Hearthstone is a free-to-play online collectible card game created by Blizzard Entertainment. The game recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, so we thought it was the right time to give it a thorough review and discuss how the game has changed over the years and what remained the same.
Description
Hearthstone is a game where you collect cards by buying packs with virtual gold or real money and use the cards to craft 30-card decks. There are 11 classes players can choose from and each class comes with a unique hero power and set of cards.
In its original form, two players face each other with the goal to destroy the other hero. Each player starts with 30 health and 1 mana crystal (cards cost a certain number of mana crystals) and every turn they get an additional mana crystal, up to 10.
The goal is to destroy your opponent which is done by hitting their “face” with minions, spells, weapons or hero power, but you can also destroy the other hero’s minions.
Classes
Here are the current Hearthstone classes and their hero powers:
- Death Knight – Summon a 1/1 Ghoul with Charge. It dies at the end of turn.
- Demon Hunter – +1 Attack this turn.
- Druid – +1 Attack this turn. +1 Armor.
- Hunter – Deal 2 damage to the enemy hero.
- Mage – Deal 1 damage.
- Paladin – Summon a 1/1 Silver Hand Recruit.
- Priest – Restore 2 Health.
- Rogue – Equip a 1/2 Dagger.
- Shaman – Summon a random basic Totem.
- Warlock – Draw a card and take 2 damage.
- Warrior – Gain 2 Armor.
Each class has a unique archetype and their class cards are tailored accordingly. Mage, for example, is a spellcaster, while Warrior relies more on weapons and charge minions. Depending on the meta, certain classes have higher win rates than others, but that can all change when a new expansion comes out.
There were originally nine classes, but Blizzard later introduced Demon Hunter in 2020 and Death Knight in 2022. The two new classes are perhaps our favourite change from the original game because they simply gave us more heroes to choose from and some interesting mechanics.
Cards
Cards can be class-specific or neutral (available to all classes). There are four types of cards in Hearthstone – minions, spells, weapons and hero cards.
Cards have rarity stats; they can be common, rare, epic or legendary. Hearthstone allows you to create cards you don’t have by using dust you collect by destroying unwanted cards.
The original Hearthstone mode, Standard, allows you to play cards from expansions released in the last two years (latest six expansions) and the core card set (cards given to all players for free). Before the introduction of Core cards, players had to buy packs to get those cards (then called Classic), so we quite liked that change.
Still, some people are unhappy that Standard makes you buy new card packs constantly to stay on top. Since there can be only six expansions in play, players have to renew their collection every four months because the meta changes.
Now, with the introduction of Mini-sets (expansion’s companion set released a few weeks later), fans are blasting Blizzard for affecting the meta too often, and thus necessitating more microtransactions. Still, some players simply turn to the Wild Constructed format, which allows you to craft a deck with cards from any expansion, because they want to use their full collection.
Game Modes
There are currently seven game modes:
- Constructed – The classic mode where you draft a 30-deck card using your collection. You can play Standard, Wild or Twist with each mode having different card restrictions.
- Arena – You choose one of three heroes and craft a unique 30-card deck from cards the game gives you. You can win up to 12 games and lose 3. The more wins you have, the better the prize (card packs, dust, gold). Participation costs in-game gold or real money.
- Solo Adventures – Solo Adventures are now free, but they used to be paid and they gave you cards as you completed challenges against AI-bots. Honestly, we miss the paid mode because it felt satisfying to win cards.
- Tavern Brawl – Game mode which changes weekly. Sometimes you have to draft a deck, while other times you’re given one. You get a free card pack after you win one game.
- Battlegrounds – Battlegrounds is the most successful of the new game modes. The mode has you face seven other players in an auto-chess game. The goal is to build a strong board with minions and remain the last one alive. Now there’s also a Duo mode that lets you play with a friend against other teams.
- Mercenaries – Another relatively new mode which is more RPG-oriented. The mode features collectible cards (mercenaries) that you use to strike out opponents (real players and AI-bots). Mercenaries wasn’t widely popular and it’s now on an indefinite break.
- Duels – Duels is also one of the new modes and it works similar to Arena (12 wins, 3 losses) but you use your own collection and a special treasure given to you by the mode to craft a 16-card deck.
Ranking System
Competitive Hearthstone can only be found in Constructed, both in the Standard and Wild formats. There are six tiers of competitive gaming – Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond and Legend. All tiers have 10 levels, except for Legend which has dynamic ranking corresponding to your place among other Legend players.
The ranking nullifies every season, with each season lasting a month. Even if you reached Legend, you’ll be put back in Bronze next season. This didn’t use to be the case and it’s the change we dislike the most.
In the past, you simply went five levels down every season (e.g, if you were Gold 2, you’d start next season as Gold 7). The new ranking system requires constant playing, so players with little free time can no longer hope to reach the highest levels. Having tested that, it took 6 hours of gaming every day for 3 weeks to reach Legend.
Blizzard claims to have amended that by introducing the star system; a win used to give you 1 star (you need 3 stars to reach the next level), but the new system can give you up to 5 for every win based on your last season’s rank. However, once you reach Silver/Gold, your stars are back to 1, so thanks for nothing, Blizzard.
Reward System
There are daily and weekly quests (e.g., win 3 Standard games) that come with prizes. While before these quests gave you only gold, now there is a reward path that refreshes with each expansion. The new reward system can give you gold, cards, packs and hero skins.
While we like that change, the new reward system also came with a purchasable Tavern Pass (awarding extra awards) which is yet another microtransaction. Some players are also unhappy about the change because the amount of gold on the reward path is lower than it was before the path.
Since gold can be used to purchase card packs and Arena tickets, it makes sense why many are saying that Hearthstone is a pay-to-win game.
Conclusion
Overall, for the past 10 years, Hearthstone has become richer with new hero classes and game modes, but so have the Blizzard execs. Blizzard keeps introducing additional microtransactions to the already transaction-heavy game, while the change of the reward system has angered some fans.
Still, Hearthstone is enjoyable to play, but if you want to play competitively, get ready to spend a significant amount of time and money.