I have had some time to play this and I wish I could play only arena but I am actually having a lot of fun. What do you guys think?

I think the game is fantastic. As a vivid Magic: The Gathering player, it's really neat to have a card game that remains fun, but is a bit simpler in rules and play. It's also nice how there isn't a super strong deck in Play mode, and guys that buy packs can lose just as easily as guys with just the starter cards. It is also really nice that with daily quests for gold, along with every 3 wins in play mode awarding 10 gold, you never have to pay real money for Arena or packs, since both are purchasable with the in game money.

The WoW nostalgia factor is also pretty huge, but that only hits those that have played WoW. Even without that, it's still a super fun and well put together game that should attract attention.

I just found a beta key that had been sitting in my inbox for like two weeks, so I fired it up last night. The game is really fun! Although it couldn't possibly come at a worse time for me (grad school Hell Month). I do like it way way more than any of the other online card games I've played so far, but for me Netrunner is still my favorite card game.

I think it's pretty boring as a card game. To be fair I have not played it, but I have seen enough videos of others playing it that the way the card game works out does not appeal to me. It just feels like a super dumbed down magic and it just makes me want to play magic.

Wish I could get into the beta. Looks pretty good.

This game could ruin me. I kept telling myself "okay, just one more game" tonight but I ended up playing until 1 AM. There hasn't been a game that's gotten that kind of feeling out of me in a while.

My only complaint is the deck building and it's more of a personal preference thing. I really don't like building my deck and I wish there was an option to pick a class and have the CPU put together the best deck from the cards you have available.

As an overall package, there's a lot to like about Hearthstone. However, the design of the game makes it incredibly momentum based and swingy. Games are almost always a blowout or a near-blowout followed by a total reversal. Also, for some reason I often go 4-3 or 5-3 in arena except for when I'm a Paladin, in which case it's almost always 9-1 or 9-0.

@milkman: If you create a custom deck and have fewer than 30 cards in it when you hit "Done", the game will offer to complete it automatically. That said, I'd be glad to give you some pointers if you'd like. I finally decided to take a break from Arena and play some ranked matches and managed to make it up to Two Star Master over a couple days before I decided to go back to Arena, so I seem to at least have some idea of what I'm doing.

I think the game is cool and really well made. I suck at it however for some reason and just cannot defeat the computer. Ugh.

@starvinggamer: I just got access recently and would be interested in whatever general tips you have.

I'll have a lot more interest when I don't have to play it on a computer. This looks far more interesting to play on a mobile device.

@bane122: Gotta go out but I'll come back later to answer that question. In the meantime, you can check out the Blizzcon Hearthstone Invitational here: http://us.battle.net/blizzcon/en/live-stream/ on the Warcraft stream. It goes now for the next three hours.

E Sports! Loving all the stupid logos on people's clothes. This game is about 45-50% luck between two evenly skilled players so doesn't really make any sense, but okay (it's not like the ladder makes sense either, as a 3 star Master's player).

Just gotta wait until next month for the open beta, and as an MTG player I really like what I have seen so far.

@wolf_blitzer85: I have a second key if you want one.

It's really, really good. I think the Gold-to-Time ratio is a bit out of whack, as it just takes too many wins to get gold for packs/Arena runs, but other than that, it's excellent. Easily the most fun I've had with a CCG in years.

If anyone else is watching the stream, TB seems hellbent on saying Taunt is wonderful, but in reality taunt is not very good except for a few specific cards like Senjin or Mirror Image or as a counter to the Hunter blitz deck. Cards that grant taunt are few but also good.

The topdeck nature of HS can make it pretty frustrating to play, but fuck is it intense to watch.

@starvinggamer: Yep, way more fun to watch than play especially in Arena; and I've won 9 like 20 times, but every time you lose it feels like total bullshit (but when it happens to someone else it can be quite funny). I've lost like 5 arena games ever where I could go back and see where I made a mistake given the information that I had at the time.

If people want some "high level" analysis. In the Reckful vs Kripp game obviously Reckful didn't realize he had lethal and lost the game as a result(note the announcers were apparently totally oblivious to this as was Reckful), however Kripp probably would have won if he mind controlled the Acolyte of Pain early on . You say "MC'ing a 1/2? Madness!" but since its a mage you can basically bank on them having few dangerous minions and priests have multiple answers to those sorts of things anyway; at that point he would not have drawn many of the cards that prolonged the game for 4-5 more turns.

Did they reveal a release date at Blizcon? Hearthstone looks sweet, can't wait for it to go into open beta so I can try it out.

It looks great, I haven't played it yet though and I'm not too interested in the PC version. I did order an iPad Mini yesterday though, so I'll definitely play it there.

I think it looks pretty awesome, just having a tough time getting into the beta.

Fuck priests.

thats what i think

Me want key.

I'm pretty... sceptical of Blizzard nowadays, but this game looks pretty fun for the most part. I just started trying to get into Magic (but I don't want to buy cards, haha) and have been playing the Planeswalker demo a bit, but I would like to have a free online version. Has anyone tried Might and Magic: Duel of Champions? Are they comparable?

In short, I'm waiting on a beta key.

Pretty sure you can download the client for Magic the Gathering: Online for free. It's fairly limited until you start dropping some cash, but they do give you some starter decks to mess around with.

It's pretty simple, which definitely isn't a bad thing. Matches are quick, and there's plenty of opportunities for comebacks in the late game. Seems pretty balanced so far (I've only been playing for a few days though, so I can't say for sure). The interface is great, and should work really well on mobile devices. I'm kinda bummed at how difficult it seems to get really rare cards (crafting is the worst!), but I guess that's how it'll be for me, since I will never sink any money into it ever. Ever. It's a great and addictive card game that can be enjoyed by both veterans and newcomers, which is awesome. Enjoying it so far.

its great so far ive only one one arena game so im not great at building a deck, fun to play and super easy to get in to

Welcome to the Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft Beta Test

Four hours later I'd beaten the practice mode, played a couple ranked matches with tweaked decks and managed to eke out three Priest victories in Arena. Arena was as swingy as I thought, games were very one sided and over before you knew it. Attacking specific creatures directly is very much a Yu-Gi-Oh thing and I've never played it, I get the feeling you should willingly trade creatures unless you have a grip full of cards that guarantee a kill in like a turn. Every match felt like a mono red mirror match in MTG, it's so fast and instantly gratifying and if there's ever a lull in the action you can click on.. things.

So exploitative.

@ervonymous: It's certainly a lot of fun but once you reach the fairly low skill ceiling it sort of becomes about your RNG tolerance. Watching Hearthstone is universally great though. But I guess with almost 1000 wins it's hard to say I didn't get the value out of a free game.

I really wish I hadnt' gotten this right before finals since it has made studying harder. I haven't played a TCG in ages and man this is scratching an itch. some of the stuff is a bit BS from a gameplay standpoint but the microtransaction stuff isn't utterly bad. Definatly wroth just checking out.

I got a key for it a few days ago. A ton of fun to play from the limited time I've had with it.

Watching it is fun too.

@fredchuckdave: Yeah I've been watching arena drafts and pro gameplay ever since the beta launched, it's higher variance than MTG even without the occasional mana screw or flood. At this point it's just a fun little game but they have infinite design space to expand.

@fattony12000: There's not a man in this world I love more than LSV.

"I play combo. Look. This island combos with that blue spell."

I've had some fun, but the F2P mechanics kinda rub me the wrong way. I think I'm done with it.

Yeah, when I posted my opinion originally, I was still hyped up for it. I think the F2P mechanics are horrible. Also, the game isn't deep enough for me to enjoy it as much as I enjoy something like Magic. But, if you're just someone looking for a well-produced, kind of casual card game on your phone, it's still a great game for that. I just wish the Arena wasn't locked behind an excessive gold requirement. If they want to have microtransactions in the game, I think they should see whether selling booster packs or locking the arena makes them more money and just pick one (obviously I'm no businessman, as I'm sure they're making a killing). The way it is now, it comes across as both pay-to-play and pay-to-win, as the best cards are obviously in booster packs and you can pay to access a game mode.

@ervonymous said:

Is there a good way to minimize the variance? I like that you can mulligan individual cards from your starting hand, but I still feel like both players should start with at least one more card in hand, because it's way too easy to play your entire hand, and then it's just a game of "Which asshole can topdeck a good card now that both players' hands are empty and have no removal spells they're sitting on".

It seems really well put together and fun. It definitely reminds me of a magic the gathering type game. Not sure I'm into that anymore. Maybe because I seem so bad at it. I think I'm about 2-8 against other people. I'm playing the Mage I started with. I usually go up 10 points really quickly and then my opponent comes back and crushes me.

I don't really have any affinity for Warcraft stuff but the presentation is good. I'm on PC but I can see how playing on a tablet could be fun.

I sort of wish the art was presented better, and there was some flavor text for the cards.

@bisonhero: I was mainly referring to the Arena which seems far more up and down than a traditional Magic the Gathering draft. Everything is random, no sending signals to adjacent players, hoping to get a card back from a pack you passed on or any other strategy, it's just luck of the draw and pick the best out of three. Trying to draft a specific deck is usually a fool's errand because you can't count on anything.

The only constant in a deck is the hero power so as a newbie I tend to try and build around them. Trying to achieve redundancy in effects, be it anthems or the hunter's beast shenanigans, seem to be the most straightforward way to reduce the variance. You can only draw gas in this game so keeping the mana curve in check is also important. Slap on some removal and a couple finishers near the top end of the curve and that's about it.

Play Warlock and draw two cards every turn, except sometimes even that doesn't help

It's all about how you build the deck. I don't wanna get too ranty here but it's one of several major systemic problems the game has that has already lead to a very stale metagame. Over the last month or so people started putting the pieces together as for how to play the game considering the lack of instant, mana curve, aggressors advantage and general lack of ramping/library digging. It was already pretty recognized that the game is very much about snowballing, but it has pretty much devolved down to either playing full out rush (which allows you to kill before you run out of cards) or one-turn-kill decks (which generally try to delay until you've drawn like half your deck and gamble on getting the combo).

its pretty good

As a seasoned CCG/LCG player, I'll say that its pretty good. It plays fast and has some great "collect everything" hooks, which make these games addictive. The rules are simple, but there is some strategy, and mistakes can easily be made. However, it can be a swingy luck fest that even a really good player can't overcome. In these types of games, you often ask which is better, a strong deck piloted by an average player, or an average deck piloted by an expert. In this game, its all about the deck. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but they have sacrificed building a steeper skill curve in order to make the game more accessible and fun. Thats fine for most people. For others, who want a dynamic and shifting meta, you won't find it here. Not yet, at least.

I will add a comment that might make me sound like a snob. I wish they would bring over a pro from the CCG/LCG design world to help them build out the meta curve. They've done a remarkable job so far. Eventually, though, having designers who are video game designers by day isn't going to carry you to the promise land. No matter how much of a fan of those games you are.

Changes in the latest patch. Play mode gold gain per day is now capped at 100, you can re-roll a daily quest you don't like and "Arena rewards have been restructured", probably meaning shittier rewards because the win streak caps at 12 now. Some card balance changes, mainly nerfing the Hunter by making the buzzard a 2/1 and the new Unleash the Hounds summons a number of 1/1s with charge equal to the number of minions your opponent controls for 4 mana.

@bisonhero: In constructed variance is pretty small with a perfect deck against an imperfect deck; in Arena its kind of down to what cards you pick + luck; I had a 12 win arena run on my first try yesterday and won like 3 or 4 games due to the opponent's incompetence. I did have to go through like 5 or 6 mages along the way though as a shaman, which isn't exactly fair (mage received no nerfs in the patch). Hunter went from gimmicky to absolutely terrible with the patch, but I'll have to try out a regular deck with one and see how it works. I'll make an arena practice thread momentarily.

Any news on when they plan to roll out the open beta?

I'm coming up on the time of the year where something like this would slot in nicely.

@tennmuerti: AFAIK it's any day now.

Really liking it so far, curious on how they're planning on expending on it.

You get matched with some weird people though, this guy for example. Every card he played was a golden rare.

I got into the beta early December. The game itself is really fun given its rather simplistic rule set (compared to MTG.) However, I do feel gold progression is EXTREMELY slow, earning 10 gold per 3 wins with nothing at all when you lose. I'd rather they give you at least 1 gold if you lose and 3-4 if you win.

They also need to look at balance some more, some cards I've seen look ridiculously overpowered.