Meet longtime gaming personality, Kripparrian © Kripparian

Most players nowadays seem to focus on Hearthstone's "Constructed" mode and its ever-shifting meta. But especially during the dark days of low amounts of gold and dust, almost every player found themselves gravitating toward the “Arena," the game's draft format.

That was when one of the most popular figures of today's Hearthstone scene came into the game and shaped the playstyle of the Draft format like nobody else did. Octavian Morosan, better known as Kripparrian, is not only one of the most active Arena players in Hearthstone, but also a premier content creator and a true master of his craft.

The science of gaming

While many of his fans were introduced to Kripparrian's content after the release of Hearthstone, he has been around for much longer. During this time he treated every game the same: "Once you know everything about a game, you can start connecting dots and executing strategies that other players won't know about. I would often put a lot of the information I would know and develop performance models for different builds.

"Ultimately, I've been successful in so many video games because I've treated it like a science, and took it more seriously than others," says the multi-game expert. While many of his Hearthstone followers may not realize it, Kripparrian put his name on the map of the internet by making videos of min-maxing his hunter play in WoW back in 2009.

The many emotive faces of Kripparrian © Kripparian

Treating games like a science has been the main characteristic of Kripp's play regardless of the title he has been playing at the time. This approach has led to some impressive successes. How else would he have been able to achieve such feats as getting the World First Kill on Hardcore Inferno Diablo back in the days of vanilla Diablo 3?

Card games, as well as any game that requires copious amounts of theorycrafting, have a special place in Kripp's heart. So have titles of the Warcraft universe. "I have played Magic: the Gathering, and several other TCGs, and every Warcraft themed Blizzard game for the greater part of my life. The theme and setting of Hearthstone made it an instant hit for me."

As stated before, Kripp always has been one of the most insightful arena players in the community, and his love for the Draft format of Hearthstone has its roots in traditional trading card games. "I like the idea of Constructed, and enjoy the process of coming up with and playtesting a new deck, but in Hearthstone and all other card games I've played, I get bored of playing the same deck after a few hours — regardless of its success. But the Arena format in Hearthstone ended up delivering on exactly what I wanted, and continues to do so."

Nevertheless, most Hearthstone players don't have that relationship to the Draft mode, and those who love Arena nowadays are greatly outnumbered by the mode's critics. The problems behind this trend are complex, but not being able to see some sort of progress and the other possibilites of getting gold and dust in the game seem to be main reasons for its decline in popularity on first sight.

"Arena received many new additions as well!" notes Kripp. He warns that people should not underestimate the amount of depth the Arena format gained, especially after the release of Whispers of the Old Gods.

On the other side, he can see a kind of downtrend within the strategy of the format: "With so many cards, so many perfect answers, and the chance of your opponent having the one exact card being so low, it will soon become the best decision almost every time to play around nothing and hope you do not get punished for your plays. I think Arena will have to eventually follow a similar Standard format to combat this."

Cutthroat Arena

What it boils down to when talking about a successful play mode is not only the depth of strategy but much more the amount of motivation it can generate, and that is why many people would love to see the introduction of a ranking system for Arena.

But full-time players such as Kripp know the drill and the true feeling of grinding out games in Constructed: "While ranked has a progression system, this tends to lose all incentives once a player hits Legend once, and often before. It is, in fact, Constructed play that is missing a reason or reward to play for many players." While this thought may sound somewhat counterintuitive, it is one that many Legend players share.

This is where the Arena format should deliver to its players in the form of rewards after a successful run with a drafted deck. While many players already give up during the run because it seems to be too competitive, others stay through it to the end only to get a pack with already owned cards and some gold or dust. Kripp has, as one could have already imagined, a logical solution for this problem: "The best way to solve this is to scale down the cost and reward of the system. I have suggested that the guaranteed pack be removed from the rewards, and have Arena cost 100 less gold. If the cost of getting better is lowered, many more people will play Arena."

Kripparrian fashions himself as a games scientist © Kripparian

While this could solve the issues for casual players, professionals have even less incentives to play Arena, and that is why many of them would love to see a competitive Draft format. "I think most pro players are short sighted on this issue," says Kripp. "In a constructed tournament, the better player will win a game 65 percent of the time at best. If the players must draft their decks, the extra level of randomness puts the better player to win the match right around 50 percent. Knowing how many wins your opponent has in Arena also informs you of the strength of their deck and allows you to mulligan properly, and play around specific cards that they are likely to have — this skill is lost completely in any tournament format."

The trials of Challengestone

To capture the fun of a Draft format in a competitive scenario, many tournament organizers like Kripp have come up with different ideas such as Challengestone. While those kind of competitions always seem to be very successful on Twitch, they still require a lot of effort, something Kripp and his girlfriend Rania know from firsthand experience. When asked about a third iteration of Challengestone, Kripp answers: "Rania and I do not have the resources to organize Challengestone all on our own, so when a helping hand comes in, as Tempo Storm, we can go through with our ideas. We believe it is the best and most fun way to incorporate deckbuilding in a tournament format, and have been very happy with the results and public response."

After speaking with Kripp about Hearthstone's Draft mode, the itch to hit the Arena button in-game grows strong once again. The Arena encapsulates many aspects of what makes Hearthstone fun: suspense, skill, and a little bit of chance. And with Kripparrian's ability to condense those things down into engaging and fascinating discussions around cards, games, and situations, it's no wonder that he is one of the most beloved Hearthstone figures around.