Hearthstone is Blizzard’s entry into the rapidly growing and very competitive arena of online trading card games. Over the past 2 years we have seen a massive surge in online TCG's being produced, with games such as Scrolls, Solforge and Might and Magic all entering this lucrative market.While Hearthstone is not strictly a TCG (as there is no trading between players)it is most defiantly a collectable card game and has all the elements of a TCG that fans will enjoy.
So what separates Hearthstone from its competitors? Well for a start, the sheer amount of polish is unreal. It’s the small things, such as the interactive card environments, For example if you click one of the windows of a building, you will repeatedly knock on it until it breaks with a very satisfying smashing noise.
Then there are the very big things, such as your collection being in an interactive binder, with pages you can scroll through as if the binder was in your hands. The game also feels very realistic, for example when you drag a card from your hand to the field of play, it’s very similar to the sound made if you were actually playing in real life, but with the added delight of creatures as they hit the field. You also cast spells and attack with beautiful animations and sounds.
The gameplay is simply fantastic! It’s very simple and easy to grasp the basics, with a great tutorial system that gradually introduces new concepts and abilities. But not everything is included in the tutorial and will be discovered on the battlefield. For instance, the ability to cast ‘secrets’ that will only be activated once a particular condition has been met. Your first encounter with them will most likely involve you running into them head first and being severely punished for it.
An interesting feature of Hearthstone’s gameplay is that, rather than having land cards or sacrificing cards, you generate 1 mana every turn so there is no fear of being ‘land screwed’ or having to make tough decisions on which card to sacrifice for resources. This is a breath of fresh air in the TCG world, to say the least! While the gameplay is quite simple, this doesn't mean that there isn't depth to be found. In blizzards classic trade mark of games, it's easy to pick up - but harder to master. For those ready to test their mettle, there is the ‘Arena’, a draft environment where you build a deck from a limited card pool.
Currently there are nine classes to choose from, each comes with their own unique spells, creatures and a hero ability. The hero ability is a unique feature to Hearthstone, which grants each hero their own ability that can be used once each turn and costs 2 mana. These abilities range from a fireball that deals 1 damage to a target, to dealing 2 damage to yourself to draw a card. To help flesh out your deck, there are also a wide range of neutral creatures which can be slotted into your deck.
There are many viable strategies in Hearthstone, from aggressive low cost aggro creature decks, to the long game control decks, with everything else in-between. Even some very unique strategies are viable, a personal favourite is the one turn kill. This is achieved by gently witling down the opponents health until they’re in range of a massive amount of damage in a single turn, through a combination of cards in your hand generated by cheap draw cards.
The decks you build consist of 30 cards with no more than two copies of any card and only a single copy of any of the very powerful legendary cards. The legendary cards come in the form of powerful and popular figures from the World of Warcraft mythos. These include the dragon aspects, warcraft raid bosses and famous heroes and villains. A personal favourite legendary is Leeroy Jeknins who screams his trademark“LEEEROOY MMMMMJENKINS” when he hits the field! Summoning some pesky dragon whelps for your opponent as well - just to complete the full flavour of Leeroy Jenkins.
Hearthstone definitely makes a big splash into the TCG/CCG online market at the moment and may well come out on top, due to it appealing to a wide range of players.Blizzard have created a very addictive, fun game with a lot of heart; currently there is no official release date for hearthstone but with the game in its current state I would hope it's not too much longer.
Watch Hurr an Durr play a game of Hearthstone!
Posts
