NeXus LAN

Looking for feedback from those who have played hearthstone and plan to be participating at the LAN.

Since this game is a prize based tournament and is a little unique as it requires logic and planning skill as opposed to twitch skill, part of the rules discussion about this game will be how to keep a player from having an advantage over another player.  We also have to consider that individuals are already spending money to build competitive decks for this tournament.  If you don't play Hearthstone don't let my last statement deter you, you can still compete by getting a character to level 10 (easy, even if all you do is lose).  Strategy and luck outweighs most cards.

Cheating rules (Asked to leave the event)
1) No remote desktop assistance of any sort (IE: having someone play for your remotely, or watching your screen and advising you as to what to do)
2) You must play your account and your account only, no account sharing.

Advantage Rules (Up to DQ from tourney)
1) No arm chair quarterbacking (standing around telling someone what to do).  This is a twitch game vs logic game rule. 
2) No players in the tournament may watch other players play, including if you've already been eliminated.
3) No rebuilding of decks between your games against your opponent.  Have plenty of decks ready if you want options between games.  It'll be after midnight, no one wants to sit around and wait.  If you want to build a deck after you play an opponent and move on in the tournament, that's fine.  Do it quickly.  We won't wait to start the next round very long.

#2 is the big questionable one.

It can be fun to watch, but what we dont want happening is someones play style being revealed to a possible competitor, especially by having a possible competitor actually watching at your PC.  It can be fairly pricy to build one deck exactly the way you want it to be, but on the other side, tourneys can be fun to watch.  Thus non-competitors can watch as long as they're not arm chair quarterbacking.  Please use discretion and don't reveal strategy to other players. 

Because it's a different type of game, I feel there should be specific rules.  It's one thing to stand around watching someone play an FPS or Worms, etc and commenting on them.  There's a huge skill/twitch factor with those games.  Hearthstone is a little different.

I don't want us to lock it down and not make it fun, but I also want to ensure the tournament is ran fairly.

To clarify on that #2, that is no players may stand around and watch other players play until the finals.  I don't have a problem necessarily with eliminated players watching which is why I'm asking for feedback.  I just don't want those familliar with the game and nothing left to gain reporting how someone plays to a competitor.

To combat spending money we could run a limited tournament, which is to ban legendary and epic cards, since you can easily build  a expert and rare collection without spending money. I think this would be fun since the modern meta game revolves legendary cards like Leeroy and Rag Control.

EDIT: Also, coming from playing in professional Magic The Gathering, YuGiOh, and Pokémon TCG Tournaments, I have never seen an issue of the crowd coaching a player, but if you really think its a problem then maybe we can find a way to display games where people can watch them without incident.

I'm not sure if there is a spectate mode, but i do enjoy watching tournaments when they are displayed on the big screens. Maybe it would work like LoL where there is a built in delay so it wouldn't matter if someone playing saw the screen, plus then we could talk about the match in our delayed time with no negative effects on the live game.

Also, if this game is this touchy, does any thought need to be put into where people are sitting. If there is time between turns, could someone stand up at the PC to "stretch" and happen to catch a glance of a competitor's screen seeing something that will help them turn the fight (certain cards or deck build)?

I personally completely agree, I like the limited aspect of what types of cards and level of cards are allowed... I understand that some people have spent time and money on the game but after playing at the mini lan it was clear that any player who spent even just a moderate amount of money on cards had a significant advantage over someone who had either just started playing or through normal progression.... I understand your stance is that the game is about skill and luck... but that luck heavily rides on what cards are at your disposal and can only carry you so far... for instance I don't have a card that does over 9 base damage, but people were hitting me in that tourney with custom cards and legendarys that were hitting for over 12 points each time they played em...  it was taking me 4 rounds to do what they were slugging in one round. Yes it was a prepped deck vs a non prepped but I feel that the game itself isnt really balanced all that well personally.

The tourney should be more about skill and luck and not how deep someones pockets are. Yes it can be argued that someone with a bought deck can still loose, but we all know 50 bucks in this game gives you a hell of an advantage.

Coming from being a Pro Tour Magic the Gathering player, and other CCG tournament player here are my thoughts.     

By pure nature of any CCG card game there are going to be people with more cards then others, that's the way games are made.  So I really don't have an issue with what cards people use.

As for buying cards.   Anyone that puts say 49.99 into the game will have a lot of cards yes, but people that put in time now each day unlocking, doing dailies, doing achievements etc will also unlock a lot of cards.   You can easy unlock 4-5 packs of cards in 2-3 hours play when you first start playing and you can get enough gold to buy a pack every day or every other day really easy as well.   So someone could have unlocked 30-40 packs of cards before the tournament an never spent a dime.

This is really not that much different then paying 60.00 for battlefield 4.   Everyone spends the 60.00 but someone that bought the game say a few days before a tournament is at a huge disadvantage to a person that has been playing the game for a while an unlocked a lot of weapons etc in the game.

As for spectating.   I have no issue with that, but anyone heard coaching a player should cause that player to be DGed.   The game is a fairly fast game with time limits on your round etc, so it is very possible to play cards in reverse order an not get combo advantages, and someone watching that points that out gives that player an advantage etc.

I agree that people need to play their account an not on someone else's account.

As for players watching I don't see that being an issue either as 1st round say you have 24 players that's 12 matches all played same time.   Then those winners go an play right away all at the same time.   So the spectating coaching rule would come in play if anyone eliminated player says anything.

I would say leave it all cards available, or make it common, rare, epic only and remove legendary from the tournament.     I looked and the largest minion damage non legendary not combo with another card is 8/8, and largest direct damage non legendary not combo with another card is 10 and that is a 10 mana spell.   No matter the match if you make it to round 10 someone going to die fast so that a 10 damage for 10 mana is not that powerful of a late game card per say.   Yes its a good card but most matches do not go that far.

I have looked over rules for MLG Hearthstone tournaments etc and they do not limit cards in those tournaments be it the weekly online ones or the large events.

I did notice that MLG says you can pick any hero for a match but can not change that hero between games in a march you can change to a dif deck same hero.   You are allowed to change hero's between match's.   

Our current rule is you can change hero and deck between games in a match.

Legendaries really aren't a big deal, every class I've played has methods of dispatching top tier cards immediately, there are pretty inexpensive general cards that do this as well.  Many decks don't even use high damage legendaries for this reason.  They cost so much to play and can basically wipe out a turn if they don't have an effect that's used on the turn the legendary is played.

If you play a mage for example.. with just base cards you can earn easily you can polymorph and kill any card in one turn.  You have secrets that destroy cards when they attack you.  You can play big game hunter and take out ANY card.  That's six cards out of a deck, four where you can pick and choose your target.  Hell, you can freeze the entire other team, drop a 3 gem snake on your next turn and kill any target you want (assuming no taunt).  Thats 8 cheap ways to destroy any card in a deck, six that give you direct control. Base mage cards also allow you do drop 6 base damage or 10 base damage for 1 gem each, with certain base cards you can improve that damage, taunt can't stop these spells.

Priests btw, can drop an inexpensive 1 attack 7 health card with taunt and turn it in to a 28 attack, 28 health card at the start of their next turn.  They also have several base abilities that allow you to take other cards over!

Hell, I played against Murloc decks at the last mini.  Take away legendaries and those decks will still destroy you.  Murloc is based on playing many low health cards with other supporting cards that boost health and damage.  5-6 turns and you're done unless you have a deck that controls the board.

The only way you're losing to a legendary is if you put together a bad deck, didn't have luck on your side, or played a bad hand.  Whether or not someone spent money, the players that move on will be the players that legitimately understand the game.

Also, what I've learned about hearthstone, is that people take losses very seriously.  This is why we need strict rules for this tournament.  At the last mini lan (I wont name names) I played against someone who used a murloc deck three times while I played my board control mage three times.  He annhilated me the first game, I had bad luck.  He was feeling pretty good.  I then Annhilated him two times in a row.

I didn't play a single legendary.  All of the cards I used to control the board were almost entirely base mage deck cards you can earn by level 10.  I believe at the end of one of the games I did summon a legendary, but I already had it in hand.  Half of that mini-lan that played (probably more than half) started cussing about not buying cards, but really, my mage deck isn't anything special.

Blacklight Retribution, BF4, TF2, COD.. I can't remember a time where we limited a player based on what they've unlocked before.

Anyway, I only really see two legitimate options when it comes to decks.  (It's not a vote)

1) We allow players to play their decks.
2) We only allow the pre-configured blizzard base decks.

I personally don't feel #2 is any more fair than #1.

We want competitive games, especially for 1v1, the Vanilla decks just are not interesting.  Everyone has a month to run dailies and get free decks.  Or if you prefer to shortcut, purchase cards.

This game is no different from a shooter in that, the more time you put into the game, the more you'll unlock and the better you'll be.

For fun against a friend playing the pre-made only when said person not been playing a while sure, but for a tournament it needs to be constructed decks.

We have never limited what a person can use in a game in one of our tournaments before.   

We have limited who could play in a tournament because a certain lvl is needed to be competitive etc like in LoL, but never limited things down, dumb ed a game down for a tournament.

I get what you both are saying and though I don't entirely disagree I feel that both of you as people who have paid for cards dont share the headache or choose not to; that existed playing the basic pre constructed decks vs your vastly superior selection of cards... yes I agree 100% that is how the cookie crumbles... but making a saying like whether you paid or not - the better player advances is very far from the truth... I just started playing the game at the mini lan and hardly had an hour under my belt when I started the tourney and its not obnoxiously hard to understand and or master.. the problem that existed was people had cards that weren't at my disposal much less comparable.


I personally at this point dont disagree with what you have stated, but  you asked for our opinion and it was given... the game was extremely challenging as a new player, playing against someone who had more vested. Does it hold true for most games... sure... but im the kind of ccg player that likes to rip open a random decks and go at it.

There have been passionate discussions about this game from all angles. 

Mostly we were looking for feedback on the actual tournament rules because we want people to be able to watch, we just don't want coaching or spoiling of decks/playstyles.  There are people who will take this game very seriously win or lose.

There will be people who play as something to do.  There will be people that play in this tournament with a little bit of exposure to it that may or may not have bought packs.  There will be people who play in this tournament that have spent cash and played quite a bit but don't give a crap when they lose (this is my bracket).  There will be people who have played quite a bit, spent cash, and treat the games like they're life and death and will rage when they lose.

I personally have spent money on hearthstone, but Saturday was also by no means my first rodeo.  I've been playing since January and have only ever played two classes beyond level 10. All of my games have been played against human opponents (I've never played computer outside of the tutorial).

From the start this was going to be a BYOD tournament, my reccomendation is burn through hearthstone dalies and earn some packs if you don't want to drop $20 or so.  The goal of this thread mostly was to make people aware of the types of rules we're considering for the tournament and get feedback on those rules.  If we started changing the fundamental rules of games, we're opening a pandoras box we dont want to open.

take down decklists, along with 10 to fifteen cards for a side board. this way we can have cards off to the side to help with bad matchups without completely switching decks.

is it limited to one Hero throughout the tourney with multiple preassembled decks? or can hero's be switched from match to match?

Jelli, this is a computer game, not actual cards.  To my knowledge, there are no sideboard options in the game. It's a Blizzard game.

He is meaning in between games in a best of 3 you have cards your allowed to change out that are written down.

I think that is adding too much complexity to a midnight game.   

Just let people use the cards they have, they can change decks in between games if they want as originally posted.

You stated mlg says you cant change heros between games in a match but you can change heros between matches.. are we going with this rule set?

I like the idea of being restricted to just one hero per match(best of 3) but you can swith between matches. And I like havong the option to change preassembled decks... I think switching cards in an out will just delay the general gameplay/tourney.

Yes I MLG does it that way, but Evil had previously stated that it would be use the cards you have, you can change deck/hero during a match but you can not change cards in a deck during a match.

So I was just saying go with what was originally said.

Evil has all rights on rules I do not, I only make suggestions since he is the tournament admin.

I like the mystery / challenge to scheme against your opponent not knowing what he will pick from round to round.  

EG will be stay with his Murloc deck that just lost or switch to a better desk / hero suited to what you played 1st round only to find out you changed as well and picked good against what he picked to change too etc.

Coming in to this a bit late but I wanted to give my thoughts on the tournament. For background, I've played in several of the MLG Managrind open tournaments and I run the University of Cincinnati hearthstone club.

It seems there is some confusion around the game being pay to win. As in, just because players have legendaries and epics they will win even if they are a bad player. It's been proven time and time again that HS is about as pay to win as league of legends. Anyone with more cards only has the advantage of choosing from a larger pool to create a deck. Top players have made decks with nothing but free cards and made it to legend rank (top 500ish in NA) in just a couple days of playing.  The only way I think someone could be hindered would be if they haven't unlocked even the free cards for a hero (which means they've probably played less than a few hours of the game ever). If you look at the top 2 decks in HS right now, Zoolock and mid-range hunter, you'll notice they are some of the easiest decks to make for newer players.

As far as how gameplay goes, I agree there shouldn't be over the shoulder coaching. It would be awesome to stream but I don't know how this would be possible unless the players didn't have access to the stream. Many time a player will hold on to a specific card till the end to make a play with it, so a 3-5 minute delay wouldn't work. Without booths to put players in, I think the best bet would be to just allow people to spectate over the shoulder of the players. You could also air the matches one game behind or have a viewing area where the 2 players competing couldn't see the stream.

My favorite way of hero selection is when you register with three heros, for your first match you pick one of the three and a deck you have for that hero. If you win you must use that deck again. If you lose you can choose one of your other two heros and a deck with that hero. This is a little different than Managrind, which makes you keep the same hero for all of your rounds (you can only change heros between matches). I've found the first way to be more fun.

Regards to other players seeing the decks being played, I think it's fine, it's the same thing as any other game at a LAN where if someone comes in with a neat trick, everyone else will know about it after the first game.

For your #2 (playing on other players accounts), this shouldn't be allowed. It would be like allowing a league player to use another players account who has a completely different champions and rune sets.

If you're interested in reading the rules from the MLG Managrind tournaments you can find them here http://gamebattles.majorleaguegaming.com/pc/hearthstone-heroes-of-warcraft/tournament/na-managrind-open-27/rules (http://gamebattles.majorleaguegaming.com/pc/hearthstone-heroes-of-warcraft/tournament/na-managrind-open-27/rules)