What Happened in Hearthstone? Taking a Look Back at September 17 - 23
It was a very interesting week! Days of the Frozen Throne was a mini event with rewards, we saw a huge post from Blizzard that included 4 new Classic cards and details on more things coming soon.
Hearthstone News
- Days of the Frozen Throne came and left. Hopefully you got your 600 gold and Happy Ghoul!
- On the topic of Days of the Frozen Throne, Blizzard gave us some developer insights into it.
- Twitch and Blizzard partnered up to bring a special cheer event to Twitch for the Global Games.
- The cheer event has a special card back reward if you spend just under $35 USD.
- Tournament mode has been put on hold.
Blizzard announced a TON of new stuff coming to Hearthstone in the future, including:
- Four new cards are being added to the Classic set!
- Dual Class Arena returns in October with Hallow's End.
- Paladins are getting an annoying new hero. "Sir Annoy-o" is his name.
HearthPwn News
- We went over the five most overhyped Boomsday Project cards so far.
Hearthstone Decks
- Blizzard posted three off-meta decks that are doing awesome at Legend.
- We posted the top and most popular decks of the week.
Hearthstone Esports
- The Fall Championship concluded for the Americas region which means we know the top 16 going to the Fall Championship!
- The Hearthstone Global Games week took place. Don't forget about team cheering.
Thoughts On Last Week
Personal opinion, move on if that bothers you. This is the part where we give last week a review and not just a recap.
It's a shame we're getting yet another Paladin hero and that it's once again tied to another in-game purchase. The way to obtain Sir Annoy-o hasn't officially been announced but there was a press image that showed him beside 20 Witchwood packs which makes it seem like that's the bundle. Buying old packs isn't very exciting, but at least the hero has some meme potential whether that ends up backfiring towards Blizzard or becomes something amazing for the community has yet to been determined.
It's good to see they're at least willing to bring back the dual class arena format that an overwhelmingly vocal number of people appreciated last year. If Blizzard can keep bringing back stuff that people like, and sprinkle it throughout expansions by trying to do something interested at least monthly, it should help player fatigue and maybe, just maybe give some people who've put the game on the back burner a reason to logon. Artifact is coming and lots of the Hearthstone streamers are very interested in playing it, they're going to need all the help they can get.
Regarding tournament mode, it isn't exactly a surprise at this point it's being put on hold and it would have been nicer to know that it was canned sooner to prevent a lot of "wtfs" from everyone when they didn't meet their summer target. Blizzard has been not the best at community messaging in the past and it's an unfortunate trend to see continue. Their large post that showcased many things coming to Hearthstone should have been broken up across a few weeks to make things feel less stale. We're now going to go through another drought of content until BlizzCon announces the next expansion.
On timing - why, at the very least, didn't the welcome bundle make a return earlier? There's at least three things people are going to be putting money towards now for October (Twitch Cheering, Welcome Bundle, Sir Annoy-o) and it's annoying. They must have data that shows people love to spend cash on old cards before an upcoming expansion.
Don't worry though, they're at least adding in 25 new ranks for all those new players the game is attracting! /s
Days of the Frozen Throne was an awesome, small thing for them to do though - More stuff like this, please! It's a great way to bring back some old, still relevant for now, content. When is the Un'Goro jungle going to takeover Hearthstone for a week for another flash back?
Community Videos
Check out popular community videos below! Be sure to also share some of your favourite videos from the past week in the comments.
Value Town #185
Omni/Stone #64
Frost Lich Jaina Brawl
Funny & Lucky Moments #395
Cheated out of 12 Wins?
Intro to Artifact
What does America has to do with HS?
When will blizzard understand that the game should focus on the f2p part more?
I think they should bring back Expansions (new ones) which could be purchased with in-game gold. That was a great way for f2p players to remain f2p while keeping up and having the same tools as those who paid. I mean people will still throw money at the game! The point is that as new expansions come out, the cost of the game goes up. This means that many competitive f2p players can't keep up and end up leaving the game. Most of my friends don't play Hearthstone anymore because of this. Isn't that what Hearthstone's all about? Playing with friends?
Oh and btw, this is all coming from someone who's pretty much the exact opposite of f2p as I've spent WAYYY too much on this game already (pretty sure that's why I'm one of the last who kept playing)
In the last few expansions, they did introduce some things which do help the f2p as well as the suckers who keep throwing money at the screen (me included), which are the free legendary(s) and packs at the start of each new expansion, as well as the No Duplicate Legendary change. But that's about IT.
(Well there are the occasional events like the Midsummer Fire Festival which helped, or the occasional free pack, but in a game which needs at least a hundred packs per expansion just to keep up.. That's not enough)
Give more! Give more to RECEIVE more!! You want the player-base to grow right? Then as more content gets released, release free content as well! Keep in mind that paying players always start as f2p, but if you turn them off early on due to the high cost of the game, they'll just leave it and play some other similar game which doesn't require as much spending and grinding just to remain competitive.
Sorry for the rant guys..
Cheers ~
Correction: I meant they should bring back Adventures* not Expansions
great post, bad effort from blizzard to keep us entertained
Agreed
Blizzard announced a TON of new stuff
Great joke actually because truth is Blizzard announced nothing important for the future of hearthstone and the whole competition (Mtg Arena,Gwent,TESL,Artifact) is getting more relevant by the end of year.
Better have a TON of new stuff on Blizzcon if hearthstone want to maintain his leadership on digital TCG/CCG market.
Gwent: - Hey, we're getting out of beta! -
Artifact: - Hey, we're releasing our game! -
Hearthstone - Hey, we're delaying stuff! -
Yeah, and on top of that Gwent has a lot more balancing problems than Hearthstone for now. It's not all bad, but Blizzard could do more.
Eternal announced their in-game tournament mode last weekend as public beta.
https://www.direwolfdigital.com/news/new-test-tournament-shadowfall/
It's been a while since I've seen posts like this, good to see again.
no tournament mode sucks
Not as much as the new Paladin Hero