@bisonhero: Yeah it's definitely tricky when some classes are almost entirely based on newer cards (paladin) while others are still almost entirely focused on their classic cards (druid, freeze mage). When Secret pally is phased out, they'll have to come up with a new deck based on new cards. That will never necessarily happen for a class with a stronger classic pool, as druid has already never really changed. Which is basically what Kibler said. Brode said they're nerfing "between 10 and 20" classic cards (iirc) so you know combo is on that list. We'll see how it all shakes out. This potentially will result in having even fewer competitive classes per season.

So Hearthstone is a real CCG/TCG/DCG now eh?

His face and his voice. Looks/sounds smug even when he isn't.

@starvinggamer: Kibler is fantastic for precisely that reason.

I kind of got into HS as of late and plan to pick up a couple of card packs. Am wondering myself if the upcoming changes makes it favorable to still buy GvG while offered in order to get those cards for wild or to go for the other packs instead. Insight from more experienced players highly appreciated.

@ir0n: The common train of thought is no one will play Wild seriously for a long time so Standard is the way to go. Of course early on deckbuilding is actually going to be a thing and that can be quite a challenge for new almost every group of players; I imagine wild will not have that issue.

Hopefully, hopefully, Standard will bring in a new era of newbie friendly ladder to the game.

Getting back into it (for the 4th time now) with this announcement making me give it a try on my newish mobile device..and man. I desperately want a way to sort into a player base that matches my skill and time. When I am at lvl 20 and seeing mech mages and Dr Booms in 75% of my matches..like yah, I don't fault people who have the cards from playing net decks..and yah if I get the dust together I can't see why I wouldn't get the 'best card in the game' and put it in all the decks I play too, be I lvl 20 or not. But as someone with out any of that, having no place to play except in that pool of players...man. Quests are harder to achieve, deck building is slowed.

Essentially, to me, this is perhaps the most expensive time to get into hearthstone if you really wanna have fun. Without a "new player room, play until you get 100 wins" or a system which encourages decks of both the very expense and very cheap to exist (which is what you get with a trade able card game, like Magic Online, and a big enough player base). New players don't really fit in anywhere. Like, they are out there. About a 1/3 to 1/4th of my games are against people with decks similar to my own. I know I, and they, would have a hell of a lot more fun playing in a league of our own.

Which is a problem that this Standard announcement I hope will solve! As it is right now the ranking system is suppose to essentially move better players up. What we have now though is a large, and old enough player base that even the bad players all have Dr.Boom or etc in their decks, the kind of cards that just say "I win the game". They remain in the lower range cause vs anyone but pure newbies with no such cards, they lose. So us newbies get beat up by them a lot..which means getting wins for quests takes longer, which means the climb for a free to play is harder then its ever been which means..

Well it means thank god for standard. And..Wild is gonna die a terrible death. All the stuff I just described? That sticks with wild when standard comes out. Why, in gods name, would I, a new player, ever wish to play in such a format when I have the chance to play in one that doesn't feel so very very one-sided and "pay money or insert 200% more time then you would have as a new player at this time last year".

Thankfully the game has plenty of other things to offer. But the moment get my way to lvl 20 in Paladin (which ended up being the closest class I had to such) to unlock brawl..I don't think I'll be touching the ladder again what so ever until standard comes out. Just the fact that I think I'll have way more fun when it does though? That says to me they are likely gonna get a bump, of some kind, with its release..and man wild is gonna die off.

@bladededge: Standard will be alright for a few weeks or so, then it'll be bogged down by netdecks (both expensive and otherwise) same as wild. I imagine every time there's a roll over it'll be a similar experience; so if you wanted to have the best Hearthstone experience possible you'd play a couple weeks a year.

@fredchuckdave: For ranks..15+ I would agree with you. For the very newbie/lower rank though? I think the net-deck and etc would be much lower, indeed I don't see many net decks at 20 (maybe 1 out of 5 matchs). The main issue I see is that people (children likely) who are just not skilled enough to go beyond lvl 20-16 have still had enough time with this current model to grind out the needed dust to make a few cards of the Dr. Boom and etc level of power. Cards which say "Did you draw me? ok you win." at least vs other 'basic card deck only + a few rares" decks. Like I've got..a couple of equalities in my paladin deck and that's it for non basic cards, looking to work up to add some pyro mancers over the novice...eh, the 1/1 that draws a card for 2. See? Thats a week or two of play. Vs..months? Like there is not, at the moment, a pool for 3 month or less players.

Standard though will eliminate a pool of older cards, and it seems come with adjustments to the card-pool which will mean now, the 20-16 bracket is full of either newer players, or small card pools, since the new Dr.Boom level cards will require that the bad players with lots of time start over their grind to purchase them (and the community time to settle on what they even are)

So yah, yah, standard won't fix the problem. But its a long-over due and needed change. It won't fix the problem, but it will go a good ways to making it better.

The answer is you play arena and tavern brawl exclusively. Alternatively, you don't play card games because net decking is not some sort of anomaly that only sprang up with hearthstone.

I got Voltron in this week's Tavern Brawl; first time I've ever seen it even on a stream.

@turambar: I imagine in other card games deckbuilding is a thing that actually happens though (as in greater than 0.1% of players do it on the regular); also lots more formats and such, if you have a limited set of options then it will become boring faster. Tavern Brawl is alright, hit or miss, certainly nowhere near as fun as early closed beta constructed; arena was about as fun for a long time but it died somewhere around GvG when it just became nothing but Tempo/Heartharena Drafts/3-4 classes and nothing else; to be clear Mage used to be the cancer of arena way back when but since it was just one class it was never like 90% of the opponents you faced or anything. I'm still an infinite or near infinite arena player (that actually plays most classes) but it's just not very fun anymore. @starvinggamer has discussed this before but a game with attacker's advantage is pretty damn boring in the long run; regardless of format.

It's still really fun to watch other people get fucked by RNG though, Hearthstone will always have that going for it.

Some really interesting numbers here.

The main reason deck building as you define it is a thing that happens in a CCG is because it is difficult for people to get all the cards they want. If dust was not a thing in Hearthstone, net decking would not be nearly as prevalent either.

@turambar: That's an interesting point I suppose, dust + preponderance of information + ease of acqusition (could be lumped in with dust) leads to the stagnation. Standard will be cool for a little while at least, and Wild might be interesting in a few years; suppose I shouldn't be overly pessimistic in the near term.

This seems worrisome however:

When have you started with Hearthstone?