Hearthstone

[Grey Fox]

You gotta love getting synergy like that. How many packs did you buy?

[Syt]

You gotta love getting synergy like that. How many packs did you buy?

I bought 15.  I figured it was the price of an indie game, so why not.

[Syt]

I'm starting to like the hunter a fair bit. You get good skills to take out your opponent's minions, and with beast minions and taunts (esp. taunts) you can (theoretically) become quite a nuisance. Round this out with Faceless Manipulators and you can have a good thing going there.

[Syt]

I think I'll leave my warrior for now. I have trouble keeping board control with him even when the cards come up right, but I just got Murloc rushed so badly by a Warlock who was hiding behind taunts that I had to concede on turn 5.

[Grey Fox]

Try a mage, load up on frost cards. Enjoy your victories.

[Berkut]

I want a beta key!

How does one get one, other than asking Blizzard for one?

[Grey Fox]

I want a beta key!

How does one get one, other than asking Blizzard for one?

Just go opt-in for it on your battle.net account. On the 19th, Blizzard said that everyone who had opt-in was sent keys.

There's always raffles from Twitch.tv streamers & a couple other websites.

[Berkut]

I just did that today though...maybe they will send out more keys soon...

[Syt]

The public beta is supposed to start on the 7th, I think? Until then all battle.net users who signed up should get a key.

[Grey Fox]

Spent some gold & I finally got a pack with some nice cards. I don't have a prefered class, I just play rank with the daily quests classes.

[Kleves]

Do they already let you spend real money in the game? Are they not going to wipe your account at the end of the beta?

[Grey Fox]

They let you spend money yes, always did.

They said they don't plan on any more wipes but it's beta, we never know.

Last wipe, they gave gold equivalent to how much you spent in the store.

[Syt]

Spent some gold & I finally got a pack with some nice cards. I don't have a prefered class, I just play rank with the daily quests classes.

I'm currently focusing on unlocking the base cards with all classes ... gonna take some time, I guess.

I find the game highly addictive, though, and it's tempting to splurge on card packs to round out your deck (and I guess this will be worse once the inevitable expansions come out). The keys to a good deck is to balance the curve right (low cost vs. high cost cards), and to be flexible and create as many synergies as possible. You could build your deck around two, maybe three killer combos, but how likely is it to get the cards when you need them, and in the right order?

It's a pretty fast paced game, and while it relies to some degree on luck (the cards from your deck of 30 come in random order), but as said, making sure you have cards that work in combo not only with one but many cards in your deck helps mitigate that. And you still have to make the most of what you draw, taking into account what's on your board, what your opponent *might* have in his hand and deck, and what you still have in your deck. It does a few things that would be not impossible but difficult in a real card game (e.g. some cards have effects on random other cards, lots of buffs to keep track off, etc.).

That said, some classes seem more powerful than others at the moment - playing warrior can be very frustrating, mages are pretty much the go to class for an easy game, though they keep nerfing them (e.g. increasin costs on some of their abilities). Hopefully this will be balanced out better in the future.

I tried getting into Magic the Gathering with one of the Planeswalker games, but it was too much of a chore for me. Hearthstone is accessible and easy to learn, but that doesn't mean that it's dumb IMO. Is it pay to win? Getting more cards gives you more flexibility, sure, and some cards are really very useful, but at the end of the day it depends on what you do with them.

If you look into buying cards it's important to keep in mind that you can't trade with other players. Each deck can have only two or (in case of legendaries) one copy of a certain card. However, you can "disenchant" any excess cards into dust and use it to craft a specific card you want; you get a quarter of what it costs to craft the card from disenchanting. There's also gold versions of each card, but these give you no bonus over what the non-gold version does and just look fancier. However, they disenchant at the full value of a non-gold card.

[Grey Fox]

Have you tried the Arena? There it's not P2W it's Pay to Play.

[Syt]

I did my free round, but I didn't get far, because I hadn't played much. I don't really want to pay for playing it and then potentially (or: likely) get eliminated in three games.

I like the idea of it, but I find the entrance hurdle too steep atm.