Blizzard introduced Hearthstone to the world in March of 2014, and it has rapidly grown ever since to over 100 million players. Hearthstone is a free-to-play, turn-based strategy card game that builds upon the existing lore of the Warcraft series from Blizzard. Hearthstone is a cross-platform game which means both you and your opponent can play on any supported device as long as your accounts are registered to the same geographical region.
So, is it worth getting into Hearthstone? Absolutely, if you’re someone who enjoys casual gaming or card games. Hearthstone offers a nice balance between simplicity and depth of tactics. Most importantly, it looks and feels smooth as though you were playing with actual physical cards. Attention to detail can be seen in every aspect of the gameplay, from its amazing voice acting to crisp animations and mesmerizing artwork.
Hearthstone can be played as a primary game if you really get into it and sink several hours each day climbing the ladder while collecting new cards. Each round of Hearthstone barely takes a couple of minutes and it is a very easy game to learn as a newbie.
Is Hearthstone Hard To Learn?
Not at all, in fact, it is one of the easiest games to get into. Even if you don’t know about card games or have no prior experience with games of this genre, Hearthstone is extremely easy to pick up. There are plenty of tutorials and community content for you to follow as a new player. The main challenge of Hearthstone is keeping up with the ever-shifting meta.
However, mastering this game can be quite hard. Especially if you’ve never played a card game before. If you’ve got some experience in card games such as Magic: The Gathering, Slay The Spire, Gwent, etc., Hearthstone will feel much easier even at higher ranks. First, I suggest you get a feel for the game by defeating Expert AI before you jump into Ranked.
Watch some videos from Trump Teaching to learn the basics of Hearthstone like board control, mana efficiency, trading, card advantage, etc. This playlist contains everything you need to know as a beginner. Don’t focus too much on deck-building at the start, free decks are more than enough to have some fun. Learn all the classes and stay away from Arena as a rookie.
Is Hearthstone Pay To Win?
Skill is what decides the victor of any match in Hearthstone. Deck-building is an art, one that requires experience and a good knowledge of the game’s core concepts. A newbie with all the money in the world cannot match up to an experienced player who has grinded their way up without spending any money. A good player with a standard deck can defeat a worse player with an ultra-rare deck.
Getting New Cards Without Spending Money
Back when the game got released in 2014, the classic set had over 240 cards and you could acquire new decks just by playing the game and leveling. At the time of writing this article, there are two dozen expansions with a total of 2496 cards in the game. An expansion is basically a collection of new collectible cards that are added to Hearthstone, with each expansion introducing around 130 to 145 cards. You can buy expansion card packs, craft them with Arcane Dust, or use Arena rewards to get them.
Grinding Daily Quests
The easiest way to get expansion cards is by grinding daily quests, which are available to all players who have completed the 2 introductory quests- “First Blood” and “Duelist”. Plus, you need to have at least 4 games in Play Mode (ranked or unranked). You can view Daily Quests in your quest log and can have up 3 quests active at any time.
Daily quests can be completed in any of the following game modes:
- Play Mode (Casual and Ranked)
- Arena
- Tavern Brawls (single player works too)
- Battlegrounds
- Friendly Challenges
If you have an empty quest slot, you get a new daily quest. The challenges in these quests vary. You might be asked to win 2 games with a specific class (or any class), or kill 25 minions, or play a certain number of spells/ deal damage to X number of heroes, etc. Daily quests give rewards, anywhere from 40 to 100 gold and sometimes even a Classic Card Pack.
The trick many new players don’t use is rerolling quests (only do it for 50 gold quests, not anything above). You are allowed to reroll a quest once per day, and rerolling might award you with a more lucrative quest in that slot.
Let’s Do The Math
By doing daily quests for just 2 days, you can accumulate 100 gold or more which can get you a card pack. There are 3 to 4 expansions per year, so let’s assume a new one is released every 3 to 4 months. Which is around 122 days (4 months), so that’s 50 gold per day times 122 = 6100 gold
And this is me being conservative here, you could get more gold per day (60 perhaps). 6100 gold can get you 61 card packs, enough to build 2 meta decks (and you can use the leftover dust for crafting). Every time you open 5 packs, one is guaranteed to be legendary. This way, you’re all set for the next 3 to 4 months, and you didn’t spend a single penny.
Are Solo Adventures Worth It In Hearthstone?
If you go to the main menu and click the Solo Adventures button, you are presented with a list of single-player game modes consisting of Practice Mode, Adventures, and Missions. There are a total of 5 adventures:
- Curse of Naxxramas
- Blackrock Mountain
- League of Explorers
- One night in Karazhan
- Galakrond’s Awakening
Each one is a single-player PvE adventure where you face off against bosses, and each adventure comes with 5 wings (except for Galakrond’s Awakening which has chapters). These solo adventures will give you rewards in the form of cards when you complete them. You spend 700 gold per wing, which is the equivalent of 7 card packs. In return, you win 3 card packs but they are Wild only meaning you can’t use them in Standard format games.
The only exception is the Galakrond’s Awakening adventure which rewards you with standard cards. So in summary, you spend 700 gold (7x packs) to get 300 gold (3x packs) of Wild cards. There are extra rewards like portraits and card back cosmetics. But in my opinion, you definitely shouldn’t be using real money to buy these adventures.
Save the solo adventures for later when you’ve already got all the cards you need and want to experiment with the Wild format. Once you’re ready, read this article to learn more about what each solo adventure offers.
Which Hearthstone Hero/Class Should You Play As A Beginner?
Playable hero cards in Hearthstone are divided into classes, which determine their primary traits and unique abilities/ playstyle. As a new player, you’ll have to start out with just the Mage class since the rest have to be unlocked by going through Practice or Play mode. There are a total of 9 classes you can unlock- Demon Hunter, Druid, Hunter, Paladin, Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock, and Warrior.
New players should always focus on cheap and fast decks; hence the Druid, Warlock, and Hunter classes are very good. Don’t choose Priest or Warrior as your main class early on because they are hard to learn. You start out with Mage which has easy to execute spells with decent damage (Fireball and Frostbolt).
The Hunter class is also pretty easy to build around since you play with beasts. So choose cards such as Houndmaster or Kill Command that synergize with beasts, and use your hero power to win games. Warrior hasn’t got any clear cut way to control the board or easy kill method so I don’t recommend it for newbies. Rogue is a class that works best once you have experience with other classes.
Note: If you want some good decks for starters, try out Zoo Warlock which is a nice budget aggro deck. Want a budget control deck? Check out Silence Priest. Aggro Rogue and Secret Face Hunter are also excellent budget decks.
Which Packs Should I Buy In Hearthstone?
Strategies and meta decks are constantly evolving in Hearthstone. Every time a new expansion is released, we get around 135 new cards plus game mechanics and keywords. You are guaranteed a legendary pack in the first 10 packs of each expansion, after that the chances lower to 1 in 20. You can craft cards from dust and use the same to buy packs.
But if you’re going to buy packs, I recommend the Saviors of Uldum and Descent of Dragons. Saviors of Uldum brought Highlander synergies and has some really strong cards, including base cards for modern meta decks. You get Zephrys the Great, all highlander cards, quest cards, Siamat, King Phaoris, High Priest Amet, etc.
Descent of Dragons has no real weak cards and all of the legendary cards in this set have a strong role in the current meta. The Galakrond hero cards like Kronx Dragonhoof and Dragonqueen Alexstraza are very popular cards used in some strong decks. Finally, you can also buy the Classic pack which forms the core of one’s collection and the basis for many decks (it has 245 cards in total).
Conclusion
I hope this article provided you with the information needed to decide whether Hearthstone’s for you. If nothing else, I suggest you give it a try since it is totally free. And you can literally grind your way to the top decks if you play enough on a regular basis. I also suggest using disenchant (deconstructing cards back into dust) whenever a card is nerfed/ out of meta and you need the gold back.
Hearthstone was blamed a lot for becoming stale and following a greedy monetization model, but the developers have made changes to better suit new players. For instance, you get 1 guaranteed legendary in your first 10 packs of a set. And there is plenty of solo content to go through if you don’t feel like jumping into multiplayer just yet.
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