Growing up there were a lot of card game to choose from. The ones you played with your parents were simple, like "Go Fish" or "Uno," while the ones with your friends got more complex with games like "Yugioh" and "Pokemon." It has been a few years for some of us who laid to rest our collections in exchange for online games like "World of Warcraft" and "Counterstrike." These games are more interactive and enable you to connect with players all over the world. Well, times changed yet again when Blizzard, the creators of "World of Warcraft", came out with "Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft" in March of 2014.
"Hearthstone" is an online card game that gives you the option of playing any of these nine characters: Jaina Proudmoore (Mage), Anduin Wrynn (Priest), Gul'dan (Warlock), Uther the Lightbringer (Paladin), Garrosh Hellscream (Warrior), Malfurion Stormrage (Druid), Rexxar (Hunter), Valeera Sanguinar (Rogue) or Thrall (Shaman). You begin with 30 life and 0 mana, and each turn you gain a mana crystal, but most assuredly you'll lose life just as fast. The first game is walked through by The Innkeeper, but after that you're on your own. The main goal is to level up each character to gain all of the basic cards for each class, create your own decks, and to play ranked games with people all over the world.
This game is anything but simple after you begin to play the arena, go through the heroes' challenges, and try to rank up higher than level 20. Like any of those original card games, there are strategies to make, rules to follow, and people to annihilate, so I've decided to try and guide you through this world of Hearthstone. I am no expert, but I've played long enough and watched the best of the best to know at least enough to ensure you're a contender. Let's go!
Choosing A Deck
Each character has their own Hero Power that lends to the strength of their deck. For example, Rexxar has a Hero Power that inflicts two damage directly to the face of the opposing character. When choosing a deck, you need to have cards that will be able to not only withstand card attacks, but also character face attacks. The most popular deck for ranking up is a Hunter deck that has been dubbed "Face Hunter." The main goal of the deck is to basically ignore the weaker cards played against them on the field in favor of hitting the face of the opposing character. It's an effective deck because it uses a lot of low mana costing cards that inflict minimal damage, but used as combos can be crippling to the opponent. Face Hunter decks are hard to beat, but running cards like Sunfury, Antique Healbot, and Sludge Belcher are almost always a sure way to gain the advantage.
When ranking up, make sure to mix up your decks. If you're playing ranked games you're likely to run into the same people over and over again, so they can learn your methods pretty fast. It's recommended to use a deck three times and then to change, preferably from something like a Hunter deck to a Druid deck, because Hunter is a much more aggressive deck and your opponent might try to be as aggressive as you. Using Druid ensures you can gain mana quicker than your opponent and your healing powers are much stronger.
The best line up of decks as of right now are Hunter > pretty much everything, Priest > basically nothing (in this meta this deck is considered among the worst classes, if not the worst), Rogue > Paladin, Mage < Warrior (it's hard to tell what decks it is better than because there are so many options when creating a Mage deck, but against Warrior it's almost useless), Druid > Warrior, Shaman > Priest (basically the second worst deck to run), and Warlock is a hit or miss with all characters being a 50/50 chance of winning if you use the deck dubbed ZooLock.
To give you a run down on the best decks to use visit the website http://hearthstone.metabomb.net. It offers how-to guides for each popular deck a few times a month. Like Hearthstone, it's a little underrated but it's the website that many pros use when determining what to run at each competition.
What Game Modes You Should Start With
There are currently five game modes: Casual play, Ranked play, Arena, Solo Adventures, and the new Tavern Brawl, which came out June 17.
Casual
Casual play is where you can play with people around the world without the anxiety of ranking up. It's where most people choose to level up their characters before beginning the Ranked play. I would suggest getting all of your basic cards before playing ranked, because if you don't have all your basic cards it's hard to craft your own decks. You receive all of your basic cards when each character gets to level 10. After that you still receive basic cards but they will be outlined in gold. The next step that is most efficient is Arena!
Arena
Arena costs 150 gold, which you gain from ranking up, winning three games in a row, or paying for it ($1.99). In Arena you are given the choice of three different characters at random to make a deck fo,r and then it will take you step-by-step in choosing between three cards until you've chosen your 30 cards. Unlike normal deck,s you aren't limited to just two of each card you can have as many as you choose. For example, if you liked the card Knife Juggler and you wanted it three times in your Arena deck then that's allowed. After making the deck you play in Arena until you've lost three times. What's nice about this is that you can go back any time to play your Arena deck as long as you haven't lost three times. Depending on the amount of times you've won in Arena, you'll get different prizes that will help you on your Hearthstone journey. There isn't a lot of advice to give you for this play mode except to make sure you choose a good ratio of low mana cards to high mana cards. After playing a while in casual play, getting your basic cards, and playing in the Arena once or twice to test out your deck making skills, it's time to go to Ranked play!
Ranked
Ranked play starts you out at the beginning of every season (month) at rank 25 and raising to rank 20 ensures you get the card back for that season. When you reach rank 20 you can't fall below it, presumably because Blizzard wants as many people to be sporting each month's card back. After that your goal is to try and get to Legend. Around rank 10 is where things get tough because this is where you'll get stuck playing pro players and Hearthstone streamers. Once you reach Legend (after rank 1) you can't fall below that either, so you'll be Legend for the rest of that season, even if you lose all the rest of your games for that month, you'll just be a really lowly ranked Legend player. My suggestion here is to not play any meta decks, make your own specifically for Legend. These players have seen all the meta decks and are prepared for them all, so surprise them to throw them off their game! If you tire of playing ranked and want to get some rare cards and more gold, then the next step is to play the mini games.
Solo Adventures/ Tavern Brawl
What I love about Solo Adventures is that it's like a mini game. It has a story, a quest, and mini games with it to make it really worth your time. Yes, you do have to pay for these, but it gives you valuable cards and gold. The ones available now are Naxxaramas and Black Rock Mountain. They include fighting a variety of bosses and after you've beaten them you get to play more advanced Hero games against them for extra gold. For these Adventures you can not use regular decks to beat them, you have to craft specific decks for them. The ideal number would be two decks to beat Naxxaramas and two decks to beat Black Rock Mountain. With Tavern Brawl you get to be one of two characters with special abilities that are different from the regular characters. In the brawls you dont get time to test the decks you just play and mayhem ensues. It's a great way to let off steam when you've fallen from rank 10 to rank 15.
Final Words of Wisdom
Don't let the streamers and pro players intimidate you.They were once newbies, too. The way Hearthstone is expanding and certain OP (overpowered) cards are being smurfed, the game is really fair and made to be enjoyable for everyone. If you need a coach you know where to find me!
