Many Hearthstone players are probably slapping themselves right now, as they have fallen victim to a troll. The prank has cost them large amounts of Arcane Dust.
Shortly after the release of a new addon for Hearthstone, many players search the internet for the decks of professional players to recreate them. This was also the case with the latest expansion Kobolds and Catacombs.
This very circumstance was used by users from 4chan to troll the members of hearthpwn, a large Hearthstone community site. They assumed that “you could give the users there any garbage deck, and they would recreate it as long as you mentioned the name of a big player first.”
And that’s exactly what happened: They created the deck “Kolento Oakheart Armor/Control Warrior” and abused the name of Kolento for that purpose. He is one of the recognized best Hearthstone players in the world.
The trolls claimed that the deck has a win rate of 69%. The people from 4chan then created multiple accounts and rated the created deck positively.
Users fell for it in droves and created the deck, which had Arcane Dust costs of 9080, making it relatively expensive. The fact that the card composition didn’t result in a meaningful deck escaped many users, who simply oriented themselves with the keyword “Kolento” and blindly recreated what the database provided.
4chan Deck Turns Out to Be a Brazen Troll
Even without professional knowledge, one could have discovered the fake, as the most popular comments gave extremely dubious advice: “Against aggro decks, you should Just try it best play it in round 2!” Not helpful advice, as this reduces the mana cost of the opponent’s minions – which accelerates one’s own demise against an aggro deck.
Even some YouTubers fell for the deck and stated that it “would really shake up the meta of Hearthstone” and that it “was one of the most interesting decks they had seen so far.”
The internet community of 4chan is viewed critically by many. Often, many thousands of players use the “swarm intelligence” here to pursue various goals, ranging from “quite noble,” like solving crimes, to “extremely questionable,” like these troll actions.
In the meantime, the deck name has been changed, and the “Kolento” has been removed from it. However, 4chan has already caused damage.
Cortyn says: As sorry as I am for the players who have now squandered 9080 Arcane Dust, I had to grin when I heard about it. This aligns with my experience that many players simply search for the decks of professionals and recreate them without considering the sense and nonsense of the cards themselves. Therefore, one can only say here: Well played, 4chan, well played.
What do you think of this trolling from 4chan? A pesky thing for everyone who just wanted to get a good deck? Or a clever prank to hold a mirror up to the Hearthstone community?
Have you seen our 5 favorite cards from Kobolds and Catacombs?
