Fans of TCGs would appreciate Hearthstone for being a much faster take on card games, as well as its central theme connected to Blizzard’s hit World Of Warcraft series. And separate from the hit Blizzard MMO, Hearthstone gives the impression of a light-hearted tavern game instead of the serious plotlines surrounding World Of Warcraft. However, apart from that light-hearted premise is a competitive card game where even a misstep in as early as deck building could cost any player their match.
Not to mention, deck building itself seems overwhelming given the many numbers of cards and play styles a player could use to approach a match. Thankfully, deck building shouldn’t be extremely difficult for both newcomers and CCG vets, as they can follow some practical tips to build their best deck.
7 Get The Basics Out Of The Way
Before newcomers even begin to dream of their top-tier deck, it helps to clear some of the basics out of the way. Like other online card games, Hearthstone sets up a bit of a learning curve before players actually get to start building their own decks. Newcomers who have just opened Hearthstone for the first time need to take note of some things:
6 Secure A Win Condition
Granted, the only way to win a game in Hearthstone is to reduce the opponent’s 30 Life to 0 Life throughout the match. However, as any card game enthusiast knows, an efficient deck will have a playstyle of a win condition that eventually leads to the opponent losing the match.
What’s A Win Condition?
Most decks only have a single win condition, while others can have a wide range of win conditions depending on the kind of cards they have. At its core, great win conditions have the following characteristics:
Caveats Of Win Conditions
Unfortunately, not all win conditions are perfect. When building a deck, players need to consider the following disadvantages of any win condition:
Examples Of Win Conditions
Most win conditions revolve around the usage of a particular card. Here are some examples of cards and their intended win-cons:
5 Choosing The Class, The Hero Power
Avid fans of card games such as Magic: The Gathering will remember that decks often have color combinations that determine the kind of mana they need and the “playstyle” of that deck. For instance, Red decks lean towards low-cost aggro plays, while Blue decks lean towards spells and controlling the match. Hearthstone follows a similar system, however, they instead use Classes with dedicated Hero Powers that encourage certain playstyles.
What’s The Class?
Taking cues from WoW, Classes in Hearthstone correspond to the particular playstyle a deck hopes to achieve throughout the match. Ideally, decks should complement the main Class they’ve chosen and vice versa. At its core, Classes have these basic characteristics:
What’s Hero Power?
A Hero in Hearthstone is comparable to the Planeswalker in MTG, which is a special character with a special ability. In Hearthstone, the Hero represents the player. They’re often taken from the story of World of Warcraft and correspond to several popular story characters.
Heroes all have what’s called a Hero Power, which reflects their character and aims to characterize a player’s playstyle. Examples of Hero Powers include:
4 Remember The Mana Curve
Players of card games such as MTG will likely find Hearthstone familiar due to its mana system. Whereas MTG has Land cards that can be tapped for mana, Hearthstone has a mana system that automatically gets refilled next turn, with some cards affecting the provision and number of permanent mana a player can get. Since mana is the main resource in Hearthstone, it makes sense for deck-building to heavily rely on mana as well. This part of the deck-building process is called the Mana Curve
What’s The Mana Curve?
The Mana Curve is a bell curve that enumerates the distribution of cards in a deck based on their mana cost. Ideally, there should be an equal distribution of low-cost and high-cost mana cards. Given the bell curve analogy, more cards should be playable in the mid-game compared to the early and endgames.
What’s The Point Of The Curve?
There’s not much point in a deck with an uber-powerful creature or spell when the player doesn’t have enough mana to summon it in a turn. To avoid these vulnerable moments, players should almost always have cards to play in accordance with the mana they have. Ideally, they should be able to play a 2-cost card by Turn 2, and so on.
Instead of focusing on securing high-cost cards with powerful effects, players of efficient decks are better off with low-cost cards they can consistently play while having backup high-cost cards to keep the enemy on edge.
3 Add The Core Cards For The Win-Con
Now that players have a particular win-con, it’s best to secure the cards that guarantee the success of this victory condition. Explaining this in a one-off version can get tricky, as win-cons vary from deck to deck.
However, something to keep in mind is that win-cons take priority over Class-related cards in deck-building. A player’s Class choice will utilize the win-con cards to secure match points as efficiently as possible. Here are examples of win-cons alongside some core cards:
2 Add Class Support Cards For Overall Synergy
After adding win-con cards to the deck, players should then focus on adding cards that support the intended synergies of their Class. These often come in the form of “must-haves” that Classes ordinarily use in most situations. Examples of Classes with staple cards are the following:
1 Consider Adding Neutral Cards
After adding both core cards and Class cards, it’s always safe for decks to have neutral cards that don’t necessarily focus on a playstyle but are individually useful. They’re not as powerful as the staple cards in a deck, but they should be able to synergize to the overall approach a player has towards their deck. There are some examples of neutral cards that are popular based on control or aggressive builds:
Hearthstone was released on March 11, 2014 and is playable on Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android.
