I am become Lust, demander of awesome online card gaming… awesomeness.

Let’s start with Hearthstone seeing as how that’s probably the game that I’m most looking forward to playing out of this tantalizing trio of temptation. I have not played the game myself, but I’ve watched/listened to many hours of streams on Twitch TV of others playing. It is basically a clone of the, soon to be retired, World of Warcraft Trading Card Game. Many aspects of WoWTCG have been streamlined and beaten into what is now Hearthstone. Gone are potentially confusing timing rules, the resource row constraints and overall fiddlyness of having to manually track your health and your enemy health. Many of the cards from the original game are even found in Hearthstone so the feeling of familiarity is fairly overwhelming. That could be good or bad depending on your experience with Hearthstone’s cardboard counterpart. You’re left with, what I believe to be, the core game experience which is what makes it something I’m looking forward to playing for myself. In particular I like the look of the Arena, which is a limited draft and its one part of the WoWTCG (and CCG/TCGs in general) I wish I had done a lot more of since I found it to be some of the most fun I’ve had in the game. Speaking as the Midwest Regional A Game of Thrones Draft Champion of 2005 I speak from experience. Game mechanics aside, the interface for Hearthstone seems very inviting and just screams Blizzard/World of Warcraft. Blizzard has taken nothing for granted when it comes to delivering what looks to be another high quality experience to one of my favorite genres of gaming.

Next couple posts I’ll share my views on the other two games which I’ve actually been fortunate enough to play.

-v- out.