While I type this out and some may read this while most may not, Blizzard is probably already planning out and designing the next Hearthstone expansion. Another power creep expansion that will add more OTK decks, spells that clear entire boards for basically no mana, more cross-over cards that remove class identity and worthless minions that no one ever cares about.
Like many, I’ve been playing Hearthstone on and off since beta back in 2014. I’ve watched this game slowly evolve from minion trading and having thoughtful strategy to deal with your opponent’s cards, all the way up till now where you can kill your opponent on turn 4 with zero counter play options. While I understand that things have to change to keep the game fresh and keep players coming back, in my humble honest opinion I think this game is the worst its ever been…I mean that.
Minion Trading
- Back in the day minions on the board actually mattered. You have to thoughtfully deal with what your opponent was playing otherwise you got overwhelmed and lost the game. Now a days this means of playing the game is completely gone. Most decks revolve around board clear after board clear until you can line up some broken combo and kill your opponent in a single turn. Imagine playing a 6/5 minion and then Priest casually clears it with a 1 mana card and then plays 3 more cards of his own…must be nice.
Class Identity
- This is an opinionated statement, but I don’t agree with so many classes having access to other classes cards through RNG and discover. The biggest problem outliers for this are Mage, Rogue and Priest. Watching Priest literally play all of your cards and none of their own is the worst iteration of Priest fantasy I’ve ever seen out of the World of Warcraft lore. It doesn’t make any sense and it’s kind of sad this the best they can think of for these classes.
Mana Cheating
- This is actually one of the most egregious problems with Hearthstone right now. The ability to take really powerful game winning cards and substantially reduce their cost. This isn’t fun, it’s not providing any sort of meaningful or thoughtful gameplay and worst of all is completely removing any and all chances of ever balancing this game. LET CARDS COST MANA BLIZZARD, I PROMISE YOU IT’S OKAY. Let players make thoughtful choices on their turns instead of allowing them to play 6 cards on turn 1…cough…Rogue…cough…Mage…cough.
Maybe I’m wrong, maybe Blizzard just doesn’t want to balance the game on purpose and just wants to go crazy with synergies and combos. If that’s their idea of fun at this point then by all means carry on, but I personally wish Hearthstone would go back to its roots. I also fully understand that there are classic game modes that bring back the classic feel of back in the day, but the problem is that those aren’t completive game modes and don’t see updates with new cards etc.
Everyone’s opinions may vary, but as someone who still casually enjoys Hearthstone, I just wish Blizzard would do better.