What's about to happen in Hearthstone mirrors two things that happened to MTG a while back. Neither were good for the game. In fact they are objectively seen as two of the worst decisions WotC ever made.The first was the end of "Old Extended". A format that no longer exists and is equivalent to what we are currently playing now in Hearthstone. It had the largest draw in MTG, even more so than FNM (which was Type2, aka Standard). But it wasn't selling a lot of new cards for Wizards, as most people were acquiring singles from the mom and pop card shops that hosted the weekend (Old) Extended tournaments. We had 50+ people coming out for weeklies when Old Extended existed.The second was institution of the reprint policy and reserve list. A move that hurt both players and collectors. Benefiting only financial speculators, people who don't even necessarily play the game but treat the reserve list cards as a 401(k). In Hearthstone's case the speculators and Blizzard are the same entity (as the cards can't be traded). Additionally the increase in cost for out-of-print cards, and resulting barrier of entry for formats using them, creates a self fulfilling prophecy where WotC can justify not running many events in the eternal formats. This makes them second class citizens in sanctioned play. In Hearthstone's case they have already made statements involving the Wild format, which is a new format, that it is already slated to be a second class unsupported format.Hearthstone's upcoming changes have more Bad Things (tm) than just these. But these two are really critical, as they are covering ground that has been traveled before in a way that ignores wisdom gleaned from those past events.
My view:Yes! New formats, fresh game, yes it will make a huge difference.Standard will make new, freshly decks, will require inovative way of making decks, until the new decks as secret paladin or face hunter arise, until next exspansion (for one year) and where old decks go to dust, and new ones rise, etc.Wild format will be wild as new expansion comes, even with reprints, imagine the variations of decks, running, 4 of the same cards (with reprints, when they do reprint). It is a new whole world.But here is the catch, you will need money (or gold). If you think about it, with every new expansion (also adventure), you will forced to buy it to stay competitive, and this is true for first expansion of every rotetion (example spring 2016 expansion). On other hand if you can't buy so much packs, you will stuck at wild, in which case, after some time some old decks could get overpowered by new cards and decks, so in a strange but possible way, secret pally could get rekt buy some new deck with newer cards.So in short, @Cyanisa and @Kunou are right. So I will not repeat what they have said.But we will have to wait and see.And as always, have fun and good luck.
Who the new formats are good for - nearly everybody.Who the new formats are not good for - Golden card collectors and people who have spent tons of money on the game.I feel sorry for that second group, but I think the format changes are good for the game overall.
BTW: I totally agree with Kibler that Classic should be rotated out of standard too. That way, no nerfs would be necessary, and they could focus on more base cards for the next set.