Well, you can spend an eternity disenchanting enough cards to make just one 1600 dust card (forget trying to fill your deck that way).
...Or, you can just roll a priest and have 9 chances + faceless manipulator to steal or copy their cards.
Even then, if your opponents really are running with all mid-late game hard-hitting legendaries, simply drop a murloc deck in their lap and kill them by round 4-5.
In other words, you're never going to have the straight-up firepower of someone who has spent the $$, but there's no reason you can't take steps to counter them.
Yep, it's pay to win. The only "not pay to win" part is the arena. Everything else: the more boosters you buy the more legendaries you have the more games you will win, since legendaries are in 90% of all cases soooo much better than other cards.
Suppose that you had all of the cards in the game. That gives you the capability to put 28 legendaries in a single deck. How many legendaries would you put in your deck? If your answer is 28, you're really bad at this game.
That 28 legendary deck would have at least 16 minions (17 if you're not a rogue) with a mana cost of 6 or higher, and at least 3 more with a mana cost of 5. That means you're stuck with a lot of cards that you can't use until far into the game, and precious few cards that you can use. By the time you get the chance to start dropping your big legendaries, you're probably going to be so far behind as to be unrecoverable, if the game isn't over already.
Nor would those low-mana legendaries be able to carry you through the early game. Tinkmaster Overspark is a late-game card meant to neuter a big minion, and is mediocre if played early. Lorewalker Cho is terrible, period. Nat Pagle is only good if you can keep your opponent off of him for a while, which you can't without a good number of other early-game cards. Millhouse Manastorm has so much potential to backfire that I've never seen another player use him at any phase of the game. Old Murk-Eye without other murlocs basically amounts to a common Gnomish Inventor without the card draw. King Mukla is okay, but two bananas give your opponent an awful lot of ways to make it backfire. Leeroy Jenkins has his uses, but playing him while behind will probably just get you further behind. Edwin VanCleef is terrible if he's your first card played that turn, and you're severely lacking on early-game cards. Bloodmage Thalnos is a nice utility card, but a 1/1 minion is not going to carry you through the first four rounds.
And that's it for you until round 5, at which point you might have one of the three five-mana legendaries available. Captain Greenskin without a weapon that you don't have (unless you're a rogue) is basically a common Booty Bay Bodyguard without the taunt. So is Harrison Jones unless your opponent has a weapon. Elite Tauren Chieftain is more for flavor than a serious minion. And that's it for you until round 6.
Come round 6, you can start dropping some seriously powerful legendaries from your legendary deck. But only one per turn, due to mana constraints. That means that you can't burn through the cards you accumulated by being unable to play them earlier, either. And one powerful minion isn't going to save you when you're on the brink of defeat.
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My point here is that most legendaries are late-game cards. Some of them are really good late-game cards. And if you're not going for an aggro deck, you'd probably like several legendaries in your deck. But only several, not most or all of the legendaries, or at least not in a given deck. And you can craft the particular legendaries that you want without having to rely on the luck of random packs. More legendaries does not automatically make a better deck. If applied stupidly, more legendaries will probably make a worse deck. Except for Bloodmage Thalnos, who fits in nearly any deck.
Yes i will agree there is the odd exception,example the Murloc deck but still it could take a VERY long time playing totally free to get the Legendary and Epic Murlocs that complete the deck.I know the so called PROS like to scoff at pay to win but i say ..."If it does not matter then why are all your decks full of legendaries"?
There is one guy who is considered a top world class player Reynad,his Warrior deck that he plays pretty much 24/7 has tons of legendaries in it.
There is one exception to the rule,a guy like Trump is scary good,he can win with an all free deck where others can't.I don't know how he does it,i watched him play countless times and he doesn't do anything out of the ordinary,i consider him just VERY lucky.Probablility and odds are not perfect,thy are NEVER going to work out 50/50 in the long run,there will always be some luckier than others and that is FACT.
None the less even the great Trump uses tons of legendaries in his decks,some of which i wouldn't use just because they seem not so good.
This is not even about just simple time,it would take YEARS to get all the legendaries to fulfill MANY of the world best decks.You only can have one of a legend card which makes it tougher to be meaningful but still over the long haul those pay to win cards do add up and can be the difference between a 50% win rate and a 75% win rate.
I want to make one thing clear however,this game is FUN and very challenging,it is a thinking mans game and takes a lot of practice to be very good.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Even if Hearthstone would not be pay 2 win, I wouldn't consider it to be a good game, due to the lack of variety, trading and social aspects.
Regarding the pay 2 win issue:
Of course, many CCGs follow the road of "more rare cards are better". The huge difference though is the lack of trading on Hearthstone. It results in a) the cards having absolutely zero value and b) you being unable to 1vs1 trade in the cards you want. The only way to get the cards you want in a reasonable amount of time is to spend huge amounts of money on the shop and disenchant masses of cards.
No you don't have to buy but if you do like some that have already bought over 100 packs,there is a huge disparity in cards.
Even their auto match maker is really bad,example i was constantly matched versus players with more unlocked decks than me and seemed every single card they played was o/p.
Soon i seen the decks with very powerful multi-mechanic cards,i just esc and concede,not much fun there.I have been a long time member of MTGO and MTG regular cards and played SOE's version,i won't be supporting these games anymore with money.
That is irrelevant if you dont play the game..
If a crappy game or p2w game comes out i just dont play it...period...no problem, if everyone did the same as me...they would not make crappy games..or p2w games...
Yes i will agree there is the odd exception,example the Murloc deck but still it could take a VERY long time playing totally free to get the Legendary and Epic Murlocs that complete the deck.I know the so called PROS like to scoff at pay to win but i say ..."If it does not matter then why are all your decks full of legendaries"?
How many is "tons" of legendaries? Five? Seven? Ten? Sure. But not anywhere near 37, which is how many legendaries there are in the game.
Card set A: everything available but the legendaries
Card set B: everything available, including legendaries
Card set C: all common cards available, both free and expert, but nothing higher than common
Card set C is going to be at a huge disadvantage to A or B. A is going to be at a disadvantage to B, but not anywhere near as crippling as C is when facing A.
People are focusing far too much on legendary cards. Rares and epics make a huge difference, too, and are a lot easier to come by. And even a good player with card set B is going to have quite a few commons in his deck alongside the rarer cards. Indeed, if I had everything available, I'd probably still sometimes run decks with more common cards than legendary.
Yes i will agree there is the odd exception,example the Murloc deck but still it could take a VERY long time playing totally free to get the Legendary and Epic Murlocs that complete the deck.I know the so called PROS like to scoff at pay to win but i say ..."If it does not matter then why are all your decks full of legendaries"?
How many is "tons" of legendaries? Five? Seven? Ten? Sure. But not anywhere near 37, which is how many legendaries there are in the game.
Card set A: everything available but the legendaries
Card set B: everything available, including legendaries
Card set C: all common cards available, both free and expert, but nothing higher than common
Card set C is going to be at a huge disadvantage to A or B. A is going to be at a disadvantage to B, but not anywhere near as crippling as C is when facing A.
People are focusing far too much on legendary cards. Rares and epics make a huge difference, too, and are a lot easier to come by. And even a good player with card set B is going to have quite a few commons in his deck alongside the rarer cards. Indeed, if I had everything available, I'd probably still sometimes run decks with more common cards than legendary.
This is an interesting subject.
My current tactic is to use any class. First I drop 'distractors', such as the ghoul or poisonous snake cards - players seem to have a visceral fear of cards such as this and it's not uncommon for players to use 2 cards to eliminate 1.
This plays for time and depletes their card options until I start dropping a crap load of legendaries, starting at gem stone 6.
This is a 'pay-to-win' tactic. However, I have a lot of respect for players who can use lesser cards in combination to take me down before I start dropping the big guns at gem stone 8.
isnt it the nature of tradingcard games that you pay for new cards...
the skill is in building a deck, the ten best cards in the game will not do you any good if there is no synergy, or you have no clue how to use the deck.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Yes i will agree there is the odd exception,example the Murloc deck but still it could take a VERY long time playing totally free to get the Legendary and Epic Murlocs that complete the deck.I know the so called PROS like to scoff at pay to win but i say ..."If it does not matter then why are all your decks full of legendaries"?
How many is "tons" of legendaries? Five? Seven? Ten? Sure. But not anywhere near 37, which is how many legendaries there are in the game.
Card set A: everything available but the legendaries
Card set B: everything available, including legendaries
Card set C: all common cards available, both free and expert, but nothing higher than common
Card set C is going to be at a huge disadvantage to A or B. A is going to be at a disadvantage to B, but not anywhere near as crippling as C is when facing A.
People are focusing far too much on legendary cards. Rares and epics make a huge difference, too, and are a lot easier to come by. And even a good player with card set B is going to have quite a few commons in his deck alongside the rarer cards. Indeed, if I had everything available, I'd probably still sometimes run decks with more common cards than legendary.
This is an interesting subject.
My current tactic is to use any class. First I drop 'distractors', such as the ghoul or poisonous snake cards - players seem to have a visceral fear of cards such as this and it's not uncommon for players to use 2 cards to eliminate 1.
This plays for time and depletes their card options until I start dropping a crap load of legendaries, starting at gem stone 6.
This is a 'pay-to-win' tactic. However, I have a lot of respect for players who can use lesser cards in combination to take me down before I start dropping the big guns at gem stone 8.
Considering the best Legendary decks only have one or two legendary minions. I dont see your point as valid. a 1 month FTP player can compete in legendary ranks with a non legendary deck. Zoolocks, Hunter UTH, just to name a couple.
The only problem really is the automatic match maker, the algorithm just doesn't work very well. If you want to earn your decks by playing it is rather frustrating to be regularly smashed in the final stage of each match by one or two legendaries. And to say legendaries don't make that big of a difference is a joke.
So playing longer than someone else is now pay 2 win ?
No ,but playing less than someone else and paying to be able to beat them, could be construed as Pay 2 Win.
That is how these games works. I played Magic the Gathering back in the 90s and every ounce of allowance I put into booster packs and remember the excitement of what rare card I would get out of a booster pack box.
Still... you pay $15 a month to play WoW and you can even see that as P2W as both games are based on chances. There is no guarantee that you will get that specific card you want or specific gear drop in SoO. That is if Hearthstone follows the typical booster pack system and allow trading between players which is what Magic the Gathering does with their online adaptation.
If you really want to construed facts then sure its P2W but any game you can say is P2W when you construe the facts. Everyone expect games for free and whenever companies incorporate a revenue system then players scream holy hell bout P2W.
Is it truly P2W? No, it simply follows the system of how these sort of card games work.
As some have already posted .. There is No such thing as P2W in a CCG as the entire genre has been built on the premise of buying packs to get better cards to build better decks... Always has been always will be ... If you dont like it ..you need to find a different genre ..
Comments
Well, you can spend an eternity disenchanting enough cards to make just one 1600 dust card (forget trying to fill your deck that way).
...Or, you can just roll a priest and have 9 chances + faceless manipulator to steal or copy their cards.
Even then, if your opponents really are running with all mid-late game hard-hitting legendaries, simply drop a murloc deck in their lap and kill them by round 4-5.
In other words, you're never going to have the straight-up firepower of someone who has spent the $$, but there's no reason you can't take steps to counter them.
Suppose that you had all of the cards in the game. That gives you the capability to put 28 legendaries in a single deck. How many legendaries would you put in your deck? If your answer is 28, you're really bad at this game.
That 28 legendary deck would have at least 16 minions (17 if you're not a rogue) with a mana cost of 6 or higher, and at least 3 more with a mana cost of 5. That means you're stuck with a lot of cards that you can't use until far into the game, and precious few cards that you can use. By the time you get the chance to start dropping your big legendaries, you're probably going to be so far behind as to be unrecoverable, if the game isn't over already.
Nor would those low-mana legendaries be able to carry you through the early game. Tinkmaster Overspark is a late-game card meant to neuter a big minion, and is mediocre if played early. Lorewalker Cho is terrible, period. Nat Pagle is only good if you can keep your opponent off of him for a while, which you can't without a good number of other early-game cards. Millhouse Manastorm has so much potential to backfire that I've never seen another player use him at any phase of the game. Old Murk-Eye without other murlocs basically amounts to a common Gnomish Inventor without the card draw. King Mukla is okay, but two bananas give your opponent an awful lot of ways to make it backfire. Leeroy Jenkins has his uses, but playing him while behind will probably just get you further behind. Edwin VanCleef is terrible if he's your first card played that turn, and you're severely lacking on early-game cards. Bloodmage Thalnos is a nice utility card, but a 1/1 minion is not going to carry you through the first four rounds.
And that's it for you until round 5, at which point you might have one of the three five-mana legendaries available. Captain Greenskin without a weapon that you don't have (unless you're a rogue) is basically a common Booty Bay Bodyguard without the taunt. So is Harrison Jones unless your opponent has a weapon. Elite Tauren Chieftain is more for flavor than a serious minion. And that's it for you until round 6.
Come round 6, you can start dropping some seriously powerful legendaries from your legendary deck. But only one per turn, due to mana constraints. That means that you can't burn through the cards you accumulated by being unable to play them earlier, either. And one powerful minion isn't going to save you when you're on the brink of defeat.
-----
My point here is that most legendaries are late-game cards. Some of them are really good late-game cards. And if you're not going for an aggro deck, you'd probably like several legendaries in your deck. But only several, not most or all of the legendaries, or at least not in a given deck. And you can craft the particular legendaries that you want without having to rely on the luck of random packs. More legendaries does not automatically make a better deck. If applied stupidly, more legendaries will probably make a worse deck. Except for Bloodmage Thalnos, who fits in nearly any deck.
Yes i will agree there is the odd exception,example the Murloc deck but still it could take a VERY long time playing totally free to get the Legendary and Epic Murlocs that complete the deck.I know the so called PROS like to scoff at pay to win but i say ..."If it does not matter then why are all your decks full of legendaries"?
There is one guy who is considered a top world class player Reynad,his Warrior deck that he plays pretty much 24/7 has tons of legendaries in it.
There is one exception to the rule,a guy like Trump is scary good,he can win with an all free deck where others can't.I don't know how he does it,i watched him play countless times and he doesn't do anything out of the ordinary,i consider him just VERY lucky.Probablility and odds are not perfect,thy are NEVER going to work out 50/50 in the long run,there will always be some luckier than others and that is FACT.
None the less even the great Trump uses tons of legendaries in his decks,some of which i wouldn't use just because they seem not so good.
This is not even about just simple time,it would take YEARS to get all the legendaries to fulfill MANY of the world best decks.You only can have one of a legend card which makes it tougher to be meaningful but still over the long haul those pay to win cards do add up and can be the difference between a 50% win rate and a 75% win rate.
I want to make one thing clear however,this game is FUN and very challenging,it is a thinking mans game and takes a lot of practice to be very good.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Even if Hearthstone would not be pay 2 win, I wouldn't consider it to be a good game, due to the lack of variety, trading and social aspects.
Regarding the pay 2 win issue:
Of course, many CCGs follow the road of "more rare cards are better". The huge difference though is the lack of trading on Hearthstone. It results in a) the cards having absolutely zero value and b) you being unable to 1vs1 trade in the cards you want. The only way to get the cards you want in a reasonable amount of time is to spend huge amounts of money on the shop and disenchant masses of cards.
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
That is irrelevant if you dont play the game..
If a crappy game or p2w game comes out i just dont play it...period...no problem, if everyone did the same as me...they would not make crappy games..or p2w games...
How many is "tons" of legendaries? Five? Seven? Ten? Sure. But not anywhere near 37, which is how many legendaries there are in the game.
Card set A: everything available but the legendaries
Card set B: everything available, including legendaries
Card set C: all common cards available, both free and expert, but nothing higher than common
Card set C is going to be at a huge disadvantage to A or B. A is going to be at a disadvantage to B, but not anywhere near as crippling as C is when facing A.
People are focusing far too much on legendary cards. Rares and epics make a huge difference, too, and are a lot easier to come by. And even a good player with card set B is going to have quite a few commons in his deck alongside the rarer cards. Indeed, if I had everything available, I'd probably still sometimes run decks with more common cards than legendary.
This is an interesting subject.
My current tactic is to use any class. First I drop 'distractors', such as the ghoul or poisonous snake cards - players seem to have a visceral fear of cards such as this and it's not uncommon for players to use 2 cards to eliminate 1.
This plays for time and depletes their card options until I start dropping a crap load of legendaries, starting at gem stone 6.
This is a 'pay-to-win' tactic. However, I have a lot of respect for players who can use lesser cards in combination to take me down before I start dropping the big guns at gem stone 8.
Pay to win
isnt it the nature of tradingcard games that you pay for new cards...
the skill is in building a deck, the ten best cards in the game will not do you any good if there is no synergy, or you have no clue how to use the deck.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Considering the best Legendary decks only have one or two legendary minions. I dont see your point as valid. a 1 month FTP player can compete in legendary ranks with a non legendary deck. Zoolocks, Hunter UTH, just to name a couple.
That is how these games works. I played Magic the Gathering back in the 90s and every ounce of allowance I put into booster packs and remember the excitement of what rare card I would get out of a booster pack box.
Still... you pay $15 a month to play WoW and you can even see that as P2W as both games are based on chances. There is no guarantee that you will get that specific card you want or specific gear drop in SoO. That is if Hearthstone follows the typical booster pack system and allow trading between players which is what Magic the Gathering does with their online adaptation.
If you really want to construed facts then sure its P2W but any game you can say is P2W when you construe the facts. Everyone expect games for free and whenever companies incorporate a revenue system then players scream holy hell bout P2W.
Is it truly P2W? No, it simply follows the system of how these sort of card games work.