I started playing this again a few months ago, because I found out that they were giving old players free "catch up" packs that contained up to 50 cards, based on how many cards you had from the latest set. So I'd say this is a 5 star game if you can reliably get the cards, but seeing as the game's monetisation requires that you can't, I know that this will be an outlier and that by the next rotation I'll be back to being unable to get the cards for a viable deck. (I know that you can dust cards to craft others, but that's so painful in a digital card game that it shouldn't even be an option. If you have to get rid of most of your cards to play just one class, how is that fun?)

Un juego que me volvia loco cuando salio y al que entraba religiosamente todos los dias a intentar subir con mis mazos humildes hechos con 3 pesos, metiendo mis 3 legendarias en todos los mazos, tryhardeando la arena o riendome con los pibes en partidas custom, poco a poco fue decayendo hasta que veia que cualquiera que tuviera las ultimas aventuras o cartas de la ultima expansion que eran meta me pasaban por encima mientras yo no podia progresar y me quedaba cada vez mas atras y poco a poco deje de entrar, cada vez que miraba lo que decian de los nuevos contenidos parecia todavia peor asi que abandone cualquier ilusion de volver, muy triste.

Honestly, I think very fondly of this game. I played this alot when I was younger, and frequently think back to the mechanics and system of this game. Personally, this is my favorite online card game that I've played.

The main difference from this game to other card games is the presence of risk management in the form of RNG and randomness. By this, I don't necessarily mean dice rolls, but mechanics like the "discover" mechanic, which let you choose a card from 3 random cards randomly chosen from the entire game's card pool to put in your hand. This is not possible in physical card games, and barely any online card games do it either. This firstly leads to alot of variation, where matches can play very differently from the last. Secondly, it asks the player: "do you want to take this risk, and what's your backup if it fails?". For example, a spell might deal 3 instances of 1 damage to random targets, and there's an enemy you need to get off the board, but there's an inherent risk that it might live. You could use your other resource to get the guaranteed kill, but it's more expensive and will slow down the development of your own board, so which should you choose? It's these dilemmas and management of risks that make hearthstone really interesting to me.

Of course, there is also a downside to this. Relying on RNG can lead to bullshit moments where an opponent outplays you not by skill but complete luck, which doesn't feel very good. Or maybe you like being in complete control of all the aspects that happen in the game, but that shouldn't be a problem as there are decks that can be built minimising the amount of RNG in them.

In hearthstone, I also see alot of different variation in decks, so things generally don't really go stale. Yes, there are "metas", but you also see alot of creative decks in the game, which are a delight to fight. There are also different classes which all play very uniquely and differently from each other (Personally I played mage and warlock).

One downside I think hearthstone has is the fact that people consider it a very "pay to win" game, which is understandable. Legendaries do play a significant role, and you have to either draw or craft them in order to make certain decks possible in the first place. Personally however, I have had very good luck with Hearthstone, and drew many different legendaries without having to pay any money, so I could mostly make the decks which I wanted, though others may not be able to say the same. Starting this game is also likely tedious and slow because of this fact as well, as you will have to slowly obtain the resources to make your desired deck.

In the end, the only reason I actually stopped playing this game is that my phone was unable to handle the size of the game with each coming expansion, and eventually ran out of storage. I hope to see more card games incorporate a greater sense of RNG into the games to not only to bring about the same type of risk management that hearthstone had, but also to allow for funny moments like accidentally getting the exact things you need or getting incredibly bad luck.