The 11th Hearthstone ranked ladder season ended at 4am. I ended up finishing at 968th place, and I'm pretty sure there were over 2k people who made it to legend so I was in the top half of legends. The claim is that only .5% of people made it to legend in the first few seasons, so it's entirely possible that I'm what, 1 in 400? Not too bad.
Of course, 968th place is worth no qualification points towards worlds, so it isn't actually very good. My goal is to get top 50 in a month, or top 100 in two months, and I now have two failed months. (One because I didn't play, and this one.)
My peak ranking was actually 40th place. But I got to that point on the back of a 10 game winning streak. I then told myself I wouldn't play unless I dropped out of the top 50. Enough people played and passed me that I fell down to 58th and then I lost my next game and tumbled out of the top 100. I never made it back up that high.
The really sad thing is I ended up going 79-78 after the 10 game winning streak that put me at 40th. So going better than 50-50 still meant falling from a good standing to middle of the pack...
The whole thing is reminiscent of the old Magic rating system where I was qualified for Nationals and GP byes and the like but was prevented from playing most games for fear of losing those rewards. Card games simply have too much variance to make it worth playing against people significantly below your rating. And in Hearthstone it seems like they're more interested in getting a fast match going than in pairing you up against an even match. (If my matches were close to even then my ELO should have remained similar after going 79-78 instead of falling so much I fell from 40th to 968th.)
On the plus side I now have 2 decks built and I'm learning more and more about the format every day. So I should be able to do better in future months! Maybe?
Saturday, February 28, 2015
Friday, February 27, 2015
Hearthstone: Quest Rerolls
Sceadeau clued me in yesterday that there's a feature in Hearthstone to swap out one of the daily quests if you don't want to do it. I feel a little silly for not knowing about such a feature for so long, especially since it turns out to be pretty simple, but now I know. And other people should know too!
Basically each day you get assigned a quest at random. You're allowed to store up 3 quests at a time so you don't need to play every day to keep on top of your quests but they also don't just stack up forever. Quests can be for a variety of tasks and can be worth either 40, 60, or 100 gold. I've always just done them when they show up, or shortly thereafter.
It turns out, however, that each quest in your log has an X on it in the corner. I assumed this was to delete the quest in case you hit your limit of 3 and wanted to get a different one the next day. That's not quite how it works. Instead it deletes the quest and immediately gives you a different one. It also removes all the Xs from all your quests for the rest of the day.
So it would seem that each day if you get a 40 gold quest you should send it back. If it comes back as a 40 gold quest then you should just leave it sitting there and send it back the next day, too. (Days change at midnight PST, so 4am out here.) And then only worry about doing a 40 gold quest if you've got a big backlog of 40 gold quests.
Realistically I'm not going to go through all that effort. If I have a 40 gold quest for casting spells I'm not going to play games without playing spells all day. I'm just going to get my 40 gold and move on with my life. But it does mean that any time I get a quest I will be sending it back for a chance at a bigger gold one. And if I get a quest to win twice with a class I don't like then I can just ignore it and reroll it again the next day too instead of forcing myself to draft warrior.
Basically each day you get assigned a quest at random. You're allowed to store up 3 quests at a time so you don't need to play every day to keep on top of your quests but they also don't just stack up forever. Quests can be for a variety of tasks and can be worth either 40, 60, or 100 gold. I've always just done them when they show up, or shortly thereafter.
It turns out, however, that each quest in your log has an X on it in the corner. I assumed this was to delete the quest in case you hit your limit of 3 and wanted to get a different one the next day. That's not quite how it works. Instead it deletes the quest and immediately gives you a different one. It also removes all the Xs from all your quests for the rest of the day.
So it would seem that each day if you get a 40 gold quest you should send it back. If it comes back as a 40 gold quest then you should just leave it sitting there and send it back the next day, too. (Days change at midnight PST, so 4am out here.) And then only worry about doing a 40 gold quest if you've got a big backlog of 40 gold quests.
Realistically I'm not going to go through all that effort. If I have a 40 gold quest for casting spells I'm not going to play games without playing spells all day. I'm just going to get my 40 gold and move on with my life. But it does mean that any time I get a quest I will be sending it back for a chance at a bigger gold one. And if I get a quest to win twice with a class I don't like then I can just ignore it and reroll it again the next day too instead of forcing myself to draft warrior.
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Hearthstone: Sweet Patch Change
A new patch for Hearthstone went out earlier this week. It didn't have very much in it. No card nerfs or anything like that. The card back reward for playing constructed this month, a new animation that makes me want to resolve Mimiron's Head proc at least once to see what it is, and a bug fix for my old mech deck. (Cogmaster wasn't working properly when you switch his stats with a spare part.) But then there was also a set of quality of life client changes that I really like!
They added a client state that basically makes it so spectators exist between games. If you're watching someone play, their game ends, and then they start a new game you'll automatically start watching that game too. They also removed the idle timeout for people who are watching a game. So now I can start watching Sceadeau or Matt play a draft deck and just leave it running in the background to pop in from time to time and see what's going on. It's pretty sweet!
(PS: My Battle.Net tag is Ziggyny#1233, add me so I can watch your draft games and point out when you miss a point of damage!)
They added a client state that basically makes it so spectators exist between games. If you're watching someone play, their game ends, and then they start a new game you'll automatically start watching that game too. They also removed the idle timeout for people who are watching a game. So now I can start watching Sceadeau or Matt play a draft deck and just leave it running in the background to pop in from time to time and see what's going on. It's pretty sweet!
(PS: My Battle.Net tag is Ziggyny#1233, add me so I can watch your draft games and point out when you miss a point of damage!)
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Isaac Rebirth: Stupid Builds
I've started playing The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth again recently. I'd finally gotten around to figuring out where the saved files were stored so I could salvage my old save file from my dead hard drive... And then I actually loaded the game and found out Steam seems to store the saves online too since my old game was just sitting there before I moved any files around. Hurray!
The first thing I did was complete the last challenge that I'd not done, purist. This challenge starts you with no items and doesn't spawn any treasure rooms the whole game. My solution was to restart until I got a curse room with a reasonable start (I think I kept a guppy piece and some soul hearts) and then I got super lucky with devil deals. I ended up with one of my most stupidly powerful builds despite the limited access to items. I had a knife, brimstone, guppy, dark bum, and mapping. It was glorious. And now that challenge is finally done!
Just now I finished a run with the stupidest build I've ever used. I don't mean stupid in the same way I did above, where I just combined a bunch of absurdly powerful items and murdered everything. I mean stupid in the sense that it shouldn't be possible and no one in their right mind should ever try to do it. It took me barely under 2 hours to clear the dark room with Maggy (giving me two more unlocks) and I was both unkillable and unable to take actions for the vast majority of the run. I combined an item that makes you invincible if you didn't move with two items that do passive damage. (A giant fly bomb that moves around the room, detonates on contact with an enemy, and respawns 10 seconds later and a leech that aggroes things that get near you and then does miniscule amounts of damage to them.) Then I would walk into a room, put the controller down, and watch a League of Legends stream. Or an episode of Heroes. Or Sceadeau playing a Hearthstone draft. Eventually everything in the room would be dead and I could repeat.
There was no way I could have won without cheesing it on this particular run. I had pretty much no damage items drop for me the entire time, and I'm simply not good enough at dodging to beat things with low damage. So maybe it's good for the game that I had an alternate win condition available? I feel like I would have had more fun if I'd just died and started over though.
I do like abusing game mechanics though, so I guess being able to do it once was fairly sweet. But I have no intention on doing it again! (Except maybe if I ever unlock The Lost...)
The first thing I did was complete the last challenge that I'd not done, purist. This challenge starts you with no items and doesn't spawn any treasure rooms the whole game. My solution was to restart until I got a curse room with a reasonable start (I think I kept a guppy piece and some soul hearts) and then I got super lucky with devil deals. I ended up with one of my most stupidly powerful builds despite the limited access to items. I had a knife, brimstone, guppy, dark bum, and mapping. It was glorious. And now that challenge is finally done!
Just now I finished a run with the stupidest build I've ever used. I don't mean stupid in the same way I did above, where I just combined a bunch of absurdly powerful items and murdered everything. I mean stupid in the sense that it shouldn't be possible and no one in their right mind should ever try to do it. It took me barely under 2 hours to clear the dark room with Maggy (giving me two more unlocks) and I was both unkillable and unable to take actions for the vast majority of the run. I combined an item that makes you invincible if you didn't move with two items that do passive damage. (A giant fly bomb that moves around the room, detonates on contact with an enemy, and respawns 10 seconds later and a leech that aggroes things that get near you and then does miniscule amounts of damage to them.) Then I would walk into a room, put the controller down, and watch a League of Legends stream. Or an episode of Heroes. Or Sceadeau playing a Hearthstone draft. Eventually everything in the room would be dead and I could repeat.There was no way I could have won without cheesing it on this particular run. I had pretty much no damage items drop for me the entire time, and I'm simply not good enough at dodging to beat things with low damage. So maybe it's good for the game that I had an alternate win condition available? I feel like I would have had more fun if I'd just died and started over though.
I do like abusing game mechanics though, so I guess being able to do it once was fairly sweet. But I have no intention on doing it again! (Except maybe if I ever unlock The Lost...)
Saturday, February 21, 2015
Hearthstone: Value
The other day when I was helping Sceadeau understand what I think about when I draft I kept using the term 'value'. It's something I've picked up from watching streamers of the game and it's a pretty developed concept I think, but as someone new to the game Sceadeau didn't really know what I meant. I mean, obviously you want to take cards with higher value than other cards... That's what the word means... But how do you weigh the value of different cards in a draft? He asked and I answered as best I could. I've been thinking about it more lately, and here's where I've arrived.
The first thing to understand as someone who comes from a game like Magic is creatures in Hearthstone are designed to die. Creatures in Magic heal to full at the end of each turn which means it's entirely reasonable to expect a good durable creature to live several turns and eat several cards from the opponent in the process. Creatures in Hearthstone rarely heal, and never automatically. The permanent damage on them means that you play a creature, do some damage with it, and then watch it die.
The end consequence of this is the default assumption for a creature is you're going to trade it for a creature that costs the same amount from your opponent. So the basic idea of value that I'm using is that it's what you expect to have left over after trading with an average card of the same cost from your opponent.
For example, how good is spider tank? It's a 3/4 for 3. If you trade it for a 3/3 taunt guy you get to keep a 3/1 and they keep nothing. That's pretty good! Harvest golem? Spider tank remains as a 3/2, golem leaves behind a 2/1. Tank has the edge here, but if nothing else goes on the 3/2 just trades for the 2/1. Dalaran mage? Spider tank straight up stays as a 3/2 against nothing. Harvest golem stays as a 2/1 and then another 2/1. Even the taunt guy sticks around as a 3/1 taunt. Dalaran mage is terrible under this comparison.
Always comparing with something of the same cost isn't exactly fair. Fighting up or down one in cost is a pretty standard situation too, and it does help to think about those situations. There are also hero powers that can be relevant. Sticking around as a 3/1 is a lot better against a warlock than it is against a mage, for example!
You shouldn't go too crazy with comparing up or down though. Obviously an archmage trades very well with a wisp, but it also costs 7 more mana!
What sort of things are typically found on cards I'd consider to provide high value? Big stats compared to other creatures is a good start. 4/5 yetis for 4 are surprisingly good even when they have no ability. It's just super hard for any creature of equal or lower value to kill a yeti in one round, and similarly hard for one of those creatures to survive a round with the yeti.
The stat mix is also really relevant. You want fairly balanced stats, with toughness actually being better than power most of the time. Lost tallstrider is a 5/4 for 4 and it's actually a lot worse than the 4/5 yeti. The problem is the 5th power tends to be wasted against creatures around the same cost. They don't have 5 toughness, so in a trade the extra power isn't used. Having only 4 toughness increases the number of creatures that will kill it is one shot. Especially against a mage which can tag in an extra damage for 2 mana if they need to do it. But while 4/5 is better than 5/4, 1/8 is not better than 4/5.
The 5th toughness is especially important because of the existence of flamestrike. Having creatures you can play before the mage's turn 7 that live through flamestrike is clutch.
Creatures that are 'sticky' can also provide good value for their cost. Stickiness refers to a creature that generates an extra body in some way after it 'dies'. This can come in the form of divine shield, or a deathrattle effect which generates an extra creature, or even a battlecry which generates an extra creature. The battlecry ones tend to be weaker since mass removal can hit both creatures at the same time, but it is still a potential source of value.
Or maybe it's a creature that generates card advantage in some other way. Maybe it has a good sized body for the cost and lets you draw a card when it comes into play or dies. Or maybe it does some bonus damage at some point. Demolisher is a 1/4 for 3 which is a terrible body, but if it stays in play it gets to do 2 extra damage each turn. It's generally pretty terrible value, but I had one game today where I had enough removal via weapons that I was able to keep a demolisher alive for many turns and it just kept picking off small paladin creatures. It was pretty good value, that one time.
It feels like creatures often pay some amount of power or toughness to get an ability on them, and then that ability just doesn't do much. Spellpower, windfury, and taunt are some of the big ones. When they work out they do great things, but if you spend 6 mana for a 4/5 windfury and the enemy just trades for it right away you never get to attack twice and you ended up spending 2 more mana than a yeti for just a yeti. That sucks. The 2/2 spellpower guy for 2 can be good when you follow him up with a swipe or something, but if instead he just gets eaten by a 2/3 then he was low value for you.
The first thing to understand as someone who comes from a game like Magic is creatures in Hearthstone are designed to die. Creatures in Magic heal to full at the end of each turn which means it's entirely reasonable to expect a good durable creature to live several turns and eat several cards from the opponent in the process. Creatures in Hearthstone rarely heal, and never automatically. The permanent damage on them means that you play a creature, do some damage with it, and then watch it die.
The end consequence of this is the default assumption for a creature is you're going to trade it for a creature that costs the same amount from your opponent. So the basic idea of value that I'm using is that it's what you expect to have left over after trading with an average card of the same cost from your opponent.
For example, how good is spider tank? It's a 3/4 for 3. If you trade it for a 3/3 taunt guy you get to keep a 3/1 and they keep nothing. That's pretty good! Harvest golem? Spider tank remains as a 3/2, golem leaves behind a 2/1. Tank has the edge here, but if nothing else goes on the 3/2 just trades for the 2/1. Dalaran mage? Spider tank straight up stays as a 3/2 against nothing. Harvest golem stays as a 2/1 and then another 2/1. Even the taunt guy sticks around as a 3/1 taunt. Dalaran mage is terrible under this comparison.
Always comparing with something of the same cost isn't exactly fair. Fighting up or down one in cost is a pretty standard situation too, and it does help to think about those situations. There are also hero powers that can be relevant. Sticking around as a 3/1 is a lot better against a warlock than it is against a mage, for example!
You shouldn't go too crazy with comparing up or down though. Obviously an archmage trades very well with a wisp, but it also costs 7 more mana!
What sort of things are typically found on cards I'd consider to provide high value? Big stats compared to other creatures is a good start. 4/5 yetis for 4 are surprisingly good even when they have no ability. It's just super hard for any creature of equal or lower value to kill a yeti in one round, and similarly hard for one of those creatures to survive a round with the yeti.
The stat mix is also really relevant. You want fairly balanced stats, with toughness actually being better than power most of the time. Lost tallstrider is a 5/4 for 4 and it's actually a lot worse than the 4/5 yeti. The problem is the 5th power tends to be wasted against creatures around the same cost. They don't have 5 toughness, so in a trade the extra power isn't used. Having only 4 toughness increases the number of creatures that will kill it is one shot. Especially against a mage which can tag in an extra damage for 2 mana if they need to do it. But while 4/5 is better than 5/4, 1/8 is not better than 4/5.
The 5th toughness is especially important because of the existence of flamestrike. Having creatures you can play before the mage's turn 7 that live through flamestrike is clutch.
Creatures that are 'sticky' can also provide good value for their cost. Stickiness refers to a creature that generates an extra body in some way after it 'dies'. This can come in the form of divine shield, or a deathrattle effect which generates an extra creature, or even a battlecry which generates an extra creature. The battlecry ones tend to be weaker since mass removal can hit both creatures at the same time, but it is still a potential source of value.
Or maybe it's a creature that generates card advantage in some other way. Maybe it has a good sized body for the cost and lets you draw a card when it comes into play or dies. Or maybe it does some bonus damage at some point. Demolisher is a 1/4 for 3 which is a terrible body, but if it stays in play it gets to do 2 extra damage each turn. It's generally pretty terrible value, but I had one game today where I had enough removal via weapons that I was able to keep a demolisher alive for many turns and it just kept picking off small paladin creatures. It was pretty good value, that one time.
It feels like creatures often pay some amount of power or toughness to get an ability on them, and then that ability just doesn't do much. Spellpower, windfury, and taunt are some of the big ones. When they work out they do great things, but if you spend 6 mana for a 4/5 windfury and the enemy just trades for it right away you never get to attack twice and you ended up spending 2 more mana than a yeti for just a yeti. That sucks. The 2/2 spellpower guy for 2 can be good when you follow him up with a swipe or something, but if instead he just gets eaten by a 2/3 then he was low value for you.
Friday, February 20, 2015
They ALWAYS Have Fiery 'Win' Axe
Watch practically any Hearthstone constructed streamer for very long and you're apt to hear them complain about their warrior opponent playing the 2 casting cost card Fiery War Axe on turn 2. It lets the warrior attack for 3 damage twice, which is a huge setback for most aggressive decks. It makes it tricky to decide what creatures to play early when I have a choice in the matter. Heck, if I knew for sure that they had a fiery war axe then I might even decline to play a creature right away. Especially if I had an unstable portal in my hand. But if they don't have one then leading with a mechwarper is way better...
So I've been wondering... What are the actual odds that they have a fiery war axe in hand to kill my 2 drop? To give them the best chance at having one you'd assume they mulligan away every single card that isn't a fiery war axe. I'm not even sure that's an unreasonable assumption to be honest. It's so much better than any other card they could have early and pretty much ensures they'll get to the mid/late game in order to use their other more powerful cards. Maybe they'd also keep something like armorsmith against a known aggressive deck? This is one of those places where I wish I had the cards to play around with more decks so I could get a feel for what their decisions would actually be like.
If you're going second then you start with the coin and can play your 2 drop on turn 1. This means the warrior gets to look at 3 cards in their initial opening hand, and then 3 cards after they mulligan them all away and 2 draw steps. So they need to whiff on a 3 card hand and then whiff on a 5 card hand. This nets out to them having a 44.4% chance of having a fiery way axe on their turn 2 to use against my mechwarper.
If you're going first then you no longer have the coin and can only play your 2 drop on turn 2. This means they get to look at 4 cards in their opening hand, then 4 more cards and 2 draw steps. So they'd need to whiff on a 4 cards hand and then whiff on a 6 card hand. This nets out to them having a 52.6% chance of having fiery war axe on their turn 2 to use against my mechwarper.
So, does a warrior ALWAYS have fiery win axe? No. No, they really don't. If they have the coin then they're a little bit of a favourite to have one, and if they don't have the coin they're a little bit of a favourite to not have one. Overall they'll only have one a little under half the time.
I can see why it's frustrating though. Personally I've won 58.5% of the time against control warrior with my mech mage deck and my feeling for how that match goes is I win if I get an early rush in, or if I get a stealthed archmage antonidas. And I lose if the game goes long and I don't get infinite fireballs. Them having the war axe means my early rush is almost certainly destined to fail, but when they don't have one, and they don't rate to have one, I get my rush on and get a strong edge. They can stunt me with an armorsmith into a coined death's bite too, so it's not the only determining factor, but I suspect if I'd actually been tracking turn 2 FWAs it would be positively correlated with their chance to win.
So I've been wondering... What are the actual odds that they have a fiery war axe in hand to kill my 2 drop? To give them the best chance at having one you'd assume they mulligan away every single card that isn't a fiery war axe. I'm not even sure that's an unreasonable assumption to be honest. It's so much better than any other card they could have early and pretty much ensures they'll get to the mid/late game in order to use their other more powerful cards. Maybe they'd also keep something like armorsmith against a known aggressive deck? This is one of those places where I wish I had the cards to play around with more decks so I could get a feel for what their decisions would actually be like.
If you're going second then you start with the coin and can play your 2 drop on turn 1. This means the warrior gets to look at 3 cards in their initial opening hand, and then 3 cards after they mulligan them all away and 2 draw steps. So they need to whiff on a 3 card hand and then whiff on a 5 card hand. This nets out to them having a 44.4% chance of having a fiery way axe on their turn 2 to use against my mechwarper.
If you're going first then you no longer have the coin and can only play your 2 drop on turn 2. This means they get to look at 4 cards in their opening hand, then 4 more cards and 2 draw steps. So they'd need to whiff on a 4 cards hand and then whiff on a 6 card hand. This nets out to them having a 52.6% chance of having fiery war axe on their turn 2 to use against my mechwarper.
So, does a warrior ALWAYS have fiery win axe? No. No, they really don't. If they have the coin then they're a little bit of a favourite to have one, and if they don't have the coin they're a little bit of a favourite to not have one. Overall they'll only have one a little under half the time.
I can see why it's frustrating though. Personally I've won 58.5% of the time against control warrior with my mech mage deck and my feeling for how that match goes is I win if I get an early rush in, or if I get a stealthed archmage antonidas. And I lose if the game goes long and I don't get infinite fireballs. Them having the war axe means my early rush is almost certainly destined to fail, but when they don't have one, and they don't rate to have one, I get my rush on and get a strong edge. They can stunt me with an armorsmith into a coined death's bite too, so it's not the only determining factor, but I suspect if I'd actually been tracking turn 2 FWAs it would be positively correlated with their chance to win.
Thursday, February 19, 2015
Hearthstone: Spectating
An interesting feature of the Hearthstone client that I stumbled on last week is the ability to spectate games being played by people on your friends list. It turns out this lets you watch their game, in real time, including being able to see the cards in their hand. It even lets you see their mulligan decision if you start spectating fast enough.
This is a really useful learning tool, for both people. It lets the spectator see what decisions the player is making in terms of cards to play and whatnot. It lets the player ask for suggestions from the spectator without needing to provide extra information about game state. It's especially useful when using an external voice chat program like Skype.
I used this one time with Sceadeau as he asked me for some quick tips on arenaing. Being forced to explain why I would do what I do certainly helped him out, but it also helps me out too because it gives me a chance to figure out why I do what I do. Being questioned gives me a chance to reinforce my choices as right ones, or it gives me an opportunity to fix a leak in my game I didn't know existed. Win-win!
I don't have many Battle.net friends after my adventures with being hacked late last year. My tag is Ziggyny#1233 if anyone wants to add me.
This is a really useful learning tool, for both people. It lets the spectator see what decisions the player is making in terms of cards to play and whatnot. It lets the player ask for suggestions from the spectator without needing to provide extra information about game state. It's especially useful when using an external voice chat program like Skype.
I used this one time with Sceadeau as he asked me for some quick tips on arenaing. Being forced to explain why I would do what I do certainly helped him out, but it also helps me out too because it gives me a chance to figure out why I do what I do. Being questioned gives me a chance to reinforce my choices as right ones, or it gives me an opportunity to fix a leak in my game I didn't know existed. Win-win!
I don't have many Battle.net friends after my adventures with being hacked late last year. My tag is Ziggyny#1233 if anyone wants to add me.
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Hearthstone: Revising 'To Legend' Numbers
Sthenno pointed out that starting my simulation off at 0 stars isn't terribly realistic, especially now that I'm actually at legend this month. When the ladder resets for the next month you don't get set back to the very bottom of the ladder. Instead you get to start with a number of stars equal to the number of ranks you gained in the previous month. This means that I'll start off at 25 stars next season instead of at 0 and will therefore only need to gain 71 stars to hit legend.
Now, this isn't quite as good as it seems. The first 10 stars are practically free in that losses don't cost you stars down at that level. The last 26 stars are harder to get because the '3 wins in a row' bonus is removed at that point. So you're shaving off easy stars and still have the big slog at the end, but it should still make things a little faster. But how much faster?
I'm on my real computer now so I bumped the size of my spreadsheet up to a million runs, coded it to start with 25 stars, and set it running. Check the same things I checked last time, which was the minimum win percentage to guarantee legend in X games... (I checked both just the first 100k and all million and the numbers were the same.)
1700 games - was 52%, is now 52%
850 games - was 54%, is now 54%
567 games - was 56%, is now 55%
So not a whole lot of change, actually. But I'm now more wondering the inverse of what I'd been checking. With a given win percentage, what is the most games it took to hit legend? Average? I mostly care about the range around 50%, and anyone who didn't hit legend at all is counted as hitting it in 5000 games just because of the way I set things up. So averages close to 5k were mostly people who didn't hit legend at all.
45% - 1428 min, 4990 average
46% - 1035 min, 4922 average
47% - 809 min, 4522 average
48% - 718 min, 3482 average
49% - 606 min, 2228 average
50% - 502 min, 1418 average
51% - 459 min, 985 average
52% - 417 min, 733 average
53% - 353 min, 583 average
54% - 305 min, 484 average
55% - 280 min, 412 average
56% - 251 min, 360 average
57% - 241 min, 319 average
58% - 221 min, 286 average
59% - 206 min, 260 average
60% - 189 min, 238 average
61% - 174 min, 219 average
62% - 164 min, 203 average
Basically it really feels like 54% win rate is a good target. Find the fastest deck that wins about that much and you're good to go. Slowing down to eke out a slightly higher win rate isn't likely to be worth it. Speeding up by losing more often than that is probably too big a hit to your actual speed to legend, especially if you're far away from the minimum values.
Now, this isn't quite as good as it seems. The first 10 stars are practically free in that losses don't cost you stars down at that level. The last 26 stars are harder to get because the '3 wins in a row' bonus is removed at that point. So you're shaving off easy stars and still have the big slog at the end, but it should still make things a little faster. But how much faster?
I'm on my real computer now so I bumped the size of my spreadsheet up to a million runs, coded it to start with 25 stars, and set it running. Check the same things I checked last time, which was the minimum win percentage to guarantee legend in X games... (I checked both just the first 100k and all million and the numbers were the same.)
1700 games - was 52%, is now 52%
850 games - was 54%, is now 54%
567 games - was 56%, is now 55%
So not a whole lot of change, actually. But I'm now more wondering the inverse of what I'd been checking. With a given win percentage, what is the most games it took to hit legend? Average? I mostly care about the range around 50%, and anyone who didn't hit legend at all is counted as hitting it in 5000 games just because of the way I set things up. So averages close to 5k were mostly people who didn't hit legend at all.
45% - 1428 min, 4990 average
46% - 1035 min, 4922 average
47% - 809 min, 4522 average
48% - 718 min, 3482 average
49% - 606 min, 2228 average
50% - 502 min, 1418 average
51% - 459 min, 985 average
52% - 417 min, 733 average
53% - 353 min, 583 average
54% - 305 min, 484 average
55% - 280 min, 412 average
56% - 251 min, 360 average
57% - 241 min, 319 average
58% - 221 min, 286 average
59% - 206 min, 260 average
60% - 189 min, 238 average
61% - 174 min, 219 average
62% - 164 min, 203 average
Basically it really feels like 54% win rate is a good target. Find the fastest deck that wins about that much and you're good to go. Slowing down to eke out a slightly higher win rate isn't likely to be worth it. Speeding up by losing more often than that is probably too big a hit to your actual speed to legend, especially if you're far away from the minimum values.
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