Has Random Card Generation in Hearthstone Gone Too Far?

           Overview: In the latest two expansions, Hearthstone cards are becoming more and more notorious for their random card generation in large part due to the Discover mechanic. In this post I will touch on two specific examples of card generation chains played in Arena and then talk about random card generation from a balance perspective.

          Prior to the introduction of randomly generated cards in Hearthstone, Arena was all about being mana efficient and slowly earning a card advantage through efficient minion trades and removal. That methodical approach to Arena was thrown out of the window when random card generation began showing up on more and more card text.

          Starting with a 3 mana Curious Glimmerroot on turn 3, my Priest opponent randomly generated himself a turn 4 (Netherspite Historian + Hero Power) and a turn 5 (Drakonid Operative). I had to use actual cards I drafted in my deck like Frostbolt and Fireball to deal with his cards that were pulled out of thin air. By turn 8 I was down 3 cards so I played the rest of my minions and hoped for the best. Primordial Drake quickly crushed those hopes and I left that game at a 6 card disadvantage having used all my cards to either negate cards that didn't start in my opponent's deck or cards that he copied from mine. Between turns 4 and 8 he did not play a card from his deck and he won the game.

          After the following example I will come back to what makes this so frustrating to play against and what changes can be made to make decks that rely on random card generation more fun to play and more importantly more fun to play against.

         While this is an extreme example, the Bananas generated from Mukla gave me lethal in an absolute slaughter of an Arena game. An innocent 2 mana card turned into 30+ mana of randomly generated value with more legendary cards that were never even revealed. With cards like Netherspite Historian that can sprout seemingly endless amounts of additional value to one's deck, the drafting process of Arena is near meaningless. The strength of any given draft comes down to what random cards are generated at run time, if you will. This high amount of variance in Arena allows weaker decks to beat stronger ones more consistently than before. It almost feels like you draft half your deck in the initial draft then draft the second half during the game itself.

         While the randomness associated with the Discover mechanic can be a contributing factor to the unpredictable nature of Arena, the card generation aspect is a more severe problem. There is not a high enough cost associated with generating cards. This is especially true of Arena, in which randomly generated cards are typically higher on the power curve than any single other card that was drafted. This means that generating a card should come at a higher cost than drawing a card. One card draw is roughly 1.5 mana so I would evaluate random card generation around 2 mana depending on the type of card that is generated. One would expect to see random card generators costing more than the baseline vanilla cards at each respective mana cost. This is simply untrue. Stonehill Defender matches Silverback Patriarch and has a high value generation effect. Drakonid Operative meets Pit Fighter's statline and has a high value generation effect too. Random card generators need to be paying for their ability with increased mana cost or decreased stats. Some do abide by this like Grimstreet Informant but far too many skate by.

         Card generation is not coming at a high enough cost nor is it being valued as high as it should for the impact it can have on a game. I think that drawing a line between random card generators and cards that trigger them would help balance decks that abuse card generation and make discovering random cards that much more special when it happens. Unfortunately there are cards like Drakonid Operative that trigger off Dragons and it itself is a Dragon. Servant of Kalimos triggers off Elementals, generates Elementals, and is itself an Elemental. This 'package deal' crams too much value into cards and removes the requisite altogether. Netherspite Historian is a good example of a card that has subpar stats for the mana cost, is not a Dragon itself, but still needs a Dragon to trigger. It feels good to use Netherspite Historian not only for the insane example above but because you know you had to draft a deck around Netherspite Historian and not just spam copies of it into your deck knowing they would trigger each other and guarantee random card generation value.

Discussing random card generation is especially important at this stage in development seeing as it, as a mechanic, has outlived Joust and Insipire and doesn't show any signs of slowing down. If more cards in future sets are going to have this mechanic, then considering how each random card generator affects future card design space is extremely important.

Disclaimer: All card art used in this blog is the property of Blizzard Entertainment. I do not claim ownership of any assets (art or otherwise).