1. Gameplay
LoR has a really strategic and fresh gameplay imo combining good characteristics from both Hearthstone (For ex you automatically get 1 mana per turn -no land system) and MtG (playing spells in your opponents turn, blockers etc) while at the same time adding new stuff of its own (For ex there s no such thing as a players turn, turns are for both players with each turn having an attacking player and a defending one)
Hearthstone on the other hand has a more goofy gameplay. And thats not a bad thing. I mean when you return from an 8 hour job and you wish to chill you wont go for too much thinking but you ll probably go to play some Hs, get into the tavern and âârelaaaaaaxââ.
2. Draft mode (Arena vs Expedition)
In LoR you get to play 2 runs and keep the one with most victories.
Each run is made from 7 games and in order to lose a run you must lose twice in a row
When you draft you pick from buckets that have 2 or 3 cards each (lets say dungeon run style) and between each match you get the option to pick a new bucket as well as trade a card of your deck for something else.
Also for each bucket you chose you increase the chances of your next buckets to have high synergy.
The prizes are also good and you ll always get something better in value from what you give as entry.
Now Hs s arena is nice and sweet but its really too much simplified to the point you feel like RNG plays the first role there while at the same time the prizes are really bad.
So i think the point here goes 100% to LoR
3. Art
Well i cant deny it, Hs wins this round. Hearthstones cartoonish cards were always more of my taste.
Its not like LoRs art is bad but it tries to follow a more serius and heroic way, thats simply is not so much of my taste. Then again this is from LoLs franchise so it only makes sense.
4. Economy
a) In LoR you have one currency: Shards (kinda similar to dust).
You cant buy packs (or any other loot boxes) with shards or real money but instead you buy specific cards you want.
So the whole ââgamblingââ thing is OVER.
b) So how do you gain shards and ââfreeââ cards?
When you enter the game you get to pick a region ( regions represent something lets say like colors in MTG or classes in Hearthstone). Each region has a chain of gifts which contain cards of the specific region and in order to unlock them you must gain xp. Xp can be gained by quests and by simply playing the game.
Opening these gifts will give you cards and shards.
An extra ââcommonââ and âârareââ will automatically get disenchanted while you will never get an extra epic and hero (legendary) card (By extra i mean more than what you can put in a deck).
c) Let me also add theres a limit to the money purchases meaning that ââwhalesââ cant be that much in charge.
TLDR: You time pays more than your money
In Hs, well⌠you know the drill.
a) Hs is a gamber s paradise. The whole pack system in general and the absurd prices the packs always had make Hs s ââmoney for valueââ a huge RNG parade.
b) And to be fair Hs as a game started really cheap. The every 6 months expansion and the in between adventures made the f2p community happy. Paying players had the advantage to try the new cards first but f2p players would eventually reach them (in collection turns) after 4 months or so. And that was nice.
Nowdays Hearthstone is 100% p2 have fun. With 3 expansions per year and with decks getting more expensive hs cannot be followed by f2p guys, no by any means. Unless of course the f2p sticks to a cheap meta deck.
TLDR: In Hs your credit card pays a lot more than the time spent
And that was my review of Hearthstone VS LoR. In general Hs and LoR both have their plus and minus but whats overwhelming here is LoR s economy and in my personal opinion this is whats gonna draw a lot of players away from Hs.
(Sorry for long post btw. Got no idea how i wrote so much stuff)