3625

It got me back into Hearthstone, which I never imagined was even possible. The fact that I haven’t bought a pack of cards in years doesn’t matter, we’re all equal in the Battlegrounds.

I’m genuinely shocked how well they adapted the Auto Chess format here. They made some big and important changes that really make this mode work. Every game feels exciting, there’s almost no point where I’m tuned out no matter how well or badly I’m doing.

3626

So Battlegrounds is just, people build the decks and then the decks automatically play each other?

3627

Not really. You are building a single board - so you have up to 7 slots (and if you fill them all then creatures that get spawned won’t have room to spawn). You get gold each turn, which increases like mana does, but you can also get extra gold by selling someone from one of your slots. You get a random selection of minions from the “tavern” which have different power levels (you need to spend gold to upgrade your tavern to see higher power creatures). You can purchase minions from the tavern for 3 gold, reroll the tavern for 1 gold, and freeze the tavern so it is available next turn (for 0 gold).

Any changes that happen to your minions while you are in the tavern are permanent (so a battlecry +1/+1 to all your demons means the demons on board when you play it are permanently +1/+1, whereas a static power that says “all your demons have +2/+2” will only apply while that creature is alive). If you get three of the same minion, either on board or in hand, then the stats of those minions are combined into a single gold version (sometimes with an upgraded power) and when you play the gold version you get a card that lets you discover a minion from 1 tier higher.

EDIT: Oh, when you play, your creatures attack at random, respecting taunt if any creatures have it, but always attacking a minion - the hero with the last minion standing gets to damage the other hero based on their tavern level and the tier of the minions left on board.

3628

Battlegrounds is a breath of fresh air into Hearthstone; I applaud the way they blended Hearthstone mechanics with the auto chess formula.

3629

Nice summary, though you should note that your creatures attack random targets but the order goes left-to-right, which makes a big difference. So for example, if you know your upcoming opponent has a giant taunted divine shield, use your weakest unit to knock down the shield. Or set your first attack to be a big cleave unit. And later sequencing, you don’t want a unit with deathrattles too far left or there won’t be space for the summons to spawn. (Similarly you might not want your divine shields all next to each other because they can be all knocked down by one cleave.)

3630

Yeah I was trying to figure out where to draw the line on details. There are so many really meaty complexities to dig into.

For example, they pushed tribes (mechs, beasts, demons, and murlocs) as the core components of possible builds, but then they also have a bunch of “menagerie” buffs that hit several of them, and they have nightmare amalgams that allow you to spice in a little of the other builds. So you could have a demons build that uses an amalgam to take advantage of magnetic.

There are several creatures that provide awesome ongoing abilities but have weak stats and aren’t part of the tribe to get buffed. So you can end up needing a 2/2 or 3/3 to live to give you extra spawns or deal damage when your demons die, but it’s taking up a spot you could be filling with a 10/10. Some of them, like lightfang enforcer are huge permanent buffs that happen every round just before you go to combat, but then you’ve got a worthless 2/2 in combat.

And we didn’t even mention hero powers…

3631

Blizzard is giving away 5 free legendaries from the next set, as well as the Tyrande hero, just for logging in next week. Hearthstone must really be on the decline for them to do this. I’m kind of shocked.

3632

Well, the Tyrande hero is something people have been asking them to bring back for years (I think she the one they gave away for a short time to Amazon Prime or Twitch subscribers). And the five free legendaries are really all the same legendary and require similar preparations to eachother to make use of. They’re like class specific C’thun cards (the free neutral legendary given away a few years ago), in that the legendaries all require acolytes to pray to them or whatever to charge them up to full power. The legendaries will do different things, but they’ll require a bunch of the same cards, like C’thun did.

And to make room for all these different versions of the same card, the full card set for this expansion is comprised of 140 cards instead of the usual 135.

Because they wanted class-specific versions of these particular legendaries (instead of one neutral, card that would be bonkers in 2/9 classes and junk as fuck in the other 7), but also wanted them to use a bunch of the exact same neutral cards to power up, they wanted to make sure people that opened a ton of neutral acolyte cards could actually use them for something.

3633

I think there’s a few of us left.

The newest expansion is out today and three card sets are being rotated out. Plus a new class Demon Hunter. How all this will work out only time will tell :)

3634

Lots of new stuff announced today. New weekly quests, a battle pass, an achievement system, account customization coins, and lots of new ways to monetize the game.

They’re also doing mid-expansion mini-expansions now, where they will drop 35ish new cards into the current expansion card packs.

A new game mode called Duels that lets players construct and play Dungeon Run decks and treasures vs each other. These Duels will use all basic/classic standard & wild cards and a random selection of 3 different wild & standard expansions and adventures at a time. The cards have to be in your collection though, hope you standard players never dusted your wild stuff. You can unlock the treasures and hero powers for use in these duels by meeting certain requirements, like owning 30 epics from a specific expansion or owning a particular Wild legendary.

Duels mode goes live today, as well as a free legendary of some sort for people that log in.

3635

Riot has done this for their game’s latest expansion and I think it was mostly successful.

3636

So for a player who played the original game but dropped out when the first expansion hit, can I enjoy this game against other players now? Is there a way to make the playing field level beyond game knowledge?

3637

As far as the basic game mode is concerned: Beyond knowledge of game mechanics, only money can help level the playing field. But the game is a total RNG fest now days, with some popular decks relying almost entirely on randomly generated cards and effects. So, while skill and money can get you what you need to compete, only patience and tolerance (two things I don’t have) will see you succeed overall.

Games will permanently flip on a dime for no other reason than luck, and you’ve got to be able to handle that. Again, I can’t.

As for the other game modes (Arena, Battlegrounds, Duels), knowledge is the most important resource at your disposal for the first two. As for Duels, they have yet to be put to the test as it just entered public alpha yesterday.

3638

I play exclusively for arena and battlegrounds and enjoy it. I typically play one arena every two days, so it’s self-sustaining with the wins/quests.

As for playing the regular game, either standard or wild, i don’t understand how people do it. I typically play till i get the 5 wins/month i need as the minimum to get the bonus, and even that has me wanting to stab myself with a fork: it’s insane the decks that people have for the lowest level and the douches that reside there. I had one guy play nothing but legendary cards, and he had me well beat, but he was just roping every turn. So i roped every turn too. Then with his board full, he stopped playing apart from wiping my minions off the board and roping. I won because he fatiqued the while holding 7 minions on the table and the ability to wipe me at any time.

3639

Obviously he was offended you insulted him by refusing to admit defeat and concede.

3640

perhaps, i dunno. I only rarely concede and typically only in two situations: 1) they’re just showing off and I’ve got better things to do or 2) i’m frustrated with play(s) i have made. This was clearly a case of the first, but i was just working out and didn’t really care how long it took so i was just going with it.

3641

I was being sarcastic, he was just BMing you. My wife absolutely refuses to concede no matter how dire things get and Hearthstone kids do this to her every day.

3642

I guess I must be having better luck than most. I played ranked and get to about Platinum level and non ranked. Sure it happens but 1 in 20 games maybe?

3643

Ugh, ya, maybe your take’s right then. I play for five wins a month, so maybe ten matches - so every couple months get something that’s bad. ya, that feels about what’s happening.

I’ve always wondered why they dont put in clearer emotes, or have any kind of toxicity ranking/rating system, or even a better rule around roping. That last seems particularly easy to solve arithmetically(the amount of time it takes to make a decision would most often be related to the total mana cost of your hand related to the mana available (discounting anything you can’t use). So on turn 2, where you have 2 mana, no coin and no playable cards your only option is whether you charge and use your hero power, and how long on average does it take you to do that? So you start building an average action time/ actual action time ratio to see how a player is playing versus both their history and/or player statistics and you can start mathematically determining when players are deliberately stalling. I dunno, i find the math of that intriguing.

But, that said, for a game that has yet to put a simple game state marker on the board(am i connected to the game or am i not?), this is probably not something they’re thinking of.

3644

I’m not sure pros would appreciate behind-the-scenes algorithms telling them how much time they have to take their turn. I think some of the top streamers go to rope every turn regardless of what’s going on. Whether this is because they are pondering their deep strategies, or just explaining things to their audience, I couldn’t say.