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There are quite a few issues with HS I have, and then I recently saw CGPGrey play MtG and it seemed interesting enough, so it made me curious about if maybe another card game might be worth checking out. Plus it might be interesting to all here to see the pros and cons of different cardgames laid out, maybe we even walk away with newfound appreciation for HS who knows :P
The criteria:
1. How diverse is the game? Seems to me Blizzard wants all games to be some midrange minion trading snoozefest. I meanwhile like exciting new decks, with novel mechanics and ways to win. So it is a bonus if the game has many kinds of decks and win conditions. The primary criteria is diversity in the way games go and the decks that can be played. But secondarily I guess this is also about how fun and exciting the game is, as hard as that is to quantify.
2. How F2P friendly is it? I don't really have a lot of money to spend on a CCG atm, and tbh I don't like the idea of spending much money on something so immaterial period. So it is an important criteria that the game be readily accessible for free. I do not care if it charges outrageous sums for cosmetic things as long as the actual gameplay is easily available. Bonus points to the game if the prices for cards (and to a lesser extent cosmetics) are affordable in the case I do choose to spend money on the game.
3. How popular is it? Tbh I don't need a huge crowd, but having enough people for easy matchmaking sure is nice. And ofc if there is a ton of people then there is more content about it online, ways to learn to play, people to talk to or even just to meme. It is also about the longevity of the game, if it has few players and is barely breathing that is maybe not a game to get into. OTOH maybe it has few people but the cost to run it is low and the business model works. Primarily though this is about the ease of finding matches in the game.
I'd love to hear from as many people as care to answer and about any online card game you can think of. Tell me your thoughts people!
PS. Not sure if this kind of thread is kosher, I know some places have weird hangups about discussing other games and if that is the case mods can close this thread I suppose. Still I am curious about your opinions so feel free to PM me with your thoughts if you want.
The obvious answer is no. The reason? In my opinion - the direction Blizzard took. At this point Hearthstone is clearly aimed at younger audience, meaning kids specifically. The art is becoming more and more cartoonish, the jokes and card texts are kind of awkward, but this is not my biggest problem. The real issue is the fact that Hearthstone is incredibly simple. Really at this point it's probably simplier than Minecraft and this makes deckbuilding experiance awful. My favorite CCG is Gwent and even though it's considered less popular than others, statistics show that it actually has more active players than Hearthstone. However, I'd still play it even if I it was unpopular. Then reasons are:
1. Flavor - Hearthstone became a weird childish parody of Warcraft, while Gwent is just as flavorful as the Witcher (books, games etc.). The cards' are designed extremely well and it all matches the universe it's based on.
2. Diversity - In Hearthstone trying to experiment means getting depression through constant losses. In Gwent you can genuinely experiment and reach Pro rank with a homebrew deck.
3. Skill - In Hearthstone there isn't really much skill required, as the cards are very simple and even the "craziest" shaenennigans can be learned in a few games. Gwent is very complicated, even to the point that you can still not understand how a card works after playing a lot of games with it in your deck. It may seem discouraging at first, but believe me, the satisfaction is amazing.
I could write a lot more of these, but overall Gwent is not "new player friendly", but even though there are much more cards than in HS the progression system is definitely much better and more satisfying.
Legends of Runeterra is the obvious step up from Hearthstone. It offers almost everything that is good about Hearthstone and much more (if you’re like me anyway).
Gwent is another but it plays nothing like Hearthstone, it doesn’t have the same game feel but, from what I understand, it’s very technical. Both LoR and Gwent are very generous F2P games.
Hearthstone is inherently one dimensional for most players until you reach specific parts of a matchup. The first 4 or so turns generally play out themselves, and unless you know the matchups inside out spotting other lines of play is generally not going to happen during those turns. The complexities of the game are really only prevalent at the higher levels.
With LoR, as big decisions get made earlier in the game (and more of them), often around turns 2-3, it relies far less on RNG and more on the lines of play each player has chosen, which means games between middling player (Platinum to Diamond in HS) are going to far more often feel like they were won due to player choice. There are clear areas of improvement to make when trying out new decks, where as in HS these improvements taper off after you’ve reached a certain level, and can really only be improved further by becoming a very good player if that makes sense.
Deck building os also fun and varied as decks are often reliant on Champions (of which only 6 are allowed in a deck), so middling players can easily identify synergies and test out cool things which aren’t seen on the meta.
There’s far more to get into tbh, I’d suggest you just try it, give it atleast a week or so to adjust, and I would be surprised if you don’t come to enjoy it.
Huh?
Gwent has 1400 players online on average. Hearthstone has around 200 000 players online.
The most manipulating, addicting, greedy and lying card game 100%
My opinion is also that the devs ignore and don't understand the meta just to create new costly content, but I also think that about most mobas...
For me, the only area in which Hearthstone isn't the best - limited. I don't understand why they can't invent some fun limited format.
mtg arena all life
but hearthstone is the second best for me with a lot of development, balancing awesome animation and funny contents
"because democracy basically means government by the people, of the people, for the people, but the people are retarded. So let us say: government by the retarded, for the retarded, of the retarded." - Osho Rajneesh
IMHO...
1) Magic the Gathering
2) Hearthstone
3) Legends of Runeterra
4) everything else
"There is no spoon"
MTG has... issues. Being tied to the paper version is bad for balancing (bans aka removing content is the worst way to do I) and the game also suffets from sets being done with all formats in mind even those that are absent from MTG Arena.
Also, Historic is an awful concept. It isn't the place for the former standard cards. It is a way to make customers pay for anthologies and remastered sets. In Hearthstone you can maintain your wild decks by simply buying new standard sets, in MTG Arena they just introduce old broken cards you have to buy in addition to standard sets....
I agree that it's certainly not perfect, but I've been playing Magic in one form or another for 12 years so I'm probably a little biased. I actually play Historic more than Standard. I like the variety and "older" cards. They have also been relatively good w/ bans when needed. I guess relative is the key word, at least they haven't waited as long to ban cards as they have in the past. And yes, they could definitely improve the economy!
Like I said though, just my 2 cents.
"There is no spoon"
Don't come here with your facts! 🤣
Well, I was wrong then, but it doesn't really change my point. Looking for an opponent still takes less time in Gwent than it does in HS for some reason. But I genuinely thought the statistics I remembered were correct, so it seems like I was mistaken. Still, couldn't care less about the player count anyway :P
Edit: Found the info I remembered, so either this person is bullshitting, or the other player count is using some different criteria. Here is the link: https://forums.cdprojektred.com/index.php?threads/how-many-people-play-gwent.10092771/
“Regular players” could be anything really, possibly how many play per day, or week. I assume the HS number of 200,000 is the average number online together.
I second pretty much all Kinkyjohnfowler said and want to add some additional points regarding the OP's questions.
1. Diversity: LoR is also a rather combat centric game, but the focus is more on the interactions of both players' boards during each turn. The field of decks is very diverse in terms of how spell- or minion-heavy they are, but spells HAVE to be a lot more monitored/restricted for balance's sake in LoR, due to the interactivity of the game, their "higher speed" of impact on the combat (due to many spells being somewhat 'faster' acting than minions) AND, in the case of spells that can target face, the lower hitpoint threshold of each player's "face" (called Nexus in LoR). In HS you have to balance cards only around one player's turn at a time, due to it basically being alternating turns of solitaire . In LoR cards have to be balanced for the situation, that both players can highly interact with each other during each player's attack turn, hence there are different cast speeds of spells and so on. Board clears are a little overprized for their efficiency in LoR, which means that there is no real attrition deck. There are a lot of reactive decks, but they all have a finisher in some way. In LoR it is very possible to be successful with experimental decks, cause the game offers a lot more 'hidden' synergistic possibilities (reason for that is, again, its interactivity during combat) over HS, where synergies are more obvious and therefore deckbuilding is easier.
The combat system is very complex and involves a lot of possibilities for mindgames, bluffs and so on. For example it is possible to kinda 'burn' the opponents mana, by 'aggressive passing' of turns, offering him to either buy into your bluff or forfeit his mana and right to attack for that turn, returning the attack token to you in the process. While in HS curving out is the best thing to do in 90% of cases, in LoR you will see hardcore curving out only on lower ranks, cause simply always using all your mana at once will leave you prone to your opponents reaction, which he gets to make right after your play. Sometimes it is right to just curve out, but in higher leagues the art of passing turns becomes a lot more important. So, why is that, one may ask. This has to do with the fact that the spell (and also some units) system of LoR very often rewards the re-acting player over the one who made the pro-active move. This has to do with 2 facts: 1. simplified spoken (its too complicated to explain properly, but you will understand it when u play it) whenever a player takes an action, the other player gets to make an action thereafter and 2. Fast and Slow Spells (which are 2 of the 3 spell types) resolve in backward order of how they were cast. This means the spell of same speed that was cast by the re-acting player will resolve first. Which is basically the exact opposite of solitary based combat like in HS, cause there you can bluff so much (and also have to). Games where you have the mana to finish the opponent, but it is better to hold it for an upcoming turn OR for the case where he ventures out and makes a risky play, leaving him with either not enough mana to react to your coup-de-grace or simply beating him by the fact that your spell resolves first, are very common in higher leagues.
2. How f2p friendly is it? Verrrry. :) I completed the whole collection after 3-4 months of play (but i played quite a lot). It is so darn generous. You wont need the whole collection tho, to build all strong decks. There are top masters accounts who have only 70% of the collection. And if you want to buy cards it is a lot more generous than HS as well.
3. Community/popularity: For me, this is the only field, where HS is clearly better than LoR: LoR's chat system is a bit clunky and harder accessible than in HS, where you can chat and receive messages easily within any screen. This leads to players often reacting later to chat messages than for example in HS - simply because they weren't aware, somebody sent them a msg. Also, in LoR you can't add your most recent opponent in any play mode but one. BUT there is a trick if you want to do it anyway, that works about 70% of time for me. I added big parts of my friend list of now about 70 players this way. The final thing where LoR is worse than HS is that you can't observe your friends' ladder games. You can observe their tournament games tho, cause those are played in Friendly Challenge mode. You can also observe their casual games and expedition (same as arena in HS) games. For LoR in terms of community building i highly suggest that you visit the discord servers dedicated to the game.
So, maybe this has tickled your interest. I am playing on EU in LoR, have played in masters (highest league) last season and am maybe doing again this season, if i overcome my ladder laziness. ;) If you decide to try the game i can supply you with answers to any question you have about it and will give you the 'fastest route' to getting the maximum amount of XP per day and therefore a full collection eventually. My in game tag is: a3b2c1 #5685
Edit: LoR is a lot more transparent than HS in terms of other players on the ladder (be it master players, whose profiles you can freely see in the game or players from your friend list). So there are quite some stats of other players to look at and also you can see their most recently played decklist, which is also very interesting.
I started LoR when hearthstone came out with the battle pass. It is a better balanced, more interactive and far less greedy game. If LoR had been out 5 years ago, I never would have played hearthstone. I already play LoR far more than hearthstone and I may quit HS entirely at some point.
Long story short, try LoR, much better game.
Gwent:
https://steamcharts.com/app/1284410
HS estimate:
https://playercounter.com/hearthstone/
I didn;t read anything on this post except the title.
I think this card game is okay, but if you like other stuff, go play it.
I styopped paying for HS a few expansions ago, justy play a dfew classes and then like, whatever, try to make meta decks and see what RNG you can get, the game is mostly lucjk anyway, rght?
Don't take it too seriously, unless you thin k you can win GM, but who cares, really?
Yeah, I also saw this website, but later looked a bit into it. It shows statistics only on Steam amd well.... I didn't even know you could play Gwent on steam. Most players either use GOG or the CDP launcher, which don't have specific playercount data. I was also surprised, but it seems, like it's impossible to find accurate statistics. I guess it's much easier in Hersthstone, because you can only play it through Battle.net, while Gwent is on a lot of different platforms.
Sorry for the late reply/slight necro, I was indisposed. I am thankful for all the replies and hope there will be more.
Seems most people support trying out LoR and I will, maybe I check out MgT and Gwent too after.
There is no "best." They all have serious problems. It's just a matter of what you, personally, are willing to put up with.
For example, Runeterra is great for free players, but the devs are terrible at balancing the game. I think it's worse than Hearthstone in that regard. They also don't mind polluting their IP with dumb K-pop shit and modern-day pool parties. The art for those is lovely, but for me it wrecks the fantasy.
At the other end of the spectrum is Magic, which is even more expensive than Hearthstone and (as mentioned above) has balance issues because of the physical card game. It also has the whole outdated, unfun land system -- tons of games are literally won or lost because you get mana-screwed or -flooded, way more often than in games that don't use such a ridiculously random method of resource generation.
"Why, you never expected justice from a company, did you? They have neither a soul to lose nor a body to kick." -- Lady Saba Holland