One Hell of a Journey

Hearthstone is as addicting as it is challenging. I have been playing this game for like nine months and I've been in a quest to reach this Legen Rank where the cream of the crop in this game rest. Naturally, the quest went to no avail for a long time.

Until Now.

Now I'm a Legendary Player with Legendary card sleeve to show it off.

How do I feel, you ask? Well, at first I felt satisfied. Then, I feel relieved, because I've been playing like 8-10 hours every day in a week before I reach Legend. Then, I started to question whether it was true. Did I really reached Legend? Did my opponent just conceded to me that game? Well, I look at my Tab again and the Legend Rank remains. It was all true.

However, after reaching Legend, for some reasons I loss the motivation to hone my skill anymore. I started to play janky combo deck like Worgen OTK Warrior and Aggro Freeze Mage. Got some crazy moment here and there like when my opponent played Malkorok and accidentally equipped Cursed Blade. This unfortunate event allowed me to play Raging Worgen, Charge, and Inner Rage to deal 32 damage to his face, even without Faceless Manipulator. But overall, the deck got beaten up and I found my rank dropping down significantly. 

Still, I was already in the sky of Legend Rank and it appears that I can't fall anymore to the mortal ground which was Hearthstone Ladder. Thank God.

So now that I have rant some shit about Legend Rank, I think it is time for me to rant about my journey to get there. I started Season 26 with knowledge that Shaman is the best class.Therefore, I started up by crafting all of the worthy Shaman cards. I made Face Shaman, Tempo Shaman (my own brew using Unbound Elemental and Fireguard Destroyer), Totem Shaman, and ended up with Midrange Shaman (less Totem synergy, more board control stuffs). With some winning streak bonus, the deck was able to bring me to Rank 5 on the second week. It is at that time that I found myself being stopped by a huge brick wall.

If you have read my previous post or you have been grinding Hearthstone Ladder for a long time, then you know how frustrating it is to climb the ladder past Rank 5. There is no longer bonus for a winning streak. The opponents are all very skillful and they were using real decks. THe most terrifying of all is that the metagame will always shift constantly. One day you'll face a lot of Shaman and the next day Zoo and who knows what next day will bring. It is a complete chaos and you are expected to win 25 games consecutively. That is asking a lot.

The best way to reach Legend from Rank 5 is to maintain a pace of winning two games, losing one game, winning two games, and so on. It means that you will need a deck that can win 2 out of 3 games or what people say a ±75% win rate deck. However, finding out that deck proves to be really hard. I tried Zoo, Midrange Shaman, and Midrange Hunter Simultaneously. All of them only managed to get me a glimpse of Rank 4 before finally knock me down to Rank 7. It was so depressing.

So I start to do another thing besides playing Hearthstone, which was watching people playing Hearthstone (lol). Some decks made by popular streamer interests me, but I simply don't have enough dust to craft them (I'm playing F2P by the way). But then, I stumbled into Amaz' Control Warrior list which looked and played awesome and realized that I was only missing a Ragnaros.

Now let me tell you one thing, Control Warrior is a deck that I hold very dear. It is a deck that I always want to play ever since I watch Trump playing it in a tournament. It is as classic as a deck that you can get in Hearthstone. They called it, the deck that stood the test of time. And don't even get me on Control Mirror of Hearthstone, because they looked beautiful. The way that each player baited up opposing player's threat and removal, the way that each player tries to force the other player to draw into fatigue, the branch of decision, the stalemate, the unshakable patience. Control mirror in Hearthstone is close to an art and is the best thing that could happen in Hearthstone. I really really want to master that, which is why I have been slowly gather my dust to craft this 13,000+ deck.

So when the opportunity to kickass with Control Warrior arise and I only need one more card to do it, it didn't take long for me to dust all of my unworthy Legends and Golden Epics to craft the Firelord. Boy was it worthed.

The deck kicked a lot of asses. Getting me winning streak from Rank 5 to Rank 3 then slowed down a bit, but managed to get me into Rank 2 (which was an unfamiliar territory for me since the highest Rank I've ever get before that was only 3), and finally sneaked me up to Rank 1. I was like, fuck, the deck is so strong, noone can stop me now, aaaaand it's gone. The charm, the flow, or whatever it was that guide me to Rank 1 in an instant was gone. The deck started to waver and I was knocked back to Rank 2 before winning a single game in Rank 1, then to Rank 3 not long after, and finally back to Rank 4. 

I don't know what the fuck was happened. Perhaps the metagame changed, perhaps the player getting better, or perhaps I was just playing badly. Nevertheless, felt like Control Warrior can't bring me to Legend like I hope it to be. So I started to play another deck which have failed me before. Obviously, nothing changed. All of the Midrange deck I played are just to inconsistent and can get beaten up easily when it failed to curved out. About Zoo, I just don't know how to win with that deck. The deck just want to swarm the board and hope that the opponent won't have AOE removal. Then there is Face Shaman, which simply can't win without Doomhammer. There is nothing more depressing than playing Doomhammer only to get it shipped to a museum instantly by that dirty Harrison Jones. 

It was too unbearable for me to see my Rank keep falling down. It felt so depressing, to a moment that I feel like I don't want to play anymore. So I decided to walk away from the ladder for a while. At that time, I was on Rank 5 with no star, so far from Legend.

I decided to read Hearthstone Players' guide to become a legend to find what was lacking from my Legend Run. I mean, I got a decent deck and I'm not some half-ass player, I really wonder what was lacking from my run. And there I found the answer. One simple answer that will allow me to change the tide of this quest. An answer so simple but speaks so loud as if trying to remind me of something important that I have forgotten:

"You need to take the journey seriously!"

Yes, I got it now. I've never took this Legend run seriously after all. Whenever I played in the ladder, I will turn on the TV to watch some HBOs or I will turn on my laptop and watch some stream. I realized that I have never been really focused on playing this game all this time. So I began to make a radical change in doing the Legend run. I treat it the same as playtesting for a Magic or Yugioh Tournament, which means that there will be no distraction and that I will record every game that I play.

The purpose of recording my game is twofold. First is to be able to paint a big picture of the metagame. With knowledge of the metagame, I will be able to choose the right deck to go on the campaign with some techs devised to combat the metagame. Second, I will be able to recognize the performance of my deck, making sure that I did not choose the wrong deck. It was with that in mind that I picked a notebook to carry everywhere in order to record my game whenever and wherever I played.

Quite crafty of me, I'd say

When I get back to the Ladder again, I tried to remember what opponent that I was playing against yesterday. Ultimately, it was Zoolock, Shaman of various type, and Midrange Hunter. I believed that Control Warrior should be good against Zoolock and Shaman with its board wipe and life gain although it will be trashed by Hunter's deathrattle minions and burst damage. Still, if I can win two games against Zoo and Shaman then lose one game to Hunter, I should be able to reach Legend in no time. 

With renown spirit, I brought my Control Warrior to Legend and managed to post a strong 10-0 performance to put me at rank 3. The metagame was as I expected, a lot of Shaman and Zoo that I crushed so swiftly. I believed that was because on the last day of the season, the metagame will usually settle in. But then, some Hunters started to appear and awarded me some lost here and there. The thing about Midrange Hunter is that their threat are so hard to deal with and they will leave collateral damage to your face. With the nature of Hunter's hero power, aided by Kill Command and stuffs, every damage you take will start to add up and kill you. Unfortunately, Control Warrior doesn't have enough life burst to pull away from the situation where Hunter can just kill you by clicking his Hero Power. Thankfully, I wasn't enrolled with Hunter more than Zoo and Shaman combined so I still manage to get some score to rank up. 

My matchup against Control deck was terrible at first, but I learned quickly. Especially after Rank 2, where Control deck seems to be more popular than ever. In order to counter the surge of Control deck, I put the second copy of Bash to get some reach. It works wonder, especially against Control Paladin who thought that they were safe at 6 health after they kill my Grommash. Some crazy shit happened during Control Warrior mirror when my opponent and I both played Golden and Monkey and both of us got a Yogg-Saron. It was crazy as shit. Spells are slinging everywhere, blood was shed, the world was at chaos (but noone got Sprint, fortunately). In the end, I was lost because he played his Justicarr earlier and manage to accumulate a gigantic amount of health to survive the fatigue. 

In the end, though, I was able to get back to Rank 1 and this time, managed to stay. With sheer strenght, I forced myself into the 3-star area of Rank 1 where the real fight begun. It was only two days before the season ends and it was already two O'clock in the morning (I have to work in the next day, mind you). I had to use all of my reserved enery but the result was still back and forth between four stars and three stars. 

But then, I fight against Shaman, which is supposed to be a good matchup, but somehow I got screwed by not drawing any board wipe for his board of Totems which led me to get killed by Bloodlust. After that, I fight against Miracle Rogue that I have grinded to dust but somehow they managed to discover Anubarak from Journey Below. With no threat to pressure my opponent, I was forced to deal with Anubarak which is impossible. So I was dropped into two stars and I said that it was enough. If I continued any longer, my mental will break. So I slept and in my dream I was Garrosh rampaging lands while riding on a Huffer. It was an absurd dream.

On the next day, I played Hearthstone while having my breakfast and I also played it while driving my car to work (try this at your own risk). I keep on trying to push to Legend with the remaining time but this pesky Hunter keep showing up. Curses! So I went back and forth again between three stars and four stars until a miracle occured. I was at four stars and was about to search for my opponent. However, the loading took so long so I decided to restart the game.

I thought to myself, could it be possible that when I returned to the game I will be at five stars? I heard Kibler got his Legend this season in that manner. Nah, no way I was that lucky, right? Right? Aand it was there. Five Stars. My opponent has just given me free star. What a generous person. Oh my God.

With only one more win that separated me with Legend Rank, I can only pray in my mind that I will be playing against Zoo. I said, please let it be Zoo. Please let them have a slow start and please let me have all of the Fiery War Aze, Doomsayer, and Ravaging Ghoul. And you know what? God listens to those who worked hard. My last opponent before Legend appeared to be Warlock which only mulled one card (If Warlock mulligans many cards, most likely they are Handlock, but if they mulligan few card, most likely they are Zoolock). Obviously, my opponent was playing Zoo. You know what was my opening hand looked like? Double Fiery War Axe and Doomsayer. Unbelievable.

For the love of God, I decimated that game. All of my opponent's minion? Dead! All of their cards? Gone! Finally on turn 5, my opponent decided to play Forbidden Ritual (a strong sign that the Zoo player no longer has small minions) which I responded swiftly by playing Ravaging Ghoul. At that point, I know really well that the game was within my grasp. My heart was pounding really hard in anticipation of the long awaited. Then my opponent concede the game.

My opponent fucking concede. On turn 5 no less.

I reached Legend.

What. The. Fuck.

What the fuck! I reached Legend now? Fuck yeah!! All of those hard work. All of those time. It finally paid off. I can't believe it and blablablablablabla.

Yep, I guess you've already know what happened next. In sort, the journey to reach Legend is really hard and one who walked on this path should not take it lightly. It was only through hardship and patience that I managed to reach my destination. Not to mention, I reached it while using Control Warrior, the epitome of patience in Hearthstone where a game can last up to 30 minutes. Looking at my notebook, I have been playing 99 games with Control Warrior from Rank 5 with final record of 61-38 or 62% win rate. Not really the best deck to get to Legend, but I did it anyway, and I can't be more proud to choose Control Warrior as the deck that I trust to bring me to Legend.

It was one hell of a journey.

P.S.: I'll probably write a guide to play Control Warrior, so stay tune if you were interested!