by JR Cook - 10 years ago     show comments

Hearthstone probably features one of the best tutorial modes around, especially for players who are completely unfamiliar with this type of game play. Early on, the tutorial leaves players very restricted: very specific cards are dealt and must be played in a certain way. No steps can be skipped. With each round, play restrictions are either lifted, or additional mechanics introduced, all at a slow and steady pace. Both Jaina Proudmore and the opposing hero provide plenty of commentary that offer additional game play clues.

The final boss of the training mode is Illidan. This round is purposefully designed to allow players to make mistakes and fail. It is quite possible to lose to Illidan; consider him a gear-check boss who needs to be overcome before you can move on to the next phase. While Illidan isn’t a pushover, he also isn’t too terribly difficult either.

We decided to put together this “tutorial for the tutorial” for two reasons: the current release of Hearthstone does not allow for the tutorial to be replayed. If you feel like you missed something, or you simply would like to see it again, here it is all in one place. While the tutorial is largely self-explanatory, it might benefit some players to have another voice offering additional guidance – a personal tutor for the tutorial, if you will.

Here they are in all their glory: the training heroes of Hearthstone.

Hogger

This fight is very straight forward: it teaches you how to play minions, and how to attack and deal damage.

Millhouse Manastorm

Hearthstone is a resource driven game. All cards have a resource cost, defined in units of mana, and you can only play cards that are at or below the level of mana you have available at any give turn. Mana automatically regenerates and increases by 1 each round until you reach maximum level.

Lorewalker Cho

Winning a round requires beating the opponent hero. Beating his minions is just a means to an end, though a critical one. Lorewalker Cho introduces the concept of board control, meaning you need to clear the opponent’s side of minions first before you can deal effective and sustained damage to the other hero.

King Mukla

King Mukla introduces the concept of minion abilities, abilities than can both hurt of benefit you. The most critical ability introduced in this round is taunt: a minion with taunt will require the opponent to attack this minion first before damage can be dealt to anything else. In this fight, it is used to control a very large minion that King Mukla unleashes while you attempt to finish off Mukla himself.

Hemet Nesingwary

Hemet Nesingwary take the concept introduced in the previous round, and plays some minions with special abilities himself that need to be overcome.

Illidan

All gloves are off now. All the elements introduced in the previous fights are all put into play now. In addition, Illidan has a hero ability – for two mana, he will summon additional minions.  You need to take advantage of everything you learned in previous fights: selective damage, minion trading, board control, and special abilities to win this fight. In this round, it is possible to make mistakes, and it is possible for Illidan to take advantage of those mistakes.

And that concludes the tutorial. Your mage hero is now ready to face off against other AI opponents. Beating those opponents will unlock them, and allow you to play them in addition to Jaina Proudmore.

Winning or losing games will earn you experience, winning just earns you more. You unlock cards from each basic hero deck as you go, until you have all basic cards for that hero unlocked upon reaching level 10. With basic cards unlocked, feel free to move on to the next stage: playing in Play mode against other Hearthstone players.