Hearthstone - How cards became a cyber sport

It was 2014. Blizzard was preparing for the release of something promising and ambitious.

The Warcraft universe abounds with interesting characters, epochal events, and is generally rich in history.

Hearthstone had a difficult task - to popularize the genre of collectible card games. And yes, the game has done its job.

Whether it was the nostalgia game or the ease of mastering it, Hearthstone quickly rose to the top of Twitch, and then went to E-sport.

Why did cards become a sport? The thing about Hearthstone is that it's not just luck that decides, but also strategic planning. "Controlled randomness" was only within the power of professional players, while other gamers relied on luck. The better a gamer played Hearthstone, the less dependent he was on luck. There was even such a concept as "patience" - it was when you always got the wrong cards, always bad luck, and only an experienced player with high self-control and nerves of steel could come out of this swamp a winner.

Regular updates, the complexity of the mechanics, and the spectacle - this won over viewers and put Hearthstone on a par with the mastodons of cybersport, such as Dota 2 and CS:GO.

Why won't everyone be interested in watching cybersports Hearthstone?

Hearthstone is a card game, which means that a cursory glance will not be enough to understand what's what. The commentator's shouting won't be clear, because he knows the game, and you don't. Just watching the contest is fine, but let's do an experiment. It will only work if you haven't played Hearthstone before. And if you haven't played it, please don't peek or google it. Let's say it went like this:

"Handlock fights a control var. The warrior easily wiped out the whole handlock's field, but he used up almost all his cards, he only has 6/4 left, and the handlock draws a card...it's a fire giant, and he has no cards in hand. What bad luck! Handlock goes all-in with 3 xp and draws a card, he has 1 health point left, and Jaraxus falls out! - The room explodes, the commentator screams, and you don't even know what happened at all...- the handlock plays Jaraxus and the game continues..."

That's why Hearthstone cybersport is a closed club "from professionals to amateurs". The fun varies with your knowledge of the game, and battles involving your favorite decks are not only fun, but also a way to learn how to play grinded cards in a slightly different way.

And for those who say that Hearthstone is not cyber sports, I would advise you to win at least once in a card game when luck is not on your side.

Why is Hearthstone interesting in E-sports?

The game is not static and is constantly being updated. It's so fast that if you abandon the game for a year, the next time you come back, you may realize that your cards aren't as good as they used to be.

Hearthstone is a service game that requires constant online play, and that's where the cybersports tournaments help.

Unfortunately, Blizzard doesn't exactly have a fair approach to keeping up the hype around new updates, the cards are getting stronger.

It is up to professional players to see the best decks, and for them to set the next "meta" (knowingly the strongest strategies in the game. Meta is a figurative concept, most often referring to the answers to the questions: which hero is stronger, which bundle of items is better, which strategies more often lead to victory, etc.)

While streams on Twitch bring in new players, tournaments keep the game relevant among existing players. This cycle keeps Hearthstone up to date and prevents it from becoming a closed club just for its own people.