If you think the Wild format might be more popular you have another thing coming.
The format will be mostly devoid of players in a year or two. All of the tournaments are moving to Standard. The same is true for every other card game that has existed. At some point there aren't enough people interested in acquiring all the old cards, and with no tournaments and little developer support, the format dies. It might live on for a while, but sooner or later it will be dead. (Very probably sooner).
I expect the reddit complaint posts about how long a game of Wild takes to find will be posted within the year.
@rayeth I think the tricky part there is that digital or not, people are still paying money to get cards. Were Blizzard to fully remove or continually nerf things out of existence, so to speak, people would be pretty angry, probably only leaving the insane diehards playing the game. It's a much softer blow to make it so that even if the cards people spent hundreds of dollars on won't be usable in the main segment of the game, at least they can be used in an secondary mode of the game that might end up being more popular anyway.
Also I'm pretty sure this will lead to the inevitable death of "Wild" as a format. For the same reasons that it has died in every other card game, lack of support. While the limited format (Type II in MTG and Hearthstone's Standard), gives the designers room to support new players and new ideas without crowding the design space, I think Blizzard choosing to go this route is disappointing. They seem to have chosen a familiar concept instead of pushing the boundaries.
Hearthstone is a DIGITAL game, they have the power to change every card ever made. Un-make cards, change cards, rework cards, rebalance cards, re-order entire sets, move cards from one set to another, etc. They have myriad options that aren't available to a physical card game due to not having any physical parts. Blizzard could have done some or all of those things to make the game better or easier for new players while not completely removing old cards and content (adventures). It seems like an admission of defeat. "We couldn't find a better way than what Magic was doing. Sorry guys! Here's Magic Type II - Hearthstone Edition!" Maybe they did try a lot of these things but just aren't talking about them or found some other good reason not to do them, but they didn't seem to address that at all.
I just wonder why they would want stick to the trappings of a physical game when they aren't bound by those things at all.
Is it kinda weird this website is essentially promoting Patrick's Youtube? Not that I mind watching Patrick die to Dan's levels, but this is kinda weird.
Maybe it really is just fun watching people die to your levels, no one is playing mine =(
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