Hearthstone Review - My Deck Is Better Than Yours

By now, I’m sure everyone has heard of Blizzard‘s free-to-play collectible trading card game, Hearthstone. It’s consistently one of the most watched games on Twitch TV, YouTube is full of Hearthstone-related videos and it seems like everyone is talking about the game. After trying out the game in closed beta, I was left with mixed feelings, however, when I came back to Hearthstone to prepare my review, I was surprised how much my opinion changed.

 

In short, Hearthstone is a collectible trading card game not unlike Yu-Gi-Oh or Magic: The Gathering. The game pits two players against each other with one goal: to make the opponent’s life points reach zero. There are nine deck types to chose from, all inspired by classes and characters from Warcraft and World of Warcraft, which can be further customized to suit your play-style. The decks are very flexible, however, some excel more than others in certain play-styles; Warlocks can afford to play a very aggressive “rush” style deck which focuses on winning the game as quickly as possible compared to Priests who have a somewhat weak mid game but are extremely powerful in the later portions of the match. It all comes down to how you decide to build your deck, with hundreds of cards to chose from and nine classes to learn; building your perfect deck is a craft which will take quite some time.

Cards are unlocked through a number of ways: leveling up, using in-game currency, participating in Arena matches and, finally, buying packs through micro-transactions. You can unlock 10 cards for each class by leveling that class all the way to 10, after which you start unlocking their golden counter parts which are the equivalent to real life “foil” cards. In-game currency, on the other hand, is earned by completing quests, winning games and advancing through the arena. After the tutorial quests, you only get one quest a day, so there is no real way to “farm” gold to to unlock as many card packs as you can. You are meant to come back and play a little bit every day in order to maximize your gold income.

 

Arena is definitely the game mode which makes Hearthstone stand out. In order to play this game mode, you have to pay a fee either with in-game currency or real currency - the choice is yours. Once inside, you get to chose what class you want to play from three classes randomly picked from the pool. Once that’s done, the game gives you a choice between three cards to add to your deck - you pick one and then are presented with another set of three. This goes on until you have created a deck of the standard 30 cards. All the cards are unlocked in this game mode, therefore it’s all about testing your deck-building skills (and a little bit of luck, of course) in order to create the most powerful deck.

Once your deck is complete, you are ready to battle other players with their Arena decks. The whole point of this mode is to try and reach 12 wins without dropping three games. Lose three games, and that’s the end of your Arena run. The more matches you win, the higher is the chance of receiving better prizes; you are guaranteed a pack of cards, but you can earn more gold coins the longer you go. This is easily one of the funniest game modes in any trading card game, and something which will make you want to come back over and over again.

 

In fact, that’s what I found myself doing. On my first time round, I wasn’t convinced with Hearthstone, I felt like people who bought booster packs had an advantage over me and that the game was too based around luck. After sticking with it for a little bit more, however, I quickly found that I was wrong. the starting cards you have are perfectly suited for making a strong deck which can compete against anything and, anyway, you will earn enough gold coins along the way which will grant you some bonus card packs which are all guaranteed to contain at least one rare card or higher. Like all card games, luck is a factor, and Hearthstone is no exception. Too many times I have found myself cursing at the screen because the cards I needed wouldn’t come, whereas my opponent seemed to have everything go his way.

Sometimes the game is not fair, but it’s not Hearthstone’s fault. On average, the best player will win: Hearthstone is more than just building a deck and playing rare and epic cards one after another; it’s about keeping track of what cards your opponent has been using, trying to take favorable trades and trying to limit damage when you are sure to take some. It’s surprisingly deep, and after just a few days, I felt like I had a very solid understanding of the game and the general strategies behind it.