Blog:Should I add Hearthstone?

I know Hearthstone is a popular game and everything, but it has really gone downhill recently. I don't want to just add it in the wiki and get back-lashed into oblivion, I want to know what everyone else thinks about adding it.

Just to prove my point, I made a list of bad qualities (and a few good ones):

Things I don’t like:

The game is more about playing better cards than your opponent and less about playing well.

No support for the basic card set. This is bad because new players start with only the basic cards, and many of them are poor compared to the newer cards.

Newer expansions contain a lot of power creep.

Little support to Tavern Brawls (Why does Blizzard keep putting universally hated brawls back into the game?)

Most of the best cards are legendaries, in fact, many decks are built around a single legendary card. The only problem is that legendaries are too difficult to obtain. You may have to open around 25 card packs until you have a chance to get the legendary you want.

The other way of getting legendaries is disenchanting cards, which is also dependent on you buying multiple card packs.

Back in the day, you could buy a solo adventure (which comes with around 45 cards and multiple boss fights) for 15$, which is a good deal. Now you can buy battleground passes for 15$, which comes with no cards and only gives you an edge over other players in the battlegrounds mode. You also have to repurchase the pass every four months if you want to keep it.

Support for wild has been phased out.

Too much support to anti-aggro. Face hunter used one of the few decks you didn’t need legendary cards to play well with. Now every class has tools that can easily win against aggressive decks.

Card art has been changed and cinematics have gone in a new direction to make the game more “kid-friendly”. This would normally be okay, except a majority of the players that play the game are adults.

Some cards, such as Sneed's Old Shredder, have poorly implemented RNG. In some cases, RNG makes the game exciting and makes it so you have to plan around different scenarios. But in some cards (like Sneed's Old Shredder) you have no idea if you will get a 1/1 minion or a 12/12.

There is no option to buy the old solo adventures without using real money.

Free card packs are no longer given out when a new expansion comes out. You do, however, get a free legendary (unfortunately it is a random one).

There is a new keyword (or card effect) for each expansion. They are mostly hit or miss, but even the good ones don’t stick around for the next expansion (inspire is a good example of this, it is a very interesting keyword that never got printed on more than 21 cards)

The new quest system makes it much harder to get gold and card packs, especially casual players.

Blizzard removed the 10 gold per 3 wins feature (they received so much backlash, they apologized...and still didn’t bring it back)

And some things I do like:

The discover keyword is an excellent example of how RNG should work in a card game.

Dungeon runs are really fun and are free to play.

Some of the brawls are excellent.

There is usually a fun meme card for every expansion that is made to be funny rather than good (Unfortunately, these meme cards are sometimes legendaries, so there is a chance a competitive player could get it in a random legendary reward).

There are a lot of cards with interesting effects (such as Kazakus).

When the meta is balanced, there can be a lot of strategy involved in a game.

The new achievement system was a wanted feature that was recently implemented (with mixed reception)

New content is constantly coming out.

