Why format diversity is the most important thing for Hearthstone’s future



Photo: Frederike Schmitt / DreamHack

I adore Hearthstone.

The game came out at the perfect moment, right when my craving for a quality CCG caused by the departure of Magic: The Gathering from my life due to lack of time and finances became nigh unbearable. Upon picking it up, it became my new obsession. I haven't been so engulfed and in love with a game since StarCraft: BroodWar and as the Hearthstone scene developed and tournaments started popping up, it merged two of my biggest passions – card games and eSports – into an amalgam that made every day special.

Keep those words of mine in mind as you read the next:

Looking back at all the games I've followed, none has had a greater need of outside-the-box thinking as Hearthstone.



Competitive Hearthstone in its current form is not terribly exciting to watch.

Before you cast aside any sympathy for me you might've had after the opening paragraph and nail me to the cross, I encourage you to pause those urges for a little while and bear with me as I explain further. Hearthstone is not a spectator sport. Some will argue that it's not even a sport to begin with. It’s a slow-paced game that consumes a lot of attention. The plays and moves are not flashy, or breathtaking, or eye-catching. In fact, when a player showcases his mastery of Hearthstone, it's often in a very subtle way and only apparent to those really invested in the game. The faint beauty of thinking three turns ahead and playing around several different outcomes – while incredibly complex – will not move a crowd.

What will cause excitement, instead, is the 4-damage Imp-losion or getting Kel'Thuzad from Sneed's Old Shredder or top-decking lethal that turns the tide of the game, but those situations, too, get repetitive over time. As much as we like to shout “ESPORTS” at every RNG roll, this type of cheer cannot glue viewers to the screen indefinitely. For comparison, put on any high-level competition from a traditional esport like Counter-Strike or Dota and you will see what I mean. Hearthstone will never cause grand hallways to roar.





This will never happen at a Hearthstone tournament

And while that's all OK as you can't force an esport to be something it isn't and never will be, it's nevertheless a pendant problem for its future. To be entertaining and alluring, an esport needs to develop, to change, to evolve. Game developers who've understood this have their products dominate the market. At the same time, there are multiple examples where even a short period of staleness can do terrible, terrible damage to a game.

Here, one would think that Hearthstone has the perfect cure against gameplay dreariness as after all new cards get released every so often. That's correct, but only to a small degree as Hearthstone remains one of the slowest updating card games in existence (why that is so and if it is good for the game is a different discussion altogether). For the entire 2014, a total of 153 new collectible cards were released between Curse of Naxxramas and Goblins vs Gnomes and with a few notable exceptions, they shook the state of the game very mildly. Since then, we've been given another 160-something batch of cards and two years and four expansions later, the number of new cards introduced to the game is still less than the original batch present at launch.

The periods of freshness after each expansion release are short and the titillation that accompanies new content fades rather quickly.



Today, with 30 million players, a vibrant and expanding competitive community and daily broadcasts of ladder and tournament matches, the metagame of Hearthstone gets figured out and streamlined into its optimal state with a rapid pace. The periods of freshness after each expansion release are short and the titillation that accompanies new content fades rather quickly.

Speaking of competitive community, the ideology of the 2015 Road to BlizzCon season to a large degree also failed to produce stories that excite the esports fans. While the enforcing of open qualifiers for major events was a necessary step towards improving the scene, the players who came out of those qualifiers and went on to win major events remain nevertheless overshadowed by old fandoms. Even with the success of Hawkeye, Hoej, Orange, PHONETAP and others, a new generation of star players was never born. For the most part, the face of competitive Hearthstone remained the same as last year.

Combined, the two issues described above form a very stale tournament scene and get us back to the opening thesis of this article. Competitive Hearthstone gets repetitive quickly. Scenarios keep reoccurring to the point we cannot distinguish one match from the other. The around-the-clock production and broadcasting of tournament content only accelerates the process of stagnation. As organizers prefer to not take risks and follow proven methods by the letter, the novelty factors get lost and the thrill of approaching competition with it. The viewers no longer have to wait for the next DreamHack to watch Kolento play Lifecoach – only till next Friday when yet another Bo5 conquest single elimination tournament with those same 16 players begins.

All that said, there are a number of initiatives which have understood the importance of being unique and are examples which every tournament organizer should pay close attention to. In one way or another, they’ve managed to either create new experiences or to twist and spin existing practices, turning renovation into innovation.

Take Viagame's HouseCup, for example. When the tournament launched in October 2014, at first glance it looked like a rehash of the HomeStory/SeatStory recipe of TakeTV and if Viagame had stopped there we would have had another copy-cat tournament which gets forgotten a week later. This is where the pick-ban format, which remains unique to Viagame to this day, makes the event stand out. With additional layers of strategy added to the game, each HouseCup puts players in scenarios they do not get to experience on a regular basis. It's a celebration of deckbuilding and strategizing and one of the juiciest events for Hearthstone analysts to pick apart. Renovation into innovation, remember?



HouseCup is much more than a bunch of people playing Hearthstone in a room somewhere

Archon's Team League took the same approach to become the most watched online tournament of this summer. ATLC borrowed elements which are not exactly new to Hearthstone and reimagined them perfectly, filling up the content holes perfectly by delivering an English-casted team league with its own unique set of rules. Without a doubt, a huge part of ATLC's success lies with the player and broadcasting talent behind it, but make no mistake – the ideas that lay in its foundations are just as critical, if not more.

The more conveyor-belt content we're fed, the less entertaining Hearthstone will become over time.

Other tournaments like Lord of the Arena and Challengestone were even bolder, despite their smaller scale, in the sense that they took previously unexplored paths and created entirely new experiences. With the standard of most Hearthstone tournaments being ordinary constructed play, putting competitors out of their comfort zone and making them use cards or strategies they would never ever consider is a concept that's destined for success from the get go.

Ultimately, that's what every tournament organizer should try to do. Striving to create something extraordinary is absolutely vital to the future of Hearthstone as it's the most effective medicine against the very nature of the game. The more conveyor-belt content we're fed, the less entertaining Hearthstone will become over time. If tournaments are to forge a legacy, be remembered and become a centerpiece in the growth of the esport, they must not be lulled by the accepted standards and take the road most travelled by. Looking back at all the games I've followed in my career as an eSports writer, none has had a greater need of outside-the-box thinking as Hearthstone.

Nobody's saying this will come easy. Then again, nothing good ever does.