The Time I Bad Mannered Forsen in Hearthstone

this is a story about designing a path to victory

and understanding how parts make a greater whole

..

PS: I’ll explain what you need to understand

PPS: If I don’t explain it, it’s not that important to understanding the point

so this was season 1 of Hearthstone in 2015

Blackrock had been released

but the Grand Tournament hadn’t

….

I was playing a Paladin deck with an incredible curve

my friend made it, he was legendary (in every card game ever)

except i had put two more cards in

Hogger was the first

Hogger is bad

because he has crap stats for his cost (6 mana to 4/4 is badddd)

and has to survive for two turns to be worth the mana cost (4/4 + 2/2 + 2/2)

it’s a card you play if you’re already winning

and you want style points

..

Hogger is theoretically good if you already have a powerful taunt otb1

even so, a lot of spells can toast a 4/4 (foreshadowing)

Forsen was playing a warlock deck

I’m trying to remember the meta back then

….

doesn’t matter really

it was a tempo deck, and it failed to establish tempo

tempo decks want to take control early because they have a weaker late game

the basic tenor of the game

was that I drew a good curve (not perfect, but more than decent)

and was able to constantly trade him off the board

and then I dropped Sylvanas on an empty board

even though 6 mana for a 5/5 is meh

she is a super high value card, since she will steal an opponent’s minion on death

if you’re playing against a Sylvanas

you want to empty the board and kill her with a spell

or make sure she only steals a low value minion

….

he dropped something with 4 attack, can’t remember what

so then I played Troggdor

and then traded my Sylvanas into his unit (leaving her with one health)

he wants to use a warlock spell that deals two damage to kill her (and I know this)

so I’m like “do it and gimme a free unit!”

..

Troggdor is the other card I added to the deck

because Troggdor makes Hogger a lot stronger

and vice versa

so he uses his spell (Demonfire) and kills Sylvanas

he has no minions otb, so she steals nothing

but Troggdor spawns a trogg (3/5)

anyways he plays an 6 mana cost neutral minion

and then I play Tirion

so I have Troggdor (who spawns Rockjaws whenever Forsen casts a spell)

and Tirion (shield = complete immunity to 1st source of damage)

(meaning he wants to break the shield with a low cost spell or low value minion)

oh and Tirion has a taunt

…

Forsen has one unit on the board, and it isn’t Sylvanas

so my Troggdor and Rockjaw attack

his unit blocks the Rockjaw (killing it)

and Forsen takes Troggdor’s damage to the face

…

i know his deck has a Sylvanas because everyone’s did

but he still hasn’t drawn it

it’s honestly the only thing that could save him at this point

….

again, I can’t remember what he played, it was a 7 or 8 mana neutral

it doesn’t matter

he attacks with his existing unit, Troggdor kills it, but is down to 1 health

and then I play Hogger and use my hero ability to spawn a 1/1

….

….

if you’re still reading and know nothing about Hearthstone

I wanna party with you someday

..

look at this strategically

I have a legendary that spawns a 3/5 unit when Forsen casts a spell

I have a legendary that spawns 2/2 taunt units every turn

and I have Tirion, with his shield and taunt and death rattle weapon

in other words

Forsen is dead

….

it was really funny watching the video after

because I bad mannered him

a turn later, I cast that on him (he gets the health, I draw the 3 cards)

it was really funny because he didn’t recognize it as bad manners at first

he was like “oh, she’s at 28 health, does she have to cast it on me?”

(30 is max health, but I could have cast it on myself to go back to 30)

and was puzzled

and then someone in his chat went “she’s [forking] with you”2

..

so Forsen just sat there for a few seconds

and didn’t speak to chat the rest of the game

(he was dead in three turns, he was playing a tempo deck and didn’t have tools to fix this sort of situation)

…

my gamertag at the time was “Tennessee”

if anyone cares enough to plumb Forsen’s stream from like, 8 years ago?