Hearthstone: One Night in Karazhan

The latest single-player adventure for Hearthstone, "One Night in Karazhan", has just recently released its final section.

The Hearthstone single player adventures all follow the same general format. There are several sections, each with a few boss fights (usually 3) to complete. A simple story links it all together, generally with amusing commentary from various characters. You can also replay some of the fights using pre-built class-specific decks. As you complete each fight and each of the sections, you gain cards for your collection that are related to the adventure.

The theme of "One Night in Karazhan" is a party thrown by the wizard Medivh, which isn't going quite according to plan. A demon lord is crashing the party, and pulls Medivh through a portal into his domain when the wizard tries to evict him. (That's the very first fight, which is available to anyone to play for free.) You have to make your way through the wizard's tower to the top, then rescue Medivh. It's fairly silly, but that's the idea with Hearthstone stories - light and fun, with plenty of humor to keep you entertained through the various battles.

After that intro fight, you have to purchase each of the four sections, either via a microtransaction or using in-game gold. I used gold since I have plenty from all the daily quests that I've done. Blizzard releases the sections one week at a time, but once they're all out then you can play through the whole thing at whatever pace you like. You get plenty for your money - the adventure itself, the class-specific challenges, and quite a few cards.

If you're really feeling adventurous, you can also try all the fights on heroic mode, which gives the bosses huge advantages that are very difficult to overcome. I've done some of those in the past, but not this one yet.

I had fun with "One Night in Karazhan", and I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoyed Hearthstone enough to play it regularly.

Hearthstone: All Hail Yogg-Saron

Being a digital TCG, Hearthstone can implement random effects that a physical game would have a difficult time duplicating. Nothing demonstrates this better than Yogg-Saron, Hope's End.

I don't actually own a Yogg-Saron (at least, not yet) as he hasn't shown up in any of my packs, and I don't want to spend the dust crafting him when there's still other legendaries on my wish list. And yet, several of the most memorable games that I've played since the Whispers of the Old Gods release have featured old Hope's End.

Recently, I was playing my Warlock deck with Reno Jackson and C'Thun. I've mentioned before that I tend to play Arena more than constructed games, but every once in a while I get some interesting card in an Arena or Brawl award pack that just begs to be played. That happened here, when I pulled Lord Jaraxxus from a Brawl reward. So I built this deck, which has a whole lot of stall effects, killing the opponent's minions and staying alive until I can end the game. That usually happens via C'Thun or Lord Jaraxxus.

I was matched up against a Mage, and we had the most boring first few turns ever. Neither of us had a cheap minion to cast, and my hand was full of useless minion removal, as I assume my opponent's was. Eventually we each summoned a few minions, which were immediately demolished by the other side. Around turn 8, things turned up a notch with each of us playing Emperor Thaurissan (died immediately in both cases) and various other larger minions. They all died, but it was taking a toll on each of our hand sizes.

Then I had a few really good turns, which put me into a good position to win. Brann Bronzebeard plus Twin Emperor Vek'lor (that's three 4/6 taunt guys), the Mage countered by freezing them with Blizzard, then my C'Thun hit the table for a nice round 20 damage. A few turns later, the life-saving Mage secrets ran out, I had played Lord Jaraxxus, and my board was full of a horde of 6/6 infernal demons. And then...Yogg-Saron.

At this point, the game is a complete roll of the dice. The Mage had cast a ton of spells through the game, so Yogg-Saron was going to throw a ton of random effects. There are more spells that do damage to "opponent" than to "any target", so my side was going to take more damage...but I had more health and more minions. We sat through a good dozen random effects that killed minions, froze various targets, hit me several times....and then the dice went my way. A Mortal Strike hit my opponent and finished him off.

I got lucky that time, but I suspect that Mage wins more often than not when getting that deep into the game. If I hadn't already cleared out the various life-saving Mage secrets, I very likely would have ended up on the short end. I've seen several other similar Mage decks recently, as well as a Warrior version. Whoever wins, those kind of games stick in your memory.

After a long, drawn-out battle, when all looks to be lost...call on Yogg-Saron. He may not always be on your side, but the end will definitely be memorable.

Hearthstone: Arena of the Old Gods

Typically, I'll play only one or two of Hearthstone's Arena runs per week, focusing mostly on playing the right classes and deck types to complete daily quests. I've been doing more than usual for the last week or so, though, after the Whispers of the Old Gods expansion release.

Doing almost every daily quest for quite some time now has allowed me to build up quite a bit of gold (that's the in-game currency). I could spend a bunch of it on packs when a new set releases, but I generally prefer to do Arena runs instead. It costs 150 gold for the Arena run vs only 100 for a pack, but you're also guaranteed to get a pack at the end of your Arena run. And with the latest game update, that pack is always from the most recent expansion. So the net cost for an Arena run is only 50 gold, if you would have bought the Old Gods pack anyway.

I like the Arena format enough that it's worth the 50 gold just for the opportunity to play. Better yet, if you win enough games, the additional rewards will be enough to cover the cost. I'm not good enough (or possibly, lucky enough) to always win that much, but occasionally a good run will net quite a bit more. So on average, I generally come close.

I've played every class but Warrior at least once in the last week, and Shaman most often. 

Since the release, my results have been all over the place. Each run continues until you've lost 3 games, so winning less than 3 means you've lost more than you've won. Of the first 10 Arena runs I did after the expansion's release, 7 were 1 or 2 wins. That's a pretty terrible showing, even taking into consideration the learning curve with new cards. My last 5 attempts, though, have all been 5 or more wins. I'm sure some of that is experience helping, but I think the largest part of the difference is just dumb luck.

Said luck mostly revolves around which cards are offered during the deck-building phase. In my best two recent runs (Mage 8 wins, Shaman 9 wins), I was able to collect some of the best available cards for each deck. For the mage, some solid minions combined with removal like 2 Flamestrikes, 2 Flame Lances, Twilight Flamecaller, and Fireball - plenty to clear enemy minions out of the way for my own to attack. For the shaman, Lightning Storm, Forked Lightning, Hex, etc for removal, in combination with powerful minions like Fire Elemental, Flamewreathed Faceless, and Thing from Below. I still had to play the cards correctly during the games, of course, but a good portion of those wins were picked up in the building phase when the good cards came my way.

I still have quite a bit of gold stashed, so I'll likely keep playing multiple Arena runs for a while longer. I'm still getting mostly new cards in the Old Gods packs (well, not commons, but the higher rarities). Eventually I'll have most of the non-legendary Old Gods cards, and then it'll be time to cut back to focusing on quest completion again.

Hearthstone: Whispers of the Old Gods release

The latest Hearthstone expansion released yesterday, together with the introduction of the Standard format.

As far as releases go, this one wasn't terrible, though certainly not perfect. Sometimes major updates to online games can be a major fiasco, with all kinds of game-breaking bugs or ridiculous downtime. The Hearthstone folks did this one right, though, with two separate updates: first the 5.0 patch a few days ahead, then the new set release yesterday. Putting too much into a single update is a great way to screw up the system, so I was glad to see the two-part release. Not everything was smooth, though. There was still a lot of downtime for some people (including me) when the authentication server had some problems, which lasted several hours past the scheduled outage window. Annoying, but fairly minor as expansion launch problems go.

Once the server issues were resolved and I could log in, I was greeted with a short introduction to the new Standard format, as well as three free Whispers of the Old Gods packs. Opening those packs also gets you C'Thun, the signature legendary creature in this set, and two of his helper cards. It's important that everyone get C'Thun right away, since many of the cards in the set directly interact with him. I suspect we'll see a lot of people playing C'Thun decks at first, largely because it's new. Besides, who doesn't like destroying your opponent via tentacled elder gods? Interest will likely fall off pretty fast, though, as there's a whole lot of ways to get around C'Thun, not least of which is to simply end the game before he can be played on turn 10. Still, it's a fun idea, and useful to newer players since C'Thun is available to everyone.

There probably aren't many Hearthstone players who haven't already seen the news about the Standard format, but it's nice that the developers put in a little bit of explanation for those who somehow missed it. There's also a handy deck construction feature which will highlight the cards that aren't Standard-legal in your existing decks, and suggest replacements. The suggestions are pretty bad, to be honest, but that's OK. The important thing is knowing what needs to come out if you want the deck to be usable in Standard. Once that's taken care of, you can make your own judgement about what replacements to use.

It's important to have Standard-legal decks, because you need to win some Standard games in order to complete two special release quests. Winning 2 Standard games is worth 5 Whispers of the Old Gods packs. Completing that quest gives you another, to win 7 Standard games, for 5 more Whispers of the Old Gods packs. Thirteen free packs (10 from quests, 3 from the initial free stuff at login) is pretty nice. Blizzard clearly wants people who aren't spending a lot of time and/or money in the game to feel like they can catch up with the newest things.

I ended up retro-fitting a couple of my decks (Dragon Priest and Aggro Shaman) for Standard, which was a pretty easy process since each of those only used 2 older cards. I also built a Beast Druid deck. None of them are spectacular, but between the three I was able to win the 9 games needed to complete the quests in fairly short order. It helps that I wasn't in the higher echelons of ranked play to begin with. Much easier to win at the lower ranks, which is where I tend to stay since I play very little constructed.

So the new set release went fairly well. I'm glad that Blizzard is going out of their way to make it easy on players to get into the new set and constructed format, with the new cards and deck construction helper. It bodes well for the game's success when the developers are smoothing the process for older players to return and newer ones to get started.

Hearthstone: Upcoming Changes

The Hearthstone folks posted yesterday about some card changes that are coming with the next major release, version 5.0. The exact patch date wasn't specified, but the Whispers of the Old Gods set release was announced for April 26, so it'll be sometime between now and then.

Hearthstone has made changes to cards before, almost all of which are nerfs - reduction in power level. That's pretty common in TCGs. The law of unintended consequences looms large in the design process of a game that relies on players combining cards pretty much any way they choose. It's really easy to accidentally introduce cards that are much more powerful than they appear at first glance. Corrections generally take one of three forms: creating new cards to counteract the problems, nerfing problem cards to bring them back in line, or changing the game rules to limit the effect of the problems.

I'm glad that Hearthstone has generally avoided the first approach. Creating new cards that counter powerful problem cards almost always creates new problems. A perfect example of this was the 7th Sea card game from many years ago, which had a few very powerful cards that almost everyone used (most notably Betrayal). Quite a few cards were later printed that could stop Betrayal, but that just meant everyone had to use those. Working around the overpowered cards, instead of just nerfing them, meant the designers were limited and deck construction was more difficult.

The set of changes announced by Hearthstone yesterday fall under the second approach: reduction in power level for the cards affected. Some are fairly minor, such as reducing Knife Juggler from 3 attack to 2. Most of the utility of Knife Juggler comes from its ability anyway, not its ability to attack. Others are larger changes, like the update that both increases the cost and reduces the effectiveness of Blade Flurry. In the current environment, several of the larger changes seem to make the cards pretty useless for constructed play, but that could always change as new cards are released.

Hearthstone is also using the third approach, by adding the Standard format. Once Whispers of the Old Gods is released, there will be two constructed formats. Standard will use only cards from the current and previous calendar year, plus the basic set. That eliminates expansions from two or more years ago. There will still be a format where all cards are legal, called Wild, but I expect balancing efforts to focus almost entirely on Standard.

I'm glad to see Hearthstone is keeping the game fresh by limiting the card pool (for Standard format, at least) and reining in powerful cards. I don't actually play constructed all that often, preferring Arena format or Tavern Brawls, but when I do it's nice to see a variety instead of the same powerful decks over and over again.

Hearthstone: Khadgar

This week, Blizzard's online TCG Hearthstone added a new alternate hero for purchase: Khadgar the Mage. It was surprising to see that players can only buy the alternate hero on iOS devices.

Alternate heroes aren't a new thing in Hearthstone. They're purely cosmetic, changing only the portrait that shows up when you're playing that hero's class. Thus far, they've been priced at $10 and available to all players. (Or in one case, made available if you play Blizzard's World of Warcraft.)

Khadgar is being handled differently. You can only purchase him on iOS devices. Once you do, he's available for use on any version of the game. He only costs $5, and proceeds go to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). It's part of the Apps For Earth campaign from Apple and the WWF.

The idea of using in-game purchases to support charities is something I'm happy to see. We gamers will spend money for plenty of shiny things in our games - nice to see some of those proceeds being used for a good cause. It's too bad that I can't participate, having no iOS devices.

I certainly get the concept of doing exclusive deals on a platform basis. It makes sense if you're talking about a game that is only playable on one platform, to try to sell that platform. But when you're talking about a cosmetic add-on, made available solely as a charitable contribution, exclusive deals make little sense. People aren't going to go buy an iPhone or iPad just to get an alternate hero in Hearthstone. Apple does get some good press from the deal, but that would happen even without the platform lock, since their name is on the Apps For Earth campaign itself.

I haven't bought any alternate heroes for Hearthstone yet, and had no plans to do so before this. So being unable to buy Khadgar really doesn't affect me. The WWF donation aspect might have convinced me to do so, though...if I was allowed to. I could donate directly, of course, but that's outside the scope of the Hearthstone promotion. Besides, anyone likely to donate directly to the WWF has probably already done so without needing an online game to get involved.

Seems to me that limiting this particular purchase to iOS devices is an unnecessarily restrictive choice. The impact of that restriction won't affect Blizzard or Apple, but the Apps For Earth donations to the WWF will be a bit smaller.

Hearthstone: Tavern Brawl

Hearthstone is a fairly simple example of the TCG genre. I consider that mostly a good thing, but it does mean that the game can feel repetitive and stale once you've seen most of what it has to offer. The weekly Tavern Brawl format helps to keep things fresh, even though it's not something you'd want to play all the time.

Each week, the Tavern Brawl format introduces a change to the basic rules. Sometimes it's just one change, like giving your hero taunt, so the enemy can't directly attack your minions. Other times the Brawl makes major changes, like giving each player a deck from one of the adventure bosses. The Brawl is available for five days each week, then closed for two, before starting anew for the next week.

Learning what the new rules mean is part of the fun of playing in the Tavern Brawl. You know what the rule changes are going in, but I find that I almost always see something unexpected in the first few games that I play under a new format. The implications of the rules modifications usually go deeper than my first reaction to the obvious differences.

Just about every one of the Brawl formats I've seen fall into one of two categories: horribly unbalanced, or massively random. After a few games, it's usually pretty clear why these aren't the standard rules! Some formats heavily favor one class or deck type or players who have lots of high-end cards, while others add so much random activity that the player's choices feel unimportant. These are fun to play a few times, but you wouldn't want to do it long-term. So it's good that the Brawl only comes around once a week, and don't repeat very often.

The rewards for playing in the Brawl are simple: one pack after winning one game each week. You can also progress your quests and 1-gold-for-3-wins objectives. This is a nice balance, because it encourages folks to play a few games, but doesn't provide incentive to keep going past the point where the fun of discovering the new format wears off. If you get tired of the Brawl after winning your one game, you can simply return to Arena or constructed play, without missing out on any rewards.

I can't recall seeing anything similar to the Tavern Brawl in any other TCG that I've played. Modifying rules occasionally does happen, but not in the structured and recurring way that Hearthstone does it. I really like the way it works, and I hope the developers keep coming up with new and interesting ideas for the Brawl.

Hearthstone: Arena Mode

Customizable card games are a favorite game genre for me, and have been ever since I first discovered them way back in my college days. I must admit, though, that I'm not very good at the deck construction part, at least not for competitive play. So I tend to gravitate toward limited formats, with a restricted card pool used in a short series of games. Hearthstone's Arena Mode is one of my favorites.

The Arena mode works by letting the player choose one of three random classes to play, then repeatedly picking one of three random cards to build a deck. The three choices are always of the same rarity, and roughly follow the chance of opening them in a pack - so you'll see a lot of commons, but very few legendary choices. You never know, though; you might get lucky and be offered multiple epic or legendary cards. Once you have your class and 30 cards, you're randomly matched up with other Arena players for one game at a time. You continue to use the same deck until you've lost three times, and the more wins you get in that time, the better your rewards at the end. Those rewards are randomized, but always include one card pack.

I won't go into a discussion of how to do well in Arena, both because I'm no more than an average player, and because there's plenty of other guides out there. (Like this, or this.) But I will mention a few things that I especially like about how Hearthstone has implement the limited format with Arena Mode: reasonable cost, scheduling, and the shifting format.

The cost to enter the Arena is 150 gold (or $1.99, but I've only ever used real money once, and that was really just to show support for the game). For that price, you're guaranteed a card pack at the end of the run, which would cost 100 gold if you bought it outright at the store. If you win 3-4 games, you should also get 50+ gold (and maybe some other things), so you'll basically break even. If you get on a hot streak and win 7+ games, you'll get back 150+ gold, enough for another Arena entry. That last is rare, but the break-even point is pretty common. Doing Hearthstone's daily quests can get the 150 gold entry fee every 3-4 days, and games played in the Arena count toward those quest goals. All this adds up to the ability to play the Arena very often even on a free-to-play account.

I appreciate that the Arena is set up so you can complete your run on your own schedule. Once you start a game, you have to finish it like any other game. Other than that, though, you're totally on your own time. There's no timer between rounds, so if you want to leave for a few minutes or hours or even days before starting your next game, that's no problem. Even the initial selection of class and cards has no timer - you can stop in the middle and come back later. Much easier than the traditional draft or sealed formats that require all the participants together for a limited timeframe.

As new cards are released from expansions or the single-player adventures, those cards make their way into the Arena choices. This both keeps the Arena format interesting as new cards are added, and gives players a chance to see the new cards even if the player can't afford to buy them right away. I like how this shifts the balance in the Arena as the game adds new content.

If not for the Arena mode, I'm sure I'd play a lot less Hearthstone. As it is, I usually get in one or two runs each week. It's one of the better implementations of a TCG limited format that I've seen.

Hearthstone

Customizable card games are generally complicated beasts. There's the 500-lb gorilla, Magic:The Gathering, which has dozens of sets and thousands of cards. Theme games like those based on Tolkien's Middle Earth go through contortions to match the theme, adding all kinds of crazy rules and card text that you need a magnifying glass to read. When Blizzard created Hearthstone, they went in the opposite direction.

Most of the mechanics in Hearthstone are simple compared to similar games. The resource to play cards is called mana crystals, and you get one each turn up to a maximum of ten. No need to worry about resources in deck construction (unlike M:TG lands or Hex resources). Decks are only 30 cards, down from the 60 used by many TCGs. Everything you play is on your turn, so no waiting on your opponent to respond to actions. There's a 90 second turn timer, ensuring that games move along quickly. Cards are all either specific to one class or generic to all classes, limiting the available card pool once you've chosen which class to play.

There is still plenty of complexity in Hearthstone, building on that simple foundation. Each of the nine classes has its own unique feel, implemented through class-specific cards and a hero power, which is available once each turn. Hunters do direct damage, priests heal, etc. There are subclasses of minions (Mechs, Beasts, Murlocs, etc) with various abilities that affect only that subclass, so you can build themed decks around them.

The look and feel of Hearthstone is one of my favorite things about the game. The cartoon-ish style will be familiar to anyone with World of Warcraft experience. You'll hear comments and the occasional hint from the innkeeper and various heroes as you move around the game's interface. Many of the minions have their own voices and will speak up when you put them into play or as they attack. The four corners of the game board are filled with decorative items of various kinds, some of which will react when clicked...a fun distraction while waiting for the opponent to take their turn.

There's a lot to explore in Hearthstone beyond simply playing games against random online opponents. There are solo adventures where you play a series of games against special boss opponents, often with strange and powerful abilities that you wouldn't face against another player. There's the Arena, a limited format where each player chooses cards from a random selection, and plays the resulting deck until accumulating three losses. And the Tavern Brawl, a format that changes weekly and can be anything from almost completely random decks to playing as one of the adventure bosses.

Hearthstone is a free-to-play online game, and in my opinion, has an excellent business model. Every day you get a quest, usually something like "Win 3 games as a Hunter" or "Play 20 minions that cost 2 or less". From those quests you get gold rewards, which can be spent on cards or entry into the limited-format Arena mode. You can add some extra gold and/or cards from winning games or completing one-time tasks. If you play Hearthstone for an hour or so every other day, you'll usually be able to complete 4-5 games and complete 1-2 quests, keeping the gold coming in without spending any money. If you'd rather gather gold or cards more quickly, that option is available via the real-money store. And if you get extra cards, they can be turned in for "dust" that is used to craft specific cards to fill holes in your collection.

I've been playing Hearthstone since it was released in 2014, and never felt that I needed to spend money...although I did put in a few bucks because I enjoy the game so much. Of course, that's playing just for the fun of it, and not trying to be a competitive constructed-deck player. It's a rare talent that can climb the ranked-play constructed ladder without the good epic and legendary cards, and getting those requires spending cash (or inordinate amounts of time, I suppose). If you're just in it for the occasional fun game, though, Hearthstone is easily playable for free.

Hearthstone has become one of those rare games that I've played every couple of days for months, with only a few minor breaks. Usually I'll get tired of a game after a few weeks of regular play, but Hearthstone keeps me coming back with regular updates and interesting formats. Highly recommended for any gamer, even if customizable card games aren't your thing. Hearthstone is different enough that it may surprise you.