Hearthstone Players!

I still read in here (and it's become increasingly incomprehensible), but recently I was facing another huge set update on my phone. I looked at the usage, and discovered I hadn't opened the game since December 2017. I just deleted the app instead of installing the 1.5G of update.

Anecdotes aren't really data, but that's what I've got.

I haven't really touched HS since Rastakhan's launch. I opened my packs and it was like a switch was flipped and I was just done. I wasn't angry or disgusted, maybe I was underwhelmed by the (perceived lack of new) deck archetypes, maybe I was just burnt out in general and I was just projecting my dissatisfaction onto an easy demarcation point like a new expansion's release, but I was mentally over HS and put it down cold.

In retrospect it looks like, for me, I made the right choice. The extreme matchup polarization has been added to what I already don't like about HS lately: Genn/Baku, combo decks, the near-complete absence of some classes, etc. I agree with those that believe rotating and balancing the standard/classic sets is the best option but now it looks like it will neither be fast nor simple; they've simply let things fester for too long and are now looking at a complete teardown if they're going to do it right.

But ultimately I'm in a "show me" mindset where I don't trust them to effectively tweak their game any time soon, and I'm certainly not expecting them to pour a lot of time and money into new game modes though I think those would be met with the most enthusiasm by absent players.

Iksar's tweet reminds me of an anecdote I read about McDonald's several years ago where several executives had a meeting to discuss a drop in profits. They listened to all sorts of ideas about ideas they could try, promotions, etc., but when all was said and done and the executives and bean counters had weighed in, they ended up going with the least-expensive yet least-impactful idea: they added more sugar to their ketchup. I might be wrong - I often am when it comes to HS predictions - but I have this feeling that players are expecting big changes but instead we might just be getting sweeter ketchup.

Matt Thrower wrote: "Decisions that matter" is a problematic statement because you make plenty of "decisions that matter" in a MechaC'thun deck or in Togwaggle or whatever shitbird combo you're running. They're decisions that keep you alive long enough to crap out your pathetic OTK. These decks are not uninteresting to play, they're just uninteresting to play against.

Yeah, I think that was largely his point. He also mentioned (which I didn't) the idea of making decisions that matter OUTSIDE of games, so that you don't feel locked in when you pick a deck. "Welp, I'm 65% against this, this, and this deck, but I'm a tire fire against control Priest and Togwaggle." That's what Kibler and Vicious Syndicate have meant about the more polarized state of the meta. Before, your chances of winning against a counter dropped from maybe 55% against the rest of the field to 45 or 40%. Now it's more like 10% ("lost before you play") and it's discouraging people from even bothering. This is on top of more general problems like the games all feeling the same because Genn and Baku have enforced decklists that don't allow for as much variety (from what little there was before.)

The other thing that occurred to me in terms of reviving tournament mode is a different kind of decision making process outside of games: sideboarding. If polarization is a problem, at least sideboarding could help alleviate it for people playing tournaments. Just like in MTG, it wouldn't transform the decks (maybe limit it to 2-4 cards) but it might give you an opportunity to up that percentage.

The folks that bailed (Not Sure, SebastianBludd), what, if anything did you replace it with?

For me, with all its flaws, HS is still the best F2P economy in mobile-accessible gaming. It's pretty, games are fast, and I get the vast majority of it for free (I've got like 5600 gold saved for the next set so far).

What's scratching that itch for you?

I've looked at ELDER SCROLLS: LEGENDS, and I could see jumping there. But it takes a big hit on the pretty side. That game is pretty flat from the art/lore side, at least for me.

MTG:Arena is basically a non-starter, as they are allergic to Mac/iOS for what looks like forever. And games there can take a hella long time.

Maybe more than others, I explore the space of gaming in HS. In the last two days, I have played Wild Ladder, Wild Casual, Standard Ladder, Rastakhan's Rumble PvE, Tavern Brawl, and Play-a-Friend. Not so much Arena because I suck and it costs gold.

Maybe I'll start a little thing to revisit the old Adventures and see how easy and hard they are with all the cards and the cards you could have used at the time.

You can kinda add me to the bailed list, since I haven't played since the last time you and I played which is- what? A month ago? I've kept an eye on the game, but I feel no compulsion to sit down with it. I've been trying (desperately) to get people to play cardboard games with me. The Blizz app is turned off on my computer. There's nothing there for me, at the moment.

In thinking about this thread, though, another thing occurred to me: Consistency in design. Boomsday reintroduced Mechs as a significant tribe. There were a bunch of Mech decks attempted in the first few weeks. The Magnetic keyword was cool. They did a bunch of different things. There was Ziliax. But all of the decks paled in comparison to Odd Paladin and Hunter Beast decks, so people stopped playing them. If this was going to be a serious tribe attempt, like dragons or something else, you'd think that Rumble would follow with some more to boost their ranks, right?

Not one. Not a single mech was released with Rumble. Ziliax remains, by far, the most frequently played card from Boomsday, but it isn't played in any Mech decks; just in midrange decks that are actually fast enough to compete with combo and aggro. Conceivably, it and another mech, Mechano-Egg, would be played in Paladin control, but control can't do enough damage to stop combo these days, so you no longer see it. Even so, to think that of 41(!) mechs introduced in Boomsday, only 2 of them would see regular play a month after the expansion?

I point this out because that's one of the style things keeping me away. I was kind of geeked for Boomsday. I heard Mechs coming back and I was having visions of GVG. I like tribe decks. I was disappointed with Witchwood and I remember writing here a few weeks into it that only two cards in the whole set were being played (guess which two?) and decks were otherwise just Un'Goro, Knights, and Kobolds. I thought Boomsday Mechs were going to be a thing. But they weren't because odd/even and death knights destroyed them the way they destroy everything else. And with so much of Rumble set in stone by the time the devs saw that, there was nothing to do to rescue them. But the fact is they didn't even plan to continue them. It was basically "Play with these cards and hope they work because you won't be seeing anymore for the next couple years." The main reason they've continued with dragons is because Priest players tend to rely on them and they decided to reintroduce them to Warrior (Again: Cathedral Gargoyle? WTF?) But the mech cards were mostly neutral. Any class could play them. But they just let it die as we moved on to trolls three months later.

jeb wrote: The folks that bailed (Not Sure, SebastianBludd), what, if anything did you replace it with?

For me, with all its flaws, HS is still the best F2P economy in mobile-accessible gaming. It's pretty, games are fast, and I get the vast majority of it for free (I've got like 5600 gold saved for the next set so far).

What's scratching that itch for you?

Work, mostly (womp-womp).

I just stopped having fun playing it. For a while, I was playing a 5v5 battle game, but that got to be too much of a grind. My younger son has a really bad video gaming habit, to where it's the major point of contention between us. So, when I found myself saying "just do anything else for a while" I decided to try modeling that behavior.

On a good day I read a book or play guitar or ukelele (new for Xmas). On a bad day I fuck around reading shit on the Internet. But I honestly just don't get the enjoyment I used to from video games, and the casual stuff like HS was merely the last to go.

So keep having fun if it's fun for you. I realize that leaving Hearthstone was more about me than the game. But about 18 months ago they started making it really easy for me to do that math.

Topics for discussion: Winter HCT Championship, New Tourney format, HS dying????

1. HCT finals next weekend. I chose Bloodyface. I like Noblord a lot. Nob said that Bloodyface is his practice partner and Bloody convinced him of the lineup they needed for qualifier tourney. So if Nob is good but gets advised from Bloody I figure that is all the endorsement I needed.
2: New tourney best of 3, you make one lead deck you play first game and two side decks same class you can swap in for next two games. Wow. This is huge and should be either really interesting, or really boring. It should highlight very quickly what needs nerfing as certain things dominate that format. Endless mirror matches could prove snoozefests. Specialists that know one class inside and out like you APXvoid mage or Deathstar hunter should get a huge leg up as other people are forced to try and match the master level they have achieved with their specialty. The best players can adapt and play anything and make good decisions sure. But if you watch APX or DS you see they have reflexes and muscle memory developed for nearly ever matchup and situation they could face with their class. They don’t waste much energy thinking it through anymore.
3. Huge layoffs at Blizzard, viewership down on twitch, tons of pro streamers immersed in other games...namely Autochess. Is this the beginning of the end? Maybe??? I can see where it’s harder and harder to attract new players as their are more choices where to spend your time and money on mobile gaming. I can see where lots of people that have tried the game and either got hooked or didn’t are now burned out on it. Genn Baku staleness. There are plenty of hints that the first post expansion release they are going to do something about Genn Baku. If not sooner.
I appreciate your thoughts on these matters. Any other HS news we need to discuss????
Disgusting game of the week. I am playing Odd warrior, so I deserve this. I queue into Tess rogue. He espionages gets and gets both Warrior DKs which help him control any mid game pressure I can get with cube faceless shenanigans with direhorn hatchling (sap sux too]. Then casts Tess when his hero is warrior. So he gets his cutlass back with deadly poison buff and casts double espionage again. The only upside is the sprints overdrew a decent amount of cards. Then he gets both warrior DKs AGAIN from those Tess espionages. As well as a Valeera in there somewhere. Given all that, 5 DKs, 70 card deck with tons of 1 mana cards, multiple buffed cutlasses... I took us both into fatigue with me couple of turns ahead. And LOST. Just ran out of value which will happen in those circumstances. I should have saved Zola for Elise. As it was I overdrew my one pack after a vanish. Cost me the game imo.

Some big news about Year of the Dragon.

- Genn and Baku are going to Wild along with the oldest three expansions
- Other cards that do even/odd like Murkspark Eel are going too
- Doomguard, Divine Favor and Naturalize are also all going to the Hall of Fame

Plus some other stuff I don't care about like paid for single-player content, arena changes and a better deckbuilder.

All positive stuff IMO, especially the huge dust bonanza it represents with all those cards getting full disenchant value. Let's hope the cards in the new expansion match up to this fresh start.

www.pcgamer.com/genn-baku-and-doomguard-...-year-of-the-dragon/

ALAS! Glittering Moth, we hardly knew ye. (cri evry tim)

I love the HS Solo stuff, honestly. Dungeon Run was one of the best iOS games of 2017. I love that they are fleshing this out, because I need it. I have been having my heart broken these last few days in Ladder. I shot up to Rank 11 in both formats and then just bounced for a while, no biggie, but lost like 11 of 12 over the last couple days in the worst ways. Topdecks, sure. Ridiculous, once-in-a-lifetime curves, yep. Did they need those eight cards in the top 10 of their deck? Yes, yes they did. Some back and forth games with Wall Priest until they get a Silenced-then-PWS-buffed 2/14 to stick for a turn, and even though I can make two decent sized Taunts, I'm dead because their two cards in had are Mass Dispel (drawing Divine Favor) to pair with Topsy Turvy. Like... what the fuck.

So, yeah, I need to battle Malacross or whatever. Looks like a return to the Adventure style PvE content with wings for purchase at 700 dust for the FTP folks. I'll plunk $20 on it for sure, I extract that amount of fun from the game in any random week, so no issues there.

Arena gets seasons (2 mos) which will rotate the sets available to Draft from, which is a great idea. I might dabble in that now that everything is more in flux. Plus you can earn portraits and such for Arena wins, which was always a drag for specialists.

You can retire themed Quests, so you aren't compelled to Monster Run and what not when those come out.

Deckbuilder gets a tune up, you can just ask for the best winning percentage deck a Hero has at current and it will build it for you. Finally leveraging the massive data pool they have. And it'll make smart swaps to account for your collection.

Random card backs are nice. I have a lot, but changing them on mobile is a pain in the ass.

Looking forward to this!

Hm. Still skeptical, but sounds positive. The departure of Divine Favor is long overdue, as that card is ridiculously degenerate ("Let's see. My opponent has played his control deck the way he should have and has significant card advantage. Three mana changes all of that. Seems fine.") Naturalize seems right, too, since it was too easily applied to combo decks that I'm betting they're trying to pull back on. As Donais notes when asked about Malygos, they see combo decks getting to 41%, people have a good time trying to get them to work, and then move on. They don't want them dominating the meta, for obvious reasons. Doomguard, like most Charge minions, is just a design restraint. There are too many cards that could have been introduced that likely weren't because of him.

I pulled both Genn and Baku when I got my Witchwood packs when the expansion was released. If I go back to the game, I will not regret dusting them for one second. The card back thing is kinda cool, though. I was hoping for a long time that they would start offering them up for gold or money because I was off the game when the Thunder Bluff one was the prize for the month (WoW Tauren main), but no sign of that. Whateva.

@Jackwraith: LOL, you're the first one I thought of when I read the news about Divine Favor.

Considering the lag inherent in their design cycle, HOF'ing cards was probably their best option. However, I'm surprised that they not only did it to Genn/Baku, but hit DF and Naturalize as well. I wouldn't say I'm excited by the news but I'm willing to at least see how it plays out rather than ignoring the game as I have been. I'm also going to craft golden Genn and Baku and get a shitload of dust to help me catch up when the new expansion drops in case I need to craft most of the cards. So, if nothing else, this news will at least get me to open Hearthstone, which I haven't done in weeks.

As for card backs, I have no idea why those aren't available for sale for $2-$3. They could add a colored border to them to differentiate them from the "real" ones that were earned through play or preorders and I think the players that already have them wouldn't care. Hell, I'd probably pay $5 each for the jack o'lantern and the Blackrock preorder card backs.

SebastianBludd wrote: @Jackwraith: LOL, you're the first one I thought of when I read the news about Divine Favor.

Considering the lag inherent in their design cycle, HOF'ing cards was probably their best option. However, I'm surprised that they not only did it to Genn/Baku, but hit DF and Naturalize as well. I wouldn't say I'm excited by the news but I'm willing to at least see how it plays out rather than ignoring the game as I have been. I'm also going to craft golden Genn and Baku and get a shitload of dust to help me catch up when the new expansion drops in case I need to craft most of the cards. So, if nothing else, this news will at least get me to open Hearthstone, which I haven't done in weeks.

Doomguard, Divine Favor and Naturalize were undoubtedly "on the block" for HoF as a normal aspect of rotation--those are Basic/Classic cards, after all. They wouldn't normally ever leave Standard given how they currently handle things. What's a little odd to me is that Doomguard is getting pitched, even though its most potent enablers (Skull and Gul'Dan) are rotating away. I didn't really have a problem with Doomguard so much as I had problems with 5/7 Charge Demons for free. Divine Favor rolling out seems fair--it eliminated downsides for Aggro Paladins, as noted above. It was a stalwart in my "Less than 1000 Dust" Pally deck, alas. Naturalize getting rotated also works for me. Druid really needs to struggle with the board if they are going to insist on making them so goddamned overpowered on the Armor front. In Standard, this puts "sorcery speed" point removal for 1 out of scope for everyone but Warrior's Shield Slam, and that's conditional. (Warlock still has Corruption, but that takes a turn to work). Not to mention the combos it enables (Togwaggle, Mecha'Thun).

As for card backs, I have no idea why those aren't available for sale for $2-$3. They could add a colored border to them to differentiate them from the "real" ones that were earned through play or preorders and I think the players that already have them wouldn't care. Hell, I'd probably pay $5 each for the jack o'lantern and the Blackrock preorder card backs.

I think they are trying somewhat to keep the store from looking like some micro-transaction shithole. Open any other game's store and it's a sea of prices and discounts and packages and all that chaos. I think it's smart to keep HS looking clean and tidy.

I think they could easily slot in heroes and card backs without the store becoming overburdened, honestly, but that's not a huge complaint. One thing that we haven't mentioned here and is something that I was just criticizing the other day is that the three expansions for Year of the Dragon are going to be themed together. That means (hopefully) no expansion with 41 Mechs that never see play and then another expansion with 40 Trolls which do nothing to help Mechs. Presumably, if they do a tribe in the coming year, it will have support from one expansion to the next and not have to have stuff dropped in later to try to save the tribe (Elementals!) in the waning months of the rotation. That's more coherent design and it's definitely a positive development.

So, I played today for the first time since November first. I had some Tavern Brawl quests so I did those to get some Rastakhan packs and then I checked out hsreplay to see what kind of Warrior deck I should mess around with until the rotation since I have a lot of Warrior cards.

I'd already crafted my golden Baku, Genn and Glitter Moth (x2) for the impending dust refund so I went with Odd Quest Warrior. Telling myself that I'm going to dust Baku in April made me feel slightly less dirty, but not much. I don't have any Supercolliders so I put in Gorehowl and Crowley (who I barely recall crafting for some Rush deck I maybe played twice; don't play HS inebriated I guess is my point).

It was pretty fun and I think I could stand to go back to doing my dailies and a little laddering between now until April.

Odd Warrior is pretty solid. I can tell you right now, if you play against Quest Priest, just keep gaining Armor. I don't think I can beat an Odd Warrior that just keeps hitting that button and shooting the occasional Amara. I do beat them, but it's because they make mistakes and play Dr. Boom or something and let me kill them.