When comparing HEX: Shards of Fate vs Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, the Slant community recommends HEX: Shards of Fate for most people. In the question“What are the best digital Collectible Card Games on PC?” HEX: Shards of Fate is ranked 11th while Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is ranked 16th. The most important reason people chose HEX: Shards of Fate is:
PvE Campaign with a lot of AI encounters and RPG depth.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro PvE campaign
PvE Campaign with a lot of AI encounters and RPG depth.
Pro Depth
Complex interactions between cards and several game phases add a lot of depth to this game.
Pro Cash tournaments
5000$ every two months, 1000$ every weekend.
Pro Will be familiar to Magic the gathering players
Similar to Magic the Gathering but deeper because of digital interactions that are impossible to do in MTG. So those familiar with MtG should feel pretty at home and familiar with the gameplay.
Pro Easy to learn, hard to master
The most rewarding games often share this: it takes some dedication to fully appreciate the depth of the game. There's lots of fun to be had while discovering all the layers though so in my mind it's one of the pros.
Pro True TCG
Cards can be traded with other players and have real-world value.
Pro More complex than other TCG's
Offers many things to do. See also: "Easy to learn, hard to master" in Cons below.
Pro It's basically M:TG for the 21st Century
As in, it uses the digital format really well with mechanics that cannot be reasonably (or at all) be done in a paper game.
Pro Cheap compared to any other TCG/CCG
5 dollar for 500 plat , 1 booster = 17 cards and you can buy for 200 plat, you also get a chest with which you can earn more cards and loot by opening it with a small gold fee.
Pro Solid community
Very friendly community, almost no trolls or bad manner.
Pro Beautiful art
Pro Communicative developers
The CEO posts a forum thread every week, developers give interviews on stream, and community managers are very responsive.
Pro Utilizes the digital aspect completely
For example, changing your own card and enemy cards while they are in there deck.
Pro An ingame chat to talk to other players (instead of basic emote's)
Pro Easy tournament style, you can finish your tournament over multiple days/weeks if its needed
Pro Change the way cards work by adding gems where possible
In PvE you can use equipment to change how cards work. A Johnny player's paradise.
Pro Auction house to buy and sell cards
A huge amount of cards for just a few pieces of ingame currency.
Pro Large variety of gameplay and formats
Between the cash tournaments, the ladder with rewards for both limited and constructed play, draft gauntlets, sealed and evolution gauntlet, as well as the single player campaign, playing the auction house, and the 'sandbox' Frost Ring Arena, there is a lot to engage in.
Pro The feel of your LGS from the comfort of your house
Trading, tournaments, guilds, ingame chat. But you can play whenever you feel like, with the asynchronous modes and even participate in big tournaments wearing your pyjamas.
Pro Can easily maintain 100+ creatures on the board incase its needed (like with vennen)
Pro Good tutorial
There are tutorials in the game that are pretty extensive in teaching one how to play the game. For many TCGs may seem pretty complicated, luckily HEX helps new players get accustomed to the game.
Pro Very profitable compared to other games
Thanks to player Platinum:Gold market, While grinding in HEx you will net around $1/hour whereas in Hearthstone the same time will only see a return of around 20¢/hour.
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 Most people will need to spend money if you want to have a robust collection
With new PVP sets planned to hit every 4-5 months, plus new PVE cards throughout the year, it may be hard to keep up as a "Free to Play" player.
Con You'll probably never own everything
Each card has real value. Rare items are EXTREMELY rare. And there have already been one-of sleeves that won't be returning. If one wants to own every card and item that exist in the game and can be traded, they must pay a hefty price.
Con Clunky deckbuilding interface.
While they are updating the deck builder frequently, search mechanics and sorting could be better. Such as the ability to make new decks in campaign, instead of just clicking a button and starting from scratch, you must manually remove all the cards in the deck and then remember to save as a new deck.
Con Animations are lacking
The game board often feels like it is not active enough with animations and movement, this makes for a very static feeling while playing the game.
Con Questionable long-term viability
At this point, hard to see the game ever really taking off. Balancing and card development is increasingly questionable, especially in limited formats (such as the current set emphasizing RNG in the Conscript mechanic as a game decider). The game developers have essentially conceded they can't deliver much of what was promised on the PvE side while also struggling to translate efforts there into income.
The client interface (e.g. chat, auction house, etc.) remains atrocious. Multiple featured tournaments have been compromised by bugs. This seems like a classic case of reach exceeding grasp, and investing heavy resources into the game is probably not the safest play.
Con Boring
It's hard to get excited about any of it.
Con Very long matches
Con It's too MTG-like
The mechanics, type of card, curve of resources.. everything can be related to MTG.
Con Easy to learn, very very hard to master
No instant gratification, which some specific type(s) of players seek in their games. You have to go deep to reach a point where every play will feel like a personal win.
Con Paths on the campaign are hard
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.