Welcome back team!
It's been a few weeks since the announcement of Hearthstone's changes revolving around a new rotating Standard format. All the pros and content creators have had their say and expressed how great the changes are for the game. And they are right. I wrote a post a few months back suggestion precontructed decks as a solution to the eventual issues for new players that a larger card pool would bring. The Standard format solves all the same problems and then some. New players have a much smaller barrier to entry. Competitive players will get to experiment with more cards because they will no longer need to justify removing Piloted Shredder for another 4 drop. There are a few points for the new format system that I haven't seen touched on so I want to talk about those before I move into some of my concerns.
I'm going to use my background in Magic in order to make a few of these points so apologies if these comparisons go over some of your heads. I will try my best to make the point clear without them. Magic right now works with a block release schedule. Twice a year they release a new "block" with a new theme and new keyword abilities spread throughout the sets in that particular block. Then every time a new block begins the older of the two in the standard format is no longer playable. What you see happen is a blending of mechanics throughout the 2 blocks in standard in a way that allows one aspect of one block to mesh well with an aspect of the other block in the format. Then this process continues throughout rotations so that certain parts of a standard format remain familiar. Very rarely will a new set in Standard come in and turn the format completely on it's head. To put this in Hearthstone terms think of how Blackrock Mountain led into The Grand Tournament. BRM had cards like Twilight Welp and Blackwing Corruptor and Chromaggus that had the potential to be very strong cards given a good suite of cards to play alongside them. But it wasn't until The Grand Tournament brought cards like Twilight Guardian and Chillmaw completed the picture and made a base Dragon deck possible. Now imagine if League of Explorers or the new set on the horizon brought in more cards that emphasized use of your hero power and the Inspire ability. All of a sudden the cards from TGT like Coldarra Drake and Nexus-Champion Saraad that previously seemed underwhelming may have a complete deck that they can really shine in. This allows Blizzard to push a theme they really want to explore without having to force everything into a single set. And a smaller format let'e more of those types of cards find a place in decks without needing to compete with individually strong cards.
Small rotating formats also allows Blizzard to take more risks in card design. Given the current format rotation rules, League of Explorers will be rotating out of Standard with the first release of 2017. That will give it about 15 months of playability in Hearthstones primary game mode. In the grand scheme of things that's not very long in the lifespan of a card game. If Reno Jackson proved to be overly oppressive to aggro decks then Blizzard has more options of how to address the problem. They can wait to see if the community solves the problem on their own, which seems to be their first choice in the past and rightfully so. They can go in and make changes like they have done in the past with Unleash the Hounds and Warsong Commander. Say what you want about what changes they chose to make, but the fact that they have the option to do so is one of the biggest advantages to being a solely digital game and it's something I hope they do more liberally going forward. However, format rotation also gives them the option to leave things alone and let the rotation take care of the issue for them. This may sound like a bad idea but every issue is going to be unique. The Warsong Commander nerf happened shortly before Blizzcon after months of community issue with Patron Warrior. But Blizzard had stated throughout that the win rate data on the deck led them to believe that the deck wasn't as much of a problem as people believed. It was and still is a very difficult deck to play correctly, but the times where you lost to a ton of damage from an empty board felt awful. I wonder if the situation was different, and Grim Patron and or Death's Bite were set to rotate out within 4-6 months, if Blizz may have decided not to make any changes at all and let the rotation take care of it. Similarly, Mysterious Challenger gets a lot of attention from the community currently as a nerf candidate. I wouldn't be surprised if Secret Paladin goes by the wayside when this first rotation takes place and pushes Shielded Mini-bot and Muster for Battle out of the format. The "wait till rotation" method won't be correct every time, but it does give Blizzard one more answer to potential problems and should give them that much more confidence to take some risks.
Now for my main concern with our new Hearthstone. Right now MTG has two major formats for constructed play; Standard and Modern. The Modern format is pretty much the same as Wild. New cards are legal in Modern as they are released but nothing ever rotates out. Standard in Magic is the default version of the game. It's the format with a majority of the events. And recently, there has been an outcry from some players to even remove the one major non-standard event of the year, a single Modern Pro Tour that takes place shortly after the winter set release. Because there is only the one Pro Tour event and only a handful of other major events in Modern throughout the year, Pros have decided that the format doesn't warrant their attention and become frustrated when they need to focus on it for a few weeks for the Pro Tour. As a result a lot of work gets put into the larger format for a brief period, then it's tossed aside for most of the year and it gets the reputation as a bad or broken format. And as with all card games the player base follows the lead of the professional players and they neglect Modern as well. This is what I am worried about for Hearthstone. By making all of the Hearthstone Championship Tour events Standard format only, Blizzard is forcing the professional player's hand into focusing on Standard primarily as not doing so would hinder their preparation for the most important events for them. And without the professional scene tweaking and innovating on the Wild format it too will fall by the wayside as a pseudo casual mode. It's disingenuous on Blizzard's part to claim that the Wild format will be Hearthstone as we know it now and we are gaining Standard as a new second equal format. For that to be the case they have to set the precedent that both formats are important in their eyes. They need to show the community and other tournament organizers that Wild will be relevant and worth their time to support.
One of the reasons that Magic focuses on Standard is to move product. It's a bit cynical but it's true. But this is where Blizzard is at another advantage. Once a set is out of print in Magic, that's it Wizards of the Coast doesn't sell any more and they have have to switch over to relying on sales of new sets to make money. Meanwhile secondary markets have some say in dictating prices of individual cards whether they are in print or not. Magic players generally have the choice of buying packs until they open the card they need or buying the cards individually from a vendor. Hearthstone doesn't have that option. With the exception of Adventures your options are open them from packs or crafting them with dust. The good thing is there is no secondary market for Hearthstone cards. Supply and demand don't mean a damn thing. So a Legendary is going to cost 1600 dust and a pack is going to be 100 gold presumably forever. So why wouldn't Blizzard support Wild when 40 packs of GvG makes them the same amount of money as 40 packs of whatever the most recent set is. Sell what you can for as long as you can and take advantage of the perks of being a digital product. Add a tab to the store and label it Non-Standard and move Curse of Naxxramas and Goblins vs Gnomes to it. Then either split the major events and make them alternate between formats, or even better, require them both for the highest level events. Make players competing for hundreds of thousands of dollars be proficient in both formats and truly test their mastery of the game. New players still get the benefit of a decreased barrier of entry, but there is also another carrot on a stick to lead them into expanding their collection and investing in the competitive scene. One thing to remember is that regardless of when a player starts playing, there will be a point where a rotation frustrates them. Day 1 players now are upset they invested in Sludge Belchers, Death's Bite, and Dr. Boom. Players who started last year will be upset when Imp Gang Boss, Flamewaker, and Reno Jackson rotate out. And new players who start with the new standard will be frustrated when this upcoming set rotates out. Keeping Wild interesting and relevant helps soften the blow and eases the concerns of all players who hope to make Hearthstone a long term investment whether that be as a hobby or a career.
I'm excited to see what the upcoming release will bring to Hearthstone not only because of our new formats but also because new cards are always exciting regardless of the size of the card pool. Perhaps we will end up in a similar place where Standard gets figured out and becomes a bit stale within a few weeks of release, but if nothing else, more people will be able to take part in the fun.
I'm hoping to get back into a habit of regular posts. Thanks as always for reading! Until next time,
Chris
