cant get past 250 to save my life

[Heidrek Rampant]

IMHO the most important factor is being able to read your opponents strategy. Most decks have answers to common win conditions, but knowing what cards in your hand you can resource and which you need to keep as future answers is key. Most games come down to a key turn where one player doesn't have an answer to his opponents plays and from there is spirals down hill fast.

Resourcing the wrong card is often the difference between a win and loss. That and playing a deck your opponent finds it hard to predict in turn.

[JamesT]

IMHO the most important factor is being able to read your opponents strategy. Most decks have answers to common win conditions, but knowing what cards in your hand you can resource and which you need to keep as future answers is key. Most games come down to a key turn where one player doesn't have an answer to his opponents plays and from there is spirals down hill fast.

Resourcing the wrong card is often the difference between a win and loss. That and playing a deck your opponent finds it hard to predict in turn.

Doesn't that make a card like Wulven Scout invaluable? Obviously it's critical first to know decks and what is commonly played by each Hero, and you can't account for what is picked up in your opponent's next turn or after necessarily, but even so, it seems to be a huge advantage.

[bobrossw]

That and playing a deck your opponent finds it hard to predict in turn.

For me, playing control decks, this is especially important (predicting opponent's deck). It winds up being very hard for me to play rogue at the beginning of the season, when my rank is relatively low. The issue is that the highest ranked decks either are well rounded, or have a powerful and popular strategy that I can build a counter to into my deck. When I play against lower ranked decks, occasionally they use a weird strategy that I couldn't predict, and so they get an edge. Other times their strategy is actually very strong against me, but won't ever get popular enough for me to bother changing my deck, since it is very weak against other popular decks (for example some decks have a very hard time vs Embers Jericho, others can beat it easily).

This season, I used Victor to rank up because I really could not win consistently enough as Serena at the lower ranks. It wasn't until I hit 290 and started consistently playing people ranked 250+ that I could really start to succeed with Serena. Victor is more consistent and well-rounded, and doesn't require specific counters to succeed vs weird decks, so it was much easier to rank up as him. So one thing to consider when seeking to rank up is what style of deck are you playing, and is there a way you could play a similar style with a more generally powerful deck until you get to the higher ranks where the meta is more consistent and easier to read/predict.

[bobrossw]

Doesn't that make a card like Wulven Scout invaluable? Obviously it's critical first to know decks and what is commonly played by each Hero, and you can't account for what is picked up in your opponent's next turn or after necessarily, but even so, it seems to be a huge advantage.

that depends on how good you are at guessing. The advantages to playing Wulven Scout over (for example) Wulven Predator, has to do with the difference between your ability to predict the opponent's plays and what they actually play. If the difference isn't that big, or if the only times you fail to predict their moves is when they make mistakes or are unlucky (so it doesn't matter that you failed to predict them) then Scout doesn't add much and Predator winds up being much stronger. There are of course specific circumstances where knowing that you could sacrifice certain cards or that the opponent was not holding a tidal wave would be very helpful.

[JamesT]

that depends on how good you are at guessing. The advantages to playing Wulven Scout over (for example) Wulven Predator, has to do with the difference between your ability to predict the opponent's plays and what they actually play. If the difference isn't that big, or if the only times you fail to predict their moves is when they make mistakes or are unlucky (so it doesn't matter that you failed to predict them) then Scout doesn't add much and Predator winds up being much stronger. There are of course specific circumstances where knowing that you could sacrifice certain cards or that the opponent was not holding a tidal wave would be very helpful.

That makes sense. I think while just learning the game, and not understanding the meta too well, that Scout would help considerably.

As I'm playing around with decks I almost feel like picking an obvious theme or grouping, say Templars for example, is a bad idea. I kinda think that any seasoned player can see what you're running after a few plays and know exactly how to deal with you. Am I overthinking things?

[bobrossw]

As I'm playing around with decks I almost feel like picking an obvious theme or grouping, say Templars for example, is a bad idea. I kinda think that any seasoned player can see what you're running after a few plays and know exactly how to deal with you. Am I overthinking things?

That can be sort of true, but some of the strongest decks (rush Loest, discard Zaladar) are extremely predictable, but they're also very strong. When you get to the stage where you can predict your opponents consistently, you'll start to notice other little nuances. You predict that a priest will want to play a turn 5 tidal wave, so you refrain from playing a third ally. They in turn understand that you're holding back allies and they may try to build up the board instead of playing that tidal wave (until you really pressure them). Then your job becomes to scare them into using the tidal wave by putting just enough pressure, while still being able to follow up your other allies with a strong post-tidal wave play. That's really when the game starts getting interesting and fun, and it doesn't require having a totally unique or odd deck.