Hearthstone: Why I Hate Online Trading Card Games

So I was playing “Shadowverse”, an online TCG (trading card game) while I was waiting for an recommendation from my friends for my next review when it hit me. I’m playing the game I should be reviewing so I instantly went “I’m going to review Hearthstone” so sorry for all those Shadowverse lovers but I want to talk about “Hearthstone” because I hate Blizzard and I hate Hearthstone for so many things. I will cover “Shadowverse” one day but I have to find a way to cover it without it becoming a rant about how stupid Havencraft is and why everyone who plays that craft is an idiot and also, I was referring to “YuGiOh” in my last review for anyone who was wondering.

“Hearthstone” is a free to pay, online TCG which you can get on PC or on mobile and features Blizzard’s “beloved” WoW characters as playable classes. The main gimmick of the game is to play a class which has its own little gimmick and build a deck that works with that style and play against other players online. In the game, there is currently Warlock, Priest, Mage, Hunter, Rogue, Shaman, Druid And Warrior and each one of them counters another deck in a way (unless you are playing Murlocs). If you were paying attention, you would of seen that I used the phrase “free to pay” which is yes, was coined by everyone’s favourite egotist “Jim Sterling” but it’s a term which should be accurately used when talking about most free to play games. “Hearthstone” is a grind game if you don’t want to stump up the cash to get boosters or in this case, card packs. I’m not going to be explain how the actual card game mechanics work since there is so many different ones, I would be wasting my breath and each class specialize in what it says on the tin (except maybe Warlock, Druid And Shaman if you haven’t played WoW before) so let’s just get this roasting done with.

So how you get card packs in “Hearthstone” is you either get them from doing special modes, free drops or turning in the gold you get from wins and quests. Of course, you can fork out real cash to get packs if you really want to and because of this, the game makes it hard to get packs other ways. For example, let’s say you went the old fashion way and just went by winning. You get ten gold for every three wins and with each pack costing 100 gold, you need thirty wins to get one pack of your choice. Yes, you can speed up the progress with doing daily quests but if you are unlucky like me, you are mainly going to be stuck with quests that require to play with classes you don’t like and haven’t invested as much time into making functional decks with. I also feel like this game will be very punishing to those who unwilling to pay, especially those who like playing one class. I mainly play Hunter in Hearthstone and since I utterly refuse to give these sort of games my money, I went through hell to get the cards I needed and very early on, if you don’t have a good deck to start off with, you are going to struggle to get the wins necessary to get gold and that is a major problem for newbies getting into the game. The game does say it matches you with “worthy opponents” but I refuse to believe that because when I started, I was getting thrashed by all sorts of players online and I wasn’t able to compete with them until my own deck became better over time with all the free stuff you get given to you over time if you are patient enough to wait for Blizzard to have mercy on the poor non-whales of their player base but there is a bigger fish to fry here so let’s talk about it’s biggest sin: the lack of a trading system.

If you can’t tell, trading is a very big thing in trading card games. I mean, it’s in the name and trading is the best way for any player to get stuff they want and if you ask me, makes it way easier on new players to get into a game if they already have a limited budget but online TCGs don’t have this which does have bit of a domino effect but we will talk about that once we cover it’s “replacement”. The closest we got to a trading system in this game is a disenchantment system which pretty much means you trade in your cards for puny amounts of essence which you can then use to get the cards you want and this system does has its flaws but let’s try to focus on the positives. This does make getting cards easier on players and allows them to dump any excess or unneeded cards as well as acquire cards from older sets but I feel like this is strongly discouraged due to both the daily quests as well set rotation (we will get to that later) but I hate this system because unlike a proper trading card game, this doesn’t promote player interactions. Player interactions is the biggest thing about TCG because it’s promotes a sense of community and that is the heart of a TCG but online TCGs lack that. Sure, you could just go to a forum or Reddit for the idea of having a community but that’s talking to people over the internet. It can’t be compared to actual face to face interactions and the expression of human emotions. Yes, this does seem stupid coming from an introvert but a sense of community is a truly valuable thing and this is what I mean by a domino effect. With the lack of a trading system, you lose player interactions which loses the sense of community which ultimately makes the feel of the TCG worse when compared to other TCGs and that’s why it’s a downside for this sort of game.

Personally, I wouldn’t even be writing this review if it wasn’t for two things so let’s talk about the first thing, set rotation. Some card games to use set rotation to stop people from using older cards and promote the usage of new cards and Hearthstone is no difference and I hate set rotation. Set rotation is just such a dirty way of pushing new products and this also means people who have either grinded or spent the money to get the cards they wanted, those cards are now useless because set rotation has stopped you from playing them in Standard. Yes, you can still keep playing in Wild mode which does the equivalent of telling set rotation to bugger off but I feel Hearthstone punishes you for playing Wild plus having to add Wild mode just so people can use their older cards seems incredibly unnecessary. Like, you could of just be like most other card games (and much better ones at that too) and not have a set rotation. This promotes not only new and interesting decks and play styles but also gives older cards a much longer life expectancy since they can’t really be power creeped in this sort of game so set rotation should just go and die but unfortunately, this is Blizzard and they need to keep finding ways to milk their player base for all the money they have. The other thing that I want to mention before ending this, I wanted to talk about how this game has squandered potential. I think this game could of been great but all the problems I have mentioned is what brings it down in terms of a trading card game. I feel like if Blizzard applied the same amount of care and dedication the company is known for and what help them turn games like Starcraft, Warcraft and Overwatch (we will get to Overwatch much later down the line) in global successes and turned Hearthstone into a proper trading card game with a focus on trading and community, I would say, without a doubt in my heart, that Hearthstone would be the future for TCGs but with its current issues, I think it can’t compare to other TCGs like YuGiOh and Magic The Gathering. Hell, I think Cardfight: Vanguard has more potiential then this and Vanguard has a ridiculously small community and hey, Shadowverse is better then this and that’s pretty much Hearthstone with Waifu bait.

I’m giving this a 3/10 since I think it can’t live up to the other games that Blizzard has produced plus it’s disappointing as a TCG on top of being full of methods to wring out the money out of the player and I already deducted points for the micro transactions which do feel intrusive at best. If you want to play it, go ahead because maybe you can see something enjoyable that I don’t see but if you want to play a good card game, try investing into something like YuGiOh or Cardfight: Vanguard because they are not only fun but are easy to learn and play and is a proper trading card game unlike this pile of trash being peddled by the new money giant which is Activision Blizzard.