Upcoming Hearthstone Patch is Great for the Game’s Future

As a competitive Magic: The Gathering player, Hearthstone gives me fits.

There have been times where I didn’t play the game for four months at a time, and times where I’ve grinded all the way up the ladder.

Hearthstone is one of the most polished games made in several years, and is definitely the premier digital card game in the world right now. While the design decisions Blizzard made have differentiated Heathstone from the game’s inspiration (Magic: The Gathering by Wizards of the Coast), they did a bit too much to try to separate the two games.

However, this most recent patch has given me a lot of hope for Hearthstone’s longevity because it recognizes, at least in part, a flaw in some of the early design choices in regards to specific cards and mechanics.

Before I get into the granular details of the individual changes this patch, I wanted to discuss some philosophical game design decisions that had to be made to get to this point.

The Chess Clock

Having not read many meta articles about Hearthstone, I can only assume that this topic has been covered by other more prolific authors in the space, but I still want to cover it briefly so that we have a mutual understanding as we continue this article.

Magic has the chess clock problem.

In Magic (like in chess), each player has a chance to respond and act in response to every other action that their opponents take. This works great in person… and miserably in a digital card game as Magic Online players can attest.

Hearthstone basically had to solve the issue of how to make an interactive game without the chess clock problem. In trying to directly port Magic into a non-chess clock problem there are several issues, but I’ll discuss the most pronounced ones:

Instants — Spells that you can cast at any time, including during your opponent’s turn

Blocking — The ability for your creatures to stop your Hero (Planeswalker) from taking damage.

In Magic, you may use your creatures to “Block” opponent’s creatures, where they will then do damage to each other; similar to how minion combat works in Hearthstone. But Blocking requires you to make decisions during your opponent’s turn, something that doesn’t work in the current game setup.

Unlike in Magic, in Hearthstone you cannot cast spells during your opponent’s turn.

Blizzard solved the issue of not being able to Block by adding Taunt, an ability that effectively Blocks minions until its health runs out. They also solved Instants by adding in Secrets, which don’t have the same level of counterplay, but do enable a sort of pre-counterplay.

This would be a neat and more complete solution if not for one keyword that exists in both games:

Charge / Haste.

This ability allows minions to attack the turn they enter the battlefield. In Magic, these creatures are dealt with by Blocking or with Instants. In Hearthstone, these minions are dealt with only by Taunt or a very select few Secrets.

What becomes a problem is that Taunt ends up being only a minor annoyance, and not true counterplay for Charge minions, because of Silence. Silence effectively removes the ability for a player to Block. In Magic: The Gathering, there ARE cards that temporarily remove the ability to Block, but this is less of a problem because of Instants and other abilities that can be used on an opponent’s turn — and again, in Magic this effect is temporary. For Hearthstone players, there is often literally no recourse for a Taunt minion getting silenced.

What happened in the history of Hearthstone, is that aggressive strategies that involve removing Taunt minions, and mass application of Charge, became an inevitable clock for many decks. The most egregious example of this historically is Patron Warrior, but this is definitely not an isolated incident (Buzzard + Unleash the Hounds was similar for card advantage).

So let’s sum up the issue:

The chess clock problem has put constraints on Blizzard to design Hearthstone cards in a certain way to still allow for the play-counterplay loop. Silence + Charge always trumps Taunt. And this isn’t inherently bad by itself, but it is bad right now, because there is literally no recourse.

And therein lies the rub.

Blizzard has finally realized this, and acted on it, on a live patch.

Of all the changes that Blizzard made in the most recent patch, most of them focus on nerfing aggressive strategies and/or charge combos.

Let’s group the changes into a few categories.

General Efficiency

Ancient of Lore is a card that is just too good. Much like Wizards of the Coast realized that card drawing is incredibly powerful, Blizzard has learned this as well. 2 mana for 2 cards is already an insane rate. Shamans have to pay overload to get this (Ancestral Knowledge), Mages have to spend 3 mana (Arcane Intellect), and Priests have to spend 3 mana and get the enemy player’s cards (Thoughtsteal). This leaves a 5/5 for 4–5 mana, which is on or above rate already. It’s too strong, and was obviously going to be included in basically every Druid deck.

Drawing cards is usually something that requires you to lose tempo in card games, but being able to play a 5/5 while doing it takes away that draw back.

(In general, a 2/2 is considered a minion / creature at rate. A creature that is a 4/4 for 3 would be considered above the curve, for instance)

I don’t have a lot to say about Molten Giant, as I think Blizzard explained it thoroughly enough in their post. It’s just too easy (and risk free) to make a free 8/8.

Similarly, Hunter’s Mark was just way too efficient of a removal spell, especially considering the built in card advantage into many of Hunter’s minions that have Deathrattle.

Big Game Hunter is an oddity, because it serves as a sort of counter for cards that honestly shouldn’t exist like Dr. Boom. The problem is it’s just too efficient — it not only removes an enormous threat while gaining tempo, but there is no penalty for playing it for no value since it already is an at rate card (4/2 for 3). This is a good change to change the stats of a card more in line with its effect.

I don’t have a lot to say about Blade Flurry other than this: Why is there a one-sided board wipe that also kills your opponent? There are almost no other cards that have this effect, and certainly none that do it so easily or for such a large amount. This card was absolutely absurd and needed exactly as large of a nerf bat as it got.

Not every class needs a one-sided board wipe — these type of effects should be VERY rare.

General Counterplay

The rest of the changes focus on the efficiency of pro-active answers by aggressive decks to defensive options from Midrange and Control decks. We’ll tackle them one-by-one.

Silence Efficiency

Silence is an incredible trump card in Hearthstone because of the issues we’ve discussed above. In changing Ironbeak Owl and Keeper of the Grove, Blizzard hasn’t removed the ability for aggressive strategies to counter Taunt, but they have removed its efficiency. They are forcing players to make more important deck building decisions before they just auto-include minions that are both at rate / above the curve that also silence.

Compare these cards to something like Earth Shock, Silence, or Mass Dispel and understand why something like this is necessary.

Charge

Arcane Golem is a creature that has a pretty massive drawback, however it’s efficiency stats-wise is exactly what you want in an aggressive shell. It’s a 4 attack minion for 3 mana, and it has Charge. For aggressive decks, any damage in card advantage is gained in tempo and life points.

The change is interesting, as it now is in a similar position as Dancing Swords, a card that I’ve tried to make work in aggressive and midrange strategies, but has never caught on in competitive play. I don’t know the side-by-side comparison of giving your opponent fast mana vs. giving them a card, but judging by how Magic R&D has killed fast mana with fire, I’d lean towards Dancing Swords being a better card now.

Fine by me.

The change with the largest reverberation will be the death of Force of Nature + Savage Roar to enable uncounterable kills from 20+ life points (assuming a single minion on board).

This combo gave Druid’s inevitability in a way that no other class (save for maybe Frost Mage) has. A player was required to kill basically every single minion a Druid played once they reached ~7 Mana or they risked dying to the Force + Roar combo almost regardless of life total (Innervate or Emperor Thaurissan could often be used to get the required mana before turn 10). Granted, if a Druid wasn’t holding the combo, it might be more correct to just race the Druid — but it was impossible to know that.

Druid had all the power since discard effects or Peek effects do not exist in Hearthstone. Often a Druid playing like they had the combo would buy them all kinds of time, regardless of if they had it or not. A Druid playing any minion would require killing it, or else you could die on the swing back.

The fact that this combo exists, is fine; it just can’t have Charge. It’s not realistically counterable when it has Charge, and Blizzard stated as much.

If they continue down this line, Blizzard will need to nerf Frost Mage, as their play pattern is almost identical — an unstoppable kill from full health. This doesn’t mean that I think Frost Mages are overpowered (I don’t), but I do think they have an unhealthy play pattern — a player is unable to do anything to counterplay other than “kill them faster.”

That’s not great design.

While we’re on this subject, part of a fix for these types of issues would be more efficient way for more classes to deal with Secrets. An Ice Block should not guarantee an additional turn against all classes except Hunter.

Aggressive Minion Efficiency

Cards that have a powerful effect on top being above the curve often find themselves being too efficient. In Magic this manifests as cards like Thragtusk and Siege Rhino. In Hearthstone this is cards like Dr. Doom or Knife Juggler.

In the case of Knife Juggler, it provided a 3/2 body for 2, which would already go in most aggressive decks. But the fact that it also combos incredibly well with cards like Muster for Battle, Imp-losion, and just generally aggressive strategies made it too efficient.

Also, cards like Leper Gnome don’t really involve making a lot of choices by either player. It’s an auto-include in any aggressive deck, and a kill on sight for the players who play against it. This suffers more from being uninteresting than too efficient, but it is also too efficient — above the curve, with an additional effect.

Compare Leper Gnome to Twilight Whelp — one requires another condition of the player to get the bonus effect. Leper Gnome just has to exist.

Master of Disguise

This just has to do with general counterplay. I think Stealth is a very bad ability and is given out too liberally in Hearthstone. This is similar to Hexproof or Shroud in Magic — it has to be done very rarely and on creatures below the curve.

But that’s a story for another article.

Overall, I think this is the best balance patch Hearthstone has done in recent memory — perhaps over the entire duration of the game.

These changes demonstrates Blizzard’s understanding of healthy game mechanics and Hearthstone’s evolution over time. They’ve done this without compromising the causal core that is essential to the game as a business, and have significantly helped the professional scene as well, both in terms of promoting healthy and consistent game mechanics, and rewarding consistent play through a play-counterplay loop.

Hope to see more of this soon.