Blizzard's Hearthstone vs Mojang's Scrolls

[Moloch Sacrifice]

I've been playing Mojang's digital TCG Scrolls for a while now (since about mid-alpha). I've found it pretty engaging; a surprise given the company's previous experience, but it seems to be a fairly balanced and entertaining game.

Recently, Blizzard's own digital TCG Hearthstone has turned up on my radar, and a few people have been saying that this is causing Scrolls to flounder somewhat. Does anyone have any further information to support/refute this claim? Has anyone played both games, and can offer a comparison?

 

[blackdwarf]

Hearthstone is easier and more user-friendly game. A big issue with Scrolls is that it is really hard to get into now, because the starter decks are really bad, and getting new decks without paying takes a long time, especially when you are losing all your games. You can pay with money, but you can only pay with credit card, and that isn't really used by everyone. Another thing is, is that the games take a lot of time, rarely being shorter than twenty minutes, and when you are losing that match, you have wasted twenty minutes for a amount of gold that is just a little bit of a boosterpack price.

Hearthstone one the other hand, is cheaper, has better rewards and has multiple payment options, including paypal. Once you have more than two pieces of a certain cards, you can disenchant the useless cards for dust, which you can use for creating every card in the game. sure, some cards are expensive, but you dust gain increases with your growth of your collection, because the chance of getting doubles increases.

I really loved scrolls, I thought the game itself was unique, but I hated the feeling of having my time wasted after losing a game, A feeling I rarely have with Hearthstone.

 

[Smooth Operator]

These two games don't really go under the same category but I guess they will inevitably be competing.
So we are talking multi billion conglomerate of veterans versus complete newcomers, while Mojang may be pretty well known for Minecraft very few actually know Scrolls, so it's nothing but a spit in the ocean next to the religious order of Blizzard.

Then there is their setup, Hearthstone is the most casual form of TCG known to date, I've seen people who don't even read card descriptions winning games left and right, matches are also super quick, card theme is a massive Warcraft fan service and all sorts of fluff is flying around the screen to entertain even the least interested players, also free to play... honestly the only thing missing is mobile and facebook adoption and then you got the lowest entry point for TCG ever.
Scrolls on the other hand is very old school, if you don't know the rules you simply will not be playing, matches are long and gruelling, you need to know your cards, you need to construct a good deck of your own before you win anything, and you are paying from the first moment on, all this means only dedicated TCG fans will stay with it and those know there are plenty better games to choose from.

 

[Jandau]

Might I suggest you look into Might & Magic: Duel of Champions? I've gotten into it while waiting for Hearthstone and it's solid fun. More complex than HS, but still reasonable, plenty of variety, a bit grindy if you don't want to spend any real money, but not too terrible, nice Might & Magic theme if you're into that setting. Also, if you're starting fresh, you can get a fairly large amount of card packs from the various promotional codes floating around, which makes starting out a bit smoother.

 

[Moloch Sacrifice]

Some interesting input. So, on a spectrum, would you say that Hearthstone is very much toward the casual end, Scrolls toward the other extreme, and Duel of Champions occupying the middle ground between accessibility and depth?

 

[Naeras]

Scrolls has a positional aspect, Hearthstone doesn't. I like positional play. Scrolls wins.

Hearthstone has some serious advantages, although the biggest one is that it's being developed by Blizzard. It doesn't make up for the positional aspect for my part.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Hearthstone is the snappier, faster paced, more accessible game. Such a beast will always have an easier time finding a broad audience.

 

[Draken Steel]

Got scrolls on first release, its mechanics were kinda neat, but unlike a previous poster, I am not huge on the positioning mechanics. Overall I dont necessarily have anything against it, but have barely touched it recently. Have had a ton of fun watching and playing hearthstone, however. It works surprisingly well for a streaming game, I think the short match times ,again, help it.

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

Then there is their setup, Hearthstone is the most casual form of TCG known to date, I've seen people who don't even read card descriptions winning games left and right, matches are also super quick, card theme is a massive Warcraft fan service and all sorts of fluff is flying around the screen to entertain even the least interested players, also free to play... honestly the only thing missing is mobile and facebook adoption and then you got the lowest entry point for TCG ever.

This Video on Escapist today says they are getting on mobile in the near future.

I don't play these, but I have seen some play of Hearthstone on Day9's channel and Geek and Sundry feeds on my YouTube.

You know, I just watched Part 2 of the same and it goes into the approachability issues further.

Personally - having just seen this on YouTube and played, it looks really fun and I would probably get it when it comes out of Beta. It does seem really accessible for someone like myself, who has really only played some MTG with friends as my sole card-game experience index.

 

[Calcium]

I watch a lot of twitch.tv. Scrolls is a game that has next to no stream interest at all, whilst Hearthstone has been one of the top 4 games in viewer counts since it's first beta release. I was really tempted to get Scrolls myself until I saw some Hearthstone, and was fortunate enough to get a beta key for it. Matches are quick, everything is far more intuitive than Magic, and deck building feels rather rewarding. The nine classes add a lot of variety and seem to be played (at least in unranked) fairly evenly between players. Being free to play helps too, though the gold (the in-game currency) you earn from daily quests and match wins is generous enough that I don't feel like I'm being pushed to pay.

 

[Lightspeaker]

Scrolls has a positional aspect, Hearthstone doesn't. I like positional play. Scrolls wins.

http://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Positional_effect

Unless we're talking about completely different definitions of "position" it can matter very much indeed where you position your minions, not sure where you're getting your information from.

Autospawn minions always summon to the right, for example, which means you have to balance your board properly for effective use of positional effects like Dire Wolf buffs. On the flipside there are issues like if you group all of your strongest together and get hit by a Cone of Cold you get them all frozen together.

 

[Eldritch Warlord]

Then there is their setup, Hearthstone is the most casual form of TCG known to date, I've seen people who don't even read card descriptions winning games left and right, matches are also super quick, card theme is a massive Warcraft fan service and all sorts of fluff is flying around the screen to entertain even the least interested players, also free to play... honestly the only thing missing is mobile and facebook adoption and then you got the lowest entry point for TCG ever.

Blizzard is porting Hearthstone to iOS and Android [http://www.joystiq.com/2013/11/10/hearthstone-coming-to-ios-android-in-2014-beta-launching-next/]

I don't know if it's just tablets though, simple as it is the game seems a little too complex to work well on a smartphone.

 

[Rednog]

Maybe it's just me but Scrolls really feels like it just fell off the face of the earth post launch. Hell I heard about it for about a week after launch and then completely forgot that it existed. Considering that it was a game that generated so many news stories pre launch that's pretty bad. On the other hand Hearthstone has been getting a huge amount of publicity and it frequently is in the top 4-5 streams on twitch.

 

[Slycne]

Some interesting input. So, on a spectrum, would you say that Hearthstone is very much toward the casual end, Scrolls toward the other extreme, and Duel of Champions occupying the middle ground between accessibility and depth?

Actually I would put Scrolls as the mid point. Not being able to interact or respond on your opponents turn will ultimately mutes a bit of the complexity.

 

[Naeras]

Scrolls has a positional aspect, Hearthstone doesn't. I like positional play. Scrolls wins.

http://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Positional_effect

Unless we're talking about completely different definitions of "position" it can matter very much indeed where you position your minions, not sure where you're getting your information from.

Autospawn minions always summon to the right, for example, which means you have to balance your board properly for effective use of positional effects like Dire Wolf buffs. On the flipside there are issues like if you group all of your strongest together and get hit by a Cone of Cold you get them all frozen together.

Ah, thanks for the correction. In that case, rephrase my post to "Scrolls has a very heavy focus on the positional aspect of the game compared to Hearthstone", which I believe should be more correct.
Still, actually moving units around, and using that to create opportunities for offense by baiting bad movement and punishing positional errors, is something that appeals to me very much. I can't recall that being a big part of Hearthstone.

 

[Lex Darko]

Hearthstone is a super casual version of Magic of the Gathering; there are no phases during your turn, you automatically get mana, there's a max limit of how mana you get, a max number of minions (creatures) you can have and on and on.

And to top it off there's a mode that let's you build decks from random cards that you may or may not own and play against others that are playing random deck also. So, you can essentially avoid those who have payed 50 dollars to get a bunch of rare and legendary cards.

 

[Moloch Sacrifice]

Some interesting input. So, on a spectrum, would you say that Hearthstone is very much toward the casual end, Scrolls toward the other extreme, and Duel of Champions occupying the middle ground between accessibility and depth?

Actually I would put Scrolls as the mid point. Not being able to interact or respond on your opponents turn will ultimately mutes a bit of the complexity.

Hmm, is that a feature of Duel of Champions? Sounds like an interesting mechanic; I'd like to see how it works in practice.

It may not count for much, but I think Scrolls is the most visually appealing. Hearthstone and Duel of Champions both seem to rely on flat images and symbols for their gameplay, whilst Scrolls produces animated sprites for every persistent unit. I also think that Scrolls has some of the most efficient world building I've seen in a TCG; despite there being next to no lore outside the game (as there is for M:TG or M&M), the artwork and card effects and flavour text really help to paint a picture of a setting that I think other, similar systems struggle with. Not that either of these make much difference to gameplay, but I find it helps to enhance the experience.

 

[Slycne]

Some interesting input. So, on a spectrum, would you say that Hearthstone is very much toward the casual end, Scrolls toward the other extreme, and Duel of Champions occupying the middle ground between accessibility and depth?

Actually I would put Scrolls as the mid point. Not being able to interact or respond on your opponents turn will ultimately mutes a bit of the complexity.

Hmm, is that a feature of Duel of Champions? Sounds like an interesting mechanic; I'd like to see how it works in practice.

It may not count for much, but I think Scrolls is the most visually appealing. Hearthstone and Duel of Champions both seem to rely on flat images and symbols for their gameplay, whilst Scrolls produces animated sprites for every persistent unit. I also think that Scrolls has some of the most efficient world building I've seen in a TCG; despite there being next to no lore outside the game (as there is for M:TG or M&M), the artwork and card effects and flavour text really help to paint a picture of a setting that I think other, similar systems struggle with. Not that either of these make much difference to gameplay, but I find it helps to enhance the experience.

I haven't played Duel of Champions so I can't comment there, but having played both Hearthstone and Scrolls I would put Magic Online and the upcoming Hex as much further up on the complexity scale.

These are games that require actively passing priority to take actions since responding to spells becomes a key factor. It gives a lot more depth to card design, and I'm actually looking forward to Hex since they are one of the first to really be embracing digital cards rather than just graphical representations. That said, this style does make them quite a bit slower to play than other TCGs, and makes it basically impossible to have asynchronous play.