Hearthstone Arena drafts to offer cards of similar power levels, add BlizzCon cards

The Hearthstone team is trying to even out Arena drafting… and that means wresting control away from the RNG gods. Winning or losing in Hearthstone can be all about RNG. Playing to win — or, as some might say, paying to win — is all about having the right cards in your hand when you need them. Some of that’s about smart deckbuilding and strategy, but a lot is still about getting that lucky card draw.

In the Arena, this is even more true. When you draft an Arena deck, you’re at the mercy of 30 rounds of RNG as you pick card by card until you have a deck full of, you hope, at least slightly coordinated randomness. Making the most of RNG is, after all, part of the challenge of the game. But when it comes to Arena drafts, random doesn’t mean equitable. In a talk about upcoming Arena changes, Lead Systems Designer Kris Zierhut notes that you can get drafts like the one below: Fireball, Ice Barrier, and Wisp.

They’re all common cards, but the game isn’t presenting you with any real choice: even though these cards are the same rarity, there’s only one card to pick out of this lineup. (Zierhut doesn’t say which one, but I assume it’s the Wisp. You always draft the Wisp. Unless that’s why I’m a terrible Arena player.) But this lack of compelling card choices make Arena drafts dull — and it’s about to change. Zierhut offers the draft below as an alternative: Fireball, Leyline Manipulator, and Primordial Drake.

Though these cards are all different rarities, picking between them isn’t a no-brainer: you have to chose the card that best fits the deck you’re trying to build. (Wait, where’s the Wisp? I was going to pick the Wisp!) Starting in update 10.4, Arena drafts will be more like the one above, with cards that may have different rarities but definitely have similar power levels. Hand-in-hand with this change, picks one, 10, 20, and 30 will continue to have a guaranteed Rare-quality card or better. If the RNG gods bless you, definitely better.

Zierhut’s two draft examples offer a stark look at why change is needed, but such a perfectly bad and perfectly good Arena draft are equally unlikely. Right now you get some draft rounds where you only get one card (or no cards) you want, but I doubt that shaking up the rarities means we’ll suddenly get a choice of three great cards every pick. However, Blizzard’s phrasing — “each Arena pick in a draft will feature three cards of relatively equal power level” — is vague enough that it’s hard to say exactly what will change. And that means we’ll just have to wait and see what happens — and if it has the effect Blizzard hopes.

Also joining the Arena, finally, are the nine cards that fans voted on at BlizzCon. They’ll be available for Arena play for a limited time only, though it isn’t clear just what that limited time will be.

We don’t have a launch date for Update 10.4, so look out for this to launch Soon™ and check the full post for all the details.