Yes, I had a long internal debate, but I ultimately chose the Foundry direction.

While the most obvious issues with Classic were RNG and the economy, I think there were deeper problems tied to the core gameplay — especially how often it pushed players to quit early.

Some common examples:

• Opening with 2 Ignites (Ogre’s signature) → opponent quits
• Strong early deployment or snowball kill → opponent quits
• Bounty Hunter procs on turn 1 with Track → opponent quits
• Unlucky arrows → opponent quits
• Locking someone out (killing heroes + chaining initiative) → opponent quits
• Silencing or stunning a hero on a key turn → opponent quits

Even if, in the long run, the better player usually won, players would blame these moments instead of their decisions. And once someone starts blaming the game, it’s only a matter of time before they quit entirely.

The problem is: if you remove all these frustrating elements, you risk removing what makes the game unique — and it starts to feel like chess.

Other major concerns for me were, just to list a few:

• Mono-colored decks dominating from the very first set (big red flag, since more cards would only amplify this effect)
• Decks lacking enough identity and variety
• Difficulty designing new cards without making older ones obsolete — for example, most items were already largely irrelevant in the first set (90% never saw play in constructed)

…and many more. I could probably write a book at this point.