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Should “Wild” be the Default Hearthstone Format?

by - 8 years ago

When I was looking at the ways you could rotate out the Classic Set without having a big negative impact in the game, one of the main ideas I toyed around with was the possibility of not having a restricted format be the standard way of playing. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not against this new format at all. I think that rotating cards out of the competitive metagame is the best thing to ever happen to this game, but I do take an issue with the naming conventions used by Blizzard in this new enterprise.

Standard  is Good

The first things first, we have to identify who benefits from the Standard Format. The answer is rather simple, as there’s two kind of players that will get a lot of mileage out of this set rotation. Obviously, the competitive player is one of the great beneficiaries of this important change; the constant rotation will prevent the metagame from getting stale for long periods of time, and will constantly take care of those problematic cards that Blizzard never really nerfed or adjusted like Dr.Boom, Piloted Shredder, and Mad Scientist. But it’s not just a marked improvement for the competitive players, new players will also benefit as there will be less cards to collect, starting in Hearthstone from scratch will be a much less daunting task.

Is Wild a Problem for New Players?

Before we move forward, there’s a question that needs an answer.  Is having a high amount of cards available in the format really a problem for new players? As we touched in the above paragraph, it would appear so, but lets dig deeper. A new player is going to start, do the tutorial, and start earning some packs. At some point the player will enter the shop and see the different kinds of packs and adventures in the store, whether Wild or Standard are the default format for Hearthstone, this doesn’t really change. Now, this new player is probably going to head towards play mode, if the matchmaking system is working properly, he should get matched against another newer player with a comparable collection. Whether this match is Standard or Wild shouldn’t be very relevant as both players are unlikely to have many cards and strong decks, the problem should start surfacing as our newer player starts ranking up and starts meeting the polished meta netdecks.

 

RankingsHeader

 

Here we can find our first important issue, in the Wild format, this player is likely to encounter players with a vast collection including cards from all the sets that have been released thus far, and you’d expect him to be at a big disadvantage as he’s seeing these powerful cards that he can’t easily acquire. This sounds like a big problem, but there might be some mitigating factors that we haven’t really considered. Hearthstone is a game where card rarity doesn’t directly translate to card power, an epic card isn’t really stronger or higher budgeted than a rare or common, decks with a higher dust count aren’t inherently stronger, and depending on the types of cards that are released from now on, there is a very real possibility that a lot of good common cards are released and we get some strong, viable decks that are very cheap.

Another mitigating factor is that most of the try-hard players are probably going to be playing Standard, a newer player will probably have an easier time playing in wild with other newer players and guys that don’t really care about the ladder grind. Sure, there will be a few die-hard fans of the format that will probably make a home in wild trying to optimize their strategies to the maximum, but one would expect that Wild would have a much higher concentration of casual players, especially if its made the default mode. Hopefully, Wild would see a varied metagame where most players would try to test fun decks, with only a select few try-harding the format. Even then, those advanced users will probably climb very quickly and the newer players shouldn’t run into them too much.

We also have a consider that a player isn’t a new player forever, at some point, he’ll get experienced enough to make a decision on what format he wants to play. Maybe he’s getting frustrated by playing against cards that he doesn’t have and are relatively hard to get. If that’s the case, he could jump into the Standard Format. Maybe he just wants to switch into Standard because he wants to play a more competitive format, maybe he wants to get into the tournament scene, and just maybe even go semi-pro. In any scenario, I doubt his play experience would be hurt by starting in the Wild mode as the default format.

Wild is the New Normal

Deck Recipes

So we spent more than half our opinion piece stating why Wild being the normal way to play the game wouldn’t hurt the overall play experience, but what are the benefits? Why would we want Wild as the default mode? For starters, the current ladder system is genius for casual players, but not so much for the dedicated player. Making the restricted format something special would allow Hearthstone to finally create a new ranked ladder system that makes more sense for the competitive scene.

Right now Wild feels a bit like a consolation prize for those players who will be sad that they are losing access to their hard-earned cards. Sure, Blizzard is already taking measure to mitigate this damage by both offering full ladder support for Wild, and keeping the Classic Set always active in the Standard Rotation. But having the standard way of playing be one in which you can use all of your cards would probably cause less of a backlash with the casual player-base, you also wouldn’t have to dilute the more competitive format by keeping all those old cards around forever.

 


In the end, all that this would change is the name of the formats. I’d prefer if the Format that has all of the cards available was called Standard, while the format with Set Restrictions would be called Heroic, Mythic, or even Competitive.  It might not seem like that big of a deal, but it is some good food for thought.

 

AboutDannieRay


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JR Cook

JR has been writing for fan sites since 2000 and has been involved with Blizzard Exclusive fansites since 2003. JR was also a co-host for 6 years on the Hearthstone podcast Well Met! He helped co-found BlizzPro in 2013.


0 responses to “Should “Wild” be the Default Hearthstone Format?”

  1. minddrifter says:

    What you say makes sense but I don’t think it will matter in the long run. Big changes to any game like this is usually accompanied with a backlash.

    It makes sense, in the CCG world as a whole, that this new rotating format is considered “Standard”. I think naming the competitive format “Standard” was also decided for people coming in from playing other CCGs intuitively knowing “Standard” is the rotating competitive scene.

    Perhaps “Wild” should have been named something a little less edgey such as “Traditional”. That’s just my two cents.

    I’ve been playing CCGs since the early 90’s so I might have a different perspective than someone whose first foray into the genre is Hearthstone. That being said HS has truly become one of the single best CCGs in my opinion.

    I can’t wait for the new format and I think it is a much needed change.

    • Dannie Ray says:

      The thing is, one would guess that traditional CCG’s are much more competitively inclined, as finding IRL people to play with can be a hassle, and its usually the tournament scene that gathers a crowd. In that case, having the competitive format be the Golden Standard makes more sense. Hearthstone is much easier to get into, its user friendly, boasts a great UI, looks pretty, has good animations and sounds, by all metrics Hearthstone has a much wider casual fanbase, and my educated guess is that Wild is going to be a better format for such a crowd.

      • minddrifter says:

        That much I agree with. HS does seem to have a more casual fanbase than most. However the more traditionally paper CCGs are very digital now days (although certainly still have a paper presence).

        I agree Wild will be more for a casual base overall. I just think that instead of calling Wild Standard I would keep Standard as is and call Wild something else. A minor difference I suppose, lol.

        That being said I really like this website and the work you guys do!

  2. Hayden White says:

    I like wild just not the name why not name it legacy like in Magic? Legacy sounds more serious and competitive. Wild should have its own tournaments to.