So in a "revolutionary" announcement Ben Brode, Blizzards lead developer on Hearthstone announced their groundbreaking development to improve the game by banning old cards. Well not a full ban but rank will be separated to Wild (all cards) and Standard where Standard is the latest 4 set as well as the core and classic set (which are permanent but will be adjusted as time moves on) and for all premier tournaments will be focused entirely on Standard.

https://www.youtube.com/user/PlayHearthstone/videos

Apologies on the snarky tone I am not a fan of this. But not against rotation cycles all together just against this set up.

Okay well many such living game have formats in one form or another. 1st lets clear out what a format is. A format is a particular rule set attachment or amendments for a game that alter the or affect the style the game is played but does not alter the core game mechanics. For X-wing we have competitive which revolves around tournaments, epic which brings in huge ships and larger squadron list sizes and escalation which squadron size starts out small but grows. Not to be confused with editions which is a reprinting of the games rules and pieces. X-wing has only 1 edition but for a game that has both formats and editions you can look at Warhammer 40,000. Armageddon would be considered a format because when it was released it was played with the 5th edition rule book. When 6th edition came out the 5th edition rule book was replaced all together. That is the difference between editions and formats.

now on to card games, as we know Magic the Gathering has formats which based upon a rotation cycle. At first this was named Type 2 (for modern) and Type 1 (for archived) after a card reached a certain maturity say 4 expansion sets it was moved from Type 2 to Type 1. Later this was renamed to standard (there is a modern it is a little more restrictive) and Legacy. This is understandable as a card pool increases the number of power combinations increases and the diversity of meta decks decreases. FFG has adopted a similar rotation system for their LCG product lines to take care of the same problem of power creep.

For more information see the video below.

Now where I have problems with these new formats for Hearthstone. First of all some of you may notice I am very particular about clarifying genres of games especially when people call X-wing a card game. That is because there is clear limitations and functions on these games as they are played. Card game function differently than a table top miniatures game therefore what you could do in a Card game may not work so well in a table top game and vica versa. Hearthstone is a video-game, sure a video game about a card game thus using a lot of card game mechanics so if you want the genre it is a virtual card game but in the subphylum of the genealogy of all games it falls under computer/video games and not other games of the physical form. For Magic the Gathering, Netrunner, and X-wing once you print out and distribute a card you cannot change the stats, values, or text on that card. Sure you can release errata and clarify rule grammar errors but you cannot change the card. A HWK-290 will always be 1 firepower unless it is reprinted in a later edition. Sure an upgrade card can boost that firepower but again that is a separate card not the pilot card itself.

With Hearthstone as a video-game these cards is anyone has some experiences are not set in stone (pun maybe intended). Anyone who has played it for some time can attest to this as some might remember the days when Leroy Jenkins was a brutal card, lets not forget all the different iterations of unleashed the hounds post launch. Even more recent cards like Warsong Commander which used to dominate the meta got nerfed to the point where it is no longer competitive. These virtual cards can be adjusted for balance, you don't need to ban them. For the print media that is impossible. Now sure the card pool may expand and the design space will be limited but the card pool hasn't expanded to that level yet. Standard you will have to immediately buy the collection upon launch if you don't save enough gold (in game non-monetary currency) and those who play solely gold will stick to arena which already gives newer cards a higher priority in the random selection. So the chance to try newer cards are already in place.

Now as the game grows with expansions there may come a point where some cards have to be phased out because while memory storage on a server might be immense it is still limited. However I doubt it has come to that level. The design space is not as limited as new concepts with Tavern Brawl and plenty of uncollectible cards used in the adventure modes are still out so the power creep in hearthstone is well in checked. So really the purpose for putting rotation this soon makes no sense as far as gameplay and balance goes.

All I need to know is, can my priest still gimmick build a 360/360 lightwell

I like it, just because Shredder, Boom and Mad Scientist will be gone, but not killed like Warsong. These cards don't really warrant nerfs, but they are clearly better than anything else in their mana slots/offer a brutal ramping power. They aren't op, but they severly limit what cards get played. New expansions either have to massively powercreep or have almost no impact like the dust tournament, which really only created secret Paladin. The first rotation will be great, because the worst powercreep expansion are phased out, Naxx and GvG.

I look forward to a meta where Shaman has the best face deck and there is a lot of Anyfin Paladins and Renolocks. And I will still go into wild when i want to bust out good old Mal'Ganis or some fatigue deck (I will miss you, Healbot!). It may not be an ideal implementation, but it is going to make the game so much more enjoyable that I don't care.

I like it, just because Shredder, Boom and Mad Scientist will be gone, but not killed like Warsong. These cards don't really warrant nerfs, but they are clearly better than anything else in their mana slots/offer a brutal ramping power. They aren't op, but they severly limit what cards get played. New expansions either have to massively powercreep or have almost no impact like the dust tournament, which really only created secret Paladin. The first rotation will be great, because the worst powercreep expansion are phased out, Naxx and GvG.

I look forward to a meta where Shaman has the best face deck and there is a lot of Anyfin Paladins and Renolocks. And I will still go into wild when i want to bust out good old Mal'Ganis or some fatigue deck (I will miss you, Healbot!). It may not be an ideal implementation, but it is going to make the game so much more enjoyable that I don't care.

Sorry but if anyone played at launch hunter has the face deck. Nax had some of the best counter face hunter cards out there. As for GvG it had the worst power creep with Dr Broken (which Ben Brode still refers to as Dr Balanced ). True that Blizzard doesn't know how to do subtle nerfs to restore balance and just nuke things to oblivion but piloted Shredder and Dr Boom could easily deal with a stat nerf into say a 3/3 and a 7/5 and would be balanced cards.

As for Shaman you will never see it. Take the all powerful classes from Vanilla as those cards will never rotate out (Hunter, Warlock) and those are the classes you are going to be stuck with.

But lets also move into other games. Netrunner has a rotation cycle but they also did a nerf which is a more of a restriction than a ban. They made certain cards cost 1 extra influence in their most wanted deck even if it was in faction. Lets not forget in X-wing there are some people who want a pre Wave 4 format. Again I think that is also a bad idea. It is like people forget that those earlier metas still had their seemingly OP trumps that got fixed with these releases which did shift the balance but another release will continue to shift the balance again.

Have you played the new face shaman? they lose Crackle, but thats about it. Look at this deck: http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/425290-rank-1-legend-legend-in-2-daysGet a second Horserider, maybe a Wolfrider and both Crackles are replaced in an adequate way. This is going to be very strong and with us until TGT phases out.

I never was scared of face Hunter until Naxx came out and I played back in the day when Molten Giants were allowed to charge with Warsong, so I do have a bit of experience with how the game evolved.

I don't see how rotation would benefit X-Wing, since it would be very hard to do reasonably. We can't just rotate out older waves, since that is where all the iconic stuff is. We can't have this game without any of the movie ships. Throwing out upgrade cards could happen, but it really would be weird and not too impactfull, since those get rereleased so often.

Again I don't see how rotations will be good in X-wing but people have been talking about their nostalgia for wave 3 meta. Still I think that is just rose-tinted glasses looking back.

As for rotations in hearthstone I am not against it. This would work perfectly in Arena as the draft gets worse when the card poll is diluted. I am assuming that Blizzard is including the standard rotation only in Arena and not keeping Arena an all card pool. That would be stupid if they did.

Sorry, Arena for now will remain wild only :/

Maybe they realize the demand someday, but I am not sure if they want to split the smaller playerbase. The one thing that makes arena a tiny bit more consistent is the biases that new expansion cards have, maybe they can expand that concept.

Sorry, Arena for now will remain wild only :/

Maybe they realize the demand someday, but I am not sure if they want to split the smaller playerbase. The one thing that makes arena a tiny bit more consistent is the biases that new expansion cards have, maybe they can expand that concept.

The only way I could explain my frustration with Ben Brode!