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Hearthstone: Because what Magic really needed was F2P mechanics

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I think this is beneficial for the (fairly significant number of) people who have been telling me they'd happily play Hearthstone, but just feel really behind on actual collecting cards.

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This was inevitable. They couldn't (1) "safely" continue to add and change card mechanics on top of card mechanics or (2) ever expect to get new players ever again if they didn't start obsoleting cards.

 

And you can't start obsoleting cards without pissing off people who played/payed for them, even if you give people a legacy format.

 

Unfortunately, this system is particularly unappealing to the very specific group that I'm a part of: I played Hearthstone through Nax and GvG but stopped right there. So for me, the cards being obsoleted are very specifically the cards I actually have. So my chances of getting back into Hearthstone (which I've considered) have dropped significantly.

 

The removing adventures from sale entirely part just seems bad, actually bad.

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I still find the whole thing a bit confusing as to what is actually going to happen. Wild is just the game as normal and Standard will eventually be restricted decks, right? So doesn't that mean that everyone who wants to play as now can just play Wild? 

 

I actually kind of like the idea as it will give me a chance to try out completely different decks at the same time. I mean as dium said removing the adventures from sale just seems silly to me. I mean maybe people don't want to pay for them if they won't add cards to their collection, but removing them from the game seems crazy. Why not just leave them in? 

 

Anyway, what kind of decks have you guys been playing recently? What kind of decks have you come up against a lot. I've been playing my trusty old Tempo Mage and got to rank 9 last season. I switched to the Reno Lock which was a hell of a lot of fun but would often lose out to crazy aggro decks like Secret Pala. I've played lots of the usual Combo Druids/Secret Palas/Face Hunters and it's amazing to me that aggro is still so prevalent. I mean I understand why it is, but how are there 3 of the most popular decks focused around aggro? That's not even including Murloc Pala or Aggro Shaman. I guess I'm just bitter. Or salty as the kids say. 

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Yes, people can still play Wild but Blizzard will emphasize Standard as the main way to play for new players and all official sponsored tournaments will be in Standard, so it's likely that streamers and pro players will be playing Standard and it will become the norm.

 

I think most people who've stuck with the game, myself included, are still happy with the change because it will shake up the way the game is played in Standard significantly. We're already the audience that buys into every new expansion and this will actually make some of the cards we've bought that were "useless" before more viable in the new format. I will miss some of the cards rotating out, but I'm also kind of sick of seeing some of those cards as well. 

 

dium is in the position that most of their cards will be useless in Standard and they're also probably missing many of the cards that would make a viable Wild deck. Although many people consider Naxx and GvG to be the highest power level expansions at this point, so they probably contain many of the cards you'll need for a Wild deck and their removal will significantly change Standard. The best time to get back into Hearthstone if you ever want to do so in the future will be when the first expansion of the year comes out and Standard shifts, even if it obsoletes all your cards you'll still be at a more even playing field now if you buy into just that latest expansion with everyone else.

 

I do think they'll put the adventure back up for sale at some point, they just should have figured out how they're going to do that ahead of time. 

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I've played the game on and off basically since release, but without spending any money. Unlocking things purely through playing was always a slow process, gotta make buying packs appealing after all, but even if I could never get all the flashiest cards this way, it still generally felt like if I stuck with the game long enough I could eventually build just the deck I would like. Which, by the time I really got it together, probably wouldn't be competitive at all anymore. But at least I could still play it for giggles, or cut a few corners, or cobble something halfway decent together from all the disjointed parts in my collection.

 

This change just makes it feel impossible to ever keep up. Either I resign myself to only playing Wild, which might become this weird side affair for complete lords that own every card in the world, or I resign myself to slowly building up new collections all the time that I eventually lose access to.

 

I might not be the kind of player that makes Blizzard filthy rich, but it's still kinda important for them to keep people like myself around, to keep the environment healthy: keep matchmaking times short, give all those big spenders some dillweeds to stomp with their legendaries, that sorta thing. I wonder if this move is going to work out for them.

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I had the craziest Tavern Brawl game, (for context the current tavern brawl is both players have 30 Raven Idols. 1 mana, choose to discover a minion or discover a spell). My opponent was a Hunter who early game played Brann + Gelbin Mekkatorque and summoned two 0/3 Repair Bots that heal a random target for 6 at end of turn which made for an interesting board state. He also played two other Gelbins later in the game. I didn't have much early game to counter, but I did discover three Elise Starseekers, so I just had to hold out with priest removal until the end game. Sea Giants and King Crushes fell to Lightbomb after Lightbomb with smaller minions falling to weaker removal and Shadowform's Mind Shatter hero power. The lich Kel'thuzad was Entombed into my deck and played the turn before I slammed the Golden Monkey, which luckily I got after my first Map. Confuse was able to clear out the Repair Bots and the rest of his board and paved the way for victory with an onslaught of legendary minions.

 

Also the nerfs for Standard have been announced and they're pretty interesting. Druid and to a lesser extent Rogue are getting some big shakeups, and the nerfs to Owl and BGH will make bigger slower minions more viable. It's not clear if some of the other nerfs like the one on Knife Juggler will really shake things up, but they'll certainly have some impact. 

 

I don't think we have too many active players here but anyone planning to check out Hearthstone when the changes drop?

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I'm an active player so obviously I'll be around. I just read the breakdown of the nerfs on PC Gamer, and it's definitely a mix of "oh, yeah, that had to happen" and "uh, what?". Not that I think I know better than Blizzard, I think I just sometimes have different ideas about what's fun. Blizzard seems to be terrified of charge minions at this point, most thoroughly exemplified by their nerfing of Arcane Golem into the ground. As the article says, they effectively deleted the card from the game.

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I'm still playing nearly every day.

 

I've always been in disagreement with Blizz being with ok with completely destroying cards (Warsong Commander, being a basic card, being the extreme case) and I'll be sad to see Arcane Golem go, even though it does make sense. Charge has always been problematic.

 

That some nerfs are stats-only and don't change the effect of the card (Owl, BGH and Keeper) creates more incentives to create weird-stats minions with strong effects, although a 2/2 for 4 is very hard to advocate for.

 

With a rotation on the way and many paladin cards being rotated out, I hope not touching Divine Favour was a good move.

 

 

As a Rogue main since beta, I'm sad to see Flurry go, but I see it as a necessary change to move forward. Losing that finisher makes Cold Blood even more tempting than it already was and we don't know everything about the expansion. As for the mana cost, Preparation is still here. I'm fine with having more incentive to slot one of my favorite card in the game.

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It seems like Blizzard wants the game to be a bit slower, which to me is a welcome change.  So many games I've played ultimately boil down to a single turn panning out for one player or another, or one player getting the momentum and keeping it, and while I guess that is somewhat the norm in CCGs it's nice to see Blizzard make an attempt.  I get the sense from these changes in aggregate they want player choices to not just boil down to a math problem, hopefully with the end result being more regularly developed boards.

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They clearly want the board to matter more than it does - but I'm afraid that would lead to exactly the situation you describe where comebacks become much harder, because having an established board would then make it easier to stay ahead.

 

We'll see.

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So I opened a Yogg'Soron and went to make a spell-heavy rogue deck to try it out.

 

1st game vs. aggro Shaman. I control him early game and Prep+Burgle Everyfin is Awesome and a Doomhammer. I keep controlling the board, play Violet Teacher and spawn a ton of apprentices with the coins from my Cutpurse. He had already used his two Lightning Storm before.

 

2nd game vs. aggro Pirate Warrior. Brings me super low and ignores my Pillager and Azure Drake (had already used both Heroic Strikes to be able to clear them). I Burgle into Charge, out pace him and finish with a Shadowstepped Pillager into Prep+Charge.

 

 

Wasn't able to try Yogg'Soron yet, but you don't need new cards for excitement when the RNG is juuuuust right.

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They clearly want the board to matter more than it does - but I'm afraid that would lead to exactly the situation you describe where comebacks become much harder, because having an established board would then make it easier to stay ahead.

 

We'll see.

 

In what I've played so far at least, that doesn't seem to be the effect. Not only are there still a lot of removal and board clear tools, now there's also a lot of C'thun minions that are on or ahead of the power curve, so it seems relatively easy to trade even with those and still slowly get ahead as you buff your big tentacle monster. This seems to be especially true of Warrior decks (and Priest to a slightly lesser extent), who have a lot of great tools right now to just armor up, clear minions through brawl, shield bash, etc., and then just play and recycle C'thun when the time is right. For a lot of decks it seems flat out impossible to ever get far enough ahead to outpace that level of recovery.

 

So weirdly, just after they got rid of Grim Patron Warrior for winning out of nowhere with no opportunity for counterplay, this style of play is back and stronger than ever.

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CWarriors have always been like this though. I'd even go as far as to say that the C'Thun warriors are easier and much less of a ragefest/snorefest to deal with than pure Control Elise Warriors. Being mainly a Rogue player, I tend to run out of gas against them, but I've had plenty of success against any other kind of defensive plays with Tempo or Malygos.

 

The diversity in decks in casual playgrounds (my ranks 14-17 on NA) is very pleasing to me.

 

Speaking of, how are you all playing? Casual questing? Ranking up to a specific rank? Trying for Legend? I tend to just do the quests to play a little every day and, at the end of the month, shoot for rank 15 if only for the golden card rewards.

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I happened to draw Yogg-Saron twice in the free packs so I made a Mage deck with it. It screws me over with the random spells about as often as it helps, but I still had a strange run up to rank 11 with it, which is now adjusting down again.

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My playstyle is pretty mercenary. I just do a daily quest each day, win a tavern brawl each week and play arena whenever it coincides with quests. When not playing arena I do play ranked, but it's not in a concerted effort to gain ranks, it's just so that whatever rank I do achieve as a side effect gives me extra rewards as well.

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The first day of the new season I'll usually play until rank 10 for the chest which is usually about how far I can get before I start losing a lot (I usually get most of the way there on a win streak so it doesn't take many games). After that I accept that I won't get much higher and the rest of the month can just play for fun and not worry about winning/losing. I always make sure to do daily quests, but if I have multiple quests for the same thing I'll do them then not play until my quests are full again. I do arena with the gold but haven't quite figured out drafting the new expansion so haven't done much recently.

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Another thing that I've been reminded of now in playing against it is the Legendary that resummons all your deathrattle minions that died in the game. This one probably adds to my impression that there are more and more decks now built on 10 cost cards that will instantly swing the game in a big way (on top of old cards like Anyfin is Possible).

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I've been playing for about 4-6 weeks now. I set a couple of goals for myself. Last month my goal was rank 15. This month my goal was to try to hit rank 10. I'm currently rank 8! New goal is rank 5. I don't think legend will ever be a realistic goal for me, just because there's a legit time investment component. It might be fun to try, but I also tend to get ladder anxiety even though it literally doesn't matter. One of my goals is to improve at arena. I'm not at all good at arena right now. 3 wins is a success.

 

I've been trying to build out multiple decks. I started with being able to build a priest deck and a budget pirate warrior, and now I have a couple of flavors of midrange shaman, midrange hunter, a lower-end zoo deck, and a probably bad c'thun druid. I kind of want to sign up for some online tournaments now that I have more than 3 classes I'd actually consider myself having real decks for.

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I've been thinking about playing again, is it hard to get back into the game now? I pretty much only have the original cards. 

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It's possible to play around ranks 20-15 with a basic deck but to be really competitive in standard you need some recent cards. Arena is still fun and may be easier to get into because there are tools like Heartharena and Hearthstone Deck Tracker + Arena Helper that help you draft the better quality cards. The overall average skill level of people still playing this game keeps getting higher so that may be a barrier to entry, but a

is dropping in two weeks and that might be a good jumping on point. 

 

Also if anyone new wants to jump on, here's my referral link. You get a free pack and I get a murloc hero portrait.  :fart:

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I tried to get back into the game. I played a lot of matches, around 30. I then remembered why I deleted it in the first place. Too much dependence on luck, losing isn't fun*.

 

*The problem with losing is that I feel like I spend the whole game playing catch up, only to eventually lose. That's not a lot of fun. I saw I was losing from the beginning then lost, I kept playing because there are times when luck can switch to your side and you can pull off a last second win.

Losing like that - the opponent getting an amazing card is just the worst. Literally nothing you can do about it, that's REALLY not fun.

 

I want to like the game, I love the basic game play a lot, but I just can't enjoy losing like I can in other games. If I lose in Splatoon, Destiny, Rocket League I can still have fun. I can still say I played my best and maybe had a few moment of personal greatness. Most Hearthstone losses involve every good move you make being immediately countered so you constantly feel on the back foot. 

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