When comparing Shadow Era vs Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, the Slant community recommends Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft for most people. In the question“What are the best cross-platform PC/Android games?” Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is ranked 8th while Shadow Era is ranked 40th. The most important reason people chose Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is:
It has a lot of players due to Blizzard's fanbase which means finding multiplayer matches is not all that difficult.
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Pros
Pro Good deck balance
Many TCGs often have unbalanced decks where one specific deck can trump most others, with devs being slow to correct this. Shadow Era does not have this issue as the devs spend a great amount of time making sure all the deck combinations have good balance and even have a player run team for testing before new releases.
Pro Unique Sacrifice Mana system
Shadow era tests its players by having them decide which cards to sacrifice in order to gain resources (mana) one time at the start of each turn. No easy buildup of resources (mana) here. You want to make plays, you have to plan it out strategically.
Pro Over 600 cards (approx 250 legal per hero)
The card pool has grown to a very decent size, spread across Neutral, two factions (Human/Shadow) and seven classes (Warrior, Mage, Hunter, Priest, Rogue, Wulven and Elemental). Each of the 32 heroes belongs to a faction/class combination, where they can use Neutral cards and cards from the faction or class. This gives each hero access to approximately 250 cards, which allows for great variety of decks.
Pro Free-to-play done well
The game is free to play but all cards in the game can be earned with free play, there is no need to purchase cards if one does not want to. Though it can speed up being able to build a better desk.
Pro Amazing artwork
The card artwork is of a very high standard and all cards are available in a full-art foil version too.
Pro One account usable across Android/iOS/PC/Mac
Whatever platform you register on, you can grow and access your collection and decks on any of the platforms, so you can use whichever you prefer at the time.
Pro Truly free to play if you want
The in-game currency rewards for playing are very generous and card prices in that currency are low.
Pro No rotation of sets (all cards still legal)
In all modes, all your cards are legal. No cards are rotated out of Standard play and the developer has said they have no intention to bring in rotation ever.
Pro Very limited RNG
Aside from a handful of cards from the original set that had "at random" on them, the developers have gone out of their way to bring more control into the hands of players. Effects will specify they damage "the ally with the lowest health", for example, and on a tie there is a Standard Resolution Order (the ally closer to the hero takes priority), so always know which one will be affected. Sometimes on other games you might think the RNG is skewed/faked, but that can't happen in Shadow Era. This means the main element of randomness and luck is the shuffle of the deck, which is how a card game should be.
Pro New free Single-player Campaign mode being updated regularly
There are already 120 missions to play through with dialogue, telling the story from the very beginning, for 10 Human heroes and 2 Shadow heroes (at the time of writing). Over time, more dialogue is being added to other missions for the remaining 6 Human heroes and 14 Shadow heroes, and then more maps with more missions will be added in future. The campaign mode is completely free and gives generous rewards for playing.
Pro Vibrant Tournament scene with prizes
A variety of player and developer organized tournaments, with prizes rewarded by devs, in both competitive and casual formats provides opportunities for players of all skill levels. It all culminates in the annual World Championship, a brilliant display of skill and deck building.
Pro Devs listen and interact with community
Main developer, Gondorian, is often commenting on questions in the Official forums as well as interacting with our player community on the Telegram messenger app.
Pro Active community
It has a lot of players due to Blizzard's fanbase which means finding multiplayer matches is not all that difficult.
Pro Polished overall aesthetic
Possibly the most polished user Interface of digital CCGs. Unified and fun art style and flavor text.
Pro Great even for casual players
Hearthstone has a friendly learning curve that makes picking it up and getting started easy for people who don't want to spend a lot of time learning rules and tricks.
Pro Multi-platform
Available on PC and on mobile. Makes a great commute companion (provided you have internet).
Pro Familiar characters from Warcraft 3 and World of warcraft
The characters used in Hearthstone are all from the lore of the Warcraft series, making for a familiar universe for fans of the series.
Pro Brawl events, that don't require you to follow "the meta"
You can take advantage of weekly brawl events that give you a certain set of cards (so no need to pay to stay competitive). It keeps the game fresh, fun and fairly "casual".
Pro Entertaining Voice Acting
The voice work really adds to the game and makes it entertaining to play.
Pro Card Balances and Game Updates Often
The Hearthstone team is always looking at their data and community reaction towards cards and the state of the game, and they have made many card and game changes/updates to balance and improve the game for all players.
Pro You won't be cursed at in the chat.
Interaction with opponent limited to simple pre-made phrases, so you don't have to see how many 1337 gamers had their way with you or your mother. Or deal with the spam about free decks, new hacks etc.
Pro Near-perfect balance between going first or second
There's no significant first-turn or second-turn advantage in Hearthstone. The player going second gets an extra card from his deck as well as "The Coin", a card that gives one extra mana crystal for one turn. This subverts the advantage that would be gained otherwise by the player going first.
Pro Free to play that doesn't exploit
Yes it's free to play, but it's designed to easily continue to play and have fun without having to feel like you HAVE to pay. At the same time, after playing a while you'll probably want to.
Pro Great if you don't take it too seriously
HS is meant to be fun, lighthearted, and generally casual. It requires a lot of time and money investment if you wish to play seriously.
Cons
Con Poor design
The graphics often seem like they are a less priority over other aspects of the game, the UI often falls into this problem too, which can make for a frustrating experience in that it can be difficult to know how to do certain tasks due to a poor layout and graphics.
Con Huge Money Sink
Although you can "technically" play for free, Hearthstone is very stingy on rewards. To get the limit of 100 paltry coins free a day, you have to win 30 games vs mostly players who have much better cards than you. It can take a new player 6 to 8(or more) hours to accomplish this. And after all this you get a pack of 5 cards that are often completely worthless to any viable deck. It's possible to get cards like "Angry Chicken"(worthless card) as the "Rare" card several times. You can also get a bunch of cards you already have a lot of.
Con Many mechanics based on random numbers
Random effects in the game use a random number generator, which causes an uncertainty of all outcomes. This causes one or both players to be frustrated because they can lose an already won game despite playing to the best of their ability.
Con The reward system is not significant enough
Hearthstone's reward system is very lackluster, providing little to nothing of significance to the casual or excessive player. There will be times when you feel heavily rewarded by the game, but these times are few and far between and if you are driven by rewards you will likely lose attraction to this game quickly.
Con Lacking a lot of depth found in better TCGs
Con Crafting is expensive
In lieu of trading cards, this game uses a disenchanting/crafting system to handle duplicate copies in your collection and being able to obtain the cards you want. Many cards disenchant for paltry amounts, and the best cards cost lots of "dust" to be able to play with.
Con Luck is more rewarding than skill.
When you lose a game in Hearthstone you don't learn anything because you generally can't play around most of the cards, most of the cards have random effects you have no control over it whatsoever.
Con Additional "Cards" must be paid for if not earned by continuously playing
There is a bit of a grind in earning new cards, so for those that do not want to spend the large amount of time needed to earn quality cards they will need to be purchased, which can get expensive.
Con Dependent on Battle.net infrastructure, not playable offline
The game requires a connection with Battle.net servers from the developers, and thus can't be played offline.
Con Ridiculously bloated
Over 4 GB data installed on ones device. Which is quite a lot of room, something many might not have to spare.
Con No trading with other players
Con The discover mechanic alone ruined this game
Luck tends to be more important than skill: there are numerous RNG-based cards in this game. Players that care about skill are better of playing other games, like Magic.
Con Simplistic and unintuitive card design
Very little mechanical depth, most of the complexity is based on random numbers.
Con Sometimes unfair matchmaking
Sometimes players will be matched up with people who clearly have been playing longer.
Con Poor port
Plays much better on PC. Sluggish and crashes often on mobile, sometimes connections can be difficult to make as well.
Con Chinese money > Freedom of speech
Blizzard WILL sell your soul to the chinese overlords for a couple sheckels. DO NOT play this game if you care about freedom of any kind. There are many other CCG out there. Have some dignity and principles.