by Aidan

Hey readers! With the recent addition of Tavern Brawl and the success of Challengestone, I was interested to see if these new formats are more beneficial to players than originally thought.

What’s Challengestone you ask? The streamer and community figure known as Kripparian or Kripp is now working on his fourth iteration of Challengestone, a tournament dedicated to put a player’s skill to the test, with many renditions giving the players a time limit to create three decks that fit under the tourney ruleset. Each edition features its own unique rules that the players will have to adapt to, showing that they’re not only great players but amazing deckbuilders as well. Challengestone is casted by Kripp himself, along with his co-casters Artosis and Gaara, and many more Hearthstone pros and celebrities following suit in the future.

After his return from GamesCom, Kripp was kind enough to answer some questions about some of the recent new formats and Challengestone itself:

1. What inspired the creation of Challengestone?

Rania (Kripp’s partner) and I talked about future plans one of the times we went out last summer, and she suggested that we could run our own tournament with perhaps an interesting rule set. On the first day the best idea we came up with is having a format where each participant named 2 cards, and each of those cards would have to be included in every deck.

2. Does Challengestone have any sort of goal?

The goal of Challengestone is to highlight players who have exceptional deck building skills, as all normal tournaments no longer challenge this. Also to deliver a great viewing experience of course!

3. What are your opinions on the Tavern Brawl format and the past brawls we have seen?

The Tavern Brawl format is great, it has unlimited potential. So far a lot of the brawls have been lackluster, but early in development and with a new one each week, there is reason to expect gradual improvement.

4. Do you find Tavern Brawl to have a competitive edge, to be a casual mode, or something else entirely?

Tavern Brawl is pretty close to a real casual mode, as results really don't matter. A lot of players use the mode just to have a lot of fun, and as a good means to complete daily quests.

5. What do formats like Challengestone and Tavern Brawl bring to the Hearthstone table? Do you think these formats benefit the community/playerbase?

Challengestone brings a completely different side of competitive play to the tournament scene, which most players seem to like, and often participate in challenges with their friends. Tavern Brawl seems to mostly satisfy the curiosity of players by showing what is possible within this type of game engine.