From what I’ve been seeing, the main concern comes from the fact that you have to build the starting deck out of your own collection of Wild cards.
I’m starting off saying that I’ve been a Wild player for almost two years now. I never disenchanted rotating cards, even before I started considering approacching the Wild mode. You wanna know why? Because Hearthstone IS A CGG!!! You wanna COLLECT those cards. I don’t feel bad about those players who disenchant their collection whenever it rotates to Wild. You are literally deleting 3/4 of the time and effort you put over the years into the game, to accomplish what, crafting a couple of legendaries when the April expansion drops?
And I have no proof of that, but I’m sure the majority of the more vocals, who whine on chats about the steep requirements of the new deck-building step, are the ones who keep zealously dusting their cards thinking that’s a good idea. And they feel bad for having done this, not admitting it, they bash on the new mode.
I’m going to ask you, when did Blizzard make explicit that cards rotating to Wild would lose their value? Because as it stands atm, if you go the HS store, Wild packs are listed at the same price as Standard ones. Wild cards have the same crafting cost of their Standard counterparts. So, in reality, you’ve only been convincing yourselves that Wild cards lost all their value, when in fact, Blizzard’s approach has been suggesting otherwise.
Speaking about f2p players, who “gotta keep dusting Wild cards in order to keep up with Standard decks”, have you ever thought about playing Wild? From a f2p perspective, Wild mode is waaaaaaaaaaaay more friendly. There are many top-tier cheap aggro decks to start off, and the fun part is, THOSE DECKS REMAIN RELEVANT OVER TIME. I guess many players have never been considering playing Wild, probably the main reason being that it’s an “unbalanced” mode.
What I can say, is that atm, Wild is way more healthy than standard. Sure, you got those Reno Priest and Discardlock clearly t1, but due to the critical mass of cards in the format, you can tech against everything. There are lots and lots of meta decks, and honestly if you are a good player you can climb ladder with almost everything. And you mostly don’t have the RNG crap that’s afflicting Standard.
So, in conclusion, I think this is an opportunity for many players to finally join Wild. For all those players who have been throwing away their collection every year, you must not lie to yourselves, come on terms with your dumb decision, and please for God’s sake, DO NOT dust your Wild collection ever again.
As Blizzard is showing us, Standard is only ONE way to play the game, there are (and there will be) many more ways to give value to your own collectible cards.
Just about every CCG has a system to let you craft cards. MTG, for example, feeds you wildcards alongside the normal random cards. This more controlled system is the only realistic way for a player to build competitive decks; randomly unpacking all the cards you need won’t happen without spending enormous amounts of time or money, far beyond what is reasonable.
Do you know what Hearthstone requires you to do in order to use their crafting system? Dust cards. Lots of cards. To get similar crafting potential to other CCGs you’d need to dust basically every card you open.
It is ridiculous to blame people who dusted wild collections for being blindsided by wild cards suddenly being needed for a new game mode. Wild cards were one of the few sources of dust that didn’t punish your ability to build a collection in the main competitive mode.
As I said, it’s not like “using your Wild cards” has popped up only now. Wild mode has been sitting there for years. If players have been overlooking it this whole time, it’s their fault. And again, this is a CCG. If the main point of the game is to collect cards, and they create a new mode which asks you to use the cards you’ve been collecting over the years, I see nothing wrong in that.
You come from the perspective of Wild mode being non-competitive and without value in it. That’s what I’ve been arguing against in the OP, speaking for experience.
Ow, well i honestly thought the new duel game mode was just like dungeon running, that you need to build your own setup at the start from wild cards is just a big mistake from their part.
Now that mode will have again the strongest same decks over and over again where it could be just building a deck from scratch as you would go.
I honestly would like to see that meeting at blizz corporation where certain decisions are made because some things that this game has implemented are beyond me.
I guess certain decisions translate to a increase in profit since new players now need to buy previous expansion packs just to get started or craft just one viable deck in that mode again where the best compositions are looked up online.
Just a random selection of card buckets to enhance your deck just like the solo dungeon running content would keep things actually interesting since every match would not be exactly the same.
Again, if you decide to craft old cards for the new mode, those cards DO HAVE value in them. Too many players think “well, it’s not used in Standard, then it’s a waste of money”. It’s not, stop thinking it.
Those cards you are crafting, many of them are going to be good in Wild mode. Not all of them sure, but a large portion I can say for sure. For this reason I say it’s time for many players to start considering playing Wild, if they decide to craft cards specifically for Duels.
You are not wasting resources crafting good Wild cards, unfortunately the majority of the community thinks that and we see all the rants, which are totally unjustified.
So you thought Blizzard should have created this mode as a form of charity?
This is a Collectible Card Game. Creating new ways to use the cards that players collect seems like a logical thing to do so that players are enticed into collecting cards.
Well since you asked for quite a while after wild was introduced they simply stopped selling sets and adventures that were only in wild. They also very rarely make nerfs with wild in mind. Since wild has been introduced I can think of maybe 4 cards that were nerfed for the sake of wild: mage quest, naga sea witch, darkglare, and aviana. They only touch wild cards when things have gotten disastrously bad there so it’s not like the format is heavily supported. It’s not unreasonable to draw the conclusion from this that the format isn’t well supported or that the more official way to play is standard.
Well, I do not know if it was some kind of premonition or so, but I have started buying wild packs several months ago with a plan to get all expansions to 100% of commons and rares 
I have started playing in 2014 and since I did not want to spend money, I have dusted a lot of cards and some time ago, I started to regret that. The cards I dusted did not impoved my winrates that much I am afraid, cos I am a bad player anyway, so it was just a waste of dust. I had to craft many cards again including some legendaries, cos I just did not know what I was doing
It ruines the game mode for me when it will become predictable what decks you will encounter instead of something random sso you can do some deckbuilding.
I despise the decision made because from my view the mode can be more fun without a collection wich result into facing the same setups over and over again.
People still can craft a cheap effective tier 1 wild deck with some dustbut that also results into facing the same setups.
They have way more other possibilities to apply a monetisation model, but this effects the game mode way to much.
16 cards is ofcourse not a big investment to craft but again it will cause a stale gameplay.
I have all the common and rares and most epics from all expansions so it wont be a problem for me but i am more concerned that it will be another game mode like battlegrounds and arena where you will face the same setups.
And what difference being the “oficial” way to play the game does when you’re just a common player and not someone going for tournament prizes and things like that?
Literally 0 because you not gain anything more in standard or wild and what makes games " competitive" are the prize pool.
Even a clownfiesta like hearthstone gets competitive when you put a prize money in the line for a tournament.
Therefore both have the same value for the common player and the mode they play is just a question of taste and how much standard advertising affected your way to think.
You’re completely right about that from a purely logical standpoint most people are not gonna be playing in any tournaments and one mode seeming more official than the other shouldn’t make a difference but people don’t always act logically.
The way blizzard presents the two modes standard seems the one that is meant to be played. When you start the game for the first time standard is selected by default. When you create a new deck without a code it starts off as a standard deck. When viewing the standard only subset of the collection there’s no extra graphics over the collection whereas when you’re viewing the entire wild collection it adds some graphical embellishment to show you’re not viewing just standard cards. Even the naming of the formats “standard” gives the impression that this is the way you ought to be playing since it is the standard way to play the game whereas “wild” gives more of an impression of a free for all and side mode. Even though none of this should matter it does effect the way people view the two modes.
what ? both modes have the same rewards each month you get them based on your best rank no matter if is wild or standard
Well, of course Blizzard is there to sell packs, so it only makes sense that they advertise Standard more so people keep buying them, being it a rotational format. In all honestly though, players really should be smart enough to understand this, which unfortunately isn’t the case. Many of those players who hate on (or just ignore) Wild and everything related - for example the new Duels mode - have this attitude only because they convinced themselves over the years that Standard is the only real way to play Ranked HS, which totally false, as Wild is a great format imo.
Blizzard said the upcoming game mode would use cards from your collection, including Wild, around four-five months ago. If you are disappointed by that feature of Duels, I guess that you must have missed it.
And now it’s time for people to pay for not using their brains.
It’s just how the world works.
Having more modes to play with older cards was a fight that was won from the start considering that it is profitable to blizzard.
I guess there is a lesson to be draw from this:
It not matters how long it takes. Logic always wins.
If that were the case marketing wouldn’t be a field unto itself. Blizzard heavily marketed standard as the way to play hearthstone for a long time so it’d make sense that it’d be the most played mode and that people would focus on it above all else. This kinda feels like having the rug pulled out from under you.
So if you’ve been dusting cards that rotate out after each year then you’d have long since dusted the naxx and kara cards that’d be in this format and even the year of the raven cards that rotated with ashes of outland and you’re SOL.
Fine but people are absolutely right to complain that after having been heavily incentivised to focus on standard for so long they’re being punished for going along with blizzard’s marketing.
If people complain enough they will change it. Complaints look bad when it’s a new mode they’re trying to roll out and generate hype for. My bet is that they will make the wild sets available for free for use only within that mode if people are avoiding the heroic mode like the plague because they don’t have the cards to compete in it and don’t want to pay for adventures just for that mode
I think most people mad about it because it not a adventure just adventure PVP with no story
(like ya blizzard adventures hard mode was unbalance but this not best way go about it)
I not know if they would do or not but to be serious…
If I was blizzard I would just force it the way it was born despite of the complaints and design somethings else if that mode fails.
It uses a ton of already done stuff so I really not think it did take a lot of effort or money to develop.
What is good in this mode isn’t something new or spectacular.
But the way all pieces were put together.
What rug was pulled?
Doing a HOF on Baku and Genn could rightfully be called a rug pull because those cards weren’t slated for Wild for another year.
But adding more ways to play with your cards isn’t a rug pull because they didn’t take anything away from you. You don’t have to play Duels.
I’ll say it again, if you think that giving away your collection - just to craft a couple legendaries that will be dusted too in the future - in a CCG is a good idea, it’s on you, not on Blizzard.