Have not played standard in like three months. First game opponent plays Alexstrsa. Takes off more then half my health I auto lose the game. Won’t be making the mistake of playing standard again.
Your obsession with OTK and big swing turns is the reason that despite never charging more for more expansions and adventures Hearthstone’s revenue still fell by 25% last year.
Wyatt…
I think OTK or TTK like Alexstrasza are even more prevalent in Wild. In Wild we have Mecha’thun Warlock and Quest Mage as meta decks that can do the OTK trick well then a bunch of off-meta decks which can as well such as Dragon Priest, Malygod decks, Tog Priest (and Druid), Shudderwock OTK, and probably a couple others I am missing.
OTK was on a big downturn prior to the adventure cards and I didn’t see anything that’d improve OTK-ish strategies there but maybe I missed something
I’d almost argue the pricing might contribute a decent amount to that play rate decline
then explain the 30% decline in revenue the year before. and the exact same losses the year before that…
Actually 2017 there was a huge revenue hike. KOFT is supposed to have been the peak meta for Hearthstone.
The issue with Raven was the power drop. Many players clearly said they weren’t buying because they didn’t need the new sets to remain competitive.
Then what happens is that you lose a lot of those folks when Mammoth rotates because they now have to invest a lot of money to close their self created gaps.
Then they retain a lot of people who were happy with the power drop, but corporate isn’t happy with all of those people leaving earlier so they reverse and creep and now those people are unhappy.
They really screwed up with the power drop. And that’s on Brode.
Marco pretty much nailed it so not much to add.
2018 (year before) did see a decline as well and arguably due to both the decline of power (no need to buy) and Genn/Baku (frustration later in season).
2017 (year before that) was the highest revenue point this game has had
What Alex if I may ask? The new one who can’t take off your health or the one that’s been in the game since the start? Because that one’s been in the game since the start and has nothing to do with Standard.
Mar 21 2019 Hearthstone Sales down 52% for 2018
Jan 30 2018|Hearthstone sales at $217M in 2017, down from $394 M in 2016
March 28 2017 Revenue lowest since game launched, down significantly year-over-year and month-over-month
sorry to bring actual facts into this…
p.s. wont let me put links but you can find it easily.
These “facts” are too yellow. Month-to-month comparison is complete BS without taking into account activity in these months.
Oh wow a 6 year old game is generating less and less revenue. What a surprise 
People are mostly talking about KoFT here (August of 2017) , which indeed was an expansion that brought power creep into the game and in my experience many fellows seeked to get as many card packs as possible.
Actual fact is that:
and the outcome is that ‘‘the cycle of decay continues’’. Cause they threw another powercreep expansion in the game, namely DoD (which power can only be compared to KoFT) and therefore they ll either keep dropping power creep in the later expansions or have another power down for a couple expansions. And both sound bad here.
As i said in other posts though, Hearthstone doesnt lose the playerbase simply cause of failed expansions methods, Hearthstone is losing playerbase due to the increased cost of the game.
If hearthstone actually fades away, the only ones that are to blame are Blizzard themselves.
I bet KoFT was a high water mark revenue wise. It played on one of the most beloved parts of WOW and was the initial introduction of the new hero cards.
it was also arguably the beginning of the fall because the expansion was terrible. Cards like Jaina, and Rexxer that created unlimited value. Cards like Bloodreaver Gul’Dan which was a auto win card. They have plied the RNG = Fun philosophy since GvG. However, KoFT really brought in the play a card and auto win the game mentality that they still seem to so dearly love.
Look my original post was just me being salty, which is what this board is for. The devs don’t read this if I wanted a dev to read something I had to say I’d go over to Redditt where they actually care.
At the same time the fact that the first Standard game I play after not playing for really quite a few months, is a absolute you know what show, where I was ahead in the game and one card later I was dead reminded me of what I hate about Hearthstone, a game I used to play A LOT of.
I know people love the whole doom and gloom bit of Hearthstone is dying, Runeterra is going ti kill Hearthstone blah blah blah. Its not dying but its certainly not thriving either.
Can’t believe OP is complaining about vanilla alextraza…
If you think the complaint is about Classic Alex, you’ve not been playing attention.
Grabbed the headline from Reddit. If you read below the person who compared the articles did not realize when posting that the 2017 number was from PC online (2017 article: https://mmos.com/news/top-free-play-pc-games-revenue-2017-superdataresearch )
I am quoting someone who breaks it down better that I have time to:
Superdata is very tricky to interpret, and they screw up the analysis themselves sometimes based on the soundbites they issue. A lot of the confusion seems to stem from whether mobile sales are included with PC sales.
This is exemplified by the fact that every time the Hearthstone superdata is released with a PC report, usually around March, you’ll see doomsday warnings that Hearthstone year over years sales for the prior year has declined by 50% . See for example:
| Date | Claim | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Mar 21 2019 | Hearthstone Sales down 52% for 2018 | https://mmos.com/news/superdata-releases-digital-games-market-for-february-2019 |
| Jan 30 2018 | Hearthstone sales at $217M in 2017, down from $394 M in 2016 | https://mmos.com/news/top-free-play-pc-games-revenue-2017-superdataresearch |
| March 28 2017 | Revenue lowest since game launched, down significantly year-over-year and month-over-month | https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-03-28-hearthstone-is-killing-itself-superdata |
These reports are usually in direct contrast to reports which are released later in the year that suggests Hearthstone revenue has in fact grown since previous years. See for example:
| Date | Claim | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Aug 2 2018 | Hearthstone earns $414M in 2017 | https://venturebeat.com/2018/08/02/superdata-hearthstone-reigns-over-forecasted-1-5-billion-digital-card-game-market/ |
| Jan 1 2017 | Hearthstone earns $395M in 2016 | https://venturebeat.com/2017/01/28/superdata-hearthstone-trumps-all-comers-in-card-market-that-will-hit-1-4-billion-in-2017 |
We know from previous superdata reports that Hearthstone revenue is about evenly split between mobile and PC: https://www.polygon.com/2015/8/11/9130779/superdata-hearthstone-pulls-in-20-million-a-month-as-it-disrupts-the
Note that all of the reports I’ve cited use Superdata as a source, so it isn’t as if I’m cherry picking different sampling techniques from report to report. The most straightforward explanation to reconcile the early data of devastating decline in revenue in the early reports and steady growth reported several months later is that only PC sales are reported early, whereas PC and mobile combined sales figures are reported later. This would imply that the consistent 50% declines is just people doing crappy analysis by comparing PC-only sales to PC and mobile combined sales from prior years.
I am agnostic regarding whether this current report has made the same error as the previous early reports, seeing as it was published at nearly the end of May. Regardless, I take Superdata analysis regarding Hearthstone with a large dose of skepticism.
EDIT: thanks for the gold! 
EDIT 2: Thanks for the second gold and silver!
Like I said in my introductory paragraph, Superdata is tricky to interpret. So there are some additional corrections and discussions worth while thanks to in-depth review by u/saingshing:
Since Act/Blizz doesn’t need to breakout HS’s revenue we don’t know the exact numbers but this is what I am looking at:
2016: $394.6 million ( source: Super Data)
2017: $414 million ( source: Super Data)
2018: If we assume the same 50/50ish split it appears 2018 is ~$370m using Super Data’s mobile sales data; however, I cannot find an overall sales data number for 2018 from anyone
2019: unknown obviously as revenue data has not been reported by Blizzard to begin forming good assumptions on Q4 sales
Facts are back in your court I guess… since reading more than a headline is usually a good thing ./shrug
it has to be classic alex he mentioned opponent took half his hp just by playing it
Right. Nobody plays combo decks in wild
Or rather you did piss poor job clarifying which Alex you were talking about. You said:
What were we supposed to think? Now I was pretty sure you meant the new Highlander Alex since it’s a new card. But you still gave the impression you were talking about Classic Alex since the new one doesn’t just take about half your health.
Also Highlander Alex is not used for any “OTK” combo. Do you even know what it means…? 
Did it hit harder than a Yeti? OTK nonsense.
Did it attempt lethal before turn 25? Aggro nonsense.
Did it use removal or taunts? Control nonsense.
Hope this clears it up for you 
I dont think you can auto lose 10 rounds in the game, there was back and forth happening before turn 9, I hope.
Man with things like this happening, I need to work on auto winning with Dragoncaster + Pyroblast on turn 6 (5 with coin or Mana Saber!) into not-actually-lethal.
