The Gaming Den

Anybody else playing Hearthstone?

It's Blizzard's attempt at an online CCG.

I finished a round my cousin was playing. I died horribly because I didn't know creatures couldn't block. I might give it another shot at some point.

I've been playing for a while (since the closed beta). It's an okay game, I usually play Arena since it makes playing against people less monotonous.

Just started playing it recently. It feels very pay to win, as the expert cards are far and away the best cards for most classes (example: Try playing a Shaman deck without expert Shaman spells). Arena solves the problem, but creates its own problem by being pay to enter.

So Hearthstone is fun about once every 3 days unless you're dropping cash on it or don't mind grinding the shit out of a game. I'm undecided on it because there's clearly a decent game underneath the pay to win crap, but it's lousy with microtransactions so I can't really recommend it to anyone.

There's a 1 mana neutral card that summons a 2/1, it is a basic card. There is a 1 mana expert neutral card that summons a 2/1 that also deals 2 damage to the opponent when it dies. Expert cards are, almost every single time, straight up better than a basic card in the most obvious ways possible. Not a horizontal power increase, but a vertical increase.

However, games take 10 minutes or so, and that's convenient as fuck. I can't decide whether I hate it for being so pay to win, or love it for being MTG without taking any time at all and being incredibly easy to learn (though it's obviously less deep). The more I play it the less I hate it because I get way better cards, but I know that's stupid because the game could have been equal footing instead of "expensive cards are just better than other cards, go fuck yourself new/poor players."

Yeah, I feel like if MTG was free I would never play this. But Hearthstone is also not free, it just replaces all the money with grinding in games you are going to lose a fair amount of because they have better cards.

I guess I just want a CG that is Magic, not a CCG at all.

What's the most you guys could see yourself playing a handheld YGO Tag Force/World Championship-like MtG game?

By YGOTF/WC, I mean a game that's more-or-less:
[*] Complete control over how your deck is built as long as you abide by the basic rules. I know this seems kind of obvious, but you'd be surprised at how many YGO and MTG games substitute in their own stupid game-specific mechanic. None of this Duel of the Planeswalker crap in 2012, holy shit.
[*] Has every or almost every (>95%) of cards published from the beginning of the CCG's history to present.
[*] Have advanced copies of cards not officially released in sets.
[*] Gives you functional but not tournament-worthy decks at the start and you have to grind for new cards via dueling and minigames.
[*] Has a perfunctory story mode whose purpose is to provide you a narrative justification for grinding.
[*] Provides banlist support for about a year and a half after the game is released forward and to some arbitrary point backwards.
[*] Has multiplayer, AI, and online support. The AI doesn't need to be genius-level (and really, if you can get an AI that can think more than one move ahead without cheating, I'm already impressed), but needs to at least not be blatantly retarded.

I mean, I know that YGO is in pretty much every respect shittier than MtG, but at the end of the day I can for about 40 USD get 5000+ electronic cards on a portable handheld. And the closest I could find for MtG that wasn't getting trashed in reviews is MtG Online III. The support boards of which seem to be dead.

Well, MTG as a computer game has the problem that they haven't figured out how to let you say "wait, wait, I did mean to play something in response to that actually", so they're stuck with either explicit priority, bringing the game to a crawl, or not actually implementing the rules (so no AI).

Hearthstone's engine is fundamentally more computer-game-capable than MTG's.

What's the best prize you guys have gotten in the Arena? I'm on a 10 win streak (no losses yet!) and am wondering what to expect when it ends. My previous streak was 4, but my new strategy of "pick the lowest mana cost card that isn't shit" is working great. Yes, my deck has 3 leper gnomes.

Yeah, Arena breaks the 2 of one kind rule. And yes, it's apparently broken with low cost, high damage cards.

Update: I had a loss then 2 more wins and it made me stop doing the arena (guess it caps out?) and gave me 495 gold, an expert card and an expert pack.

http://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Arena

Also, I'm Archmage #1304. I think constructed is kind of eh but would still play if messaged for a game.

Mine is Leress #1304. I usually play on weekends.

EDIT: My mistake.

You actually do need those numbers to add somebody by handle instead of email address.

Just completed another hunter arena run, this time I capped out at 9 wins (155 gold, a golden rare, and a pack!). I didn't get ANY weapons during my draft so I had to rely entirely on minions, the hunter 5 damage nuke, and the hero ability. Shortest game ended with a turn 6 kill, my longest game was my last which made it to turn 11.

BigSkler #1120.

Yeah... it's the pay to win does seem to be pretty strong in this one. I say after paying some to win some. However minimal my skill or experience may be getting a couple of legendaries is all the damned difference, especially to break the almost inevitable late game.

Considering the card packs lean to pretty stingy the rate quests pop up is pretty bad.

Arena mode is probably the best way to play... but not particularly worth the cost. Out of three tries I got to 9 wins on my third... and I'm not sure I'll bother again but if I do I'll be running on gold only.

But why would I play in the Arena, where I need 7 wins (with no more than 3 losses and using the same, not entirely customized, deck again and again) to break even on cost when I can just play once every three days on casual or ranked and only need to win about six games using diverse decks and tactics, with any amount of losses, and actually end up well ahead in card packs?

Which remember you need because, fuck playing with basic cards, that loses you games.

Anwyay, I'm apparently Pyronymer#6260 and I'm only on when you are sleeping.

The nice thing about the arena is that you can also get dust to make cards you want. Disenchanting cards to get dust is difficult unless you get lucky and score a gold rare or something. It's trivial to make the uncommon and even rare cards you need if you do some arena games.

Arena is also less grindy when you don't have good cards. Why struggle through a ton of games you will rarely win because your cards are shit when you could arena until you get cards that aren't shit?

So I relented and did another run at Arena with some gold.

And I just want to say Arena can screw you. It can really, really, really screw you on your options for your deck.

I mean as in every turn of every game I was "This deck is so fucking bad".

1 victory, then 3 losses running. I won against a massive incompetent with a mediocre deck essentially rushing him with the cheap second rate crap I had (which is not the easiest way to win) and then lost solidly against several competent players (but sloooooow just to piss you off because that's just how Arena rolls) who had decks with, well, anything fucking good in them.

No really I had that horrible golem that adds a permanent mana crystal to the other side, and that horrible demon that takes one from you permanently. I chose them, and used them, both, together, because they were some of the best cards in my deck of fail.

Well, I decided to start trying out Hearthstone - and as I have a weird hangup about micropayments in my games, I'm sticking to my guns and refusing to drop a single dime on the game. It's a nice card game to play casually, and that's about what I'm sticking to for the time being. I got to Rank 19, and was promptly smashed back to 20 for my hubris.

Lately, it's just been a slow grind with the dailies to get the gold necessary to buy One Night at Karazhan, one wing at a time. That adventure is honestly the most fun part of the game so far. The casual gameplay I engage in is fine for an hour or so, sort of like my gameplay back in WoW, and casual's matching system is pretty good at keeping me against people that are actually at my level.

Faust#1104