The arena in Hearthstone has always been a popular game mode. That has changed – because now everything is new and your gold is quickly gone.
The arena mode in Hearthstone is one that has hardly changed since its introduction, almost at the release of the game. While there were occasional minor adjustments, the basic idea remains unchanged: For an entry fee of 150 gold (or a ticket), you assemble a deck of 30 almost random cards and play – until you have either accumulated 12 victories or 3 losses.
Depending on the number of victories, there are different rewards: card packs, arcane dust (for crafting cards), and gold. With 7 victories, you would almost guarantee to get your gold investment back, allowing you to play the next round. More victories meant additional gold, which either allowed for more arena rounds or direct purchasing opportunities for card packs (or expansions).
Now Blizzard has split the arena mode in two and also drastically changed it. The community is really angry: Everything is more expensive and gold as a reward has been almost abolished.
Arena: Split in two and more Constructed
than before
What has changed? Since the latest patch, the arena has been divided into two different game modes. There is the arena and the underground. At its core, the game modes differ as follows:
- Arena: Costs 150 gold or 1 ticket. You build a deck of 30 cards. The game ends after 2 losses or 5 victories. With 5 victories, you get your ticket back, making the round essentially free. Your opponents are at your skill level.
- Underground: Costs 300 gold or 2 tickets. You build a deck of 30 cards. The game ends after 3 losses or 12 victories. After each loss, you can choose 5 new cards and then remove 5 from your deck. Your opponents can come from all skill levels. With 7 victories, you are guaranteed to receive 2 tickets as a reward, making the round free.
Why is the community angry? What sounds new and interesting on paper has actually angered the community. This can be summarized in several reasons, all falling under “Blizzard is greedy.”
Normal Arena: Fewer games for the same money and fewer rewards
In the normal arena, there is no longer any gold as a reward. Previously, you could earn gold here, even with only a few victories. This way, you could sometimes finance the next round or afford several arena rounds with very many victories or directly buy packs with the gold. Now there is no more gold, but at best only a ticket, which is less flexible.
Additionally, you now get less playtime in the arena for the cost of one ticket (or 150 gold). Previously, you could lose up to 3 times or win 12 times for 150 gold; now the limit is 2 losses and 5 victories – about half of the possible matches. The result: You have to pay more frequently for the arena.
Underground Arena: Double the stake, lousy profits, luck-based rewards
The underground is a second arena mode that is unlocked only after winning a few times in the normal arena. Here, each entry costs 300 gold (or 2 tickets) and you play until you have accumulated 12 victories or 3 losses. Again, there is almost no gold as a fixed reward, but mainly tickets – with 7 victories, you get both entry tickets back.
As a special feature, after each loss, you can exchange 5 cards, allowing the deck to be refined afterwards.
The player base is particularly angered here by a “possible” reward. As a special incentive, there is the “Favor of the Audience” – an enticing reward of 2,000 gold. However, this is never guaranteed, and there is only a small percentage chance of winning it. After 6 victories, you have a 5% chance for this reward, and at 12 victories (with 0 losses), this chance rises to a maximum of 13%.
You need to play perfectly in the underground an average of 8 times (12 victories) to statistically get the 2,000 gold at least once – which would likely mean many hundreds of matches for a reward that isn’t even guaranteed.
In summary, it can be said: The new arena quickly reduces the gold of your account and has alienated a whole group of fans who now feel out of place in this mode (via Reddit).
The opinion in the community is correspondingly one-sided. Most of the posts in the Hearthstone subreddit currently deal with the arena and the poor experience of the players.
One of the biggest points of criticism is the fact that the “arena is no longer made for arena fans”. Because when choosing the legendary card, you immediately get 3 additional cards that fit well with the legendary card. This allows for much more professional deck construction: It reminds people of the standard game mode. And this is exactly what they do not want to play in the arena.
Many play arena to escape the current “meta-decks” – but these also enter the arena and the underground through these “card buckets” with closely linked cards.
Additionally, the arena is currently still plagued by several bugs. For example, it can happen that you are presented with three legendary cards at the start of a round – of which 2 are supposedly “banned”. Then you can only choose the last option:
This is indeed a visual bug, where restarting the game helps, but if you don’t know that, you can feel pretty fooled.
Cortyn says: Honestly, I am also quite shocked by the changes to the arena in Hearthstone. For me, this has always been the game mode that I liked to check out when I didn’t feel like “Battlegrounds” or found the meta-decks in the normal game mode too boring.
Now both variants of the arena mode are only one thing: expensive. I realize that Hearthstone has been trying to monetize every game mode even more for quite some time, but that they now resort to poor practices like “a small chance to win something big” is extremely disappointing to me. I expected better from Blizzard. Especially after they had already monetized the battleground mode harder. What a shame.
