No Love For The Fans — How Blizzard Left A Hole In My Heart That No Game Can Fill

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I’ve been without my beloved game mode from Hearthstone for more than a year now, and nothing else I’ve found so far has managed to replace it in my affection.

What Exactly Is Hearthstone?

Hearthstone has gained significant popularity, particularly within the community of card game aficionados. However, if you’re unfamiliar with it or haven’t had much exposure, I’d like to provide a brief overview of this otherwise remarkable game:

In essence, Hearthstone is an online collectible card game developed by Blizzard Entertainment. The objective is to strategically use your cards to defeat your opponent by reducing their health to zero. The game offers a variety of characters, spells, and weapons from the Warcraft universe, adding an extra layer of excitement for fans of the franchise.

New players can enjoy a tutorial that introduces them to the basics, while seasoned gamers will appreciate the depth and strategy involved in building decks and outmaneuvering opponents. Whether you’re new to card games or a long-time enthusiast, Hearthstone offers something for everyone.

In the mystical world of Warcraft, you gather cards with unique abilities, attack strength, and health levels. Some of these cards are associated with specific classes that can be strategically combined. It’s crucial for the cards to suit your chosen hero. Each card has a distinct playstyle and hero-specific ability. For instance, there’s a hunter designed for dealing high damage swiftly, and a priest who restores 2 health points to a character on the battlefield, focusing more on spell cards. These cards can possess additional effects such as enhancing attributes, causing effects, or healing or damaging others.

Once you’ve assembled your deck, you can engage in combat with other players who have also constructed their own decks. This is the standard mode of play, hence it’s also known as “Constructed”.

Beyond the Battlegrounds mode, Hearthstone boasts a wealth of additional features such as solo campaigns against AI, entertaining mini-games, and unique deck-building scenarios. One of these modes, in particular, drew me in instantly and continues to keep me engaged – I’m referring to Duels, an engaging roguelike game mode. However, if you search for it now, you won’t find it, as Duels once had a dedicated fan base.

This Hearthstone offers more than just Battlegrounds – there are solo campaigns, mini-games, and unique deck-building modes. I found one mode, called Duels, to be particularly captivating, but you won’t find it today since Duels had a dedicated fan base.

What Made Duels So Special?

In the “Duels” mode, unlike the “Constructed” mode previously described, you’ll encounter a dynamic selection of heroes, with most still representing standard classes. However, the real excitement begins as you don’t get the same hero pool each round. Instead, you need to gather cards for certain classes first. Once you’ve chosen your class, you can pick one of three abilities that match your playstyle.

Next, you select a class-specific treasure card, which will serve as the foundation for your deck-building process. Unlike the standard 30 cards required in other modes, you only need 15 here. The fun continues as after each match, you can pick from three groups of three cards (referred to as “buckets”) to add to your deck.

During the game, you also get to choose between two powerful passive effects. After 12 victories, you win and receive a substantial reward, but if you lose three times in a row, you’re eliminated. Consequently, “Duels” becomes a thrilling quest for the perfect winning streak.

In contrast to some readers finding the description appealing, Duels offered numerous benefits that were particularly advantageous for beginners: The gameplay was simpler as you only started with 15 cards instead of 30, and success often relied more on luck rather than possessing ten legendary cards. While the potential for earning large amounts of gold was limited to skilled players, you would occasionally receive a card after each run.

Moreover, if you managed to secure 12 wins in a row, you could expect a substantial reward of gold and legendary cards, making each round incredibly thrilling. It’s also essential to note that the longer matches resulted from having more cards in your deck, which made them increasingly tense.

Players Begged Blizzard To Reconsider

We’ve chosen to end our support for the Duels Mode towards the end of the year. A big thank you to all the enthusiastic Duels enthusiasts who helped make this exciting journey a reality.

— Hearthstone (@PlayHearthstone) January 4, 2024

Following Blizzard’s unexpected announcement about eliminating the mode, players swarmed the forum imploring Blizzard to reconsider their decision. The majority of comments thus far have been a single post voicing disapproval of this news. Few comments applaud the announcement and are swiftly criticized by other users. A user named Flankhardt narrates the heartbreaking tale of this cherished mode: Blizzard neglected to publicize it, failed to monetize it effectively, and allowed it to deteriorate. Many users claim that they not only purchased packs due to the mode, but it was the sole mode they regularly played.

Please reconsider. I’ve spent hundreds on this game and I’ve loved it the last 10 years, this mode is by far the best thing you guys ever did and the day it goes is the day I uninstall sadly.

I agreed with that opinion.

Seriously, What’s The Point?

In essence, Blizzard didn’t address player concerns or make changes, and they kept modes that weren’t well-received without any updates for an entire year in the game. Consequently, Duels faded away, taking with it my affection for a game I had cherished since its debut.

It’s been a full year since I removed Hearthstone from my device. Not long before that, you could find me on the couch with companions, bemoaning our defeats, grumbling about bad fortune, and getting worked up when we managed to win a tough fight with teamwork. Time and again, Blizzard has demonstrated their disregard for player preferences: whether it’s scrapping popular game modes, persisting in the seemingly aimless evolution of their once legendary hero shooter, or disappointing us with Diablo 4’s expensive, underdeveloped release.

Have you played Hearthstone and remember Duels?

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2025-06-26 22:10