2. If blizzard wants powerful random summons deciding their tournaments, then by all means bring back cards like Fel Reaver and completely make the competitive scene more of a joke!
3. Defile is an interesting case. The problem with this one is that every clear is going to have to be better or more efficient than Defile or it will never see play. Or it will have to enable a different archetype like School Spirits. I do not think it makes the cut unless they plan on giving warlock little to no damage removal.
4. C'thun was a very slow card in WOTOG and it is even slower by today's standards. The problem here is that we would have all the support cards taking up core set slots that could be used for more interesting cards. I like C'thun decks but No Thanks!
5. Hearthstone needs more Class specific highlander cards (especially for classes that do not have them yet) not neutral ones. No thanks Zephers!
6. N'zoth is too good in the late game and generally leads to turtle strategies. No thanks. Just create a new less powerful version in an expansion.
7. Aluneth. So Blizzard, are we going to limit Mage's draw or burn? I didn't think so. No thanks.
8. Rin, Dire Frenzy, Power Mace, and Void Ripper all seem fair and flexible enough. They all create reasonable archetypes. These would be good inclusions. I do see another mech expansion coming with a mech-centered key word so Power Mace might be better than you think it currently is.
Yes, but nearly every other stat is "matches played ..."
And then there's battlegrounds - "Player hours spent ..."
It begs the question of why they reported battlegrounds differently from all of the other stats. It's literally the only stat that says anything about hours at all.
Things like this are never done at random - there is a deliberate reason for every single stat on that graphic and the way they reported them. I just wonder what the reason is in this case.
I mean, 8 people playing in the same game is still 8 people playing the game. I'd say it's more valuable info than the amount of games run by the servers.
Did anyone else notice the mathematical sleight of hand on the Battlegrounds numbers?
Just looking at the number, you think "Wow, if you added up the length of all of the battlegrounds matches, they add up to 669 million hours," but that's not accurate.
There are 8 players in every battlegrounds match. Obviously, not all 8 players stay for the entire match, but they reported it as "player hours." They are counting each person separately, so that number is inflated significantly, compared to the idea of total length of matches.
Now, I'm not saying they are dishonest or anything, because they said it's player hours - but it's still the largest possible number they could report for how much battlegrounds was played.
I personally don’t keep golden cards unless they are uncraftable or unless I don’t have enough non-golden copies. So my golden collection is basic cards, a few golden epics, and some golden legendaries that were worth keeping.
For the Core set, I am most excited about Basic cards turning into craftable commons so I can DE the golden versions for a total of 14,300 dust. That’s just short of 9 legendary cards worth of dust!
Given that it's likely that Riot updates Lab of Legends with new Bosses every once in a while, I wanted to create a few Boss ideas (including the two fights that lead up to it) that I think would be interesting to play against. I'm not sure on the balance, but after some playtesting I think Riot could make the decks and passives feel fair to play against. The way I think my Bosses could be incorporated is that they would become a part of a rotating pool of Bosses, and at the beginning of each run you see which Bosses you'll face (so you can build your deck to beat them). I made decks for each enemy of 40 cards, but if the Boss is the 1st or 2nd encounter, the deck would be trimmed a bit to make it around the size of your deck.
Boss Idea 1: Gangplank (Power Level: 1st or 2nd Boss)
This deck is meant to be fairly weak, just using the Attune cards and low-cost spells with a passive that makes it hard for them to run out of resources.
This deck has guaranteed plunder every round, which allows the monkey dream to come true! I essentially just put in every Plunder card and every Monkey card. This should make this deck quite powerful, which is part of why Gangplank could be a second level Boss.
This is an all-in Keg deck that can accumulate kegs to deal lots of damage, with a few Noxus burn cards to make the kegs more likely to actually matter. I'm unsure of how powerful this deck is, but if it turns out to be too good, it can easily be nerfed by removing the Noxus cards (Noxian Fervor and Death's hand).
Boss Idea 2: Shyvana (Power Level: 1st or 2nd Boss)
Passive: Allies have Fury. You always Behold a Dragon.
This deck is built around using Fury with the Grand Plaza and other challengers. I think this deck is a bit weak, so if this were a second tier Boss, I would buff the passive to also give allies +0|+1, which would make them better at triggering Fury.
This deck uses the Demacia and Targon Dragon cards with a passive that makes them able to get out early enough to actually be impactful. This passive is very good for a Tier 1 champion, so if it had to be nerfed, I would change it to "Dragon allies have +1|+0."
Passive: Start with the Monastery of Hirana. When you recall a unit, double its Power and it keeps any buffs it had.
This deck is based around using Monastery of Hirana, recall cards, and handbuff cards to generate huge elusive units that can deal lots of Nexus. Because buffs are kept when recalling, the stats of a unit can snowball hard, such as going from a 2/1 to a 4/1 to an 8/1 to a 16/1. However, the only spell the deck has to save its units at fast speed is Homecoming, so it should be somewhat easy to prevent big units by killing the unit. Also, the passive doesn't buff Health, so the deck is vulnerable to Challenger or removal spells.
Passive: When you play a unit, summon an exact Ephemeral copy of it.
This deck utilizes the powerful Ionian "when I'm summoned" units alongside Sparring Student and Greenglade Duo to buff up the board and get lots of elusive damage.
This deck is comprised of all the expensive Ionia and Freljord units as well as the "Enlightened" cards. By starting each player at 10 Mana, Karma starts leveled and can cast powerful spells or play units like She Who Wanders to try to overwhelm the opponent. This passive might be kind of weak due to the number of player passives and items that draw cards, but I think that with an early She Who Wanders or a Turn 2 Warmother's call, it might be possible for Karma to win. Alternatively, it could end up being insanely powerful, in which can Karma can easily be nerfed by lowering the curve and cutting out some of the more powerful late-game cards.
So what do y'all think of my ideas? Would these be fun bosses to play against? Do you have any cool ideas for other Bosses and Passives?
I honestly think they should just remove Khadgar. He is really hard to build around as most of the time you aren't going to have enough room on the board. He may be more useful than I think, but in general he seems pretty useless.
It's really sad to hear that they aren't planning on nerfing Secret Mage any time soon. Honestly at this point the deck has been around for so long I think most people are just tired of it. It is similar to big priest in that even though it may not be the most powerful thing, it is just too prominent and very frustrating to have to deal with all of the time.
Of course! Any public company that releases numbers is going to cherry-pick them in a way that makes them look good for the shareholders.
For the sake of argument, let's say that every active player was counted 3 times because they logged into NA, EU, and SEA during the year. That still gives us just under 8 million players that logged in and played for the year. There aren't any problems with finding games quickly, even with the playerbase sharded into all the different regions so I don't see a big problem with their numbers.
Hearthstone becomes problematic the day that it takes you a couple of minutes to find a match on the low end.
Though without a doubt we are no longer in the most popular period for Hearthstone. That time sailed ages ago. Players themselves don't matter much though if all the players playing are more engaged.
Doing well in Arena or Epic Duels maximizes the value you get for your gold. That is why I play it. Playing Arena has allowed me to have a complete collection of cards of every expansion released since launch.
I'm not saying it will happen, only that it should.
However, I do find it interesting that Iksar tweeted that question a few months ago about what it would take for former players to come back to the game. That's not something you just randomly decide to ask -- there must have been revenue reasons behind it.
Sounds to me like a lot of the 23.5 million active users last year were playing free modes, not buying random packs.
Merging doubles into golden would make them never nerf anything, since we would get enourmous profits from merging those 9+ duplicates.
That's easy enough to fix. Just make it so you cannot disenchant a golden card that was created this way. Ostensibly, you're making it golden because you want to keep it, so that should not be a problem.
I guess that Tavern Brawl gets more unique players, but they don't play many games. Most weeks, I play until I get my pack and then go back to Constructed. It looks like Arena players get a lot more games in.
The Duels numbers are not so bad given that it launched late in the year, but I wonder if they are consistent over time or had a huge peak during launch. The hype certainly died down quickly: if I look at Twitch then Zalae is the only streamer I see playing Duels; the rest moved back to Constructed or Battlegrounds.
Well, I don't believe the number is accurate. It's most probably the number of people who has played at least a single match in any game mode, not the amount of true active players. It's the new alt account you made to try out China meta and will abadon after a season; it's that guy who reinstalled the game out of nostalgia and played drunken Arena; it's that one person who tried BGs and didn't like it more than two days.
I am not saying HS is a dying game, but there's serious marketing behind these numbers.
Naw, although Battlegrounds is huge, and a lot of people streaming to the big numbers now are playing it, it still isn't their main mode. If Battlegrounds shifted to the main mode of Hearthstone for engagement, we'd be seeing them jump onto more monetization for it.
Napkin Math!
Battlegrounds games are around 20 minutes on average. We have 669 million player hours - a single battlegrounds game has 8 players in it which means we're getting around 2 hours played per match. (Estimate since sometimes people drop out quick etc.)
That gives us 334 million matches played in Battlegrounds. Demon Hunters alone had more games played. Granted, DH stat also includes Tavern Brawl and Arena, but those modes are nowhere near as popular as constructed.
Battlegrounds matches played is also probably much higher than that when you consider how many players on the lower end just immediately disconnect or get knocked out super fast. Again though, Napkin math! I think it proves the point though that Constructed is currently the king when it comes to modes.
Hard disagree. Opening packs is a painful chore, and I hate it. The one time in twenty that you see a Legendary does not make it better -- in fact, it often makes it worse if the Legendary is bad.
Personally, I just like how your name is perfectly suited to your argument.
Yeah, Arena took me for a loop there. Though it is possible that Tavern Brawl is only lower is due to new brawls being a rarity and the brawls that are brought back are definitely not always the fan favourites you'd expect.
Duels released in early access on October 22, 2020. 61.4 million matches in 2 months is not bad at all! We can be certain in that time frame that Tavern Brawl only saw 44 million matches played, give or take a million or two (Total / 12 months * 2), which I know doesn't say much since you're comparing it to Tavern Brawl, but:
I don't think that Duels has to be the most popular mode out there for it to still be successful. I don't play Arena, it's still attracting lots of players though and although people may have their issues with it, it's still a positive force since it retains those players.
We're going to be getting another new mode in Hearthstone soon (not including Classic) and probably another couple after that. The players will spread out more, making some modes maybe look less successful than before, but what we need to care about the most is that Hearthstone as a platform succeeds. Not all modes will apply to all players, heck, I play Battlegrounds more than constructed now and it doesn't really bother me that it happens to be the case (I just get salty when I don't get to play for days at the start of a new expansion and then say screw it when meta is "solved").
The UI is sad though. They really need to rework how the front of the box works. I don't have any major constructive feedback on it, it's just that Hearthstone feels like its just menu after menu when you want to get into something like Battlegrounds. I'd love some shortcuts I could customize on the home, but I know they'd never do it because that's too much interface and could be confusing. At least we're getting 9 more deck slots. How will I ever scroll that far.
Some Cards in Hearthstone's New Rotating Core Set Are Dean Ayala's Favourites - Here's Are His Top 10 Favourite Cards
1. Please don't bring back past hero cards!
2. If blizzard wants powerful random summons deciding their tournaments, then by all means bring back cards like Fel Reaver and completely make the competitive scene more of a joke!
3. Defile is an interesting case. The problem with this one is that every clear is going to have to be better or more efficient than Defile or it will never see play. Or it will have to enable a different archetype like School Spirits. I do not think it makes the cut unless they plan on giving warlock little to no damage removal.
4. C'thun was a very slow card in WOTOG and it is even slower by today's standards. The problem here is that we would have all the support cards taking up core set slots that could be used for more interesting cards. I like C'thun decks but No Thanks!
5. Hearthstone needs more Class specific highlander cards (especially for classes that do not have them yet) not neutral ones. No thanks Zephers!
6. N'zoth is too good in the late game and generally leads to turtle strategies. No thanks. Just create a new less powerful version in an expansion.
7. Aluneth. So Blizzard, are we going to limit Mage's draw or burn? I didn't think so. No thanks.
8. Rin, Dire Frenzy, Power Mace, and Void Ripper all seem fair and flexible enough. They all create reasonable archetypes. These would be good inclusions. I do see another mech expansion coming with a mech-centered key word so Power Mace might be better than you think it currently is.
9. UI - hard pass!
Hearthstone Had 23.5 Million Active Players in 2020 - Year of the Phoenix Stats
Yes, but nearly every other stat is "matches played ..."
And then there's battlegrounds - "Player hours spent ..."
It begs the question of why they reported battlegrounds differently from all of the other stats. It's literally the only stat that says anything about hours at all.
Things like this are never done at random - there is a deliberate reason for every single stat on that graphic and the way they reported them. I just wonder what the reason is in this case.
Hearthstone Had 23.5 Million Active Players in 2020 - Year of the Phoenix Stats
I mean, 8 people playing in the same game is still 8 people playing the game. I'd say it's more valuable info than the amount of games run by the servers.
Hearthstone Had 23.5 Million Active Players in 2020 - Year of the Phoenix Stats
Long live Arena!
Hearthstone Had 23.5 Million Active Players in 2020 - Year of the Phoenix Stats
Did anyone else notice the mathematical sleight of hand on the Battlegrounds numbers?
Just looking at the number, you think "Wow, if you added up the length of all of the battlegrounds matches, they add up to 669 million hours," but that's not accurate.
There are 8 players in every battlegrounds match. Obviously, not all 8 players stay for the entire match, but they reported it as "player hours." They are counting each person separately, so that number is inflated significantly, compared to the idea of total length of matches.
Now, I'm not saying they are dishonest or anything, because they said it's player hours - but it's still the largest possible number they could report for how much battlegrounds was played.
Hearthstone Had 23.5 Million Active Players in 2020 - Year of the Phoenix Stats
Nice to see some stats - hope they bring back player stat emails!
Hearthstone is Actively Looking Into Allowing Players to Upgrade Normal Cards to Their Golden Forms
I personally don’t keep golden cards unless they are uncraftable or unless I don’t have enough non-golden copies. So my golden collection is basic cards, a few golden epics, and some golden legendaries that were worth keeping.
For the Core set, I am most excited about Basic cards turning into craftable commons so I can DE the golden versions for a total of 14,300 dust. That’s just short of 9 legendary cards worth of dust!
More Boss ideas for Lab of Legends (Gangplank, Shyvana, Karma)
Given that it's likely that Riot updates Lab of Legends with new Bosses every once in a while, I wanted to create a few Boss ideas (including the two fights that lead up to it) that I think would be interesting to play against. I'm not sure on the balance, but after some playtesting I think Riot could make the decks and passives feel fair to play against. The way I think my Bosses could be incorporated is that they would become a part of a rotating pool of Bosses, and at the beginning of each run you see which Bosses you'll face (so you can build your deck to beat them). I made decks for each enemy of 40 cards, but if the Boss is the 1st or 2nd encounter, the deck would be trimmed a bit to make it around the size of your deck.
Boss Idea 1: Gangplank (Power Level: 1st or 2nd Boss)
First Deck: Coral Creatures
Passive: When you cast a spell, draw 1.
This deck is meant to be fairly weak, just using the Attune cards and low-cost spells with a passive that makes it hard for them to run out of resources.
Second Deck: Monkeys
Passive: Round Start: Deal 1 to the enemy Nexus.
This deck has guaranteed plunder every round, which allows the monkey dream to come true! I essentially just put in every Plunder card and every Monkey card. This should make this deck quite powerful, which is part of why Gangplank could be a second level Boss.
Gangplank:
Passive: Summon a Powder Keg
This is an all-in Keg deck that can accumulate kegs to deal lots of damage, with a few Noxus burn cards to make the kegs more likely to actually matter. I'm unsure of how powerful this deck is, but if it turns out to be too good, it can easily be nerfed by removing the Noxus cards (Noxian Fervor and Death's hand).
Boss Idea 2: Shyvana (Power Level: 1st or 2nd Boss)
First Deck: The Vanguard
Passive: Round Start: Rally.
This deck is meant to be a Midrange Demacia deck with the "Domination" Passive, which makes it powerful but hopefully not OP.
Second Deck: The Dragonguard
Passive: Allies have Fury. You always Behold a Dragon.
This deck is built around using Fury with the Grand Plaza and other challengers. I think this deck is a bit weak, so if this were a second tier Boss, I would buff the passive to also give allies +0|+1, which would make them better at triggering Fury.
Shyvana:
Passive: Your Dragons cost 1 less
This deck uses the Demacia and Targon Dragon cards with a passive that makes them able to get out early enough to actually be impactful. This passive is very good for a Tier 1 champion, so if it had to be nerfed, I would change it to "Dragon allies have +1|+0."
Boss Idea 3: Karma (Power Level: 2nd or 3rd Boss)
First Deck: Disciples of Hirana
Passive: Start with the Monastery of Hirana. When you recall a unit, double its Power and it keeps any buffs it had.
This deck is based around using Monastery of Hirana, recall cards, and handbuff cards to generate huge elusive units that can deal lots of Nexus. Because buffs are kept when recalling, the stats of a unit can snowball hard, such as going from a 2/1 to a 4/1 to an 8/1 to a 16/1. However, the only spell the deck has to save its units at fast speed is Homecoming, so it should be somewhat easy to prevent big units by killing the unit. Also, the passive doesn't buff Health, so the deck is vulnerable to Challenger or removal spells.
Second Deck: The Order of Shadow
Passive: When you play a unit, summon an exact Ephemeral copy of it.
This deck utilizes the powerful Ionian "when I'm summoned" units alongside Sparring Student and Greenglade Duo to buff up the board and get lots of elusive damage.
Karma:
Passive: All players start at 10 Mana.
This deck is comprised of all the expensive Ionia and Freljord units as well as the "Enlightened" cards. By starting each player at 10 Mana, Karma starts leveled and can cast powerful spells or play units like She Who Wanders to try to overwhelm the opponent. This passive might be kind of weak due to the number of player passives and items that draw cards, but I think that with an early She Who Wanders or a Turn 2 Warmother's call, it might be possible for Karma to win. Alternatively, it could end up being insanely powerful, in which can Karma can easily be nerfed by lowering the curve and cutting out some of the more powerful late-game cards.
So what do y'all think of my ideas? Would these be fun bosses to play against? Do you have any cool ideas for other Bosses and Passives?
Hearthstone Battleground Changes Arriving Soon - Junkbot Tier Change, Khadgar & Brann Triple Nerf, New Races
I honestly think they should just remove Khadgar. He is really hard to build around as most of the time you aren't going to have enough room on the board. He may be more useful than I think, but in general he seems pretty useless.
Dean Ayala's Community Q&A #5 - Core Set, Classic Arena, Upgrading to Golden Cards, Tauren Hero Portrait, Titans
It's really sad to hear that they aren't planning on nerfing Secret Mage any time soon. Honestly at this point the deck has been around for so long I think most people are just tired of it. It is similar to big priest in that even though it may not be the most powerful thing, it is just too prominent and very frustrating to have to deal with all of the time.
Hearthstone Had 23.5 Million Active Players in 2020 - Year of the Phoenix Stats
I said it wouldn't look as impressive as 2 years ago because BGs diverted interest. Not that it would have less play than BGs.
Hearthstone Had 23.5 Million Active Players in 2020 - Year of the Phoenix Stats
Of course! Any public company that releases numbers is going to cherry-pick them in a way that makes them look good for the shareholders.
For the sake of argument, let's say that every active player was counted 3 times because they logged into NA, EU, and SEA during the year. That still gives us just under 8 million players that logged in and played for the year. There aren't any problems with finding games quickly, even with the playerbase sharded into all the different regions so I don't see a big problem with their numbers.
Hearthstone becomes problematic the day that it takes you a couple of minutes to find a match on the low end.
Though without a doubt we are no longer in the most popular period for Hearthstone. That time sailed ages ago. Players themselves don't matter much though if all the players playing are more engaged.
Hearthstone Had 23.5 Million Active Players in 2020 - Year of the Phoenix Stats
Duels didn't become fun until this year, so it's no surprise to me. In 2020, it was extremely lopsided and monotonous.
Hearthstone Had 23.5 Million Active Players in 2020 - Year of the Phoenix Stats
Doing well in Arena or Epic Duels maximizes the value you get for your gold. That is why I play it. Playing Arena has allowed me to have a complete collection of cards of every expansion released since launch.
Dean Ayala's Community Q&A #5 - Core Set, Classic Arena, Upgrading to Golden Cards, Tauren Hero Portrait, Titans
I'm not saying it will happen, only that it should.
However, I do find it interesting that Iksar tweeted that question a few months ago about what it would take for former players to come back to the game. That's not something you just randomly decide to ask -- there must have been revenue reasons behind it.
Sounds to me like a lot of the 23.5 million active users last year were playing free modes, not buying random packs.
Hearthstone is Actively Looking Into Allowing Players to Upgrade Normal Cards to Their Golden Forms
That's easy enough to fix. Just make it so you cannot disenchant a golden card that was created this way. Ostensibly, you're making it golden because you want to keep it, so that should not be a problem.
Hearthstone Had 23.5 Million Active Players in 2020 - Year of the Phoenix Stats
I guess that Tavern Brawl gets more unique players, but they don't play many games. Most weeks, I play until I get my pack and then go back to Constructed. It looks like Arena players get a lot more games in.
The Duels numbers are not so bad given that it launched late in the year, but I wonder if they are consistent over time or had a huge peak during launch. The hype certainly died down quickly: if I look at Twitch then Zalae is the only streamer I see playing Duels; the rest moved back to Constructed or Battlegrounds.
Dean Ayala's Community Q&A #5 - Core Set, Classic Arena, Upgrading to Golden Cards, Tauren Hero Portrait, Titans
honestly, at this point I'll take it
Hearthstone Had 23.5 Million Active Players in 2020 - Year of the Phoenix Stats
Well, I don't believe the number is accurate. It's most probably the number of people who has played at least a single match in any game mode, not the amount of true active players. It's the new alt account you made to try out China meta and will abadon after a season; it's that guy who reinstalled the game out of nostalgia and played drunken Arena; it's that one person who tried BGs and didn't like it more than two days.
I am not saying HS is a dying game, but there's serious marketing behind these numbers.
Legends Of Runterra Is Free To Win
For those that have past ccg experience, gwent, hearthstone, mtg arena,
You'll know that staying on top of the ever evolving card pool is basically impossible without spending money and opening packs.
If you have a life that is and don't want to grind
Legends however, I've routinely taken off months at a time and catch up on champs in like 2 weeks of casual play.
The rewards system is outstanding, the fact you can convert draft tokens into cards without playing.
Everything is set up to ensure that you can have access to every single deck you want without killing yourself.
So the only thing left is skill.
I know I've been having a blast, and I also know I'll leave again and come back just as strong.
Just to emphasize the point here's the hottest new meta list and I had no problem getting the cards
Hearthstone Had 23.5 Million Active Players in 2020 - Year of the Phoenix Stats
Naw, although Battlegrounds is huge, and a lot of people streaming to the big numbers now are playing it, it still isn't their main mode. If Battlegrounds shifted to the main mode of Hearthstone for engagement, we'd be seeing them jump onto more monetization for it.
Napkin Math!
Battlegrounds games are around 20 minutes on average. We have 669 million player hours - a single battlegrounds game has 8 players in it which means we're getting around 2 hours played per match. (Estimate since sometimes people drop out quick etc.)
That gives us 334 million matches played in Battlegrounds. Demon Hunters alone had more games played. Granted, DH stat also includes Tavern Brawl and Arena, but those modes are nowhere near as popular as constructed.
Battlegrounds matches played is also probably much higher than that when you consider how many players on the lower end just immediately disconnect or get knocked out super fast. Again though, Napkin math! I think it proves the point though that Constructed is currently the king when it comes to modes.
Turn 2 OTK!
Heavy on the good draws. Have you thought of adding more draw to get to your combo?
Dean Ayala's Community Q&A #5 - Core Set, Classic Arena, Upgrading to Golden Cards, Tauren Hero Portrait, Titans
Tauren Rogue hero incoming! (Hopefully, for the laughs)
Dean Ayala's Community Q&A #5 - Core Set, Classic Arena, Upgrading to Golden Cards, Tauren Hero Portrait, Titans
Personally, I just like how your name is perfectly suited to your argument.
Hearthstone Had 23.5 Million Active Players in 2020 - Year of the Phoenix Stats
Yeah, Arena took me for a loop there. Though it is possible that Tavern Brawl is only lower is due to new brawls being a rarity and the brawls that are brought back are definitely not always the fan favourites you'd expect.
Duels released in early access on October 22, 2020. 61.4 million matches in 2 months is not bad at all! We can be certain in that time frame that Tavern Brawl only saw 44 million matches played, give or take a million or two (Total / 12 months * 2), which I know doesn't say much since you're comparing it to Tavern Brawl, but:
I don't think that Duels has to be the most popular mode out there for it to still be successful. I don't play Arena, it's still attracting lots of players though and although people may have their issues with it, it's still a positive force since it retains those players.
We're going to be getting another new mode in Hearthstone soon (not including Classic) and probably another couple after that. The players will spread out more, making some modes maybe look less successful than before, but what we need to care about the most is that Hearthstone as a platform succeeds. Not all modes will apply to all players, heck, I play Battlegrounds more than constructed now and it doesn't really bother me that it happens to be the case (I just get salty when I don't get to play for days at the start of a new expansion and then say screw it when meta is "solved").
The UI is sad though. They really need to rework how the front of the box works. I don't have any major constructive feedback on it, it's just that Hearthstone feels like its just menu after menu when you want to get into something like Battlegrounds. I'd love some shortcuts I could customize on the home, but I know they'd never do it because that's too much interface and could be confusing. At least we're getting 9 more deck slots. How will I ever scroll that far.