Blizzard is Making Changes to Hearthstone's Ranked Play

In an announcement today, Blizzard is changing the way Ranked battle play works in Hearthstone. One of the changes is all ranks now having 5 stars to progress. One of the larger changes, at the end of the season, you will drop exactly 4 ranks. This is to prevent high skill players from having to grind back up as far, and from destroying lower skilled players on their path back up.

I tried to get into Hearthstone. Played MTG decades ago, but it never really caught my attention, and building a good deck was either too random or too costly to get the virtual cards. Perhaps with these changes I'll give it another go.

The update should allow players at the top of the ladder to jump into the action immediately by matching them against similarly-ranked opponents, providing more engaging matches while reducing the time it will take for them to climb to a rank appropriate for their skill-level each season. This in turn should improve matchmaking for everyone who plays Hearthstone, including those climbing the ladder for the first time. Since players will be more evenly matched at the start of each season, they can make immediately meaningful progress toward their ladder ranking against players of similar caliber.

So is this game like playing cards pretty much online? Like related to online poker but with graphics?

Rahh said:

So is this game like playing cards pretty much online? Like related to online poker but with graphics?

Click to expand...

Kind of, it's one of the many (although more popular) online card games. Holds the carrot out to tempt you with "free card packs", but the reality is if you want to be competitive you do need to fork over money and pay for more card packs. Not that you can't have fun playing it without spending money, just don't be disillusioned that you'll make it to some high tier ranks without spending a dime. The game can be extremely frustrating for new people too, you could very easily get thrown into matches against people who have way different cards that you have, and it can seem (and probably is) unfair.

That said, comparing it to online poker would be like comparing chess to checkers or something just because they both use a board.

Rahh said:

So is this game like playing cards pretty much online? Like related to online poker but with graphics?

Click to expand...

It's a CCG more in line with MTG, Pokémon, Yugioh etc. Basically spend money on booster packs, hope you get lucky cause you can't do shit without certain cards.

I've seen the issue they speak of. My victory rate is significantly higher towards the end of the season than it is in the beginning.

Ive been playing hearthstone for free for awhile (always do the daily quest). Once your established you can make one deck per season without spending any money. The trouble is, if you build a bad deck your season is shot.

NeghVar said:

I've seen the issue they speak of. My victory rate is significantly higher towards the end of the season than it is in the beginning.

Click to expand...

Mine as well. Also I noticed that the time of day I play has a highger win rate. if I play around 2-3pm central I win about 80% of my matches. anytime outside of that more like 40%.