Hearthstone Players!

I've started playing. Just for half an hour at a time or so. I did the first quest to unlock 5 decks. Now where should I go? I don't have a whole lot of cards. I used to play Warlock in the old WoW TCG so I think I want to work towards that class or Rogue. I always liked those.

I'm back in it pretty hardcore...at least at a level I regard to be hardcore. The phone version makes it simply irresistible (SHING!).

The phone version has a little connectivity issue where some matches bog down and it's SUPER annoying because the turn timer still runs...so if you have a really complex turn, you might wind up out of time. Sucks. Hopefully it'll be patched up on the next update.

I don't keep up with the meta, I don't net deck or any of that...I just play what I like, what seems fun, what seems like it might be effective. Right now my best deck is a Priest build focused on getting these two Lightspawns out and then juicing the fuck out of them by increasing their health. Once you have them up to ten and THEN throw the doubler on there...it's a slow deck and requires pretty much everything else in it to be taunt or focused on clearance. If I can get initiative and control the board, it has a good success rate. If I can't...it's DOA.

I'm TERRIBLE in Arena. I'll build something that I think looks reasonable and then it just falls apart. Or I'll say "nah..." to the first Murloc and then I get Murlocs in every set. Or I'll take the dude that gives you bonuses for Pirates and then get no pirates again.

Stormy, the first thing you should do is to play through all of the "practice" levels with every class. That will give you most if not all of their basic cards. From there, I would recommend that you spend any and all gold on Arena. It's really a better deal than the 100 gold for a pack because you get to play in the draft game and you might win some dust, gold cards (i.e. more dust- disenchant those bastards), more gold and you usually get at least one GvG pack just for showing up. They incentivize playing in Arena. But I still throw down 100 gold for a pack every now and then because I don't want to wait. Because let's face it, opening the packs is really fun in itself.

Also, play the quests. If it says "Win 40 gold for 2 wins as a Shaman or Mage"- play Shaman or Mage until you get it. More gold = more cards, more cards = (unfortunately) winning more = more gold. Definitely a feedback/reinforcement loop there.

The game is SOOOO well designed, it's ridiculous- it's so academic and refined it's not funny. It is also definitely not really F2P, although you CAN and you can even win games...but to get the most out of it, you really are going to need to spend some money. I think the single player adventures are an outstanding value, they don't seem like much on the surface but you get like 14 or 15 boss encounters (which are basically enemies with special rules, extra health, special minions, unique abilities, cards and so forth) that challenge you to build a countering deck . Once you clear a "wing" not only did you cards at each victory and the wing bonus, but you also unlock class challenges where you use a preconstructed deck in a special match to win cards. I think there's over 30 cards (two of each at that) in each of the adventures. $25 seems like a lot, but there's lots of play value and cards built into the cost.

BUT you still have to fucking be online to play the single player game. Which is A-S-S.

I pretty much do not care about any other IOS games at the moment. This is the only one that matters right now, and it is the best CCG design since Magic.

Oh- I'm Zurenarrh (that's an obscure Batman reference). Buddy up.

Oh, another thing. Rogue is pretty great. There's a lot of cool shit you can pull with weapons and plenty of control options. There are some NICE but costly clearance cards (Execute!) and a good range of accelerants to give you some additional card draws. I love equipping a weapon, poisoning the hell out of it, attacking with it and then Blade Furying the whole board AND drawing a card for my troubles.

But you don't want to focus on one class, I don't think...I don't follow the meta, like I said, but I suppose there is an argument out there between playing all of the classes and specializing in a couple, disenchanting any cards for the classes you don't use for the dust.

What the actual fuck is dust and disenchant?

Is there any guideline for making a deck? Like mana curves and the whatnot?

Dust is another currency in the game. You earn it in the arena. You can disenchant cards to get their dust, which you can in turn spend to craft almost any card in the game. Granted, the amount of dust you get for disenchanting a card is at a "pawn shop" rate...but if you have more than two of a card, then you may as well disenchant it. The gold cards are more or less the "premium foils" of the game, and they're worth a decent amount of dust so unless you just want that animated, gold card...cut 'em loose and make something you want with them. The legendaries and rares are quite expensive in terms of dust. Effectively, it's how the game sells you singles. You do all this in the My Collection area.

There is a mana curve, but it's very different because everybody gets one crystal a turn. So it's really more about the casting cost than the available mana. You can actually see the curve of your deck, how many cards you have at each cost level, in a graph. If you have with all 5, 6, 7 cost cards, you're probably fucked.

You can totally F2P this game for a while and have a blast. You'll know when you are into it enough to spend money, and when you do; spend it on the Naxxramas adventure, then the Blackrock Mountain Adventure. As Mike notes, the Adventures are a great time, and give you a lot of entertainment via the boss encounters, and cards you can't get any other way that have become staples in constructed for some decks (e.g., Sludge Belcher, Zombie Chow, my new baby Flamewaker). But that can wait. Here's what you need to know in the meantime:

• Get all the heroes to level 10. It doesn't take long against the Innkeeper, and you get a little experience with the game. This unlocks a bunch of basic cards for each hero.
• HearthArena.com can help you draft a decent Arena deck. It can't pilot it for you, but it will be built soundly, and they give little tips and advice as you do it.
• You can re-roll one quest per day. If you get a 40 gold quest, you might re-roll it into a 60g/100g/classic-pack quest.
• The game is about "value." You want your mana to be worth more than the opponents' mana. You want your 1-mana to kill their 2-mana. You want your 3-mana to kill their 4-mana. You want your 7-mana Flamestrike to kill their turn 3,4,5 drops. That is generating value and longterm that will win.
• The game is also about "tempo." That means spending your mana efficiently and compelling the opponent to spend hers poorly. Look at "Sap." ( 2-mana Rogue spell, return a minion to its owners hand). She spends 6 mana very efficiently to play a Boulderfist Ogre, you spend 2-mana to Sap it back and keep your thing going with your other mana. You actually didn't kill that Ogre, it'll be back next turn; but you gained a lot of tempo by making the opponent spend all that mana twice.

Some advice:

• Don't disenchant any Legendaries you come across (they have an orange gem in the center and have a fancy border). You will be filled with regret someday. You can get all the cards you want without grinding anything up.
• Don't craft anything for a while. Just earn gold from quests and spend it on Arena. That gets you GvG packs and extra stuff. Eventually you'll have 3+ of some commons. Then grind those up and start accumulating dust.
• Use your dust to make some solid commons/rares. Probably from the Classic set because Arena will earn you GvG commons and rares. For constructed play, the commons to craft are: Harvest Golem, Cult Master, Ironbeak Owl, Spectral Knight, Acolyte of Pain, Earthen Ring Farseer, Lot Hoarder, Dire Wolf Alpha. Specifically for Warlock/Rogue? I would add on: Flame Imp, Power Overwhelming, Argent Squire, and Eviscerate.
• Play Ranked over Casual. They are both bloodbaths of aggressive decks--Casual is always this way. Ranked gets better north of Rank 18 or so. But if you are in a bloodbath, you might as well get a cardback for it.
• I learned how to play Arena by watching folks do it on Twitch/Youtube. Look for Ratsmah and ADWCTA. Each are "Infinite Arena" players and talk about what's going on. Hafu and Kripp also do infinite Arena, but are much less chatty about the play.

I played one game on my iPhone (and it gave me a free pack, yay), but I think that's the only one.

The interface is too cramped for me, and not being able to see my hand (yeah, super-ADHD) slows me down immensely.

I'll stick to the iPad, although I haven't really been playing at all.

Do what they said. Grind every class up to level 10 against the Innkeeper. Then make yourself a deck or two and beat every Innkeeper class on "Expert" (the game will not tell you which ones you've already done, so go in order). There's a small bonus for that as well. Then go hit the Arena and Ranked play.

I have spent a total of $10 on this game so far (the back half of Naxxramas, but I haven't bought Blackrock). Those two are where you need to spend first, and it's really not worth it to buy them in gold (especially as a new player).

Barnes, you need to post your number as well! Mine is upthread somewhere.

As a slight addendum to all the good advice that jeb put forth, let me add:

There ARE Legendaries that are worth far more in dust than they are in presence. Like jeb said, the vast majority are things you'll want to hold onto, but a few (like Nat Pagle, Nozdormu, Milhouse Manastorm, etc.) are things that you can instantly cash in for dust and go craft some good rares (or the occasional spectacular Epic.) Like Barnes said, gold cards are dust if you already have the regular type of that particular card. Some people like foils. I've never used them for anything but crafting cards I needed. If you need advice on what to keep and what to cash, feel free to ask. I'm Jackwraith#1816.

On the class thing: If you are just getting into it and are determined to not spend money, I would seriously advise finding a class or two that you particularly like and focusing on them. It will be an easier climb if you're playing the ladder because you can build up a lot of dust by scrapping other class cards and you'll enjoy the game a lot more if you can actually play the cards that make your deck work, rather than trying to scrape by with poor imitations. I've been in the game since the second week of the closed beta, so I've had a huge leg up on most of the people I know that play as far as card access, but even I tossed in $20 for card packs one time to see how it works and to try to put together a couple decks. I've never spent a dime on Arena, which is where a lot of my gold goes, but I also flat out bought Blackrock because I didn't feel like waiting on the gold build up (which isn't difficult if you play a lot, which I don't.)

Deck archetypes are the same as M:TG: aggro, midrange, control, combo.

Aggro tends to work with small aggressive creatures and direct damage. The best classes for this are Warlock (a deck known as Zoo, which uses mostly commons and a few rares, so cheap to craft), Mage (MechMage, which requires a healthy dose of GvG cards), and Hunter (Face; again, largely commons and damage to the opponent, ignoring his minions.)

Midrange is the half-step between aggro and combo. You try to stabilize the board until you reach the midgame where your superior minions will win out. The most popular decks for this right now are Paladin (Midrange (inventive title); has some epics and legendaries mixed in, although it is possible to get by without some of them), Druid (Ramp (uses mana accelerators like Innervate to play bigger creatures earlier than expected); the class rares and epics are almost essential for this class), and Hunter (Midrange; still largely commons and a couple class rares, which is why Hunter decks tend to be so frequent (and because Face Hunter is monomaniacal...))

Control decks tends to be more expensive because you often need big creatures to make them work and many of said creatures are epics (like the Giants (Mountain, Molten) or legendaries. The popular decks tends to be Warlock (Handlock; Giants virtually required because of their cheaper casting requirements), Warrior (Control Warrior; also known as Control Wallet (i.e. don't bother) because of the massive number of legendaries it tends to employ), and Priest (Chinese Priest tends to be the most popular, focusing on dual Lightbombs (epics from GvG); Priest is a difficult class to master and plays much slower than the others. This deck has fewer legendaries than Warrior, but many more epics.)

Combo decks, as the name implies, require key cards to function, so they're often out of reach for new players. They also tend to be rarer because they require a fair amount of practice to get right. The most popular right now are Rogue (Oil Rogue, focusing on the card Tinker's Sharpsword Oil and a lot of delay (Sap, Vanish) and removal until you set up the big burst at the end) and Warrior (Grim Patron; requires Blackrock cards (specifically "Grim Patron") to work; you drop Warsong Commander to give all your guys charge/haste and then do a bunch of damage to them and hit with a big crowd in one turn.)

You may notice that I mentioned 8 of 9 classes in the popular/powerful decks. The redheaded stepchild is Shaman which, oddly enough, makes it one of the easier classes to get into for newer players, since most of the real power cards in Shaman are commons or level rewards for reaching level 10 (Fire Elemental, for example.) Shaman has some bad mechanics, though (Overload!), so don't feel obligated. Like I said earlier, aim for what's fun to you and focus on that. I know a couple friends who are strictly F2P (have paid for nothing, not even Naxx or BRM) and routinely get into rank 3 or 4 on the ladder because they play fairly often. One focuses solely on Mage and Warrior and the other on Rogue and Druid.

Thank you, buddy! I appreciate the in-depth look at things. I'll keep playing.