How many good poker players are bad at HS, compared to how many good HS players are bad at poker. Given that they put in a reasonable effort into both games.

I would choose poker since that's the game I know the most about. Zombie Grandma gonna be a millionaire

I am not sure achieving legend status is the best measure o skill in hearthstone. You 'only' need to have a win rate above 50% and lots of time.

On the other hand winning a tournament is no good measure either, since variance is so big in poker.

Whether your expected winrate is 49% or 51% doesn't really matter, anyone with a winrate >0% will eventually get to legend. It's just that if you're 1% to win a game on any rank, the sequence of Ws and Ls can get very long if you were to simulate this.


Vix, I think you're projecting yourself onto this question too much. For every you, there are numerous people who are playing on stakes well above their capabilities(every fish ever). Not grinding 300 games every month is a fair point. We can change the percentile to 50% and eliminate volume - I'm pretty confident I could teach a random person who hasn't touched HearthStone to average over 3.00 wins in arena after 24h of coaching. Doing the same for poker is something I'm skeptical about.

But all that really does is compare the skill of the player pools not the games itself.

Better question (for me) is how many big blinds deep should a 6-max game be so it becomes the equivalent of something like an oil rogue vs patron warrior matchup.
Like, even at 25bbs -> everyone should probably minraise -> BB flats a ton -> incredibly complex multi-street game trees.

25 bb poker is probably more complex than like 80%+ of hearthstone games.

Especially with the meta, you could be a reasonable hearthstone player by basically just playing the most expensive minion and clearing stuff if they are showing lethal, otherwise going face.

I've said before and I truly believe this, there are maybe MAYBE ~1 difficult and cool decision every ~4+ games. Most games are autopilot.

This is true , you can get an emotional edge at poker , its impossible or close to it to do the same at hearthstone.

If you didnt lose money at poker then i think it would be easier for anyone to improve and reach the 0.25% , all limits would be looser and people wouldnt fear to bluffcatch or make a gto bluff which would make everyone to play closer to optimal poker to win , people would experiment more with different moves etc.


Optimal move at hearthstone relies on logic and common sense , sometimes creativity and thinking ahead too.

Deckbuilding is also a major part of the skill set of a card gamer since it can make a big difference.


Optimal move at poker relies on logic + common sense plus memory or exploiting information.

Memorizing the solution of so many different ranges and bet sizes with a solver is a very tough skill but essentially thats all poker is about without information.

There are other skills too associated with poker but i wouldnt consider them hard or something even though they are important.


Overall if you have time to commit and money and the proper tools and you dont fear losing , i dont think that reaching high stakes at poker would be much harder than reaching consistently top 25 or top 10 at the end of each season at hearthstone , you shouldnt even compare high stakes to legend , we can compare number of players instead , 38 play high stakes so top 38 of hearthstone.

Poker is more expensive hobby but if you have everything then nothing can stop you (softwares , coaching etc) , hearthstone requires creativity you cannot gain with money.

wut

hearthstone can be a fairly entertaining and even rewarding game. but truthfully isa very simple game that has a very low skill cap. it's a childs strategy game that pales in comparison to most other games. to compare it to poker is an insult to poker.

I haven't played much HS at all, one of the reasons was that I thought that the game was too easy, people have tried to convince me otherwise but I'm honestly just not very interested in the game(It was a big dissappointment to me, I was really excited for a cardgame).

So the question if poker is harder than HS, is super easy to answer for me, yes it is and it's not even close. Having played chess actively, a comparsion between poker and chess would be more interesting in my opinion.

Nevertheless, I still got some questions to the highlevel HS-Players:

Has HS evolved in the same way as Poker? For example if you look at shortstack play, limping was frowned upon for a long time and nowadays it's standard.

Also, to me a novice, your choices in HS seem very limited. People always like to mention attackorder etc. , but it seems rather easy to find the perfect move, which in poker is much harder to analyze.

What is more important, deckbuilding and staying ahead of the Meta or actually playing the game?

Playing skill depends on the deck you choose , oil rogue for example is not an easy deck , a deck like hunter ofc is very easy , card games have never rewarded skill lvl , a tough deck will not neccesarily offer bigger edge than an easier one.


Most moves at hs look easy and simple but there are few who require skill and creativity and planning ahead , isnt it the same at poker? most of hands end preflop and most of hands end on the flop too , there are actually few hands who are tough but if you use some common sense you will find a way , you may not win but you wont lose much either , at hs the wrong move will cost you the game or the match , its that simple , every move counts.


From my experience deckbuilding and staying ahead of the meta is the real skill of card games and its not an easy one , playing the game is second imo but is not as insignificant as you think , it requires creativy and plan.


Deckbuilding at hearthstone is even more important than other card games because 1 card alone can make a difference because the smaller your deck is the more impact a card has , its mulligan is also harder than a ga me like magic.

Yes, but it has more to do with deckbuilding than line of play. Let say card ''x'' in archetype ''y'' saw almost no play at some time and now it became very standard.

You need to know how the mechanics works, how to get very small value from your turn, plan some line of play in advance. Need to guess right what vilain could have in his hand, etc. After you are good with those basic skills, then deck building and knowing which tech card will crush the meta make the difference between an average player and a good player.

I don't think this is true. Much like poker you would alter your plays if you knew exactly what was in your opponent's hand. Like if I knew card-x wasn't in their hand I wouldn't play around it.

+1

A childrens card game.

Poker. Not that HS is easy, poker is just a lot harder.

8BB/100 400 NL 100K hands (back when poker was less hard) and Legend 15+ times in HS.

But it depends on how we define hard? Is it top 100 legend? top 1? world champion?

Same for poker, what do we need to to have learned the game?

I would argue that just getting legend is a way, way too low barrier in HS. But if we look at poker and maybe put something trivial like winning $1.000 in a year, with some sort of min requirement for hours/hands, so we cant just go take a flip, I don't really know.

But does it matter what is hardest?

Also money CLEARLY makes a game or a sport for that matter harder.

I started to play Hearthstone and got all the basic cards for all the Heroes, and a couple more, but I am no match against the better decks. That kind of thing just doesn't happen in poker.

I have ordered one book and hope it gives me some info of how to become a legend; to get a strong deck and how best to use my gold (2k at this time as a new player).

How much skill there is? 1st it looks there isn't much, being just about the power deck and some experience, but if you think a move ahead, and play your cards right vs different Heroes (though you still might play much the same, but I have some ideas), and then how you build your deck; balanced or so.

There often are options (what card and in what way you play), so it isn't just about the only possible cards. But still, it isn't a major skill game, the game being mostly about the power deck and playing oneself into value tourneys, or taking part into any offered. It is a sort of a freeroll, though not free.

What I like about this game is that there isn't necesarily a rake, though you usually still have to pay with gold or cash (not all sure about this as the gold option seems to be missing), and there figure to be a rake/juice. But I have not entered into a single tourney yet, that sucks in this game as I can play but with my regular deck I would get sort of cheated if I would enter, and not many fish would enter because of that.

This might not be the best esport game (just runs on most ordinary laptops, I suppose) as far as money goes, but you might not face a new enough version in the future, as the popularity of games change, new games and versions coming out. At least poker stays more the same.

It is a mystery for a beginner, how one becomes even a Legend, but time shows, but so far I have been playing mostly non-rated games and not doing that badly (when I arrived to my favorite heroes and worked them more balanced), but when some power deck decides to play casual games also, not to lose rating points or so, when testing something, I guess. I do occasionally beat some sort of a power deck also, but it is card luck.

What the possibilities are, depend on markets out there and their developments, as one can play the tourneys like one plays poker tourneys. If one gets enough points to get in better value tournaments, up to the big ones (250k, 1M), stays a mystery. Too small an edge to pay much juice in tourneys, so it isn't worth it for anyone, though chess costs like 100 per year, or nothing, still the servers running 24/7.

In the long run there will be more books (when the "secrets" leak out, people retire/stop playing perhaps) and all will start to have top level decks that you already can somewhat copy by watching videos, or some nutcase posting them here.

Comparing to poker; poker has more experience and feel and feel-logic related decisions and one makes some money and can luck in tournaments. More skill, more action, and there are no comparable live games in HS, though the big tourneys (and some more) are live.

But in poker, you won't get sponsor money, and can lose heavily, that is not so a case when playing esports, or any sports and you name it, though some hobbies cost up to major money, but there are sponsors. In a poker world one needs to get a name (nothing different there, just tougher) and then maybe one gets sponsors/backers. But for the rest of us, we risk money when we play, while in esports, there is generally no rake, though the tourneys still tend to have a rake in HS, or at the least one plays with money (or gold).

HS is a major time investment and offers just a mystery, one needing to work up mostly in other than skill ways, and then maybe get a lucky streak during some month or a year, and so scoring like in a lotto?

wut

The profit potential of Hearthstone seems too low even if starting it from the point where one has a competitive deck. To get enough points, one probably needs to play full time. Then one gets to pre 250k tourneys where one needs to win at least 4 coinflips to get a cut of the 250k prize; there are maybe 3 of those per year. It all is a bit fuzzy, but if that is all there is to Hearthstone, it is no match to the profit potential of poker, and one does not need to play poker full time.

Answers in bold.

I will say a big difference between tournaments and ladder.

Ladder you can abuse the system and play 1 deck if you want and master it. The ladder before legend rewards fast play and fast wins. The legend rewards win % moreso than fast wins although fast wins are still rewarded. In tournaments, you need to be good at a number of decks--typically 3-4 in which 1 get's banned. Typically in tournaments, the meta game typically is not what you see on ladder--there will be more high win % decks and less aggro/fast decks and you have to adjust accordingly.

Poker is much like HS although with HS there is a big barrier to get all the cards initially--once you have them, what separates the average player and great player is better decision making/experience--same as poker, and time/patience which are similar to poker.

poker is much harder than hearthstone lol. ranges are way more complex and the game tree is much is far wider. hearthstone is less complex than a <12bb hu/3handed hyper sng though.

been top #20 legend EU multiple times, still a noob in poker.
yes it's a trillion times harder

How has no one mentioned rake yet, wtf? You can be much better than you're opponent and still lose longterm, the same can't be said for HS or other games.

if heartstone was game of money it would be different story ^^

There are sit and go type of tourneys but they are not that popular, less so with other similar digital card games that I also tried. There were plans of in-built tourneys for Hearthstone but they decided otherwise.

But there are many tourneys one can play and they are connected to Blizzard but there isn't enough money and new cards and nerfs (cards are killed, banned) happen all the time and not only that it costs now more, it is a lot of effort and play that is needed to be competitive especially in tourneys where one needs 3-4 top decks.

I got all basic and expert cards on all or 3 regions and built tens of decks and plenty very top decks that was net decking from the main parts though there is some variety to it.

Choosing the decks, building them, time and time again (I finally gave up playing when they eliminated all my top decks when they should have from most part have lasted 1 to 2 years more) and playing against them and against all top decks is what is difficult in this game and it can't be compared to poker for that reason as it would be like there would be new forms of poker one needs to play every couple of months.

It became clear to me that this game isn't worth it to play for money and I dropped Eternal also and didn't stay active with any other card game like this either, including Legends.

If one likes tourneys, there are a lot of different kind of tourneys in poker and like all knowledge one generates will not disappear as soon as one gets any good. Though there are always the basic things in HS that more or less never disappear but for advanced play, one needs to know the current top decks and how to play them and against them and it is up to the player if he wants to keep up to date with it and put all the time in it it needs and for no money.

For a beginner, getting into HS is ridiculously slow and time taking and after that one is to buid top decks and learn to play against them with very little rewards but if one becomes a regular in some sit and go type of HS money games and finds it to be worth it. As a card game, poker is where the money is and you don't need to build decks but learn to play the forms you play better and better.

The playing aspect itself in HS is in thinking about the opponent's deck like one thinks about the opponent's range in poker and the position and the potential moves in chess. One also thinks how one should play one's HS cards in itself and because of the opponent's deck. All mind games can get kind of similar when it comes to thinking.

The tactics in chess avoid blunders and mistakes and in HS one also needs to calculate when making the practical or tactical decisions. The HS strategy is about the deck vs. deck and partly about the cards one is holding (and so on) that from the other part can be considered in itself to be a technique, tactics and calculations. The tactics in poker are also about the practical things that could also be called the technique like in other games. One can also make a move that is tactics; especially in poker that has its place when the situation is right. In chess that would be something radical, surprising or forcing.

Poker and HS have its random aspect when it comes to the cards coming out of the deck but in poker it is one hand or a couple of streets while in HS it is a longer run that can also be decided by a singe lucky card and I had more trouble digesting it in HS than in poker, though when laddering up (for no reason at all but to see it and experience it and have more quality to HS) one gets more pleasure out of playing against decent opponents and it tilts less IMO, and I like the good performance aspect and the deep gaming that is in HS and knowing what that is, one knows what the gaming aspect is in HS.

There is a depth in poker when all the things combine; one learns those from books and so and from experience and from thinking and then there is the logic and the cards in the moment.