As Pie and I have been working on this week's comic, I've been able to squeeze in a few games of Hearthstone and have been enjoying it quite a bit. I've never had a vector to get into CCGs, and I feel like Heathstone is a nice place to start; especially considering how quick the games can be joined into and the speed at which they can play out, thanks to the convenience of computer aided fast math and rule enforcement.

The system does really well in matching you up with equally skilled individuals, so the play sessions I've had are usually quite enjoyable. One thing that I wasn't fond of was the arena play. I did like the switch up of playing from a more randomized deck, but I feel that by forcing players to chose a random hero as well makes going into the arena unwelcoming for newcomers. You have to have a certain mastery, at the very least familiarity, over numerous classes in order to devise strategies where you feel like you are an agent in how well you are playing.

Being unable to pick the class that I wanted to play seemed really odd coming from a Blizzard game, seeing as how often they profess wanting to let people play the classes they want in raid environments. I guess that it is something that is carried over from CCGs like Magic, so I suppose it is something that I just have to become accustomed to.

Either way, Hearthstone has been rather enjoyable and I'm looking forward to getting to know more classes so I have a better chance of making sure I am not a polymorphed sheep lead to slaughter on my next go around. Also...this game makes Pie and I want to play WoW so bad it hurts!! Whyyyy Blizzard... WHY?!