Hearthstone: Because what Magic really needed was F2P mechanics

[Codicier]

So I fell in love with this game, accidentally playing until 2am last night. However, I really suck. 

 

If anyone has any simple tips on deck building I'd be grateful. I've never played a CCG before because I know I'm the kind of person who will let it suck me in and spend all my money. A free to play game is different though as I can quite easily avoid micropayments, and if I like it I don't mind throwing £10 to say thank you BLizzard. Anyway! No idea where to start with deck building so a few basic pointers would be highly appreciated. 

 

Ok first big tip i can offer to you is simply know what playstyle you feel relaxed with, because you will make less mistakes when your not fighting your natural instincts there are two prime archetypes Argo and Control.

 

Agro: Attacking your opponent forcing him to make mistakes or loose

 

Control: Sitting back using your cards to counter your opponents threats

 

Decide which you think suits you & look at what Deleric wrote earlier, agro decks should be early-mid game focused, with control mid-late game.

 

Practice with all the classes until you've unlocked the basic cards, and beaten every expert AI (you will get some free gold for doing so)

 

Not only will this give you a good understanding of what classes you like but  you should unlock 2-3 http://hearthstone.wikia.com/wiki/Achievements, which will give you around 300 gold.

 

You should then run arena, here's a couple of good general guides to card strengths in the format

 

http://www.icy-veins.com/hearthstone-arena-card-rankings-spreadsheets

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/1nww68/arena_draft_guide_for_new_players/

 

Hopefully after a few arena runs you will feel like you know which decks your most comfortable with & what sort of card pool you have. At that point we can probably give you a few more specific tips

[Griddlelol]

Alright thanks!

 

I've not really fallen into a playstyle yet, but I've found that I generally run out of cards to use as the game progresses. In late game I don't have anything to use other than the card I get each turn. 

Not tried expert AI, but I beat the opponents to unlock decks pretty easily. I'll definitely play with those two ideas in mind and see which one I slip into with the least amount of lubrication. 

 

I've got a couple of long trains and a flight today. Do you have to be connected to the internet to fight AI?

[Arathain]

It helped me to think of Hearthstone as a game about resources. You have three: mana, cards (specifically, cards in your hand) and health. At the start of a game, mana is the most important, since you don't have a lot. As you get into the mid-game cards become more important, since you need options to create threats and deal with your opponent's threats. At the end-game health matters most, as you try to stay alive and get the damage to finish them off.

 

So you need to win on efficiency. To be mana efficient, kill a minion using a cheaper spell or minion- a 1 mana 2/1 can kill a 4 mana Cult Master. To be card efficient try to have your cards deal with more than one of their cards- the Chillwind Yeti is so good because it's hard to kill without spending at least 2 cards. Battlecry minions are often strong because you get benefit from the card immediately even if the minion is taken out.

 

Health is an interesting one. Classes with weapons (Warriors, Paladins, Hunters, Rogues, Shaman) and the Druid can attack directly, trading damage for health. This is usually a very good deal, particularly early on. Fiery War Axe can get rid of 2 3 health minions, for one card and two mana. That's worth some health. In general, obsessing about the health of either player before the end game is not useful. Beware the lure of cards that heal your hero or hurt the opposing hero- if they have weaker stats than you'd expect for their cost to make up for the heal then you're just losing slower. Priestess of Elune is not a good card, and neither is Nightblade Assassin. In this vein, Sinister Strike in one the worst cards in the game- you spend a card and the board state is totally unchanged.

 

Looking at it in this light, the difference between agro (high damage, cheap minions go for the hero for a quick win) and control (keep the board clear until you can bring out some nasty late game combo) is that control tries to spend cards and mana efficiently, and agro tries to force their opponent to spend inefficiently just to stay alive.   

[Dewar]

Personally, I have found card count to be the most limiting resource for me. I have had success either on focusing on small cheap cards with a lot of options to draw more, or having lots of expensive cards so I can still have a big impact one card at a time in the mid-to-late game.

[Codicier]

You guys might want to have a quick read through of this article

http://www.hearthpwn.com/forums/managrind/content/2916-the-three-competing-resources-tempo-card-advantage

It's a really solid breakdown of the basic elements that make up a good deck.

Of course the kicker is now that a good deck can easily still loose most of the time if it's in the wrong place in the meta game

[kaputt]

I'm addicted to this. Been playing on my iPad all weekend. The only card game I ever played was Magic, but with some fucked up rules cause any of my neighbors never intended to learn the actual rules, it was really awesome back then. I always thought that the iPad would be a great platform for games like these, glad that someone actually gave a serious effort on creating such a game.

[Griddlelol]

I read it. It helped. I beat the experienced ai every time and have racked up 3 wins!

This games is going to be an issue for me. I love it and I suck! It makes me want to get better though.

[Dosed]

I've just started playing this as I loved Blizzard games and I've always had a subconscious interest in CCG games, even though I've never really played any or collected any (apart from Pokémon, because I was A 90'S KID (YOU WOULDN'T UNDERSTAND!!! NICKELODEON!! POGS!)).

 

First things first, this game is really god damn good. It helps that I walked into playing one of the most overpowered classes in the game, the Hunter, by accident and really enjoyed playing it. It also helps that my friend plays the game and is a freakshow. He's one of these guys that can pick up any multiplayer game and within minutes he understands everything there is to know about the game, and he's smashing your face in and there's nothing you can do about it. I mean I'm better than you're average bear at FPS multiplayer, but this guy will just pick up anything and be super good at it. So he helped me build my Hunter deck which I'm thoroughly enjoying. 

 

However, there's a few issues I have with it. I'm finding I have to invest a lot of time to get 100 coins to buy a pack and improve my decks. I know I can do the daily quests to get gold quicker, but then I have to spend gold to get packs for those classes too. I'm pretty adamant I won't buy any packs with real life dollah, so it's quite annoying knowing there's gonna be alot of time investment just so I can stand level with the guys paying money for it. Oh well, I guess that's the entire free-to-play model in an nutshell and I don't like it because I'm poor. 

 

Griddle I've heard from the friend I mentioned that the Warlock class is pretty good for beginners and should help you improve. If you want to try it out there's a bunch of decks here (I have no idea if any of them are any good, but I find it hard to build decks).

 

Also it really helps that this game is set in The World of Warcraft because I love The World of Warcraft. God damn it. I love it. 

[Berzee]

to get packs for those classes too

 

I thought you just bought packs in general and they might contain cards for any class? (If not, I've been making some very uninformed buying decisions =P)

[Cleinhun]

 I'm finding I have to invest a lot of time to get 100 coins to buy a pack and improve my decks. 

I think generally the arena is better than buying packs. It lets you do daily quests for classes you don't have good cards for yet and not be at a disadvantage. Even if you only manage 1-2 wins you generally get some gold back at the end, and you always get a pack, so it isn't even that much more expensive than just buying packs. 

[Dosed]

Yeah, I tried the arenas but, again, I suck at making decks and I often don't have a clue what to choose. I've only done one arena run, as your first one is free, and I got destroyed 0-3 which was pretty damn demoralising. My friend told me what deck to build, and he said I got a bad draw, but even still I got utterly demolished. 

 

I thought you just bought packs in general and they might contain cards for any class? (If not, I've been making some very uninformed buying decisions =P)

 

No, you do do that I think. I just meant that I have no idea what cards I'll be getting and often end up with no cards for the classes I want meaning I have to win another whole bunch of times. 

[graddy]

I made a custom Mage deck and was getting slaughtered handily almost every game. I switched back to standard Mage and won two in a row.

I think I need to play a bunch more games to learn all the mechanical foibles before I delve into deck building.

[impuuuu]

I made a custom Mage deck and was getting slaughtered handily almost every game. I switched back to standard Mage and won two in a row.

I think I need to play a bunch more games to learn all the mechanical foibles before I delve into deck building.

Custom deck-building is really hard, I agree. I found a couple friends who are pretty good at the game and gave me lots of useful tips on the game in general, which transfers well into deck-building. My custom mage deck had a lot of one minion summons another minion, and after some tsk-ing by a friend and practical application, I realized those were not the cards for my deck haha.

[Codicier]

Yeah, I tried the arenas but, again, I suck at making decks and I often don't have a clue what to choose. I've only done one arena run, as your first one is free, and I got destroyed 0-3 which was pretty damn demoralising. My friend told me what deck to build, and he said I got a bad draw, but even still I got utterly demolished. 

 

 

No, you do do that I think. I just meant that I have no idea what cards I'll be getting and often end up with no cards for the classes I want meaning I have to win another whole bunch of times.

 

 

you should then run arena, here's a couple of good general guides to card strengths in the format

 

http://www.icy-veins.com/hearthstone-arena-card-rankings-spreadsheets

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/1nww68/arena_draft_guide_for_new_players/

 

Hopefully after a few arena runs you will feel like you know which decks your most comfortable with & what sort of card pool you have. At that point we can probably give you a few more specific tips

 

combine those card ranking along with a decent curve for you deck & you shouldn't go far wrong.

 

 

Custom deck-building is really hard, I agree. I found a couple friends who are pretty good at the game and gave me lots of useful tips on the game in general, which transfers well into deck-building. My custom mage deck had a lot of one minion summons another minion, and after some tsk-ing by a friend and practical application, I realized those were not the cards for my deck haha.

 

For people 1st stepping into building decks there are 2 things worth remembering 

1. There will be people out there who just have better cards, and they will beat you sometimes even when you play well. You have to accept this and build your decks accordingly.

2. Agro is often the most affective playstyle for cheap decks because it relys on cheap creatures and most of the overpowered and expensive cards like legendaries are at the upper end of the power curve.

 

There is currently a format of competitive Hearthstone called "Limited" which bans the use of rares and legendaries. A site called managrind run a weekly tournament for it every wednesday and the weekly top 8 decklists you can find on the net are a good starting point if you need a idea of what a cheap but powerfull deck looks like

 

Here for example is a very competitive hunter deck from this weeks north american tourney

Managrind's Wednesday Limited Swiss NA 11 - Geistwraith

• 1 x Savannah Highmane
• 2 x Hunter's Mark
• 2 x Stonetusk Boar
• 2 x Timber Wolf
• 1 x Freezing Trap
• 2 x Starving Buzzard
• 2 x Tracking
• 2 x Houndmaster
• 1 x Deadly Shot
• 2 x Scavenging Hyena
• 2 x Unleash the Hounds
• 2 x Explosive Trap
• 2 x Eaglehorn Bow
• 2 x Kill Command
• 1 x Ironbeak Owl
• 2 x Animal Companion
• 2 x Flare

Sidenote: Flares presence there is a great example of a card which is a pure meta-game choice. There are alot of strong hunter decks around atm so it makes sense in a way it would not when another deck ruled the roost

[Entriech]

I picked this up during a lull in my SolForge playing, and now I'm hooked on both games.  I didn't appreciate much about Hearthstone until I started really assimilating the importance of board control and card advantage.  That first time you skip playing something that you could because it makes more sense to hold it feels odd, but generally works in your favour.

 

That Icy Veins site is great for strategy, and often contains some extremely cheap custom decks for each class.

 

Another tip I have is to play Ranked instead of Casual.  Ranked will pit you against people of your own skill level and experience.  Casual will match you up against anyone, often experienced players testing out deck builds with rare cards that will punch you in the face.

[ariskany_evan]

I picked this up during a lull in my SolForge playing, and now I'm hooked on both games.  I didn't appreciate much about Hearthstone until I started really assimilating the importance of board control and card advantage.  That first time you skip playing something that you could because it makes more sense to hold it feels odd, but generally works in your favour.

 

That Icy Veins site is great for strategy, and often contains some extremely cheap custom decks for each class.

 

Another tip I have is to play Ranked instead of Casual.  Ranked will pit you against people of your own skill level and experience.  Casual will match you up against anyone, often experienced players testing out deck builds with rare cards that will punch you in the face.

 

After maybe 10 matches, I began to see the beauty of holding onto cards.  I had initially been slamming down every card the moment I could, while my opponent slowly carefully removed them all while taking a bit of damage.  By the time I'd have 8 or 9 mana per turn, I'd only have 1 or 2 more cards in my hand while my opponent would have 6-7.  Then I'd just get crushed.  Lesson learned!  Hold back!

 

And thanks for the ranked matches tip!  I didn't realize you could change that as I figured "casual" was a descriptor for my current rank.

 

I'm doing my best not to read other people's deck builds.  I feel like I'd take a lot less ownership in my wins especially when I'm still learning all the cards.  Just keep reminding myself that failing is learning.

[Codicier]

Just hit rank 10 with my Mage deck and feeling pretty happy about it as a metagame choice (but also a bit annoyed i had to start late this month so prob wont be able to get much higher), although from past experience this is the point where the REAL bastards start popping up. decks positively glowing orange with legendaries.

 

How's everyone else doing atm? any decks people are having problems vs? personally finding warrior control a extremely easy deck to misplay against, since it can bust damage in so many different ways.

[posh_somme]

loving this even though i've never played a TCG or anything like one. still haven't put any money into it and it seems to be suiting me fine, at rank 19 now and still winning pretty often. spent a whole bunch of time refining my decks between games and found that it's much better for me to have a lot of low cost cards and dominate the board that way, also making sure i can draw as many cards as possible. having fun with hunter, mage and druid right now, not sure if i'll touch some of the others yet. first game other than spelunky or dark souls 2 to really hold my attention recently. and it was free!

[dibs]

I don't like this game still. ipad didn't add anything.

[BigJKO]

It did add a bit of slowdowns on your iPad 2. Feature!

[ariskany_evan]

It did add a bit of slowdowns on your iPad 2. Feature!

 

It really does chug along on the iPad 2... Wish there was a way to turn off or simplify animations.

[melmer]

Game has froze

And every time I turn the game off and on or logout/in of battlenet it reconnects me back to the frozen game... Thank Obama

http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/forum/topic/12427752828

This happened to anyone else

[Entriech]

I'm surprised at the competitive level of decks you can put together even with just the free base and class cards.  I've pretty much cruised from rank 25 to 19 on the strength of free Mage and Rogue decks listed on Icy Veins.  Normally I hate net decking, but I feel like there's aspects of Hearthstone's deck composition strategy that aren't apparent until you directly see how cards in = difference in play.

 

Like River Crocolisk.  Holy crap, a 2/3 for 2 mana?  Such a great creature.  You can drop that bad boy on turn 2, and be confident that it'll still be there on turn 3, or that you'll have cost your opponent valuable time and cards removing him.  Chillwind Yeti? Enormous staying power.

 

I do dislike how little weapon nullification is readily accessible in the game.  So far any deck I make has to have Acidic Oozes in it, because you just can't risk not having a way to get rid of some of those bigger weapon cards.

[Codicier]

Game has froze

And every time I turn the game off and on or logout/in of battlenet it reconnects me back to the frozen game... Thank Obama

http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/forum/topic/12427752828

This happened to anyone else

 

Are you still getting that discon mington? they were having some big problems with EU battlenet earlier this week, i haven't seen that error myself but got a good half dozen random variety's of disconnect or freeze during those few days, but it seems fine now. 

 

I'm surprised at the competitive level of decks you can put together even with just the free base and class cards.  I've pretty much cruised from rank 25 to 19 on the strength of free Mage and Rogue decks listed on Icy Veins.  Normally I hate net decking, but I feel like there's aspects of Hearthstone's deck composition strategy that aren't apparent until you directly see how cards in = difference in play.

 

Like River Crocolisk.  Holy crap, a 2/3 for 2 mana?  Such a great creature.  You can drop that bad boy on turn 2, and be confident that it'll still be there on turn 3, or that you'll have cost your opponent valuable time and cards removing him.  Chillwind Yeti? Enormous staying power.

 

I do dislike how little weapon nullification is readily accessible in the game.  So far any deck I make has to have Acidic Oozes in it, because you just can't risk not having a way to get rid of some of those bigger weapon cards.

 

While I agree that the basic cards offer some very solid agro possibilities if you want to go control its pretty much go epic/legendary or go home.

 

Interesting that you mention Croc, it really didn't get much play until recently with the rise to viability of hunter decks with explosive trap. Currently the meta game basically tells you if you drop a creature turn 2, it had better have toughness three or its going to be dead 1st time it attacks. 

 

I agree on the anti weapon stuff to a extent, playing at least 1 ooze does feel mandatory at times. The best way to play around them is to get ahead of the toughness curve, if you can get a mob to just +1 toughness more than the weapons attack power they suddenly become a lot less effective.

[dium]

Interesting that you mention Croc, it really didn't get much play until recently with the rise to viability of hunter decks with explosive trap. Currently the meta game basically tells you if you drop a creature turn 2, it had better have toughness three or its going to be dead 1st time it attacks. 

 

I haven't played Hearthstone in a few weeks (and probably won't until Nax), so color me surprised that people run the croc now! When I was playing the consensus was that croc was mediocre-to-bad.

It's pretty cool how much the meta changes with this game week to week with very little (or no) actual mechanical changes causing it.

 

Edit: It also occurs to me that there must be some kind of card game myopia where the increased or decreased use of a single card constitutes a big change in my mind.