The easiest way to make a tournament mode would be to make an arena-like Brawliseum where you are matched vs people with similar records until 12 wins. Maybe there could even be a deck lineup with bans etc, but there would have to be an enterance fee for people to care enough.
That is probably not what people want, though. I actually can't really see how "tournament mode" would work well because the dead-time while waiting for a tournament to fill up and waiting for other matches to finish does not translate very well to Hearthstone imo. A lot of winners would be determined by who bothers to sit through the whole thing with a stable connection.
Another idea completely is to make more support for setting up organized tournaments ingame, but that is another thing alltogether.
WE ARE NOT THE GAME DESIGNERS, WE ARE THE PLAYERS.
IT IS NOT OUR JOB TO COME UP WITH THE NEXT THING.
how can you not understand this?
You're glossing over an important aspect of game designers/devs just simply coming up with a tournament mode and that is will the subjective end product of such a mode bring in the adequate amount of players long term for all of the work, money, and time committed to it, or will the mode be too far from what 'most' players wanted from it and thus repel more people from using the mode long term (thus wasting money, time, and resources that couldn't been spent elsewhere to improve the game).
Long term WoW players should understand this type of problem. WoW, which has many more active players than HS and thus louder vocal minorities/mixes of niche players, often has struggled with taking risks about whether to produce a certain requested content, or making various requested changes to components of their game. Many times adding said content/changes have rewarded Blizzard for the risks they took, but plenty of times it bit them in the ass because what they introduced/changed really didn't end up being all too desirable for [insert vocal minority of playerbase here], which resulted in mass player complaints. In some those cases the players thought they knew what they wanted for particular content, class design, pvp/pve content, mounts/mount changes, etc, but plenty of times when Blizzard delivered on what they thought those players wanted it then blew up in their face.
Tournament mode is very much the above mentioned obstacle, just restricted to HS this time. I won't side track myself for too long on all of the theoretical results for implementing all sorts of various incarnations of "Tournament Mode", but I'll list a view (and briefly comment on how players could theoretically be repelled from the game, or at least future attempts of tournament mode, should T5's attempts at making such a game format fail). For example, say T5 decided that they thought more players wanted a tourney mode where you can implement class/card bans. Say then that players dive right in, but eventually start finding out that *Tah-dah!* optimized lists, or netdecks, simply start popping up in the pool of cards that are left over after initial card/class bans. Say then that players request a raise on the cap of card/class bans to try to impossibly prevent this and players eventually become disenchanted with tourney mode & class/card bans because optimized lists continue to pop up in the remaining pool of cards/cards after each successive cap raise is delivered to ban more & more cards in such a mode.
Other theoretical examples that could end up causing players to complain more about problems caused to the game as a result of implementing a subjective version of the tourney mode could result from the game format making the game less social, rather than more social. If you don't have to go to real face-to-face tourneys at your local conventions, game/hobby stores, or even at small scale fireside gatherings then the potential for anonymous gaming toxicity increases if disgruntled players join your random online tourney (WoW has seen plenty of this since the implementation of LFD, LFG, & LFR). Another example. T5 makes tourney mode where it it simply a HS themed LFG tool where players can browse group listings, activity descriptions in said groups, and then request to join. On paper that could work beautifully. However, what if players start using it to grief others (such as a tourney group kicking a person out of the tourney when they were about to win a match simply to spite them for bringing a particular class, card, deck, or playstyle). If such a tourney mode was created by devs and the players found it to be used for griefing as much as doing tourney activities would players still celebrate T5's attempt at creating the mode?
The point I'm getting at is that T5 could simply take their 'game design prerogative' and just design the tourney mode despite there not being a solid enough or unified enough vision of what it should be, but if they take that risk and it ends up not paying off due to vocal complaints arising en mass then was it worth creating it in the first place, especially if their attempt at creating a mode to please enough of the playerbase instead leads to repelling new and/or old players instead? Some risks pay off, while others should never have been made in the first place.
The easiest way to make a tournament mode would be to make an arena-like Brawliseum where you are matched vs people with similar records until 12 wins. Maybe there could even be a deck lineup with bans etc, but there would have to be an enterance fee for people to care enough.
That is probably not what people want, though. I actually can't really see how "tournament mode" would work well because the dead-time while waiting for a tournament to fill up and waiting for other matches to finish does not translate very well to Hearthstone imo. A lot of winners would be determined by who bothers to sit through the whole thing with a stable connection.
Another idea completely is to make more support for setting up organized tournaments ingame, but that is another thing alltogether.
I think the Brawliseums were a hidden way of testing out an arena-styled tournament mode. Put in X gold, run through an arena styled system but constructed, then get rewards. It was high in cost to try to make a small sample size. If I were to wild guess, they knew most people wouldn't do it then complain but the complaint used would determine how popular the system would be:
If such a system would be accepted by the masses, the complaint would be "It looks great but it costs too much. MAKE IT CHEAPER!" Then Team 5 would know it's in high demand and can develop a formal mode for it.
If the system isn't accepted, you'd hear calls such as "This is boring/this is too much like arena." or it woulld just be passively watched and forgotten. Then Team 5 would be able to use it once in a while as a brawl but otherwise leave it alone and without people saying "OMG they ruined tournaments!"
Note that the latter happened.
As another said, I'm personally all for letting 'Tournament mode' stay buried and instead focus on two major elements:
1. Social elements in the game. Namely guilds/clans. Let people group up and identify as those groups. Give THEM a chat room and ways to match up together easily. Then start adding features like maybe customized games, the ability to match with other guild members, and some type of guild warfare (because the second you add groups the community will scream "GUILD WAR!" until you add it or they riot, though thankfully people are used to waiting for that feature so you have time.
2. Functionality for tournament organizers. Because not having features that make running tournaments easy, especially for your own Blizzard-run tournaments, is very *VERY* **STUPID**. It does NOT have to be publically offered, though if you can that's a bonus. But it DOES need to exist for at least YOUR tournaments and sanctioned ones.
Guild functionality will mollify the 'OMG NEW MODES' people. Better tournaments will make the pros happier. That gives you breathing room to start figuring out the other vague as FK thing people keep demanding: "NEW MODES!"
First just Brawlaseum. Easy enough. Some folks enjoy.
Second, release some tools so that 3rd party folks can create custom tournaments with custom rules. Just let outside folks go wild developing their own iterations of what they think tournaments should look like. So, not a mode per se, but releasing some tools to allow 3rd parties to mod the game a bit.
make a mode with a tournament. its not up to players to figure out the specifics and details.
edit: actually scratch that, they should just never release new content, for two reasons.
when's the last time players agreed what they wanted for a 126 card expansion? we don't deserve new cards.
no matter what the devs do, someone will be unhappy, so why should they give us new content?
You clearly aren't taking anyone seriously, so I'll just stop engaging with you now. Congratulations on throwing away whatever chance you had to have a discussion with ridiculous hyperbole, though.
So back to topic: How could a tournament mode be implemented? I'd say a screen where people can choose some options - presented by "paper"-signs: like wild/standard, fast/normal, 4/8/16/32 Players, ban/no-ban&1Deck/3 Decks, deck restrictions/free decks. So after one choose that, you'd have to pay some small amount of Gold, choose your deck(s)- just enough that you will come back to the actual tournament, like 10,20- and you'd have to wait for a bit, since tournaments start at every half/full hour.
Then the actual tournament: you'd get an invite like if a friend tries to play with you, if you agree, you'll either get into a special tournament screen, where you could ban one of the 3 decks of your opponent-in a ban mode- or directly into your first game. One opponent one game. If you don not show up- disconnect for to long autowin for your opponent.
Between games- which either would be every 20min/or T5 knows when- all the players who don't have a game could chat, or spectate the current games.
In the end, the larger the tournament the higher the price for the better half of the players would be. Like:(-,-,15,25), (-,-,-,-,15,15, 30, 50), (8*0, 4*25, 50, 1Pack)...
For deck restrictions: here there would be quite a lot of possibilitys, probably a good reason why this game mode never happened: Budget: Only 3000/6000/9000 Dust/Deck; Expansions: Only decks that were in standard in the year of the Mammoth/Raven/Kraken...; One class only; all classes expect one; only players from a certain rank up... Since there are so many possible deck restrictions, maybe only budget/all decks would be normal, the other restrictions would possible rotate into play one each week.
If there aren't enough players, everyone gets an invite to a similar tournament, or people can choose to drop out with their Gold- or the group plays a tournament with a smaller number of participants.
So, would people be interested in this kind of tournaments?
ehhh it'd be better to make a sandbox mode like someone in the thread suggested, why? because
1. you could ban cards,
2. you could decide blocks, let's say you want to make constructed decks with the current expansions that are in Arena, or for some reason your last name is Kibler and you want to see a mode with no classic set...so you can create your full expansions block to play with friends
3. you could decide custom rules, like, more/less cards per deck, more/less starting health, only highlander decks, more copies of a card per deck, all minions hava taunt/heroes have taunt,
4. if you make it room based it would be easy for streamers to interact with their audiences, which actually gives an added value to the experience, autochess proved it, since some former hearthstone personalities are having far more success running subscriber games in autochess than they ever did in hearthstone.
Edit: how would tournament mode look like? probbaly like the one in the pokemon tcg online app
So back to topic: How could a tournament mode be implemented? I'd say a screen where people can choose some options - presented by "paper"-signs: like wild/standard, fast/normal, 4/8/16/32 Players, ban/no-ban&1Deck/3 Decks, deck restrictions/free decks. So after one choose that, you'd have to pay some small amount of Gold, choose your deck(s)- just enough that you will come back to the actual tournament, like 10,20- and you'd have to wait for a bit, since tournaments start at every half/full hour.
Then the actual tournament: you'd get an invite like if a friend tries to play with you, if you agree, you'll either get into a special tournament screen, where you could ban one of the 3 decks of your opponent-in a ban mode- or directly into your first game. One opponent one game. If you don not show up- disconnect for to long autowin for your opponent.
Between games- which either would be every 20min/or T5 knows when- all the players who don't have a game could chat, or spectate the current games.
In the end, the larger the tournament the higher the price for the better half of the players would be. Like:(-,-,15,25), (-,-,-,-,15,15, 30, 50), (8*0, 4*25, 50, 1Pack)...
For deck restrictions: here there would be quite a lot of possibilitys, probably a good reason why this game mode never happened: Budget: Only 3000/6000/9000 Dust/Deck; Expansions: Only decks that were in standard in the year of the Mammoth/Raven/Kraken...; One class only; all classes expect one; only players from a certain rank up... Since there are so many possible deck restrictions, maybe only budget/all decks would be normal, the other restrictions would possible rotate into play one each week.
If there aren't enough players, everyone gets an invite to a similar tournament, or people can choose to drop out with their Gold- or the group plays a tournament with a smaller number of participants.
So, would people be interested in this kind of tournaments?
It sounds good in theory, but as I mentioned above, I don't think this will work in Hearthstone.
-Unless tourament mode is the main hearthstone format, the playerbase will be way too small.
-You are splitting up an already small playerbase into a HUGE amount of possible tournament formats. Remember that unlike in poker, once a tournament gets going, you can't join another one, so if a specific tournament gets going, all the "fans" of that type will be gone for a long time.
-Hearthstone is often played "on the fly" and many players likes that. A stolen game on the bus, during a biobreak, during a commercial while watching sports... Tournaments are a very different beast: you have to be ready to commit at least 2 hours of uninterrupted gaming time. If you have that, I believe many of us would rather play another game.
-A key strenght of Hearthstone as a game is that is so quick. No need to goof around before jumping in. This will also be very different in a mode you are suggesting, having to wait for exact times for the tournament to start, and then wasting a slot if it never gets going.
-What do you do if you just played 3 instawin stomps and having to wait for 2 ropers grinding out 5 fatiguedeck mirrors before you can continue to the next round? You can start matches as they get ready, but that is not a fair way to determine matchups, and many will eventually end up waiting a long time no matter what you do. You suggest watching others playing their games out, but sorry, that is not interresting enough imo.
-I would be very hard to implement a smooth interface on mobile devices, especially with all the suggested social features.
Personally, I would not bother and rather play ladder if I feel competetive.
So back to topic: How could a tournament mode be implemented? I'd say a screen where people can choose some options - presented by "paper"-signs: like wild/standard, fast/normal, 4/8/16/32 Players, ban/no-ban&1Deck/3 Decks, deck restrictions/free decks. So after one choose that, you'd have to pay some small amount of Gold, choose your deck(s)- just enough that you will come back to the actual tournament, like 10,20- and you'd have to wait for a bit, since tournaments start at every half/full hour.
Then the actual tournament: you'd get an invite like if a friend tries to play with you, if you agree, you'll either get into a special tournament screen, where you could ban one of the 3 decks of your opponent-in a ban mode- or directly into your first game. One opponent one game. If you don not show up- disconnect for to long autowin for your opponent.
Between games- which either would be every 20min/or T5 knows when- all the players who don't have a game could chat, or spectate the current games.
In the end, the larger the tournament the higher the price for the better half of the players would be. Like:(-,-,15,25), (-,-,-,-,15,15, 30, 50), (8*0, 4*25, 50, 1Pack)...
For deck restrictions: here there would be quite a lot of possibilitys, probably a good reason why this game mode never happened: Budget: Only 3000/6000/9000 Dust/Deck; Expansions: Only decks that were in standard in the year of the Mammoth/Raven/Kraken...; One class only; all classes expect one; only players from a certain rank up... Since there are so many possible deck restrictions, maybe only budget/all decks would be normal, the other restrictions would possible rotate into play one each week.
If there aren't enough players, everyone gets an invite to a similar tournament, or people can choose to drop out with their Gold- or the group plays a tournament with a smaller number of participants.
So, would people be interested in this kind of tournaments?
It could be interesting but there are still a lot of problems with it.
First and foremost is the whole ban or decks w/ restrictions concept. Unlike the other deck specifications/customization this one has the complexity to be it's own entire feature. For example, if you do more with it than just the standard HCT class bans then we are taking an entire UI function that pulls up dozens to hundreds of cards for you to possibly ban. If you'd have to sit around in a tourney queue waiting for people to sift through specific cards to ban it would get tiresome really fast. Nobody wants to sit around for 5-10 minutes, or more, while somebody decides what exactly they are going to ban. And we aren't even talking about the whole separate issue of people banning precisely the cards that counter their deck/playstyle.
There is also an issue of how are you going to proactively work around griefing in a tourney/custom group format. Say you allow people to create groups, but you don't create your own non-automated mechanism to remove players, then you can theoretically end up with someone purposefully dragging their turns out til they rope every single turn just because they are bored and want to troll your group. If you then allow group leaders to remove people instead, to avoid the previously mentioned trolling, then how is the system going to prevent a group leader from removing you if you beat one of their friends or brought a playstyle/deck they didn't like and you started winning too much? On either end there is potential for abuse in the system. You can't just create such a mode until you have an exact process for how griefing/trolling is going to be minimized as much as possible.
And since you lightly touched on rewards for tourney play it should also be mentioned how you are going to prevent friends from gaming the tourney mode and win trading so that much more competent players continually win tourneys by inviting less experienced players?
^ There are plenty of subtle intricacies that need to be considered before ever just creating a tourney mode.
Sadly they can't do that as it's not Blizzard that did it. Basically Blizzard is given the right to host the game in China but not full control over it, meaning other companies can add in stuff as they see fit. So we would have to have that Chinese company coming over to the rest of the world to put their program here.
And I'll be honest, I don't like some of the stuff going on over there so I'd rather not.
sidenote, it looks like a third party program so technically someone could make it over here anyway similar to how we have deck trackers.
What WOULD be nice is to know how well it works over there
-A key strenght of Hearthstone as a game is that is so quick. No need to goof around before jumping in. This will also be very different in a mode you are suggesting, having to wait for exact times for the tournament to start, and then wasting a slot if it never gets going.
-What do you do if you just played 3 instawin stomps and having to wait for 2 ropers grinding out 5 fatiguedeck mirrors before you can continue to the next round? You can start matches as they get ready, but that is not a fair way to determine matchups, and many will eventually end up waiting a long time no matter what you do. You suggest watching others playing their games out, but sorry, that is not interresting enough imo.
-I would be very hard to implement a smooth interface on mobile devices, especially with all the suggested social features.
Personally, I would not bother and rather play ladder if I feel competetive.
This is one of the key issues I'm thinking. It's an issue with other games that put in tournaments, such as Starcraft 2. And in that game you can have a mode that ends up not that popular due to many issues since it has so many other features already in it. HS' community is rather desperate for a major new mode so whatever comes in is going to need broad appeal and especially note that many people in it don't spend a lot of time playing.
would a lot of people really be content with a mode where you may play for 5 minutes (or auto win if your opponent didn't show) and had to wait 30 minutes to an hour over a warrior/warrior match that hit the turn limit?
I'm not saying this to tell everyone to shut up. I'm presenting it as a serious issue that I would like to see solved. I've seen modes like this in other games fowl up so badly it left the community in a far worse mood than before they had it. And if the design team is going ot be working on something for a year or so, I'd rather it be on something that helps more than the very few who have 3-6 hours to sit around for a few games but who cannot or will not join the already active third party tournaments that currently go on.
First off, many in these forums and pro HS players have stated specific and detailed ways to implement tournament mode. If you want us non programmers to actual program the mode for Blizzard, sure...that sounds fair and feasible?
Don't lump people into the same category of 'people don't know what they want, but they want this anyway!". Not only are there plenty of threads, but videos, live streams, articles and many more of how tournaments could be implemented.
You have to ask yourself a simple question. Why do people want tournament mode, whatever that may end up being? What does tournament mode mean to you?
Sure, you implement a tournament mode and you will not be able to please everyone. Someone or even a bunch of people will complain. The thing is, this is an EXTRA thing offered to players. It's not required content. If they don't want to play it or don't like it, they dont have to play it.
Tavern Brawl is an easy way to experiment with any sort of Tournament mode they wish to implement. Giving more to players is not a bad thing, even if no one plays it after the first few weeks.
Let me ask you this. How much is the single player content played from Rastakan these days? How many play that content over Ladder or Arena? So should Blizzard never release it in the first place because it is no longer played in the same numbers? Blizzard should release content and then if players aren't engaging in it, figure out why and if they want it to be played more, do something about it.
The first ever Brawlesium for some people was too expensive and it was not played by the majority of the player base. They changed it later on to you get a free entry and then it costs a reasonable amount of gold each entry. It was not that hard to figure out that most players, even those with tons of gold sitting around, are not going to pay for a Tavern Brawl that costs 10 times an Arena run.
I also have plenty of ideas of implementing a tournament mode. But I am certainly not going to tell a programmer or developer how to do their job. We as customers, tell them what we would like to see. Then they go about deciding how feasible and profitable it will be. If they put in the work, and find it to be lacking, then fix it so more people participate.
How do you find out what customers want? Go through social media and post polls and questions. Put official forum threads on your website and ask the customers what they want. Find out what they would pay for such things. Find out if you want Round Robin, Banned Cards and so forth.
Let me ask you this. How much is the single player content played from Rastakan these days? How many play that content over Ladder or Arena? So should Blizzard never release it in the first place because it is no longer played in the same numbers? Blizzard should release content and then if players aren't engaging in it, figure out why and if they want it to be played more, do something about it.
I think the matter isn't so much about whether it SHOULD exist but a matter of priority. I mean, if Team 5 is capable of working on everything at the same time then it's honestly a non-issue. They can go make a feature that literally only 5 people would like for all that it matters. As I wrote, Starcraft having a Tournament mode that many didn't like wasn't much of an issue since there's already a ton of things to do in the game and, going by the forums, some people are finding joy in it.
But this is Hearthstone, which is sorely lacking in EVERYTHING, and with a team that seems to be listening but not exactly efficient. Their post about giving up Tournament mode in favor of Social features highly suggest that they can't do both at a reasonable time.
As far as figuring out what they want, they seem to be doing just that for their officially run tournament which is why they overhauled the entire system. Given that they don't have a solid standing on what their official multi-million dollar system should look like, I'm willing to guess that they don't have a solid standing on what an in-game version would look like, and they HAVE to get the rulesets right when putting it into the actual code since that's much harder to change than the written rules in the regular scene.
If they went and announced "WE HAVE TOURNAMENT MODE!" i'm not going to be raging about it. If they think they can pull it off then by jove go do it. But given what they sound and what they seem to be doing/not doing, I'm going off the vibe that they are a LONG way away from providing much of anything as far as in-game automated tournament systems.
All the talk about 'what people want' and 'what problems show up' are mostly to show that it's NOT just a simple thing to add tournaments in the game. It's a complicated beast that's going to take a lot of feedback and a LOT of planning to do it right. It IS something we can do. But they need to be ready for it. And given last year, it's clear they aren't. And I REALLY don't want them to get into the habit of sending out buggy crappy rushed material.
right now, I want them forming a gameplan on what to do. I'm not sure I want to know what it IS (see what happened when they announced Tournament mode ) but I want them to be working on something big.
As for the rest, I'm fine with folks asking for tournament mode, but if we're going to discuss whether it's feasable for THIS company to do it or if they can focus on other stuff..well.. there's my 2 cents.
So back to topic: How could a tournament mode be implemented? I'd say a screen where people can choose some options - presented by "paper"-signs: like wild/standard, fast/normal, 4/8/16/32 Players, ban/no-ban&1Deck/3 Decks, deck restrictions/free decks. So after one choose that, you'd have to pay some small amount of Gold, choose your deck(s)- just enough that you will come back to the actual tournament, like 10,20- and you'd have to wait for a bit, since tournaments start at every half/full hour.
Then the actual tournament: you'd get an invite like if a friend tries to play with you, if you agree, you'll either get into a special tournament screen, where you could ban one of the 3 decks of your opponent-in a ban mode- or directly into your first game. One opponent one game. If you don not show up- disconnect for to long autowin for your opponent.
Between games- which either would be every 20min/or T5 knows when- all the players who don't have a game could chat, or spectate the current games.
In the end, the larger the tournament the higher the price for the better half of the players would be. Like:(-,-,15,25), (-,-,-,-,15,15, 30, 50), (8*0, 4*25, 50, 1Pack)...
For deck restrictions: here there would be quite a lot of possibilitys, probably a good reason why this game mode never happened: Budget: Only 3000/6000/9000 Dust/Deck; Expansions: Only decks that were in standard in the year of the Mammoth/Raven/Kraken...; One class only; all classes expect one; only players from a certain rank up... Since there are so many possible deck restrictions, maybe only budget/all decks would be normal, the other restrictions would possible rotate into play one each week.
If there aren't enough players, everyone gets an invite to a similar tournament, or people can choose to drop out with their Gold- or the group plays a tournament with a smaller number of participants.
So, would people be interested in this kind of tournaments?
yes 100% yes !
this is what we want, i dont care about deck restrictions though
i just want to.play master qualifiers without going to.stupid battlefy site.
this is what we want, i dont care about deck restrictions though
i just want to.play master qualifiers without going to.stupid battlefy site.
Honestly, I think THIS is more of what we need.
To specify, if by 'tournament mode' we're thinking of some automatic system that you can get into as easily as arena or goes off every few hours or so, I'm not sure that'll go as well as we would like.
But if the idea is to add tournament FEATURES, so that the folks already running tournaments can actually run them in-game, with features such as the ability for designated casters to be able to quickly sign into a match and have full information of the game, or have decks 'locked in' so that they CAN'T be changed, or even have it so that the system tracks wins and losses and the like, then they BETTER be making stuff like that right this second. I wouldn't call that 'tournament mode' as 'mode' feels more like something you see at the start screen, like "Campaign mode, PvP mode, Tournament mode, Big head Mode."
But semantics battles are stupid.
The answer to the question about 'Tournaments in the game' should be this:
"i just want to.play master qualifiers without going to.stupid battlefy site"
We already have a rather large number of folks who regularly join tournaments, complete with being willing to wait a long time between games. We already have tournament organizers who make a wide range of tournaments. We DON'T need some automated system that looks like some bootlegged dressing of Arena or "Ranked, with BANNS!" We don't need to figure out how Mr. and Ms. Casual can play a best of 3 on their phones while waiting to pick up their child. The item doesn't even need to be one of the main buttons. It could be something most people never have access to. But it should be there for those that do need it.
We have tournaments running right now. The people who probably really REALLY want tournaments are playing them right now. And they are buggy messes full of messy workarounds because EVERYTHING has to be handled outside the client. Including the blizzard run multi-million dollar tournament system. They can literally talk to the folks who ran HTC less than a month ago and say "What could be made easier." then add THAT. In client. Out of client. On an App, Whatever works for the official folks.
this is what we want, i dont care about deck restrictions though
i just want to.play master qualifiers without going to.stupid battlefy site.
Honestly, I think THIS is more of what we need.
To specify, if by 'tournament mode' we're thinking of some automatic system that you can get into as easily as arena or goes off every few hours or so, I'm not sure that'll go as well as we would like.
But if the idea is to add tournament FEATURES, so that the folks already running tournaments can actually run them in-game, with features such as the ability for designated casters to be able to quickly sign into a match and have full information of the game, or have decks 'locked in' so that they CAN'T be changed, or even have it so that the system tracks wins and losses and the like, then they BETTER be making stuff like that right this second. I wouldn't call that 'tournament mode' as 'mode' feels more like something you see at the start screen, like "Campaign mode, PvP mode, Tournament mode, Big head Mode."
But semantics battles are stupid.
The answer to the question about 'Tournaments in the game' should be this:
"i just want to.play master qualifiers without going to.stupid battlefy site"
We already have a rather large number of folks who regularly join tournaments, complete with being willing to wait a long time between games. We already have tournament organizers who make a wide range of tournaments. We DON'T need some automated system that looks like some bootlegged dressing of Arena or "Ranked, with BANNS!" We don't need to figure out how Mr. and Ms. Casual can play a best of 3 on their phones while waiting to pick up their child. The item doesn't even need to be one of the main buttons. It could be something most people never have access to. But it should be there for those that do need it.
We have tournaments running right now. The people who probably really REALLY want tournaments are playing them right now. And they are buggy messes full of messy workarounds because EVERYTHING has to be handled outside the client. Including the blizzard run multi-million dollar tournament system. They can literally talk to the folks who ran HTC less than a month ago and say "What could be made easier." then add THAT. In client. Out of client. On an App, Whatever works for the official folks.
That's the answer to the question.
I agree to this completely. Tournament features don't need to be fully automated and fool proof. The idea is to give tournament organizers in client and in game options to organize and feature matches. They already know how to 'lock' decks because instead of creating decks in your 18 deck slots, you have to create the deck in a 'special tournament mode'. That deck and deck list is locked in that mode once submitted. Problem solved.
If you give slots within that tournament mode, then that player can make multiple decks. Then when facing another player, a list of their classes shows up and you get to ban one of them. Treat it like a Fireside Gathering and you are facing this person.
How easy is all of this? I dunno, but other clients and software programs manage to do some amazing things. So the answer is, why not purchase the third party company and their software and then develop it in house?
My Crazy Idea: The worst deck competition. Here's how it works.
Phase 1: Deck Submission. Period during witch entrants must submit a deck that it is as bad as possible (i.e., has the worst chance of winning even when played as well as possible). When this phase ends, the decks are all saved into a pool for the next phase.
Phase 2: Tournament. The tournament is similar to Brawliseum/Arena, except that for each game, players are assigned a different random deck from the pool of bad decks submitted in phase 1. Players will never get their own deck, and can review the deck before each match. The goal of the tournament phase is to win as many games as possible with terrible decks!
Phase 3: Prizes. There will two types of awards. For the tournament itself, there will be rewards for winning games (up to 12 maybe?) similar to the current Brawliseum/Arena structure. Players are thus encouraged to play the bad decks they receive as well as they can to win. At the end of the tournament, there will be one or more large/special prize packages awarded to the player(s) that submitted the decks with the lowest win rate throughout the tournament, meaning they were the best a designing the worst possible decks!
The beauty of this format is 1) people have never tried to make intentionally bad decks, so there is no netdeck repository out there---there will be lots of diversity, 2) since players are genuinely trying to win the tournament, the worst decks really will be the ones that players could not win with no matter how hard they tried, and 3) it will highlight the best players as those who can figure out how to win with awful decks they did not design.
My Crazy Idea: The worst deck competition. Here's how it works.
Phase 1: Deck Submission. Period during witch entrants must submit a deck that it is as bad as possible (i.e., has the worst chance of winning even when played as well as possible). When this phase ends, the decks are all saved into a pool for the next phase.
Phase 2: Tournament. The tournament is similar to Brawliseum/Arena, except that for each game, players are assigned a different random deck from the pool of bad decks submitted in phase 1. Players will never get their own deck, and can review the deck before each match. The goal of the tournament phase is to win as many games as possible with terrible decks!
Phase 3: Prizes. There will two types of awards. For the tournament itself, there will be rewards for winning games (up to 12 maybe?) similar to the current Brawliseum/Arena structure. Players are thus encouraged to play the bad decks they receive as well as they can to win. At the end of the tournament, there will be one or more large/special prize packages awarded to the player(s) that submitted the decks with the lowest win rate throughout the tournament, meaning they were the best a designing the worst possible decks!
The beauty of this format is 1) people have never tried to make intentionally bad decks, so there is no netdeck repository out there---there will be lots of diversity, 2) since players are genuinely trying to win the tournament, the worst decks really will be the ones that players could not win with no matter how hard they tried, and 3) it will highlight the best players as those who can figure out how to win with awful decks they did not design.
This sounds like something for a brawl. You make a deck but you get your opponent's deck (and no switchbacks like that brawl before that did similar)
This NEEDS to be a brawl.
I saw opponent because if it's just a random deck then I can see a lot of folks making whatever deck they want, including good ones because it doesn't really affect them (faster to just netdeck a good deck than self make a bad one).
Brawl is really the best place for all of these whacky races ideas.
Just let the occasional Brawlselium be the tournament mode. Arena is perfect in that it feels like a tournament (stakes are high, high win-rate players tend to be grouped together to get the coveted 12 wins like winners in an actual tournament, low win-rate players at least get to compete vs each other to make back as much gold as possible) but most importantly you don't need to set aside 8 hours for Arena. I can't even begin to imagine a tournament where everyone else finishes their best of 3 matches but the Warrior vs Warrior are still on match 1. And knowing Hearthstone's spaghetti code if you even dreamed of leaving your lobby to do a ranked or arena game as you waited you'd never get back in.
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The easiest way to make a tournament mode would be to make an arena-like Brawliseum where you are matched vs people with similar records until 12 wins. Maybe there could even be a deck lineup with bans etc, but there would have to be an enterance fee for people to care enough.
That is probably not what people want, though. I actually can't really see how "tournament mode" would work well because the dead-time while waiting for a tournament to fill up and waiting for other matches to finish does not translate very well to Hearthstone imo. A lot of winners would be determined by who bothers to sit through the whole thing with a stable connection.
Another idea completely is to make more support for setting up organized tournaments ingame, but that is another thing alltogether.
Editor of the Heartpwn Legendary Crafting Guide:
https://www.hearthpwn.com/forums/hearthstone-general/card-discussion/205920-legendary-tier-list-crafting-guide
You're glossing over an important aspect of game designers/devs just simply coming up with a tournament mode and that is will the subjective end product of such a mode bring in the adequate amount of players long term for all of the work, money, and time committed to it, or will the mode be too far from what 'most' players wanted from it and thus repel more people from using the mode long term (thus wasting money, time, and resources that couldn't been spent elsewhere to improve the game).
Long term WoW players should understand this type of problem. WoW, which has many more active players than HS and thus louder vocal minorities/mixes of niche players, often has struggled with taking risks about whether to produce a certain requested content, or making various requested changes to components of their game. Many times adding said content/changes have rewarded Blizzard for the risks they took, but plenty of times it bit them in the ass because what they introduced/changed really didn't end up being all too desirable for [insert vocal minority of playerbase here], which resulted in mass player complaints. In some those cases the players thought they knew what they wanted for particular content, class design, pvp/pve content, mounts/mount changes, etc, but plenty of times when Blizzard delivered on what they thought those players wanted it then blew up in their face.
Tournament mode is very much the above mentioned obstacle, just restricted to HS this time. I won't side track myself for too long on all of the theoretical results for implementing all sorts of various incarnations of "Tournament Mode", but I'll list a view (and briefly comment on how players could theoretically be repelled from the game, or at least future attempts of tournament mode, should T5's attempts at making such a game format fail). For example, say T5 decided that they thought more players wanted a tourney mode where you can implement class/card bans. Say then that players dive right in, but eventually start finding out that *Tah-dah!* optimized lists, or netdecks, simply start popping up in the pool of cards that are left over after initial card/class bans. Say then that players request a raise on the cap of card/class bans to try to impossibly prevent this and players eventually become disenchanted with tourney mode & class/card bans because optimized lists continue to pop up in the remaining pool of cards/cards after each successive cap raise is delivered to ban more & more cards in such a mode.
Other theoretical examples that could end up causing players to complain more about problems caused to the game as a result of implementing a subjective version of the tourney mode could result from the game format making the game less social, rather than more social. If you don't have to go to real face-to-face tourneys at your local conventions, game/hobby stores, or even at small scale fireside gatherings then the potential for anonymous gaming toxicity increases if disgruntled players join your random online tourney (WoW has seen plenty of this since the implementation of LFD, LFG, & LFR). Another example. T5 makes tourney mode where it it simply a HS themed LFG tool where players can browse group listings, activity descriptions in said groups, and then request to join. On paper that could work beautifully. However, what if players start using it to grief others (such as a tourney group kicking a person out of the tourney when they were about to win a match simply to spite them for bringing a particular class, card, deck, or playstyle). If such a tourney mode was created by devs and the players found it to be used for griefing as much as doing tourney activities would players still celebrate T5's attempt at creating the mode?
The point I'm getting at is that T5 could simply take their 'game design prerogative' and just design the tourney mode despite there not being a solid enough or unified enough vision of what it should be, but if they take that risk and it ends up not paying off due to vocal complaints arising en mass then was it worth creating it in the first place, especially if their attempt at creating a mode to please enough of the playerbase instead leads to repelling new and/or old players instead? Some risks pay off, while others should never have been made in the first place.
I think the Brawliseums were a hidden way of testing out an arena-styled tournament mode. Put in X gold, run through an arena styled system but constructed, then get rewards. It was high in cost to try to make a small sample size. If I were to wild guess, they knew most people wouldn't do it then complain but the complaint used would determine how popular the system would be:
If such a system would be accepted by the masses, the complaint would be "It looks great but it costs too much. MAKE IT CHEAPER!" Then Team 5 would know it's in high demand and can develop a formal mode for it.
If the system isn't accepted, you'd hear calls such as "This is boring/this is too much like arena." or it woulld just be passively watched and forgotten. Then Team 5 would be able to use it once in a while as a brawl but otherwise leave it alone and without people saying "OMG they ruined tournaments!"
Note that the latter happened.
As another said, I'm personally all for letting 'Tournament mode' stay buried and instead focus on two major elements:
1. Social elements in the game. Namely guilds/clans. Let people group up and identify as those groups. Give THEM a chat room and ways to match up together easily. Then start adding features like maybe customized games, the ability to match with other guild members, and some type of guild warfare (because the second you add groups the community will scream "GUILD WAR!" until you add it or they riot, though thankfully people are used to waiting for that feature so you have time.
2. Functionality for tournament organizers. Because not having features that make running tournaments easy, especially for your own Blizzard-run tournaments, is very *VERY* **STUPID**. It does NOT have to be publically offered, though if you can that's a bonus. But it DOES need to exist for at least YOUR tournaments and sanctioned ones.
Guild functionality will mollify the 'OMG NEW MODES' people. Better tournaments will make the pros happier. That gives you breathing room to start figuring out the other vague as FK thing people keep demanding: "NEW MODES!"
One does not simply walk into Mordor,
unless they want to be the best they can be.
My 'mode' would be 2 modes.
First just Brawlaseum. Easy enough. Some folks enjoy.
Second, release some tools so that 3rd party folks can create custom tournaments with custom rules. Just let outside folks go wild developing their own iterations of what they think tournaments should look like. So, not a mode per se, but releasing some tools to allow 3rd parties to mod the game a bit.
Galavant Animation
make a mode with a tournament. its not up to players to figure out the specifics and details.
edit: actually scratch that, they should just never release new content, for two reasons.
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Join me at Out of Cards!
You clearly aren't taking anyone seriously, so I'll just stop engaging with you now. Congratulations on throwing away whatever chance you had to have a discussion with ridiculous hyperbole, though.
You can find me here! Good luck everyone!
So back to topic: How could a tournament mode be implemented? I'd say a screen where people can choose some options - presented by "paper"-signs: like wild/standard, fast/normal, 4/8/16/32 Players, ban/no-ban&1Deck/3 Decks, deck restrictions/free decks. So after one choose that, you'd have to pay some small amount of Gold, choose your deck(s)- just enough that you will come back to the actual tournament, like 10,20- and you'd have to wait for a bit, since tournaments start at every half/full hour.
Then the actual tournament: you'd get an invite like if a friend tries to play with you, if you agree, you'll either get into a special tournament screen, where you could ban one of the 3 decks of your opponent-in a ban mode- or directly into your first game. One opponent one game. If you don not show up- disconnect for to long autowin for your opponent.
Between games- which either would be every 20min/or T5 knows when- all the players who don't have a game could chat, or spectate the current games.
In the end, the larger the tournament the higher the price for the better half of the players would be. Like:(-,-,15,25), (-,-,-,-,15,15, 30, 50), (8*0, 4*25, 50, 1Pack)...
For deck restrictions: here there would be quite a lot of possibilitys, probably a good reason why this game mode never happened: Budget: Only 3000/6000/9000 Dust/Deck; Expansions: Only decks that were in standard in the year of the Mammoth/Raven/Kraken...; One class only; all classes expect one; only players from a certain rank up... Since there are so many possible deck restrictions, maybe only budget/all decks would be normal, the other restrictions would possible rotate into play one each week.
If there aren't enough players, everyone gets an invite to a similar tournament, or people can choose to drop out with their Gold- or the group plays a tournament with a smaller number of participants.
So, would people be interested in this kind of tournaments?
ehhh it'd be better to make a sandbox mode like someone in the thread suggested, why? because
1. you could ban cards,
2. you could decide blocks, let's say you want to make constructed decks with the current expansions that are in Arena, or for some reason your last name is Kibler and you want to see a mode with no classic set...so you can create your full expansions block to play with friends
3. you could decide custom rules, like, more/less cards per deck, more/less starting health, only highlander decks, more copies of a card per deck, all minions hava taunt/heroes have taunt,
4. if you make it room based it would be easy for streamers to interact with their audiences, which actually gives an added value to the experience, autochess proved it, since some former hearthstone personalities are having far more success running subscriber games in autochess than they ever did in hearthstone.
Edit: how would tournament mode look like? probbaly like the one in the pokemon tcg online app
the one in this link: https://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-tcg/play-online/tournaments/
Single elimination and a special currency to enter
It sounds good in theory, but as I mentioned above, I don't think this will work in Hearthstone.
-Unless tourament mode is the main hearthstone format, the playerbase will be way too small.
-You are splitting up an already small playerbase into a HUGE amount of possible tournament formats. Remember that unlike in poker, once a tournament gets going, you can't join another one, so if a specific tournament gets going, all the "fans" of that type will be gone for a long time.
-Hearthstone is often played "on the fly" and many players likes that. A stolen game on the bus, during a biobreak, during a commercial while watching sports... Tournaments are a very different beast: you have to be ready to commit at least 2 hours of uninterrupted gaming time. If you have that, I believe many of us would rather play another game.
-A key strenght of Hearthstone as a game is that is so quick. No need to goof around before jumping in. This will also be very different in a mode you are suggesting, having to wait for exact times for the tournament to start, and then wasting a slot if it never gets going.
-What do you do if you just played 3 instawin stomps and having to wait for 2 ropers grinding out 5 fatiguedeck mirrors before you can continue to the next round? You can start matches as they get ready, but that is not a fair way to determine matchups, and many will eventually end up waiting a long time no matter what you do. You suggest watching others playing their games out, but sorry, that is not interresting enough imo.
-I would be very hard to implement a smooth interface on mobile devices, especially with all the suggested social features.
Personally, I would not bother and rather play ladder if I feel competetive.
Editor of the Heartpwn Legendary Crafting Guide:
https://www.hearthpwn.com/forums/hearthstone-general/card-discussion/205920-legendary-tier-list-crafting-guide
It could be interesting but there are still a lot of problems with it.
First and foremost is the whole ban or decks w/ restrictions concept. Unlike the other deck specifications/customization this one has the complexity to be it's own entire feature. For example, if you do more with it than just the standard HCT class bans then we are taking an entire UI function that pulls up dozens to hundreds of cards for you to possibly ban. If you'd have to sit around in a tourney queue waiting for people to sift through specific cards to ban it would get tiresome really fast. Nobody wants to sit around for 5-10 minutes, or more, while somebody decides what exactly they are going to ban. And we aren't even talking about the whole separate issue of people banning precisely the cards that counter their deck/playstyle.
There is also an issue of how are you going to proactively work around griefing in a tourney/custom group format. Say you allow people to create groups, but you don't create your own non-automated mechanism to remove players, then you can theoretically end up with someone purposefully dragging their turns out til they rope every single turn just because they are bored and want to troll your group. If you then allow group leaders to remove people instead, to avoid the previously mentioned trolling, then how is the system going to prevent a group leader from removing you if you beat one of their friends or brought a playstyle/deck they didn't like and you started winning too much? On either end there is potential for abuse in the system. You can't just create such a mode until you have an exact process for how griefing/trolling is going to be minimized as much as possible.
And since you lightly touched on rewards for tourney play it should also be mentioned how you are going to prevent friends from gaming the tourney mode and win trading so that much more competent players continually win tourneys by inviting less experienced players?
^ There are plenty of subtle intricacies that need to be considered before ever just creating a tourney mode.
Tournament mode is already available for 2 years in China, just copy it here.
https://www.hearthpwn.com/news/2094-hearthstone-china-is-getting-tournament-mode
Sadly they can't do that as it's not Blizzard that did it. Basically Blizzard is given the right to host the game in China but not full control over it, meaning other companies can add in stuff as they see fit. So we would have to have that Chinese company coming over to the rest of the world to put their program here.
And I'll be honest, I don't like some of the stuff going on over there so I'd rather not.
sidenote, it looks like a third party program so technically someone could make it over here anyway similar to how we have deck trackers.
What WOULD be nice is to know how well it works over there
This is one of the key issues I'm thinking. It's an issue with other games that put in tournaments, such as Starcraft 2. And in that game you can have a mode that ends up not that popular due to many issues since it has so many other features already in it. HS' community is rather desperate for a major new mode so whatever comes in is going to need broad appeal and especially note that many people in it don't spend a lot of time playing.
would a lot of people really be content with a mode where you may play for 5 minutes (or auto win if your opponent didn't show) and had to wait 30 minutes to an hour over a warrior/warrior match that hit the turn limit?
I'm not saying this to tell everyone to shut up. I'm presenting it as a serious issue that I would like to see solved. I've seen modes like this in other games fowl up so badly it left the community in a far worse mood than before they had it. And if the design team is going ot be working on something for a year or so, I'd rather it be on something that helps more than the very few who have 3-6 hours to sit around for a few games but who cannot or will not join the already active third party tournaments that currently go on.
One does not simply walk into Mordor,
unless they want to be the best they can be.
First off, many in these forums and pro HS players have stated specific and detailed ways to implement tournament mode. If you want us non programmers to actual program the mode for Blizzard, sure...that sounds fair and feasible?
Don't lump people into the same category of 'people don't know what they want, but they want this anyway!". Not only are there plenty of threads, but videos, live streams, articles and many more of how tournaments could be implemented.
You have to ask yourself a simple question. Why do people want tournament mode, whatever that may end up being? What does tournament mode mean to you?
Sure, you implement a tournament mode and you will not be able to please everyone. Someone or even a bunch of people will complain. The thing is, this is an EXTRA thing offered to players. It's not required content. If they don't want to play it or don't like it, they dont have to play it.
Tavern Brawl is an easy way to experiment with any sort of Tournament mode they wish to implement. Giving more to players is not a bad thing, even if no one plays it after the first few weeks.
Let me ask you this. How much is the single player content played from Rastakan these days? How many play that content over Ladder or Arena? So should Blizzard never release it in the first place because it is no longer played in the same numbers? Blizzard should release content and then if players aren't engaging in it, figure out why and if they want it to be played more, do something about it.
The first ever Brawlesium for some people was too expensive and it was not played by the majority of the player base. They changed it later on to you get a free entry and then it costs a reasonable amount of gold each entry. It was not that hard to figure out that most players, even those with tons of gold sitting around, are not going to pay for a Tavern Brawl that costs 10 times an Arena run.
I also have plenty of ideas of implementing a tournament mode. But I am certainly not going to tell a programmer or developer how to do their job. We as customers, tell them what we would like to see. Then they go about deciding how feasible and profitable it will be. If they put in the work, and find it to be lacking, then fix it so more people participate.
How do you find out what customers want? Go through social media and post polls and questions. Put official forum threads on your website and ask the customers what they want. Find out what they would pay for such things. Find out if you want Round Robin, Banned Cards and so forth.
I think the matter isn't so much about whether it SHOULD exist but a matter of priority. I mean, if Team 5 is capable of working on everything at the same time then it's honestly a non-issue. They can go make a feature that literally only 5 people would like for all that it matters. As I wrote, Starcraft having a Tournament mode that many didn't like wasn't much of an issue since there's already a ton of things to do in the game and, going by the forums, some people are finding joy in it.
But this is Hearthstone, which is sorely lacking in EVERYTHING, and with a team that seems to be listening but not exactly efficient. Their post about giving up Tournament mode in favor of Social features highly suggest that they can't do both at a reasonable time.
As far as figuring out what they want, they seem to be doing just that for their officially run tournament which is why they overhauled the entire system. Given that they don't have a solid standing on what their official multi-million dollar system should look like, I'm willing to guess that they don't have a solid standing on what an in-game version would look like, and they HAVE to get the rulesets right when putting it into the actual code since that's much harder to change than the written rules in the regular scene.
If they went and announced "WE HAVE TOURNAMENT MODE!" i'm not going to be raging about it. If they think they can pull it off then by jove go do it. But given what they sound and what they seem to be doing/not doing, I'm going off the vibe that they are a LONG way away from providing much of anything as far as in-game automated tournament systems.
All the talk about 'what people want' and 'what problems show up' are mostly to show that it's NOT just a simple thing to add tournaments in the game. It's a complicated beast that's going to take a lot of feedback and a LOT of planning to do it right. It IS something we can do. But they need to be ready for it. And given last year, it's clear they aren't. And I REALLY don't want them to get into the habit of sending out buggy crappy rushed material.
right now, I want them forming a gameplan on what to do. I'm not sure I want to know what it IS (see what happened when they announced Tournament mode ) but I want them to be working on something big.
As for the rest, I'm fine with folks asking for tournament mode, but if we're going to discuss whether it's feasable for THIS company to do it or if they can focus on other stuff..well.. there's my 2 cents.
One does not simply walk into Mordor,
unless they want to be the best they can be.
yes 100% yes !
this is what we want, i dont care about deck restrictions though
i just want to.play master qualifiers without going to.stupid battlefy site.
Honestly, I think THIS is more of what we need.
To specify, if by 'tournament mode' we're thinking of some automatic system that you can get into as easily as arena or goes off every few hours or so, I'm not sure that'll go as well as we would like.
But if the idea is to add tournament FEATURES, so that the folks already running tournaments can actually run them in-game, with features such as the ability for designated casters to be able to quickly sign into a match and have full information of the game, or have decks 'locked in' so that they CAN'T be changed, or even have it so that the system tracks wins and losses and the like, then they BETTER be making stuff like that right this second. I wouldn't call that 'tournament mode' as 'mode' feels more like something you see at the start screen, like "Campaign mode, PvP mode, Tournament mode, Big head Mode."
But semantics battles are stupid.
The answer to the question about 'Tournaments in the game' should be this:
"i just want to.play master qualifiers without going to.stupid battlefy site"
We already have a rather large number of folks who regularly join tournaments, complete with being willing to wait a long time between games. We already have tournament organizers who make a wide range of tournaments. We DON'T need some automated system that looks like some bootlegged dressing of Arena or "Ranked, with BANNS!" We don't need to figure out how Mr. and Ms. Casual can play a best of 3 on their phones while waiting to pick up their child. The item doesn't even need to be one of the main buttons. It could be something most people never have access to. But it should be there for those that do need it.
We have tournaments running right now. The people who probably really REALLY want tournaments are playing them right now. And they are buggy messes full of messy workarounds because EVERYTHING has to be handled outside the client. Including the blizzard run multi-million dollar tournament system. They can literally talk to the folks who ran HTC less than a month ago and say "What could be made easier." then add THAT. In client. Out of client. On an App, Whatever works for the official folks.
That's the answer to the question.
One does not simply walk into Mordor,
unless they want to be the best they can be.
I agree to this completely. Tournament features don't need to be fully automated and fool proof. The idea is to give tournament organizers in client and in game options to organize and feature matches. They already know how to 'lock' decks because instead of creating decks in your 18 deck slots, you have to create the deck in a 'special tournament mode'. That deck and deck list is locked in that mode once submitted. Problem solved.
If you give slots within that tournament mode, then that player can make multiple decks. Then when facing another player, a list of their classes shows up and you get to ban one of them. Treat it like a Fireside Gathering and you are facing this person.
How easy is all of this? I dunno, but other clients and software programs manage to do some amazing things. So the answer is, why not purchase the third party company and their software and then develop it in house?
My Crazy Idea: The worst deck competition. Here's how it works.
Phase 1: Deck Submission. Period during witch entrants must submit a deck that it is as bad as possible (i.e., has the worst chance of winning even when played as well as possible). When this phase ends, the decks are all saved into a pool for the next phase.
Phase 2: Tournament. The tournament is similar to Brawliseum/Arena, except that for each game, players are assigned a different random deck from the pool of bad decks submitted in phase 1. Players will never get their own deck, and can review the deck before each match. The goal of the tournament phase is to win as many games as possible with terrible decks!
Phase 3: Prizes. There will two types of awards. For the tournament itself, there will be rewards for winning games (up to 12 maybe?) similar to the current Brawliseum/Arena structure. Players are thus encouraged to play the bad decks they receive as well as they can to win. At the end of the tournament, there will be one or more large/special prize packages awarded to the player(s) that submitted the decks with the lowest win rate throughout the tournament, meaning they were the best a designing the worst possible decks!
The beauty of this format is 1) people have never tried to make intentionally bad decks, so there is no netdeck repository out there---there will be lots of diversity, 2) since players are genuinely trying to win the tournament, the worst decks really will be the ones that players could not win with no matter how hard they tried, and 3) it will highlight the best players as those who can figure out how to win with awful decks they did not design.
This sounds like something for a brawl. You make a deck but you get your opponent's deck (and no switchbacks like that brawl before that did similar)
This NEEDS to be a brawl.
I saw opponent because if it's just a random deck then I can see a lot of folks making whatever deck they want, including good ones because it doesn't really affect them (faster to just netdeck a good deck than self make a bad one).
Brawl is really the best place for all of these whacky races ideas.
One does not simply walk into Mordor,
unless they want to be the best they can be.
Just let the occasional Brawlselium be the tournament mode. Arena is perfect in that it feels like a tournament (stakes are high, high win-rate players tend to be grouped together to get the coveted 12 wins like winners in an actual tournament, low win-rate players at least get to compete vs each other to make back as much gold as possible) but most importantly you don't need to set aside 8 hours for Arena. I can't even begin to imagine a tournament where everyone else finishes their best of 3 matches but the Warrior vs Warrior are still on match 1. And knowing Hearthstone's spaghetti code if you even dreamed of leaving your lobby to do a ranked or arena game as you waited you'd never get back in.