How about playing some Hearthstone?

It's a computer-only online collectible card game from Blizzard. If you could potentially be interested in playing a game in a fantasy setting where you play 1-on-1 matches trying to reduce your opponents' health points to 0 using cards representing spells and creatures, this is a good one.

Technically, the game is still in closed beta, so you have to apply for beta key, then download and run the beta opt-in application which submits your hardware specifications, but I believe everyone will be able to play it pretty soon: the game is in closed beta since August, they've scheduled open beta for December and promised to send closed beta keys to everyone who applied before that. Recently, many people I know who have applied, received their keys, so it looks like they are close to opening up. The game already looks pretty solid at this point in time; they are still making minor tweaks to rules, but this being Blizzard, one can expect that they will continue to do so for years after release (not that it's poorly balanced as it is). Also, this being Blizzard, they already held a competition back in November and sold "virtual tickets" for watching the broadcast online! $20 for watching online a tournament for the game that is not released yet - now, that's something! (my younger brother watched it, as well as over 30 hours of videos by TotalBiscuit - he's more into the game than me.)

NB: This is a free-to play game, which means that there is a possibility to spend hundreds of dollars on virtual cards. I believe it is far from the "free to pay" or "pay to win" variety: unlike some others in this niche, it is well balanced and fun to play without paying (indeed, 44% of top tier players haven't paid anything, and I don't intend, too) but the possibility is there.

I have set up a Mumble chat server for this purpose. I think it would be fun to voice chat while playing or between the matches. The server is at

mumble-de.cleanvoice.ru, port 59384

You can find me by battletag Listic#1835 or email nleschov at gmail.

Please feel free to ask me questions if you have any.

So... it's like Magic: the Gathering, but done by Blizzard?

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So... it's like Magic: the Gathering, but done by Blizzard?

Basically, yes. But there are important differences in the details. I tried to get into playing Magic: the Gathering several times, both real cards and Magic: The Gathering: Online (Version 3), but failed to. I love MtG: Online on the theoretical level for the fact that it is practically a replica of the actual Magic game, in digital format, and that there's an emergent player-based economy: there are card trading bots in the marketplace that are tolerated by the administration, which trade cards for tournament tickets (which are de-facto currency, because there's no player-accessible game currency in the official economy). But it is absolutely intolerable to play for me: all rules of paper game are copied verbatim, together with all the phases of turns which demand you to push "Next" button many times per turn. I've heard Duels of the Planeswalkers is much better, but is it online?

Hearthstone is optimized for the medium it exists in. For one, there are no land cards, and deck size is down mrom Magic's 60 to 30. This alone makes game more fast-paced and fun, eliminating unfun situations like mana screw or mana flood. There are no colors of mana, but there are instead 9 hero classes which have different cards available to them. Then, the phases of combat are simplified away, so there're no things like 'interrupt' type spells (are these how they're called?) but there are 'secret' cards instead which are played, but only revealed only when the certain event is triggered. Blizzard has not only balanced the game, but put effort into making sure the game be fast-paced (which card games aren't, when translated into electronic form verbatim), understandable and fun (they're actually changing mechanics based on the feedback on these points). OTOH, while retaining similarity to real card games, it contains things which would be impractical in them, e.g minions' hit points are retained between turns or that dragon Ysera which makes you draw a Dream card each turn, which is a separate kind of deck that exists only for this card.

Ok, according to Blizzard, everyone who opted in for the closed beta test prior to Monday, December 16, should have received the key by December, 19th. Does anyone want to play?

I haven't heard from anyone willing to play so far. If anyone changes their mind and wants to give this free game a try, today is the last day to apply for beta key. After that, there is going to be an indefinite waiting period before open beta.

In case anyone is interested, I'm struggling with putting together a solid Warrior deck here on the forums.

Hearthstone is in open beta now.
FYI, even though not officially supported, the game runs fine for me on Linux, under Wine.
I have updated the address of Mumble server, just in case I'll have someone to talk to there (the previous one has expired).

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I play, and I'm at Eakin#1445.

I suck, though.