Hearthstone: Above the Curve

Hearthstone just released a new expansion this week. This expansion brought many changes, including a new format and balance changes to Classic and Basic cards. But I am not going to talk about any of that as there is already plenty of analysis on how it will shake up the meta. Instead, I am going to talk about a new card back Hearthstone released.

Card backs are simply a vanity item. They have no impact on how your deck preforms, just on how it looks. For the most part, card backs are just a way to show your individuality. Some of them provide a psychological advantage because of what they represent. For example, the Legendary card back is earned by reaching the legend rank on the ladder. This means that if you are playing someone with the Legendary card back they are quite skilled which can be intimidating to newer players. Other backs with similar implications are the card backs from beating the adventures on Heroic as these show a lot of time and dedication.

The pre-order for the new expansion came with an interesting card back. Unlike all the other card backs in Hearthstone which have a gentle repeating pattern, the pre-order card back moves randomly and has a jerky motion. This captures the unsettling feel of the ancient gods. Unfortunately, this card back is actually distracting. People focus on sudden motions, which this card back has. Hence this back randomly draws focus to it throughout matches. No other card back really does this as they have a gentle repeating pattern that is easy to ignore. Hence this card back could cause the opponent to play worse due to distraction them.

So do I think this card back is a problem? Probably not, as the distraction effect is minor and probably only relevant on close games. It would be interesting to look at people's win rates when they are using the back verses not. This could actually be done as the card back came out nearly 2 months before the rotation. Hence it would be easy to compare games using the same deck and the pre-order card back with games that did not use it. I would expect a small increase in win rate from using the new card back. Though I don't know if it would be in the measurable range or not. It is worth pondering from a game design standpoint whether vanity items should be allowed to affect gameplay and if the difference between how the pre-order back affects things verses card backs like the Legendary back is important.