Game Mode Needed: Mirror Match

As Hearthstone trundles along, the powercreep of cards and the desire to win makes for the unfortunate side product of pushing a lot of really enjoyable cards and decks out of existence. Short of playing against friends your only hope to play these parts of the game is to cross your fingers that some new cards come around that will make them viable again. I personally find this really disheartening and would like to enjoy my collection in its fullest without having to lose over and over with it.

Deathstalker Rexxar is a great example of this where the card is basically unplayable in Wild and has been for quite a while. However this card is a fan-favorite that a lot of people are unwilling to disenchant and optimally would like to use. However there is no outlet. The best idea I can come up with for this is to introduce a new game mode where you can make whatever crazy deck you like and be matched with other people trying to play their own crazy deck with a 50% chance of one of you facing the same deck, making it obviously viable as it is equally matched.

This would require Blizzard to implement a deck list on the side where you can highlight every card- something that is overdue anyway. This mode would add a lot of variety into the game and be a blast to match up against decks where imagination is the limit. Even if at first the deck's owner would be at the advantage certain decks would occur more often and its own certain meta would evolve.

Another idea would be to have a 2 out of 3 where you match with an opponent, play three games where the first two are the decks versus each other and the third the two decks actually match up. This would be informally expedient because players can opt to concede the third or even the second game if they like if they didn't want to go through the whole process.

What do you think? I believe this mode is badly needed on the grounds that our collections are not fully accessible and that concepts that were teased and invested in never were able to be played without losing game after game playing them. Think of all the fun that could be had if they implemented this easy to launch mode that would require absolutely no balancing concerns since... the decks themselves are always evenly matched. I strongly believe this is a very overdue game mode and is necessary to get the full value out of cards that rotate into Wild.

If such thing comes true - only in the form of core set. You choose a year or set and play against the player with the same set or year. 

Seems like a niche-within-a-niche to me. Wild is already a minority of players, and when you whittle that down to a specific archetype, you're looking at some pretty long queue times, not to mention all the development resources they'd have to spend on something that doesn't draw in new players or convert free players to pay.

I think you're going to have to build up a network of friends if you want to make this a reality. If you can't drum up enough interest to make it work that way, I'm not sure you'd ever convince Blizzard there's a reason to commit time to the idea.

You are imagining this mode working out better than it actually would. People want to play competitvely. Modes that aren't competitive struggle to find players. The answer to the conundrum is a constructed mode with 3-6 sets in at any given time that rotates with old and new sets every expansion. Something like classic with sets that rotate in and out to play old metas and metas that never existed is the proper way to give old dead cards new life.

I really don’t get the point of this mode. It just sounds like aggro simulator with extra steps. A

I love how when someone brings up any concept that is unfamiliar it just gets crapped on in any forum you post it in.

Let's try this once more:

This would be a mode that takes very little installation to implement that would bring a lot of joy to people that actually want to play cards that they otherwise cannot without going 1 win for every 10 losses.

Even if this doesn't sound appealing to you it would be a godsend for thousands of players. In fact you don't even know if you'd like it or not because chances are you have never challenged a friend and borrowed a deck to play against itself. Try it, it's a lot of fun.

Imagine getting the chance to play a deck with unsung (but fun)  cards likeImmortal Prelate, Lucentbark, Emeriss, my personal favorite, Tess Greymane or any Quest that was never able to compete. Especially when it's unexpected what craziness you'll run into.

It's good to have diversity in the game. Sometimes Ranked, Battlegrounds, Arena and Brawls (definitely not Duels..) are not enough. This would be a fun mode to dip into and see what insanity insues.

It's pretty closed-minded to call naw on the idea of a new mode especially one as easy to make as this one. There's no doubt it'd be enjoyed. I feel a lot of the community are more obsessed with winning than in actually having a fun time playing the game and that... Is just sad.

Also, just to clinch the argument you and I are being ripped off by not being able to feasibly use these cards we loved or would love if they were more competitive. Mirror Mode would breathe new life into ALL cards.

Finally, Reno Hunter sucks so not a viable option to play Deathstalker Rexxar in but cute try to make me look dumb. (whoops it was on Reddit where that comment was made not here, haha)

I feel like casual already fills this niche? You can play whatever you want on casuals since wins and losses don’t actually matter. You could argue people ruin it by only playing meta decks but the exact same thing could happen here. Except unlike casual mode, you might be forced to play a meta deck, which is the opposite of what you want from designing this game mode

OP - I understand the sentiment underlying your suggestion and tried to argue a long time ago for a "Free Play" mode that gave you no Gold (now Experience) and couldn't progress Quests so the only reason to play was for pure enjoyment.  Of course trolls and folks wanting a self-esteem boost would still bring meta decks there, but the idea was to increase the chance of running into a homebrew as even tanking your MMR in the current Casual system just leads to mostly facing less-than-optimal aggro decks (from my experience).

That was a long way of saying that I'm someone who agrees with your mission, but I'm not sure this is my favorite way of achieving it.  In particular, going into this mode I really wouldn't want to play someone else's deck so it'd feel bad to lose the coinflip and I might concede until I get mine which isn't ideal for the mode.  You also have the awkwardness of the originator being at a pretty big advantage going into the mirror because they know what's coming and how to navigate it (update - didn't see the part where you mentioned having a decklist on the side which I like, though as a mobile player I'm curious how that'd look on the screen).  Icyfoe88 also brings up the point of trolls forcing you into playing a meta deck which, to me, is even worse than the current Casual system.  However, I could see match-making prioritizing matching you with someone whose deck has a similar winrate in Casual or something like that.  

Personally, I'd just like to see them test out options for allowing homebrewers to play each other and would be curious to see your system in action.  Additional systems that come to mind could be:

• A simple change of allowing players to click a box that says "I'm playing a homebrew" in Casual and then splitting the matchmaking up into 2 pools using current Player MMR in each pool.  Obviously there would be people exploiting this system to troll or farm wins, but I'd like to see how rampant that problem would be and whether it'd still be an improvement over the current system (which is really the goal).  Allegedly, many people play meta decks in Casual to learn how to navigate those decks so they should prefer not to match homebrews as stomping a meme deck teaches you nothing about whether you're ladder-ready.
      
• The other thing I'd like to see them experiment with is some form of Deck MMR matchmaking like I mentioned earlier.  My thinking is that they currently have data on something like the played winrate of certain cards or groups of cards because the updated auto-complete deck algorithm pulls from this to give you the most competitive build from your collection.  So why not experiment with matching players based on the percentage of cards in their deck that are NOT included on the list of meta options they're internally monitoring?  I'm envisioning a 2-step matching process where first players are put in buckets according to the % of their deck that's off-meta, and then players are matched within buckets according to the current Player MMR system which reflects their general skill at navigating any type of deck, off-meta or otherwise.  

You obviously wouldn't want to subject the entire playbase to these experiments in Casual, but a self-selected "Casual Labs" mode or something could attract willing particiants like myself.  And before people crap all over these ideas, I'm clearly not a game developer so I have no idea how hard these things would be to implement and whether the player population is large enough to accommodate more modes.  It's also been a long time since I thought about this issue so these are more half-baked ideas in pursuit of fun discussion rather than serious requests that I feel strongly about.

I haven't played casuals in quite a while but when I did I remember them being played no different than ranked, by meta fanboys. I think casual mostly exists for players who don't like the pressure of climbing and enjoy the fact that it's naturally going to be easier. Again, it all comes down to winning: players just want to win. I want to win... playing cards that cannot. Cards I paid money for.

Rang in response to your concern that people will dodge matches when it isn't their deck that faces itself the solution is simple: if they do that they would automatically be matched again facing someone else's deck until they play it out and it goes back to 50-50.

I've done a lot of wracking my brain too on modes that would encourage people to play out of the meta and the best solution I've found beside Mirror Mode is to lower the % of a card that has a high winrate when drawn ever so slightly so that the overpowered crap of the game can't bail you out. This would be nice in casual mode to discourage people from stomping with decks they ought to be ranking it with.

Mirror Mode would exist like a never-ending Tavern Brawl (like one of the rare good ones that is...) where you can enter and get a chance to play something wacky and at the same time get to tour whatever wackiness other people are sporting. Ideally it could even be set up where you have a longer queue but have a 100% chance to play your own deck or if you're like me just play whatever random stuff opp's are bringing over and over. This would be a good mode for F2P players too since they get to try out all the stuff they can't afford.

This mode would be a breath of fresh air. Unfortunately the vast majority of the HS community is content to face the same 4-5 decks over and over every meta endlessly which bewilders me. Trust me the game needs Mirror Mode to cater to the portion of players that get bored of it. It should have been introduced years ago.

I think you overestimate how many people would care for mirror mode. The majority of the playerbase plays ranked because it is competitive and then you have BG. Classic, normal, duels, brawls and arena is played less because they are either niche or non-competitive.

Then you have to factor in that the majority of the player base netdecks, plays from their phone and plays while doing other things. Mirror mode would be a niche mode for deck builders but it doesn't do anything for deck builders that want to play competively. 

I cannot see how it would relevant for HS. Besides you could just play with friends that likes to play meme decks and enjoy your collection that way. 

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Rang in response to your concern that people will dodge matches when it isn't their deck that faces itself the solution is simple: if they do that they would automatically be matched again facing someone else's deck until they play it out and it goes back to 50-50.

I agree that this would incentize folks to not concede when they don't get their deck, though it could also turn some folks off to the mode entirely if/when they hit a string of bad coin flips and don't get to play their deck for many games in a row.  Obviously a pity timer or something could be implemented to counteract this scenario, but I'd prefer your later suggestion of having a longer queue which guarantees the ability to play your deck.  

Regardless of the minutiae, I'd definitely be on board with trying out this mode as a Tavern Brawl to gauge its popularity.  They claim that their devs monitor the official Hearthstone forums for ideas, so maybe outline the mode there and see if you get some traction amongst the community!

I also went back and re-read that old list of community suggestions I linked and was surprised at how many had been implemented in some form or another (weekly quests, a new class, more deck slots, etc.).  At the bottom I mentioned that Firebat suggested a Tavern Brawl Arcade to play past brawls and I could definitely see Mirror Mode being part of that system.  Having access to all brawls may not be feasible in terms of splitting up the playerbase and having long queue times, but having a rotating set of 6 weekly or something like that seems realistic.  Or maybe 6 random ones and 3 additional that stick around all month as voted on by the players or determined by their play rate over the past X number of weeks.