[Update] As of 3:00 p.m. Eastern, the North American Hearthstone servers are markedly more stable. Pack opening and general play function as intended. [Original story follows]
Hearthstone players rejoice: The Grand Tournament is upon us. As of 1 p.m. Eastern, Hearthstone’s second expansion is technically playable, though its launch servers will get in the way of actually playing.
Indeed, TGT has stuck to Blizzard’s launch mantra and left its servers in its other pants. As a result, even opening card packs is currently a chore. Those lucky enough to find a spot are able to open one card pack every two minutes. Many more cannot log in at all.
Naturally, once the game’s concurrent users even out, things will be smoothed over. As Blizzard said on the Hearthstone Twitter, the team is currently looking into latency and login issues. It seems patch 3.0, which paved the way for the expansion's debut, wasn't preparation enough. Suffice it to say, the servers are still quite down. We’ll update this story as the situation progresses.
Launch hitches aside, The Grand Tournament’s release is a time for celebration. The 132-card expansion introduces two new mechanics: Inspire, which triggers when you use your Hero ability, and Joust, which will only trigger if the user wins a mana cost contest between randomly revealed cards from each players’ deck (hence its Reveal misnomer). Both mechanics benefit late-game play, which should encourage new, less aggressive archetypes.
Source [Hearthstone Twitter]
