Opinion: Why Hearthstone needs more competitive formats
Since the inception of Hearthstone esports, Standard has been the only relevant format for competitors. Only the most recent sets have been featured in competitive play. Tournament organizers and Blizzard alike have committed to the Standard format, ensuring that the vast majority of tournaments only feature the latest and greatest cards.
But what if it wasn’t always this way?
Esports fans are used to singular formats. Dota 2 and League of Legends always use the same map for their games. Overwatch and Street Fighter V keep to the same roster of characters without variations or different rules. Even Super Smash Bros. Melee has its own set of stringent rules (no items, only specific stages) that every major tournament follows. It only seems logical that Hearthstone would follow along.
Hearthstone has more in common with tabletop card games than it does with its esports brethren. It’s closer to Magic: The Gathering than it is LoL or CS:GO. And Magic keeps its vibrant competitive scene going not by sticking to a single format and running with it, but by varying the way the game is played on a competitive level.
We’ve seen occasional tournaments experiment with new formats. Most notable was last week’s Red Bull Team Brawl, which brought together teams of players to build decks out of a set group of cards, much like the way Magic: The Gathering does its own “sealed” format.
The concept of a sealed format isn’t new to card games, but it is one that can truly test a player’s ability to adapt on the fly and win matches with less than ideal decklists. In the Team Brawl, each team was given 200 cards to make three decks of 30 cards each. The ability to quickly look over a pile of cards and put together a deck is something that should be rewarded more often in Hearthstone, not relegated to the early days of any new format.
Brian Kibler and his teammates Disguised Toast and Julien “Cydonia” Perrault took home the grand prize at Team Brawl, which makes sense considering Kibler’s background as a multiple Magic Pro Tour winner – a feat that requires extensive knowledge of how to draft a deck out of a random set of cards.
Of course, Team Brawl had a sealed format, which is distinctly different than a “draft,” another format that Hearthstone could experiment with.
In sealed, you are given a pile of cards to pick from. In draft, that pile of cards is shared between a group of competitors, with each player picking the cards they want to use in their decks. The closest equivalent that Hearthstone has is Arena, but that’s not quite the same.
Picking cards for an Arena run is a solitary experience. You choose one of three cards, the other two disappear forever, and you move on. In physical drafting, players pass the cards they didn’t select to their opponent, creating an extra layer of strategy during the selection process.
Do you give the guy to your left an immensely powerful card that happens to not fit the deck you’re building, or do you hold onto it defensively? Can you figure out what the lady next to you is building just by what they pass on to you? Will you get screwed out of your class’ cards if you haven’t read that the people around you are attempting to build in the exact same category? Do you grab that particularly hard to find card for your collection even though it’s out of your class, thus breaking the golden “No Rare Drafting” rule?
Obviously, there would have to be some serious tweaking to the way Arena works for a proper drafting format to come out of it, but I believe it can be done.
Finally, let’s talk about Wild, the most intimidating format Hearthstone has to offer. With every single card ever created available, things get a little crazy. For anyone who hopped on the Hearthstone train in the last year or so, it’s a place of great dismay. The packs containing cards necessary for top-tier Wild decks (I miss you, Dr. Boom) are no longer available for purchase, making it impossible for new players to really get into the format.
Right now, only people that have been on the Hearthstone bandwagon since the game’s vanilla years can truly play Wild. But that could all change this year. In fact, Hearthstone game director Ben Brode hinted just the other day on Reddit that Wild card packs may be coming back to the store later this year. If that were to come to pass, it opens up the possibility of full-on Wild tournaments. And that would be awesome.
With more ways to play Hearthstone at a competitive level comes more interest in the game as an esport. It’s likely that none of the other formats would (or should) reach Standard’s level of popularity, but welcoming more and more players to the scene can mean great things for Hearthstone’s future.
Taylor Cocke would play the hell out of a proper sealed format. Follow him on Twitter @taylorcocke.
