by JR Cook - 9 years ago     show comments

Disclaimer: This Article Means Serious Business, we advice viewer discretion, perhaps you are not prepared for what is about to hit you. You might also be inclined to take this article with a grain of salt, but since this is Hearthstone, you probably have a surplus of salt anyway.

1. Hearthstone is a Game

While at times winning or losing a Hearthstone match can seem like a really important thing, in the end Hearthstone is just a game. Sure, you might feel very cheesed out that your opponent just beat you because he was using a cheap aggro deck, stole all your stuff with priest, had crazy RNG, top decked like a god, was running a P2W deck, Patron Warrior LOL, was better than you. But don’t despair, life is not over, just queue for the next game and try to do a bit better next time. Hearthstone is a game, and its supposed to be fun, but some time people take this children’s card game just way too damn seriously.

2. Hearthstone is a Card Game

Ok, you perhaps knew that Hearthstone was a game. But I bet you didn’t know it was a CARD game. Yeah, that’s a pretty big surprise huh? I thought Blizzard was that RTS game company…

In card games there’s a little thing called Luck of the Draw. Being skilled at a card game is very important, but no matter how skilled you are, there are games that you can’t simply win without the right cards. Lets say that Skill is important, but Topdecks are important-er.  That’s just the nature of a card game, and it doesn’t mean that Hearthstone cannot be a viable high-level competition.

Did anyone say skill?

3. Hearthstone is a Trading Collectible Card Game

Hearthstone isn’t just card game like Poker, Blackjack, Bridge, Hearts, or even Solitaire. Hearthstone doesn’t play with a standardized deck that is the same for all the players. Instead, in Hearthstone you have to collect your cards, and build your deck. How do you collect cards? Well, you buy packs with the in-game currency of gold or you spend your hard-earned cash by make real-money purchases (use code DR23 for 0% discount). So this means that putting more time or more money into the game is going to give you more cards, having more card means that you can play different styles of deck. And sure, some cards are better than others, but that doesn’t make Hearthstone a Pay-to-Win game, it just makes it a Collectible Card Game.

This doesn’t mean you are forced to throw dollars into Blizzard’s pocket either, you can easily and quickly farm enough in-game currency to build a really competitive deck that is able to climb all the way to the top of the ladder.

But I guess getting really good at the game with one deck is just way too much trouble, is far easier to complain that other people put more money into the game.

4. Hearthstone is an Extremely Popular CCG

Ok so Hearthstone is a game, a card game, a collectible card game, but did you know that its really popular? Hearthstone has like 500.000 Gazillions users (more like 30 Millions, really). And it’s very financially successful, it is said that one Hearthstone Pack is bought every second. That adds to a whole lot of money, and in order to keep that up, Blizzard needs to come up with some new card sets to sell on a very tight schedule. Sadly, this means that there is not time for fixing old underpowered cards, even overpowered cards take forever to get addressed, and pesky bugs such as the spectator bug, or that thing where animations from your opponent’s previous turn take so long that you can’t even play YOUR turn, really overstay their welcome.

Remember me, The OG OP?

5. Hearthstone is a Super Casual-Friendly Extremely Popular CCG

One of the reasons that Hearthstone is so popular, is that its just so accessible, interactive, easy to learn, pretty to watch, and quite fun to pick up and play a few games. Hearthstone doesn’t have a big-ass comprehensive rulebook that you have to memorize before playing, you just play your turn and then wait. Rinse and repeat until one of the Heroes reaches that fatal 0 HP number, then play another game or perhaps close the game-client and actually do something productive with your life. Still, the game is designed to be fun, wild, and different every time you play it. This means a WHOLE LOT OF RANDOM EFFECTS! Like top decks weren’t bad enough, if want to take this game seriously and try to get some high-level competition, you have to deal Boom Bot explosions, Knife Juggles, IMP-losions, Void Callers, YOLO Rags, Summon Random Huffers, and all these beautifully designed super casual elements that make Hearthstone so popular.

I mean, Trolden’s Youtube videos get about a Million Hits, while HPL’s top notch production with some of the most skilled players in Hearthstone can only muster about 100 views on their VODs.

FeelsBadMan

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