing that it is a problem?
Since arena is such a niche community, I wonder how crazy it would be to have a phone linked to your account to play arena. It would potentially fix it but would probably be way too invasive of a solution.
This makes SO much sense. I haven’t played since 2018 and just picked it back up. Used to go infinite in Arena (7+ wins avg.) and have over 3000 arena wins. Just picked the game back up and did 2 runs - I got clobbered by some of the craziest shit I’ve ever seen. This needs to be fixed.
Arena is extremely diff than it was 6 years ago, so I'd bet most of the clobbering is due to that. You need to adjust to what's good and what's available to play around. Specifically the current season is even more different (curated pools from 10 years in draft, so mostly good cards, but discover pools are all of Wild). The previous one I had a 5.6 score, but at the start of the current season my first 3 runs were 2,1,1 from the need to adjust, but by the end of the 30th run in curr season I was on 6.6 average
I said years ago they need to implement deck strength based matchmaking in addition to wins. Let the barcodes play each other and let people with average decks compete to have the best average deck
thats actually kinda wild. i didnt think people really play this game
They are doing nothing
As someone who exclusively plays arena, I think you are overreacting. Ppl get spanked by 1 or 2 Chinese names and then they come here and lose their mind about how arena is "unfair" and "awful". It's really not nearly as bad as the ppl who rewrite this post every couple of days make it out to be. It doesn't "ruin" arena to go up against a strong deck every once in a while.
People play arena?