> In Hearthstone, on the other hand, there's no practical reason that Blizzard couldn't keep selling its entire line of cards directly for as long as the game e

> In Hearthstone, on the other hand, there's no practical reason that Blizzard couldn't keep selling its entire line of cards directly for as long as the game exists. There's no _technical_ reason why they can't continue to sell all of the types of cards however they aren't introducing scarcity for the sake of it, or as (just) a money grab. When they design a new card they have to ensure that it fits with the other cards in the game, tweaking the effects it has so that it isn't too powerful when combined with existing cards. This becomes increasingly difficult as the number of cards increases. The "Standard" mode changes announced today make their job a lot easier as they only have to consider the last 2 years worth of cards (+ classic + basic cards) when designing new cards. IMHO this will be a net positive for the game.