Hearthpwn

Have they ever addressed specifically why they won't reuse keywords? Like, is it because it would be complicated for people just getting into the game?

Because it's just pointless if only one or two cards in the whole format use a keyword. Like is the extra line of text on a card that distressing?

Also a lot of the keywords are pretty flavourful and tied to the expansion they come from.

Objectively there's no... real reason to even have keyword honestly. 

Quote from mariners24 >>

One area where they kind of blew this in my opinion is printing a pure Paladin legendary that is not on the same year as the other pure Paladin cards. So now the only current payoff for pure Paladin decks after rotation is the 7/5 legendary. It shows how printing a theme or keyword (sort of) can really weaken some cards because they rotate from standard at different times. 

now it’s basically a guarantee no one will run pure Paladin for that single card unless they print more pure Paladin cards this year.. which again will rotate after the legendary will..

 Eh... Yrel is a  pretty damn good card, and making sure your deck has only class cards isn't like... THAT strict a requirement.

Quote from TwistedCardmaster >>

It's not only about keywords, but pretty much everything in HS. They sometimes print like 4-5 cards in the first expansion of the year to start entirely new archetype (which looks promising, but it's not quite there yet to be playable) and that's it, no more cards to support it in following expansions, until next rotation arrives...

For example, why introduce new, rather weak archetype for Warlock (destroy your own deck) instead of reinforcing Soul Shard Lock from the last year or adding some support for his useless legendaries like Archwitch Willow or Deck of Chaos?

Blizzard in the nutshell...

 My thoughts exactly. The same goes for DH with the token stuff and the big demons, now instead they're pushing a Deathrattle DH out of nowhere instead. Or the Pure Paladin as was already stated above. So often that there are flavourful, exciting, but at the time unplayable cards that would be worth of further support but get none.

Quote from b1ak1ce >>

Quote from theeshyguy2000 >>

Yep, that's the standard. Blizz does one keyword per expansion, and those keywords are specific to those expansions, with VERY few outliers. They'll even actively avoid reusing old expansion-based keywords on new cards that have nearly identical functions, completely based on this arbitrary rule they made.

 its really dumb that they dont reuse keywords when they print cards with equivalent effects way later, they already have the tooltips made and they can save so much card real estate.

I don't mind them hard dropping keywords after an expansion, but id like it if they would pepper in a few from time to time with the keyword included.

 They can't though, the whole point is readability.

If you introduce a keyword, and then 2 or 3 years later print 3 or 4 cards with the keyword, new players are going to go "wtf is that"

The point is to keep it simple. 

From a veteran point of view, we have played through old expansions hence we know what inspire or recruit do.

From a newbie point of view, there are only 2 hunter cards in standard which inspire, 1 paladin card and 1 warrior card which recruit. Hence I agreed with Blizzard that it is better to spell out the effects entirely for these cards rather than using keywords. 

It keeps things consistent and tell us that they care about the development of their game and its own rules and peculiarities. I really don't see a reson for the keywords to NOT be reused after the expansion they're introduced. If anything it makes things even more confusing, like having to type 'recruit' in your collection and find exactly what you want is way better than having to instead type 'summon', which can apply to either your deck, hand or just a random minion to the board.

If you introduce a keyword, and then 2 or 3 years later print 3 or 4 cards with the keyword, new players are going to go "wtf is that"

 

The point is to keep it simple.

What's simpler tha having a specific keyword that can bechecked when hovered? Please, you are defending a decision that makes the players seem like a bunch of mentally challenged children.

 

Quote from SoerenShacht >>

So far the best key word is Discover xD

 

 It’s one of the most fun but one of the worst for the game IMO. 

It’s what let’s priests used 5 soul mirrors per game, mages 5 fireballs, etc. 

I’ve found the notion of “okay, there’s his soul mirror I don’t have to play around it now...o wait” to be mildly frustrating.

Quote from SinAscendant >>

Quote from b1ak1ce >>

 

They can't though, the whole point is readability.
If you introduce a keyword, and then 2 or 3 years later print 3 or 4 cards with the keyword, new players are going to go "wtf is that"
The point is to keep it simple. 

 Readability makes sense, but even then I don't think cards become any more difficult to read with unfamiliar Keywords.
If I was a new player - and my experience getting into MTG this past year is where I'm drawing from here - I'd just look up what the Keyword meant.  Magic doesn't have the same hover-and-explain feature that Hearthstone does, so sometimes they describe what a Keyword means on text on the card.
If anybody has a "wtf is that" reaction to a Keyword in Hearthstone all they have to do is move their cursor over the Bold word and the game explains what it means.  In game, if you have a card in your hand you're unfamiliar with, just hovering the cursor on the card in your hand provides a popup explaining each Keyword on the cards text.

I understand the Blizzard Impetus to keep everything as simple as possible, but complexity isn't something that people should shy away from in game design.  Most players either aren't afraid of being challenged - not that learning what a Keyword does is challenging - or they're so casual that they won't be all that bothered by seeing an unfamiliar word.  It's really not a bad thing if they're complicated.

I feel like the readability argument is a cop out in light of the fact that netdecking is what it is and anyone could look this stuff up online. I understand that not everyone will do it, but then when someone argues they don’t like such and such netdeck everybody says the developers want us to go online share our decks and see other people’s. How hard is it to expect a new player to look at a short list of keywords on a website? And it’s not as if hovering over a card does not give a tooltip explaining what a card does.

I think the only argument that holds water really is they want to add a new keyword with each new expansion and make that a focus, and if they started adding others back while introducing something it might muddy the theme they’re pushing.

that aside, im hopeful that they expand what keywords they’ll bring back in mini-sets.

There's some partial reason they do this: Card interaction. Some keywords directly interact with other cards, so by not having the keyword printed on future cards they can avoid unintended interactions that could happen from it. Plus after the mess Echo caused that's why they do this.

(Though I don't understand why Recruit is only in Kobolds and Catacombs.)

Keywords are meant to simplify wordings for effects which are repeatedly used for multiple cards. Hence, there is no reason to apply it in standard for recruit or inspire when there are only 2 each out of 1000 standard cards. However, when they move to wild, perhaps the wordings can be changed. 

In fact, there are more repeated effects which should have keywords such as cannot be targeted by spells or hero power, start/end of turn effects. 

Obviously they try to copy what MTG is doing. They also are going through new keywords at insane speed. There are tho two difference between MTG and HS.

1. MTG has a lot of complementary sets reintroducing and expanding old mechanics. Between all the Commander decks, Master sets, Jumpstarts and other similar products there's big chance that underdeveloped mechanic will get new toys to become actually relevant. Look for example at Snow Cards. They were pretty much ignored when they got released but few more cards released in more modern sets and it's a legit deck archetype.

2. HS is virtual and has that nifty hover to explain function. It means that there's little to no confusion over both new mechanics and reintroduced ones.

Life steal rush and discover are the main exceptions of keywords which stuck around. Discover probably wasn't even supposed to, but worked so well it was reused.

Inspire and recruit should have been used a lot more, if it's in, why not use it, also retroactively.

I am fine with Adapt, Invoke, Twins spell, Echo and Corrupt being expansion specific.

Quote from SinAscendant >>

Quote from b1ak1ce >>

Quote from theeshyguy2000 >>

Yep, that's the standard. Blizz does one keyword per expansion, and those keywords are specific to those expansions, with VERY few outliers. They'll even actively avoid reusing old expansion-based keywords on new cards that have nearly identical functions, completely based on this arbitrary rule they made.

 its really dumb that they dont reuse keywords when they print cards with equivalent effects way later, they already have the tooltips made and they can save so much card real estate.

I don't mind them hard dropping keywords after an expansion, but id like it if they would pepper in a few from time to time with the keyword included.

 They can't though, the whole point is readability.

 

If you introduce a keyword, and then 2 or 3 years later print 3 or 4 cards with the keyword, new players are going to go "wtf is that"

 

The point is to keep it simple. 

 How hard is it to hover or hold down on a card to see something pop up that tells you what the keyword means? Hearthstone already does it. If you don’t know what a keyword is, look it up.

It keeps things consistent and tell us that they care about the development of their game and its own rules and peculiarities. 

If only two cards in a 500+ card format use the keyword, I don't really... get that? I don't see how that means they don't care about the game's "rules" and such.

It makes more sense in Wild I suppose to reuse keywords, but I don't even really think keywords are for Wild Players anyway.

Also typically inspire is not a good keyword. It's often either way too weak or it's busted. But also, Inspire is VERY specific in terms of flavour to Grand Tournament. The Flag UI, the fact that it's called "inspire".

Charge, Taunt, Discover, Rush, Lifesteal are all extremely common keywords, I think they exist in every single expansion. So A) Knowing what they do is extremely important. And B) You're going to see them a lot.

Quote from ShadowAldrius >>

Also typically inspire is not a good keyword. It's often either way too weak or it's busted. But also, Inspire is VERY specific in terms of flavour to Grand Tournament. The Flag UI, the fact that it's called "inspire".

 In my opinion, "Inspire" is vague enough of a word to not really have it assigned to just TGT.  I would venture to say that the people fighting on skyships against evil dragons could use some "Inspiration", wouldn't you?  If the Alliance had a card who was like, a super famous Alliance general speaking to rally the troops, and his text was functionally Inspire, wouldn't that make sense?  All I'm saying it that Keyword flavor can be tuned to individual cards.

Besides, Discover, the League of Explorer's Keyword is and always has been flavored to them.  Discover, like finding something in an old tomb.  Heck, the animation to this day still has gold coins flying everywhere with the clinking sound effect.

Quote from TheSpunYarn >>

Besides, Discover, the League of Explorer's Keyword is and always has been flavored to them.  Discover, like finding something in an old tomb.  Heck, the animation to this day still has gold coins flying everywhere with the clinking sound effect.

 Wow I guess I just tuned that out with it being around so long, that is a bit odd huh.

Quote from TheSpunYarn >>

Quote from ShadowAldrius >>

Also typically inspire is not a good keyword. It's often either way too weak or it's busted. But also, Inspire is VERY specific in terms of flavour to Grand Tournament. The Flag UI, the fact that it's called "inspire".

 In my opinion, "Inspire" is vague enough of a word to not really have it assigned to just TGT.  I would venture to say that the people fighting on skyships against evil dragons could use some "Inspiration", wouldn't you?  If the Alliance had a card who was like, a super famous Alliance general speaking to rally the troops, and his text was functionally Inspire, wouldn't that make sense?  All I'm saying it that Keyword flavor can be tuned to individual cards.

Besides, Discover, the League of Explorer's Keyword is and always has been flavored to them.  Discover, like finding something in an old tomb.  Heck, the animation to this day still has gold coins flying everywhere with the clinking sound effect.

 True but then I would have wanted to see more inspire cards, but I think in that case the purpose was more just them toying with giving the hunter hero power some tempo-style effects.