Why am I losing?

[Sottle 221]

To the specific Arena concerns above, many excellent Arena players, myself included, operate at above a 7.5 average.

 

I'm sure i've just been more "lucky" than the people who average 3 or less over the entire course of me playing this game. That sounds entirely reasonable.

[Guest Guest]

Thank you for writing this article, it certainly helped me in viewing this game in a somewhat different way!

 

I have been playing this game for quite a while now, and I still have nowhere near all the 'good' cards in my collection, something which I always assumed as being both unlucky and detrimental to my games. This, and the fact that a friend of mine who introduced me to this game (for which I am very grateful for!) maintains that he is always unlucky in his games since his opponents always get the right cards at the right moment, made me think this game is indeed based for a large part on luck. However, the more games I played, the more I realised this simply is not the case. Sure, it sucks when your board gets cleared by a flamestrike on turn seven, but this is neither 'unlucky' nor what will make you lose this game. It's not unlucky because flamestrike is meant for boardclearence, just as a wolferider is meant for quick aggression. Saying you were unlucky with the flamestrike is like saying that that card should not exist. Since its a seven mana card, its actually very likely you will face this on turn seven of eight if you have a full board, so don't be surprised or angry when it happens. And besides, by playing this the Mage will have no mana left, which means you get the chance to build your board again, and having more threaths for your opponent.

 

I agree with this article, and I also believe many replies did not quite get what the section on luck was about: the way I understood it was that, while luck plays a part in most games, you cannot control that part. You can only control your deck, and the way you play it. I would be very suprised indeed if you lose over and over again by being unlucky if you made a 'intelligent' deck, and played it 'right'.

 

Last, but not least, I think you're doing a good job by informing new players that they should not focus on how unlucky they get when losing, but on how they themselves can make sure they make 'better' decisions next time around, to assure they did everything they could to win. The way I see it, if you lose then to either a 'better' deck, or some amazing strike of luck from your opponent (which I would have to see to believe ), you should rejoice in the fact that you played a very good game! Taking credit for playing well, rather blaiming the darned luck of the opponent, will help you enjoy this great game for a much longer time!

 

Cheers mate

[Guest Michael]

I think a lot of TCG games have "PROBABILITY" built into the game play mechanics. You know drawing 3 to four cards out of thirty and learning how to play on step based tempo. I like the articles in this website a lot and find them great. But people like to argue so why not enjoy that too.

There are only thirty cards in each deck, so there is a finite variance property in describing the game's entropy level or randomness level. (Why some decks evolve into massive adoption and others go extinct very quickly. It is especially true in Arena, where Darwin's laws hurt the most.) Another thing, unlike chess or checkers, an AI should not be able to win with absolute certainty each time. A chess AI is relatively easy to make and can usually beat most experienced players with unmatched efficiency. A RNG deck in Hearthstone can easily give an AI a tough time planning its decision tree.
THus, the luck factor in Hearthstone is the only thing that gives new players a chance against even bots. These are called finite games and they have a thing called a random walk. (http://cs.wellesley.edu/~kgold/LongLeads.pdf)

Well I guess to everyone, my previous paragraph is bumpkins. So I would emphasize that the article is greatly written and not wrong. I only assert, as my opinion (Not fact), that luck helps new players more than it hurts them. Players like Trump would win a lot more tournaments because he knows the math to find optimal strategies. But he cannot beat decks with random elements very easily and a OTK win condition because those models don't work in that scenario. It is also the main reason a bot could not win every game with those same math models in its codex.

Hearthstone is the ultimate noob game. That is the reason its successful. And that is what makes it fun. Especially I like Noxious and Kripparrian style emphasizing the fun aspect of it. The game developers are obviously competitive and knowledgeable in card mechanics but perhaps got lucky in making it fun to experience the card mechanics. I think that is the biggest thing, to have fun. If I wanted to make models on the game, yea I could win many matches. But I prefer to play it just from the top of my head and what seems to be the funnest play. I like watching Trump because he just does the mental math. (Assuming he knows the deck archetype.) Usually I noticed players who can predict the cards in their opponents deck and hand win at least 2/3 of their games simply because it is the same as knowing your opponents hand. And because there is only thirty cards in the deck it is very easy to get to that point. A player who cannot do that won't have much fun. So the ability to predict events is the main element of fun.

[Guest Wolf]

A good thing about HearthStone is that the randomness is often very limited, so you can expect a certain outcome. Mad Bomber does only 3 damage for example but you can expect one of those to remove a Divine Shield if the opponent has only one minion. If it doesn't happen it doesn't mean you're going to lose. I think top players are better able to calculate the most possible outcome.

 

It's always better to do the random thing first before you do anything else so you have the chance to play around it, and it's a must to understand all possible outcomes. When I play Shaman for example I often use the hero power first when I absolutely need a minion with taunt.

 

What I don't like are huge effects like Brawl though. As a new player I thought this didn't reward playing well. Now I live with it and try not to overextend, and if it happens a lot in a certain metagame, include more deathrattle minions.

[ermacmike 0]

Great article - but about luck? This plays a big role. I have so many examples that i lost only because my opponent had better rng. And ONLY becasue of that. Doomsayer out of shredder when i have lots of minions and opponent has one? Here it goes! Opponent warrior using brawl having one minion and I'm having like 5 - here we go - his one survives. I have like lots of low cost minions in my deck, but come on, why would RNG give me these minions at start, after mulligan or in three turns! No, no, RNG says I will give you that 1/1 murloc at 12th turn, man! Soulfire? You have 6 cards in your hand? IMMA DISCARD THAT ONLY LEGENDARY YOU HAVE LOL

 

Luck and money has a lot of influence in this game. Once you collect a truly meta deck you can compete and say that luck factor is minimised. 

[positiv2 952]

Great article - but about luck? This plays a big role. I have so many examples that i lost only because my opponent had better rng. And ONLY becasue of that. Doomsayer out of shredder when i have lots of minions and opponent has one? Here it goes! Opponent warrior using brawl having one minion and I'm having like 5 - here we go - his one survives. I have like lots of low cost minions in my deck, but come on, why would RNG give me these minions at start, after mulligan or in three turns! No, no, RNG says I will give you that 1/1 murloc at 12th turn, man! Soulfire? You have 6 cards in your hand? IMMA DISCARD THAT ONLY LEGENDARY YOU HAVE LOL

 

Luck and money has a lot of influence in this game. Once you collect a truly meta deck you can compete and say that luck factor is minimised. 

 

However, luck play a positive role sometimes, resulting in "neutral state". Also, bad luck doesn't happen in every game. This lowers its impact in the long run. 

[Sottle 221]

Great article - but about luck? This plays a big role. I have so many examples that i lost only because my opponent had better rng. And ONLY becasue of that. Doomsayer out of shredder when i have lots of minions and opponent has one? Here it goes! Opponent warrior using brawl having one minion and I'm having like 5 - here we go - his one survives. I have like lots of low cost minions in my deck, but come on, why would RNG give me these minions at start, after mulligan or in three turns! No, no, RNG says I will give you that 1/1 murloc at 12th turn, man! Soulfire? You have 6 cards in your hand? IMMA DISCARD THAT ONLY LEGENDARY YOU HAVE LOL

 

Luck and money has a lot of influence in this game. Once you collect a truly meta deck you can compete and say that luck factor is minimised. 

 

This point has already been addressed multiple times throughout the topic. The article is not saying that luck is not a factor, it's simply advocating for the correct way to react to it.

Ok, you lost a 1/6 Brawl. If that was the ONLY way you lost, could you have played around it? Did you overcommit? Could you have held stuff back or played more sticky minions? Maybe the answer to all those questions is no, and you really did just get 100% screwed. The point is, it's healthy to evaluate the situation afterwards and try and learn from it instead of just raging about RNG and learning nothing.

[Guest Guest]

I get where the author is going with the article now that I read the rebuttals here, but to be fair, the article really doesn't clearly state the point that it's more efficient to focus on gameplay than on luck. Instead of encouraging new players to focus on what they can control, the tone of the article reads as, "New players, if you're losing, it's your fault and you should take responsibility." If this many people have made a fuss over the same "misunderstanding," then the article probably isn't clear and is in need of a revision. I really don't think it's just people getting huffy.

 

I'll be honest - when I was first starting out, I read this article and got all kinds of twisted in my thoughts on the game. The article doesn't do well at helping newer players understand when they really SHOULD blame things on luck. I agree that it's really not as big a factor as people think it is, but after reading this, I would beat myself up time and time again when I lost games, and would never be able to differentiate between when a situation really WAS luck, and when it was a poor decision I'd made. I really do think, especially given how many new expansions have been coming out recently, that it's only fair to give new players a little more credit here and help them to identify when situations really were out of their hands. Why not encourage newer players a little more, rather than just taking the "toughen up" route?

 

I mean, let's be real: if a newer player is playing a basic deck against a deck full of legendaries (say, Fatigue Warrior or Freeze Mage), it's true that their chances of winning are significantly lower than their opponent's, because like it or not, power creep exists, and it affects new players quite a bit in the current meta. They're two expansions and three adventures behind now when they begin. We can all say that "basic decks have reached Legend," but what do we really mean by 'basic decks,' and how experienced were those players? When you started playing the game affects "luck," too, in the sense that you can't control how long you've been playing.

 

I get that someone will probably call this whining or brush it off, but I really do feel that this article needs a little more explaining, if nothing else than to help new players avoid some serious tilt that I experienced after this article led me to blame everything on myself. I get that it's just a card game, but being able to identify when a situation really wasn't in your control is just as useful as figuring out when it was.

[Chacal 23]

The conversation about luck is hilarious.

Fact: Everyone is playing with the same RNG. Luck cancels out.

Fact: People never credit the RNG when it papers over the cracks in their decision making and hands them a win.

Fact: The top players keep being the top players, notwithstanding the fact that a lot of lower ranked players have access to the same decks.

 

If you don't have access to a lot of cards you are obviously at a disadvantage in constructed. It's a bit like being in one of the lower classes in an endurance car race. No, you won't win the race outright but you can enjoy playing the game as well as you possibly can at the level your resources allow. If the idea of not being able to climb the ladder infuriates you then you should try Arena; the great leveller. If you're not getting any more than three wins over a reasonable number of Arena runs though, that will tell you something and you should concentrate on answers that don't involve the RNG.

[Guest netwolff]

Guys, just wanted to tell you that I am very thankful not only for this text on "why am I losing". I really like you page a lot, it helps me quite a lot - I am a no money player and will always be stuck at a certain point but I want to have as much fun as I can nevertheless.

[positiv2 952]

The conversation about luck is hilarious.

Fact: Everyone is playing with the same RNG. Luck cancels out.

Fact: People never credit the RNG when it papers over the cracks in their decision making and hands them a win.

Fact: The top players keep being the top players, notwithstanding the fact that a lot of lower ranked players have access to the same decks.

 

If you don't have access to a lot of cards you are obviously at a disadvantage in constructed. It's a bit like being in one of the lower classes in an endurance car race. No, you won't win the race outright but you can enjoy playing the game as well as you possibly can at the level your resources allow. If the idea of not being able to climb the ladder infuriates you then you should try Arena; the great leveller. If you're not getting any more than three wins over a reasonable number of Arena runs though, that will tell you something and you should concentrate on answers that don't involve the RNG.

 

1) Image you roll a dice and so does your friend. You roll, let's say 10 times. Your friend had a higher number 8 times, whereas you had higher number only twice. Now, what you say is that he wasn't lucky, it was his skill because you were both rolling the same dice. But of course, he just had luck.

2) I definitely do credit RNG. I am a bit lucky with topdecks, but unlucky when it comes to Flamecannon, Arcane Missiles, Imp-losion and so on. This is why I don't really like playing tempo mage or basically any RNG-filled class.

3) Yes, skill is an important side of the game, but when it comes to, for example, tournaments, watch it on twitch and just count how many times does the chat spam "e-sports". The number will be higher than it should be.

 

Let's for other card games as a comparison. Magic the Gathering (MtG Duels to be more precise) has not a lot of RNG, the only RNG is in the deck and card order in the deck, such as Sphinx Tutelage (Whenever you draw a card, target opponent puts the top two cards of his or her library into his or her graveyard. If they're both nonland cards that share a color, repeat this process.) or Draw cards until something happens. 

Although RuneScape Chronicle is still in closed beta (I still have a few extra keys, if anyone wants them), it has already outlined the stance on RNG. The game has even less RNG than MtG. The only RNG is in topdecking and mulligan. You also draw 3 cards each turn and start with 6 or 7 cards, this makes it much less reliant on RNG. This is why it is currently my "main game". 

[Sottle 221]

Chacal actually speaks truth.

[positiv2 952]

Imp-losion has simple RNG calculation, 3 possible outcomes, all have the same chance. You have 33% chance to roll 2 (the minimum). However, you can roll it multiple times in a row. 1 player in 59,049 rolls the lowest number ten times in a row. For that player, the luck does not cancel out. It just doesn't work this way.

 

The second point is strongly subjective. He also stereotypes players and that is simply not nice of him. 

 

Yes, skill is more important, but: if you play a mirror match with a player of pretty much the same skill, who wins? Skill has no effect here as you are both at the same skill level and the matchup doesn't matter either. The player with RNGesus on his side will win. This can be seen in tournaments (or at least from my perspective). 

 

So basically my opinion is: Luck (matchup/opponent) = Skill > Luck (during a match) > Deck (budget)

[Chacal 23]

Luck sure does cancel out when we're all connecting to the same servers running the same RNG. Maybe not in a single game and maybe not even in a short session but over time it will. Everyone has the same chance to have an unlucky/lucky roll and everyone will and the more you play the more it will all even out.

 

I'm sorry you think I wasn't being nice. That wasn't my intention. I am only stereotyping people in the sense that we're all human beings! It's just human nature to look back at victories and credit our playing/deckbuilding skills but - when we lose - curse our luck for the card that didn't draw or the Juggler damage that went to the wrong enemy. I know I do it myself.

 

Whether you agree or not 'luck' is basically defined as 'the things you can't control' so it doesn't make sense to waste too much time blaming luck or even considering it much. The 'things you can control' are the only things that can make you a better player and improve your win rate.

 

Current Status: Have better decks than skills, trying to improve my play, fighting the temptation to feel victimised by fate. Enjoying the game!

 

Edit: One last thing about victimisation: Hearthstone Deck Tracker can be very educational. When I go back and analyse matches that I've lost with less-than-optimal opening hands and frustrating early draws I find something very heartening/depressing. As often as not my opponent had something at least as bad. It's easy to assume you've got the smelly end of the stick when you can't see your opponents cards but theirs might well be even smellier.

Edited December 9, 2015 by Chacal

[Chacal 23]

This: https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/3wsmwk/hoejs_thoughts_on_consistency_and_rng/

[positiv2 952]

This: https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/3wsmwk/hoejs_thoughts_on_consistency_and_rng/

Also, this, this, this, this, this (mainly the end) and this (although it does not answer any question, definitely entertaining to watch).

Edit: Also this and this (the last turn)

Edited December 14, 2015 by positiv2

[Guest Carlobabe]

"if luck was the major factor that affects the outcome of hearthstone games, we should expect players' win rates to stabilize around 50%, with no players managing to sustain a win rate of 75%"

just...NOPE XD this "fact" completely ignores that LUCK is well... LUCK!

if your statement was true, i know alot of people in bronze/silver in league of legends, who would definitely belong in at least gold or plat. but LUCK (or lack of such), is the reason they get teams that pull them down.
i know its not the same thing, since league is a team game, and hearthstone is 1v1.
but you still cant control either (what cards you pull and when VS the team you get in games like league)

i've also seen ALOT of people (yes, im using league, since its my "main" game), with 60-75% win rate in ranked games, who CONSTANTLY manage to get carried. 
thats what luck is... most of the time its not something you can calculate as it seems to me like you're trying to. 
in my experience, ACTUAL LUCK is more of a constant. 
either you're lucky or you're not. its really THAT simple.
its what "spawned" the saying "you cant be lucky in both games and love" (rough translation, since i've never heard it in english)
some people are just luckier than others. thats FACT

and i bet alot of people see my comment and think "hes probably talking about himself in bronze/silver"
no. i was plat 1 and almost made it to diamond last season. i know im not the best, and have alot of aspects of my game to improve.

[mimech 24]

"some people are just luckier than others. thats FACT"

 

I'm confident that this premise can be disproven with 2 dice, a pencil and an eraser. 

 

(By lucky happenstance, this is exactly the same equipment you require to play [*TIME WARP*] The Warlock of Firetop Mountain.  The fun that will ensue from this pursuit will alleviate the shame you feel at being wrong regarding luck, and facts.)

[positiv2 952]

"some people are just luckier than others. thats FACT"

 

I'm confident that this premise can be disproven with 2 dice, a pencil and an eraser. 

 

(By lucky happenstance, this is exactly the same equipment you require to play [*TIME WARP*] The Warlock of Firetop Mountain.  The fun that will ensue from this pursuit will alleviate the shame you feel at being wrong regarding luck, and facts.)

Luck in HearthStone isn't zero-sum (as in for each 2dmg on Imp-losion, you will do a 4dmg roll) and therefore some players are in fact luckier than others. However, more than a half of the players can be (un)lucky.

[Chacal 23]

'Zero sum' doesn't come into it. 'Luck' i.e. game effects resulting from RNG like card drawing, Imp-losions, Boom-bots, Knife Juggles etc will average out over time. No-one is luckier than anyone else unless the RNG has been coded with statements like:

if (battleNet.UserID == "Chacal") rekt();

In which case it's not really luck any more.

 

Statements like "either you're lucky or you're not. it's really THAT simple" are complete nonsense.

[SithLordOfSnark 78]

 

Man i really want to know how can you craft all these legendaries so easily..When i start playing hearthstone before 3 weeks now...i heard that it wasnt a pay2win..but i see all the legendaries and the epic cards and in my packs i gain only one rare and the others are common...that makes me 85% lose the match vs a player with epic or legendaries ...i try to main warrior and i have selled every single card of the other classes to make a ''good deck'' and i managed to get 2 rares and a molten giant...but again this is tough to me...can u give me some advices on how to gain some ''good'' cards without to pay ?Sry for my english

Play arena matches. The arena matches only require 150 gold, it doesn't require you to craft cards and if you win even one game, you get one guaranteed pack. If you can climb up to high win rate, you'll get dusts, golds and pack as a reward. And some golden cards, that can be DEd for even more dusts.

 

Also keep in mind, that the players with all the legendaries have been playing for months now, since at the official launch of the game, the cards have not been reset.

 

 

I totally agree with this. While you technically lose a bit of gold if you don't hit at least 3 wins, it is still more worth playing Arena then simply spending 100 gold on a card pack, because you're guaranteed a pack and if you can hit at least 7, you can play Arena again for free, and keep doing that if you can consistently hit 7 wins.

 

Also, @Vlad, great guide. :)

[positiv2 952]

'Zero sum' doesn't come into it. 'Luck' i.e. game effects resulting from RNG like card drawing, Imp-losions, Boom-bots, Knife Juggles etc will average out over time. No-one is luckier than anyone else unless the RNG has been coded with statements like:

if (battleNet.UserID == "Chacal") rekt();

In which case it's not really luck any more.

 

Statements like "either you're lucky or you're not. it's really THAT simple" are complete nonsense.

While I agree it's not that simple, you can be either lucky, unlucky or neutral. If you roll 2 once doesn't you mean will roll 4 one time as well. The only thing you can hope for is that the difference from 3dmg "average" is as small as possible (in case you rolled 2) to make the difference negligible. It may even out, but it may as well not.

[VaraTreledees 138]

The idea that luck cancels out isn't really valid.  I mean luck has less to do with this game then a lot of people assume, but you also can't say that every time you are lucky you will be unlucky.  What people are talking about when they say over time, things tend towards there expected is the law of large numbers.  Which is basically the idea that if you flip a coin 10 times, you won't always get a 50/50 split but over time, and enough flips, say 1000, it will approach that 50/50 split accurately, assuming a fair coin of course.  How this has to deal with luck in hearthstone is easy to see, take a card like knife juggler.  It is good because, not only does it have decent stats for a 2 mana cost card, but the expected value is that it will damage enemy minions more then their face.  This is because when it matters, ie they have a minion on the board, knife juggler has at most a 50% chance to hit face, and generally much lower then that.  So over the course of many games with knife juggler you will hit minions far more then the enemy face even if you occasionally face them with every juggle for 5 games in a row.  However, if you are in a very specific position, say you have a Dr. Boom on the board and only a small amount of life and a juggler and unleash in the hand, the opponent has 4 creatures, 2 of which are taunts with 4 health each and only 7 life left.  The only way you can win this is if you juggler, unleash and all four jugglers hit the taunt creatures.  If this happens, it is indeed lucky because the number of times you will be in a position where you need 4 juggles to hit exactly right to win the game will not be common enough for the law of large numbers to apply.  Same is largely true with lucky and unlucky shredder drops.  Even though we will get the expected out of shredder quite often, most of us don't play it enough to realistically expect the very lucky and very unlucky shredder drops to fall under the law of large numbers.

Edited February 4, 2016 by VaraTreledees

[mimech 24]

I don't think anyone is arguing that luck (as a concept) doesn't exist, or that in a particular match-up, one couldn't describe a particular player as either lucky or unlucky (in that instance).  It was the premise that some people are luckier than others all the time that was being argued against.

Edited February 4, 2016 by mimech

[Guest Panda]

Actually luck is absolutely the most important factor.

 

To address 70% win rate in arenas imagine that half of players reached max skill (yea, HS is very primitive game :)) and other half makes mistakes. Now because luck evens out in long run  and skill is even upper half has 50% win rate versus each other. And upper half versus lower half has 90% win rate (due to skill difference). Since you get paired against upper and lower half same amount of time your total win rate is 70%.

 

To address top rankings of pro players: sorry to disappoint you, but this has nothing to do with skill as well. As you move through the rankings you encounter people making mistakes less and less (who would have thought :)) and when you start reaching pro player category you encounter people making mistakes lets say 4 out of 100 cases. That means to gain 8 points you need to play 100 games and normal people (even equally skilled as pros) simply doesnt have time to play hundreds of games.

 

To conclude: Skill cap is really low and many people reached it. If you are among these the luck is the only deciding factor, if not i thank you for maintaining others 70% win rate just please dont get better or there indeed will be 50% win rate and we can all stop playing.