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“There’s a lot of reasons to make cards” – Blizzard designer chats shaking up Hearthstone

Hearthstone

Making new Hearthstone cards can’t be easy, because a single addition can shake up the entire game. That’s kind of the point, though – Blizzard want to stop it from going stale by throwing new things into the mix, keeping players engaged.

Come take a look at our list of the best Hearthstone decks

Blizzard want to release new cards that cater to all of their players, from casual to competitive, and even those who like experimenting or are in it for the lore.

“All of these are important to us so we create cards for each of the groups,” Blizzard game designer Peter Whalen tells us. “Sometimes we’ll create cards that just encourage you to play a silly deck, that encourages you to play something you might not otherwise have experimented with. And sometimes those turn into competitive things and sometimes they end up not. And that’s great.

“There’s a type of player that really likes experimenting with bad cards. With cards that people say ‘this is awful, it could never possibly work’ and see how they can make that actually work, see what kind of decks evolve from that. And so we definitely also have cards that are direct responses to a meta gamer. Eater of Secrets and Whisper of the Old Gods was a card that sees a lot of play in wild right now because there’s a lot of secrets there and it eats them.”

It’s thinking about these different playstyles and needs that influences the design of these cards. For example,Prince Malchezaar was created with beginners in mind – not because he’s an easy mode, but because his ability to shuffle five legendaries into your deck gives new players the chance to try out these exciting cards.

“We also have more powerful cards like Barnes or the Curator that are more tuned towards competitive play or towards creating powerful new archetypes,” says Whalen. “So Barnes summons an actor from your deck and that is very good with deathrattle minions, it’s very good in the types of deck that N’Zoth ultimate go into. The Curator allows you to get dragons, beasts and murlocs from your deck. So if you’re looking for a particular dragon like Alexstraza or Malygos he’s a very powerful option. He also lets you get some beasts and murlocs.”