Hearthstone: A Brief Introduction

Overview

With hearthstone’s recent break out into the open beta access, a ton of new players have begun to take interest in Blizzard’s newest game. Hearthstone, which is a rather simplistic card game compared to other alternatives currently on the market, has attracted itself a ton of attention by combining a well-loved universe with an easy to follow card game. Although that’s not to say Hearthstone is not without its fair share of complexity and interesting puzzles that are brought about by wondering what the best decision you can make to increase your odds of winning. And of course, like most other card games out there, with a little bit prayer to the RNG gods, you’ll have yourself an even more enjoyable experience albeit only when you’re on the winning side of the luck factor.

Hearthstone’s initial barrier of entry when it comes to dealing with new players isn’t all too daunting. Like most games that involve strategy, there will always be those small few mistakes that you make which can cost you a game that you inevitably learn from so that it doesn’t happen to you again. Instead of attacking your opponent’s face directly and find yourself running out of cards shortly thereafter you might begin to realize that setting up board control becomes another key aspect in the game, thus choosing cards that can provide you with that type of advantage becomes useful to you. Having cards that can provide you with the ability to force your opponent to use more than one card to remove it from the field greatly increase the efficiency of your deck which allows for even more stratagem to evolve and sprout up.

How 'Free to play' is it?

With that being said, this is where I think it’s time we bring up Hearthstone’s free to play model. Similar to other card games that exist out there, the players that are willing to spend money on booster packs will typically be at an advantage to someone who refuses to go down that route. It’s always a frustrating experience to be playing your deck which is barely above what the game gives you as basic cards, and your opponent is spitting out legendary and other high quality cards at you every other turn. Yet if that was the experience of every player, game after game it’d be hard to see why hearthstone is still popular at all. Obviously, the free to play model which Blizzard is using does give a slight advantage to the person willing to spend their hard-earned cash on the game, yet there are still plenty of ways for a player like myself who wants to earn his cards through personal skill and reward to get by.

One of the best ways I found to improve my own game was watching other people play the game. Whether it be through watching other people stream the game or following guides and deck lists that well-known players have designed to help the newer players, there’s plenty of different ways to improve your own decision making, which is just as crucial as is having the right cards for your deck. Considering how popular the game has been on streaming sites like twitch, and the fact that it’s still in its infancy, new content and ideas are constantly being though of to help out others in their quest for success.

Concluding Thoughts

If you’ve ever been interested in trying out a card game than I highly recommend trying out Hearthstone simply because the barrier entry to the game is much lower compared to other TCG’s like Magic the Gathering. The game has an extremely low barrier of entry which allows the masses to try it out. Combine this with the fact that the Warcraft universe is gigantic and already has an established fan base really allows hearthstone to be a successful card game. Like other popular games like Digimon or Pokemon, which also branched out into their own card games, or even the original WoW TCG, hearthstone will likely continue to be a game that won’t be going away any time soon.

Over the next few months I’d like to address certain aspects of the game into more detail, such as what to look for in building certain decks, and also taking a further look into specific cards that get changed as the game is constantly updated. But for now, you’ve got to be willing to give the game a try first.

Brandon Rendina