Assuming the main aim is to have a dynamic and interesting meta, the easiest (both to implement and come up with) is to just have a rapidly rotating Wild format. E.g. Basic + Classic* + 3 expansions, with the expansions changing every month. Something of the sort gets suggested often, and the beauty of it is that it is obvious it will work: the meta has to change, the reduced pool of cards gives everything a chance to shine, and balance issues resolve themselves quickly.
* I would keep Basic around, but wouldn't be against to switching out Classic.
My thoughts on your other suggestions:
Explorer: the perfect solution on paper, but is probably too complicated to make work in practice. After all, there will always be something on top, and removing overplayed cards will just lead to other cards being overplayed, which will then be removed etc.
Similar to my thoughts on Tower below, using ban lists feels at odds to HS's usual exploitation of it being a digital game, where nerfs take their place.
Pauper: this reminds me of the Tavern Brawl where you could only use Basic and Classic cards of common and rare rarities. The issue with that brawl is that a lot of important and interesting tools are epic or legendary, so the decks are typically very restricted and there's not as much fun to be had as you first expect imo.
Tower: it'll be fine, but it feels like HS trying to be something it is not. If that is how you want to be playing, then why aren't you just plating MtG instead?
I know it's not quite as simple as that, but I'd rather the devs made HS the best HS can be, rather than devoting time to making is more like something else.
Tribal: say hello to a perpetual murloc meta! This feels too restrictive to be interesting to me, especially as most tribes want support from generally good minions or synergy outside of the tribe itself.
Two-Headed Ogre: this was a recent Brawl, and it is well suited to something that lasts 1 week. The main issue I had with the Brawl is we were strongly incentivised to lean heavily on the hero power to screw over the other 9 classes that have different hero powers, meaning you either had mirror matches or had 15 useless cards in the deck.
You are correct in assuming the aim, which is not only to keep the meta dynamic and interesting, but to keep A meta dynamic and interesting. Also to give those who have full collections a little more variety.
Explorer: The goal of explorer is to allow other classes/archetypes to be on top, at least for a little bit. Not in the scale of Wild where the same decks are constantly being ran for years on end. I prefer card removals instead of all out nerfs. Removals allow for a bit more control in this format without changing others. It worked for Odd/Even decks, it can also work here is how I'm looking at it. I'm not disregarding what you said about nerfing cards instead of removing them, but in a for mat such as explorer, they need for nerfs would be far less.
Pauper: It is a slow format but I only recall the Brawl just being Classic and Basic? Correct me if I'm wrong. I should have clarified this could be applied to either Standard or Wild, or both depending. This is more or less an option for Free to Play players to have so they don't have to struggle so much with cost of the game. I'm a whale, I don't feel that struggle but I think this would be a fair idea for players who have a limited collection.
Tower: This is my way of saying that I'm tired of scenarios where "I should've played around the Pyroblast that was created by the Wand Thief that was created by First Day of School". I'm not asking for a restructure of Standard, just somewhere there's not insane RNG. Praise Yogg but everybody gets tired of praising him every now and then.
Tribal: I wouldn't say a perpetual Murloc meta, but it's something little change things up. Maybe Team 5 will test it as a brawl someday.
Two-Headed Ogre: I don't remember that Brawl, can you post a link?
I really just want other ladder experiences other than what we've had since the inception of Wild if that makes sense.
I don't really oppose the ideas behind any new format, but unlike physical card games where you just get everyone present to agree on a set of rules, digital games like HS have to be more concerned about not splitting the player base too much. Now I look at it this way, it is clear that Tavern Brawls are a decent way to handle different formats without splitting the players across ever increasing numbers of game modes. The approach has its flaws, but I appreciate the game mode a little more now :)
Anyway, that's my only real 'gripe' with most suggested formats, especially as the simple rotating Wild approach achieves the aim so cleanly by itself.
Temporary pricing while they remain exclusive to the December 25 present unlocks =)
Also worth noting that account management is successfully letting you choose which flair to use now. Sorry about that, I didn't push out an additional change that was made to our form for it to allow it to save correctly.
Cosmetics still needs a huge overhaul in account management. I don't like that you have to guess what stuff is going to look like.
Hey there, I'm just hijacking this thread as the title is appropriate 😁
I've noticed during snowpocalypse, the snowflake notifications are cut-off. Then realised it's site wide with any notification that appears in the top right on desktop. The cut-off notifications only appear on mobile for me. I'm using a Huawei P20 Pro and use chrome 87.0.4280. 101. It's no biggie, but just thought to mention it here.
I feel that would allow a lot of older cards to see play in a meta that doesn't have all the insane crap that wild offers.
That's really it. Everyone who plays Standard plays like they're at Grandmasters and must always run a meta deck at all times. In Wild it feels like players are trying to get into the Wild Open (RIP). I just want a format that utilizes other cards than what's dominating Wild and what's meta defining in Standard.
Assuming the main aim is to have a dynamic and interesting meta, the easiest (both to implement and come up with) is to just have a rapidly rotating Wild format. E.g. Basic + Classic* + 3 expansions, with the expansions changing every month. Something of the sort gets suggested often, and the beauty of it is that it is obvious it will work: the meta has to change, the reduced pool of cards gives everything a chance to shine, and balance issues resolve themselves quickly.
* I would keep Basic around, but wouldn't be against to switching out Classic.
My thoughts on your other suggestions:
Explorer: the perfect solution on paper, but is probably too complicated to make work in practice. After all, there will always be something on top, and removing overplayed cards will just lead to other cards being overplayed, which will then be removed etc.
Similar to my thoughts on Tower below, using ban lists feels at odds to HS's usual exploitation of it being a digital game, where nerfs take their place.
Pauper: this reminds me of the Tavern Brawl where you could only use Basic and Classic cards of common and rare rarities. The issue with that brawl is that a lot of important and interesting tools are epic or legendary, so the decks are typically very restricted and there's not as much fun to be had as you first expect imo.
Tower: it'll be fine, but it feels like HS trying to be something it is not. If that is how you want to be playing, then why aren't you just plating MtG instead?
I know it's not quite as simple as that, but I'd rather the devs made HS the best HS can be, rather than devoting time to making is more like something else.
Tribal: say hello to a perpetual murloc meta! This feels too restrictive to be interesting to me, especially as most tribes want support from generally good minions or synergy outside of the tribe itself.
Two-Headed Ogre: this was a recent Brawl, and it is well suited to something that lasts 1 week. The main issue I had with the Brawl is we were strongly incentivised to lean heavily on the hero power to screw over the other 9 classes that have different hero powers, meaning you either had mirror matches or had 15 useless cards in the deck.
You are correct in assuming the aim, which is not only to keep the meta dynamic and interesting, but to keep A meta dynamic and interesting. Also to give those who have full collections a little more variety.
Explorer: The goal of explorer is to allow other classes/archetypes to be on top, at least for a little bit. Not in the scale of Wild where the same decks are constantly being ran for years on end. I prefer card removals instead of all out nerfs. Removals allow for a bit more control in this format without changing others. It worked for Odd/Even decks, it can also work here is how I'm looking at it. I'm not disregarding what you said about nerfing cards instead of removing them, but in a for mat such as explorer, they need for nerfs would be far less.
Pauper: It is a slow format but I only recall the Brawl just being Classic and Basic? Correct me if I'm wrong. I should have clarified this could be applied to either Standard or Wild, or both depending. This is more or less an option for Free to Play players to have so they don't have to struggle so much with cost of the game. I'm a whale, I don't feel that struggle but I think this would be a fair idea for players who have a limited collection.
Tower: This is my way of saying that I'm tired of scenarios where "I should've played around the Pyroblast that was created by the Wand Thief that was created by First Day of School". I'm not asking for a restructure of Standard, just somewhere there's not insane RNG. Praise Yogg but everybody gets tired of praising him every now and then.
Tribal: I wouldn't say a perpetual Murloc meta, but it's something little change things up. Maybe Team 5 will test it as a brawl someday.
Two-Headed Ogre: I don't remember that Brawl, can you post a link?
I really just want other ladder experiences other than what we've had since the inception of Wild if that makes sense.
Wow, I had really forgotten how much happened this year - my Priest rework seems so much longer ago than that, and Demon Hunter feels like it's been a part of the game for years.
Can't wait to see what the next year brings us - both for Fan Creations, and Hearthstone as a whole! I wonder what the next big shake-up will be for us creatives, and if anything can ever top a whole new class to play with.
Nice idea! This is meant to represent the resolution of doing some sports every other day. I've made it even-Cost because the odd faction got way more cards which seemed unfair and I don't want to see this in odd Pally. Might be a good Neutral or Hunter effect as well but the art was already at hand and just screamed Paladin.
I'd like something rather simple really. I'd like a format that is just a shuffle of a few different sets. Somewhere between 4 and 6 sets that are all put together and you can only play those for a few months, then they choose another random 4 to 6 and go again. You might've meant exactly that with what you said in that last paragraph, but yeah, I feel that would allow a lot of older cards to see play in a meta that doesn't have all the insane crap that wild offers.
Explorer - A format in which cards, depending on the amount they were played, get rotated out until the new Hearthstone year.
Pauper - A format in which only common rarity cards are allowed.
Tower - A format in which "random" is not allowed, and in which cards that create other cards is not allowed.
Tribal - A format in which all minions must share the same minion type.
Two-Headed Ogre - Make a 15 card deck, combine it with someone else's 15 card deck, and you go against two other players with their combined 15 card decks.
Hell, maybe even a format that rotates with expansions. What if we had Classic, Basic, Darkmoon Faire, and Whispers of the Old Gods in their own format for 4 months until the next expansion? This could've also been done when Boomsday came out, it could've shared a format with Goblins Vs. Gnomes along with mechs from other expansions.
Assuming the main aim is to have a dynamic and interesting meta, the easiest (both to implement and come up with) is to just have a rapidly rotating Wild format. E.g. Basic + Classic* + 3 expansions, with the expansions changing every month. Something of the sort gets suggested often, and the beauty of it is that it is obvious it will work: the meta has to change, the reduced pool of cards gives everything a chance to shine, and balance issues resolve themselves quickly.
* I would keep Basic around, but wouldn't be against to switching out Classic.
My thoughts on your other suggestions:
Explorer: the perfect solution on paper, but is probably too complicated to make work in practice. After all, there will always be something on top, and removing overplayed cards will just lead to other cards being overplayed, which will then be removed etc.
Similar to my thoughts on Tower below, using ban lists feels at odds to HS's usual exploitation of it being a digital game, where nerfs take their place.
Pauper: this reminds me of the Tavern Brawl where you could only use Basic and Classic cards of common and rare rarities. The issue with that brawl is that a lot of important and interesting tools are epic or legendary, so the decks are typically very restricted and there's not as much fun to be had as you first expect imo.
Tower: it'll be fine, but it feels like HS trying to be something it is not. If that is how you want to be playing, then why aren't you just plating MtG instead?
I know it's not quite as simple as that, but I'd rather the devs made HS the best HS can be, rather than devoting time to making is more like something else.
Tribal: say hello to a perpetual murloc meta! This feels too restrictive to be interesting to me, especially as most tribes want support from generally good minions or synergy outside of the tribe itself.
Two-Headed Ogre: this was a recent Brawl, and it is well suited to something that lasts 1 week. The main issue I had with the Brawl is we were strongly incentivised to lean heavily on the hero power to screw over the other 9 classes that have different hero powers, meaning you either had mirror matches or had 15 useless cards in the deck.
In the past year, Hearthstone has made great strides to offer new content for players. A new Class, Dual-Class Cards, an achievement system, a Battle-Pass (that nobody asked for), the Duels mode, additional minions, tribes, and heroes for Battlegrounds. Now this doesn't look like much, but to be honest this is a lot of content in one year when you compare it to previous years' habits of rinse, wash, repeat. Unfortunately with all the strides that Team 5 has made to make the game better, I've felt an itch that just can't be scratched, and that's the lack of formats.
Everyone here, since this is being posted in the Hearthstone part of the site, is familiar with Standard and Wild. We know how the rotations work, what cards are legal, and what to expect in April of any given year. So I ask, is it enough? Is Standard and Wild enough formats to play on the ladder? My answer is simply no and there are two main reasons for this answer. The Metas, and the collection.
The Meta within Standard waxes and wanes depending on balance changes, combo & archetype discoveries, and obviously the new cards that roll in every ~4 months (with the exception of this and perhaps future expansion cycles). The Meta gets changed up quite a bit on the release of a new expansion which is expected, and can be changed drastically like what we're currently seeing with Evolve Shaman after Demon Hunter got rebalanced. Eventually when Team 5 either throw their hands up and discreetly decide that Standard has had enough balance changes or is more or less into full swing of expansion reveal to keep everyone occupied, the Meta settles and become monotonous. Of course they're trying to remedy this by releasing a mid-expansion set of cards to hopefully shake it up enough, but either way that Meta will settle and players will get bored.
The Meta in Wild, for lack of better terms, has its' roots more planted than that of Standard. We all know Raza & Rez Priest, we all know Odd Paladin, we all know Secret Mage, we all know Bloodreaver Warlock, we all know Dead Man's Warrior, and so on. The deck variety in Wild will always be greater than that in Standard, but that does not mean better. Of the decks listed above, I've never once said to myself "Oh boy! I get to go against (Insert Deck name here) again!" Yeah playing against Galakrond Rogue sucked for a time but at least it was only a Meta deck for so long, as opposed to Wild decks where these offenders will be present until there's literally a card printed out exclusively to combat them. So Wild has its own level of staleness, which funnily enough is at the same time worse, and better than the staleness of Standard.
The second issue is the collection aspect, this is more of a Wild exclusive topic. This topic more aimed towards players who don't/haven't disenchanted their Wild cards. Currently in the game we have ~2,500 collectable cards, and not many of them are playable in terms of being viable in the Wild meta. Additionally, some of these cards never got support after their release, looking at you Moorabi. Beyond cards not getting support we also have powercreep which is something that can't always be avoided and in a way is needed for players to become better, an example being Silverback Patriarch and literally any other 3-cost Taunt minion. Those two simple things combined with the vast amount of cards available in Wild makes wanting a complete collection that much less important.
The only slight remedy of the having a complete or near complete collection being almost useless is the new Duels mode. Some could say that this validates a reasoning for players to hold onto old cards, and it does, but not all players like the idea of drafting cards, myself being one of them. But that's a mode that comes down to personal preference.
So all that above culminating to the point I wanted to make. It's time for Hearthstone to get a new format, preferably this one ;). Joking aside, I, as well as other players, are tired of being stuck in between a format that has the tired same old gimmicks since a deck's inception, and a format that gets stale even when new cards arrive. Some of you may say "Well if Team 5 does add another format, it'll get stale, people will complain about it's imbalances, and won't fix anything long term." Which is true but if Team 5 were to not add just one, but maybe two new formats, it'll give players enough to shuffle in between without getting bored/burned out as easily. Let's also take a step back and brainstorm what those could be.
Explorer - A format in which cards, depending on the amount they were played, get rotated out until the new Hearthstone year.
Pauper - A format in which only common rarity cards are allowed.
Tower - A format in which "random" is not allowed, and in which cards that create other cards is not allowed.
Tribal - A format in which all minions must share the same minion type.
Two-Headed Ogre - Make a 15 card deck, combine it with someone else's 15 card deck, and you go against two other players with their combined 15 card decks.
Hell, maybe even a format that rotates with expansions. What if we had Classic, Basic, Darkmoon Faire, and Whispers of the Old Gods in their own format for 4 months until the next expansion? This could've also been done when Boomsday came out, it could've shared a format with Goblins Vs. Gnomes along with mechs from other expansions.
I don't know a thing about Poppy so i don't know what she should be doing or what she would feels right doing.
Based on the card effect you take the direction of a defensive champion which revolves around blocking, which is nice since we haven't got anything like that. The fact that it can be played with fast speed but only in defense is really interesting (and 6 mana i feel like a good balance), i will assume that this is how Poppy will be played most of the time if she is on the game.
The problem for me is with that 4 attack she really can hold her own against most of the unit, and with cards like single combat in the same region i believe she will be hard to take down (6 health + tough) while also taking down many enemies.
So my suggestion is lowering her attack down to 3 or maybe 2 to still align with your goal being a defence-oriented champion.
But i absolutely love the art, though. The lvl 1 like some sort of shy Poppy, while in lvl 2 she gain power or confidence to be able to do whatever she needs to do. So overall it's a good job.
Thank you for the input! I agree that it might need to have lower attack since it likely trades a little too well and makes it hard to attack without being heavily punished. I am leaning toward 3 attack if I were to change it given that I worry it might be a little too weak at 2 and just turn into a wall that falls apart against anything that isn't the most aggressive deck.
I'm glad you like the art but it is all just art from LoL. The first is just her classic splash art in LoL and I used a skin that is meant to be her as a veteran, also from LoL. The two spells are from her abilities in the game. I just figured that if it ain't broke, no reason to fix it.
For a custom Legends of Runeterra card, this does not look bad at all. Most custom cards I've seen in the past have always been really awkward in terms of design. This one seems really well done. It brings the flavor of Poppy tackling an enemy using her E and stunning them. The translation of her abilities into cards seems very clear to me too so overall your cards are really well done imo. I like that you made Flash from MtG in LoR and gave it to Poppy and I believe that it should be a new keyword entirely. I could see it appearing in LoR especially since Galio could use the same keyword as well.
A couple of things you do need to clarify, your Iron Ambassador should be Poppy's Iron Ambassador but I understand what you meant by it so it doesn't matter much. Poppy herself is a bit confusing and this is what I mean by it's probably better by making a new keyword for her. I don't really understand what you mean by Fast speed and blocking an enemy as there's no such thing. There are only burst speed blockers and the closest thing to it is Concussive Palm which is a fast speed stun spell that summons a unit but the Tail of the Dragon it summons isn't able to block.
Poppy herself from a balance perspective is interesting and I would say she is a bit strong but that's about it. My worries are the design flaws it does have.
- First off, it's a stun in Demacia. This is probably fine as Champions are very well known for breaking region identities and it is interesting as you could have Demacia Yasuo.
- Secondly, this is a card the disincentivize attacking. The developers had said that they don't like the current iteration of Tahm Soraka because the deck makes it so that you don't want to attack into their units as they will have responses to your attacks and even if your attacks do get through unless you're a burn/aggro deck it probably won't matter much.
Overall, I really like the cards you made. I think all of them are very well balanced and great in showing what Poppy does in LoL.
You make a lot of good points and I thin you're right about it being a little too good at punishing attacks. The intention in case I didn't make it clear was that she could stun one target while blocking another, which is why I worried she might be too versatile. I do think that a stun in Demacia could be fine given that it is only on a champion and requires you to invest a very important slot into playing her.
Perhaps the best way to go about it is lowering the attack as Vandaren suggested above. That way it would be able to stop aggression but wouldn't reliably kill an attacking unit in the combat that follows.
It's time for Hearthstone to have a new Format.
I don't really oppose the ideas behind any new format, but unlike physical card games where you just get everyone present to agree on a set of rules, digital games like HS have to be more concerned about not splitting the player base too much. Now I look at it this way, it is clear that Tavern Brawls are a decent way to handle different formats without splitting the players across ever increasing numbers of game modes. The approach has its flaws, but I appreciate the game mode a little more now :)
Anyway, that's my only real 'gripe' with most suggested formats, especially as the simple rotating Wild approach achieves the aim so cleanly by itself.
The 15 card, shared deck Brawl was super recent and details are found here: https://outof.cards/hearthstone/tavern-brawls/141-half-and-half
Snowflakes
Temporary pricing while they remain exclusive to the December 25 present unlocks =)
Also worth noting that account management is successfully letting you choose which flair to use now. Sorry about that, I didn't push out an additional change that was made to our form for it to allow it to save correctly.
Cosmetics still needs a huge overhaul in account management. I don't like that you have to guess what stuff is going to look like.
Strange layout on mobile
Hey there, I'm just hijacking this thread as the title is appropriate 😁
I've noticed during snowpocalypse, the snowflake notifications are cut-off. Then realised it's site wide with any notification that appears in the top right on desktop. The cut-off notifications only appear on mobile for me. I'm using a Huawei P20 Pro and use chrome 87.0.4280. 101. It's no biggie, but just thought to mention it here.
Thanks Flux and Co ❄️
Fan Community Spotlight - 2020 Retrospective
Good lord. And I suggested to make it a Hunter card with Shaw in the same set on top of that. I have to go to bed.
It's time for Hearthstone to have a new Format.
That's really it. Everyone who plays Standard plays like they're at Grandmasters and must always run a meta deck at all times. In Wild it feels like players are trying to get into the Wild Open (RIP). I just want a format that utilizes other cards than what's dominating Wild and what's meta defining in Standard.
Rogtronic - Ireland's 3rd best Hearthstone content creator! (I don't know who 1 and 2 are but its a safe bet I'm 3rd)
Live now with some Duelzzzz
Click here for stream!
It's time for Hearthstone to have a new Format.
You are correct in assuming the aim, which is not only to keep the meta dynamic and interesting, but to keep A meta dynamic and interesting. Also to give those who have full collections a little more variety.
Explorer: The goal of explorer is to allow other classes/archetypes to be on top, at least for a little bit. Not in the scale of Wild where the same decks are constantly being ran for years on end. I prefer card removals instead of all out nerfs. Removals allow for a bit more control in this format without changing others. It worked for Odd/Even decks, it can also work here is how I'm looking at it. I'm not disregarding what you said about nerfing cards instead of removing them, but in a for mat such as explorer, they need for nerfs would be far less.
Pauper: It is a slow format but I only recall the Brawl just being Classic and Basic? Correct me if I'm wrong. I should have clarified this could be applied to either Standard or Wild, or both depending. This is more or less an option for Free to Play players to have so they don't have to struggle so much with cost of the game. I'm a whale, I don't feel that struggle but I think this would be a fair idea for players who have a limited collection.
Tower: This is my way of saying that I'm tired of scenarios where "I should've played around the Pyroblast that was created by the Wand Thief that was created by First Day of School". I'm not asking for a restructure of Standard, just somewhere there's not insane RNG. Praise Yogg but everybody gets tired of praising him every now and then.
Tribal: I wouldn't say a perpetual Murloc meta, but it's something little change things up. Maybe Team 5 will test it as a brawl someday.
Two-Headed Ogre: I don't remember that Brawl, can you post a link?
I really just want other ladder experiences other than what we've had since the inception of Wild if that makes sense.
Fan Community Spotlight - 2020 Retrospective
Wow, I had really forgotten how much happened this year - my Priest rework seems so much longer ago than that, and Demon Hunter feels like it's been a part of the game for years.
Can't wait to see what the next year brings us - both for Fan Creations, and Hearthstone as a whole! I wonder what the next big shake-up will be for us creatives, and if anything can ever top a whole new class to play with.
When Worlds Collide - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Thank you for doing this; I was busy and forgot to do it.
Anyway, good luck to our finalists!
Fan Community Spotlight - 2020 Retrospective
Even-only, but she costs 3? If you have two, you might screw up your deck lol :P
Fan Community Spotlight - 2020 Retrospective
Nice idea! This is meant to represent the resolution of doing some sports every other day. I've made it even-Cost because the odd faction got way more cards which seemed unfair and I don't want to see this in odd Pally. Might be a good Neutral or Hunter effect as well but the art was already at hand and just screamed Paladin.
Snowpocalypse
Fight me if you can :D
Out of Cards Changelog - 2020-12-27 (Introducing Pins)
We're introducing a new cosmetic today called Pins! This is the first part of how pins will be used on the site.
New Features
Pins!
It's time for Hearthstone to have a new Format.
I'd like something rather simple really. I'd like a format that is just a shuffle of a few different sets. Somewhere between 4 and 6 sets that are all put together and you can only play those for a few months, then they choose another random 4 to 6 and go again. You might've meant exactly that with what you said in that last paragraph, but yeah, I feel that would allow a lot of older cards to see play in a meta that doesn't have all the insane crap that wild offers.
It's time for Hearthstone to have a new Format.
Assuming the main aim is to have a dynamic and interesting meta, the easiest (both to implement and come up with) is to just have a rapidly rotating Wild format. E.g. Basic + Classic* + 3 expansions, with the expansions changing every month. Something of the sort gets suggested often, and the beauty of it is that it is obvious it will work: the meta has to change, the reduced pool of cards gives everything a chance to shine, and balance issues resolve themselves quickly.
* I would keep Basic around, but wouldn't be against to switching out Classic.
My thoughts on your other suggestions:
Snowpocalypse
Snowpocalypse
I can't select the newly acquired awesome Chenvaala profile header.
It's time for Hearthstone to have a new Format.
In the past year, Hearthstone has made great strides to offer new content for players. A new Class, Dual-Class Cards, an achievement system, a Battle-Pass (that nobody asked for), the Duels mode, additional minions, tribes, and heroes for Battlegrounds. Now this doesn't look like much, but to be honest this is a lot of content in one year when you compare it to previous years' habits of rinse, wash, repeat. Unfortunately with all the strides that Team 5 has made to make the game better, I've felt an itch that just can't be scratched, and that's the lack of formats.
Everyone here, since this is being posted in the Hearthstone part of the site, is familiar with Standard and Wild. We know how the rotations work, what cards are legal, and what to expect in April of any given year. So I ask, is it enough? Is Standard and Wild enough formats to play on the ladder? My answer is simply no and there are two main reasons for this answer. The Metas, and the collection.
The Meta within Standard waxes and wanes depending on balance changes, combo & archetype discoveries, and obviously the new cards that roll in every ~4 months (with the exception of this and perhaps future expansion cycles). The Meta gets changed up quite a bit on the release of a new expansion which is expected, and can be changed drastically like what we're currently seeing with Evolve Shaman after Demon Hunter got rebalanced. Eventually when Team 5 either throw their hands up and discreetly decide that Standard has had enough balance changes or is more or less into full swing of expansion reveal to keep everyone occupied, the Meta settles and become monotonous. Of course they're trying to remedy this by releasing a mid-expansion set of cards to hopefully shake it up enough, but either way that Meta will settle and players will get bored.
The Meta in Wild, for lack of better terms, has its' roots more planted than that of Standard. We all know Raza & Rez Priest, we all know Odd Paladin, we all know Secret Mage, we all know Bloodreaver Warlock, we all know Dead Man's Warrior, and so on. The deck variety in Wild will always be greater than that in Standard, but that does not mean better. Of the decks listed above, I've never once said to myself "Oh boy! I get to go against (Insert Deck name here) again!" Yeah playing against Galakrond Rogue sucked for a time but at least it was only a Meta deck for so long, as opposed to Wild decks where these offenders will be present until there's literally a card printed out exclusively to combat them. So Wild has its own level of staleness, which funnily enough is at the same time worse, and better than the staleness of Standard.
The second issue is the collection aspect, this is more of a Wild exclusive topic. This topic more aimed towards players who don't/haven't disenchanted their Wild cards. Currently in the game we have ~2,500 collectable cards, and not many of them are playable in terms of being viable in the Wild meta. Additionally, some of these cards never got support after their release, looking at you Moorabi. Beyond cards not getting support we also have powercreep which is something that can't always be avoided and in a way is needed for players to become better, an example being Silverback Patriarch and literally any other 3-cost Taunt minion. Those two simple things combined with the vast amount of cards available in Wild makes wanting a complete collection that much less important.
The only slight remedy of the having a complete or near complete collection being almost useless is the new Duels mode. Some could say that this validates a reasoning for players to hold onto old cards, and it does, but not all players like the idea of drafting cards, myself being one of them. But that's a mode that comes down to personal preference.
So all that above culminating to the point I wanted to make. It's time for Hearthstone to get a new format, preferably this one ;). Joking aside, I, as well as other players, are tired of being stuck in between a format that has the tired same old gimmicks since a deck's inception, and a format that gets stale even when new cards arrive. Some of you may say "Well if Team 5 does add another format, it'll get stale, people will complain about it's imbalances, and won't fix anything long term." Which is true but if Team 5 were to not add just one, but maybe two new formats, it'll give players enough to shuffle in between without getting bored/burned out as easily. Let's also take a step back and brainstorm what those could be.
Explorer - A format in which cards, depending on the amount they were played, get rotated out until the new Hearthstone year.
Pauper - A format in which only common rarity cards are allowed.
Tower - A format in which "random" is not allowed, and in which cards that create other cards is not allowed.
Tribal - A format in which all minions must share the same minion type.
Two-Headed Ogre - Make a 15 card deck, combine it with someone else's 15 card deck, and you go against two other players with their combined 15 card decks.
Hell, maybe even a format that rotates with expansions. What if we had Classic, Basic, Darkmoon Faire, and Whispers of the Old Gods in their own format for 4 months until the next expansion? This could've also been done when Boomsday came out, it could've shared a format with Goblins Vs. Gnomes along with mechs from other expansions.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
Snowflakes
Why are two frames for 99999 snowflakes?
An Attempt at Poppy for LoR
Thank you for the input! I agree that it might need to have lower attack since it likely trades a little too well and makes it hard to attack without being heavily punished. I am leaning toward 3 attack if I were to change it given that I worry it might be a little too weak at 2 and just turn into a wall that falls apart against anything that isn't the most aggressive deck.
I'm glad you like the art but it is all just art from LoL. The first is just her classic splash art in LoL and I used a skin that is meant to be her as a veteran, also from LoL. The two spells are from her abilities in the game. I just figured that if it ain't broke, no reason to fix it.
Snowpocalypse
You are right, my bad. I used the search bar on top of the main page, not the one from the Cards section (I thought it works the same).
Il'gynoth
My first MatDF legendary, as well as the one I learned to hate the quickest
An Attempt at Poppy for LoR
You make a lot of good points and I thin you're right about it being a little too good at punishing attacks. The intention in case I didn't make it clear was that she could stun one target while blocking another, which is why I worried she might be too versatile. I do think that a stun in Demacia could be fine given that it is only on a champion and requires you to invest a very important slot into playing her.
Perhaps the best way to go about it is lowering the attack as Vandaren suggested above. That way it would be able to stop aggression but wouldn't reliably kill an attacking unit in the combat that follows.
Snowpocalypse
Snowpocalypse
WOW I entered the
Hit by Snowballs Leaderboard
:)