by JR Cook - 10 years ago     show comments

So, you’re new to Hearthstone, eh? No worries, we all were at some point! Regardless of your experience with collectible card games, we’re glad to have you. This super handy guide should provide you some basic information to get you through the opening tutorial and subsequent practice matches. Your goals should be getting into the game and unlocking heroes. Becoming a professional Hearthstone player comes later!

The first thing you’ll need to do is make your way through the tutorial. It should take you about a half an hour and is fairly straightforward. You’ll be given specific advice initially, with the later matches leaving you a bit more room to experiment. If you’re having trouble beating these opening matches (and that’s totally fine) feel free to take a gander at the video below. It shows all of the tutorial duels and relatively easy ways to beat them.

After besting the Betrayer, you’ll be directed to Hearthstone’s main menu. This is where you’ll access the various game modes. Prior to hopping into Practice mode, let’s take a visit to My Collection. You’re not going to have anywhere near the full Hearthstone card library, but there will be enough to get you through the Practice matches.

I’ve created a fairly straightforward Mage deck that should help you unlock the other heroes. The video below will explain how the deck works in more detail. Basically though, it’s designed to use beefy minions and minions with charge to make beneficial trades while saving your spells for removal and ending the match. If you’re new and that sounds like gibberish, here’s the simplified version: You’re going to want to use minions such as Chillwind Yeti and Boulderfist Ogre to murder opposing minions, while keeping those tankier guys alive after the initial hit. This will force the AI to waste other cards and spells on removing them, giving you what’s called ‘card advantage’. Your hand will stay full of cards while the computer opponent quickly runs out of resources. Understanding this idea will make you a far better player down the road against human opponents!

Having created your decidedly better Mage deck, hop on over to Practice mode and choose your first victim.

You’ve already got Mage. Pick whichever class interests you most and prepare to duel!

Rinse and repeat this process until you’ve destroyed all of the AI opponents at least once. If you’re new, don’t get discouraged if you lose. Hearthstone’s all about learning the ropes. After you’ve unlocked all of your classes you’ll receive 100 gold. At this point, it’s probably better to just go buy a pack. You’ve received a free arena run, but that might be better saved for later when you’re a bit better at the game. Pop on over to the shop, grab a pack and see what all you get.

All this done, your real work begins. Read up on classes and decks, practice against both AI and human opponents, hone your skills, do your daily quests and grow your collection. Whether your goal is to become the very best at Hearthstone, or simply enjoy it as a casual hobby, there’s a lot of fun to be had.

Here’s the hidden Hearthstone quest list to get you started. Remember, gold can be used for both card packs and arena, so budget wisely!