If I’m ever asked I usually tell people I don’t like Blizzard games. I’ve never liked real time strategy titles, dungeon crawlers are even more boring to me, and World of Warcraft and I long ago said our goodbyes. Generally when Blizzcon comes calling I don’t even bother taking a look because I know there won’t be anything in it that will interest me.
That’s why I’m so surprised by how much I love Hearthstone.
My youth was largely paved with Collectible Card Games and it was rarely a successful hobby. I started fairly young with the “not very well known” Marvel Overpower, moved on to Pokemon cards just as the game hit its apex, and finally subverted Magic The Gathering by instead backing the pirate themed (and ultimately doomed) 7th Sea CCG.
Hearthstone is Blizzard’s attempt to recreate that magic feeling that you get playing a game with a deck of cards you’ve crafted yourself, and for the most part it nails it, excluding the part where you have to wander into a dimly lit card store that smells like B.O. and foot spray to purchase your booster packs.
At the start of the game you’ll be run through a brief tutorial before being given a starting class. There are 9 classes in the game which will be familiar to any World of Warcraft veteran. These include Rogues, Paladins, Priests, Shamans, Warlocks, Hunters, Warriors, Druids, and Mages. Think of your class kind of like a starter deck. There are a number of cards that will be unique only to your hero and for the most part you’ll want to take that into consideration when building your deck.
On the game board your character class will show up along with 30 hit points. Once your opponent has whittled down all of your health (or vice versa) the game will come to an end.
Actual cards really just come in a couple flavors. The most common cards are Minions which are placed in front of the player and on the following turn will be able to attack the opponent or their own Minions. Most of the game’s strategy arises from deploying these cards and also making smart decisions as to when it would be better to go after an opponents hero or his growing army. Most of the other cards found in the game are spells which can be burned off in exchange for a single use action.
Of course things are more complex than that. A lot of minions have special abilities and traits, such as “Charge” which will let the minion attack immediately rather than waiting for its one turn gestation period. There’s also “Windfury” which is a trait that allows the Minion to attack two times. Sometimes abilities like these are innate on the card, other time you will be adding them on via spells or other character’s abilities.
Deck building can sometimes be a challenging experience in a game like this. Hearthstone’s deck building system streamlines the process as much as possible and gives you just enough guidance without making it feel like you’re not making any choices. My general strategy was to put the cards I knew I wanted into my deck, this would usually fill it up to about the halfway point. For the remaining fifteen cards I would use the “suggest a card” feature which would look at my deck and then show me three cards from my collection that it thought would be ideal fits.
Hearthstone operates on a free to play model and its one of the most effective ones I’ve seen to date. Anyone can pick the game up and play, every day you are given three quests to complete, each will net you some gold which can in turn be used to purchase new booster packs of cards or to enter into “The Arena” which we’ll talk about shortly.
Normal gameplay is split into two groups. There are casual matches where you basically just play, complete quests and have a good time. There are also ranked matches which will let you climb up leaderboards, and of course hold the risk of losing your prestigious status. Both modes of play have plenty of players within and I’ve never had to wait long to find a suitable match.
Players feeling particularly bold can also enter the Arena. In the Arena you are allowed to choose between one of three classes and then you’ll build a totally unique deck from a series of randomly presented cards. Once you’ve filled up all 30 slots you’ll be off to play matches with others who have gone through the same process. The more victories you rack up in the Arena will result in a more exciting your prize at the end will be. If you lose three times though? You’re out, and you’ll turn in your borrowed deck and walk away with whatever prize you earned with your winning streak.
Even with my worst performance I always walked away from the Arena with at least one booster pack in tow. It costs fifty more coins to enter but I usually found it was worth it to complete all my quests for the day and then spend the money to enter the Arena rather than purchasing booster packs.
But you can of course use cash. Two packs of cards will set you back $2.99, seven packs are available for $9.99 and then you can of course purchase even more packs at higher dollar amounts. You can have a grand old time playing Hearthstone without ever paying a single cent, and that’s important in a free to play model. Having said that, I did wind up uncontrollably buying some booster packs and have now at this point probably spent more on the game than I care to admit. The system works!
If you want a card badly enough you can also destroy spares (or unique cards if you really hate them) to create dust which can be used in the game’s crafting mechanic. Crafting a card is usually very expensive, but if you’re desperate for a copy of “Leeroy Jenkins” it’s the most likely way you’re going to obtain it.
Hearthstone will give you all the same feelings that you get when playing an in person CCG. You’ll craft perfect strategies in your deck and then draw everything that will foil them, you’ll likely have a number of games where you’ll feel like you only lost because the other player had more rare cards etc. And to be honest, those are exactly the kinds of feelings you want a game like this to evoke.
Even the physical aspect of a card game is evoked in Hearthstone. The sound design is just right to make it feel like you’re actually handling a deck and it feels even better on a touch device like the iPad. If you have an iPad and a PC you’ll find your card collections and records synced perfectly between the two of them. For me the game has been a very effective travel partner, so long as I had my iPad and a wifi connection.
I like to think I’m a big enough person to admit when I’m wrong. I turned my nose up at Hearthstone when it was in beta but somehow it found its way onto my computer regardless. And now here we are, it’s probably one of my favorite games this year, and I almost certainly think you should give it a try.
