Oh, absolutely. There comes a point in all CCG’s where luck + money wins out over skill and effort. That’s the nature of the beast, and with HS it seems the dev priority is to keep luck front and center. It’s kind of the anti-MTG in that sense.
All that said, it’s still a CCG. Basic concepts like threats vs answers, tempo, board control, it all still applies. Playing on curve, even if you don’t know what specifically it is you’ll be playing (discovery, top deck, etc), is a substantial advantage over someone routinely wasting some or all of their available mana each turn.
Magic The Gathering is basically THE collectible card game. I don’t necessarily know if it was the literal first ever, but it has its roots in late 80’s / early 90’s and it’s still around present day (I wouldn’t necessarily call it “going STRONG” but that’s my personal bias speaking).
What you see in Hearthstone - all sorts of random board clears, cards appearing or disappearing on a whim, things being shuffled and taken out and summoned from here or exploding from there - that’s more akin to the “fake” sets that MTG prints out occasionally, just to goof on itself. Unhinged, Unglued, etc. Things like “destroy target permanent from a game you can physically see” or “this creature is unblockable if your opponent is wearing denim.”
“Legit” MTG is a much more serious endeavor, though ironically it has MORE RNG in some ways (lands, your mana source, are part of your deck and drawn like any other card - so you can go several turns without enough mana to cast things, or get way too much, etc).
Random? You mean curated by the algo. Cards that do random stuff makes it easier to for the algo to determine the winner by curating the “randomness.”
The opponent matchmaking is rigged / curated. This has been proven, so one would assume the game curates anything “random.”
If you mean the cards are more stats-based and down to earth and aren’t very complex powerhouses, then that’s not NECESSARILY better design (to avoid the Hearthstone way), because it might only mean it’s harder to design for balance; theoretically if you design it well then it may be more interesting and in depth; but obviously that can go wrong (e.g. I think Wild is obviously very wrong).
The human mind does a terrible job at gauging randomness, because we’re predisposed to find patterns even when none exist. THAT, actually HAS been scientifically proven:
However, that being said, Activision very routinely experimented with what they called “skill based match making” (SBMM for short), so they can easily alter whatever they want if they so choose. It wouldn’t necessarily be impossible or improbable for them to do what you’re claiming here. But, at the same time, the hell does it really matter? I know I’M not making money off my playing HS. Are you?
I’m not really interested in a “which is better” debate just in general between HS and MTG, much less going a step further and hashing out “which was better designed.” My point is more that when it comes to CCG’s, there are certain theoretical concepts and HS is not some sort of freak outlier that’s immune to decades of analysis.
It’s not VERY important if they rig the games, provided it’s only part of the MMR system; if you win a lot then your MMR goes up; you WILL lose very likely after a few wins because the system just - by design - puts you with harder to beat players and that’s expected to happen.
If you imply they only do it to people who don’t pay them then it gets ethically questionable; I’ve also noticed that when I had a few wins I start getting some decks that are anti-decks to me; but as I said it’s not necessarily bad design if it happens to everyone equally.
Well it has been proven though.
It’s easy to prove. Make a deck put two steam cleaners in it and two geists.
You will never be put up against a Plague Death Knight or a card runner outer because that deck is a guaranteed 100% loss for those premade decks.
I have played since the game out, and I learned very quickly that if you change your deck to try to defeat a type of opponent you keep getting matched with, you will never get that opponent again.
Keep getting matched with emerald golem druids, put two geists in my deck. Boom I can play forever without getting matched with emerald golem druids but now I have two useless cards in my decks since I never get to use them on emerald golem druids.
Those two cards cause a 100% loss to that premade deck so it won’t be matched by the algo.
Why don’t you try it yourself and see if it is true.
Anyone that tries it has agreed with me.
Take the steam cleaners and geists back out and BOOM you will be back fighting plague death knights and card runner outters.
Very easy to prove. Even people that thought it was random were shell shocked when they tried it.
Put weapon stealers and weapon smasher in your deck and you won’t see any roges with kingsbane ever. The algo will not match up a 100% loss to a pre-made deck. Ever.
I have received messages and messages from people completely shocked by this that the matches are being curated.
They thought it was random.
So you can’t make a deck and start playing with a geist and steamclean and keep a record of how many plague death knights you get compared to without a geist and steamcleaner?
The amount of plague death knights with the steam cleaner and geist. Will be ZERO even if you play for a year.
I see someone mentioned Grizzled Wizard; that’s one way to counter it. Another way is to fill up their side of the board with frozen, or better yet, dormant minions. The combo requires at least 6 spaces on their side of the board, and if Call to Arms pulls 3 from the deck, they need 7. You can also run the battlecry minion that raises their hero power by 5 mana on their next turn.
I don’t think it’s worth tech’ing for that deck, however, unless you’re doing it just for fun. You make your deck worse against too many other opponents. Just like hard-running Geist or Steamcleaner; they’re generally bad cards.
They dont always do this on turn 6, just more often then not.
if they give me 4 turns at 10 mana and a bit of luck I win.
its not that common a deck in wild at least its over quick as compared to a quest shaman freezing my deck from turn 6, I did dishes for 20 minutes and he had lowered my hp 3 pts at a time too about 20 by that time, uggh if your going to win, dont take 30 minutes doing it. Concede…