The new Overlord next door

On Tuesday Whispers of the Old Gods launches and Hearthstone players will begin the flurry of playing and testing that characterizes a new set of cards and a new format.  As any cynical veteran of the internet could predict, there is a ton of premature worry about how bad the new format will be, and of course little of it comes with anything resembling facts or reason.  Mostly people seem concerned that C'thun decks will dominate everything and everyone will be playing them.

I don't think we have much to worry about in that regard.  C'thun decks may well be very good, but they absolutely rely on playing a bunch of subpar cards while they wait to get to turn 10.  That should be viable, but if everyone is playing a deck that requires turn 10 to do anything good, all the decks that aim to win on turn 6-9 are going to have a field day.  It is rather self correcting.

Either that, or everyone will be teching in Mana Wraith to make C'thun uncastable.

In any case, Hearthstone is going to be at its best if a lot of decks that win on turn 10-11 are strong.  People like getting to play their giant monsters and fight each other.  They like getting to interact, and having a chance to play all of their cards.  They also like games to end, rather than dragging on interminably.  All of these things point to a 11 turn game being just the ticket.  Of course not all games will happen at that speed, but if the default, regular Hearthstone game is a game that lasts about that long I am pretty sure it will be the best meta in the game's history.

So will the 10 cost minions in the set end up being totally broken?  Maybe.  Hard to say without really playing the cards, and anyone who tells you otherwise is making stuff up.  But what I can say for sure is that if many or most decks are playing a bunch of stuff to control the board and put on just a little pressure so they can finally slam down some gigantic bastard and cackle wildly and win the game... that is a hell of a good time.  Let's do that!

Personally I really want to play Beast Hunter first off.  Or maybe midrange Shaman.  Both look like they are going to be fantastic fun with lots of new support.  Very much excited, I am.