Show this Video to Microsoft: Hearthstone Has Reached a DEAD END! 

I think you've nailed it on their half hearted approach to new modes. There is a misconception they want the new modes to be successful. I think they are just trying to squeeze out some cash without jeopardizing the main cash cow. Battlegrounds must drive them nuts.

I just hope they make older expansions available in a very affordable way, so you don't have to keep up your collection all the time to remain relevant

Heartstone lost me a long time ago, and the biggest reason was the cost. It is sad to see that cost it's is still a problem, but now in a new way.

I don't think people will spend more on standart if bg were not introduced, some of my WoW friends start playing Hs only because of Bg and they like to have 4 slot available, I think that without bg HS would probably have way less player, you literally can play a cardgame withound needing to construct a deck , and the learning curve is way easier than tft , where apart from positiong you also need to learn the right objects to construct and the best buff to choose.

What you stated is also the reason why they're adding more and more classes. With each class added, the card pool gets bigger and the lower the chance is to get the cards for the class you actually want to play, so you have to buy even more cards.

"Rent cards" Sounds depressing.

Why can’t they add a tournament mode for standard to play conquest and/or last hero standing? They almost made this originally (not the way it should have been made) and it gives players a new way to play while still encouraging the use of standard format

Twist is either really fun or just shit. I would like to see a kind of dungeon mode where you play not against other players but with each other against a boss and with the same system as duels where you need to choose cards based on your class and make smart decisions to continue.

How about bundling the "Full access to 1 class" into the tavern pass, with level milstones unlocking additional classes to pick. Would probably make more people consider buying it.

I can see how the "suits" think the alt formats will hurt sales of standard. But they are thinking incorrectly! I'm *more* likely to buy cards and not dust them if I know they will be truly useful after rotation, and in different formats. It makes me a loyal customer.

Cross-block was a mode that I always wanted to see, and that is the basis for twist, but it was implemented so late. If they implemented it sooner, they might have been able to get more players to retain old cards and use money instead of dust for new cards. What I was expecting them to do is have a mix of the 1-2 newest expansions with some of the old ones to create never before seen metagames, and this would add extra incentive to purchase the new expansion. They might still be able to revive the mode by temporarily granting any wild cards to players for the rotation but requiring standard format cards to be in the collection. The current implementation involves 3 pillars of alienation: 1. Uses a set of cards that were a meta in the past, 2. Inject a small number of really high power cards that warp the meta in nasty ways, 3. Keep the mode extremely unaffordable by having no recognition of the depreciated value of wild cards.

The core issue with hearthstone is output randomness cranked up to eleven. A typical Hearthstone card is like "Play a random Mage spell with the cost of less than 3, summon a random minion with less than 3 health. If the summoned minion has battlecry or deathrattle trigger it." This basically kills all competitiveness of the format and it's extremely frustrating for any player looking to play it on a long term. Also, the power level went absurdly high during the expansions. It's not fun to have cards in a game that are basically the power of 3 cards fused together and it's even less fun when it's power is tied into multiple layers of randomness. This is only appealing for causal players who play the game occasionally (and for HS vetarans who will play the game no matter what). If the game would be fun it would have a way way larger playerbase.

Twist is ruined for me after having to buy cards I already own in the Caverns of Time set. They said they would never do pack fillers again, and yet they did just that. The cards I already own that are in the set shouldn’t be obtainable twice! This is so gross and greedy! Another thing, is with each new year cards move to the hall of fame tab, but it seems like my cards are being DELETED when I search for all cards in that set. I’ll own the card in the standard set, but the legacy version isn’t there.

Hi my friend, glad to see Mercenaries mentioned 10:14 As a content creator that made videos on Mercenaries, the mode had so much potential... Sadly the mode turned out to be a joke cuz of the lack of effort from devs to make regular balance changes and the horrible economy

I hate im getting duplicates from mean streets, than new cards. Because these cards are re-released under a new set?! And the collection doesnt differentiate which set the card came from. Duplicate protection just oops there?!

As an Arena player/streamer, this has been largely my takeaway as well. It's not like they actively want your mode to fail, but they just don't give half a crap if it does or not. They simply don't intend on producing an environment that you would ever want to "main" any other mode. The "side" modes aren't for that. They only exist to give Standard players another thing to do, now and then, if they get bored of Standard. This strengthens their relationship to the game. And those are the customers they care about - the people dumping all the money into Standard. Everything is built for them.

Twist is currently my main gamemode. Its really interesting how even though its mostly old cards, for the most part, it isnt even that much slower than standard. Surprisingly, its actually the draw of Twist that worries me. Twist doesn't currently hold the most recent packs making them feel worthless on expansion release day. However, if they want to also add a new twist rotation for twist players, it almost doubles costs for players who want both.

I really like the XL twist. Having a fun 40 card deck with 40 HP is nice and I would like it in standard.

This is liky why Riot Games got rid of all other game modes in League of Legends, because they really only want people to play 5v5, but at the same time by them removing content, it pissed off people. So maybe adding content that they don't care or use, isn't a loss, but a gain to keep a smaller crowd pleased, because otherwise, that crowd might just not exist.

The problem I see with Twist is that packs never depreciated in value for older expansions. They stuck at the same value as Standard every single time: 100g per pack, most likely for dust balance reasons (Wouldn't want you to get 40 dust per 50g instead of 100g now would they?) But this just puts greater imbalance between the pack balance. Why would I want to buy an old pack and get the same average dust value but at the limit of it only being usable in an either rotating or unavailable game mode? Make the old packs cheaper, and it becomes too efficient to buy old packs and craft new cards instead. If they make some sort of "Legacy Dust" system, something to encourage dusting old cards into old legendaries at a greater yield (Commons dusting for 50 Legacy Dust instead of 5 Dust), then dust hoarders going into new expansions will flip out, and make barrier to entry for new expansion even harder and encourage spending money on only Standard Packs. It's a tough call.

Damn. This is indeed a deadend. The new expansion also coming out too soon is too bad.

the game is dead in Brazil since the day they changed the prices localized to only charge in direct dollar conversion

Somehow I never thought about how for newer players Twist is really rough to access. I started playing during the Whispers of the old gods expansion and had decks ready to go (as I love the old gods cards too much to disenchant) but I never thought about this not being the norm. I got a desperately needed hearthstone reality check. oof Thanks for it though

80% of the games I get when I try to play are against bots and it's always the same decks I play against. This is the problem I see with the game.

I haven’t played in years, came back yesterday and received 150 packs. Pretty insane. Started playing miracle rogue in wild again!

Watching this video having quit HS after Baku’s polarising effect many years ago 😂

I have always enjoyed the tavern brawls where you and your opponent work together to beat the mechano boss. Would be really cool to have a way to play this mode permanently especially with a friend. Not sure about how to monetize this tho.

As an argentinean I dropped the game when they increased the prices hete. There's no way I'm paying Elden Ring's cost for a pre-purchase that won't even get me all the cards from the expansion.

I'm a free to play player. I play enough to reach rank 100 in the rewards track and have about 2.5k gold at the end of each expansion after buying standard packs and the mini-set. I mainly play standard, battlegrounds, solo adventures and tavern brawl. The other modes are either not fun or cost too much gold.

While we know Phil Spencer is visting Blizzard in the next couple weeks (he mentioned it on the xbox podcast on yt) he said to specifically meet with the the teams there as hes meeting KIng this week. I expect things will come out of those meetings

One thing about your subscription option: What happens when the class you payed for gets nerfed in some way and it's not as effective as it was when you bought it. In other words, a Drek'Thar problem. Do you give refunds to those affected? Or they just 'tough' it out, reducing the chance they'll buy such a service or continue playing??

I actually really like Twist I’m one of the few people who invested my gold and money into Caverns of Time rather than Titans this time around since I can only realistically afford one or the other. But I wish they would balance it more but I assume they won’t because it’s a rotating format.

Most people play 1-2 modes and they dont have time to play 3 different ranks modes. PLease make a video about dualmode hearthstone pros and cons- where you could play ranked and battlegrounds or 2 different rank modes at the same time. some games last long some are fast. you could play 2 modes most of the time. for example i usually play for quests and achievements therefore i dont go for high ranks. maybe if dual mode is available i could play deck in one rank mode for quests and other deck for ranked to try to get to legend.

Are you sure that players would have payed more if battlegrounds wasn't around? I do remember when it was launched and i had thought that player count was on a steady drop but would the remaining players have played more standard or would they have gone to other games, (TFT, autochess or other auto battlers) Love your work guys :D please keep it up

I switched from hearthstone to marvel snap half a year ago and I don't regret it. Would love to see "Marvel Snap Mathematics" channel from you guys ;)

One proven way to cross sell between Battlegrounds and Standard would be to rewards Battleground Players with minor discounts on actual card packs. That way you encourage people to buy packs and have a look at standard again, also you're not giving away anything for free since the discounts are literally useless unless players buy something. "Give em a Discount-Certificate, it'll burn a whole in their pocket"

Speaking as an old school hearthstone player (the first thing come out when I started playing was Blackrock Mountain) if there was a monthly fee to pay where you get all the cards to play a format that was just base set through kobolds and catacombs, I would do that. That's the golden age to me anyway.

1. Make daily quests simpler so they can be compleated in any mode. (I can't forge cards in Twist or play any class in Duels.) 2. Make a smaller pool of cards for Twist. They started the first season with more expansions than there are expansions in Standard and no core set. 3. GIVE MORE DECK SLOTS. The deck slots should be separate for each game mode, I don't want to delete my Standard decks because Twist randomly happens to be available. 4. Give more free stuff if you make more buyable stuff. All my gold is spent on buying 60-70 packs on lanch days and minisets for standard. I don't have any excess to spend on Caverns of Time packs. First season they gave two packs for free. Now with new season they gave 0. If they want people to even test the new mode, they need to give enough cards to make a 30 card deck! (Or 40 card deck with the new season...)

Intrestingly it actual moreso an side effect of the dusting system existing at least for older player. Specifically the ability to dust copies of a card below minimum playable copies. As it seems implied here that twist has the potential for cards that are normally not very usable to see play, but most people would have dusted said cards. The suggestion on modifing the pricing on older packs is unfortunately non function with a dusting system, as a card rarity determines it dust value. Finding effective monetisation options is some what iffy for non standard formats, but having the equivalent of loot boxes as the system for obtaining cards your generally going to be fine monetarily.

That’s why you only play battlegrounds. Like, seriously. I recon this game would have been long dead had BGs not released in such a clutch time.

What I dislike most about Twist is that it replaced Classic. As someone who started to play in those early days, I loved being able to return to those decks. If would be cool if they had just gone the next logical step and given us a Classic Naxx mode instead of completely replacing it with Twist.

HS is indeed a hostage to standard. And not only that but sometimes Blizzard has even gone against their own rules regarding standard, removing cards before their time, and making old expansions, that cost real money to old players, completely obsolete. I think that a solution could be stabilize standard and create seasons with specific cards, trying to involve old expansions, also seasons could have their own set of rules, making the game dynamic and attractive to old and new players alike. The problem is monetization, but most people would agree that there are healthier monetization ways than just flooding a game with new cards and new expansions, some of them truly pathetic to be honest. Cheers

The biggest issue is that spending 80 euros only gives people to play 1-2 full decks with the legendaries they really need. The cost is to high of the game.

If there is a sub mode, it will affect the revenue in a Positive way, simply because more ppl will join this train instead of the current situation where it is simply expensive.

I have to say a big fat no to the subscription model idea. I played a bit of WoW at the end of Vanilla, and I have never come back since. I've wanted to. I really enjoyed my time with it. But, I'm not paying a monthly fee for a game. I simply won't do it again. I promise that's a bigger barrier for many than you realize.

Very insightful guys, well done. I haven't seen this issue before you put it right infront of me like that. Damm making a game is very difficult.

Hearthstone can just take reference to master duel/ duel links where you can use rental deck build by official specifically for the event itselves which rotates as time goes during events, while let the meta become diverse.

If you dont play for ~3 months, you get a standard ready deck to choose that can at least get u to gold. They should make this a thing for everyone every new expansion. MTGA gives u a couple starter decks every rotation 1/yr

I agree with alot of what was said Personally, I do agree with the fact that standard has taken hearthstone hostage. Like Magic the gathering, where they have a rotating standard set, hearthstone has put itself on the top of a mountain and has to remain perfectly balanced or they will fall. Unlike magic however, they don't have other game modes that are easy to access. An example being, commander for magic, a format that allows pretty much any card from any generation, and only needing one of them (Rarely more than one) to be needed to play. They sell commander decks while still feeding the standard players with packs of newer and newer sets. Hearthstone, however, only seems to force you down a singular path when they sell packs and decks. Either play this deck in this format, or buy these packs for this one. I recall there was an attempt to sell premade decks for each class, but the decks had such low power level, that they became non excisttant Personally, I believe the proper way to make the game live again, is to sell decks of each class that top legend play for both standard and wild, each month (Or every other). That way, players can pick and choose how they enjoy playing, with a deck that has seen legend, and give them hope to climb the ladder while also backfilling their collection with cards in case they want to build new decks with newer strategies.

My personal take, Standard - it's a nice to play a few times a month. Battlegrounds - don't like it at all. Duels - love it wish it got more support. Sucks we paid for early access to it then it didn't get updates cause battlegrounds got so popular. Twist - I have a fair amount of old cards but it just feels like wild 2.0. But not having all the good cards feels bad.

I feel if they added the ability to get custom variants of cards (similar to how marvel snap does), it would allow a lot more avenues of profit, but there would be the issue of obfuscation as more effects get added to the cards the harder it would be tell what the card is and info about it (like golden borders, card art, effects like reborn divine shield windfury etc.).

The fact that Blizzard released Mercenaries with even the slightest hope of it being successful proves just how delusional and directionless they are when it comes to designing new, original, and monetarily viable ways to play the game.

I am getting annoyed that they keep saying "How could the Developers think this was going to work?", or how "Why didn't the Developers consider the high cost barrier of entery "... Seriously? You think the developers had any say in how to design the monetization to not suck as much money as humanly possible?

I'm a Hearthstone veteran been playing since beta without a break. The only mode I tend to play is Wild mode.

0:20 - Every career review I've ever received

Hey guys good to see you again. Looking forward to the information you're about to share. ❤

What i dont get is why wouldent they let the bg players but the pass with gold? That would basically force them to play the "best gamemode" being standard

Im a medical doctor and was planning to spend 100$ from my first paycheck to buy the biggest Rhastakan rumble bundle in Hearthstone. When I saw that for buying the biggest 100$ bundle, I would only get around 55% of the expansoon and a hero/cardback, I've decided to never buy anythint again from them. The pricepoint is insane.....

I mean the easiest solution would make the wild expansions free only for twist and make twist focus packs ala Caverns of Time packs that cost $/gold.

There is only ONE thing holding Hearthstone back and that is GREED (egregious monetization). This monetization was normal a few years ago BUT nowadays MANY games give PLENTY of free stuff and free "dopamine" to reel us in into the monetization. "We" the player need to feel at least somewhat "respected" and given rewards A LOT in order to feel respected by the company and accept opening up the wallet for them. Look at all the "gacha" games out there in the market right now...they "shower" us with rewards (sometimes). Blizzard is being too "stingy" and "greedy" and THAT is their downfall.

Suggestion : Implementing a Tournament Mode in the game, with a low entry cost (please not brawliseum) with "decent" rewards : cosmetics, packs, etc. etc (indeed with a balance) If it use standard cards, it won't canibalize the current monetisation.

twist failed for the simplest reason they put cards together that weren't designed to be in the same format at the same time they weren't designed for it they weren't balanced for it so to make it work would take alot of rebalancing and card maintenance which is obviously resources they were never going to invest in the format longterm it was doomed from the moment it was conceived add to that the rapidly growing power creep of cards the past few years and nobody seems to understand that you can't do that and maintain the gameplay you can't take chess and replace all the pawns with queens... it just becomes a shitty version of chess

I just wish player health had been buffed as the power level creeped up. Taking 30+ damage in a single turn is very common now.

They need to add prizes to the battlegrounds like cards for the standard game, or add a new mode, where you play with other players and enter a dungeon to take cards, non-packaged cards.

I'm a new player. I got 11% on achievements and I'm level 39. Hope that helps!

Personally, I played until. so far only in the Wild format, because it was the only one that allowed me to use all the cards I had collected over the years. Recently, however, I switched to Standard due to the too repetitive gameplay in Wild (a large number of repeated "on turn 5 opponent destroys you" decks). To my surprise, most of the duels were with bots that couldn't even be reported. From time to time, I also return to solo adventures that are the most valuable to me. This is where you could use many of the custom moves that were later introduced in other modes. You didn't touch on the topic of adventures, and this is where I see Blizzard's greatest opportunity. More than once, I've seen comments from users who missed Dungeon Run or something like that (rewards track, ability to create custom decks, new heroes, special powers, etc.)

If players could trade cards with each other it would solve the problem of high cost entry. For what its worth, boosters should cost 1/3 of the current price, since have no agency over your purchase.

A $5 Usd a month subscription to unlock all cards for 2 classes in all modes would work well. +1$ per additional class. And you grind quests to upgrade cards to golden within your subscription.

New cool modes would be: Boss Mode - You choose 1 out of 3 bosses from ALL solo adventures and play Arena against other player and their bosses. Get a bonus after every match like in Duels. (3 cards + Bonus-Card) All-Star-Battle - Choose a class and play against a player. Use your COMPLETE collection as deck.

For me, the high cost of the rare gamemodes was the motivation to enter them, not standard. Because by the end of the day, I will have more random and variety in gameplay and a chance to earn more gold from unexperienced players. This worked for DUELS perfectly, but it was probably the last competitive alternative that was not abandoned completely...

Its always a bummer when I remember that a certain level of greed is required to keep companies running. Problem is, every single one of them goes way above and beyond what's needed to keep a company profitable.

I thought this argument was well thought out. At some point we have to believe it is a purposeful choice not to promote or provide incentives for new modes. Only a predatory new mode like Mercs could be a “success” because it could extract more from the playerbase than standard.

They destroyed twist by breaking the balance with caverns of time. Like peoppe WONT PLAY if only TWO decks are viable. I dont even play it and i have all of those cards. The best deck in twist is which old archatype got the most broken cards from cot? Handlock got 1 card but the deck is extremly good and handbuff paly exists which forces out other aggro decks from competiting with handlock

they just need to expand on roguelike mechanics as a core to a new mode with decent monetization - but the mode should be really good. perhaps, an idea of raids in coop could attract WoW audience

Great video ! I wonder how this is still possible, that Blizzard allows to farm gold in Mercenaries mode. Do you have some thoughts about this @hearthstonemathematics ?

I'm sad about the price of everything in Hearthstone here in Brazil right now. Before, they had a, let's say, correct policy regarding the pattern here, our currency simply could not be converted into dollars to formulate a final price for the items, as Brazil is not a first world country, more than 90% of the people are lower class. But now, they are practically converting the "Real" currency into the "Dollar", and here, the dollar is five times more expensive in our currency (5 Reais for 1 Dollar) everything is more than twice as expensive... Packages, Expansions, Skins.. I'm really very sad about this. Before, I was used to buy expansions and almost every pack release, skins and etc, but now I can't do it anymore. Again, they are doing it in a wrong way to my country! I hope Microsoft could change this case to a normal state again.

Conclusion of the video: The chase for profit margins makes for lower product quality and kills innovation.

i reject this notion of efficiency. I get if you have mode A and you introduce mode B that is less profitable but may absorb some % of your incoming new players that's theoretically less money But if your game dies because you cash in and withdraw from the bank of "good game design" by power creeping the game and then also don't introduce new mode that plays better than the mode you allowed to devolve then the product as a whole is worth less $ Because that's literally what's happening So great, you got your "efficiency" but it doesn't mean anything if your game is dead in 5 years because it plays like shit World of Warcraft is still going, still making money... Minecraft still incredibly successful... MTG still going at it (MTG has legitimate classic formats) So no, i call bullshit The leadership cashed in on goodwill and good initial game design and withdrew from that "bank" to artificially prop up revenue the last several years and it has hollowed out the value of the game in general... And big surprise... blizzard was being sold before that hollow bubble really collapsed Strange coincidence

The problem with HS is that bc im forced to play standard, unless i wanna fork over hundreds every quarter, I'm just gonna disenchant all of my cards that are rotated out so i can make decks. If hearthstone switches out into a wild or twist focused format, i'd rather quit than buy back all the cards ive disenchanted

I have really enjoyed when they make the repeatable solo adventures. If they would make more of these I’m sure they would see more profit.

The main goal of battlegrounds is not to profit out of it, is to keep player retention in order to get them back to Standard format, if you log in to Battlegrounds and a new expansion comes in, there is bigger chances you will give a try to go back to standard compare to not having installed the game at all, Battlegrounds purpose is solely to get players to go back to Standard

Twist would be amazing… if Rogue was banned

Unlimited greed is what broke hearthstone. Paying each expansion about 600€ to play for just a couple months, to spent the same money in the blink of an eye.

I love this channel, they always deliver such high quality material since a lot of time ago.

I hated twist, but i was forced to play it via the special quests which would've affected my standard gameplay, so i would best twist decks with very basic decks full of mostly core cards

i pray that Marvel Snap doesn't do the same mistake, its only year old, but we only have one new game mode and i have mix feeling about it, hope they add new stuff soon and keep it unlike Hearthstone when dev's don't want push it, which is terrible you going just bleed out older players and not gain new ones.

Lots of people I know play BG because it is FREE and will never spend a dime. They will always forego standard mode because of the constant expense to stay competitive. They would be tempted back with a sub if done correctly. A basic subscription model that unlocks all the standard cards and a more premium one that unlocks the ALL the GOLD & unique and wild cards for a season makes the most sense. Thus the whales and veteran collectors will still buy because they don't want to fall behind on their collections and the subscription model will let new and returning players be competitive. They can protect the precious whales and increase their appeal to new and returning players. Win win strategy. Also if they introduced card trading system that is a whole other level of monetization incentive they can use to get people to purchase cards.

What if they put a button that had "Eras" that were permanent. Were it takes us back to old formats and we can pick and choose our favorite ones. If it is temporary it makes going into them pointless. They must sell complete deck at super cheap for old obsolete cards atleast.

Twist was supposed to be like tavern brawl where there were monthly variations in deckbuilding. The first season no neutrals was reasonable. Now it’s just classic all over again. Battlegrounds breaks your argument as that was and is a success.

Ive been playing Heartstone since it came out and other than standard, Duels is my favorite mode. I have several suggestions on how to fix Heartstones problems. 1. Make it possible to buy a characters full selection of cards (meaning old, new it doesnt matter) You should be able to one click purchase EVERY PREIST CARD. Also if you do not have what ever that costs you should be able to "rent" or pay a subscription to have full access to EVERY card of a particular class for a set amount of time. There should also be in game ways of doing these things like winning 12 duels matches, or reaching top 1k legend in standard. But this will help increase playable and profit in ALL GAME MODES!

Any news about the 15 days that will take us off the reward path? In my opinion it is a very bad move for those of us who pay for content.

I think looking at it like "it being hostage to Standard" isn't quite right. Yes, the monetization of Standard is prioritized, but that is not a problem; it is key. For reference you should analyze the changes to Magic the Gathering over the last 7 years. They made changes to how they sell their product, how players get rewarded, and what their target audience is. In brought it a lot of new people, disenfranchised old players, and made them lots of money in the short term. The more time passes they more they are setting themselves up for collapse. The goal was simple: People play lots of formats (especially Commander) other than Standard, how do they monetize them and make more money? They wanted everyone to buy their new expensive products and make more money, while still making money off the old Standard model. Wizards of the Coast made several changes that seemingly increased profits, but damaged the existing economic structure. * They added new booster types at higher price points, each targeting different types of players. > Nobody wanted the original booster type any more. They blamed consumers for not wanting it, even though they shorted game stores on supply and drafters had to awkwardly use the newer expensive boosters. People got less interested in drafting and the game got more expensive. In the short term people spent more, in the long term, they had less players. (Eventually they decided to merge these boosters back into fewer types -- but now it costs more). * They changed the way competitive players get fame and rewards and access to events. They began prioritizing people who were already known, but weirdly also prioritized people who were known for non-magic things (especially streamers). > Existing competitive players found the new system confusing and nearly impossible to climb. Many competitive players stopped trying to work for something unattainable and stopped buying product. New players were pulled in from other places. Again, in the short term people spent more, in the long term, they had less players. * They added sets designed to target specific players and specific formats. Both for reprints, but also for new cards. > Existing players who played old formats but didn't want to spend money stopped playing. New players bought those sets to compete, but were still short on older cards that were not available. Again, in the short term people spent more, in the long term, they had less players. (The majority of Casual/Commander players buy whatever arbitrary product per cycle and it doesn't really affect them - but many of them don't spend money at all). * They massively pushed the power level of cards in each new set release in order to incentivize people to buy product to compete. > See the notes above. Those who like stability left and newer players bought product. Older cards are still hard to get, the formats are all warped and lack diversity. More money in the short term, less players in the long term. * And more > Most decision seem to have the same results: the target audience gets a new product (existing or new players), lots of it gets bought, but each format seems to get harder to play. Value and incentives are both low. Money is made, but the existing player base doesn't want to spend more money. So they repeat the cycle targeting new players more and more. The irony of course being that Standard already was a good entry point for new players, and a great place to pull existing players back in with juicy (if infrequent) reprints. It also means new players have cards to trade to old players. Here is the truth: prioritizing Standard means supporting all formats. When you prioritize Standard you have a clear method for ALL players on how to get new cards: buy the newest set. Since each set was designed to have cards that fit into all formats, and for each type of player, it meant everyone had a reason to buy it. People want to see new cards, so its good for competitive players that seek an audience. It's also good for new players that only need to worry about the new (and smaller) card pool, which is readily available. The low adoption rate for older formats is good because those players who don't want to spend lots of money will settle for spending a little to get the few new things they need. Additionally, their comfort and familiarity with the older formats remains a skillset they can utilize. Since this is no longer true, and individual sets are made for each type of player: people will only buy what they need and revenue is split up. This makes it easier to see what people want but means that the less profitable sets get support dropped: they will remove support, have less players, and begin to make less money over time. (They did it with the Core set once, because it was always the least profitable set. They noted the effects and brought it back. They dropped it again when transitioning to their new model; what a stupid mistake.) The ultimate thing that makes prioritizing all players into a single set: trading / there are always cards you want and cards someone else wants. You will generally always get either something you want or something of value. In sets designed for a precise rather than broad audience, meeting that criteria is much harder. The value of cards goes down, even if prices go up. In a weird way, everyone both has what they want and yet not enough value. Individual cards are cheap, but they're harder to get. There are less players who want to play, so there's less reason to buy. I will say there is a notable difference for Hearthstone where you don't trade with players... but it doesn't matter because dust is actually a really good analogue. Even in real life you don't get full value from trades. You buy cards, get a bunch of stuff you want (everyone always does), then you trade (or dust) the rest and fill in the blanks. Everyone can do this through one model. Everyone gets what they want. If you break this simple feature, you break the whole economy of your game.

Twist has a couple problems but the main problem is it should have been the way the game was in 2017, period. Not with all the cards that have been buffed (and nerfed) since then, not with DOZENS more buffed cards added for the mode, and not with all the new cards added as well. Just make it like classic, but a few years later. That's all they needed to do. 2017 was the best time of HS. It was a lot more popular than Classic. There's a lot of things we love that was in the game in 2017 like discover and randomness that Classic didn't have. Classic had hardly any randomness at all and so it was boring to most players and that's why it failed as a game mode. Twist's other big problem is each thing lasts only a month. They should have done like what they did with Classic WoW, adding more expansions over time. They could easily monetize it by requiring a subscription and I'd be totally ok with paying that. But meh. It is what it is.

I would like a game mode without any otk and 0 mana cost . We could have name it "value mode" . It would make the game so much better.

Why they cannot just add 1 old expansion (like GvG) yearly to standard? Everyone would be satisfied.

Thinking about the instant profit is just greedy. It is also important the stability. Mercenaries got a lot of money when it was just released (I guess). But it died. So at the end the profit from that game was low. It would be better medium profit in a game with long life. So I would worry more about the life of the game than about the short term profit.

If blizzard was a good company then the twist format would have all cards in the game at the same time for all players. It would be the perfect mode for those who don’t want to grind but want to play different decks and experiment. And because you have all the cards they can just remove the rating system and just make it a casual once a day experience. And that’s just a dream because hearthstone is not a game. It’s another blizzards money farm

Hostage as hell. Played since beta but only log in a few times a year for the last 5 years or so. Game could be so much more.😢

More cards is not the wrong strategy , it’s a card game.

I think you are generally correct but economically speaking higher than necessary prices are (as you acknowledged with twist) inherently prohibitive. Lowering prices makes the product available to more people, thus bringing in larger profits like Walmart or Costco pricing model. HS prices as if it is a physical card game by making everything in the shop exorbitantly expensive. Like you say the pricing model needs to be revolutionized. I think the player experience would be much better if they lower the cost of bundles, increased how many cards come in a pack, and focus on creating many more signatures and monetizing those