The Basics: Hearthstone is a free-to-play digital card game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment. The cards used in the game are all based around characters and creatures in Blizzard’s “Warcraft” universe.
How It’s Played: Hearthstone is downloaded and operated through Blizzard’s Battle.net servers. There, you can either play against the computer, or use Battle.net’s matchmaking services to find someone with an equal skill level as you. All matches are 1v1, and usually take anywhere from 5-25 minutes. The game is over when a player’s “Hero” has 0 healthpoints left. Heroes take damage when the other player uses cards that have the ability to damage the opponent. The game itself is incredibly easy to pickup, fun, and addicting.
My Session:
I decided to choose the righteous Human paladin Uther Lightbringer as my hero, and my opponent decided to choose the ferocious Orc warrior Garrosh Hellscream as theirs. {pic}
1. I get to go first, and since I only had one mana crystal (you start off with 1 and gain 1 each turn, up until you have 10 at the most) which caused me to be able to lay down a basic card. My opponent was unable to play any cards.
2. Next turn I drew a card which powered up my basic card by +3 damage, allowing me to hit my opponents hero, Garrosh, for 4 total damage, bringing him down to 26 health.
3. My opponent and I trade blows for a few turns, to the point where his hero has 18 health left, and I have 19. I lay a level 6 card down, and then I make the mistake of accidentally ending my turn before attacking my opponent. So instead of getting him down to 15 damage, he stays at 18.
4. My opponent manages to use his card “Warg Rider” to attack me for 3 damage, giving a lead of 18HP to 16HP.
5. My opponent and I continue to trade 2-3 damage per turn for the next few turns. He manages to get me down to 13 total health, before I play two “Hammer of Dawn” spells card which bring him down to 4 health, and then I attack him with my “ Stormpike Commando” which hits him with 4 damage, bringing him down to 0 total!
6. Victory! I’ve managed to bring my opponent down to 0 health and I’ve won the match.
This is just an example of a single match between 2 people (myself and random person) in a game that has over 10 million people playing it! When playing Hearthstone, you’re seemingly guaranteed to get a completely different match every time you play!