Design

After Hearthstone's recent balance changes in Patch 9.1, the game's meta has shifted drastically. Currently there is a deck from every class in tier 1-2. That’s right, every single class has a playable deck. This is the first time...

I’ve recently started to notice a phenomenon in competitive gaming. It’s something I saw in League of Legends years ago, and was reminded of in brutal soul-crushing fashion last week when I played Destiny 2's PvP mode. In the...

Physical merchandise often seems to be an afterthought when it comes to online multiplayer games. Unlike Mario and Pokemon, which have been heavily merchandised by Nintendo, League of Legends, Heroes of the Storm, CS:GO, and Team Fortress 2 have...

Recently, we discussed what skill ceilings and skill floors are. One of the things we touched on in the article was that Hearthstone, because of the emphasis on deck creation, is home to plenty of viable decks that have an...

Hearthstone’s Patch 9.1.0 nerfed a variety of cards, including Innervate, Spreading Plague, Hex, Fiery War Axe, and Murloc Warleader. When I discussed the patch, I figured that the changes would hurt the top decks, but probably wouldn't remove them....

‘Skill floor’ and ‘skill ceiling’ are terms you will likely come across when playing or discussing competitive gaming. But what do these words actually mean? It’s not too hard to grasp the basics, but understanding how these concepts play...

Hearthstone has always been a game of one player against one player. There are a few small instances of player versus computer, and even smaller of cooperative players, but these are few and far between. In all other cases,...

When it comes to Hearthstone combos, luck usually plays a very small role. A combo in Hearthstone refers to playing a specific set of cards that lead to your opponent's death. This means that a combo usually deals ~30...

The Battle Royale genre isn’t new. The clearest inspiration is arguably the 2000 film "Battle Royale" about students trapped on an island who must fight to the death. But even then, the concept wasn’t exactly new. Games are no...

Jeff Kaplan. The man. The meme. The legend. If you play Overwatch, you’ll have an intimate relationship with the man behind it all. If you don’t, there’s still a decent chance you’ll have seen some videos of Jeff over...

Nerfs are officially coming to Hearthstone. After the past month of Druid dominating ladder, Blizzard finally decided to do something about it. But it's not just Druid who's getting some tweaks. Several staple cards have been hit by Blizzard's...

The current Hearthstone meta revolves entirely around Druid. At rank one, Druids make up over 60% of the decks, and across all decks, that number sits at around 30%. For the sake of our collective sanity, we're going to...