It's difficult to evaluate for me; I've never been F2P in Hearthstone, but haven't spent any money on MtG:A.
What I will say is I think constantly trying to keep up with the latest meta decks - especially if you're trying to make them optimal - is unachievable. I still don't have all the Shock Lands or Check Lands, never mind the new Scry Lands, but you can still play a less optimal list of most decks without them.
Similarly, I rarely have a full set of Mythics (unless the Mythic can be used in multiple decks) but I can approximate many good decks with what I have.
At its core, I think if you enjoy MtG this is a fantastic way to be able to play it very cheaply, and a pretty good way to play it for free. I want to say it's probably better than HS F2P just based on trying to compare the daily rewards, but as I said I don't know for sure.
The comment achievements don't seem to have proper titles yet.
Yeah, a lot of new achievements got added last night and they haven't had a chance to be named yet. I'd say about half of the available achievements have names right now; named achievements are still subject to change, of course.
I'll be trying to get at least the easier achievements named today, so nobody is seeing anything too crazy =P
Long has it been known that I am a turtle fan. Blizzard created the Tortollan race specifically to cater to me and me alone, and they've kept giving us fantastic looking turtles since then. This guy is incredible.
Not only that, but he's for my favourite class, and calls back to my previous favourite Tortollan of all time, Tortollan Primalist. He's even better though, because now I can all but guarantee he'll cast Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron every time, a card which is modeled after my favourite card of all time, Yogg-Saron, Hope's End. This card could not be more perfectly engineered to by favourite card this expansion if it tried.
Chris mentioned on Reddit that he's there to act as the... moderator, I guess. He's to make sure they show all the cards they were meant to show, give out all the correct information on pre-orders or free stuff, things like that.
That leaves Brian and Peter free to focus on the gameplay and discussing the cards as they come up, without either of them having to keep track of running everything smoothly as well.
They definitely didn't hit that balance right the first time they did a three-person stream, but I thought the second one was a lot better, so they're iterating on it and hopefully they've got it just right this time.
Kibler is honestly far better for a reveal stream. He's a much better 'personality' for this than Firebat or Zalae, in that he'll be able to act excited and genuine about the cards that come up. From what I've seen of Firebat and Zalae, they've usually got some great card analysis and interesting thoughts, but they're not super great at immediate thoughts and acting excited about boring cards.
To be fair, North Sea Kraken and Burly Shovelfist might not be in the next Arena rotation. Do we know what sets it's going to be yet? This could still be a powerhouse there.
On the one hand, I think I've bought at least one of the pre-orders for every expansion, so I think I would end up doing it no matter what.
On the other hand, I don't generally pre-order until a few days before you can't anymore, so feasibly there must be something they could do that would make me not want to buy one.
The class skins really sucker me in, honestly. I have liked every one of them, and since the bundle is easily worth the price even without it I don't feel cheated or anything for buying the bundle to get the skin (though I could see how others would). I've never actually bought a skin on its own, only if it came with packs.
I recently got the "Explorer's Kit" achievement. What is that?
As Sinti said, with the beginnings of notifications in place you might start receiving notifications for some of the achievements that have been implemented (but aren't properly visible yet). Think of it as a sneak preview of what's to come =P
When achievements are properly implemented, you'll be able to see them and view the descriptions for them (at least, the not-hidden ones).
1) As others have said, an expansive Achievements system. People often underestimate how engaging Achievements are for many people, it's a great way to ensure people keep playing.
2) Expansive cosmetic content. You could tie a lot of things into the Achievements system to keep it free. I'd prefer it if everything could be bought with Gold or Dust, but wouldn't mind if they wanted to keep a few 'special' things real money only.
3) A new mode. My suggestion would be what Arena has right now, with the rotating available sets, but as a constructed mode. Really just a new mode which is a bit more fun focused than Wild or Standard are.
Do you want more Obsidian Statues? Because that's how you get more Obsidian Statues.
Paladin actually has a good amount of stuff that would be good with this. It does feel like something they probably tried in Priest, realised everyone would hate, and swapped over to Paladin because they liked the concept enough.
At best, you could spin it as a take on the whole 'recruitment' aspect of Paladins, just with... forced recruitment via mummification? It's the biggest stretch I've ever made, but I'm trying here.
I'd personally prefer a rotating sets format, akin to what they're doing with Arena. A new subset of the game available every month, so the format can never get too stale. They can even remove Witchwood, Karazhan and Frozen Throne for the first month.
That's really unfriendly to new players, though. You basically need to have a reasonable number of cards from every single set in order to stay relevant in every meta. Currently, there's a solid understanding of which cards are most relevant to own for people with limited dust (the ones from the current year). If you make things go nebulous, no one but the most dedicated players are going to stay around.
I'd be okay with rotating Classic cards, but only in the case where they create 100+ new cards to swap in instead of pulling directly from old sets, to reduce that immaterial feeling as much as possible. They can even be reprints of old Wild cards, they just need to feel separate.
Well yeah, obviously. I mean, this mode would be ridiculous anyway, there'd be no point in trying to balance it if the decks will all just change every month, so some months it could be wildly imbalanced and some months it'd just be really normal.
I'm not suggesting removing Classic or Wild, just having this other mode in addition, as like a dumb fun mode.
If your deck is empty, it has no duplicates in it. This could be part of an end-game combo, I guess. Though whether or not it's better than any other combo deck Druid has had is debatable.
Magic and Yugioh don't have the option to errata a card as easily as Hearthstone does.
In theory, no Hearthstone card would ever need to be banned because it can just be changed to no longer be a problem, and unlike with physical card games there's no old copies of the broken version in circulation because everyone's cards change.
Wild is the place for the incredibly powerful combos to exist. That was why it was created. Would it be great if Hearthstone had more formats? Sure. I just don't know how well a format where you - to use your example - ban Baku the Mooneater would do. Presumably you'd also ban other cards, but at what point do you stop? Do you just ban a few new cards every few months when people complain about the deck which inevitably rises to the top of the pack? Would cards ever be unbanned?
I'd personally prefer a rotating sets format, akin to what they're doing with Arena. A new subset of the game available every month, so the format can never get too stale. They can even remove Witchwood, Karazhan and Frozen Throne for the first month.
It's difficult to evaluate for me; I've never been F2P in Hearthstone, but haven't spent any money on MtG:A.
What I will say is I think constantly trying to keep up with the latest meta decks - especially if you're trying to make them optimal - is unachievable. I still don't have all the Shock Lands or Check Lands, never mind the new Scry Lands, but you can still play a less optimal list of most decks without them.
Similarly, I rarely have a full set of Mythics (unless the Mythic can be used in multiple decks) but I can approximate many good decks with what I have.
At its core, I think if you enjoy MtG this is a fantastic way to be able to play it very cheaply, and a pretty good way to play it for free. I want to say it's probably better than HS F2P just based on trying to compare the daily rewards, but as I said I don't know for sure.
Yeah, a lot of new achievements got added last night and they haven't had a chance to be named yet. I'd say about half of the available achievements have names right now; named achievements are still subject to change, of course.
I'll be trying to get at least the easier achievements named today, so nobody is seeing anything too crazy =P
Tortollan Pilgrim.
Long has it been known that I am a turtle fan. Blizzard created the Tortollan race specifically to cater to me and me alone, and they've kept giving us fantastic looking turtles since then. This guy is incredible.
Not only that, but he's for my favourite class, and calls back to my previous favourite Tortollan of all time, Tortollan Primalist. He's even better though, because now I can all but guarantee he'll cast Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron every time, a card which is modeled after my favourite card of all time, Yogg-Saron, Hope's End. This card could not be more perfectly engineered to by favourite card this expansion if it tried.
Chris mentioned on Reddit that he's there to act as the... moderator, I guess. He's to make sure they show all the cards they were meant to show, give out all the correct information on pre-orders or free stuff, things like that.
That leaves Brian and Peter free to focus on the gameplay and discussing the cards as they come up, without either of them having to keep track of running everything smoothly as well.
They definitely didn't hit that balance right the first time they did a three-person stream, but I thought the second one was a lot better, so they're iterating on it and hopefully they've got it just right this time.
Kibler is honestly far better for a reveal stream. He's a much better 'personality' for this than Firebat or Zalae, in that he'll be able to act excited and genuine about the cards that come up. From what I've seen of Firebat and Zalae, they've usually got some great card analysis and interesting thoughts, but they're not super great at immediate thoughts and acting excited about boring cards.
To be fair, North Sea Kraken and Burly Shovelfist might not be in the next Arena rotation. Do we know what sets it's going to be yet? This could still be a powerhouse there.
On the one hand, I think I've bought at least one of the pre-orders for every expansion, so I think I would end up doing it no matter what.
On the other hand, I don't generally pre-order until a few days before you can't anymore, so feasibly there must be something they could do that would make me not want to buy one.
The class skins really sucker me in, honestly. I have liked every one of them, and since the bundle is easily worth the price even without it I don't feel cheated or anything for buying the bundle to get the skin (though I could see how others would). I've never actually bought a skin on its own, only if it came with packs.
As it is, they've given me Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron and Tortollan Pilgrim, so I'm set.
As Sinti said, with the beginnings of notifications in place you might start receiving notifications for some of the achievements that have been implemented (but aren't properly visible yet). Think of it as a sneak preview of what's to come =P
When achievements are properly implemented, you'll be able to see them and view the descriptions for them (at least, the not-hidden ones).
I'm back, baby!
Myra's Unstable Element to get your deck empty and you're almost to a legitimate combo.
Dirty Rat and Swamp King Dred had a scorpion baby, apparently. I've seen weirder things.
You're giving me hope that some weird Big Hunter could work Blizzard. King Krush sounds pretty good at 4 mana.
1) As others have said, an expansive Achievements system. People often underestimate how engaging Achievements are for many people, it's a great way to ensure people keep playing.
2) Expansive cosmetic content. You could tie a lot of things into the Achievements system to keep it free. I'd prefer it if everything could be bought with Gold or Dust, but wouldn't mind if they wanted to keep a few 'special' things real money only.
3) A new mode. My suggestion would be what Arena has right now, with the rotating available sets, but as a constructed mode. Really just a new mode which is a bit more fun focused than Wild or Standard are.
This was almost a cute card, until those teeth.
Do you want more Obsidian Statues? Because that's how you get more Obsidian Statues.
Paladin actually has a good amount of stuff that would be good with this. It does feel like something they probably tried in Priest, realised everyone would hate, and swapped over to Paladin because they liked the concept enough.
At best, you could spin it as a take on the whole 'recruitment' aspect of Paladins, just with... forced recruitment via mummification? It's the biggest stretch I've ever made, but I'm trying here.
Well yeah, obviously. I mean, this mode would be ridiculous anyway, there'd be no point in trying to balance it if the decks will all just change every month, so some months it could be wildly imbalanced and some months it'd just be really normal.
I'm not suggesting removing Classic or Wild, just having this other mode in addition, as like a dumb fun mode.
I mean, Druid managed to make Mecha'thun work.
If your deck is empty, it has no duplicates in it. This could be part of an end-game combo, I guess. Though whether or not it's better than any other combo deck Druid has had is debatable.
I mean... two King Krushes is stupid fun. Reno Hunter isn't going to be good, but turn 10 Brann Bronzebeard into Dinotamer Brann will be cool a few times.
Unlikely to be worth it in Standard, but at least worth trying out in a Wild Reno Mage. Not meta-breaking, but a fun addition.
Magic and Yugioh don't have the option to errata a card as easily as Hearthstone does.
In theory, no Hearthstone card would ever need to be banned because it can just be changed to no longer be a problem, and unlike with physical card games there's no old copies of the broken version in circulation because everyone's cards change.
Wild is the place for the incredibly powerful combos to exist. That was why it was created. Would it be great if Hearthstone had more formats? Sure. I just don't know how well a format where you - to use your example - ban Baku the Mooneater would do. Presumably you'd also ban other cards, but at what point do you stop? Do you just ban a few new cards every few months when people complain about the deck which inevitably rises to the top of the pack? Would cards ever be unbanned?
I'd personally prefer a rotating sets format, akin to what they're doing with Arena. A new subset of the game available every month, so the format can never get too stale. They can even remove Witchwood, Karazhan and Frozen Throne for the first month.