Many of the cards revealed at BlizzCon for Hearthstone’s “Goblin vs. Gnomes” expansion had random effects on them, and I saw a portion of the community get bummed out and complain that random effects ruin the competitiveness of Hearthstone. That is simply not true, my friends!
I’ll admit that I thought the same thing at first, but Adam showed me a whole new way of looking at random effects on cards — a way that reveals that they’re actually increasing the skill cap in Hearthstone, not lowering it. Now I’m even more excited to play with these new expansion cards!
I invited Adam on the show this week to share his perspective on random cards with you, so you can hopefully get excited too. I hope it helps you appreciate the new cards for what they really are: awesome additions that’ll make Hearthstone more fun and more competitive.
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The Links
- Watch the hilarious trailer for the new expansion!
- Vote for which expansion cards get revealed next!
- Get started with Hearthstone esports by watching these two matches: Savjz vs. Kolento and Savjz vs. Xixo
- Watch the Finals of the 2014 Hearthstone World Championship!
- Watch our livestreams of Hearthstone
- Play Hearthstone right now!
Hello!
- Adam is on the show this week
- Topic: Why Random Cards Raise the skill cap, not lower it
- Reasons to be happy this week
- News: BlizzCon announcements: Spectator mode, World Championship, new expansion, and more!
Current Perspective on Random Cards
- The new expansion has a lot of random effects in its cards.
- Goblins and gnomes both have strong ties to random or unexpected effects in their engineering, so it fits the theme
- Some forum/reddit posters have gotten very angry about how they believe the random effects reduce the competitiveness of the game. And at first, I kind of agreed.
- Adam shared his perspective with me and explained how random effects are actually increasing the skill cap and competitiveness of Hearthstone.
- It really got me excited about the expansion, and let me view the cards with a totally new, better perspective. I wanted him to share that with all of you as well.
Why Have Random Effects On Cards At All?
- Diversity
- Surprise
- Risk
- High-level strategy revolving around manipulating the odds in your favor
Degrees of Randomness
- How random does the effect have to be?
- Stampeding Kodo vs. Brawl
- How wide of a variance is there in the outcome? Best case vs. Worst case
- If it’s randomly deal 100 damage to your opponent or destroy all of their cards, do you really care that it’s random?
Randomness Raises the Skill Cap
- Random effects can be controlled and manipulated.
- Approach random cards like a con artist. How can you manipulate the context and the environment to make that random card work in your favor.
- This is a more big-picture strategy that involves knowing all the cards in your deck, your chances of drawing each card, and controlling the board at a level beyond simply “I have more minions”.
- Be patient with your random-effect cards to get the most value out of them.
Examples From the New Expansion Cards
- Blingtron 3000, Ogre Warmaul
- Bomb Lobber, Madder Bomber, Goblin Blastmage, Bouncing Blade, Flamecannon
- Gnomish Experimenter, Recombobulator, Unstable Portal
- Piloted Shredder, Piloted Sky Golem, Sneed’s Old Shredder
Community
- Questions from Bert and Matt
- iTunes Reviews
Card of the Week
Farewell
- Follow Adamon Twitter
- What you want to see in future episodes
- What hosts you want to visit the show
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