After my last news post, I got a ton of Hearthstone advice. Lots of it was about card strategies, but one piece of advice changed the game for me. One reader sent me an email saying that he assumed I was playing casual, and that was part of my problem. He says all the hardcore players are afraid of losing stars in ranked games, so when they want to play a new deck, they go to casual. It ends up making casual play a place for these monsters to try out their crazy deck creations. He told me to play ranked instead, and I am having a great time. He explained in his mail that when you play ranked you start out at level 25, and as you win games, you work your way up through the ranks. You end up advancing pretty quick until you sort of level out and end up playing folks of about your same skill level.
I started yesterday and moved up to level 20 by the end of the day. Even when I lost a game I felt like I had a good chance to win it instead of getting steam rolled. I'm playing level 20's now for the most part and the games are great. I win some and lose some but they all feel like great games. If you read my last post and felt like you were in the same boat, I can't recommend this tip enough. Generally I avoid ranked play in all my games because I figure that's where the hard core players hang out, but in this case, playing ranked introduced me to a community of players right around my own skill level!
I'm about to get on a flight out of Charleston, and I'm already wondering if their GoGo inflight wifi will be enough to feed my Hearthstone addiction.
-Gabe out
