10 Mean Streets of Gadgetzan Cards That Got Me Excited!

Perspectives

I know, I know. The Impact Factor is on hiatus. The blog is indeed still AWOL. On the good news front, I’ve made finalized drafts for 5 out of my 7 manuscript figures and have started work on a poster for a scientific conference in January. So that’s something?

Despite being on hiatus, I felt obligated to post something about Hearthstone’s latest expansion: Mean Streets of Gadgetzan. On December 1^st players are going to be treated to over 130 new cards to enjoy and a bevy of new strategies to implement. Moreso than many previous sets, I believe Mean Streets of Gadgetzan is going to seriously impact the ranked metagame. I fully expect to see a lot more Priest, Druid climbing to the top tier spot, alongside the return of Aggro Warrior.

As is tradition here on the blog, I wanted to run through a handful of the new cards that have me the most excited. For the past few releases I have made videos, but my limited TIF time means that we’re back to the basics—a text list! So without any further ado, here are the 10 Mean Streets of Gadgetzan cards that got me excited:

Jade Idol

Let’s get ahead of the curve here: I welcome our new Jade Druid overlords. Mean Streets of Gadgetzan has introduced three powerful new factions for the game’s 9 classes, and the Jade Lotus clan has quickly come out as a leader when it comes to power level. Of the three Jade Lotus classes (Shaman, Druid, Rogue), Druid got most of the best faction cards. Jade Idol is near the top of that list. At worst, Jade Idol is a 1 mana 1/1 that makes your next Jade Golem a 2/2. Late in the game, Jade Idol is a 1 mana 4/4, 5/5, and beyond. Jade Idol is also critical in helping Druid deal with control decks. With Jade Idol, you can never fatigue. Ever. The second ability keeps your deck full and the increasingly powerful Jade Golems coming. If Jade Druid is a thing, and I predict it will be, expect to run two copies of Jade Idol.

Rat Pack

Hunter didn’t get a whole lot in Mean Streets of Gadgetzan, but maybe that’s because of Rat Pack. A 3 mana 2/2 is pretty bad stats, but once you read the card’s text its power level becomes clear. Early game minions that deathrattle into new minions have shaped Hearthstone’s metagame for years. At face value, a 2/2 that summons 2 1/1s is pretty good. Increase Rat Pack’s attack by 1 and the card starts to get bonkers. Hunters have a great tool for buffing beats with Houndmaster, and are gaining several new ones from the Grimy Goons faction. Midrange Hunter has always been pretty good, and I’m excited to see where Rat Pack might fit.

Inkmaster Solia

I love how Mean Streets of Gadgetzan’s final faction, the Kabal, are reinforcing the reason to build single copy decks. I’ve had a great time with Reno Jackson, and with Inkmaster Solia, I now have plenty of incentive to make Reno Mage. Playing a card for free is never a bad thing. Assuming you built your deck correctly, Inkmaster Solia’s effect is always going to proc—which can lead to a swingy turn. Turn 7 Inkmaster Solia into a free Flamestrike, Blizzard, or Firelands Portal? Devastating. Magic and Hearthstone pro Brian Kibler has already shown the power of single copy Mage decks, and I expect Inkmaster Solia to easily make the cut.

Small Time Recruits

Mean Streets of Gadgetzan is trying to steer Paladin towards a new, hyper aggressive 1-drop deck. If any card makes this new archetype work it will be Small Time Recruits. Drawing 3 cards for 3 mana is fantastic. Aggressive Paladin lists will run enough 1 drops that you won’t need to worry about Small Time Recruits drawing less than three. Small Time Recruits thins your deck, making you more likely to draw into your powerful finishers like buff spells or Leeroy Jenkins. Top decking a measly 1 drop can feel pretty bad. It’s also a draw that will always work, compared to something Aggro Paladins have previously run in the past (Divine Favor). Especially with Paladin getting new hand buffing tools, having a bunch of creatures in hand is a good thing. The eventual fate of a 1-drop heavy Paladin list is unsure, but if it is competitive, expect Small Time Recruits to play a big role.

Drakonid Operative

I’m calling it now: Drakonid Operative is the best card in the set. It’s a 5 mana 5/6, easily passing the vanilla test. It’s a dragon, and we all know there are a ton of great synergies in dragon decks. It fills a 5 slot that has been default filled with Azure Drake, even though the card isn’t the best for every dragon list. And Drakonid Operative’s battlecry is INSANE. Discovering a card from your opponent’s deck is arguably better than drawing one from your own. Gaining a new card from a minion that is already impressively stated for its cost is ridiculous. Dragon Priest will be an extremely powerful deck in the new metagame, and they will run two copies of Drakonid Operative. If you don’t open them, craft them. You can thank me later.

Dragonfire Potion

You’re seeing it right: I’m spotlighting 2 Priest cards out the 10 for the entire set. The long-suffering Priest class was blessed with a bevy of powerful cards in Mean Streets of Gadgetzan, including one unlike anything they have ever had before. Like a good board clear? Yep. Dragonfire Potion is super powerful. 6 mana to deal 5 damage to all creatures is fantastic. With Dragon Priest getting plenty of new tools, Dragonfire Potion slots in perfectly to help out particularly difficult matchups (like Midrange Shaman). All the better, if your board is dragons, they’re left untouched! Dragonfire Potion will not only find a home in Dragon Priest decks, but likely any Priest deck that is playing for the long game. The one downside is that Dragonfire Potion is extremely weak against other dragon decks. Considering just how powerful Dragon Priest is looking, this could pose a problem.

Hobart Grapplehammer

Aggressive Warrior looks to be a lone savior from the powerful late-game heavy decks on the horizon like Jade Druid. Hobart Gapplehammer is a powerful new addition to the existing archetype. A 2 mana 2/2 isn’t the worst, but it is the battlecry we really care about. Adding +1 attack to every weapon, both in your hand and deck, is crazy. Firey War Axes are now 4-2 weapons, Arcanite Reapers 6/2. I’ve played my fair share of an aggressive Pirate Warrior deck and often find myself missing one or two damage for lethal. Hobart Grapplehammer’s battlecry is the solution to that problem. Weapons are already hard to deal with as only a tiny fraction of cards in the game let you affect them, making Hobart Grapplehammer’s effect feel even better. Be prepared to get smashed in the face by huge weapons soon.

Dopplegangster

Amazing name-pun aside, Dopplegangster could be the card that could makes a Grimy Goons deck work. Any in-hand buff given to Dopplegangster dramatically increases the power level of the card. We already know that 5 mana 3 2/2s doesn’t get played (see Force of Nature), but as we’ve seen with Grim Patron, 3 3/3s is nothing to shake a stick at. Anything above that and it starts getting into the unfair territory. I’m skeptical about the competitive viability of a Grimy Goons faction deck, but if one is good enough, Dopplegangster will almost certainly slot into it.

Genzo, the Shark

No, I didn’t just choose this card because it has ‘shark’ in the name. I seriously think Genzo, the Shark is amazing. He’s also one of the most overlooked cards in the set. As Dragon Priest, Midrange Shaman and Jade Druid appear poised to shape the meta, aggressive strategies will arise as a natural counter. One of the worst possible feelings with an aggressive deck is to dump your hand onto the board, lose it, and then rely on top deck draws to win you the game. Genzo, the Shark helps to stymie that problem. A 4 mana 5/4 isn’t bad (when you want to kill your opponent fast) and his effect is great. Assuming it can live until your next turn (a big assumption) Genzo, the Shark is Jeeves on a big stick. You also control when hands are refilled to 3 cards, making him more versatile than Jeeves. Genzo, the Shark’s fate is uncertain, but I want to believe he might make the cut for a Pirate Warrior or Face Hunter list.

Aya Blackpaw

The champion of Jade decks, Aya Blackpaw is an auto-include for any deck revolving around making Jade Golems. Her stats are bad at a mere 5/3 for 6, but when you start considering the stats of her golem friends she summons, the math starts to get nutty. By turn 6, Jade decks will have (hopefully) summoned at least a golem or two. That means that Aya Blackpaw is often a 6 mana 5/3 that summons a 3/3 or 4/4, and then summons a 4/4 or 5/5 upon dying. Her being on the battlefield doesn’t really matter in the long term, either. Aya Blackpaw ramps up your Jade Golem count by 2 (ignoring any Brann or Feign Death shenanigans), which makes every single other Jade card in your deck that much better. There are not many cards I plan on crafting day one if I don’t open them, but Aya Blackpaw is an exception. I cannot see how she doesn’t get played.

Opening 80+ Whispers of the Old Gods Packs: An Exercise in Randomness

Perspectives

Hey everyone, just a short piece this week. Hearthstone's latest and long awaited expansion, Whispers of the Old Gods, finally launched last week. It had been nearly 6 months since the mega-popular card game received new cards. I was chomping at the bit to try out a whole new world of decks and strategies, so I figured no better way than to open nearly 100 packs on day one!

My pack opening was streaming to Twitch, but I wanted to post it here for more of you to see. It's exciting to open so many packs at once and see how the gods of randomness treat you. Opening packs will never get tiring for me. I hope you enjoy seeing my spoils and I'll be back next week with a game review!

A Devious Pairing: Card Packs and Monetizing Free-to-Play

Article

Abstract: The race to the bottom in mobile gaming markets has led to an advent of free to play (F2P) games that monetize via in-game purchases. Subtractive and exploitative in-game purchases sullied the image of F2P games and left developers & companies alike searching for solutions. The wild success of the F2P card game Hearthstone has fueled a revolution in the F2P space, in which buying card packs fuels huge revenues. Opening card packs is deeply satisfying and, for now, a novel (but devious) solution to monetizing free games. The perceived value, guaranteed rewards and the joy of collection keeps players opening packs and invested in the game, be it financially or otherwise. It looks like card packs might be here to stay.

It’s electric. Your purchase of ten packs has been so-so. You’ve gotten rares that you have already opened before and a bevy of commons. But you’re down to your last two packs. Your big win is coming. That epic you’ve always wanted. That legendary that forever seemed out of your grasp. You know that, while unlikely, these next two packs could be the best you’ve ever opened. It’s the fuel that keeps you buying, keeps you opening, and keeps you invested. Welcome to the wonderful world of card packs.

It’s a feeling, a high, I’ve felt off and on throughout my life. I started playing Magic: The Gathering when I was five or six. I loved the art, the strategies, the deck building, the community. But above all, I liked the packs. 15 glorious cards packed perfectly into a thin foil wrapper. A wonderful mystery sold for the low price of just a few bucks. Money burned a hole in my pocket in my early childhood—as soon as I got my allowance I begged to go to the card store so I could finally get my pack opening fix. Each new pack was an endorphin shot. It was gambling, but not really. Every pack worked towards my end goals of collection and of having the cards I needed to build new decks. I was hooked.

The opiate of my early childhood.

What I never expected, especially once I had mostly moved away from buying Magic cards, was that I would get trapped in the pack opening vortex once again, but this time in free-to-play (F2P) mobile games. It took the video game industry a while but they finally stumbled upon the secret sauce Magic had been pumping out for nearly 20 years. And from what I can tell, that ‘sauce’ has fueled a revolution in F2P games that’s shaping the future of gaming.

Mobile gaming is a market largely defined by its sweeping trends. An idea is sparked and it catches like wildfire, with the biggest of the big hoping to secure their place and the small and the imitators hoping to get a small sliver of the gigantic pie. One such trend is the so-called “race to the bottom.” The crowded gaming ecosystem made it harder and harder for developers to convince consumers to play their titles, let alone to spend money on their game. Game developers and analysts alike noticed that mobile consumers budgeted very little money towards buying smartphone games. In response, the price for mobile games dropped dramatically. From $10 to $5 to $2 to the bottom: to free. Making games, marketing them, and getting them placed on digital store fronts is not an inexpensive process, however, so companies needed to find ways to make back their financial investment.

There is a whole lot of 'free' out there.

The solution for most was microtransactions: small purchases that contribute to your gameplay experience. Generally these microtransactions ask for just a few dollars at a time. Perhaps unsurprisingly, companies found that players already invested in the game’s ecosystem by playing for free were more likely to spend money on the final product. Plus, since the game is advertised as free, many thousands more might try it out. Playing is as simple as downloading the app. As it turns out, however, F2P games with microtransactions did not turn out as pro-player as they seemed. In order to ensure some financial return, key gameplay features were often gated behind microtransactions. For example, you could have a racing game that offers one track and one car for free, but all remaining tracks and cars would have to be purchased for real money. Microtransactions were also used to allow players to keep playing. Many F2P games used artificial walls to halt player progress that could only be bypassed by either a) waiting for several hours or b) spending money. Other F2P titles would pit players against immense challenges that could only be beaten by a) spending many hours doing repetitious leveling up / resource collecting or b) spending money to skip that ‘grind.’ F2P-game microtransactions got so bad that many players moved away from these kinds of games entirely. They felt exploitative. They felt unfair. They felt mean. So if you were a developer hoping to make a F2P game with microtransactions as your revenue source, you needed to do something different.

I enjoyed Jurassic Park Builder for a while, but the obtrusive and mean-spirited
pay walls killed all my enthusiasm.

That something different, it turns out, was Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft. Hearthstone is a F2P card game that I’ve written about a lot here on The Impact Factor (my review, my joy of playing, card balance, new set reviews, & more). Though it started as a PC/Mac title, Hearthstone rapidly found its home in the mobile market. Smart design and good marketing made Hearthstone a fast success. Players and critics alike were raving about it. And Hearthstone was making a lot of money. Hearthstone was a huge contributor to Blizzard’s record 2015, with greatly increased revenues over the previous year. It’s been reported that Hearthstone pulls in more than $20 million a month. The bulk of that revenue? Players spending money buying packs. Hearthstone found a way to get players to spend money on a F2P game and not feel cheated.

Hearthstone's unexpected success has shifted the F2P game space profoundly. We’re seeing an increasing number of games adopting Hearthstone’s pack-buying microtransactions to fuel their new titles. Some are card games, some just use the pack-buying content-collection loop to keep players invested. Duelyst adapts a card game into a grid-based tactical battle where your units are found by drawing cards out of your deck. Clash Royale is a tower defense slash real-time strategy fusion that has players drawing troop cards from a deck. Plants vs Zombies: Heroes is a new F2P card-based battle game using the beloved PvZ IP. Even Pokemon is jumping on board with Pokemon Co-Master, a F2P board game for smartphones where you can buy packs containing Pokemon figurines. And the list goes on.

It might not look like it, but Duelyst is a card game through and through.
Sprit orbs = card packs.

All of this got me this got me thinking: why are card packs such a successful monetization method for F2P games? What works about card packs that fails so miserably with premium currencies or time-walls? I have boiled it down to three reasons.

1. Perceived Value

The contentiousness surrounding microtransactions often centers around that fact that they are subtractive. The notion is that developers take aspects of their game and remove them from the free experience and charge for them. Or they put in mechanisms that prevent you from playing without spending money. Card packs work around this cleverly—the feel additive. You can play the base game, all modes and features, for free. Cracking packs and getting new cards simply changes the kind of experience you are having, rather than fill in the missing pieces. Hearthstone, Duelyst and Clash Royale alike provide the player with a decent suite of free cards to experiment with and build decks. For the best among these F2P card-based games, new cards augment an already stellar base game. Buying a pack is therefore valuable not because it completes your experience, but rather, gives you a new one.

New cards mean new experiences.

Further, the permanence of card acquisition goes a long way. Each new pack you open gives you something concrete, and something that could potentially affect the way you play the game for the duration of your experience. Spending real money on a card pack feels worthwhile because the cards are not a one-time thing. Your monetary investment doesn’t disappear after you spend it. Traditional microtransaction purchases are transient—getting past that annoying 12 hour wait by spending money doesn’t remove your future 12 hour waits. Whereas that card you got from the pack will be sitting in your collection forever. Your purchase has visual permanence. It’s easier to justify. It feels like a real, physical commodity.

2. Guaranteed Reward

Gambling taps into deeply rooted pleasure centers in the human brain. If history is any indication, promising big rewards for small investments is a great way to motivate people. And to get them to spend money. The problem with gambling, especially in the context of F2P microtransactions, is that you lose. A lot. And losing feels bad. Losing can feel like a complete waste of your money. In a casino, you can just leave or move to a different game. If you walk away from a video game that you feel has ripped you off, chances aren’t great that you’ll come back to be burned again. Navigating gambling-like F2P purchases while avoiding that loosing feeling is a tough one. In Puzzle and Dragons (a mobile F2P RPG-match 3 dungeon crawler), for example, the most powerful monsters in the game are obtained through playing a premium slot machine. To play the slot machine more than a few times every couple of weeks, you need to spend money. When you pull the handle and get a terrible result, it feels awful. Your investment feels worthless.

Card packs (partially) solve that problem. Like their real world counterparts, each pack is guaranteed to have certain kinds of cards within. In Hearthstone, each pack contains at least one rare. In Clash Royale, each chest tells you the gold & cards to expect. Opening a card pack isn’t exactly gambling, because you know you’re guaranteed to ‘win,’ it just how much you win that’s in question. It still feels bad to get the bare minimum rewards from a pack, but it never feels like a total loss. The best F2P card games have ways to make even the ‘bad’ rewards worth something. In Hearthstone, cards can be discarded for a resource used to craft any card you want. In Clash Royale, repeat cards can be used to level up your units or donated to members of your clan for gold. When you open a pack, you are guaranteed to use every single card you open in some way. Turns out that goes a long way.

All the rush of gambling with the reassurance
of guaranteed rewards.

3. The Joy of Collection

Opening packs of cards taps into ingrained parts of the human psyche about making progress, building up a collection, and getting the newest & best of whatever you care about. Each new pack you open could fill in that missing slot in your collection, or that missing slot in a deck you want to make. You’re one step closer to completing something that takes a lot of effort to finish. The joyous moment of when you open up a pack of cards should not be overlooked, either.  You get to see your rewards unfurl one by one, like opening presents on your birthday. The gradual reveal of a pack’s contents heightens tension for all subsequent cards and protracts out that high you feel when you get something new. A pack of five cards has five separate moments for you to be surprised, elated, or crushed. Each pack is a rollercoaster. It makes sense people want to pay to ride.

Pack opening is a one of the best rollercoasters I know.

However the future might look, F2P games with monetized cards packs are the new now. And it’s easy to see why. Just be careful out there. It is easy to get trapped in the endorphin vortex. I would know, I live there.

News & Views

3/19/16-3/25/16

Happy weekend and Happy (almost) Easter to all who choose to celebrate! I’m looking forward to a nice couple of days ahead. I also made some plans for next week that have me super excited. Just got to get through the rest of today and I’m in the clear!

News & Views is my attempt to curate the week’s best video game writing. I feature great articles, opinions, editorials, and whatever else catches my critical eye. Check out the links below for stories about action game design from one of the best in the business, the cognitive dissonance of The Division’s violence, and the triumph of tragedy in Life is Strange.

And of course please check out the brand new episode of The Impact Factor podcast that was posted today! You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, or if you prefer other methods, check out our SoundCloud. We’re on YouTube too!

Spotlight

The demolition of Japan's videogame history

John Andersen, Kill Screen

Worth Reading

Platinum Games' guide to action game design

Christian Nutt, Gamasutra

Matt's Video Game Science Corner: Crafting Recipes

Matt Sayer, Unwinnable

Not Every Developer Is Convinced Let's Play Videos Are A Good Thing

Patrick Klepek, Kotaku

The Importance of Community

Forest Handford, Gamasutra

Composer reveals the original ending of Halo 2

Cassidee Moser, IGN

With Comments

How losing a tournament made this Magic card worth $15K

Ferguson Mitchell, The Daily Dot

I may not play it anymore, but Magic remains one of the most compelling card games (and card game communities) out there. I was savvy to this story as it unfurled, so it was great to see it in a concise summary form here. The story of how one card can be worth $15,000 is a great one. I remember trying to open a Tarmogoyf back when it was first released (then ~$40, now $130). No luck. Dangit.

The Triumph of Despair in Life is Strange

Ed Smith, Kill Screen

Life is Strange caught me by surprise. I knew I wanted to play it because I love playing interactive narrative games with my fiancée, but was so pleasantly surprised when the game was stellar. One aspect that stood out was just how deep the sadness was in Life is Strange. Ed Smith writes about how despair is represented well in the game, especially in how it undermines the black & white morality choice systems we’ve seen in similar titles. Beware spoilers, but well worth a read.

Explorer.GMK: An Excerpt From the Spelunky book

Derek Yu, Gamasutra

I got to (kind of) meet Derek Yu the other week!! It was so exciting. I did get to buy his book though! Not only is Yu an exceptional game designer (Spelunky is one of my favorites of all time), but it also turns out he’s not too shabby a writer as well. I highly recommend reading this excerpt from his book, as it touches on the core design foundation of Spelunky—one of the most influential titles of the past decade.

The Dissonance of The Division: From Saviors to Murders

Eric Van Allen, Paste

I’ve seen this argument a lot, but I have not tired of reading about it (yet). It’s hard to feel heroic when you’re ruthlessly gunning down people in the streets. Not aliens, not demons, not abstract forms. Real, living, people. For many, the gameplay’s interaction with narrative has troubling implications. You kill looters but then proceed to loot yourself. There are no non-lethal options to stopping foes. Some have argued about the racial undertones of the game’s attempt at distinguishing looters from friendly NPCs (they are wearing hoodies). I still have little to no interest in playing The Division, but man is there a lot of interesting things to say about it. So, congrats Ubisoft?

The Impact Factor Ep. 46: Half Bunny, Half Blob
Podcast
Welcome to the 46th episode of The Impact Factor! The Impact Factor is what happens when two scientists, and two best friends, get together to talk about video games. Hosts Alex Samocha [biomedical scientist] and Charles Fliss [social scientist] sit down every week to discuss the week in gaming! Listen in for the news, views, and games that made the biggest impact!

Please send your suggestions and feedback to: impactfactorpodcast@gmail.com

In this episode Alex and Fliss talk about GDC, PlayStation VR, Hearthstone, Xbox cross play, The Division, The Witcher 3, No Man’s Sky, Orbital, Broforce and much more!

Subscribe to us on iTunes

YouTube page

For articles and reviews from Alex, check out: www.theimpactfactor.blogspot.com
For a blog about Japan, pop culture & more from Fliss, check out:

www.flissofthenorthstar.blogspot.com

Follow Alex @alexsamocha on Twitter. twitch.tv/megalodonphd
Follow Fliss @thecfliss on Twitter. twitch.tv/flissofthenorthstar

Intro song:

You Kill My Brother by Go! Go! Go! Micro Invasion, East Jakarta Chiptunes Compilations. Freemusic Archive. (Attribution Noncommercial Share-Alike License)
freemusicarchive.org/music/Indonesi…s_Compilation/
Transitions:
News & Views and Perspectives transitions from victorcenusa, Freesound.org (Creative Commons 0 License)
freesound.org/people/victorcenusa/sounds/148785/
freesound.org/people/victorcenusa/sounds/148784/
Experimental Methods transition from Sentuniman, Freesound.org (Attribution Noncommercial License)
freesound.org/people/Setuniman/sounds/143994/

TIF Plays: The League of Explorers! [4]
Gameplay

The League of Explorers is the latest adventure that's made its way to Hearthstone. With 4 wings bringing 45 new cards, the league seeks adventure and booty! Here's the final part of a 4 part series, in which I tackle the many challenges the new adventure has to offer! Check out an archive of my stream linked below, and be sure to catch me when I go live by following me on Twitter (@alexsamocha) and Twitch (MegalodonPhD) Enjoy!

TIF Plays: The League of Explorers! [3]
Gameplay

The League of Explorers is the latest adventure that's made its way to Hearthstone. With 4 wings bringing 45 new cards, the league seeks adventure and booty! Here's part 3 of a 4 part series, in which I tackle the many challenges the new adventure has to offer! Check out an archive of my stream linked below, and be sure to catch me when I go live by following me on Twitter (@alexsamocha) and Twitch (MegalodonPhD) Enjoy!

TIF Plays: The League of Explorers! [2]
Gameplay

The League of Explorers is the latest adventure that's made its way to Hearthstone. With 4 wings bringing 45 new cards, the league seeks adventure and booty! Here's part 2 of a 4 part series, in which I tackle the many challenges the new adventure has to offer! Check out an archive of my stream linked below, and be sure to catch me when I go live by following me on Twitter (@alexsamocha) and Twitch (MegalodonPhD) Enjoy!

TIF Plays: The League of Explorers! [1]

Gameplay

The League of Explorers is the latest adventure that's made its way to Hearthstone. With 4 wings bringing 45 new cards, the league seeks adventure and booty! Here's part 1 of a 4 part series, in which I tackle the many challenges the new adventure has to offer! Check out an archive of my stream linked below, and be sure to catch me when I go live by following me on Twitter (@alexsamocha) and Twitch (MegalodonPhD) Enjoy!

TIF Plays: Hearthstone Ranked! [15 & 16]

Gameplay

Another day, another Hearthstone stream. Check out an archive of my stream linked below, and be sure to catch me when I go live by following me on Twitter (@alexsamocha) and Twitch (MegalodonPhD) Enjoy!

TIF Plays: Hearthstone Ranked! [14]

Gameplay

Another day, another Hearthstone stream. Check out an archive of my stream linked below, and be sure to catch me when I go live by following me on Twitter (@alexsamocha) and Twitch (MegalodonPhD) Enjoy!

TIF Plays: Hearthstone Ranked! [13]

Gameplay

Another day, another Hearthstone stream. Check out an archive of my stream linked below, and be sure to catch me when I go live by following me on Twitter (@alexsamocha) and Twitch (MegalodonPhD) Enjoy!

TIF Plays: Hearthstone Ranked! [12]

Gameplay

Another day, another Hearthstone stream. Check out an archive of my stream linked below, and be sure to catch me when I go live by following me on Twitter (@alexsamocha) and Twitch (MegalodonPhD) Enjoy!

TIF Plays: Hearthstone Ranked! [11]

Gameplay

Another day, another Hearthstone stream. Check out an archive of my stream linked below, and be sure to catch me when I go live by following me on Twitter (@alexsamocha) and Twitch (MegalodonPhD) Enjoy!

TIF Plays: Hearthstone Ranked! [10]

Gameplay

Another day, another Hearthstone stream. Check out an archive of my stream linked below, and be sure to catch me when I go live by following me on Twitter (@alexsamocha) and Twitch (MegalodonPhD) Enjoy!

TIF Plays: Hearthstone Ranked! [9]

Gameplay

Another day, another Hearthstone stream. Check out an archive of my stream linked below, and be sure to catch me when I go live by following me on Twitter (@alexsamocha) and Twitch (MegalodonPhD) Enjoy!

Do It Live: The Hearthstone Americas Championship & Attending eSports

Special Article

I was awoken by the quiet bleeps and bloops of Portal 2’s “Halls of Science,” the ring tone I’ve had set as my alarm for the past couple years. It was pitch black outside. I staggered out of the room and into the bathroom. Within a couple minutes I was ready to go, scarfed some cereal down, and began my walk into the cool, dark & foggy morning. It was Saturday and I was on my way to the train station. I had somewhere to be. That place? The Hearthstone Americas Championship.

Living in San Francisco certainly has its perks. A couple weeks ago Blizzard announced that the Hearthstone Americas Championship would take place in the city at the Folsom Street Foundry. Admission was free. The doors opened at 9:30am Saturday and Sunday October 10-11. I wanted to take advantage of my geographical privilege: it was finally my chance to see competitive Hearthstone in person. I’ve been playing Hearthstone since April 2014. I find that I routinely spend a couple hours each week playing Blizzard’s excellent digital foray into digital card games. But that’s not all. I have watched hours and hours of Hearthstone eSports. I know the players, I know the strategies, I know the decks. It’s great to see what decks the pros bring and follow along with their plays, seeing if I make the same mid-match decisions.

The Hearthstone World Championship presented a perfect opportunity for me to finally see eSports live and in-person. eSports is something I’ve written about before in relation to EVO and fighting games and a frequent topic on The Impact Factor podcast. Despite huge strides towards broader viewership this past year (with several events even making their way onto ESPN’s SportsCenter), eSports still exists within a relatively small niche. For me, though, my eSports media consumption has far surpassed that of traditional sports. I love baseball, but nine times out of ten I’ll choose to watch competitive Street Fighter over nine innings on the diamond.

The choice by the greater gaming to community to title competitive gaming as ‘eSports’ is one I fought against for quite some time. It draws a lot of unhelpful comparisons to traditional physical sports that often derail conversations about the eSport scene. Regardless, the connection between the two does provide a foundation upon which I’ll relate my experiences at the Hearthstone America’s Championship. My fascination about how the two would compare all but solidified my decision to wake up at 6am on a Saturday morning to attend the event. Allow me to briefly write out some broad comparisons below. I’ll support a lot of my observations through pictures, plus who doesn’t want to see a bunch of photos from a Hearthstone tournament venue?

Camaraderie

The first, and most striking, parallel I noticed at the event was the bond shared by the audience. While waiting 2.5 hours in line everyone was talking Hearthstone. I came solo, but that didn’t stop me from hopping into topic after topic as the crowd talked about the game, the tournament scene, and strategies. The energy of people in line was not at all what you’d expect from a bunch of people who had wokne up before the crack of dawn. We talked about our highest rank in Hearthstone’s ranked mode (I had the highest of all those around me, so yeah I guess I rock), what decks we thought would dominate in the forthcoming matches (Patron Warrior, Demon Handlock and Combo Druid), and more. We were all connected by this card game, and the bond was pretty strong.

That said, it’s a feeling that any traditional sports fan can relate to. I’ve felt the same way sitting in Busch Stadium during a St. Louis Cardinals game. Of course it depends on the people you find yourself sitting next to, but I have a lot of fond memories of talking baseball with those around me. Everyone’s excited to be there and they share the bond of baseball. Thinking about my experiences with physical sports made me all the happier about my time at the Hearthstone America’s Championship. I’m glad that people who might not otherwise be able to experience this camaraderie at a football or hockey game can find this bond here.

Engagement

The crowd at the Hearthstone America’s Championship was the most engaged ‘sports’ crowd I’ve ever seen. Before I get any deeper into this, let me note: I understand that this observation isn’t perfectly controlled. At most, there were 200 or so people at the event. Sporting events can draw a crowd of 40,000. Still, the crowd was absolutely fixated on the screen. Side conversations were minimal, and most of those that were happening were discussing the game. The crowd reacted dramatically to the plays on screen: from gasps to cheers to applause. It was a great feeling. Everyone was there to watch the games. This has not always, or ever, been the case at traditional sporting events. I mean this not as a criticism, either. It’s part of their atmosphere. But eSports, or at the very least this one event I attended, felt totally different.

The Pros

The Hearthstone America’s Championship felt casual in all the right ways. As I’ve written above, people were friendly, the crowd was engaged, and the atmosphere was inviting. One thing I didn’t expect, however, was that this extended to the pros and casters of the event. Walking into the venue I was greeted with pros and casters and Blizzard employees just hanging out in the middle of the room. Fans, myself included, were able to go up and talk to some of the best competitors in the Hearthstone scene. For example, I had a brief conversation with the infamous Trump. I was able to wish competitors like Hotform and Purple and JAB good luck as they walked a couple feet in front of me. The accessibility between the fans and the competitors was not something I expected at all. For lack of a better word, it was crazy. And cool. And deeply impactful. For brief moments, I didn’t feel like just some fan, I was a part of the Hearthstone eSports scene.

Attending the Hearthstone America’s Championship was phenomenal. I feel so lucky I was able to attend. I wouldn’t hesitate to attend Hearthstone eSports events in the future. If you get a chance, I’d recommend going to one too.

That’s enough words from me, though! You can look forward to more of my thoughts on this week’s podcast. But now onto the photos!

My walk to the train station. It was pretty eerie.

The line in front of me when I arrived. I was about the ~12th person there. 7:05am.

Banners hung above my head in line. It was a nice touch.

A Blizzard community manager gave the first few people in line free pack codes.
Shoutouts to CM_Whirthun.

The line got pretty long as we got closer to the start time.
It went down the block and curved into the alleyway.

Finally made it inside! Greeted by Hearthstone posters.

A little walk further into the venue brought me to the viewing space and
the casters desk.

No chairs, but there were barrels and a fireplace!

Another look at the viewing space, this time with giant screen included!

Reynad and Purple hanging out before the matches start.

The Foundry filled up pretty quickly.

Quick selfie before the games start. I was tired, but excited.

There was this camera that swooped by overhead. Sometimes
pretty closely overhead.

The first game was about to begin! Trump vs JAB.

The players went to a closed off area upstairs for their matches.

The crowd was pretty darn focused on the screen.

TrumpW! It wasn't meant to be.

Even the pros watched. Some chose to do it from their
exclusive balcony.

New casters for the next game! Wanted to give you all a closer
look at the casting deck in action.

No chairs after waiting 2.5 hours standing in line was a little tiring,
A lot of the crowd chose to sit. Not me, though.

It was neat being so close to the competitors. Here, Nias &
Hotform talk after their match.

As if you needed more proof that I was there, here it is! Went back
and watched the stream archive & played where's Waldo for myself.

Maybe a clearer look at my plaid shirted self!

I left a little before the day ended. Got some sweet
Hearthstone swag as I left!

Sights and sounds from the venue.