Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

Trading? There's no trading.

"Trading" as in trying to maximize the value of your cards by forcing the opponent to spend more to deal with a threat than it took for you to create it. As in "I just traded one minion for three of his."

edited 30th Oct '13 11:19:37 AM by Clarste

Ah right.

I'm too used to just thinking of that as an extension of card advantage.

Seems like all the new beta testers have made the system a bit unstable. I had trouble even starting the game, never mind playing it. When I finally did, I got through the tutorial match against Millhouse Manastorm, but couldn't get the one with Lorewalker Cho to load.

Double Post: I finally got it working last night and had some good play experiences. I am using a Mage deck (Incidentally, is your starting hero assigned randomly? I certainly hope so, otherwise there'd be millions of Mage players.) and got through all the practice levels, then did the deck building thing. I'm trying out a spell damage/crowd control deck.

I got through three Play matches and am 1 for 3. A Hunter and a Rogue worked me over fairly brutally, but I fed a Warrior his face with some good draws. I froze all his minions repeatedly and blew them up with spells, letting my minions beat on him. He gave up when I had two Archmages, a Naga Priestess, and two other minions against his 12 life with no minions. I didn't even get to use my triple-boosted Flamestrike.

edited 31st Oct '13 8:18:08 AM by Fighteer

Everyone starts with Mage. I haven't noticed any Mage bias in decks though. Well, other than the fact that Flamestrike is OP. Seriously though, I think Mage is a good beginner class because it has simple ways to deal with pretty much anything.

I agree. Being able to polymorph, freeze, and blow up minions is incredibly useful. There's nothing quite as fun as reducing your opponent's super-boosted Core Hound to a 1/1 sheep that you vaporize with Arcane Explosion. Flamestrike may be OP but I found myself unable to use it because my opponent had no minions left.

Beast synergy decks are brutal, though. One of my losses was to one of those. I also found myself cringing to get my own powerful minions Executed.

edited 31st Oct '13 8:26:20 AM by Fighteer

Traditionally you just doink the sheep with your hero power. But if you need to arcane explode anyway then it can't hurt to hit the sheep as well. Leaving the sheep alone can be dangerous anyway, since sheep get buffed just as well as anything else.

edited 31st Oct '13 8:32:30 AM by Clarste

What's fun is if your opponent has a bunch of minions with 2 health or less and you have a spell power boosting minion out. Sheep the big guy, boosted Arcane Explosion, *poof*. Also, I love Mirror Images, especially if you get them out in your first turn or two.

edited 31st Oct '13 8:33:40 AM by Fighteer

To me, the funnest spell is Earth Shock. Not necessarily the most useful, but the funnest. Because it silences first and then does damage, which always makes it a huge surprise to people with buffed minions or divine shield. Finding situations where it can be used to insta-kill otherwise defended minions is always heartwarming. Especially Twilight Drakes (4/1, gets bonus health based on hand size when played).

I've been wondering about balance issues around the various Hero Powers. Is, for example, the flexibility of Jaina's dinky little 1 damage fire bolt worth the loss of power compared some of the others that do 2 damage (but only to the Hero) or that heal 2/grant 2 armor?

Then again, being able to plink off a low-health, high damage enemy minion is incredibly useful.

I also have to get better at deploying my apprentice tactically. Reducing spell costs by 1 mana is really strong but not if it's my first minion and she gets smashed. Maybe I should save her until I have minions out that can tank hits.

edited 31st Oct '13 10:01:34 AM by Fighteer

Jaina's is basically one of the best hero powers. Focusing too much on hurting the enemy hero is a common mistake for beginners. You need to control the board first, and that's where Jaina excels. She can pick off minions or weaken them for other things to pick off, at no risk to herself. X/1 minions are basically useless against her.

Also you can break divine shields.

edited 31st Oct '13 10:15:03 AM by Clarste

Jaina probably has one of the better hero powers precisely because of the flexibility you mention. You can neutralise Divine Shield, enrage your own minions, finish off wounded targets that would otherwise stay up and if you really can't do anything else, hit the enemy hero. A hunter's hero power, however is only useful if it gets an opponent into lethal range. It won't help you control the board and it won't give you cards, it's just raw damage with a fixed target. Still better than the +2 armor, I guess.

Ninja'd.

edited 31st Oct '13 10:17:46 AM by Farnion

Gul'dan's power is either a bit weak or really powerful. Two mana and two HP to draw a card. The cost seems high but I'm sure by meta-game standards its an amazing Game-Breaker.

2 health and 2 mana for a card is a bargain. Well, maybe not a bargain, but it's damn powerful given that it doesn't cost you a card itself.

So does armor suck in general or is it just weak compared against other things? When I've fought Garrosh, it seems as if it only adds a small amount of time to his survival without conferring any other benefit.

edited 31st Oct '13 11:45:50 AM by Fighteer

The reason for the relative weakness of the warrior hero power is, in my opinion, the lack of interaction with your other class cards. I think there's only Shield Slam (deals x damage to a minion, where x the amount of armor you have) and cards which give you more armor. It's possible that the hero power is meant to offset the damage you take when you use your weapons, but that's still not a lot of value given that it doesn't affect the board or your cards.

The priest's healing, on the other hand, has a lot of interactions with class cards and allows some cool combos, not to mention that you can heal minions.

So, a power that affects only the hero is less awesome in general than a power that is able to affect minions, just on the basis of board control and utility. Makes sense.

I'm interested in trying out Malfurion next; some of his abilities look pretty cool, and I got a rare shapeshifting card in one of my bonus Expert packs.

edited 31st Oct '13 11:49:51 AM by Fighteer

The warrior hero power can be good when you are attacking a minion with warrior, but that's usually not viable til end game.

It works well with Gorehowl, which not everyone would have...

I've played against a Warrior pillowfort deck though. Tons of defensive and control cards, and his armour helped him weather my attacks till he could kill me.

Clearly if the Warrior has a weapon equipped, then the armor boost lets him attack minions without taking damage. That is a highly synergistic power.

When I fought that one Garrosh player, he popped a weapon, but I had my Mirror Images out and he was evidently very confused by them, because he tried not to "waste" resources killing them. This let me set up my minion-busting combos.

edited 31st Oct '13 1:09:10 PM by Fighteer

Technically, it's actually better 99% of the time to use the armor after you take damage from the swing. That's because there are some cards that get better when you're at low life, and some cards that get better at high armor (Shield Slam), but absolutely zero reason to have higher life and less armor. There's nothing that ignores armor and does direct damage to health. The one exception would be if attacking without armor would actually kill you immediately.

edited 31st Oct '13 2:59:18 PM by Clarste

I've been getting crushed a lot. Not sure what the problem is, but it feels like my deck relies too much on the "perfect combo" of cards, and if I get anything else I'm screwed.

I keep running into people who pull off these ridiculous minion synergy combos and I'm helpless against them unless I get lucky with a spell power minion + flamestrike combo.

Not sure how much this helps you, but I always assume that a Mage will Flamestrike on turn 7, killing all my minions. They'll also probably Fireball on turn 4, killing my big guy. Arcane Explosion when I have a bunch of 1s out. Basically, play as if the opponent will always have the perfect hand designed to instantly clear the board in their favor. Because you should have that hand too, and the game is basically a back-and-forth with that until one person runs out of cards or health. Any plan that relies on you currently winning is a flawed plan, along with any plan that relies on a minion surviving the turn. This is why I like minions with Battlecries so much: even if they die before attacking they at least accomplished something.

...I never expect the Blizzard though, for some reason.

edited 1st Nov '13 7:45:54 AM by Clarste

This sounds so much like my experience with mages it's uncanny.

Most of the frost-based spells are pretty good, now that I think about it. They essentially allow you to neutralise any source of damage that isn't a direct spellcast, battlecry or hero power. One minion? Frostbolt. Lots of very small or wounded minions? Cone of Cold. Lots of slightly bigger minions? Blizzard. Big weapon and you don't have Ooze? Freeze the hero. Need to stall just one turn for that game-changing drop? Frost Nova. You can combine any of that with an Ice Lance for a Hearthstone-style shatter combo.

Mage control decks are one of my least favourite things to face.