Ok, thoughts so far. These are incredibly early and from someone who has seen literally nothing of the game until now.
It feels like it will have a billion options. There are 3 lanes to fight in. In each lane, you both have a tower. You win by destroying either two towers or one Ancient (upon destroying an opposition tower, an Ancient appears in its stead). So essentially - and theoretically, with proper strats not really in my thinking yet - spread your efforts across all 3 lanes, go for two, or try to hammer one insanely hard to win.
You can buff heroes with weapons/armour/items that you have in your hand, as well as cards that buff your lane. This all leads to a ridiculous amount of combinations.
There are a few different colour heroes and you can only play spells/effects into a lane which has a hero of that colour alive. Wipe out the heroes in a lane, and you're opponent can't do much to impact what's going on in that lane.
I've played two games online so far. The first I was one turn away from winning (I think) when the opponenet played some thunderbastard with 25 attack and I didn't have any way to block him. The second game I basically left one side clear for him and went for the two towers in the other lanes. He didn't have the buffs to output enough damage in the lane I left for him and ended up with 3 heroes there most of the game, unable to react to my attacks in the other lanes.
It's absolutely superb. The sound design is fantastic and though I prefer the general aesthetic of Hearthstone, this is absolutely top tier stuff (as you'd expect). There's a lot I don't quite understand yet, but it's hard to understate how much the 3 lane shenanigans brings to the game.
Someone hacked my Steam account but couldn't get in properly as they were using a new login computer and I've got the mobile phone security code thing set up. I need to change everything but I'll be on later.
Hit a lovely combo just now with my Satyr Blue/Green deck. Had Kanna already flooding a lane with creeps when my opponent hits them all with low damage. I then use (and I can't remember the actual name of the cards) Tower of + 2 Mana which leaves me with 5 mana left to drop in my Satyr Magician who then uses his active ability to refill my mana which is now high enough - due to the + 2 boost - to drop in the almighty Thunderbastard Herd. Next turn, with all my damaged Creeps, I drop the HoundStorm card and suddenly have 35 cards in one lane, including a Thunderbastard.
I really want to get Artifact, seeing as it's got traction on the forum, but Christmas and dat epic minimum wage (yo) makes me think I should wait until payday.
In the mean time, in my last game of MTG Arena, I ended up with a 17/18 creature with flying, vigilance, lifelink, and trample. WHO WANTS TO TOUCH ME.
For those with an open mind, wonders always await! - Kilton (monster enthusiast)