Hearthstone is one of the fastest growing CCGs I’ve ever seen and it’s not hard to see why. Between its easy to learn, hard to master learning curve and a visual presentation that is not only clean but functional, Hearthstone upholds the well established level of quality that Blizzard is known for. However, there is still room for improvement not only in game design but also in their approach to the competitive scene. While Blizzard has done a great job of setting up the game for casual players and professional players alike, I feel like they’ve neglected a noticeable subset of their audience, specifically the group I’ve taken to calling the “Semi-pros”. In this context Semi-pros are the players who are both knowledgeable enough about competitive Hearthstone to understand the competitive metagame but haven’t reached either the skill or the collection that competitive hearthstone requires. Some of these are professional hopefuls, but many are simply skilled players that either don’t have the time or resources to make a go at the professional scene. To equate it to Hearthstone’s grizzled older brother Magic: the Gathering, they are the type of players who are able to consistently win or top 8 at local gaming stores, the semi-judges that newer players are often directed to for help about the rules of the game. I feel like this group of players is often ignored in regards to Blizzard’s plans, the length of time required for extra deck slots to be implemented and the glacial response to certain dominant deck strategies, being prime examples. But how can Blizzard remedy this? The answer is through the addition of the sideboard.

For the uninitiated a sideboard is a subset of a player’s deck that can be swapped out in response to particular deck match-ups. These extra cards can be used for combatting a variety of decks. Teching in extra heals against an aggro deck or kill spells to disrupt specific combos are both examples of how the sideboard is used to add flexibility to decks. It adds an additional level of skill to the game, that rewards players for understanding the metagame. There are a plethora of ways to implement sideboards as well. You could make matches best two out of three with sideboarding in between games or keep the single game method and simply allow pregame sideboarding. Both have benefits and shortcomings but regardless, the general idea of having a pool of cards to switch out is what we’re talking about here.

It increases Design Space

To illustrate this point let’s first look at a card.

This guy has a useful ability (Silence) and has a competitive stat line. However, it is unlikely to see play because the ability can only be used on a narrow amount of minions that are used by only one of the game’s classes. In fact, in the current design of the game there are two likely alternatives for this card, both which are rather bleak: If this card is widely played it will only be because a demon focused Warlock deck makes up such a large portion of the meta that these types of cards are required to be in your deck or it never sees play because it requires the opponent is not only playing warlock but is also playing silenceable demons.

Light’s Champion is not the only card like this Blizzard has printed several cards like it that are incredibly situational or seemingly designed to combat a single dominant decks. Chillmaw for example was a card created to defeat the Grim Patron deck, a deck that’s strategy was focused on creating a large amount of 3 health minions. These cards are not badly designed in of themselves but with the current state of the competitive scene they are unlikely to ever see play outside of fringe decks. However, with sideboards these cards may find a new home. By allowing cards like Light’s champion to be swapped in it when a player knows they are playing a Warlock, cards that are otherwise too narrow gain new purpose. In addition, it opens up a lot more creative space for Blizzard to create cards. Cards focusing on specific minion types and strategies can be created without the worry they’ll never see play. It also allows cards targeted at specific highly effective decks to do their jobs, meaning that instead of fans complaining that a card should be nerfed Blizzard can actually print cards that specifically counter those dominant strategies. This even allows Blizzard to better deal with sleeper power cards like Grim Patron or Mysterious Challenger, without having to nerf them. This will obviously aid professionals but I believe it will help Semi-pros the most, as it rewards them for taking the time to learn about the current metagame. It is an additional level of skill testing to know which cards to switch out.

They make Tournaments more accessible

image via Matthew Marinett

Hearthstones current tournament scene is unfortunately quite difficult to get into if you’re coming straight from the game. Due to Hearthstone’s nature as an online experiences it lacks the small local venue scene of games like Magic: the Gathering. While it is true that the Hearthstone community has rallied together and created quite a few impressive tournaments, some even sanctioned by Blizzard, players still have to actively seek out these tournaments on forums or through sources like Reddit. Additionally, Conquest the most popular format for Hearthstone tournaments has quite a high preset bar for entry. Conquest tournaments require 3 decks, each from a different one of the nine classes, meaning that to participate you need 3 fully built, competitive decks. While Hearthstone may have a much lower monetary entry requirement when compared to games like Magic or Yu-gi-oh, this is nevertheless very difficult for players who are not willing to drop hundreds on packs to get the legendaries or dust to make their decks. People argue that this format encourages more classes to be played but that largely has to do with the current metagame. Barring a couple exceptions, Blizzard has done a good job up to this point in regards to maintaining diversity Hearthstones competitive metagame, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t possible that a situation could arise where there are only 3 dominant decks in the meta. In this situation tournaments could easily become as stagnant as many claim single deck tournaments would be. I believe with the addition of sideboards, more innovative decks can be built. Decks can build around new game plans and use their sideboards as a means of combating dominant deck archetypes. Instead of needing the 3 most competitive decks, a single deck and a well made sideboard would allow players to become acclimated to competitive play but not have to learn 3 distinct play styles while doing so. Instead of having to bring rock, paper and scissors you can instead bring a single Swiss Army Knife. Sideboards lower the entry cost and would allow more players to participate in tournaments.

They can be made Optional

Many arguments against sideboards claim that Blizzard will never implement them because they are too hard for casual players. The answer is to simply make them an optional feature. In a very intelligent move Blizzard recently added a deck recipe feature that guides newer players on how to construct competitive decks. Why couldn’t this be used for sideboards as well? All this requires is a simple option after deck creation asking “would you like to build a sideboard?”, accompanied by a simple explanation and guide on which cards to pick. If players wanted to they could chose to let the game build them one or simply avoid making one all together. You can claim that this would give more skilled players an additional advantage against new players that decide not to use it but it wouldn’t necessarily be as bad as you may think. Sideboards are usually designed to either defeat a small amount of specific decks or shore up a deck’s weaknesses against those top-tier decks. The fact is that new players will rarely be playing these higher quality decks, with the exception being some of the cheaper aggressive decks. This means that in many cases, very tailored sideboards will be much less useful when playing against the basic decks of new players. Once again it’s a way for Blizzard to add an optional feature that would significantly improve the play experience.

All this is not to say that Blizzard is doing a terrible job handling Hearthstone. They have already decided to implement a format system to keep newer players from simply being crushed by vast collections of veterans and their strategy of releasing smaller adventures between big sets is a great way to add a small amount of new cards to mix up the metagame. However, there are still a few features that need to be implemented for players who take the time to learn the game and may be aiming for the professional scene. Instead of just having ranked as your sole skill testing game mode, the implementation of a in-game sanctioned tournament mode, in addition to sideboards, may be a way to bridge the gap between the semi and real pros. Despite some of the changes that introducing sideboards would require, for example nerfing cards like Harrison Jones that would be auto-includes in many sideboards, I hope Hearthstone implements sideboards because it opens up more opportunities, for growing the game, the community and competitive scene.