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Comment by timje1 | Hacker News Reader

Hearthstone fixed this mana issue by having the mana automatically increase by 1 each turn, up to 10. This means that every card you draw will be a spell you can cast or a minion you can play - you at least get to play 'hearthstone' during the match.

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The link I provided as reference was actually a reply to this very suggestion. It's something I found interesting when trying Hearthstone, but it does remove a lot of the interesting tactical decisions involved in playing cards which require different colors of mana.

Another interesting idea was a format which someone suggested[1] in which any non-land card can be played as if it were a land producing colorless mana and any land has cycling 1 (for 1 mana you can discard it and draw a new card). I found this a fascinating idea, but I feel like this would completely wreck the balance of the game, especially when played with decks specifically built to abuse these new rules.

[1]: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/magic-...

They also went with 30 card decks (max 2 each card) rather than 60 card decks (max 4 each type) which further reduces variance of hands.

Top-decking is still very real in both games, sometimes you just need that 1 card to win or you'll lose next turn.

Unfortunately, Hearthstone's card design has aggressively worked against their randomness-mitigation in the game structure.

In their search for 'dramatic' cards, they've started introducing "triggers on draw" effects, "get a random creature from your deck" effects (maybe it'll cost 2 mana, maybe 10!), and my favorite - "play this card, then shuffle it back, then play it again, then all your creatures become different ones".

The card designers have consistently chosen exciting events over stable gameplay, to the point where it's far more random than MTG.

I do agree about the general feeling that Hearthstone is a bit too random in odd and spectacular ways. However, could you expand on the "triggers on draw" comment? Which cards do this in a bad way? I know there are Magic cards with effects which trigger whenever a player draws a card, without harming the game.

> I know there are Magic cards with effects which trigger whenever a player draws a card

The cards he's talking about trigger when they're drawn, not when another card is drawn while they're in play.

For example, Flame Leviathan[1] which deals 2 damage to all minions when drawn. Or Iron Juggernaut [2], which shuffles a 'mine' into the opponents deck, dealing 10 damage when drawn (personally I think this one's ok, as at least you can plan to mitigate it most of the time)

  [1] http://www.hearthpwn.com/cards/12290-flame-leviathan
  [2] http://www.hearthpwn.com/cards/12295-iron-juggernaut

Exactly it, thanks. I don't really object to Juggernaut - I've seen several other deckbuilding games with similar effects, it's something you can plan for (and in some games, avert with lookahead and reshuffles).

Flame Leviathan annoys me a lot, though - it's a complete board rebalance that neither player can anticipate. It's not even a good card (I wouldn't expect to see it high on the ladder) but it's aggravating to have such high variance on a zero-mana outcome.

Sure, there are decks where you must pray to RNGesus that you get the effect you're looking for. Those decks will not get you far up the ladder, however. Nearly every player above Rank 10 is using a predictable deck. Elise/map/monkey isn't a game-winning card.

Also, if you're still seeing top decking in Hearthstone, you haven't progressed enough in the ranks to see the long-term players. There is rarely any top decking going on past even rank 15.

Elise is a staple in most control warrior decks I've seen, and often the lategame comes down to who gets the best monkey RNG

True, I do see Elise in control warrior decks on lower rungs, but less so in higher ones. Mostly classic stand-by cards, and/or Reno Jackson.

I definitely haven't gone to the highest ranks of Hearthstone lately - it wasn't worth fighting up the random parts of the ladder when so many other games exist. I did well with it for a while around the Nax release, then abandoned it because I wasn't interested in paying for the expansions and didn't want to keep up with the power creep.

I don't think the core, high-ladder gameplay is broken, but I think a lot of their design efforts are badly counterproductive. MTG's long-term survival can largely be credited to fighting power creep and strong-but-random effects, and I think Hearthstone's design looks more like a shorter-term cash in on those effects.

The new "standard" mode doesn't allow Nax or GnG cards in your deck, which levels things out a bit. Maybe you would like giving it a shot now? My advice: use gold to play arena. You'll always get a card pack, and get to practice with cards you don't otherwise have available to you. It's worth the extra 50 gold (which you'll likely earn back if you make it to three victories anyway) for the exposure to other cards/combos.

There are still RNGesus decks in the lower rungs of the ladder - I play one. But above 15 or so and most decks are using predictable cards with few random effects.

Woah, that's a huge change since I played. Some of those cards were definitely frustrating me, as was the fact that the card pool made the 'random' effects hard to anticipate. My biggest complaints were probably about League of Explorers and Blackrock cards, but it's still progress.

Arena was definitely my preferred playstyle - it had a lot of variance, and I never felt punished for not having all the right legendaries. On the main ladder I felt like I was hitting a ceiling where I played lots of netdecks I couldn't "afford", and just lost interest. Maybe it's worth another look!

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