Author's note - I'm still proofreading for errors and redundancies since this is a long opinion post covering several points (and no draft option). I'm aware of the controversial point this tries to drive, so please feel free to point out missed observations or logic gaps. I could've easily expanded this further, so I'm trying to condense the important points as much as possible. And I am more than glad to argue these points in the comments.
I'm mostly writing this article due to some of the "popular" opinions I hear regarding Hearthstone vs Magic in terms of skill/luck (I am referring to Standard Format in MTG). I'm a huge fan of both games and have played numerous online tournaments of MTG for several years in the past, but came to many of these observations well before Hearthstone. Bare with me...but controversially, I actually feel Hearthstone requires much more player skill and less luck factors in the actual play of the game and that MTG has much more depth in terms of meta analysis and deck construction. I'm aware this creates a kneejerk reaction to a lot of players who instantly think of Magic's long history and Hearthstone's many RNG cards...but allow me to explain.
Valid Play Options
I'm going to start with the biggest argument first (mainly to avoid the "stop-read 'wtf are you talking about?' " prattling over the small stuff). In a game of MTG there are only so many plays with the nature of the cards and top deck draws, while Hearthstone offers many mixes of plays due to the more general role of cards, Hero Power, and how resources are handled.
Resources Thin Options - MTG uses a system of land to pay for spells. Drawing lands means you are not drawing options, so over time, you draw less options with each land pull. You then are required to pull enough lands and of the right variety to enable those options as well. This issue alone often leads to only a few options actually being available per turn and making top deck very crucial the longer the game continues. Too many/few lands at the wrong point can completely invalidate all plays and make games unwinnable to no fault of the player or deck design.
Hearthstone uses a mana per turn system, freeing up your entire deck to almost always be playable options. Every draw is a new thing you can do. Overtime players will maintain equal numbers of options in hand if they are trading equally. You also don't have to fear mana color limitations that can lead to a classic case of "if only this was a an island and not a swamp". When you draw a card, you know you'll get a chance to play it in time. In MTG you must rely on top deck to give you the proper mix of resources and options to make something happen.
The Hero Power - Along with drawing nothing but options, Hearthstone gives each player a Hero Power for 2 mana. This is a free option that adds tons of depth. You can use it to maintain cards in hand rather than expend all resources to over extend from your hand. Even when top decking, you always have this option.
Card Roles - MTG boasts huge variety of card types, which leads to a double edge sword on this argument. On one hand, having all these options means players have to account for many things to come at them. On the flip side, all these types of cards tend to cater to a vary specific purposes. Key examples are things like type removal, land, counters, conditional cards, etc... Some cards are only valid plays during certain moments and can fill your hand with options that aren't actually options. Your opponent is doing the same as well, possibly drawing big threats while you are drawing the wrong removal and early utility cards, leaving you with no play. This all makes you dependent on drawing many types of cards at the right moments, leaving you at the mercy of top decking the right mix.
In Hearthstone the simple nature of the cards (and two other mechanics we'll point out later) actually makes it so their roles are less defined and can be used in more ways than MTG offers. Almost all cards will have a way of interacting with something on the board. Creatures act as removal, potential defensive obstacles, and threats all in one. Removal in hand often has a use at any given moment since the only permanent types are creatures and weapons, many come with legs, or are usable as damage to the hero. The take away here is a sense of "what do I use this for?" versus "When do I use this...if I can". You rarely have no use for a card in hand and many cards can be used in many different ways. The potential of the card falls in the creativity of use.
Top Deck Consistency - MTG normally supports a 60 card deck, with about to 18-24 lands and 4 copies of non-basic land cards max. You get nice control of weighting the deck, but you also need a lot of 'fixer' utility cards to improve consistency. Dual lands, deck thinners, tutors, draw engines, etc... These lead to a lot of skill in deck design to solve problems, but in actual play the reality is that your deck is thinned of options to make room for more non-options just to play your options. It also can lead to unfortunate tempo loss simply be being drawn at the wrong time. Tap lands are a good case of essential fixers that can arrive at the wrong time.
In Hearthstone you run 30 cards, 2 copies max besides legends. You're also consistently drawing options since you are not being bogged down by resources and fixers, so your odds of drawing game impacting cards goes up drastically. More options drawn equals more decisions and player influence.
Multiple Solutions to threats - Going back to card roles, I mentioned how cards have more flexibility in Hearthstone. The mechanics of targeting creatures and permanent damage give you more ways to remove cards. An 8/8 can be mobbed by many small threats over time, brought in range of removal, you can play another fatty, buff a guy to trade, you can use hard removal like Hex, or tie it up with taunters, bounces, and freezes. You never see a card and realize you must draw your only answer no matter what point in the game it is.
MTG's many card types and case specific answers can often leave you with no option till your draw it. An unopposed enchantment or creature with protective properties can literally win the entire game just for being on the field. You may have tons of answers to many scenarios, but some cards require very specific ones and not having them immediately can be the whole game. MTG can fall into a "you have it or you don't" and may make playing around it your only solution if even an option.
Determining Optimal Play and Frequency of Tough Decisions - Here's my biggest point in the skill factor of Hearthstone vs MTG; relating to the things we just covered. Since you're drawing less options, cards have specific uses, and resources are limited, there's only a finite amount of practical plays. Many cards won't have context to the game state, you can't play with current resources, or are an autoplay such as a land (in most cases). It usually comes down to "can answers be played to key threats and do you have and can play counter answers". There's skill in weighing those decisions, but rarely does every move become a deeply layered decision of consequences. You either provide a solid answer or you don't. A deck only has a limited number of answers to things and must be drawn. So it's very easy to make a judgement on worth to cast something, because there are only a small variance of outcomes.
In Hearthstone, nearly every card has a context that interacts with the game state. Beyond a few spells, you aren't limited by case specifics. You can play things to help later or forego a battlecry for a body on the field. You also have constant targets for most spells because they are less situational. Since everything has decaying health, the game state advances with every move. You can't counter spell or keep blocking with the same body forever to keep maintaining the same board state till you win; threats are vulnerable and will be answered eventually, so planning on how you use cards becomes more important. Every decisions is small wins with a limited timeframe of dominance in that board state. If you win the board with a trade, you don't have a full health creatures to keep driving the win, you have a weakened ones that can still be taken out by subpar top deck options. Last but not least is the Hero Power once again preserving card uses and always being available. You never have a dead play in Hearthstone, you will have many in MTG.
All in all you have VASTLY more play options in Hearthstone and many more outcomes. This makes optimal decisions making harder. You can easily misplay with so many choices and you have more solutions from your opponent to account for. You're not looking for one answer to counter you, you're looking at all the different answers they may have and what the board state will be on your next turn. You also have a MUCH higher frequency of tough decision making since nearly every turn is like this. Something happens EVERY turn, even if it's just your Hero Power. In MTG you can be at a stalemate playing lands and having no options in hand, both at the mercy of your top deck...and it happens a LOT.
RNG
A lot of discussion bases around RNG (basically random chance). Right out...every TCG has RNG. Top decks, coin flips, dice rolls, etc... Generally the consensus is RNG, while essential and unavoidable, is bad for competitive play. TCGs need some variance, which justifies it and makes the game interesting, but there's a balance of how volatile the RNG is to the outcome of the game. Hearthstone indeed has some cards that have some very volatile RNG theme, but I would still argue that it has less RNG than magic, which tends to leave RNG cards to "Johnny" cards that aren't competitive. But why would I say such a silly thing you ask?
What We Just Talked About - The limited plays and dependance on key cards presents a HUGE RNG issue. Top deck is everything in Magic. If you don't draw key cards, you won't win. Players lose to land screw/flood all the time at the highest level of play and not drawing certain cards at the right time can lead you to lose a whole game to a single card. A close game of magic is one where the board control is back and forth, but most games result in break away plays that control the board state and requires an answer drawn. You also have combos, hard to evasive/protective spells, and etc that can make the game rather opportunistic off a single play...disregarding many of the plays earlier. If you look up the deck Dragonstorm from Guildpact/Timespiral era, you have a major example of a deck that would win tun 3-6 and was extremely hard to counter. It held it's own RNG issues, but would easily eliminate opponents simply because no answer was drawn or Dragonstorm drew Gigadrowse to counter pretty much any counter to it. Yes it could be beat, but it was more about RNG and matchup than player decisions. No single card in Hearthstone is going to win you the whole game because you played it and require a need a specific card to stop you. There's many events that can neutralize it or stop it.
Mulligan - Each use a different mulligan system. Magic allows a full hand swap -1 card, per mulligan. Hearthstone allows you one mulligan but the chance to select individual cards. In short, MTG's is pretty brutal. 90% of mulligans are over land in relation to card casting costs. It's very easy to get the wrong mix and forced to take 1 less card in a game where you already have limited plays and top deck dependence. Hearthstone's version would'nt work to well in MTG due to how powerful "perfect hands" can be, but it offers a much more consistent game. You will rarely play a game of Hearthstone and feel you have an unplayable start.
So What About RNG cards? - This is totally valid. Hearthstone has some YOLO factor cards, however they're not as bad as people think. There is a risk to them and often the best case is a small victory. You also have the multiple plays per turn and often can assess when the time to take the risk is. Depending on RNG cards can be a players downfall, so it takes skill to determine when is the time to roll the dice. In Magic, limited options makes it too risky to depend on RNG. Even so, I think Hearthstone could do with a little less RNG embedded in the cards.
Overall the RNG in Hearthstone cards is not as overpowering as the top deck nature of MTG. You will lose less games to a Ragnaros than a competitive combo deck in magic doing unwinnable top decks.
Card Pool
This is where Magic is king. Tons of types of cards and a vast library of cards leads to some awesome complexity in decks. It's easy to say this is where MTG dominates Hearthstone in terms of deck building skill. You're required to have a much broader knowledge of possible encounters and meta shifts and variants. You simply have way more you can do and must face. This is where most of the game winning decisions are made. But in all fairness Hearthstone is brand new. They're still learning the nature of their work and keeping mechanics simple. We even get the added bonus of balance updates (so we don't have to ban cards like MTG's "Skullclamp").
Sideboarding - A really cool thing Magic does is the sideboard. This gives decks extra room to counter bad matchups or further an advantage (as well as make games a fairer 2/3...unless you're playing control mirrors with an hour limit -_-). Hearthstone tournaments have their own system, but the sideboard offers more layers of thinking. You don't just pick a counter deck, you have to make assumptions on what you saw and make small edits. This can separate good and bad players in both decision making and understanding of the meta.
Conclusion
Despite what I've said here, I have genuine love for both games. I'm never gonna say one's better than the other (unless you bring up the price of cardboard...seriously wtf), but I feel people have a vast misunderstanding of these games at higher levels and what truly attributes a win over a loss. People look at Hearthstone's RNG cards and limited card pool, then focus on MTG's diversity of cards and assume Hearthstone is the casual kid's game in comparison to the behemoth that is MTG.
I by no means am a pro of either, but have a long history of competitive Magic and high level play and do fairly decently in Hearthstone. I genuinely feel MTG has a cap on skill in terms of how you play the deck once you understand the meta. A lot of people feel that's not the case, but when you really analyze the possible decisions a player can make, many choices are obvious and often times, play error doesn't factor into the loss. You can play a perfect game and simply not win and it happens a lot.
People feel that MTG winners hold a higher tier of understanding for how they play during the actual game, but the true nature of success is in meta deck analysis, design decisions, and sideboarding. You will run into game scenarios with tough decisions what will divide better players from great ones, but it's not the dominating factor between win averages of high level play. Those moments occur on some games, they don't occur every game. Expenses and resources to keep ahead of meta shifts are also another major factor. You can study the meta trends and have a great theory to beat it, but it might mean you have to drop your current build for a new one for $100+...just to see if it works. Many potentially great players simply can't afford the game for high level play, much less the money and time off needed to travel to compete on top of it all.
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Death Knight
Back when Knights of the Frozen Throne expansion came out, I was really disappointed as a big fan of the Warcraft franchise and an avid Hearthstone player that Blizzard decided not to implement an additional class. In my book the KotFT content never did the Death Knight player fantasy justice - so much potential was wasted back then. UI/UX limitations were always an issue with this I suppose (among other reasons). Now with the recent Demon Hunter announcement, I am wondering if the game's fundamental design space was opened up for even more character classes down the line. I sure hope so. I mean, when a new class was to be introduced, it made sense to pursue the Demon Hunter since the Death Knight player fantasy was sort of already explored. Anyhow, I decided to take matters into my own hands for now and designed a set of my own, a full-fledged Death Knight class. This is more of a starting point for further iterative work, an early draft if you will. All of the cards seen here would require a lot of playtesting if they were to be ever implemented into the game. Designing this set to keep it in line with the current Death Knight related content implemented was quite a challenge. I didn't want to reuse any cards, be it text or art nor to render them less meaningful in any way, shape, or form (even the ones from older/rotated out sets).
I tried to push boundaries with the designs, some cards are bound to be potentially game breaking - that is fine, I'd rather experiment and do something new and interesting, even if the entire set is scrapped after playtesting - an interesting gameplay aspect might emerge that can be further explored.
The permanent effect of Unholy Presence might prove to be problematic and as a result, will probably have to be further iterated upon into something like ‘Deal 1 damage to your hero and give it +2 Attack until the next time it attacks.‘ (2 mana). Still, I really want to prototype the initial 'bonkers' one and perhaps the playtesting sessions will give birth to something different and equally interesting.
Blood Presence probably needs an additional effect like 'If not used, restore 1 Health to your hero.'.
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Disclaimer: This is a fan project that is completely non-profit, all the art assets belong to Blizzard.
https://imgur.com/gallery/QrbLeMC