In the first part of this guide, we talked about getting familiar with the game, constructing your first deck, and crafting your first cards. In this second part, I’ve put together some thoughts on working your way up the standard Ranked ladder and how to measure your deck’s success. Throughout this series, I refer to my main Warlock as the primary example, as it’s the deck that I was able to hit Rank 1 with. You can check out the decklist here.

4. Climbing the Ranks

There’s no surefire way to figure out at what point a deck is ready for Ranked play. My personal trigger was when I’d played about a hundred games in Casual mode, which seemed like enough time to get a general feel for the cards and the overall playing environment. You’ll learn faster if you jump off the deep end, so I wouldn’t spend too much time stuffing around in Casual if you can help it. (After all, you lose nothing but anonymous pride when you get your ass kicked in Ranked, so why wait?)

But first, some context: the Hearthstone Ranked Play ladder has 25 tiers, beginning from Rank 25 and extending all the way to Rank 1. Beyond Rank 1, there’s a Legendary ladder for elite players, but for now let’s concentrate on getting to the top of the standard ladder first. I’ve personally found that getting out of the first tier (Rank 25: the Angry Chicken) is sometimes harder than climbing from 24 to 20. Rank 25 represents everyone who hasn’t played any ranked games before, including hardcore players using a second account, arena players who only played casual till now, and probably the occassional random grandma, so don’t be discouraged if you click Play and instantly get your ass kicked.

Second, be aware that climbing from Ranks 25 to 5 is more a function of time than pure, unadulterated skill. The reason is that every time you win more than 2 consecutive games, you get a win streak bonus that makes your next victory count as two. In contrast, there’s no losing-streak penalty, so even if you lost 5 games in a row, Hearthstone still only records 1 loss a piece. In other words, even with a flat 50-50 win rate, you will continue to slowly climb the Ranked ladder because eventually the win streak bonuses will carry you through. Unfortunately, the fun and games end once you cross the 5th Rank threshold, because bonuses are no longer given out. Every loss will cancel out every win, so you will definitely need to have a higher than 50% win rate if you want to progress any further than that.

Here’s what my daily ladder workflow looked like:

Initially, I would warm up with my current deck on Casual Play mode, just to remind myself how the deck operates. I’d usually play 2-3 games this way before playing Ranked. Then I would record every win and every loss using Hearthstats.net to see whether the small adjustments I was making were causing my winrate to rise or fall.

5. Tracking Your Results

In the startup business world, there’s an old saying that you “can’t manage what you can’t measure.” In the Hearthstone world, that means that you need statistics to support your deck design choices.

It may sound tedious to have to alt-tab to your browser after every game, but it only takes 5 seconds and you’ll really appreciate the output once you’ve compiled a few dozen games. (Alternately, you could have the mobile browser on your phone open beside you, which saves you from the window-switching.)

I’m not as hardcore about bookkeeping as some of the pros, but when I look at my JohnLock win-rate above, there are some obvious matchups where it doesn’t perform quite as strongly. My mirror matchup stats (Warlock vs Warlock) is especially troubling, since it’s only at 51%. That implies that my deck (or perhaps, my skill as a player/deck builder) is only a tiny smidgen better than any random Warlock player on the Internet. Incidentally, my second worst matchup is Rogue, which is probably due to the fact that Rogue decks pack so much small removal that it makes it very hard for me to keep any minions on the board.

(I won’t comment on the Hunter games, as I don’t think 10 games is enough statistical data to be indicative of anything. Also, since I hit Hunters less than 3% of the time, it’s inefficient to try to design against them. Hopefully this will change soon, but that was the metagame that I personally observed during my first climb.)

**As an important addendum, please be aware that this article was written prior to a series of rather huge nerfs to Warlock and Mage cards, specifically Blood Imp and Pyroblast. As such, the accuracy of the stats above are not only specific to me as a player, but also sadly no longer representative of the average Warlock deck.

6. Improving Your Deck

So, what do you do with this information as you compile it?

It mostly depends on your available card pool, but also on your personal deck-building style. This is the part that I love most about Hearthstone, and collectible card games in general. As you get better and better, you’ll start to notice these small flourishes that experienced players will add to their decks the way an expert chef adds a rare herb to give a dish a more unique taste. There are certainly a plethora of decklists available online that you can copy card-for-card, but adding a dash of your own ideas into it is what gives this game an infinite strategic depth. As you get even better, you’ll start thinking about designing completely original deck concepts, not just throwing in a few interesting ingredients.

Initially, I would recommend sticking closely to the decklists that you’re cribbing from, of course. You won’t have enough experience to really know which cards are better than others, so only make substitutions when the card in question isn’t available to you. I would also recommend reading up on the background of the list that you’re following. Finding out the ranks that the author played it at are especially important, because the metagame can vary wildly depending on where on the ladder a player is sitting. For example, as I moved higher and higher up the ladder, having multiple ways to break taunter walls became more important, as the amount of defensive control decks (Druids, Paladins, and even other Warlocks) were stifling.

Also, be aware that there is a marked difference between losing a game because your deck didn’t have the right cards, and because you just didn’t draw the right cards. There is a measure of randomness in card games that will inevitably have some effect on your win-rate, so don’t be discouraged just because your deck lost 3 in a row. In most cases, you need to play at least a hundred or so games before you can really decide whether a deck concept truly isn’t worth pursuing. (Some concepts are harder to nail down than others of course. Your Murlock deck probably isn’t one of those types though.)

7. Just Keep Playing

Although Hearthstone only has a card pool of 300 some odd cards, it’ll take awhile before you can become really familiar with how everything works, and how the various cards interact with each other. Don’t forget that every competitive game will require a lot of time to get really good at, and enjoying yourself is just as important a strategy as any other.