Hearthstone - Blizzard's F2P Digital Card Game

I really don’t like moving Arena to Standard. But then again I just maybe getting burnt out on the game because I sure seem to be negative on most changes these days. Thats on me not Blizzard. I need to take a break. :)

With over 9000 games won, I’ve only ever made 1 arena run (3-3), and that was only because of the free run and pack reward I got for being a new player at the time. The whole format is retarded, and doubly so because of the existence of sites like Heartharena.

Brawl might have its horrible moments (especially that straight six-month period after Old Gods), but it is so much more interesting as an alternative format to Ladder/Casual.

One might wonder how I could possibly know if I play so little of it, the answer is I watch too much Twitch.

Ladder/Casual/Brawl aren’t anywhere near perfect, but at least it doesn’t feel like they’re wasting time supporting them.

I’m not too excited for Wild changes either, but I can better understand the need to support a game mode that allows long-time players to utilize their full inventory of cards after rotations.

I’ve been playing casually for awhile and I’ll say here that I’m in agreement with Kripparian’s criticism of the game as far as the Arena scene. Link to short Kripp video with some stats and analysis.

I’m a big Arena junkie…but I’ve really slowed down how much of it I play. The problem, for me, is that some cards are just so wildly amazing in Arena. Getting one or two of the “super cards” can make the difference between a 3-3 run and a 10-3 run. Most of these cards are in older sets, so having Arena move to Standard is going to alleviate a lot of my personal gripes about it. That being said, the push towards more spells and less minions is going to further catapult Mage to the top of the Arena-heap. They are already insanely powerful if they get a couple of direct damage/removal cards. Having the Arena draft purposefully present more class specific cards and spells will probably magnify the problem.

What I like about Arena is that you aren’t just playing with and against the same 4 core decks. Ladder has gotten too predictable. Oh, look, the 5th shaman in a row; will it be aggro or Mid-range? Doesn’t matter, it will still be dominant. In Arena, you end up with these wacky, unpredictable decks using cards that you never see in Ladder.

What I don’t like about Arena is the deck trackers. A lot of the skill of Arena is the drafting process, and the deck trackers remove that skill need. They are essentially draft-bots, telling you which cards to draft, how things will jive with your already drafted cards, how you are curving out, etc. Sure, the experienced arena people will sometimes ignore the tracker and pick a card they really like instead, but for the most part the trackers are “right” on the choice. You still need to play the cards correctly once you drafted them, of course, so they aren’t auto-win mechanics or anything.

New expansion.

Looks good I have to say! I like the new mechanics and love the dino theme :)

The new mechanics seem really cool, especially Adapt. Aside from the buffing cards in your hand stuff which was introduced to only 3 classes, I didn’t think any of the new mechanics added in 2016 were very interesting. It’s refreshing to see the Hearthstone devs are pushing the boundaries a bit and coming up with new ideas.

I’m also very excited for the arena going standard. It’s a huge shakeup that should breathe some new life into my favorite game mode.

Stepping foot into Un’Goro Crater in WoW for the first time over 10 years ago is one of my favorite gaming moments. So I’m happy to see HS receiving the UG treatment!

Interesting.

Adapt seems potentially very powerfuI, but I can see it being balanced similar to spare part (0 cost vs 1, some choice, but only targets the summoned minion, and no spell synergy). Or as a slightly less predictable Choose One. I think it’s a welcome answer to keep the meta a little more varied, as you can have an adapt card in, say, an aggro centric meta and get Taunt a fair amount of the time.

The Quest mechanic is also interesting. It basically has you declare your deck type on turn 1, so fewer guessing games. I don’t think that’s a huge deal, but my guess is that it will disarm some kinds of control decks by signaling their intent earlier and letting the opponent tweak play accordingly.

I think both these have direct impacts on the Meta, which sounds like it’s been a big priority for them in general (e.g. the Hall of Fame changes).

Well, I’m in for $50. Pulled the trigger on the 50 pack pre-purchase. The preview impressed me; it felt like they almost understand what is wrong with the game and are working to fix it.

Not sure how I’m going to feel about the Quest mechanic until I see all the quest cards. The previewed Priest quest is insanely powerful, making it essentially a Reno on steroids with no Highlander requirement. That being said, you would need to get 6 Deathrattles played and be holding a 7th to make it as reliable as a Reno-in-hand. With your opponent being able to see that you’re at 6/7 of the quest completion, they can hold back their direct damage and just work on pressuring you until you’re forced to pull the trigger.

All-in-all, it’s giving me hope that they can pull the game back from the brink.

Edit: on a side note, I’m enjoying the change to Arena so far. Have only played 2 arena rounds so far, but there is definitely more Rares and Spells showing up to choose from (and being played against me). The favoring of class-cards is also causing more class-combos to show up than I’ve seen in Arena games in the past. Small sample set (first one went 8/3 and the second went 3/3, so that’s only 17 games in the new format so far). Again, it’s giving me some hope.

My wife and I will be preordering. I’m glad to see them bring back the pre-order cardback bonus. I know it’s a stupid metric to compare by, but most of my favorite card backs come from pre-order bonuses (Molten Core etc), and it annoyed me that Gadgetzan didn’t come with one. Stupidest complaint ever, I know.

Looking forward to seeing Smalltime Buck’s replaced by Tunnel Troggs across the board for Shaman (hahaha not really). I’m still not convinced the nerfs will affect Shaman at all, but I don’t play at the level where it matters all that much anyway. I’ve gotten better about eating guaranteed losses compared to my days raging against Mech Mages.

I don’t play arena, but these changes should make a few Twitch streams more fun and interesting for me.

I agree on the shaman decks. They were already drifting more towards the Jade builds, using pirate mostly as an early-game pressure mechanic. That doesn’t change much with a 1 health loss on the Small-Time. They can still run the 3-card pirate package to force their opponent to cope with the early pressure while the Shaman ramps their jades to silly levels.

This change bugs me more than it should. Snakes aren’t poisonous.

What are they, venomous?

That is correct.

I mean, they can be poisonous, too, I guess.

Yea, all they need is the following card text:

Battlecry: When this minion attacks, your opponent’s minions take a bite of this minion then get sick and die.

“If a beast kills this minion, destroy that minion.”

I played an arena game last night. Was one of the changes to increase the rate of Epic / Rare cards? Both my deck and several of my opponent’s deck’s had a lot of rare cards. I liked the changes overall, I think. The decks were definitely more consistent, although it still felt like spells were still under-represented.

I was thinking idly about different effects they could introduce, and it occurred to me that you could essentially implement a “maintenance cost” mechanic using Overload. Basically have a minion with text that reads: “At the end of your turn, Overload (1)”

Yes, Commons used to account for 74% of all arena card selections. They wanted to change that ratio so that more rares were making it in to Arena decks. I’m not sure what their goal percentage is, but my small sample size seems to be more like a 50/50 split between commons and “other” rarities. It’s making for some odd but fun selections.

Spells under-represented? I disagree. You might have had an unlucky draft or something, but the amount of spells is way higher than it used to be, and it has been noticeable. In my draft yesterday (Warlock) the spell balance felt good. I was offered spells enough that I had to turn down Felfire Potions to build out my curve. You want to have some spells to provide additional options and flexibility, but I don’t think it needs to be any higher than it is.

I think the biggest issue in the current arena is going to be whether you can get enough decent minions, especially in the early game. And if not, whether you can get enough good early game spells to hold out until the mid-game. Spell classes might be a little too strong compared to more board-centric classes like Warrior, Paladin, Druid, Shaman. The fact that weapons don’t get the spell bonus is a big problem for Warrior right now. With the de-emphasis on common neutrals (the bulk of the vanilla curve cards), it’s going to be even harder for these classes to get on the board.

My games were fun yesterday, though, so I’m hopeful that this is an improvement. And if it’s not, it’s nice to see that going forward, the HS team is willing to make bold changes to try and improve the arena.

This is a big deal:

No more opening duplicate legendaries. Unless you own all legendaries in a particular set, then you’re guaranteed to only open unique legendaries from that set.

Changes take effect when the next expansion comes out.

Oh, they’re also running a pack promotion soon, and lowering the usual 40-pack pity timer for the first legendary discovered in a new set.

More info below.