FAQ And Walkthrough - Guide for Hearthstone
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Game: Hearthstone, Heroes of Warcraft System: PC/Mac FAQ: General Walkthrough Written By: NoWorries Allowed Website: www.gamefaqs.com www.neoseeker.com www.supercheats.com www.cheatcc.com *If you have a website you would like to post this at just shoot me an email* **As always, the most up-to-date guide will always be found at gamefaqs** Version History: 1.0 Submitted 20 of October of 2014 -I've not proof-read this, so be warned of a few updates in the near future as I discover horrible grammar mistakes or anything spelling related. I've reread each section, but not the whole thing over again. Thank you 2.0 Submitted 03 of November of 2014 -Spent on and worked a great deal on Arena. Specifically, added a new section, Advanced Arena Strategies -Added www.cheatcc.com as an allowed website thanks to David Allison for the outreach -Added some more to the general Arena section, including two samples of some of my recent Arena's demonstrating the algorithm and that it works quite accurately, which is cool -General proof-reading and typo updates 3.0 Submitted 06 of December of 2014 -Added some new decks -Miracle (Deckhand) -F2P Warlock (control) -Changed some decks -F2P Paladin -F2P Warlock -F2P Rogue -Added another Arena win. Talked about "combos" -Added Goblins verse Gnomes cards -Talked about possible changes. Expect another update in the future to discuss deck changes 4.0 Submitted 4 of February of 2015 -Card updates (Undertaker) -Added general discussion regarding updates in general -Added to the decklist and changed up some decks -Mild reformatting in a few spots ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -Who should be reading this FAQ?- #The NoWorries Contract to Greatness I put this in every faq I've ever written, and it goes something along the lines like this. By writing this, I commit to you the reader that I will bring to you not only my vastness of knowledge but do it with a sense of humour. I understand it's easy to get bogged down in detail as well as a mush of opinion but I strive to bring you something more than just a guide to greatness. So who should be reading this? Well to be perfectly frank anyone wanting to play Hearthstone should. I was scouring the webs the other night waiting to publish my Naxxramas Heroic decklist when I noticed that of the two Hearthstone pages, there was only one half-written guide out there. Now I realize there are a plethora of Hearthstone guides out there elsewhere, but none for gamefaqs and that's not really fair. So it strengthened my desire to go further and not just do a Naxxramas guide, but do a complete guide regarding Hearthstone. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ So to begin. I'll elaborate first a little on why I am someone you can afford to listen to and read. First, I am a celebrated guide writer. I've published several guides available on gamefaqs as well as several more on specific websites such as mtg.net or dota-allstars (extinct) or even playdota.com which I don't really visit anymore due to time constraints. I also enjoy these strategy games. I've been a long time Magic the Gathering player all the way back to Masques block which predates most of you even being alive who would be reading this. When Hearthstone came out, I was excited to try a new fresh take on MTG as honestly, every card game post MTG has failed for me. ....Pokemon, not a good card game ....Yugioh, not a good card game ....Harry Potter, wtf were they thinking ....ergh Anyways, I've tried MANY of the thousands of games out there, and they've all been disappointing ripoffs that just suck and make me wish I was playing good ol MTG. Then you have MTG online which seemed like the new future except I didn't feel like buying cards I couldn't have. I left MTG (sorta) ------------------- Anyways, enter Hearthstone. It's a fresh take on an old concept. You draw cards, play creatures, use spells, and eventually beat your opponent down to a pulp of 0 life. It would seem that it too is a horrible ripoff, but there's something unique about Hearthstone, it's animated. It's not just animated, but it has a very cool maker behind it, Blizzard. What that means, is that anything Blizzard touches turns to gold! (Sorry, I'm not a Blizzard fanboy, but I do own and enjoy nearly everything they have ever made except Heroes of the Storm). No but seriously, Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo... it means that all of that mythology is golden for Blizzard to take advantage of and put into this cardgame. It's very exciting. We've already seen the first installment of an expansion set that shows Hearthstone has a very promising future ahead of it. But I digress... I'm here, because I want to give you the lowdown on exactly what this game is, and more importantly, how do you play it. Let's move on Table of Contents 00. Card Changes [0000] 01. Introduction [1000] 02. The Basics of Hearthstone [2000] 03. Understanding the Heroes [3000] 04. How to Level (and what you get) [4000] 05. The Basics part 2 [5000] 06. Battle Basics (Playing the game) [6000] 07. Deck Basics (free to play) [7000] 08. Deck Basics (constructed) [8000] 09. Ranked Play [9000] 10. Tournaments [AAAA] 11. How to Improve [BBBB] 12. Arena [CCCC] 13. Advanced Arena Strategies [DDDD] 14. Expansion Sets [EEEE] -Goblins verse Gnomes 15. The End? [FFFF] You can hit [CTRL]+F and type out the brackets search more easily ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 00. Card Changes [0000] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 8, 2014 -Gadgetzan Auctioneer cost increased by 1 (from 5 to 6) -Flare cost increased by 1 (from 1 to 2) -Soulfire cost increased by 1 (from 0 to 1) My thoughts These changes definitely are going to have an impact, so let's start with the biggest one, Soulfire. Without a doubt, this is going to impact Warlocks in a huge way, both handlock and zoo. Is Soulfire not going to be used? No way it's still extremely strong. However, Zoo decks will need to consider their play more carefully to leave that 1 mana available and Handlock will not be able to splurge their mana so freely. Gadgetzan is easily the second biggest, however, I don't think it will be as drastic as what people have claimed. Malygos Miracle is certainly going to be unplayable now, but the Deckhand Miracle is barely affected, simply because their goal is to get to 8 mana with their opponent at 20 life or less. Regarding Flare, not much to be said. It's more expensive to cycle, but that won't make the card unplayable. Februrary 2015 -Undertaker now only gains attack instead of attack and health My thoughts The biggest consequence of this is that Naxxramas is a total joke now. Half of the bosses relied heavily on Undertaker blowing up because of their deathrattles but now he's always easy to get rid of. Not that is a huge change since most people are done with Naxxramas but anyway Regarding constructed play: I think this is simply a shift in the meta as Deathrattle decks aren't going to be as strong anymore. That's not to say that Undertaker can't be used with Deathrattle; it's just that he's too easy to get rid of and most decks have access to 2 damage means now. In fact, it's quite a shift as pure aggro decks are becoming much more difficult to play in general. Murlocs and pure zoo are extremely vulnerable to any form of board clear and doing so really hurts them. What I think we'll see in the future is more utility from decks; namely the midrange style. Midrange covers early and transitions to late which gives a deck quite a bit of depth to work with. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 01. Introduction [1000] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hearthstone is a game that is completely free to play. You can download it any number of ways. It does require an internet connection and a decent computer to run it. According to Blizzard's website: Windows: XP, Intel Pentium D | AMD Athlon 64 X2, 256MB Video Mac: Mac OS X 10.7, Intel Core 2 Duo, NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT or ATI Radeon That's concerning the OS, Processor, and Video. As for Memory, Storage, Internet, Input, and Resolution they are the same. Their minimum reqs are: 2 GB RAM memory, 3 GB available storage, Broadband Internet, Keybord/Mouse or Touchscreen, and 1024x768 resolution. So that all looks confusing, but basically, if you are reading this online then you are probably good to go with hearthstone. It doesn't use much of your computer =) Anyways, let's talk briefly now about what is Hearthstone. Hearthstone is a game in which you take control of one of nine Blizzard heroes of legend, Malfurion Stormrage, the Druid, Rexxar, the Hunter, Jaina Proudmoore, the Mage, Uther the Lightbringer, the Paladin, Anduin Wrynn, the Priest, Valeera Sanguinar, the Rogue, Thrall, the Shaman, Gul'dan, the Warlock or Garrosh Hellscream, the Warrior, and battle another opponent who also takes control of one of those nine heroes and you battle it out to the death. To win, you must construct a deck of 30 cards (no more, no less) and play your cards smartly, attack wisely, defend when you need to, and eventually, slay your opponent or force them to concede giving you the victory. So, let's talk a little bit about the basics. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 02. The Basics [2000] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hopefully you don't feel too overwhelmed. I always find the best place to start is the beginning so let's talk some very basic terminology that will be used, A LOT. HEALTH There is two kinds of health in this game, your hero, and your minions. First, let's talk about your hero. Your hero always starts with 30 health, indicated by the 30 with the heart in your hero's portrait. Unlike MTG, you can never go above 30 health. Also unlike MTG, you can in fact go below 30 health assuming some action would restore you back above 0 so that you don't lose. It's quite fancy. There's also then, health for your minions, indicated as the second number on the card. Fig. 1 ------------------------------- | Card Name | | | | The Card Picture | | | | Any Card Text | | | | Card Power Card Health | ------------------------------- *Card not exactly to scale Unlike MTG, minions in Hearthstone do not regain all their health at the end of each turn (most notably, because MTG uses TOUGHNESS, whereas Hearthstone uses actual HEALTH). There are ways to restore health, but we'll get more into that later. When a minions health has reached 0, just like your hero, it dies and leaves the battlefield. Unlike MTG, there is no GRAVEYARD. If a minion is killed in battle, it's gone forever and ever. POWER So using Fig. 1 as our reference, every minion has a POWER number as well. It could be 3, or 6, or 0! Power cannot be negative. POWER reflects how much damage a minion will do when it attacks. It's just simple math. A minion with 2 power will deal 2 damage, and the minion with 4 health will survive the attack with 2 health leftover. Power can also be referred to as Attack. BATTLING Alright, so there's a lot to cover here in small sections so let's talk about battling. In MTG, there is a set rule about what you can or cannot do. For example, you have the beginning of your turn, untap, upkeep, draw, main, declare attackers, attack, declare blockers, block, declare damage, combat... it goes on and on, but the point is there's a system in place for how things go down. In Hearthstone, there isn't any of that. You have the beginning of your turn where you auto draw a card, and then you have the end of your turn when you click the little yellow END TURN button. Everything else that takes place in between there is up to you. You could play a minion, attack, play a minion, attack, and then attack. You could just pass the turn. So, let's talk then a bit about what encompasses your turn (we'll come back to BATTLING) YOUR TURN Alright, so step 0, it's your turn. You draw a card. Now, what can we do? STEP 1, MY MANA CRYSTALS Whoa whoa, what are mana crystals? It's alright, see those blue things next to your hero portrait? No! There's only 1 there! It's alright! More will come OK, jokes aside, everything in Hearthstone uses Mana Crystals. Unlike MTG which uses MANA produced by TAPPING LANDS, Hearthstone gives you a preset MANA CRYSTALS. At the beginning of the game, everybody starts at 0. On your turn, you gain 1 Mana Crystal, indicated by the blue crystals. If you use them then they go black until your next turn. At the beginning of your turn, you get back whatever crystals you used, and 1 more. At 10, you no longer get new Mana Crystals. QUESTION, CAN I SAVE MANA ANSWER, No. If you choose not to spend mana on your turn, then it is considered "wasted" as your next you will have the same mana plus 1 up to 10 Mana Crystals. QUESTION, I WANT TO DO STUFF ON THEIR TURN, PLEASE ANSWER, No. Unlike MTG, everything in Hearthstone is considered a "Sorcery" which basically means you only act on your turn. When it is not your turn, you must sit there and wait. You cannot do "in response" or anything like that. Because of how the game works, this is why it is. QUESTION, THANK YOU ANSWER, Alright let's move along STEP 2, WHAT TO DO WITH THESE THINGS First MANA, now BATTLING, I'm DONE It's really not that bad So I mentioned you win with playing minions and usings spells. That's what your Mana Crystals are for. So let's talk briefly about what you can splurge your Mana Crystals on. a. Minions The most basic way to win is to play Minions. Using Fig. 1 again as a reference, every Minion has some certain qualities about it. Every Minion has A name A picture A power number A health number A textbox A cost The textbox may be empty. Chillwind Yeti is an example of this. The cost may be zero, or 5, or 20, but we'll get into those a bit later. So there are some things that can go into that textbox, we'll come back in a second though. b. Spells The second most basic way to win is to use spells. Spells in Hearthstone are extremely versatile and can do nearly anything. What is unique about Spells, is that there are no neutral spells. Sigh, let's talk about this, revisiting Minions again real quick here. c. Class versus Neutral Every class (Paladin, Mage, etc) has their own Class-Specific-Cards. Amongst those, include what makes the class unique (Weapons, Secrets, Spells) as well as they have their own specific Minions. Then, there is the huge section, of Neutral Minions. When building a deck, you choose your class, and then build your deck from your Class cards, and the Neutral cards. You cannot put Mage cards in a Priest deck for example. OK b. Spells Alright, so coming back to spells. They are roughly broken down into 4 categories as such -Enchantment -Removal -Ramp -Secrets Let's explain what each of these are ENCHANTMENT Everyone should be familiar with "Auras" from MTG. Enchantments that you can play onto a creature to give an advantage. In Hearthstone, they are very much the same though they are called Spells. You can play MARK OF THE WILD, to give your Minion +2 power, +2 health, and Taunt (we'll get into that). You could also play BLESSING OF KINGS, to give your Minion +4 power and +4 health. On the flip side, you could play HUMILITY on your opponents dragon to set its power to 1. These are all Enchantment-type spells. You can check to see what is enchanting your Minions by hovering over them with the mouse and the game will tell you what it has (or doesn't have). REMOVAL Everyone should know what Removal is. It's a spell that makes things go away. They can be cheap and small, or large grand amounts of damage. I could play FIREBALL, to deal 6 damage to my opponents dragon killing it; but I could play FIREBALL to deal 6 to my opponent potentially killing them. Some cards though can only affect certain types, such as GRIMOIRE OF SACRIFICE which can only target a DEMON, or FLAME STRIKE only targets enemy Minions, but HELLFIRE hits ALL Characters, which means Minions and Heroes. Removal doesn't have to be damage. It could be Shadow Word Pain, which kills a creature with 3 or less power. RAMP Ramp basically means card advantage. While Removal technically gives advantage what separates Ramp is how it accomplishes it. Ramp can be something as simple as WILD GROWTH, which gives you an empty Mana Crystal (increasing your total by 1 then, up to 10) or could be SENSE DEMONS, which puts 2 random DEMONS from your deck into your hand (which is card draw). It could also be as simple as ARCANE INTELLECT, Draw 2 cards, or SPRINT, Draw 4 cards. What about something like, MIRROR IMAGE, which gives you two creatures? That technically would be RAMP as it gives card advantage (2 creatures for 1 card, that's an advantage). SECRETS So if ain't Removal, Enchantments, or Ramp it must be a secret? Nah, some cards don't really have a category, like "gain 6 health" doesn't really fit into any category but regardless, Secrets are special. There are only 3 classes that get Secrets, MAGE, HUNTER, and PALADIN. Every Secret is unique but the rules are all the same. You cannot trigger Secrets on your turn, you can only play them. That's about it. You may ask, what's the point? Well, you have to look at what the secrets can do to understand that. For instance, MAGE, has COUNTERSPELL. You play it as a Secret. Your opponent sees you have a Secret down, but they don't know what it is. They rack their brain thinking what Secret it could be (as it is a set-list) but they can't figure it out via TESTING (testing to see what the Secret is by meeting "qualifications") so they try to FIREBALL you. Badda bing badda boom, your Secret activates and your opponent groans as their best spell got "countered" and fizzles out. HUNTER has FREEZING TRAP. You drop it down, and eliminate all your opponents small cheap creatures. They have no way to break it (testing) so they attack with their large expensive creature. FREEZING TRAP activates and puts it back in their hand and now it costs 2 more. So Secrets, they are not exactly Secrets as you can look up and know what cards they could be; but they are Secrets in that you can Bluff, or put your opponent in a horrible situation if they cannot figure out what the Secret is. d. Weapons Yeah yeah it could be under Spells but Weapons get their own category. Only a few classes get Weapons, Warrior, Rogue, Shaman, Hunter, and Paladin. Weapons are NOT Spells, so cards that are affected by Spells don't care about Weapons. The most basic Weapons, have 5 things, a Name, a Picture, a Cost, a Damage Value, and a Durability. Some more fancy Weapons have a Textbox as well. Damage Value The first number of the weapon; it means how much damage you can do. Yeah that is right! Your hero actually attacks with the weapon. Pretty cool Durability The second number, means how many times you can attack. Once that number reaches 0, then the weapon breaks and is gone forever. You can replace a weapon with another which makes the first weapon also go away even if the Durability isn't 0. e. Hero Power The last thing you can use your Mana on (jeeze, I guess that is what started this tanget isn't it?) Every hero has their own unique Hero power. Those will be talked about when we get into the Class specifics section. STEP 2, NOW WHAT Alright, to refresh, we have Step 0, Draw a card (done automatically) Step 1, Mana Crystals (also done automatically, though you choose what to play with them) Now we have, Step 2, Now what? So, we know what Step 3 is right? Yes, Step 3 is End your Turn. Whoa whoa, what about battling? Yeah that happens here under Step 2, or Step 1 You lost me Alright let me explain QUESTION, WHAT CAN I DO ON MY TURN ANSWER, We've been over that. Here is exactly what you can do though, which brings us back to something we mentioned earlier, Battling. Battling Specifics So the game consists quite a bit of fighting. Minion on minion brutality. It works like this. --->Every Minion has summoning sickness *Except those with Charge Alright, let's explain Summoning Sickness In MTG, when you played a Creature, it could not Tap, or Attack, when it came into play as it had Summoning Sickness. The exception was if you could give it Haste, or it had Haste as an ability. Haste overrules Summoning Sickness. In Hearthstone, all Minions have Summoning Sickness, meaning they cannot battle the turn they are played. CHARGE Charge is Haste, pure and simple. Charge means your Minions can attack as soon as they hit the battlefield. Alright? Simple enough QUESTION, HOW DO I ATTACK ANSWER, You have 3 targets. The first, is attacking the enemy Hero. The second is attacking an enemy Minion. The third, is being forced to attack a Taunt. Whoa whoa, you lost me Alright, so in MTG, you "Declared Attackers" and your opponent chose how to block. When Planeswalkers were introduced, you could specify "attacking you" or "attacking Lilliana". In Hearthstone, there is no "Declare Attackers" you just choose who to attack. That means anything on the battlefield is vulnerable to being attacked. That brings us to, Taunt Taunt You must attack a Minion with Taunt Simple enough, no? QUESTION, TAUNTS SOUND OVER-POWERED, MAKE ALL DECK OF TAUNTS ANSWER, Not exactly. We'll get into that later RESPONSE, FINE --->More Battle Specifics There are 4 kinds of battles that can happen: Minion on Minion Minion on Hero Hero on Minion Hero on Hero Alright, they are quite similar but let's go into this Minion on Minion It's simple enough. Minion A has chosen to battle Minion B. Minion A runs into Minion B. Minion A deals its damage to B, and B deals its damage to A. If either's health drops to 0, they die and go away. Otherwise they live with a new reflected Health total. EXAMPLE I control a 4/5 Chillwind Yeti and choose to attack your 1/7 Mogu'shan Warden. My Yeti deals 4 damage to the 7 health of the Warden, leaving it at 3 Your Warden deals 1 damage to my 5 health of the Yeti, leaving it at 4 Understand? My Yeti's power (4) goes against the 7 health (7 - 4 = 3) so the end result is 3 health on your Warden. Vice-versa, your Warden's power (1) goes against my 5 health (5 - 1 = 4) so the end result is 4 health on my Yeti. Let's take another look at an example EXAMPLE I control 2/3 Flesheating Ghoul. Now this particular creature gains +1 attack per each Minion that dies. So in addition to my Ghoul I also have two 1/1 Stonetusk Boars. You are sitting there, feeling confident, with a gigantic 3/6 Taunt Fen Creeper, thinking there's no way I can kill him. I attack with a Boar, dealing 1 damage (from 6 to 5) and my Boar dies, giving +1 attack to my Ghoul. I attack again, dealing another damage (from 5 to 4), giving another +1 attack to my Ghoul (from 2 to 3, and now 3 to 4 because the two deaths) so my Ghoul is now a 4/3. But I don't want to lose my Ghoul, so I play HAND OF PROTECTION, giving my Ghoul Divine Shield. I attack your Fen Creeper. My Ghoul kills your Creeper (4 - 4 = 0, dead Creeper) but my Ghoul lives. My Ghoul also gains another attack, and is now a 5/3. WHYYYYYY Because Divine Shield Divine Shield The first time this Minion is dealt damage, ignore it (See how I transition nicely there) Alright, so Divine Shield is just another effect. Let's talk about some of these effects that you may come across (all of which, are defined in Hearthstone if you just hover over it). Battlecry Battlecry triggers when the Minion is played from your hand Choose One This is an effect exclusive to Druids. When you play the card (it's not a Battlecry!) you choose one of the effects Combo Another exclusive, this time to Rogues. A card "Combos" if you played another card this turn Deathrattle An effect that happens once the Minion dies Enrage An effect that only happens if the Minion is damaged (that means healing will remove the Enrage). Also, a 1 health Minion cannot be enraged Freeze Freeze can affect any character, and it means their following attack is skipped. That means, if I freeze your Minion on my turn, on your next turn, it will be able to attack. On the other hand, if your Minion becomes frozen on your turn, it will feel much longer as you finish your turn, take a turn, and then it will finally be able to attack Immune Simply put, cannot be damaged Overload An ability exclusive to Shamans. Overload means you have {X} less Mana Crystals to use next turn. For example, I have 3 Mana Crystals this turn and play Feral Spirit which overloads 2. Next turn, I still gain my Mana Crystal to bring me to 4, but I'm overloaded 2, so I only get to use 2 Mana Crystals this turn. Silence Silence wipes out all card texts and enchantments from a Minion. NOTE! There are cases in which you should be aware of, allow me to explain. EXAMPLE My minion, is normally a 2/4. He was wounded, and brought down to 2/2. I cast a BLESSING OF KINGS, making him a 6/6, and attacked, bringing him down again to a 6/4. You Silence him on your turn. What should be his health? A) 0 B) 1 C) 2 D) 4 Answer is D, 4. Why? Because you remove the card text, taking out the 4/4. However, his health when enchanted is already at 4. Simply put, you cannot "wound" a Minion via Silence. If my Minion were at 6/3, then Silence would put him back to 2/3. But since my Minion was up to 6/4, Silence would put him at 2/4 again Stealth Minions with Stealth cannot be targeted by enemy spells, abilities, or attacks until they deal damage. Once they deal damage, Stealth is removed. Attacking counts as well, but that's just a fancy dealing damage. Targeted doesn't save them though from AoE or randomness though. Just targeted spells or abilities. Spell Damage Makes your spells deal X more damage. In cases of cards like PROPHET VELEN, who "doubles" spell power, any additive property happens first, IE +1 to spellpower happens first, and then it is doubled Summon Essentially, create whatever creature is supposed to be summoned. This could be via deathrattle, battlecry, or a spell effect Transform Transform changes the card completely into whatever it is supposed to be. This means the previous card is GONE and cannot be "Silenced" to be saved. If your Minion gets hexed into a Frog, it is now, forever a Frog Windfury Can attack twice each turn. Simple enough ALRIGHT. That's all the good old card text, I know it's a lot, but I think we are finally done with CARD BASICS. Hooray let's move along to something else ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 03. Understanding the Heroes [3000] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ So now that we understand the basics of Hearthstone, let's talk about the basics of Understand the Heroes. Recall that we have Warlock Hunter Priest Paladin Shaman Mage Rogue Druid Warrior Let's delve now into them and explore a bit more about who they are and what they do ----------------------------- WARLOCK ----------------------------- The Demonic Gul'dan makes an appearance here as the Warlock, a devilish class with power effects and outrageous minions. The Warlock class focuses on really strong spells and minions, with some pretty strong downsides. The Warlock also has arguably the most powerful hero ability in the game, the ability to draw an extra card each turn. As such, there are 2 primary decks that revolve around Warlock, aggro and control. But first, let's talk a bit more about his cards. Hero Power, Life Tap, (2) Pay 2 life, Draw a Card Sure, losing 2 life seems like a big deal, but everyone knows how important card advantage is. The ability to draw an extra card is extremely nice to have. Free-to-Play Warlock Cards ########### FREE? AS OPPOSED TO NOT FREE???? ########### ANSWER, Right, so there are some important things to note real quick before we go deeper into this. Every card has a crystal (or doesn't!) and this is what they mean. GREY = COMMON BLUE = RARE PURPLE = EPIC GOLD = LEGENDARY BLANK = FREE What does this mean? Every Class (including Neutral) has "free" cards, these are known as Free-To- Play cards. You get them, by simply playing the game. Some cards are unlocked by leveling your hero to level 10 (done by playing the game) and others are completely free and there from the get-go. Post level 10, you unlock Golden versions of the cards, which is simply a neat graphical enhancement, that's all. All the other cards, Grey, Blue, Purple, and Gold, are cards you get through Packs. WHOA WHOA, PACKS SOUNDS LIKE MONEY And sure, you can buy them if you want, at 2 for $2.99, 7 for $9.99, 15 for $19.99, or 40 for $49.99, all USD. You also can get packs through ARENA (we will talk about Arena later) or by buying them for 100 gold. WHOA WHOA, GOLD? Yes. You get Gold by playing the game (10 gold per every 3 wins when you play against humans) or by doing Quests which appear daily (we'll talk more about Quests later). ALRIGHT I THINK I UNDERSTAND Awesome, back to Warlock Warlock Cards Warlock cards are typically powerful cards with downsides. Here is a complete list of all the Warlock Cards SPELLS Free Corruption (1) Choose an enemy minion. At the start of your turn, destroy it Drain Life (3) Deal 2 damage (to a character). Restore 2 health to your hero Hellfire (4) Deal 3 damage to all characters Mortal Coil (1) Deal 1 damage to a minion. If that kills it, draw a card Sacrificial Pact (0) Destroy a Demon. Restore 5 health to your hero Shadow Bolt (3) Deal 4 damage to a Minion Soulfire (0) Deal 4 damage (to a character) Discard a card at random* Common Demonfire (2) Deal 2 damage to a minion OR give a friendly Demon +2/+2 Power Overwhelming (1) Give a friendly minion +4/+4 until end of turn. Sacrifice it at end of turn Sense Demons (3) Put 2 random Demons from your deck into your hand** Rare Shadowflame (4) Destroy a friendly minion and deal its Attack(Power) damage to all enemy minions Siphon Soul (6) Destroy a minion. Restore 3 health to your hero Epic Bane of Doom (5) Deal 2 damage to a character. If that kills it, summon a random Demon*** Twisting Nether (8) Destroy all minions *If you have no cards to discard, then you *do* discard a card but obviously you have nothing to discard. As such, you can abuse certain card effects by working around them **If you have no more Demons in your deck, you get 1/1 Worthless Imps instead ***The list of Demons are: Blood Imp (0/1 Stealth, gives +1 health randomly) Dread Infernal (6/6) Felguard (3/5 Taunt) Flame Imp (3/2) Succubus (4/3) Voidwalker (1/3 taunt) These Minions are put into play, so no battlecry is triggered nor does these affect the total in your deck MINIONS (these are all Demons) Free Dread Infernal (6) [6/6] Battlecry, Deal 1 damage to all other characters Succubus (2) [4/3] Battlecry, Discard a card at random* Voidwalker (1) [1/3] Taunt Common Blood Imp (1) [0/1] Stealth. At the end of your turn, give another random friendly minion +1 Health** Flame Imp (1) [3/2] Battlecry, Deal 3 damage to your hero Summoning Portal (4) [0/4] Your minions cost 2 less but not less than 1 Voidcaller (4) [3/4] Deathrattle, Put a random Demon from your hand onto the battlefield*** Rare Doomguard (5) [5/7] Charge. Battlecry, Discard 2 cards at random* Felguard (3) [3/5] Taunt. Battlecry, Destroy one of your mana crystals**** Void Terror (3) [3/3] Battlecry, Destroy the minions on either side of this one and gain their attack and health Epic Pit Lord (4) [5/6] Battlecry, Deal 5 damage to your hero Legendary Lord Jaraxxus (9) [3/15] Battlecry, Destroy your hero and replace him with Lord Jaraxxus***** *See same footnote for Soulfire **Cannot target himself, but can target other Blood Imps ***Does not trigger battlecries ****You will replace the Mana Crystal (IE if you go from 10 to 9 you will go back up to 10 next turn) *****Lord Jaraxxes replaces Gul'dan and the following happens: -Life total is set to 15 (max health now 15) -Hero power changes to (2) Summon a 6/6 Infernal -Equip a 3/8 weapon called Blood Fury -Emotes change For "leveling" see the next section ----------------------------- HUNTER ----------------------------- Rexxar the Hunter is a devilish hunter who uses wild Beasts to dispose of his enemies. Many of his spells involve different shots, shooting explosive arrows or deadly poison-laced shots that kill instantly. Hunters can use deadly traps as they set Secrets, and also wield a number of different Bows as their weapons. Hero Power, Steady Shot, (2) Deal 2 damage to the enemy hero Seeing his ability, it's pretty clear what Hunters are about; dealing damage quickly and forcing his opponents into a tricky decision as their life ticks lower and lower. SPELLS Free Animal Companion (3) Summon a random Beast Companion* Arcane Shot (1) Deal 2 damage (to a character) Hunter's Mark (0) Change a minion's Health to 1** Kill Command (3) Deal 3 damage. If you control a Beast deal 5 instead Multi-Shot (4) Deal 3 damage to 2 random enemy minions*** Tracking (1) Look at the top 3 cards of your deck. Draw one and discard the others Common Deadly Shot (3) Destroy a random enemy minion Unleash the Hounds (3) For each enemy minion, summon a 1/1 Hound with Charge Rare Explosive Shot (5) Deal 5 damage to a minion and 2 damage to adjacent ones Flare (1) All minions lose stealh. Destroy all enemy Secrets. Draw a card Epic Bestial Wrath (1) Give a Beast +2 attack and Immune this turn *You can summon one of three companions: Huffer (4/2 charge) Misha (4/4 taunt) Leokk (2/4, give other Minions +1 attack) **This can be silenced off (hint it's an enchantment) ***Can only be played if they control at least 2 or more creatures ****Unleash the Hounds summons Hounds, that are Beasts SECRETS Common Explosive Trap (2) When your hero is attacked, deal 2 damage to all enemies Freezing Trap (2) When an enemy minion attacks, return it to its owner's hand and it costs 2 more Snipe (2) When your opponent plays a minion, deal 4 damage to it Rare Misdirection (2) When a character attacks your hero, instead he attacks another random character Epic Snake Trap (2) When one of your minions is attacked, summon three 1/1 snakes -------- | Note | -------- Explosive Trap *only triggers* upon your hero being attacked Freezing Trap triggers *upon a minion attacking* Misdirection requires at least one minion in play to trigger Those 1/1 Snakes are beasts as well Spell power *does* affect the traps ---------- | Advice | ---------- Take heed of how the Traps work so that when facing them, you can know and try to predict what they are. Explosive Trap Clues -Opponent plays Hunters Mark but doesn't kill your creature -Opponent tries to get your Minions to 2 or less health Ways around this -Attack his minions -Wait to play other minions until it triggers Freezing Trap Clues -Opponent leaves just 1 creature on your board (usually a fairly obvious ploy when this happens) Ways around this -Try to wait to attack until you can get a Battlecry minion bounced back to your hand. You can then turn this into an advantage Those 2 are the most common, and can be solved by attacking. Snipe is less common, but if you have attacked him with a minion and it hasn't triggered then it's like Snipe. Obviously, play something that can get hit with 4 damage or play something you don't need MINIONS (these are all beasts, except Houndmaster) Free Houndmaster (4) [4/3] Battlecry, Give a friendly beast +2/+2 and Taunt Starving Buzzard (5) [3/2] Whenever you summon a Beast, draw a card Timber Wolf (1) [1/1] Your other beasts have +1 attack Tundra Rhino (5) [2/5] Your beasts have Charge Common Scavenging Hyena (2) [2/2] Whenever a friendly beast dies, gain +2/+1 Webspinner (1) [1/1] Deathrattle, Add a random Beast card to your hand* Rare Savannah Highmane (Scar) (6) [6/5] Deathrattle, Summon two 2/2 Hyenas Legendary King Krush (9) [8/8] Charge *You can literally get *nearly* any Beast in the game. Here is a complete list Stonetusk Boar (1) (1/1 charge) Timber Wolf (same) Bloodfen raptor (2) (3/2) River Crocolisk (2) (2/3) Ironfur Grizzly (3) (3/3 taunt) Silverback Patriarch (3) (1/4 taunt) Oasis Snapjaw (4) (2/7) Starving Buzzard (same) Tundra Rhino (same) Core Hound (7) (9/5) Webspinner (same) Young Dragonhawk (1) (1/1 windfury) Dire Wolf Alpha (2) (2/2, Adjacent minions have +1 attack) Haunted Creeper (2) (1/2, deathrattle, summon two 1/1 spiders) Ironbeak Owl (2) (2/1, battlecry, Silence a minion) Scavenging Hyena (same) Jungle Panther (3) (4/2 Stealth) Stranglethorn Tiger (5) (5/5 Stealth) Angry Chicken (1) (1/1 Enrage, +5 attack) Emperor Cobra (3) (2/3, Destroy any minion damaged by this one) Stampeding Kodo (5) (3/5, Battlecry, Destroy a random enemy minion with 2 or less attack) Scar (same) Hungry Crab (1) (1/2, Battlecry, Destroy a Murloc and gain +2/+2) Captain's Parrot (2) (1/1, Put a random Pirate from your deck into your hand) King Mukla (3) (5/5, Battlecry, Give your opponent 2 Bananas)* Maexxna (6) (2/8, Destroy any minion damaged by this one) The Beast (6) (9/7, Deathrattle, Summon a 3/3 Finkle Einhorn for your opponent) King Krush (same) *Banana (1) Give a minion +1/+1 WEAPONS Rare Eaglehorn Bow (3) [3/2] Whenever a friendly secret is revealed, gain +1 Durability Epic Gladiator's Longbow (7) [5/2] Your hero is Immune while attacking ----------------------------- PRIEST ----------------------------- Anduin appears here to represent the Priest, a master of healing and of the holy sacred powers. Unsurprisingly, the Priest typically is a slower more control oriented deck and many of their cards represent that. Given enough time, the Priest may just take control of your minions and completely dismantle his opponent Hero Power, Lesser Heal, (2) Restore 2 health a a character SPELLS Free Divine Spirit (2) Double a Minion's health Holy Nova (5) Deal 2 damage to all enemies and restore 2 health to all friendly characters Holy Smite (1) Deal 2 damage Mind Blast (2) Deal 5 damage to the enemy hero Mind Control (10) Take control of an enemy minion* Mind Vision (1) Put a copy of a random card from your opponents hand into yours** Power Word Shield (1) Give a minion +2 health and draw a card Shadow word Death (3) Destroy a minion with attack 5 or more Shadow word Pain (2) Destroy a minion with attack 3 or less Common Circle of Healing (0) Restore 4 health to all minions Inner Fire (1) Change a minion's attack to be equal to its health Silence (0) Silence a minion Thoughtsteal (3) Copy 2 cards from your opponents deck and put them into your hand** Rare Holy Fire (6) Deal 5 damage and restore 5 health to your hero Mass Dispel (4) Silence all enemy minions. Draw a card Shadow Madness (4) Gain control of an enemy minion with 3 or less attack until end of turn*** Epic Mindgames (4) Put a copy of a random minion from your opponent's deck into the battlefield under your control**** Shadowform (3) Your hero power becomes "Deal 2 damage" If already in Shadowform, instead "Deal 3 damage" *You literally now own that creature **You do not steal versions of the cards, you just get your own versions added into the game (like Webspinner) ***If you return the creature to your hand and replay it, it becomes yours. Any effect that happens while you own the creature also happens for you (IE Deathrattle, draw a card) you would draw the card ****Just like the other Mind-stuff, this does not remove the enemy creature from your opponents deck, you simply get one. Also does not trigger battlecries. ERRATA, if you play this and they have no creatures then you get a 0/1 Shadow of Nothing creature MINIONS Free Northshire Cleric (1) [1/3] Whenever a minion is healed, draw a card* Common Lightspawn (4) [0/5] This minion's attack is always equal to its health** Temple Enforcer (6) [6/6] Battlecry, Give a friendly minion +3 health Rare Auchenai Soulpriest (4) [3/5] Your cards and powers that restore health now deal damage instead*** Lightwell (2) [0/5] At the start of your turn, restore 3 health to a friendly damaged character Epic Cabal Shadow Priest (6) [4/5] Battlecry, Take control of an enemy minion that has 2 or less attack Legendary Prophet Velen (7) [7/7] Double the damage and healing of your spells and hero power *A minion is only healed if it is damaged **This means that effects like Dire Wolf Alpha do not work with Lightspawn ***A strategy side-note, Auchenai+Circle of Healing deals 4 damage to all minions. It's a fairly popular strategy and the cheapest board clear in the game ----------------------------- PALADIN ----------------------------- Uther Lightbringer represents the Paladin, a class that's all about minions. He likes large armies and his ability reflects that. However, many of his cards are quite flexibile and as a result you do get aggro and control Paladins, both with equal success. Hero Power, Reinforce (2) Summon a 1/1 Silver Hand Recruit Easily disregarded as a throw-away, the Paladin's hero power becomes very very strong approaching turns 7+ as he generates an extra 1/1 every turn which 66% of the classes can't deal with for 2 mana for free. It easily turns the tide to his victory (or helps to) SPELLS Free Blessing of Kings (4) Give a minion +4/+4 Blessing of Might (1) Give a minion +3 attack Consecration (4) Deal 2 damage to all enemies Hand of Protection (1) Give a minion Divine Shield Hammer of Wrath (4) Deal 3 damage and draw a card Holy Light (2) Restore 6 Health* Humility (1) Change a minion's attack to 1 Common Blessing of Wisdom (1) Choose a minion. Whenever it attacks, draw a card** Rare Blessed Champion (5) Double a minion's attack Divine Favor (3) Draw cards until you have as many in hand as your opponent Equality (2) Change the health of all minions to 1 Holy Wrath (5) Draw a card and deal damage equal to its cost*** Epic Avenging Wrath (6) Deal 8 damage split randomly among enemy characters Lay on hands (8) Restore 8 health. Draw 3 cards* *Can target any character **Regardless of what minion you enchant (yours or an opponents) whenever it attacks you still draw the card ***You must target first and then draw. Risky SECRETS There are 5 common Paladin Secrets Avenge (1) When one of your minions die, give a random friendly minion +3/+2 Eye for an Eye (1) When your hero takes damage, deal that much to the enemy hero Noble Sacrifice "Get Down" (1) When an enemy attacks, summon a 2/1 Defender as the new target Redemption (1) When one of your minions die, return it to play with 1 health Repentance (1) When your opponent plays a minion, reduce its health to 1 --------- | Notes | --------- Avenge only works if you have at least 2 Minions in play Get Down triggers upon attack, doesn't matter who is being attacked Redemption does not trigger battlecries, which can be helpful for certain cards. It does restore things like Divine Shield if that is a part of the Minion (or Stealth) Repentance sets it to 1, so you cannot heal it back to the original amount -------- | Tips | -------- The most common Paladin secrets are Avenge and Get Down. Get Down is fairly obvious as it triggers upon attack. Avenge is scary (+3/+2 is no joke) but it only triggers if his minions die on your turn. So you can either never kill his minions OR only board wipe all them together OR kill a minion when you are prepared to answer Avenge (with Silence or something) As for the others, there isn't much you can do nor should you run into them all that much MINIONS Free Guardian of Kings (7) [5/6] Battlecry, Restore 6 health to your hero Common Argent Protector (2) [2/2] Battlecry, Give a friendly minion Divine Shield Rare Aldor Peacekeeper (3) [3/3] Battlecry, Change an enemy minion's attack to 1 Legendary Tirion Fordring (8) [6/6] Divine Shield. Taunt. Deathrattle, equip a 5/3 wpn WEAPONS Free Light's Justice (1) [1/4] Truesilver Champion (4) [4/2] Whenever your hero attacks, restore 2 health to it* Epic Sword of Justice (3) [1/5] Whenever you summon a minion, give it +1/+1 and this loses 1 Durability Legendary Ashbringer (5) [5/3] This is what you get from Tirion Fordring *If you were to die (via Explosive Trap) Truesilver Champion will save you assuming you don't take more damage as well ----------------------------- SHAMAN ----------------------------- Thrall picks up the role here as the noble Shaman, master of trickery and powerful turns. Most of the Shaman cards are defined by big turns that shift control of the game towards their favor. A control Shaman, is a dangerous opponent. Hero Power, Totemic Call, (2) Summons a random Totem Healing Totem, 0/2, End of your turn, restore 1 health to all friends Searing Totem, 1/1 Stoneclaw Totem, 0/2 Taunt Wrath of Air Totem, 0/2, Spell Damage +1 While Shaman would seem to be cool like Paladin, his hero power is largely considered much weaker than others due to how uninteractive they can be. Sure getting the Taunt is nice, or the spell damage when you need it, but it can also be a liability when you are relying on it. SPELLS Free Ancestral Healing (0) Restore a minion to full health and give it Taunt Bloodlust (5) Give your minions +3 attack this turn Frost Shock (1) Deal 1 damage to an enemy and Freeze it Hex (3) Transform a minion into a 0/1 Frog with Taunt Rockbiter Weapon (1) Give a friendly character +3 attack this turn Totemic Might (0) Give your Totems +2 health Windfury (2) Give a minion Windfury Common Earth Shock (1) Silence a minion, then deal 1 damage to it Forked Lightning (1) Deal 2 damage to 2 random enemy minions; Overload 2 Lightning Bolt (1) Deal 3 damage; Overload 1 Reincarnate (2) Destroy a minion then return it to full life Rare Ancestral Spirit (2) Give a minion "Deathrattle, Resummon this minion" Feral Spirit (3) Summon two 2/3 Spirit Wolves with Taunt; Overload 2 Lava Burst (3) Deal 5 damage; Overload 2 Lightning Storm (3) Deal 2-3 damage to all enemy minions; Overload 2 Epic Far Sight (3) Draw a card. That card cost 3 less MINIONS Free Fire Elemental (6) [6/5] Battlecry, Deal 3 damage Flametongue Totem (2) [0/3] Adjacent minions have +2 attack Windspeaker (4) [3/3] Battlecry, Give a friendly minion Windfury Common Dust Devil (1) [3/1] Windfury; Overload 2 Unbound Elemental (3) [2/4] Whenever you play a card with Overload gain +1/+1 Rare Mana Tide Totem (3) [0/3] At the end of your turn draw a card Epic Earth Elemental (5) [7/8] Taunt, Overload 3 Legendary Al'Akir the Windlord (8) [3/5] Windfury, Charge, Divine Shield, Taunt WEAPONS Common Stormforged Axe (2) [2/3] Overload 1 Epic Doomhammer (5) [2/8] Windfury, Overload 2 ----------------------------- MAGE ----------------------------- The most anticipated class I'm sure, Magicians, Mages, and Wizards have always been a favorite of most everyone due to raw spell power. They can post early game victories with aggressive magic, as well as secure victory in the late game with giant balls of fire to the face. Hero Power, Fireblast, (2) Deal 1 damage SPELLS Free Arcane Explosion (2) Deal 1 damage to all enemy minions Arcane Intellect (3) Draw 2 cards Arcane Missiles (1) Deal 3 damage randomly split among enemy characters Fireball (4) Deal 6 damage Flamestrike (7) Deal 4 damage to all enemy minions Frost Nova (3) Freeze all enemy minions Frostbolt (2) Deal 3 damage to a character and freeze it Mirror Image (1) Summon two 0/2 minions with Taunt Polymorph (4) Transform a minion into a 1/1 Sheep Common Cone of Cold (4) Freeze a minion and the minions next to it and deal 1 damage to them Ice Lance (1) Freeze a character. If it is already frozen, deal 4 damage Rare Blizzard (6) Deal 2 damage to all enemy minions and freeze them Epic Pyroblast (10) Deal 10 damage Secrets Common Duplicate (3) When a friendly minion dies, put 2 copies of it into your hand Ice Barrier (3) As soon as your hero is attacked gain 8 armor Mirror Entity (3) When your opponent plays a minion summon a copy of it Rare Counterspell (3) When your opponent casts a spell, Counter it, it's fizzled Vaporize (3) When a minion attacks your hero, destroy it Epic Ice Block (3) When your hero takes fatal damage, prevent it and become Immune this turn Spellbender (3) When an enemy casts a spell on a minion, summon a 1/3 as the the new target --------- | Notes | --------- Mirror Entity only counts played Minions, not hero power summons, OR if a minion is summoned as part of the battlecry you only get the initial creature Counterspell stops the enemy spell (no effect) Spellbender only works if the target is a Minion, doesn't matter yours or the opponents -------- | Tips | -------- Most often, you will see two Secrets, Mirror Entity, and Duplicate. In cases of testing, an attack to the face tests for Ice Barrier and Vaporize (And both trigger if they are both down). For Duplicate, you want to trigger it on a lesser minion; and similarly with Mirror Entity don't play a huge Minion until you've ruled our Mirror Entity. Other than that, there isn't much else to do. For dealing with Ice Block (if you've ruled that it is the only option) when triggering it try to do as much damage as possible first (getting them as low to 1) before triggering it that way they are easier to defeat next turn MINIONS Free Water Elemental (4) [3/6] Freeze any character damaged by this minion Common Mana Wyrm (1) [1/3] Whenever you cast a spell, gain +1 attack Sorcerer's Apprentice (2) [3/2] Your spells cost 1 less Rare Ethereal Arcanist (4) [3/3] If you control a Secret at end of turn, gain +2/+2 Kirin Tor Mage (3) [4/3] Battlecry, the next Secret you play this turn cost 0 Legendary Archmage Antonidas (7) [5/7] Whenever you cast a spell, put a "Fireball" spell into your hand ----------------------------- Rogue ----------------------------- Valeera the hot sexy Cosplay of most Hearthstone female streamers represents the Rogue, a crafy choice who specializes in annoying the opponent and whittling them down for a grand finish. The most popular Rogue deck is that, called "Miracle" whereas another aggressive style known as "Backspace" is out there as well. Hero Power, Dagger Mastery, (2) Equip a 1/2 Dagger SPELLS Free Assassinate (5) Destroy an enemy minion Backstab (0) Deal 2 damage to an undamaged minion Deadly Poison (1) Give your weapon +2 attack Fan of Knives (3) Deal 1 damage to all enemy minions, Draw a card Sap (2) Return an enemy minion to your opponent's hand Shiv (2) Deal 1 damage, Draw a card Sinister Strike (1) Deal 3 damage to the enemy hero Sprint (7) Draw 4 cards Vanish (6) Return all minions to their owner's hand Common Betrayal (2) Force an enemy minion to deal its damage to the minions next to it Cold Blood (1) Give a minion +2 attack. Combo, 4 attack instead Conceal (1) Give your minions stealth until your next turn Eviscerate (2) Deal 2 damage. Combo, 4 intead Shadowstep (0) Return a friendly minion to your hand. It costs 2 less Rare Blade Flurry (2) Destroy your weapon and deal its damage to all enemies Headcrack (3) Deal 2 damage to the enemy hero. Combo, return it to your hand next turn* Epic Preparation (0) The next spell you cast this turn costs 3 less *Headcrack combo only requires a something else be played that turn. You don't necessarily have to play something before Headcrack MINIONS Common Anub'ar Ambusher (4) [5/5] Deathrattle, Return a random friendly minion to your hand Defias Ringleader (2) [2/2] Combo, Summon a 2/1 Defias Bandit Rare SI7 Agent (3) [3/3] Combo, Deal 2 damage Master of Disguise (4) [4/4] Battlecry, Give a friendly minion stealth Epic Kidnapper (6) [5/3] Combo, Return a minion to its owners hand Patient Assassin (2) [1/1] Stealth. Destroy any minion damaged by this minion Legendary Edwin VanCleef (3) [2/2] Combo, Gain +2/+2 for each card played earlier this turn WEAPONS Free Assassin's Blade (5) [3/4] Rare Perdition's Blade (3) [2/2] Battlecry, Deal 1 damage. Combo, deal 2 ----------------------------- DRUID ----------------------------- Malfurion is the Druid, the class that is the most versatile of any class. Many of the Druid cards literally give you a choice, deal 3 damage, or 1 and draw a card. Do I want a 4/4 charger or a 4/6 taunt? Druid's are one of the most intensive classes meaning you need the newer, stronger, better cards to play Druid as many of their better, many of their *best* cards that define who they are rares and epics. Hero Power, Shapeshift, (2) Gain +1 armor and +1 attack for this turn SPELLS Free Claw (1) Give your hero +2 attack this turn and 2 armor* Healing Touch (3) Restore 8 health Innervate (0) Gain 2 mana crystals this turn only** Mark of the Wild (2) Give a minion taunt and +2/+2 Moonfire (0) Deal 1 damage Savage Roar (3) Give your characters +2 attack this turn Starfire (6) Deal 5 damage, draw a card Swipe (4) Deal 4 damage to an enemy and 1 to all other enemies Wild Growth (2) Gain an empty Mana Crystal*** Common Mark of Nature (3) Choose one, give a minion +4 attack OR +4 health and taunt Naturalize (1) Destroy a minion. Your opponent draws 2 cards Poison Seeds (4) Destroy all minions and summon 2/2 treants to replace them Power of the Wild (2) Choose one, Summon a 3/2 panther, OR give your minions +1/+1 Soul of the Forest (4) Give your minions "Deathrattle, summon a 2/2 treant" Wrath (2) Choose one, Deal 3 damage to a minion, or 1 damage and drawa card Rare Bite (4) Give your hero +4 attack this turn and +4 armor Nourish (5) Choose one, Gain 2 mana crystals OR draw 3 cards**** Savagery (1) Deal damage equal to your hero's attack to a minion Starfall (5) Choose one, Deal 5 damage to a minion, OR 2 damage to all enemy minions Epic Force of Nature (6) Summon three 2/2 treants with Charge that die at the end of the turn *Armor gained through Shapeshift, Claw, and Bite stays until removed by damage **You cannot Innervate past 10 mana crystals ***If you cast Wild Growth at 10 mana, you gain an Excess Mana card that costs 0 to let you draw a card ****Nourish's mana crystals are not empty and can be used right away ^><^ Force of Nature + Savage Roar is 14 damage MINIONS Free Ironbark Protector (8) [8/8] Taunt Common Druid of the Claw (5) [4/4] Choose one, Charge, OR +2 health and Taunt Rare Keeper of the Grove (4) [2/4] Choose one, Deal 2 damage, OR Silence a minion Epic Ancient of Lore (7) [5/5] Choose one, Draw 2 cards, OR Restore 5 health Ancient of War (7) [5/5] Choose one, +5 attack, or +5 health and Taunt Legendary Cenarius (9) [5/8] Choose one, Give your other minions +2/+2 OR Summon two 2/2 treants with taunt ----------------------------- WARRIOR ----------------------------- Mr. Hellscream comes in as our last hero, representing the bloodthirsty Warrior of a brutal nature. He hits hard and fast, as well as puts up extreme duration for control matches with a very passive, defensive playstyle. When Control Warrior shows up, you are in for a long match. Hero Power, Armor Up! (2) Gain 2 armor SPELLS Free Charge (3) Give a friendly minion +2 attack and Charge Cleave (2) Deal 2 damage to two random enemy minions Execute (1) Destroy a damaged enemy minion Heroic Strike (2) Give your hero +4 attack this turn Shield Block (3) Gain 5 armor, draw a card Whirlwind (1) Deal 1 damage to all minions Common Battle Rage (2) Draw a card for each damaged friendly character Inner Rage (0) Deal 1 damage to a minion and give it +2 attack Rampage (2) Give a damaged minion +3/+3 Slam (2) Deal 2 damage to a minion. if it survives draw a card Rare Commanding Shout (2) Your minions can't go below 1 health this turn. Draw a card Mortal Strike (4) Deal 4 damage. If you have 12 or less health deal 6 instead Upgrade (1) If you have a weapon, give it +1/+1. Otherwise, equip a 1/3 Epic Brawl (5) Destroy all minions except one (chosen randomly) Shield Slam (1) Deal 1 damage to a minion for each Armor you have MINIONS Free Kor'kron Elite (4) [4/3] Charge Warsong Commander (3) [2/3] Whenever you summon a minion with 3 or less attack. Give it charge Common Arathi Weaponsmith (4) [3/3] Battlecry, Equip a 2/2 weapon Cruel Taskmaster (2) [2/2] Battlecry, Deal 1 damage to a minion and give it +2 attack Rare Armorsmith (2) [1/4] Whenever a friendly minion takes damage, gain +1 Armor Frothing Berserker (3) [2/4] Whenever a minion takes damage, gain +1 attack Legendary Grommash Hellscream (8) [4/9] Charge. Enrage, +6 attack WEAPONS Free Fiery "Win" War Axe (2) [3/2] Arcanite Reaper (5) [5/2] Common Death's Bite (4) [4/2] Deathrattle, Deal 1 damage to all minions Epic Gorehowl (7) [7/1] Attacking a minion costs 1 attack instead of 1 durability ----------------------------- That's the extent of a "brief" overview of the heroes. For more extensive discussion, we'll get into that later. But for now, let's look at the leveling that occurs and what cards you can get (to complete this list). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 04. Leveling [4000] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ As explained, you level by playing. You gain more experience against humans though it is suggested to play against the computer at least until you are level 10 that way you get all your free cards. Here is the lists of what you earn for each class. Warlock Hunter Priest Paladin Shaman Mage Rogue Druid Warrior Warlock START Drain Life Hellfire Shadow Bolt Succubus Voidwalker New Cards Corruption (at level 2) Mortal Coil (at level 4) Soulfire (at level 6) Sacrificial Pact (at level 8) Dread Infernal (at level 10) Gold (Animated) Cards Sacrificial Pact (15/20) Dread Infernal (23/26) Soulfire (28/30) Corruption (32/34) Voidwalker (36/38) Succubus (40/42) Mortal Coil (43/44) Drain Life (45/46) Shadow Bolt (47/48) Hellfire (49/50) After 50 (for all classes) you earn golds of the Neutral Basics Boulderfist Ogre (51/52) Grimscale Oracle (53/54) Ogre Magi (55/56) Gurubashi Berserker (57/58) Kobold Geomancer (59/60) Hunter START Arcane Shot Houndmaster Multi-Shot Timber Wolf Tracking New Cards Animal Companion (2) Starving Buzzard (4) Hunter's Mark (6) Tundra Rhino (8) Kill Command (10) Gold Cards Tracking (15/20) Timber Wolf (23/26) Houndmaster (28/30) Arcane Shot (32/34) Multi-Shot (36/38) Hunter's Mark (40/42) Tundra Rhino (43/44) Animal Companion (45/46) Starving Buzzard (47/48) Kill Command (49/50) After 50 Cards Core Hound (51/52) Stonetusk Boar (53/54) Razorfen Hunter (55/56) Bloodfen Raptor (57/58) Ironfur Grizzly (59/60) Priest START Holy Smite Mind Blast Northshire Cleric Power Word Shield Shadow Word Pain New Cards Divine Spirit (2) Mind Vision (4) Holy Nova (6) Shadow Word Death (8) Mind Control (10) Gold Cards Mind Blast (15/20) Holy Smite (23/26) Divine Spirit (28/30) Mind Vision (32/34) Shadow Word Pain (36/38) Northshire Cleric (40/42) Shadow Word Death (43/44) Holy Nova (45/46) Power Word Shield (47/48) Mind Control (49/50) After 50 Cards Murloc Raider (51/52) Shattered Sun Cleric (53/54) Darkscale Healer (55/56) Gnomish Inventor (57/58) Lord of the Arena (59/60) Paladin STARTING Blessing of Might Hammer of Wrath Hand of Protection Holy Light Light's Justice New Cards Truesilver Champion (2) Consecration (4) Humility (6) Guardian of Kings (8) Blessing of Kings (10) Gold Cards Holy Light (15/20) Hand of Protection (23/26) Humility (28/30) Hammer of Wrath (32/34) Light's Justice (36/38) Truesilver Champion (40/42) Consecration (43/44) Blessing of Might (45/46) Guardian of Kings (47/48) Blessing of Kigns (49/50) After 50 Cards Stormpike Commando (51/52) Bluegill Warrior (53/54) Stormwind Knight (55/56) Goldshire Footman (57/58) Stormwind Champion (59/60) Shaman STARTING Ancestral Healing Frost Shock Hex Rockbiter Weapon Windfury New Cards Bloodlust (2) Flametongue Totem (4) Totemic Might (6) Windspeaker (8) Fire Elemental (10) Gold Cards Ancestral Healing (15/20) Windfury (23/26) Totemic Might (28/30) Frost Shock (32/34) Rockbiter Weapon (36/38) Bloodlust (40/42) Flametongue Totem (43/44) Windspeaker (45/46) Hex (47/48) Fire Elemental (49/50) After 50 Cards Magma Rager (51/52) Frostwolf Warlord (53/54) Booty Bay Bodyguard (55/56) Frostwolf Grunt (57/58) Reckless Rocketeer (59/60) Mage STARTING Arcane Explosion Arcane Intellect Arcane Missiles Fireball Polymorph New Cards Frostbolt (2) Mirror Image (4) Frost Nova (6) Water Elemental (8) Flamestrike (10) Gold Cards Arcane Intellect (15/20) Frost Nova (23/26) Arcane Explosion (28/30) Arcane Missiles (32/34) Mirror Image (36/38) Frostbolt (40/42) Fireball (44/46) Polymorph (47/48) Water Elemental (49/50) Flamestrike (51/52) After 52 Cards Dragonling Mechanic (53/54) Ironforge Rifleman (55/56) Archmage (57/58) Dalaran Mage (59/60) Rogue STARTING Assassinate Backstab Deadly Poison Sap Sinister Strike New Cards Assassin's Blade (2) Fan of Knives (4) Shiv (6) Vanish (8) Sprint (10) Gold Cards Sinister Strike (15/20) Vanish (23/26) Fan of Knives (28/30) Assassin's Blade (32/34) Backstab (36/38) Sap (40/42) Deadly Poison (43/44) Shiv (45/46) Assassinate (47/48) Sprint (49/50) After 50 Cards War Golem (51/52) Murloc Tidehunter (53/54) Voodoo Doctor (55/56) Acidic Swamp Ooze (57/58) Sen'jin Shieldmasta (59/60) Druid STARTING Claw Healing Touch Innervate Mark of the Wild Wild Growth New Cards Starfire (2) Savage Roar (4) Moonfire (6) Swipe (8) Ironbark Protector (10) Gold Cards Healing Touch (15/20) Wild Growth (23/26) Mark of the Wild (28/30) Claw (32/34) Innervate (36/38) Moonfire (40/42) Savage Roar (43/44) Starfire (45/46) Swipe (47/48) Ironbark Protector (49/50) After 50 Cards Oasis Snapjaw (51/52) Nightblade (53/54) River Crocolisk (55/56) Elven Archer (57/58) Novice Engineer (59/60) Warrior STARTING Charge Execute Fiery Win Axe Heroic Strike Warsong Commander New Cards Cleave (2) Kor'kron Elite (4) Whirlwin (6) Shield Block (8) Arcanite Reaper (10) Gold Cards Heroic Strike (15/20) Charge (23/26) Shield Block (28/30) Whirlwind (32/34) Warsong Commander (36/38) Cleave (40/42) Kor'kron Elite (44/46) Execute (47/48) Fiery Win Axe (49/50) Arcanite Reaper (51/52) After 52 Cards Silverback Patriarch (53/54) Chillwind Yeti (55/56) Raid Leader (57/58) Wolfrider (59/60) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 05. Basics Part 2 [5000] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Alright. So we've talked about the heroes, we've talked about the cards, and we've talked about some of the basics. I'm sure you want to know some other things, like Strategy, Deck Building, and how to be better, but before we can get into that, we have one more section to talk about concerning the basics of understanding the game. So when you first log in, your screen gives you a handful of options. [Play] [Solo Adventures] [Arena] [Shop] [!] [Open packs] [My Collection] [Gold] [*] What do each of these mean? -------- | Play | -------- This is the main section to engage in playing Hearthstone. Inside, you can select a deck and choose to play generally, or to play ranked. So briefly, Ranked play pairs you against similar opponents. You can go from rank 25 down to rank 1, and then to Legend. Each win moves you forward, each loss sends you back. Early on, each rank has several wins necessary before moving on. Once you approach the end, you may have to win 5 or 6 times at that rank before you can advanced to the next rank. ------------------- | Solo Adventures | ------------------- This is where you play against the Computer. You can play against normal basic AI with each of the nine classes, or expert versions. You can also enter Naxxramas, the expansion set, where you can play in three different variations including normal Naxxramas, heroic Naxxramas, and class challenges where you unlocked different cards. In the beginning, this is a good place to start to level up your decks to at least level 10 so you can get all the basic cards. --------- | Arena | --------- This is an area where you assemble a deck from 30 random packs and then compete against other people with similar decks. The Arena costs $1.99 USD, or 150 gold to play in. You are then offered 3 classes to choose from. From there, you are offered 3 cards at a time, thirty times, to choose your deck. The Arena, is completely random. The first and last "packs" will be at least a Rare. Other than that, totally random. You may have a Mage with 6 Fireball cards. You may have a deck with 4 legendaries in it. You might also play a spell-less Mage with mostly basic cards. Once you lose 3 times or win 12 times, your deck is retired and you get prizes based on how well you do. You will always get a Pack. From there, the rewards are completely random, from crafting material, to gold, to individual cards. At 7 wins, you will get back at least 150 gold almost every time. If you win 12 times, you will get 5 prizes and usually 2 packs. There is a lot to Arena, but I'll get into that more later in a different section. -------- | Shop | -------- This lets you buy Packs. You can buy them for 100 gold, or in the different amounts of money I listed earlier. ----- | ! | ----- This is your "conquest" page. It tracks your different quests (up to 3) as well as keeps track of how many wins you have had (both Arena and normal play) as well as the levels of all of your classes. -------------- | Open Packs | -------------- This is where you open packs. Each pack contains 5 cards and all cards that are considered "expert" cards, which are anything common/gray or better. You will always get at least one Rare or better as well. -------- | Gold | -------- This tracks how much gold you have ----- | * | ----- This is the options menu. You can access the graphics and sound, as well as miscellaneous things. You can also select your card back. You start with the basic card back, and at the end of each month, if you got to at least rank 20, you get that month's card back. You also get cardbacks for all kinds of different things, like beating Heroic Naxxramas. ----------------- | My Collection | ----------------- This is your collection of cards. You can see how many and which cards you have, as well as this is where you make decks (up to 9) of them. There is also something called "Crafting Mode" which I'm sure you are curious. Well, one of the curious aspects of Hearthstone is that in addition to building your collection by playing and getting lots of packs; you can also create your own (well, I say that loosely) cards by crafting them. If you pick "Crafting Mode" then you can see every card available to put into a deck. The costs are this: Common, 40 to make, 5 to disenchant Rare, 100 to make, 20 to disenchant Epic, 400 to make, 100 to disenchant Legendary, 1600 to make, 400 to disenchant So, because you can only have 2 copies of a card in deck, if you have more than 3 copies of a card you get to disenchant that card "for free" as the same 2 copies of a card can go in 9 decks if you want. This is helpful as you can build and craft the cards you need, or the card you are looking for. You can certainly disenchant cards that you don't need either. For instance, I have gotten about 5 Spellbender cards. Only now do I finally have two copies of it. Because I think the card sucks, I've been disenchanting it A LOT for the 100 crafting so I can make better Rares. It's up to you though, and mostly I would deter disenchanting because you'd rather have a full collection of cards. You cannot disenchant "Soulbound Cards" which is any basic card. As those are given for free to you, you cannot disenchant them. Now you may ask about gold versions of the other cards. Gold expert cards are considered "special" and are worth 4 times the craft material. Yes, that means a gold legendary could be disenchanted for 1600 crafting, which could make you 16 rares. However, Golds are hard to come by and even more expensive to make and they do provide a cool animation so I'd think twice about disenchanting those cards. Alright, so let's talk about these Quests then, so you can understand better how they work. There are a number of quests, and here they are. ---------------- | Daily Quests | ---------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Name | Requirements | Reward | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Class 1] or [Class 2] Victory | Win 2 games with either class | 40 gold | [Class 1] or [Class 2] Dominance | Win 5 games with either class | 60 gold | | Destroy Them All | Destroy 40 minions | 40 gold | | Only the Mighty | Play 20 minions that cost 5>= | 40 gold | | The Meek Shall Merit | Play 30 minions that cost 2<= | 40 gold | | Spell Master | Play 40 spells | 40 gold | | Beat Down | Deal 100 damage to the enemy | 40 gold | | Total Dominance | Win 7 games in any mode |100 gold | | 3 Victories! | Win 3 games with any class | 40 gold | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- *5>= means 5 or more, 2<= means 2 or less The Class combinations can come in these following pairs: Druid or Hunter Druid or Rogue Hunter or Mage Mage or Shaman Paladin or Priest Paladin or Warrior Priest or Warlock Rogue or Warrior Shaman or Warlock This means that having three good decks basically covers your ground on what you might need. For instance, Druid (covers Druid, Hunter, Rogue), Mage (covers Mage, Hunter, Shaman) and Paladin (covers Paladin, Priest, Warrior) which leaves the lone Warlock left out but frankly aggressive Warlock decks are super cheap to make and quite effective so no worries. Also, this is simply a helpful hint so you don't worry about trying to have 9 awesome decks right away. Focus on getting a couple really good ones before expanding. For instance, my Mage/Druid have been level 60 for some time now and my Hunter and Rogue are still in the low 30s. I hate them so I don't play them =) ----------------- | Unique Quests | ----------------- These are special, hidden quests that you can complete but aren't visible to you as Hearthstone tracks them discretely. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | Name | Requirements | Reward | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ First Blood | Complete a game in play mode | 1 pack The Duelist | Play 3 games in play mode | 100 gold Level Up | Get any class to level 10 | 1 pack Crafting Time | Disenchant a card | 95 crafting Enter the Arena | Enter the Arena | a free arena Arrrrr!!! | Acquire every Pirate | 2 Captains | | Parrot Golden Arrrrr!!! | Acquire every Golden Pirate | 2 Gold | | Parrots Mrglglgl!! | Acquire every Murloc | Old Murk-Eye Golden Mrglglgl!! | Acquire every Golden Murloc | Old Murk-Eye | | (Golden) Chicken Dinner | Win 100 games in any mode | 300 gold Big Winner | Win 1000 games in any mode | 300 gold Ready to go! | Unlock every hero | 100 gold Crushed them All! | Defeat every Expert AI Hero | 100 gold Got the basics! | Collect every card in the basic set | 100 gold One of everything! | Collect every card in the Expert Set | 100 gold Golden Hero | Win 500 games in ranked with a class | Golden Hero Greater Reaper of Packs | Purchases Diablo 3 Reaper of Souls | 3 packs Mount Up! | Win 3 games in Arena or Play mode | Hearthsteed You are Legend | Reach Legend rank | New cardback Fireside Friends | Play 3 matches against other players | New cardback | on the same subnet | Reaper of Packs | Purchase Diablo 3 Reaper of Souls | 1 pack ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ *With Diablo 3, you have to enter a code ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 06. Battle Basics (Playing the game) [6000] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Alright, the meat and potatos of what most of you have come here I'm sure, here let's talk about some battle/play basics and what generally happens/goes on during a game of Hearthstone. As always, the best way to learn is to play the game but I'll do my best to give as many constructive tips as possible. So for starters, the battlefields are all the same. Yes, visually they are different, from the basic Azeroth, to the fancy Orc stage, to the most things ever Naxxramas stage, but those are just visuals; in no way does it affect the game. What I mean is, visually you can mess up the battlefield. For example, in Naxxramas (the dark, evil looking one) you can click the spider eggs to watch baby spiders come out. You can also *bop* the toadstools. I won't spoil it for you, have some fun seeing what you can or can't destroy on the different maps. Alright, so here is the battlefield. -----------------------------Opponent---Opp Life-----Hero Power--------------- D E C K -----------------------------Halfway Marker----------------------------------- D E C K -----------------------------You-----Your Life-------Hero Power--------------- Despite what it would seem, your opponent sees it from your perspective, that is, you the player are always on the bottom and your opponent is always across from you. Unlike MTG, the position of your Minions on the battlefield MATTER. This is because Hearthstone is similar to "battle tactics" or however you want to call it, and if you recall from reading some of the cards from above, certain cards affect "adjacent" minions. That's because once they are down, they are down and you can't move them. *When playing something, if you right click before setting it down you can redo your play. This works for things with battlecries So before we can get into a bit, there is one thing to note. Whenever you summon something, it always comes in on the right. This works with Hero Powers and Spells. This is important so that we can know how we want to place our minions. Typically, you want to place your minions so that your strongest ones, OR the ones you'd be most likely to buff are together. DEF, BUFF To play a spell or minion that positively affects your other minions For instance, there are a number of minions that do this. Some of them are Defender of Argus (4) [2/3] Battlecry, Give adjacent minions +1/+1 and Taunt Flametongue Totem (2) [0/3] Adjacent minions get +2 attack Ancient Mage (4) [2/5] Battlecry, Give adjacent minions +1 spellpower So you can see, placement of your minions is very important. Defender of Argus is the most noted because he is a neutral that can go into any deck and the +1/+1 effectively makes him a 4/5 for 4 (a good bargain) but the addition of Taunt to both of the minions makes him a highly sought after Neutral. But we want to make sure that we get the most use out of any minion that is like Argus. For instance, in what order would we play these Minions? Minion A (1) [1/2] Taunt Minion B (2) [2/2] Spellpower +1 Minion C (3) [1/4] Taunt Minion D (3) [2/3] Windfury Defender of Argus Well obviously, we will play 1 drop, 2 drop, 3 drop, but assuming our enemy doesn't remove any of them, how would we want Argus to be down? Here's a couple of options. Minion A | Minion B | Minion C Minion B | Minion A | Minion C Minion B | Minion A | Minion D Minion A | Minion B | Minion D You might be inclined to say, "NoWorries! Two of those have taunt already so obviously we want Minion A | Minion B | Minion D, or least B and D to be together to give them Taunt!" And you may not be wrong. However, in the case of Minion B, Spellpower is something that we typically want to protect right? Any time we can get 1 more damage out of our spell, means an advantage to us. So the correct answer would be any pairing, that includes Minion A next to Minion C or D. Despite Minion A already having Taunt, buffing it from a 1/2 to a 2/3 is a huge buff, and that is OK despite it already having Taunt. As for having Minion C or D, at that juncture we don't really know because we don't know what our opponent is playing. Making the 1/4 a 2/5 is fairly nice, as there does not exist a 2/5 for 3 mana; and at the same time Minion D has Windfury so that extra attack can be looked at as +2 attack whenever it gets to attack. Does that make sense? Now let's look at another example. You're facing a Hunter with no Minions and he has no cards in hand. He's at 12 life. He just pushed quite a bit of damage and you are now at 2 life, which means you lose next turn if you cannot win. Your battlefield looks something like this: Healing Totem | Flametongue Totem | Stoneclaw Totem And you are holding a Wolfrider (3) [3/1] Charge, and a Stonetusk Boar (1) [1/1] Charge. Can you win? Recall that all the totems have 0 attack, but that Flametongue Totem gives +2 attack to adjacent Minions. Give up? Here's what to do. Attack with each of your totems for 4 damage. Then play between the Healing Totem and the Flametongue Totem, one of your charge minions. On the other side (between Flametongue and Stoneclaw) play your other minion. You can then attack (they both have Charge) for 3 and 5, which is exactly 12 damage. You win the game. So in that example, you can see how important it is to think through every turn and be very aware of how you play your Minions. If you were careless and played either of the Minions before attacking with the Totem OR you played them not next to the Flametongue Totem, you would lose. Alright, so now that we have looked at placement of Minions, let's talk briefly about your turn. As I've described before, you can do pretty much anything on your turn. However, there is a very good "guideline" for the order of how you should do things. Naturally things can always change, and this is just a guideline, but here it is. 1. THINK about your turn 2. Can you clear your opponents board? 3. Do anything that draws you a card 4. Attack with anything you have on the board 5. Play stuff from your hand 6. End your turn The reason behind this, is two-fold. #1, HEARTHSTONE IS A GAME OF BOARD CONTROL 9 times out of 10, you win the game by controlling the board. As such, 9 times out of 10 you are going to want to eliminate your opponents board before you worry about attacking your opponent. Unlike MTG, you have 30 health. That number is a huge resource to have (think of it, as a 30 health Taunt for your other Minions) and as long as it is above 10, you are really safe from losing. So don't be afraid to take some damage, because your Minions are how you win the game. #2, HEARTHSTONE IS A GAME OF CARD ADVANTAGE As with MTG, the player who draws the most will win the most (often). At the beginning of the game, you start with 4 or 5 cards depending if you go first or second. From there, you draw just 1 card a turn. That means if you empty your hand and are stuck to "top-decking" you have very little control over your turns and are sometimes pitted into situations you don't want to get into because you have no option. Now, Card Advantage doesn't always mean just having cards in hand, it can also be having Minions on the battlefield. If I have 3 Minions in play and 2 cards in hand, and you have 4 cards in hand, who is better off? I am, because I have 5 cards and you have 4. Even though you might think you are because you have more options, I have 3 minions out there, that means I control the board. You always want to be in control of the board. So many times, you will see people lose the game because the board gets away from them and they cannot recover. If you keep clearing your opponents Minions and playing new ones, all while attacking them, watch to see how long that 30 drops to 0, it only takes a few turns. So something to think about then, is how to protect your Minions? How many ways can your Minions be destroyed? -Combat (they fight another Minion and die) -Combat (your opponent attacks them and they die) -Spell (your opponent casts something to kill them) -Extermination (your opponent casts a big board clear) So with the exception of 4, you have quite a few options at your disposal for working around this (and even, we can work around 4). So let's tackle this then one piece at a time. COMBAT, MINIONS FIGHTING AND DYING Simple enough, you can choose more favorable trades. Now, here is something to ponder. Your opponent has a 3/5 Taunt, you have a 5/4 Taunt, a 3/2, and a 2/3. How should you clear it? It's fairly easy, use your 5/4 to kill it. Have a 3/2, 2/3, and 5/1 is much much better than having just one 5/4 Taunt. Because mass removal is rare, it is safer to play into that as opposed to killing your 3/2 and 2/3 to save just one Minion that can be disposed of by a Spell (much more frequent). Now, it is worth noting a few cases: Case 1, Mage The Mage Hero Power does 1 damage to anything. As a result, trying to keep Minions above 1 health is REALLY IMPORTANT less she removes it for 2 mana next turn Case 2, Druid and Rogue Similar to the Mage, these fools can attack with their hero for 1 damage. HOWEVER, because they attack, you can protect 1 health Minions behind Taunts. COMBAT, HEROES FIGHTING MINIONS So you might be asking yourself, how to protect this? Well frankly you can not BUT the reason for this is to talk about YOU attacking to protect YOUR minions. Here's a scenario (or two) Enemy has a 2/3 Taunt You have a 3/2, and you have a 3/2 Weapon, what do? Obviously, you attack with your weapon, save your 3/2. Easy situation Enemy has a 5/1 You have a 2/4 and a 4/2, you have a 3/2 Weapon, what do? "But 5 damage hurts!" Nonsense. Slay the Minion with your hero and keep your critters alive Enemy has a 8/8 Taunt You have a 4/4, a 4/5, a 3/2, a 2/1, and a 5/2 Weapon, what do? "BUUUUUT NO WORRIES! 8 DAMAGE! OWWWWWW" And enjoy every moment of it. Swing at that beast with your hero and take it out with your 3/2. Are you noticing a trend here? If you can protect your Minions, DO SO. It is how you win games. Obviously if 8 damage would you then you can't do that but 9/10 times you want to do that as having as many minions alive is best. SPELL, OPPONENT FIREBALLS YOUR GUY Well that's annoying. But here are some things to think about. 1. Your opponent has limited spells. Unless it's Arena, they cannot have 5 fireballs and 3 frostbolts. No, they can have 2 fireballs, 2 frost bolts, and 2 polymorphs. They can have 2 Hex and 2 Lightning bolts. Their spells are limited, keep track of that! Also, if they cast a spell guess what? A spell is a 1 for 1 trade, meaning there isn't a creature. Play another! 2. Getting the most out of your creatures. So I said before, most new players think Taunt is king. Well, to be frank, most Taunts suffer a penalty to have that Taunt. You may ask, what do you mean? Allow me: A "Vanilla" card is something blank that we compare others to so that we can see just how good the card is. The Vanilla test for Minions goes as follow 1 Mana, 2/1 (3 stats) 2 Mana, 3/2 (5 stats) 3 Mana, 3/3+ (6+ stats) 4 Mana, 4/5, 5/4 (9 stats) 5 Mana, 5/5 +/- (10+ stats) 6 Mana, 6/6 +/- (12+ stats) That means, that a 3/2 blank text box is a good bargain. It has 5 stats, it has at least 2 health (as to avoid pesky Mages) and can trade up thanks to the 3 attack. One may think of Chillwind Yeti, the 4/5 for 4, as the standard of effective creatures. Well, let's look at some common taunts real quick. Goldshire Footman (1) 1/2 Taunt Frostwolf Grunt (2) 2/2 Taunt Silverback Patriarch (3) 1/4 Taunt Ironfur Grizzly (3) 3/3 Taunt Mogu'shan Warden (4) 1/7 Taunt Sen'jin Shieldmasta (4) 3/5 Taunt Booty Bay Bodyguard (5) 5/4 Taunt Lord of the Arena (6) 6/5 Taunt Alright, there is one up there that is worth playing. Care to guess? Here he is: Shieldmasta. Why? Let's go through the others (which, all of these except Mogu'shan are free cards by the way) and see why are they terrible. Goldshire. He's a 3 stat for 1! Except he has 1 attack, he won't ever kill anything except maybe a 2/1 for 1, meaning at best he is a 1 for 1 trade. This dude is no bueno Frostwolf Grunt. He's only 4 stats for 2. Already a bad a deal, but maybe Taunt is good? Not really. Except for trading with 3/2 for 2 mana, he sucks pretty hard. Add in a 2/3 taking him out and not successfully trading, (2/3 for 2 is also not bad) and you can see why he ain't so hot. Silverback Patriarch. Well, he only has 5 stats. But like Mogu'shan, and like Goldshire, they have 1 attack. It's pointless. They will never kill anything or be useful except maybe buying you 4 health. Bad cards. Ironfur Grizzly. With the much better Shieldmasta right behind him, and that a 3/2 for 2 can trade out this guy who costs 3, he actually costs you card advantage. Booty Bay and LotA. Unlike the supreme Das'Dingo, their power/health are in the wrong order! If they were 4/5 and 5/6, they could be quite useful. But the weaker health makes them far less helpful you would hope. To compare, Boulderfist Ogre costs 6 and is a 6/7. He slays the 6 cost counterpoint and lives to tell the tale. In terms of the Booty Bay, if we JUST look at other free 5 cost Minions, we see one thing in common. Nightblade, Stormpike Commando, and Darkscale Healer, they all have... 4 attack. So he just isn't so good. Well why is Shieldmasta so good? He's a 3/5! That is HUGE having that 5 health. The 3 attack means he kills most things, but the 5 health means at 4 mana, he will trade positively (2 for 1) more often than not. Don't believe me then look at this, comparing the other 4 cost, Free neutrals. Yeti, 4/5, Dragonling Mechanic (2/4 and 2/1), Gnomish Inventor 2/4, Ogre Magi 4/4, Oasis Snapjaw 2/7, Stormwind Knight 2/5. Sure, many of them have other abilities, but the point is look how he positively trades! That's the point, positive trading. This brings us back to my original point that we play effecient creatures, so that a spell removal doesn't hurt us as bad! We throw trash cards aside, and play manly value cards. Alright, moving on. MASS EXTERMINATION It happens. Here's a list of what may come your way. Mage Blizzard (6) 2 damage to all Flamestrike (7) 4 damage to all Paladin Concencrate (4) 2 damage to all Druid Swipe (4) 4 to 1, 1 to others Starfall (5) 2 to all Priest Holy Nova (5) 2 to all Rogue Poison+Blade Flurry (3) 3 to all Warlock Hellfire (4) 3 to all Shaman Lightning Storm (3) 2-3 to all It's a general list, and I know I left others out, but these are the "big" things to worry about. What does this mean? Well it's fairly simple. You're against a Mage and you are garnering board control and approaching turn 7. Do you play you 4 health minion? Not until you've seen a Flamestrike. This may mean playing less cards and hanging onto them, but that's because there is little point playing something when you know that next turn Flamestrike is coming (and it will likely happen). You're against a Paladin. Similarly, turns 3, 4, and 5 you should try to play 3 or more health Minions to avoid dying to Concencrate. Once you've seen one you are safe as they can only have 2 copies in their deck. Same with Priest and Holy Nova. The strategy stays much the same. There is one, and that is Priest, using Auchenai+Circle of Healing. That is a turn 4, 4 damage to all Minions. In this case there is literally almost nothing you can do to prepare, other than not emptying your hand by turn 4. That's about it. Alright, so now that we have a better understanding of the actual basics to the game, let's get into something a bit more specific: deck building. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 07. Deck Basics (free to play) [7000] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Alright, so at the beginning of this I mentioned "free to play" cards. You may ask, "what's the point to "free to play decks". There's a number of reasons, the first being that not everyone has every card from the get-go, as well as new players are joining daily and need something basic to start off with. If you watch some of the better/popular streamers, you can even see them go to legend with mostly free-to-play to get an idea that it is both possible, but more importantly that you don't always need the best cards to win with. My first time playing through ranked I was playing a simple Druid deck that lacked many of the defining Druid cards, like Ancient of War and Lore, or even the game ending Force of Nature + Savage Roar combo. I used, what many people today use, just lots and lots of efficient creatures; and I reached rank 4 without even breaking a sweat. I am most definitely an Arena player at heart, but that's not to say I don't understand the constructed format; I just prefer the "limited" style format of Arena compared to the grinding-ness of Ranked, that's all. So, right into it, free-to-play. What follows in this section are decks for every single class that features only free cards that you can play with. As much as I want to include Naxxramas (which is "free" if you just play through Naxxramas) I won't simply because you have to pay for Naxxramas. Ready? Alright let's explore. Decklist Order: Warrior Shaman Rogue Paladin Hunter Druid Warlock Mage Priest *You'll see many of the same cards in each deck, for instance, Yeti and Senjin are fantastic free-to-play cards **I'll list cheap-to-easy substitutes and play strategies for each as well As I haven't listed what all the other cards are, here is a list of the F2P Neutrals we will be using (mostly) Acidic Swamp Ooze (2) [3/2] Battlecry, Destroy your opponents weapon Bloodfen Raptor (2) [3/2] Kobold Geomancer (2) [2/2] Spellpower +1 Novice Engineer (2) [1/1] Battlecry, Draw a card River Crocolisk (2) [2/3] Raid Leader (3) [2/2] Your other Minions have +1 attack Shattered Sun Cleric (3) [3/2] Battlecry, give a friendly Minion +1/+1 Chillwind Yeti (4) [4/5] Sen'jin Shieldmasta (4) [3/5] Taunt Frostwolf Warlord (5) [4/4] Battlecry, gain +1/+1 for each other Minion you control Gurubashi Berserker (5) [2/7] Whenever this Minion takes damage, gain +3 attack Archmage (6) [4/7] Spellpower +1 Boulderfist Ogre (6) [6/7] Stormwind Champion (7) [6/6] Your other Minions have +1/+1 Free-to-Play Warrior 2x Execute 2x Whirlwind 2x Fiery Win Axe 2x Cleave 2x Acidic Swamp Ooze 2x Bloodfen Raptor 2x Shield Block 2x Shattered Sun Cleric 2x Chillwind Yeti 2x Gnomish inventor 2x Kor'kron Elite 2x Sen'jin "Das'Dingo" Shieldmasta 2x Arcanite Reaper 2x Gurubashi Berserker 2x Boulderfist Ogre The Warrior free-to-play prefers a much more control oriented style, winning in the lategame with its key monsters, Boulderfist, and Gurubashi. You have Fiery Win Axe to start early game tempo by removing key creatures from your opponent (try not to attack face), as well as Bloodfen and Ooze are great early game creatures (the Ooze of course can counter other Weapon users). Turn 4 is great, as you have many choices to choose from. Yeti and Das'dingo are solid board creatures, while Kor'kron can eliminate most anything from your opponent and the Gnomish is just an efficient creature. Arcanite Reaper serves as your big end-game clearing device as the 5 power till cleave itself through many threats. Your spells are few but efficient. Shield Block is a nice filter, and since you can have more armor and only 30 life, always attack first, and then armor up. Cleave is good 2-1 removal, and Whirlwind serves two purposes, first obviously being a board clear, but more importantly setting up for your two biggest threats: Executing a dangerous foe, or giving your Gurubashi +3 attack Many of the Warrior cards are great and can easily fit themselves in to almost any deck. Some of the cheaper-more-available ones are: Shield Slam (epic) - replace Cleave Cruel Taskmaster (common) - replace Whirlwind Death's Bite (Naxxramas) - replace Arcanite Reaper Frothing Berserker (rare) - replace Gnomish Inventor Slam (common) - replace Cleave Arathi Weaponsmith (common) replace Gnomish Inventor The general play-style is always consider armoring up. You can stack armor so it's almost better than gaining life. As the Warrior hero power doesn't affect the board though, it's really important to stay on top of things and try not to let the board get away from you. The Warrior does have a huge board clear (Brawl) which is a 5 cost Epic, but that fits into the specific Control Warrior deck. As for cheaper Neutral cards, here is a brief list of cards that work well with Warrior: Argent Squire (common) (1) [1/1] Divine Shield Zombie Chow (Naxxramas) (1) [2/3] Deathrattle, restore 5 health to enemy Unstable Ghoul (Naxxramas) (Pairs well with the Warrior card, Armor Smith) Acolyte of Pain (common) (3) [1/3] Whenever this minion takes damage, draw a card And that's the Warrior. Until you have an Acolyte of Pain, free-to-play Warrior can be more difficult simply because of their complete lack of card draw (having Slam helps). They are more vulnerable to removal simply because they can run out of cards too quickly and let the game get away from them. ----------------------------- Free-to-Play Shaman 2x Rockbiter Weapon 2x Acidic Swamp Ooze 2x Bloodfen Raptor 2x Flametongue Totem 2x River Crocolisk 2x Hex 2x Raid Leader 2x Shattered Sun Cleric 2x Chillwind Yeti 2x Gnomish Invetor 2x Das'Dingo 1x Windspeaker 1x Bloodlust 2x Frostwolf Warlord 2x Fire Elemental 2x Stormwind Champion F2P Shaman is one of the hardest out there in my opinion, simply because they lack in their free cards any of their defining, annoying, and ultimately game changing cards. They do have blow-outs like Bloodlust, Hex, and of course the dangerous Fire Elemental who is one of the most efficient creatures in the game, but they lack the almighty Lightning Storm, the brutal Lightning Bolt, as well as Mana Tide Totem, or Doomhammer. That aside, because their Hero Power creates a Minion, we want to take advantage of that. The early game here is all about control and trying to get many Minions out there. Making lots of Totems is really helpful here. The goal being a turn 5 Frostwolf Warlord that is at least a 6/6; that can turn the tide. Other creatures, like Raid Leader, can turn your Totems into attacking creatures (like Shattered Sun) as well as Flametongue Totem will be the most focused Minion by your opponent due to its +4 attack to your allies. Rockbiter Weapon and Hex are your only sources of removal outside of Fire Elemental's Battlecry. Generally speaking, use Rockbiter on yourself to attack (saving a Minion) and save Hex for dangerous threats. IMPORTANT. Hex gives them a taunt so be prepared to have to work around that sometimes. The F2P Shaman has a fairly strong late-game, with 6 strong creatures and the game-ending Bloodlust. It's a bit too expensive and clunky for multiple copies, but each for each creature added Bloodlust can eliminate a near full-health opponent quickly. If you know you multiplication tables... 1....3 2....6 3....9 4....12 So just 4 Minions, is 12 damage, plus whatever attack they have. It gets fairly gross, so keep that in mind. As for cheap Shaman substitutes, there are many, but here are some: Earth Shock (common) Lightning Bolt (common) Stormforged Axe (common) Feral Spirit (rare) Lightning Storm (rare) Mana Tide Totem (rare) Unbound Elemental (common) Doomhammer (epic) It's impossible to say what cards to replace, as each serves a different purpose and each changes the deck completely. As for neutral cheap cards: Undertaker (Naxxramas) (1) [1/2] Gain +1/+1 whenever you play a Minion with Deathrattle Zombie Chow Dire Wolf Alpha (common) (2) [2/2] Adjacent Minions have +1 attack Haunted Creeper (Naxxramas) (2) [1/2] Deathrattle, create two 1/1 Spiders Nerubian Egg (Naxxramas) (2) [0/2] Deathrattle, create a 4/4 Nerubian Harvest Golem (common) (3) [2/3] Deathrattle, create a 2/1 golem Dark Iron Dwarf (common) (4) [4/4] Battlecry, gives a Minion +2 attack this turn Defender of Argus Sludge Belcher (Naxxramas) (5) [3/5] Taunt, Deathrattle, create a 1/2 Sludge with Taunt Sea Giant (epic) (10) [8/8] Costs 1 less per each Minion in play As you can see, Shamans really need better cards to really be brutal. That is not to say that Shaman F2P cannot work, it's just easier if you have, a Lightning Storm, an Unbound Elemental, or a Weapon you know? Also, if you're curious about the Deathrattle theme, their Naxxramas card is Reincarnate, a card with some interesting synergy with Deathrattle, and a "Death" Shaman deck is fairly popular and effective. ----------------------------- Free-to-Play Rogue 2x Backstab 2x Deadly Poison 2x Sap 2x Shiv 2x Acidic Swamp Ooze 2x Bloodfen Raptor 2x Kobold Geomancer 2x Fan of Knives 2x Shattered Sun Cleric 2x Chillwind Yeti 2x Gnomish Inventor 2x Das'Dingo 1x Assassin's Blade 2x Assassinate 2x Boulderfist Ogre 1x Sprint F2P Rogue is something Trumpsc just used recently to battle his way through Ranked. This is not his exact deck-list, but it is similar and tries to use the powers of what free cards we have. So let's start with the obvious, there's a Geomancer in there. His use is not that of a 2 drop, rather, because he is so cheap (and Rogue spells are so cheap) use him with the spells for extra benefit. Geomancer+Fan of Knives is a 2 damage to all Minions instead of 1, Geomancer+Backstab is a "free" 3 damage nuke, Geomancer+Shiv makes it not just a cycle. The Rogue is all about annoying, and that's what we have here. Sap both removes enchantments and completely delays turns by sapping large costly creatures. Assassinate is a beastly removal spell that just makes things go away forever. Sprint (fairly expensive) is our way to refill our hand. That leaves the Poison and our Weapons; you can definitely throw down a Deadly Poison on your Hero Power, though you get much more use if you can wait to drop it on an Assassin's Blade but don't let that stop you. As for upgrading, there's not much to do without completely changing and going in different directions. The two constructed Rogue decks are fairly intensive and require a ton of crafting, with one being the aggressive "Backspace" Rogue, and the other being the laid-back Miracle. Without worrying right now about what those are, here are some cheaper cards that can work well with this F2P deck: Cold Blood (common) Blade Flurry (rare) Eviscerate (common) Defias Ringleader (common) SI:7 Agent (rare) Anub'ar Ambusher (Naxxramas) (4) [5/5] Deathrattle, return a friendly Minion to your hand at random As for neutrals, the list is even shorter. Zombie Chow Earthen Ring Farseer (common) (3) [3/3] Battlecry, restore 3 health Dark Iron Dwarf Defender of Argus Violet Teacher (rare) (4) [3/5] Whenever you play a spell make a 1/1 Gadgetzan Auctioneer (5) [4/4] Whenever you play a spell draw a card The lists, are short, because to keep it close to F2P is rather hard. Once you gather some of the other cards, the deck changes dramatically into aggro with Backspace, or control-ish in Miracle. But for those, see constructed. ----------------------------- Free-to-Play Paladin 2x Humility 2x Holy Light 2x Acidic Swamp Ooze 2x Bloodfen Raptor 2x Kobold Geomancer 2x Dalaran Mage 2x Shattered Sun Cleric 2x Truesliver Champion 2x Blessing of Kings 2x Consecration 2x Chillwind Yeti 2x Das'Dingo 2x Hammer of Wrath 2x Boulderfist Ogre 2x Stormwind Champion An updated F2P decklist: after having looked and tried it out a couple of times I found Frostwolf Warlord to be a bit weak, so I mixed it up. By adding Hammer of Wrath, it brings the spell damage up to 4 cards, meaning that you could gain quite a bit of use out of adding some spell power Minions, hence the addition of Kobold and Dalaran. Neither are impressive creatures on their own, but they both can come out on turn 3 which sets up for an upgraded spell on turn 4. Overall, it is still quite hard as many of their cards are just weak unless you have the expert version, but I do think this will do much more for you than the previously listed deck. Blessing of Wisdom (common) Equality (rare) Noble Sacrifice (common) Argent Protector (common) Sword of Justice (epic) Aldor Peacekeeper (rare) Avenging Wrath and Lay on hands (epic) Their better cards make a difference. But also do neutral cards. I won't actually list any however as it is more of the same, as well as the deck goes either aggressive or control Paladin. The general playstyle for this deck is controlish. You want to keep your opponent down while building your board. Like Shaman, a turn 5 Frostwolf can be huge. ----------------------------- Free-to-Play Hunter 2x Hunter's Mark 2x Arcane Shot 1x Tracking 2x Acidic Swamp Ooze 2x River Crocolisk 2x Animal Companion 2x Kill Command 2x Unleash the Hounds* 2x Ironfur Grizzly 1x Shattered Sun Cleric 2x Multi-Shot 2x Chillwind Yeti 2x Houndmaster 2x Oasis Snapjaw 2x Das'Dingo 2x Boulderfist Ogre *Unleash the Hounds is a common. I would STRONGLY suggest having it in your deck if you plan on playing Hunter. Otherwise, you can use 2 Multi-Shots I guess which are free Hunter is surprisingly strong for F2P, and this is due to most of their good cards being available, Hunters Mark, Animal Companion, and Houndmaster. Unleash isn't free but... for 80 crafting you can have two of them which is really an essential part to playing Hunter. The idea here is to shoot them a lot; like every turn. You have lots of beasts for Houndmaster and Multi-Shot is 2-1 removal so that's good. As for improving the deck: Flare (rare) - Replace Tracking (seriously) Webspinner (Naxxramas) (1) [1/1] Deathrattle, put a random Beast into your hand Traps, Freezing, Explosive, and Misdirection Scavenging Hyena (common) Eaglehorn Bow (rare) Deadly Shot (common) Scar (rare) Some strong, definitive Hunter cards. As for neutrals, they can use many of the same cards already listed. Hunter, due to the Starving Buzzard nerf, has been searching for a new key constructed deck. There are several out there but none are quite living up to its successor. ----------------------------- Free-to-Play Druid 2x Innervate 2x Claw 2x Mark of the Wild 2x Wild Growth 2x Acidic Swamp Ooze 2x Bloodfen Raptor 2x Kobold Geomancer 2x Shattered Sun Cleric 2x Swipe 2x Chillwind Yeti 2x Gnomish Inventor 2x Das'Dingo 2x Starfire 2x Boulderfist Ogre 2x Ironbark Protector Druid is easily my favorite class, but that is with the better cards. As for F2P Druid, it's extremely strong and only gets better with better cards. So let's talk a bit. Coin-->Wild Growth is an acceptable turn 1 play Coin+Innervate-->Chillwind Yeti wins games on turn 1 Anyway, Claw is Minion removal, Mark of the Wild is terrifying, and Ironbark Protector is simply HUGE. Now, one thing to understand, is dropping Ironbark against a board of threats isn't so good. You want to play him when you have other Minions out there, otherwise that 8/8 body doesn't seem so strong and scary anymore. Alright, so you can Wild Growth at 10 mana to draw a card. You may ask about the Kobold. Well, Kobold+Swipe is extremely gross, as the 2 damage to all enemies hurts and feels much more painful than the 1. It makes Swipe cost 6 but I tell you what, it's a game changer, especially against a class like Shaman. Starfire is just a big ol nuke. F2P Druid is a blend of control and aggression. I say this, because if you Coin+Innervate a threat out early, then you can be aggressive. Otherwise, you are sitting back, controlling the board until you can drop Ironbark or the Ogre. As for improving, I could list almost every Druid card as they are just that good. Here's just some of them: Power of the Wild (common) - replace Raptor Wrath (common) - replace Starfire Keeper of the Grove (rare) - replace Claw Nourish (rare) - replace Gnomish Inventor Starfall (rare) - replace Kobold Druid of the Claw (common) - replace Shattered Sun Force of Nature (epic) - Pair it with Savage Roar As well both Ancients, War and Lore are fantastic. Druid is just a great class. The ability to have options (seen in many of their "expert" cards) gives them great flexibility. Their constructed decks have many options, from Token Druid, to "Token" Druid, to Ramp Druid, to Force Roar. With so many options, it's unsurprising to see so many viable constructed decks. ----------------------------- Free-to-Play Warlock 2x Soulfire 2x Mortal Coil 2x Voidwalker 2x Acidic Swamp Ooze 2x Bloodfen Raptor 2x Kobold Geomancer 2x Murloc Tidehunter 2x Shadow Bolt 2x Raid Leader 2x Razorfen Hunter 2x Shattered Sun Cleric 2x Chillwind Yeti 1x Gnomish Inventor 2x Das'Dingo 1x Frostwolf Warlord 2x Boulderfist Ogre The easiest deck to play, is Zoo, and the Warlock excels at Zoo simply because they get to draw cards! For free! Basically. This deck is fairly aggressive though it can hold its own later in the game. You have tons of cheap 2-3 drops so we want to get them out there. Raid Leader is our Dire Wolf Alpha substitute and he can really get the damage rolling in. Shadow Bolt is there for threats and Soulfire can finish or remove a troublesome Minion. Because of 6 spells, the Geomancers make a nice addition especially for buffing the 4 damage spells into 5 for Yeti and Das'Dingo. There is a long list below for cards that can go into Zoo, and for the most part that is the decklist. Just remember, you do usually want to remove their Minions before going face. It largely just depends on the hand you currently have Flame Imp (common) Doomguard (rare) Abusive Sergeant (common) (1) [2/1] Battlecry, give a Minion +2 attack this turn Argent Squire (common) Leper Gnome (common) (1) [2/1] Deathrattle, deal 2 damage to your opponent Undertaker, Zombie Chow, Haunted Creeper Dire Wolf Alpha (common) Knife Juggler (rare) (2) [3/2] Whenever you summon a Minion, deal 1 damage randomly to an enemy character Ironbeak Owl (common) (2) [2/1] Battlecry, Silence a Minion Bloodknight (epic) (3) [3/3] Battlecry, All Minions lose Divine Shield. Gain +3/+3 for each shield lost this way Harvest Golem (common) Dark Iron Dwarf (common) Defender of Argus (rare) Leeroy Jenkins (legendary) Now keep in mind, this is all going towards Zoo. For the Hand-lock, they use very different cards and I'll talk about that in constructed. But for this deck we can see how many options we have to easily make this deck gross. Flame Imp is one of the best 1 drops, it replaces Elven Archer. Doomguard is a nasty finisher, it replaces the Ogre. Abusive Sergeant and Dark Iron Dwarf are very strong, they can replace almost anything. Similarly, your deck ends up quite similar but with almost completely different cards. Also listed is a "Control Warlock" F2P that features some extremely different cards but when playtested they were so evenly matched... that's why both are included. 2x Soulfire 2x Mortal Coil 2x Voidwalker 2x Kobold Geomancer 2x Shadow Bolt 2x Shattered Sun Cleric 2x Hellfire 2x Chillwind Yeti 2x Gnomish Inventor 2x Das'Dingo 2x Darkscale Healer 2x Boulderfist Ogre 2x Dread Infernal 2x Archmage The idea behind this is rather similar to "Handlock" except with all F2P cards. We have 6 spells, as such running the Geomancers makes plenty of sense. The Archmage is fairly expensive however compared to Ogre Magi and/or Dalaran Mage he fits in here much more nicely, not to mention he survives a boosted Hellfire while the others do not. Other than that, it's a rather simple control-style approach. Darkscale Healer makes her first appearance as healing your Minions works quite well in this deck as both Hellfire and Dread Infernal hurt your own Minions. ----------------------------- Free-to-Play Mage 2x Arcane Missiles 2x Frostbolt 2x Acidic Swamp Ooze 2x River Crocolisk 2x Arcane Intellect 2x Shattered Sun Cleric 2x Fireball 2x Polymorph 2x Chillwind Yeti 2x Das'Dingo 2x Water Elemental 2x Gurubashi Berserker 2x Archmage 2x Boulderfist Ogre 2x Flamestrike This F2P Mage is all about control. Gurubashi is very abuseable here, as we can ping it to give it +3 attack. River Crocolisk over Bloodfen simply due to our Hero Power, and we want to try to keep our guys alive. We have tons of removal, obviously, so keeping our Minions alive here is vitally important. As always, the turn 7 Flamestrike is the bringer of doom. Arcane Missiles are interesting, but a nice cheap choice here. Their use, is heavy on needing to deal 1 damage to something but you don't want to ping it (for instance, you have 3 mana and would prefer to play a 2 drop, but he has a 1 health Minion). Here's a quick percentage chart for you 1 Minion (1 health), 12% chance to miss (all hero) 1 Minion (2 health), 50% chance to succeed 2 Minions (one has 1 health), 35% chance to succeed 2 Minions (both 1 health), 8% chance to miss (all hero) 46% chance to only kill 1 Minion 3 Minions (all 1 health), 3% chance to miss (all hero) 74% chance to only kill 1 Minion 18% chance to kill all 3 Minions So hopefully that helps, when you can know when to cast it or not. Now, Mage has many interesting decks, one of my favorites that I used for a long time which was again, mostly free, was called, "Fantastic Explosions" and utilized Spellpower the best I could. It worked mildly well but was fun to play. Here it is: 2x Arcane Missiles 2x Ice Lance (common) 2x Mirror Image 2x Mana Wyrm (common) 2x Arcane Explosion 2x Frostbolt 2x Acidic Swamp Ooze 2x Kobold Geomancer 2x Arcane Intellect 2x Dalaran Mage (3) [1/4] Spellpower +1 2x Fireball 2x Polymorph 2x Water Elemental 2x Archmage 2x Flamestrike So it's mostly F2P, but can be really quite fun to play dropping Arcane Missiles for 4 or 5 Missiles thanks to spellpower boosts. It plays quite similarly to the other, the except being we have now Mana Wyrm and Mirror Image, making one of the sickest turn 1 plays: Mana Wyrm-->Coin-->Mirror Image, giving us a 3/3 creature with two 0/2 Taunts. Anyways... Most of the Mage cards, aren't good stand alone cards. They really force you into playing a certain style of Mage deck, Freeze Spells or Freeze Creatures. There is also Secret Mage but those are... mediocre. Sorcerer's Apprentice (common) Duplicate (Naxxramas) Mirror Entity (common) Blizzard (rare) Archmage Antonidas (legendary) Pyroblast (epic) As with Neutrals, same as most others. They can use the same kinds of cards. For the constructed decks, see the next section. ----------------------------- Free-to-Play Priest 2x Holy Smite 2x Power Word Shield 2x Northshire Cleric 2x Shadow Word Pain 2x Acidic Swamp Ooze 2x River Crocolisk 2x Shadow Word Death 2x Shattered Sun Cleric 2x Chillwind Yeti 2x Gnomish Inventor 2x Oasis Snapjaw 2x Das'Dingo 2x Holy Nova 2x Gurubashi Berserker 1x Boulderfist Ogre 1x Mind Control Priest is a control players' dream. Almost everything they do is "in response" to the opponent. So let's kind of talk general, and then specific. Generally, keep your Minions alive. We have chosen those with high health so that we can do that. The turtle, is a 4 drop 2/7, he fits right in. Specifically... Northshire is typically a bad one drop, unless you can plop down Power Word Shield on it. It will get terminated quickly. It's best to hand onto until you can immediately reap rewards of healing. Shadow Word Pain is what I call the Das'Dingo counter. (Or Fen Creeper) Shadow Word Death is there for large early threats. Holy Nova is fairly expensive, but when combined with Northshire and a few other creatures, you can quickly refill your hand. Mind Control is beastly, but due to it's extreme cost we only ever play with 1 copy because drawing into 2 copies early is a definite loss. For improving the deck, the Priest has many good cards and tons of options as to what direction to go: Circle of Healing (common) + Auchenai Soulpriest (rare) Mind Blast (free) + Prophet Velen (legendary) Thoughtsteal (common) Dark Cultist (Naxxramas) Shadow Madness (rare) Lightspawn (common) Holy Fire (rare) Cabal Shadow Priest (epic) Temple Enforcer (common) All strong, all game-changers on their own right. Like most classes, the Priest is no different with Naxxramas. In fact, Auchenai+Circle+Zombie Chow is a 5 damage nuke to the enemy instead of a heal. Really, the only downside of Priest is that their games do take a longtime and Priest versus Priest tends to come down to who has run out of cards first. Alright, enough of Free-to-Play? Gotten some cards? Let's talk about what we can do with constructed decks! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 08. Deck Basics (constructed) [8000] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Constructed is the format of choice for most players. It is a tough format done in Ranked, as you have no control of who you are paired against. Certain decks counter others quite easily and if that happens, tough, you gotta move on. There will also come a time (until you have every card) when you lose to someone because they simply had better cards. It's annoying, but unlike MTG, rarity doesn't really mean how hard is a card to obtain, it's simply how powerful is a card. Legendary cards aren't any harder to obtain over Rare, they just cost more to craft which can be bought (through packs). In MTG, if you had a Black Lotus, or a Birds of Paradise, or a Win Sivvi, those were good strong cards that were hard to get ahold of. But in Hearthstone, you could have every Legendary simply because you bought them. It makes the format tough for those like myself who don't want to spend money on a free game. And regardless, after a while, you'll have most of the cards anyway from just playing. It's what I've managed to do. Anyway, let's go: Decklists Order: Warrior -Control Warrior -Tempo Warrior -One turn combo? Shaman -Control Shaman -Death Shaman -Tempo Shaman -Mur-Man Rogue -Backspace Rogue -Miracle Rogue -Tempo Rogue -Mill Rogue Paladin -Control Pali -Aggro Pali -Midrange Pali Hunter -Death/Face Hunter -Midrange Hunter -Beast Hunter Mage -Frost Mage -Freezing Creatures -Aggro "Mech" Mage Priest -Tempo Priest -Control Priest Druid -Ramp Druid -Force Roar -Watcher Druid -Token Druid -Kinda Token Druid -Mill Druid Warlock -Zoolock -Murlock -Zoolock v2 (mechs) -Handlock -Demonlock A quick note before we get into the decks. I want to discuss briefly HOW the decks are named. What is tempo? What do you mean midrange? What exactly makes a control deck? There are roughly 5 kinds of deck that you can come across in Hearthstone. They are: Zoo, Tempo, Midrange, Control, and Gimmick Zoo Zoo is nicknamed Zoo because of its aggressive nature and unleashing cheap minions that can deal quite a bit of damage quickly. A Zoo deck typically runs at least 20 minions and has a very skewed mana curve with 80% of their deck costing less than 3 mana. It is important for Zoo to start the threats right away. Because of this, you really want at least 6 one drops which gives a 50% chance of having at least 1 in your opening draw. Ideally 8 one drops gives a 72% chance of having one which then gives you some flexibility in which to keep. A breakdown looks like: x...1 y...2 z...3 m...4+ where m = 30 - (x + y + z) and x > 6, y > 8, and z > 6 Tempo Tempo is named because the deck is built around big turns. Tempo decks won't always use their mana efficiently, but when they do it's a huge turn that puts pressure on their opponent as they gain tempo and win as they run out of cards just as they are winning. A Tempo deck has a full mana curve, with heavy emphasis around the 3 to 5 drop range as that's when they pick up Tempo and then win before the opponent can get a hold on things. How a Tempo deck wins is typically unique to each version; but the essence is still true in that it's about picking up steam and gaining Tempo. A Tempo deck is not a Zoo due to the difference in curves. A Zoo wants many (about 80% cheaper than 3) whereas Tempo has full range of mana curve. Midrange Midrange is named so as it fits somewhere between Tempo and Control. A Midrange deck could win by turn 8 but it could also win on turn 15. A Midrange deck will probably not win on turn 20 to 25. Midrange is all about having effective 3-6 drops, similar to Tempo, but it is different with how it goes about it. Midrange is typically more "responsive" as opposed to Tempo which is "proactive" meaning that Midrange responds to the threats. A Midrange deck will too have full range of mana curve but nearly as many late drops as a Control deck. Typically Midrange has their meat section between 3 and 6 drops; with having 2-3 late game bombs and having some essential early 2 drops. Control A Control deck is named so because it controls the board. It is unlikely for a Control deck to win before turn 10 as the whole purpose is to completely empty and opponents hand (by handling all their threats) while still holding onto some theirselves. If the other decks find themselves topdecking against a Control deck that still has a couple cards in hand: the game is likely over at this point. Gimmick Gimmick decks have their own category mostly because they are hard to fit into any of the other categories. One example is Mill. It could be considered Control, except that the gimmick is Mill and often-times it doesn't win using that same approach of Control (ie keeping the board clear and having great card advantage). Other gimmicks like Murloc or Pirates actually fit into the above categories because they win based on one of those styles. Another example would be Miracle; as it fits most similar with Tempo however it really isn't a Tempo deck at all. On the other hand, there's the gimmicky decks that use Alarm o Bot, or different ways to get huge creatures down for cheap. In essence, these are Combo decks, but since they aren't always Combos, we can blend them together into Gimmick. ----------------------------- Warrior The Warrior naturally lends himself to a more control oriented deck with his ability being largely uninteresting and uninteractive with the board. As such, we have Control Warrior, Tempo Warrior, and the gimmick OHKO Warrior. Control Warrior 2x Execute 2x Shield Slam 2x Fiery War Axe 2x Armorsmith 2x Cruel Taskmaster 2x Unstable Ghoul 2x Shield Block 2x Acolyte of Pain 1x Big Game Hunter 2x Mind Control Tech 2x Death's Bite 1x Blingtron 3000 1x Faceless Manipulator 1x Harrison Jones 2x Sludge Belcher 1x Sylvanas Windrunner 1x Grommash Hellscream 1x Ragnaros the Firelord 1x Alexstrasa This is my version, although some other changes include: Dr. Boom instead of Blingtron Shieldmaiden instead of MCT Whirlwind instead of Unstable Ghoul Ysera and Cairne in there Here's why I use what I use. Blingtron is incredibly underrated. Besides providing additional punch for yourself when you need a weapon; he can destroy your opponents weapon and give them a new one! While this can hurt you sometimes; often (especially with things like Death's Bite) you can mess up their combo for them. Harrison Jones is a solid choice regardless, but using Blingtron means he will always have a target! It's great news. Shieldmaiden is nice; however with no Brawl anymore, I have found that this is a nice substitute: MCT. This deck desperately wants something to do on turn 3 (if not facing Zoo then MCT is fine) but MCT provides some shelter against Zoo by stealing something. Even take a 1/1 from an army of 1/1's is a significant reduction in the board. Concerning Whirlwind and the Ghoul; I like the Ghoul as there's more synergy with Armorsmith and he can be targeted by Cruel Taskmaster. He also provides better protection in general against Zoo. This leaves some other legendary options, including Dr. Boom, but in grinding out this deck I landed on the above list. Cairne is huge, but it's hard to work him in. Ysera is so gross, but it takes too long for her to come online. While there's nothing wrong with that in a Control deck; I have found her to just be weak in general due to her "steamrolling" nature. Basically, she wins games you already were winning but she won't catch you up very well. Dr. Boom is big but he's too random with no immediate impact. We have Sylvanas who requires immediate attention, Grommash who is extremely splashy, Ragnaros who fires on turn 1, and Alex has a huge battlecry. Crafting required: A lot Skill level: High Power level: High Tempo Warrior 2x Execute 2x Shield Slam 2x Whirlwind 2x Fiery War Axe 2x Armorsmith 2x Cruel Taskmaster 2x Shield Block 2x Acolyte of Pain 2x Frothing Berserker 2x Death's Bite 2x Siege Engine 2x Sludge Belcher 2x Shieldmaiden 1x Sylvanas, Dr. Boom, Sneed's, Grommash While this deck has the same number of lategame legendaries, it's very different from Control Warrior. Mostly look at the meat of the deck. This deck epitomizes Tempo as it drops Frothing or Siege Engine, and begins "tempo-ing" with Death's Bite, Whirlwind, Shield Block, or Shieldmaiden as it runs over its opponent. It does have some lategame though which almost qualifies it as Midrange but the Tempo is much more apparent here. Crafting required: A lot Skill level: High Power level: High OHKO Warrior 2x Inner Rage 2x Execute 2x Shield Slam 2x Fiery War Axe 2x Rampage 2x Armorsmith 2x Cruel Taskmaster 1x Charge 2x Shield Block 2x Acolyte of Pain 1x Raging Worgen 2x Death's Bite 1x Brawl 1x Faceless Manipulator 1x Loatheb 2x Sludge Belcher 1x Grommash 1x Alex Here's the combo: Raging Worgen+InnerRage(x2)+Charge+Rampage(x2) It costs 10 mana, and you can deal 32 damage in a single turn with the windfury. This is how you build a gimmick. Everything else is about surviving, finding the cards, and maintaining a presence. Crafting required: Fairly high Skill level: Very high Power level: RAMPAGE ----------------------------- Shaman There are a couple Shaman options. The first, is the most well-known and easily the most hated, the Control Shaman 2x Lightning Bolt 2x Rockbiter Weapon 2x Earthshock 1x Bloodmage Thalnos 2x Crackle 1x Flametongue Totem 1x Wild Pyromancer 2x Hex 2x Feral Spirit 2x Unbound Elemental 1x Mana Tide Totem 2x Lightning Storm 2x Yeti 2x Azure Drake 1x Doomhammer 2x Fire Elemental 1x Ragnaros the Firelord 1x Al'Akir the Windlord The overall premise is to control the board, frustrate your opponent, and win with your overly obnoxious lategame. Earth Shock is a key card, as it silences first, and then deals 1 damage. This takes out Scarlet Crusader, Loot Hoarder, and Twilight Drake, all common constructed cards, easily without any aid (or benefit to the opponent). Rockbiter is good removal, but serves mainly as huge damage when combined with Doomhammer or Al'Akir thanks to windfury (Yes, you can attack for 10 damage if you rockbiter yourself). Wild Pyro, along Lightning Storm, exist to deal with early aggression. Feral Spirit likewise, is a great defense early. Hex, ultimately is your best removal but you want to save it for the most dangerous and strong enemy Minions (the Ragnaros, the Ysera, etc). Lastly, Unbound Elemental is great (and gets better with your overload), and Mana Tide Totem gets better every turn it lives. The other cards, are all about winning the game. The only real change here is the addition of Crackle, which is too strong to not use. Crafting required: A lot Skill level: High Power level: High The Death Shaman 2x Crackle 2x Reincarnate 2x Haunted Creeper 2x Nerubian Egg 2x Hex 2x Lightning Storm 2x Harvest Golem 1x Baron Rivendare 2x Defender of Argus 2x Piloted Shredder 1x Faceless Manipulator 1x Feugen 2x Sludge Belcher 1x Stalagg 1x Cairne 2x Fire Elemental 1x Sylvanas 1x Sneed's Old Shredder 1x KT With the nerf to Undertaker and the inclusion of GvG this deck received a supreme makeover. Mostly, it's not longer Zoo; instead it is Tempo/Gimmick but mostly Tempo. The way this works is basically you want to drop something from turn 2 onward and gain Tempo until you unleash something huge like Rivendare or KT upon your opponent and gain huge advantage. We have a number of removal spells at our disposal including Crackle, Hex, and Lightning Storm. We also have Argus and Fire Elemental due to their brutal efficiency. Reincarnate is extremely potent here as you can abuse your higher level Deathrattles like Sneed's, Sylvanas, or Cairne. Or imagine Feugen or Stalagg if the other has died! There are a number of combos in this deck and it's surprisingly resiliant to a number of decks. Crafting required: Very high Skill level: Medium Power level: High Tempo Shaman 2x Earth Shock 2x Lightning Bolt 2x Rockbiter Weapon 2x Crackle 2x Flametongue Totem 2x Whirling Zap-o-matic 2x Feral Spirit 2x Unbound Elemental 2x Dunemaul Shaman 1x Doomhammer 2x Sludge Belcher 2x Fire Elemental 1x Al'Akir the Windlord 2x Sea Giant This has existed but GVG tightened it up so let's take a look. First and foremost, Crackle returns with it's glory. Second is the Whirling shitstorm of effective 3/2 for 2ness. Observe that Whirling into Flametongue is 10 damage on turn 3. How gross is that!? We round out with Dunemaul Shaman who is also a 10 damage swinger potentially. Add in Sea Giants as we're focused on playing creatures (compared to Control Shaman) and we have some sick plays. Again, we may not always use all of our mana each turn but we have some sick plays. One potential problem could be card draw however Mana Tide Totem is hard to work into this deck and due to the nature of Tempo-style decks if we run out of cards and haven't won then it probably won't matter much anyway. Mur-Man x2 Grimscale Oracle x2 Murloc Raider x2 Murloc Tidecaller x2 Young Priestess x2 Crackle x2 Flametongue Totem x2 Knife Juggler x2 Murloc Tidehunter x2 Puddlestomper x2 Whirling Zap-o-Matic x2 Hex x2 Coldlight Seer x2 Murloc Warleader x1 Old Murk-Eye x1 Bloodlust x1 Siltfin Spiritwalker x1 Neptulon The Mur-Shaman is real! They've always had some good options due to cards like Flametongue Totem and Bloodlust, but with the addition of Neptulon and Siltfin, it's a contender now. So, we have 8 cheap one drops. It's essential to have one of these in our opening. From there, we have a stupid amount of two drops and each is just as useful as the next. Our three drops are all situational, with Hex serving as half of our removal, and the other Murlocs only coming down when there are others out there. Old Murk-Eye is amazing, Bloodlust is a game winner, and Siltfin is pretty weak but he like Neptulon gives the deck some depth which it desperately needed. Unlike Warlock who can tap to draw for help, other Murloc style decks stunk if their board was cleared. Neptulon offers some defense against that and the Siltfin can be used similar to Cultmaster except more specific not to mention his stats are more favorable towards lasting. A fun deck to say the least ----------------------------- Rogue Rogue's are defined by being obnoxious, and both their decks are simply, annoying. The first, is an aggressive deck developed by Backspace, hence the Backspace Rogue 2x Shadowstep 2x Cold Blood 2x Argent Squire 2x Deadly Poison 2x Leper Gnome 2x Southsea Deckhand 1x Blade Flurry 2x Eviscerate 2x Sap 2x Goblin Auto Barber 2x Loot Hoarder 2x Arcane Golem 2x Coldlight Oracle 1x King Mukla 2x SI:7 Agent 1x Leeroy Jenkins 1x Assasssin's Blade This deck is all about early board presence. Never mulligan the Oracle unless you have both. Your primary focus is their lifetotal, and how much damage you have in your hand. Shadowstep + Arcane Golem/Leeroy does absurd damage, so always know how much damage you can do. With so many 1 drops as well, always keep in mind the best order to play them. Argent Squire is the best, with Leper Gnome/Deckhand as close seconds. Regarding the Oracle, you typically play him when you have no cards left. On the other hand, he can be played early if your opponent has 8, 9, or 10 cards in hand (typically control players) as it will burn cards then. Here's some deck match ups (all thanks to Backspace) versus Miracle An easy win, as both focus on explosive turns, but Backspace happens much more quickly versus Aggro These are tough but tend to your favor thanks to the amount of burst (again, always thinking about how much damage can I do) versus Handlock Normally a problem, the speed here blows through Handlock and a well timed Sap can remove the gigantic taunting enemies. Even Shadowstep + Oracle or Mukla can fill their hand and burn their cards versus Control Depends heavily on your hand. An early Oracle is key here to burn 2+ cards and set up advantage. If you fall behind though, you will lose versus Zoo and Midrange You will likely lose these matchups. Zoo is just too strong/quick and Midrange throws out too many strong midgame creatures to overcome. Sadly, due to Zoo being so popular for Ladder climbing, this makes Backspace rather hard to play depending on your rank. Crafting required: Medium Skill level: Fairly High Power level: Variable, Medium to Fairly High The other Rogue deck, is known as Miracle, simply due to "draw draw draw draw" or as my brother likes to call it, "hee hee hee, draw cards". There are surprisingly a few variations, using Questing Adventurer (gets bigger per each card) or Mana Addict (gains attack per spell). The most popular and infamous version used Leeroy+Shadowstep to attack for 18 points of damage and only costing 8 mana. Because of Leeroy costing 5 now, it doesn't work so well anymore. The new Miracle uses the legendary Dragon, Malygos, as the primary win condition. 2x Preparation 2x Backstab 1x Conceal 2x Sinister Strike 2x Deadly Poison 2x Shiv 2x Blade Flurry 1x Sap 1x Bloodmage Thalnos 2x Eviscerate 2x Loot Hoarder 2x SI:7 Agent 1x Fan of Knives 1x Edwin Vancleef 1x Earthen Ring Farseer 1x Assassin's Blade 2x Gadgetzan Auctioneer 2x Azure Drake 1x Malygos The basic premise, is play Gadgetzan Auctioneer, draw your entire deck, drop Malygos, and do stupid amounts of damage thanks to his +5 spellpower. Obviously use spells to control the board, but that's where we rely on Minions. Thalnos and Loot Hoarder replace themselves, SI is very good, Edwin can be amazing or silenced. Azure Drake is a cantrip (replaces itself) and a nice 4/4 body to boot. This deck runs just 1 Conceal, to either protect the Auctioneer (if your draws go badly) or to protect Malygos. No more Cold Bloods and Shadowsteps, this deck is about winning with spells. Is it as good as the old Miracle? Hard to say. As the change is still only a month old, we need more time to evaluate how effective it is. Crafting required: High Skill level: High Power level: Unsure I want to add another version of Miracle. This is the one I actually use and one that saw quite a bit of use at Blizzcon which used Southsea Deckhand to attack for 20 damage. Intrigued? 2x Backstab 2x Preparation 2x Cold Blood 2x Conceal 2x Deadly Poison 1x Southsea Deckhand 2x Blade Flurry 2x Eviscerate 2x Sap 2x Shiv 1x Bloodmage Thalnos 2x Fan of Knives 1x Earthen Ring Farseer 2x SI 7 Agent 1x Assassin's Blade 1x Faceless Manipulator 2x Gadgetzan Auctioneer 1x Loatheb It's Miracle, and you're searching for 8 mana, the Deckhand, both Cold Bloods, and the Faceless. That's 20 damage charging in if you have a weapon. What I like about this deck is the freedom to use spells as removal (as opposed to Malygos) because you only need to punch 10 damage across (for the most part) since you know your combo deals 20 damage. I'm curious about squeezing in Sludge Belchers, but I'm not really sure at what cost, so for the moment, the only change is -1 Flurry and -1 Loot Hoarder for some legendaries I don't have. Your mulligans should pretty much be to get an Auctioneer. Your win combo should always be tossed, as should Loatheb, Sap, Blade Flurry, and even Prep. Backstab and Eviscerate can be kept if you suspect heavy aggression, and your early Minions can be kept if you suspect control (to develop the board). Shiv and Fan of Knives should almost always be tossed because you'd rather have the Auctioneer. Deadly Poison can be kept, but toss Assassin's Blade. Toss Conceal as well. It's a fairly simple deck to play, with fairly low crafting especially in my version as the only legendary is Loatheb who is free. The reward is extremely high, as it is still a new deck and can catch people off guard easily. The downside is that it's Miracle and Miracle can sometimes counter itself by just doing poorly. Tempo Rogue "Arrrrgh Pirates!" 2x Backstab 2x Deadly Poison 2x Bloodsail Corsair 2x Southsea Deckhand 2x Bladeflurry 2x Bloodsail Raider 2x One-Eyed Cheat 2x Ship's Cannon 2x SI 7 Agent 2x Southsea Captain 2x Tinker's Sharpsword Oil 2x Dread Corsair 1x Assassin's Blade 1x Captain Greenskin 2x Salty Dog Alright. This isn't Zoo because so many cards rely on one another, which makes it Tempo. We have many Pirates to toss down with Ship's Cannon. There's also a number of Pirates that come down with weapons. As such there will be boring turns where we don't do much and there will be explosive turns where we play 3 or 4 things that are all huge. Strangely enough, the 1 drops will NEVER be played on turn 1. Besides the Corsair being useful thanks to the weapon meta, he like the Deckhand can Stealth the Cheato or give damage to the Ship's Cannon. It's a fairly aggressive deck but it's Tempo oriented so don't run out of cards and not be winning. Mill Rogue 2x Backstab 2x Preparation 2x Shadowstep 2x Deadly Poison 2x Blade Flurry 2x Sap 1x Lorewalker Cho 2x Youthful Brewmaster 2x Coldlight Oracle 2x Dancing Swords 2x Deathlord 1x Goblin Sapper 2x Vanish 1x Trade Prince Gallywix 1x KT 2x Clockwork Giant This deck is so annoying to play against. Let's go bit by bit. Backstab, Deadly Poison, Eviscerate, and Blade Flurry are our removal spells. Shadowstep Youthful Brewmaster, and Coldlight Oracle are our primary win condition. Dancing Swords, Deathlord, Sapper, Clockwork Giant, and KT are the secondary win condition. Gallywix and Cho serve to annoy the living daylights out of our opponent. Understand? We use our removal to control the board. Cho gives our opponents lots of cards that most classes cannot use, like Prep, Deadly Poison, Blade Flurry, and Shadowstep. Gallywix gives us those spells back and still keeps their hand full with coins. We burn their cards and we get to play huge things like Clockwork Giant or Goblin Sapper. KT coming down behind Dancing Swords or Deathlord is just gross especially when they are running out of cards. Vanish? Yes, it's a huge reset button that again can kill things. Sap is tempo obviously but when used against a full hand it kills the target instead. It's a fun deck and super annoying to play against. ----------------------------- Paladin The Paladin brings two decks, both of which are vastly different. The Control Paladin, which we look at first, is the definition of control as we set up for a simply lethal lategame 1x Humility 1x Loot Hoarder (run 2 if you don't have Thalnos) 1x Bloodmage Thalnos 2x Wild Pyromancer 2x Sunfury Protector 2x Equality 2x Aldor Peacekeeper 1x Antique Healbot 2x Truesilver Champion 2x Sludge Belcher 1x Blessing of Kings 2x Consecration 2x Stampeding Kodo 1x Faceless Manipulator 1x Cairne Bloodhoof 2x Sunwalker 1x Avenging Wrath 1x Bolvar Fordragon 1x Tirion Fordring 1x Lay on Hands 1x Ragnaros the Firelord As you can see, it has a gross lategame. Let's talk about this in two sections, the lategame, and the combos. First, the combos. Humility/Aldor Peacekeeper + Stampeding Kodo You can remove almost any Minion with these fools Wild Pyromancer + Equality A literal board clear. The same can be used, Equality+Consecrate Concerning the lategame, Tirion is really strong, but be careful with him, as silence, polymorph, hex, or Mind Control will make you sad. Especially if they Manipulate him first. Ragnaros, much the same. You can Faceless their stuff, but Faceless-ing your own Rag or Tirion works well. You have 4 other big Taunts (Sunwalker and Das'Dingo) leaving a fairly strong early game, with cyclers (Thalnos/Loot Hoarder) and Earthen Ring with Truesilver to remove threats. You will be spamming Hero Power A LOT as this deck is all about responding to threats until you can win the game. Sunfury Protector can be dropped as a 2/3, though you usually want to Taunt up Cairne, Kodos, or Ragnaros. The last addition is Bolvar Fordragon, the new Paladin legendary. He's curious for sure, but it doesn't seem unlikely to hold onto him and then play him with 8 or 9 attack later on. Crafting required: Holy shitsauce Skill level: Pretty High Power level: High On the other hand, we have the Legendary Aggro Pali Rush, named so because it does use 2 Legendaries. If you don't have Mukla or Leeroy, then Arcane Golem makes a decent substitute x2 Avenge x2 Abusive Sergeant x2 Leper Gnome x2 Young Priestess x2 Equality x2 Argent Protector x2 Shielded Minibot x2 Bloodmage Thalnos x2 Knife Juggler x1 Coghammer x2 Sword of Justice x2 Divine Favor x2 Aldor Peacekeeper x2 Truesilver Champion x2 Consecration x2 Avenging Wrath The aggro Pali works for a couple reasons. Equality is the great equalizer and Divine Favor is quite broken if timed well. That being said, GVG changed very little about the deck with the exception of Coghammer making an appearance. Many of the GVG cards would fit better into the Midrange Pali as the goal here is to play many cheap cards, using SoJ to make them bigger and you keep beating face. It works impressively well and Equality+Consecration is just beyond words gross. One possible addition could be that of Scarlet Purifier, as this deck runs very few deathrattles and even with GvG there are still many decks that run quite a few deathrattles. Crafting required: Medium Skill level: Low Power level: Medium Midrange Pali x2 Avenge x2 Clockwork Gnome x2 Equality x2 Annoy-o-Tron x2 Argent Protector x2 Knife Juggler x2 Shielded Minibot x2 Sword of Justice x2 Muster for Battle x2 Aldor Peacekeeper x2 Truesilver Champion x2 Consecration x2 Arcane Nullifier X-21 x2 Cobalt Guardian x2 Quartermaster You want a mech deck? Here's the closest thing to it. This midrange Palidan deck revolves around several combos. Obviously Equality is the great equalizer, but more specifically, we have Knife Juggler and Muster for Battle which throws many knives. Besides also SoJ and any number of our cards, this is a particularly nice one as Argent Protector saves many people but here we want to keep Knife Juggler up. Quartermaster+Muster is an obvious bonus here as well, but we also have Cobalt Guardian who is strangely priced but we have 8 other Mechs to play besides even just using Argent Protector meaning we can run that 6 power machine into many many baddies. It's different than Tempo and Zoo as we aren't going to smash face quickly and we aren't going to explode like Tempo. Instead, we are gearing for big series of turns as opposed to a single one as we establish a threatening board and then run over our opponent with card advantage/economy. We don't run anything super huge and threatening in the lategame as the goal here is to establish such a presence that by turns 8 to 10 we are wining the game. ----------------------------- Hunter There are a number of Hunter decks right now and each is strong and each uses a number of different ways to crush their opponent. The first is the changed Face-Hunter, a Zoo deck 2x Hunter's Mark 2x Abusive Sergeant 2x Leper Gnome 2x Webspinner 2x Glaivezooka 2x Haunted Creeper 1x Ironbeak Owl 2x Knife Juggler 2x Animal Companion 1x Deadly Shot 2x Kill Command 2x Dark Iron Dwarf 2x Houndmaster 2x Piloted Shredder 2x Bomb Lobber 2x Scar It's Zoo and we want to throw damage across. We have 6 one drops although Abusive needs a target. We have 7 two drops which 6 of them can be played whenever. Our 3 drops are very clutch. Kill Command alongside Hunter's Mark is to remove threats and a lone Deadly Shot removes Sludge Belcher among other Taunts. Animal Companion is a staple, among other choices such as DID, Hound, and the Shredder. The odd choice is likely Bomb Lobber, but I find him to be quite effective here as we are generally controlling the board so his huge 4 damage follow up is actually exactly what we need from a 5 drop (which he is our only one). Crafting required: Fairly low Skill level: Fairly low Power level: Mediumish Midrange Hunter 2x Hunter's mark 2x Webspinner 2x Explosive Trap 2x Freezing Trap 1x Misdirection 2x Mad Scientist 2x Eaglehorn Bow 2x Animal Companion 1x Deadly Shot 2x Kill Command 1x Big Game Hunter 2x Das'Dingo 1x Blingtron 3000 1x Harrison Jones 2x Sludge Belcher 2x Scar 1x Sylvanas, KT, Ragnaros This is not a Control deck contrary to what it appears; we will lose when in top-deck wars. That being said, this is a spin-off (my own creation) and the way it works is quite clever. It appears to be aggressive (Webspinner, Bow, Mad Scientist, and Animal Companion) but it's actually quite focused on the 4-6 drops. The deck is actually quite skilled in that use of the Traps will make or break this deck. Hunter's mark+Explosive is totally fine and often that's the best way around it. Freezing Trap needs to land for Tempo against 5+ drops. Misdirection is game-breaking and has single-handily won games due to a large minion smashing their owner's face. Again this uses Blingtron and Harrison. As Harrison is in the meta, it naturally makes a home for Blingtron as well for a number of reasons. The first is to create a target for Harrison potentially. The second is to provide additional burst for yourself. The average power of a weapon is 3.1. Besides that being better than your Bow, it doesn't account for things like Doomhammer (windfury), SoJ (pumping minions), or Death's Bite (additional effects). I have used Blingtron to replace my bow and found a Death's Bite which provided the extra 1 damage I needed to do lethal that turn. He's extremely versatile and works quite well here in the Midrange Hunter Crafting required: Very High Skill level: High Power level: High Beast Hunter x2 Hunter's Mark x2 Webspinner x2 Call Pet x1 Bloodmage Thalnos x2 Haunted Creeper x1 Ironbeak Owl x2 Scavenging Hyena x2 Animal Companion x2 Kill Command x2 Unleash the Hounds x2 Defender of Argus x2 Houndmaster x2 Oasis Snapjaw x2 King of Beasts x2 Stampeding Kodo x2 Savannah Highmane What? No Godzilla or Krushers? Too expensive! This deck while themed and certainly goofy is actually not that bad. There's lots of beasts you could draw but the one we want is King of Beasts as that makes him cost 1 and then he combos much more nicely with Hounds and Hyena. That being said, you can see that many of our beasts have some nice effects, with the exception of the turtle, but he becomes HUGE when targeted by Houndmaster or Argus. The Thalnos is definitely questionable but as we don't have that many 2 drops we want to actually play that's why he fits nicely as a cycle and potentially boosting up Kill Command. Have fun ----------------------------- Mage As one would expect, there are a number of Mage decks although the difference between them is rather small. This is due to Mage having a number of playable minions to be quite small. Instead they are all about spells and as such; their decks revolve around their spells. The first up is the Control Player's dream. Frost Mage x2 Ice Lance x2 Mirror Image x2 Frostbolt x1 Bloodmage Thalnos x2 Doomsayer x1 Novice Engineer x2 Arcane Intellect x2 Frost Nova x2 Ice Barrier x2 Ice Block x2 Fireball x2 Azure Drake x2 Blizzard x1 Flamestrike x1 Archmage Antonidas x1 Alexstrasza x1 Pyroblast x2 Molten Giant One possible change that I'm working with is adding Harrison and Blingtron at the cost of Pyroblast and an Ice barrier. This is due largely to the weapon meta and how clunky Pyroblast is. That aside the deck has changed very little and is still as strong as ever. Maybe stronger with Flare being nerfed and Kezan Mystic being unplayable. Freezing Creatures x2 Flamecannon x2 Frostbolt x1 Bloodmage Thalnos x2 Doomsayer x2 Arcane Intellect x2 Frost Nova x2 Ice Block x2 Echos of Medivh x2 Fireball x2 Twilight Drake x2 Sludge Belcher x2 Blizzard x1 Flamestrike x1 Ragnaros x1 Alexstrasza x2 Mountain Giant x2 Molten Giant This deck changed and I'm sure there's about 10 versions of it but here's what I scrapped together. Basically the obnoxious part is using Echos to get many Molten Giants and whomp for a ton of damage. Early game 2 drops basically get rid of threats while midgame Drakes, Belchers, and possibly Mountain Giants can becoming threatening due to this deck having lots of cards in hand usually. I don't like it as it seems too gimmicky, and there's usually Duplicate in there but at what cost I'm not sure. I prefer standard Frost Mage but I'm a control player at heart so go figure Aggro Mage x2 Ice Lance x2 Clockwork Gnome x2 Mana Wyrm x1 Flamecannon x2 Frostbolt x2 Annoy-o-Tron x2 Mechwarper x2 Micro Machine x2 Snowchugger x2 Sorcerer's Apprentice x2 Arcane Intellect x2 Fireball x2 Goblin Blastmage x2 Mechanical Yeti x2 Water Elemental x1 Mimiron's Head There are many other options, such as Tinkertown Technician or Spider Tank, but we have to draw the line somewhere. Alright, so because I want to use Water Elemental due to how strong it is, Ice Lance gets added as it's both versatile and can deal some sick damage and we have 6 sources of freeze. Mana Wyrm and Clockwork Gnome are both great one drops. We have too many two drops. It happens, but they are all helpful. Our main Mech army is here, the Warper, the Micro Machine, Snowchugger, and lastly Annoy-o-Tron are great annoying beasts to throw out there. Flamecannon and Frostbolt are mostly for removal though the latter can be tossed at face. We have one set of three drops from Arcane Intellect, play it when you have nothing else to play. Fireball is Fireball; the Blastmage works with our Mechs and Mech Yeti is nice. This leaves Mimiron's Head, something that could get axed for another Flamecannon or simply something else (even Thalnos) although we run SO MANY MECHS that Mimiron's Head has a very good chance to get activated when we play it that it seems worth to take the chance. Are there other options? Sure. This is the version I'd likely use though ----------------------------- Priest There are only two real Priest decks although the variations among them are endless. You have basically Control and Tempo and that's about it. Control Priest x2 Circle of Healing x2 Power Word Shield x2 Northshire Cleric x2 Shadow Word Pain x2 Wild Pyromancer x2 Shadow Word Death x2 Thoughtsteal x2 Injured Blademaster x1 Mass Dispel x2 Shadow Madness x2 Auchenai Soulpriest x2 Cabal Shadow Priest x1 Cairne Bloodhoof x1 Sylvanas Windrunner x1 Ragnaros the Firelord x1 Ysera x1 Mind Control Contenders: Lightbomb, Sneed's, Dr. Boom, Foe Reaper Control Priest is back and more disgusting than ever. While no GVG cards are used, it's more brutal than ever as it can handle nearly anything that comes across it's path. Wild Pyro has been brought back to deal with early aggression as has Injured Blademaster. A single Mass Dispel is run (trust me) and it has some nice late drops as well. Control Priest is all about reacting to your opponent and that's why the deck is structured in this way. Lightbomb could be used though frankly removal doesn't seem to be too much of an issue (rather, drawing too many expensive cards is and that wouldn't help). Along those same lines, the 3 legendaries listed could all be additions to consider. Foe Reaper is a surprise I'm sure, but as Priest can keep him alive with healing; Foe Reaper doubles as a board clearer as he strikes down your opponent although you'd have to choose what to cut; maybe even swapping out Ragnaros as Foe Reaper would be more defensive. Tempo Priest x2 Circle of Healing x2 Holy Smite x2 Light of the Naaru x2 Power Word Shield x2 Northshire Cleric x2 Shadow Word Pain x2 Shadowboxer x2 Shrinkmeister x2 Shadow Word Death x2 Dark Cultist x2 Earthen Ring Farseer x2 Injured Blademaster x2 Shadow Madness x2 Auchenai Soulpriest x2 Cabal Shadow Priest It's Tempo at its finest. Note that despite how early leaning the curve is; many of those cards aren't actually that early. For instance, Circle can be played for Injured Blademaster, though it's main goal is either Auchenai or Northshire to draw many cards. Light of the Naaru may cost 1 but it's main use is being a 3 damage nuke with Auchenai although you can adjust obviously. Northshire besides costing 1 should almost never be played on turn 1. Instead, we look to turn 2 with Shadowboxer mostly. Shrinkmeister obviously can come out although we really want to use him to combo with Shadow Word Pain, Shadow Madness, or the Cabal as we snag something that we really shouldn't have been able (it's what gives this deck some lategame presence despite not having much of a lategame). Our turn 3 is quite big, with 6 really valuable drops. ERF typically we want to combo again with Auchenai though adjust accordingly. From there, you overwhelm your opponent through card advantage and tempo. ----------------------------- Druid I love Druid and really so does many other players, as evidence by the sheer number of viable decks. Like I said earlier, I used a simple Druid deck (a version of Ramp) to hit Rank 4 without even trying (or grinding) so it shows just how strong Druid cards can be. We have here, 4 versions of Druid, that will have some similarities, but mostly each wins due to different and powerful cards. Ramp Druid (Control) x2 Innervate x2 Wild Growth x2 Wrath x1 Bloodmage Thalnos x1 Big Game Hunter x2 Harvest Golem x2 Swipe x2 Keeper of the Grove x1 Nourish x2 Druid of the Claw x1 Faceless Manipulator x2 Sludge Belcher x1 Cairne Bloodhoof x2 Sunwalker x1 Sylvanas Windrunner x2 Ancient of Lore x2 Ancient of War x1 Ragnaros the Firelord x1 Ysera Ramp Druid is all about playing a ton of really strong minions sooner than your opponent can react. As a result, this deck is similar to Control Warrior but goes about it in a different way. Certainly some GVG cards could be added but let's look at them. Grove Tender could work frankly as a 3 drop to replace Harvest Golem who is there to serve as an early minion. The issue is that Harvest Golem sticks around for a bit and Grove Tender has "each" in it's wording. Druid of the Fang doesn't have enough beasts, and Recycle while useful gets shunned due to us just wanting to have the big creatures and putting it in would be quite hard. Certainly the Druid Legendaries could be incorporated but frankly Cenarius is a bit slow and underwhelming for 9 mana and Malorne likewise lacks impact. This deck is all about response until you start playing huge Minions. Force Roar (Midrange) x2 Innervate x2 Wild Growth x2 Wrath x1 Bloodmage Thalnos x2 Savage Roar x2 Earthen Ring Farseer x2 Swipe x2 Chillwind Yeti x2 Keeper of the Grove x1 Nourish x2 Druid of the Claw x1 Loatheb x2 Sludge Belcher x2 Force of Nature x2 Recycle x2 Ancient of Lore x1 Ragnaros So the deck doesn't change a whole lot. The biggest thing is Recycle gives Force Roar what Control Druid didn't really need; an answer. The playstyle remains largely the same: get your opponent to 14 and then Force Roar for 9 mana. ERF comes in instead of Harvest Golem mostly because the 3 health helps significantly and Yeti is here mostly because Coin+Innervate+Yeti can stomp games by himself. Loatheb is crucial to stopping combos and yeah that's about it. Similar but small changes here and there. Watcher Druid (Midrange) x2 Innervate x2 Mark of the Wild x2 Wild Growth x2 Wrath x2 Ancient Watcher x2 Nerubian Egg x2 Sunfury Protector x2 Swipe x1 Defender of Argus x2 Keeper of the Grove x2 Nourish x2 Druid of the Claw x2 Sludge Belcher x1 Hogger x2 Ancient of Lore x1 KT x1 Ragnaros As I set out to make this using GVG I found myself... not! I'm sure there could be some mild changes like instead of Hogger and Rag using Foe Reaper and maybe the Leper Gnome maker guy... but the point is Watcher Druid only improved from Naxxramas and not much has changed since then. The idea is simple: give Taunt to Ancient Watcher and Nerubian Egg and laugh at your opponent. Later in the game, we play some truly terrifying legendaries that only get more and more gross every turn, hence why Hogger and Ragnaros work so well in the Watcher Druid. I'd be curious to hear though what other people are trying and experimenting with Token Druid (Tempo) x2 Innervate x2 Power of the Wild x2 Wild Growth x2 Wrath x2 Haunted Creeper x2 Savage Roar x2 Swipe x2 Defender of Argus x2 Keeper of the Grove x2 Violet Teacher x1 Nourish x2 Druid of the Claw x2 Druid of the Fang x2 Dark Wispers x2 Ancient of Lore x1 Cenarius So Token Druid got revamped! The addition of Druid of the Fang and Dark Wispers makes this a very strong contender I feel. We have 6 other beasts to turn our 5 drop into a beastly 7/7 which is quite scary. We also have yet another way to generate a bunch of 1/1s for a Savage Roar. Alternatively it makes a huge 5/5 Taunt; although Wispers into Cenarius makes a disgusting army of 3/3s. There's many combos here which is what makes it so nasty. Kinda Token Druid (Tempo) x2 Innervate x2 Power of the Wild x2 Wrath x2 Echoing Ooze x2 Haunted Creeper x2 Savage Roar x2 Shade of Naxxramas x2 Swipe x2 Defender of Argus x2 Keeper of the Grove x2 Druid of the Claw x1 Druid of the Fang x2 Spectral Knight x2 Dark Wispers x1 Force of Nature x2 Ancient of Lore It's an almost identical decklist but with two changes: Harvest Golems got yanked for Dark Wispers and Loatheb for a Druid of the Fang. This is for a couple reasons. First, Loatheb is nice to have; but as this deck is way less concerned about when it combo's, it would rather have a 7/7 instead of a 5/5 and hence why the Fang. Regarding Harvest Golem and Wispers; the Golem is a nice 3 drop but we have Shade already. The Wispers gives us again something the deck didn't always have, an answer. Wispers turns into 15 damage the next turn with Roar. Wispers on an Echoing Ooze generates TWO 6/7 Taunts! There's a number of ways to use it and this deck simply showcases another couple ways. Mill Druid (Gimmick) x2 Innervate x2 Naturalize x2 Wild Growth x2 Wrath x2 Youthful Brewmaster x2 Coldlight Oracle x2 Dancing Swords x2 Deathlord x1 Goblin Sapper x2 Grove Tender x2 Poison Seeds x2 Swipe x2 Keeper of the Grove x2 Starfall x1 KT x2 Clockwork Giant Mill Rogue? Meet Mill Druid. Same idea though obviously some differences. Innervate allows things to happen sooner, as does Wild Growth. Naturalize is sick but works best when you can burn some cards. Grove Tender most of the time we want to draw cards. Poison Seeds+Starfall is an emergency board clear besides also triggering Swords and Deathlord if you need to. Again, it's another annoying deck to face and strangely effective. Mill Druid (Gimmick v2) x2 Innervate x2 Naturalize x2 Wrath x2 Youthful Brewmaster x2 Healing Touch x2 Coldlight Oracle x2 Deathlord x2 Grove Tender x2 Poison Seeds x2 Swipe x2 Keeper of the Grove x2 Starfall x2 Antique Healbot x1 Druid of the Claw x2 Sludge Belcher x1 Tree of Life Unlike the other version that wins by taking advantage of the situation, this one literally is all about stall. Poison Seeds + Starfall is still here, but mostly it's about Tree of Life and gaining craploads of life and having them run out of cards. It's quite good though I think the above version is stronger as I've beaten this one a couple of times. That being said, it's not bad. I should note that Mage has a similar deck as well that is more or less the same idea. ----------------------------- Warlock Honestly, there are about 50 Warlock decks but I've gone ahead and narrowed them down to just 4 for you. Speaking of which, each VERSION of these 4 has a million versions. Sigh. Anyway, let's go. First off, is my Zoolock deck that is excellent for ladder climbing and just knocking out wins when you need them. 2x Soulfire 2x Abusive Sergeant 2x Flame Imp 2x Leper Gnome 2x Voidwalker 2x Darkbomb 2x Dire Wolf Alpha 2x Haunted Creeper 2x Ironbeak Owl 2x Knife Juggler 2x Harvest Golem 2x Scarlet Crusader 2x Defender of Argus 2x Piloted Shredder 2x Doomguard Here is my version updated for the changes. Undertaker is now too weak so he gets dropped; and because of this Chow is unproductive due to the healing. We now have 8 one drops, 6 of which we want to play on turn 1. As for 2 drops, again we have 8 and 6 of them we want to play. This is kinda funny as 66% of the deck is 2 or less mana. From there we have effective drops. Harvest Golem and Scarlet Crusader trade effectively and are scary; Argus because Argus, and Piloted Shredder is a great addition. That leaves Dommguard who's huge. Crafting required: Low Skill level: Low Power level: High Do you feel like killing your opponent with Murlocs? They are fun, and outrageous if you get them down. However, Flamestrike hurts like hell as does other removal. It's aggressive but way more vulnerable to removal as many of the Murlocs suck without being paired up with a Warleader or Seer. 2x Soulfire 1x Mortal Coil 2x Flame Imp 2x Grimscale Oracle 2x Murloc Raider 2x Murloc Tidecaller 2x Voidwalker 2x Young Priestess 2x Darkbomb 1x Bloodmage Thalnos 2x Knife Juggler 2x Murloc Tidehunter 2x Puddlestomper 2x Coldlight Seer 2x Murloc Warleader 1x Old Murk-Eye 2x Doomguard Only a few changes to reflect GvG. Darkbomb is a reason to use Thalnos now as we have 5 spells. Puddlestomper is a great 3/2 for 2 that gets added. Other than that not much has changed. Still Murlocs Crafting required: Low (Old Murk-Eye is free if you own all the Murlocs) Skill level: Low Power level: RGHGRHGRHGRRGRGR Zoolock v2 (mechs) x2 Soulfire x2 Clockwork Gnome x2 Flame Imp x2 Leper Gnome x2 Voidwalker x2 Darkbomb x2 Annoying Tron x2 Knife Juggler x2 Mechwarper x2 Micro Machine x2 Harvest Golem x2 Spider Tank x2 Tinkertown Technician x2 Defender of Argus x2 Doomguard Do you want to beat down with Mechs? I'd try out this version. I'm sure someone wants to use the Fel Cannon and rankly it could work but that would slow the deck down quite a bit. Same for Mimi's Head. It could work but we're talking about slowing the deck down quite a bit. As it is; it's Zoo but with trying to use a Mech theme to take advantage of things like Tinkertown. Shame to say Tinkertown is the only card that is concerned with Mechs but frankly if you want a solid deck this looks much better than something that works in Fel Cannon, Mimi's Head, and even Mechanical Yeti because those are expensive cards and what would you replace? Effective Flame Imps and Leper Gnomes? Seems wasteful Do you feel like playing arguably the strongest deck out there right now? Do you have 1241433242345234 crafting available? Alright let's talk Handlock 2x Soulfire 1x Mortal Coil 2x Ancient Watcher 2x Ironbeak Owl 2x Sunfury Protector 1x Big Game Hunter 2x Earthen Ring Farseer 1x Defender of Argus 1x Hellfire 2x Shadowflame 2x Twilight Drake 1x Faceless Manipulator 1x Loatheb 2x Sludge Belcher 2x Siphon Soul 1x Ragnaros the Firelord 1x Lord Jaraxxus 2x Mountain Giant 2x Molten Giant Alright, so there's like 8 Warlock cards. This deck is all about abusing certain aspects of other cards, made possible thanks to the Warlock being a card draw engine. So let's look at some plays. Ancient Watcher This guy, can be silenced by the owl, or taunted up with Sunfury or Defender giving you access to a huge 4/5 for 2 mana. Annoying. He can also be shadowflamed, board wiping your opponent. Earthen Rings, not really a play, but can help heal some damage. A possible substitute is Antique Healbot though for this deck I like ERF's ability to target creatures as well. Big Game Hunter + Faceless Most often, you copy their huge Minion (Rag for example) and then BGH it and make them sad. Mountain Giants and Twilight Drakes Mountain Giants get cheaper per each card in your hand (from 12, to potentially 3) and Twilight Drakes gain health per each card in hand (up to 10 max). As such, you generally see Handlock tapping for turns 2 and 3, before playing a huge beasty. Otherwise, it's Ancient Watcher --> Ironbeak Owl and start swinging for 4 damage. Molten Giant + Jaraxxus You take a lot of damage doing this. Nothing shuts down your opponent like Molten+Molten+Defender/Sunfury giving you two GIGANTIC taunts, for 4 mana. Life sucks sometimes. Jaraxxus on the other hand can heal your hero back to 15 health, give you a 3/8 weapon, and lets you make 6/6 Infernals every turn instead of drawing. WOW Handlock is crazy strong. It's also crazy hard to play, and even harder to build as the crafting amount of the highest listed here I think, well over 6000 crafting. Even more if you want to slip in Sylvanas which is also common. If facing handlock, try to not to get them below 15 until you are ready to win (and possible having direct damage to avoid Taunts) as a Warlock that is below 10 health can play Moltens for free. All this being said, there are still a number of varieties that include different legendaries as well as things like Annoy Bot. Try it out Crafting required: Whew Skill level: High Power level: Very High Demonlock x2 Soulfire x2 Voidwalker x2 Darkbomb x2 Demonfire x2 Mistress of Pain x2 Sense Demons x2 Void Terror x2 Hellfire x2 Voidcaller x2 Demonheart x2 Doomguard x2 Floating Watcher x2 Siphon Soul x2 Dread Infernal x1 Lord Jaraxxus x1 Mal'Ganis Demonlock got a nice upgrade. Darkbomb adds a nice nuke to control the board and Demonheart is both stupid or a nuke at the same time. Mistress of Pain adds an early drop which we desperately need (also makes running Demon fire worth it now). We've got Void Terror who can be sexy and Voidcaller can put out some huge Demons for cheap, especially Mal'Ganis who is lulzy when done correctly. Note this card runs only Warlock cards but if we're going with a Demon theme we want to take advantage all the way and frankly it works. So that ends the Constructed decklist. I know I've left out some, but I tried to include the "big" decks that are out there now. If I get pestered enough about certain ones, I'll update and include them as well. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 09. Ranked Play [9000] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ So I've talked about Ranked Play quite a bit, I'm sure you are curious to understand a bit more about how it works. In Play mode, there are two options, Casual and Ranked. Let me tell you, there is no difference. You have a hidden (not really) ranking based on the number of wins you have that pairs you evenly (tries to) in this mode. The only difference is that Casual has no ranking, no punishment for losing, whereas Ranked goes from 25 to 1, and then Legend. Every time you win, you gain a star. After 3 wins (in a row) you gain bonus stars so that you can advance more quickly. This is helpful, as each Rank grows in the required number of stars to go to the next rank. For instance, the highest, most beginning ranks (25-20) you need like 2-3 stars to advance. By the medium ranks (7-12 or so) you need 5 stars to advance. By rank 1, you need 7 stars or so. Once you hit Legend, you cannot lose it for that season. Right, so each Ranked season is dictated by the month. On the first of the month, everyone gets reset. If you reached Rank 20, you get that month's cardback (usually a theme, like October is spoooky and this past September was Arrrr Pirates). Now, based on how well you did that month, you get bonus stars so you don't start from 25 every time. This is what we call Ladder Climbing. See, almost any deck, even F2P, can get comfortably to rank 10. It may take some time, but to reach rank 10, you just have to be a good player; or at least a moderate one. Once you've reached rank 5 or so, you are now in what is known as "difficult grinding land" where you must push on and disregard tough losses to advance each rank. From rank 1 to rank 5 I would argue that there is no difference in skill, just people who are more devoted to the ladder than others. As such, you typically will find, from rank 25 to rank 10 or so (even lower really) lots and lots of Zoo. This is because Zoo wins quickly or loses quickly. We've already established that Zoo is a fairly strong deck, so it is a really popular choice to climb the ladder. Handlock may be the best but each Handlock game takes twice that of a Zoo so why not just use Zoo? And by the time you've reached the grinding zone, this is where you are not facing just Zoo anymore, but the Control Pali, the Control Warrior, the Handlock, the shitstorm of tough decks that are perfectly (well, they run legendaries) so it becomes much more difficult to advance further. If I was you, I would wait to climb the ladder until about a week into the month, that way you don't have to face the top Legends players. After a week, they'll be mostly up there so you can face relatively similar players. Use Zoo till about 7 or 8, and then pick a deck you really like and have at it ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 10. Tournaments [AAAA] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ One thing I enjoy, is Tournaments. Tournaments in Hearthstone are basically Ranked play except with some control over what happens. Usually, a player brings along 3-5 decks (depends on the format and whatnot). You get to ban a deck from your opponent and likewise they ban one of your decks. For example, in a best of 3, you'd bring 4 decks along. One gets banned, and then you pick a deck to play. If you win, you play the same deck. If you lose, that deck is eliminated (for now) and you choose a different deck. Why this is fun, is it brings an element to the game that it should have, something that is missed when playing Ranked because in Ranked you have no control over who you are facing. A card like Harrison Jones is a perfect example of a card that is used in almost every deck in Tournaments, but hardly ever in Ranked play, because you can't control facing someone who might use weapons. In Tournaments though, it's worth slipping in Mr. Jones because the chances of facing a Doomhammer, Assassin's Blade, or some other huge weapon is very high and taking it out is essential. As for getting into Tournaments, it's quite simple really. Play this a LOT, and hit Legendary status. You'll get your invite. You could also get a sponsor like Team Liquid or Cloud 9, but then again those are all Legend Ranked players too. They play Hearthstone, A LOT. Rest assured, you won't be seeing my ass in any tournament soon. I play too many other games to get that level of devotion down to Hearthstone. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 11. How to Improve [BBBB] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I hope what you have read so far, and what we've gone over has helped. But there's always things you can do extra to get that slight edge. So here is my section of tips and hints, to help give you that edge over your opponent TIP #1 WATCH PROFESIONALS PLAY It should come as no surprise, that just like any other game, it helps to watch the best play. In this case, Blizzard does an outstanding job of telling us when tournaments are coming. You can also youtube search for Hearthstone tournaments and find billions of videos there. For youtube, you can check out: TrumpSC Amaz Hearthstone Vods Trump and Amaz are entertaining streamers from Twitch who upload to their youtube frequently, and Hearthstone Vods uploads basically any Hearthstone tournament for you to watch. For twitch, you can again, check out Trump or Amaz, but Reynad, Deernadia, or Kolento are very good/popular as well. Hell, most Legendary Hearthstone players stream, the difference is sorting the good ones, like Kolento, out from some of the more "watched" streamers because they are very attractive girls, like Morberplz. That's not to say she isn't good, but she has never reached Legendary Status so far as I'm aware whereas Deernadia has (also a hawty). TIP #2 PLAY WHEN YOUR MIND IS RIGHT Like any other game that requires thinking, you want to play when you are not tired, drunk, high, or emotional, otherwise you will make bad decisions. An easy test of this is to try it out with Arena. Despite Arena being random, you'll notice your performance get 3 or 4 more wins if you are focused and determined versus playing at 3 AM when you are avoiding going to sleep. TIP #3 ALWAYS THINK THROUGH YOUR TURN It's simple, but grossly not taken advantage of. You get time to do your turn, so think about it. Think, is there anything better to do? Can I clear his board? Can I risk playing this? Do I have lethal? Am I at risk of lethal? Oftentimes, and I'm not kidding, you'll find that you missed lethal only to be killed by your opponent on their turn. It puts you in a bad bad mood and you should resort to tip #2. TIP #4 TALK TO OTHERS, PARTICIPATE IN FORUMS Is it in forums, or on forums... anyway, Hearthstone like MTG is a game with a Metagame that is constantly changing. The best way to learn about the game, and maybe pick up a hint or two, is to pay attention, and participate. If you're watching a Streamer (or a youtube) think to yourself, would I have done that? Do you agree with the announcers analysis? Did they miss lethal? Did you see that play before they did it? Not to mention, getting active on the forums (there's a Liquid one, and a Hearthstone one, both good) is a good way to get feedback specifically for your constructed decks and your Arena runs. Feedback is an essential tool for improving, and luckily, everyone always wants to give their advice, you just have to ask for it. TIP #5 AVOID GIMMICKY DECKS So basically, you want your deck to be versatile right? Alright let's talk real quick about what I mean, using MTG as an example. Back in the late nineties, (and if you've never played MTG just work with me here) one of the archetypes was a deck known as Red-Green beats. It was a deck, playtested by alphabetaunlimited.com (a team of 3 of the greatest MTG players of the time) and shown to be brutally effective in any format as it disregarded card economy in favor of winning the game quickly. Basically, Zoo. Now, in MTG, there are 5 colors, Red, Blue, White, Green, and Black. To get Mana, you have to tap lands, mountains, islands, plains, forests, or swamps (or something "special". As expected, each color is also associated with something, particular. Like don't expect a kill spell in Blue, that's for Black. Anyways, Red-Green beats was strong, but you know what was stronger? A variation on Red-Green beats that was 4 colors, Red-Green-Black-White. The deck splashed Black, for removal, and White, for enchantment removal. By doing so, their mana base became slightly uglier, but they now had access to cards that Red-Green, didn't normally have. This brings us back to Hearthstone, as Red-Green beats could be countered by certain decks as it simply didn't have an answer, whereas the Red-Green splashed could compete against ANY deck, as it had answers there. Similarly, for Hearthstone, you don't want to play a deck that can be hard countered simply by existing. How frustrating is it losing to a 8/8 Taunt every time? Then it may be worth putting in Big Game Hunter. Tired of enchanted creatures? Might be worth putting in some extra Silences, an Owl or maybe even Spellbreaker too. Weapons giving you a problem? Hello Ooze. Need a better answer early or late? Consider using Deathrattles as opposed to stronger creatures as Deathrattles tend to stick around longer. Always just running out of life? There exists quite a few creatures that heal, the best being Earthen Ring Farseer. On the other hand, you might have gimmicks that *could* work, but are destroyed if something happens. A perfect example is the Druid deck, Alarm o Bot. It's not listed here, but needless to say, if that Alarm o Bot gets taken out; the deck sucks. So why bother using it? On that same coin, using cards like Milhouse Manastorm, Pat Nagle, or Elite Tauren Chieftan are very risky, as you never know what you are walking into. Sure, a 4/4 for 2 is strong, but if you walk into a Druid deck that is 25 spells and they win the game next turn you are going to feel real dumb. Pat Nagle could get you an extra card, but he could also sit out there for 5 turns and not do a damn thing. So I guess, rather than use gimmick or chance, you're better off using reliable answers. Save gimmicks or fun time with your buddies. It'll help quite a bit, I promise. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 12. Arena [CCCC] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ So Arena, we've finally reached it. It's been so long, let's review what it is exactly. You pay 150 gold, or $1.99 USD to play in the Arena. You are offered 3 heroes to choose from, and then you are given 3 cards to pick from, 30 times, to assemble your deck. Cards grabbed here are not added to your collection. The cards are completely random, but the first and last pack will be at least a rare. Once you've lost 3 times, or won 12 times, or chosen to retire your deck if you hated it, you get your prize. You will always get a pack, and from there rewards a completely random. At 7 wins, you are guaranteed winning at least 150 gold. At 12 wins, you get 5 prize bundles, and typically win a second pack. Is it worth it? Many people will say no, Arena is a scam. That the 150 gold, through two runs, will have net you 2 packs whereas you could have bought 3 packs with that 300 gold. Here's my take on it: Arena is a completely different beast. It requires know-how, a little bit of luck, and very careful playing. Unlike constructed, there is no second chances. After that third loss you are done. So if you are into that sort of stuff, and if you are into building your collection slowly, it's perfect for you. If you are looking for a quick fix, a huge collection boost, then you should consider getting packs, as it's much faster, as Arena requires you play games to get packs. Now, that aside, let's talk a little bit about Arena. Trump, at Liquid's website, liquidhearth, has posted an article about Arena that is FANTASTIC, and a great read: http://www.liquidhearth.com/guides/arena-tier-list You should really read it before going into Arena, as he breaks down not only all the cards, but even gives great explanations and talks about the classes. He does not have the Naxxramas included however, so let's talk about what updates haven't been included, and here is my overall take. First off, the classes. There are 9 of them, which should you choose? I've been keeping track of my Arena runs for a while now, and I would tell you that overwhelmingly, that Warrior is the best choice. From there, Paladin, Prist, and Mage are all great. Druid and Shaman follow closely behind, leaving Warlock, then Rogue, and lastly, Hunter. So how did I come to this conclusion? Warrior. Why is Warrior so good? The answer is quite simple, Naxxramas, specifically, Death's Bite. Weapons, are already a good investment, but in Arena, Weapons provide immeasurable card advantage. Alright, quick aside. Hearthstone is a game of board control and card advantage right? Take that and pull it to the extremes, now we're in Arena. Arena, is an environment ruled by cost effective Minions, and 3/2's. Alright, back to Warrior. So Warriors have 2 great weapons at their disposal, Fiery Win Axe, and Death's Bite. They will almost always 2-1, meaning you have gained a card advantage. Add in a second, or a third, and now you have a 3 or 4 card advantage despite not having drawn any more cards. Now, the Warrior Minions are also great; and we're talking just commons as the rare+ we cannot count on. We have, Arathi Weaponsmith (he, brings a weapon along), Kor'Kron Elite, and Cruel Taskmaster. These guys hit hard and can help single-handily change the game. Moving along, we have the Paladin. With seeing the Warrior's description, you can probably guess as to what makes Paladin so good. He has Truesilver Champion, and Consecrate which are great, but also Argent Protector provides great 2-1 status and Blessing of Kings is just gross. Something that really helps the Paladin though, is his hero power. See, even if the game goes long and your lategame isn't great, the Paladin hero power can flood the board with 1/1 Minions that unless you are Druid or Mage, you can't remove them forever. Many games have been won simply because the Paladin hero power proves to be brutally effective. Between Priest and Mage, it's fairly close. A lot of people claim Mage is easy mode, but that is not a certainty. Hell, if you could guarantee getting at least 6 spells between Frostbolt, Fireball, and Flamestrike, then Mage would likely be number 1. However, if you don't get the good removal, then the Mage falls flat; pretty hard too. The Mage Minions, kinda suck. Water Elemental is great, but Mage Wyrm and Sorcerers Apprentice are meh. They have no oomph that other Minions bring. On the Priest side, you have some of the best Arena cards between Temple Enforcer, Power Word Shield, and Lightspawn. Hell, in a match up of just looking at class cards, I'd say Priest is the best stand alone with raw power. Health is great, and the Priest can keep his guys alive and really change the game. Add in a single Mind Control and you are almost always protected from that Legendary you weren't offered. At this juncture, we enter the medium classes. Observe how Priest and Mage can all affect the board, with their heal or damage; Paladin straight up makes dudes. So in addition to their cards, their hero powers are great for this. The others now, aren't so good. Shaman for example, makes Minions. However, his Minions aren't 1/1's that flood the board and attack. His, well, most can't even hurt anything. That's not to say they don't have good cards, Fire Elemental is an absolute bomb and Hex makes things go away, but other than that their class cards are considerably weaker in Arena. Add in their dependancy on getting rares, specifically, one rare, specifically, Lightning Storm, and you can see where Shaman falls down a bit in the rankings compared to the other classes so far. Regarding Druid, they have some excellent cards, and his hero power can affect the board! So why isn't he higher? Well, let's look for a moment. We have Swipe, Wrath, Claw, and Starfire as great removal spells. However, they are spells, not Minions which means they 1-1, and maybe 2-1 in cases of Swipe. That means you have Druid of the Claw, Power of the Wild, and Ironbark Protector, who are huge, but can they win the game? Well, you may not even make it there, is the problem. And while his hero power can affect the board, it gets greatly neutered by large taunts, and it becomes a weaker Armor Up. I mean, I love Druid, but for Arena I have had some frustrating losses, and it's fairly easy to see why there exists some frustrating losses. That brings us to the last 3, Warlock, Rogue, and then, Hunter. So regarding Warlock, given his versatility with constructed, and how strong drawing cards is, wouldn't he be the best? Not exactly. Far from it, actually, as his hero power can be completely negated by good cards from the opponent, and you getting too low. If you're against a Mage or Hunter for example, you have to be REALLY CAREFUL tapping below 10 health. And if you aren't in great board control, tapping can add that 2 damage your opponent needs to take you out. Now, Warlock does have some great cards. Flame Imp, Soul Fire, and Voidcaller are very strong, not to mention Hellfire is a whooping. But, and here is the big But (heh) he suffers from inconsistency. With only 3 losses taking you down, if you have just a bad draw here or there, suddenly you are out of the Arena, despite having a bomb deck, because you took too much damage and couldn't recover! It's really frustrating to lose like that, and for Warlock, his power in this case doesn't help at all. With Rogue, I think I speak for myself mostly, but for a lot of people, that I just don't like Rogue. They are not among my favorite class to play, and when it comes to Arena, I've played em 4 times. But, that shouldn't come as a surprise, because look at their cards. Where's their creatures? Well that's just it; their Minions, there aren't any! Spells are great, but unless you are making 2, 3, or 4 for 1 exchanges, spells just aren't that great. Minions stay there and when you don't have anything special to look for, you end up relying on getting the Spells, and if you don't... Rogues do have weapons. However, the 1 damage hero power sucks hard and often costs you more health than benefit. With Deadly Poison or Assassin's Blade, that helps too, but those aren't as nice as say having Fiery Win Axe, Death's Bite, Arcanite Reaper, and a handful of fantastic Minions to boot. Leaving us to Hunter. You should cheer whenever you face one, because Hunter is the worst Arena class by far. Their hero power, SUCKS. It affects the board 0. Their class cards, are meh, with most of them relying on pure chance. Animal Companion? If you get 3 Huffers, that can lose you the game. Webspinner? Good luck there. Now, Scar is a fantastic rare, and they do have some good cards, but in all honesty you should never be picking Hunter unless you really need to for some reason (say, a Dominance quest or something). So let's look at Minions then. I'm not going to copy his list, as I've linked the webpage for you; just use that as a resource. Regarding Naxxramas cards though, here is my personal take on where they fit into things. ============================================================================== LEGENDARY BEST EXCELLENT GOOD AVERAGE POOR/TERRIBLE Kel'Thuzad Feugen Stalagg Maexxna Loatheb Baron Rivendare Explanation: EXCELLENT Kel'Thuzad His value is build quite a bit on how many Minions you have out there. He has a huge body, his 6 power stinks a bit in terms of matching up against huge fatties, but it does save him from Big Game Hunter. Eight health is nice though. KT is a pretty solid choice though overall GOOD Feugen While you will NEVER GET THADDIUS EVER in Arena, Feugen is still a 4/7 for 5 mana, which makes him 11 stats for 5, which is better than most other 5 drops, meaning that Feugen in a pack with Manastorm and Nat Pagle, you'll be taking Feugen. Loatheb He's a 5/5 for 5. His battlecry is much weaker in Arena thanks to the number of Minions, but he's still a large body to contend with AVERAGE Stalagg A 7/4 is also 11 stats. However, that 4 Health is a glaring weakness and being brought down by a boosted 2/1 doesn't scream dealbreaker to me. Baron Rivendare He's like KT, except he has 1 power and an ability that may or may not matter. His usefulness goes up per each Deathrattle in your deck, but then again only for how many you see. It makes him a fairly average pick, mostly bad. POOR/TERRIBLE Maexxna If she were a 4/8 with no ability she'd be great. As it is, her ability is dumb, and she suffers from having 2 attack. She sucks. ============================================================================== EPIC BEST EXCELLENT GOOD AVERAGE POOR/TERRIBLE Echoing Ooze Shade of Naxxramas Explanation: GOOD Echoing Ooze He's a 2/4 of stats for 2 mana, which is good, despite it being spread out on two Minions. The added benefit of attaching things like Argus, Blessing of Kings, or Mark of the Wild makes his value go up. AVERAGE Shade of Naxxramas He's a 2/2 for 3, that doesn't really begin to build value until he's been out there for two or three turns. He's really just average ============================================================================== RARE BEST EXCELLENT GOOD AVERAGE POOR/TERRIBLE Sludge Belcher Deathlord Nerubian Egg Wailing Soul Explanation: BEST Sludge Belcher He's a 4/7 Taunt for 5, which is great. He comes in two pieces, which in most cases is even better, as it better protects your guys. Sludge Belcher is a fantastic choice. GOOD Deathlord At 10 stats, he's the largest 3 mana Minion out there. However, his downside is fairly huge. The advantage in Arena, is that you're likely to see a 3/2 come out, which seems fair, if your Deathlord is able to take down a couple other creatures. Bonus points for getting out a battlecry. Negative points for seeing an early Ragnaros (WTF!) AVERAGE Nerubian Egg It's highly vulnerable to silence as well as getting it killed. It should rank lower but getting a 4/4 for 2 mana keeps it as an average pick. If this comes later in the draft and you have at least 3 ways to get it killed, then it's value goes up much higher Wailing Soul He's a 3/5 for 4, which fits right into most 4 drops. His battlecry, mostly sucks, but can be helpful. Overall, that's why he's average. ============================================================================== COMMON BEST EXCELLENT GOOD AVERAGE POOR/TERRIBLE Zombie Chow Spectral Knight Haunted Creeper Mad Scientist Dancing Swords Undertaker* Nerub'ar Weblord Unstable Ghoul* Stoneskin Gargoyle CLASS COMMONS Avenge Anub'ar Ambusher Poison Seeds Dark Cultist Duplicate Reincarnate Voidcaller Webspinner Death's Bite Explanation: BEST Zombie Chow This guy is a beast. He is an absolute monster in a field of 3/2's, as he himself is a 2/3 for 1. In a format defined by card advantage, Zombie Chow will almost always 2-1 for you and there just isn't much more you can ask from a 1 drop like that. EXCELLENT Spectral Knight This guy is strong, and even stronger if against certain classes like Mage. For 5 mana, he comes as a 4/6, which is a bit less (we'd hope for 11 stats) but in any event, his Faerie-Dragon like status proves to be really helpful here as he can trade with most of them and live to tell the tale. The fact Minions have to take him out, means you get to choose the condition in which he lives or dies. GOOD Haunted Creeper He's not the best choice, and I'd prefer a Harvest Golem over him, nonetheless Haunted Creeper is a good 2 drop. If he had more power, he'd be a shoe-in, it's just that more often than not, he himself will only 1-1 something, which is what ultimately weakens his status to good. Undertaker By himself, he's bad. A 1/2 for 1... you might as well have Goldshire Footman. However, with every Deathrattle you take, his value goes up, and up, and up, and well, now you have a 1 drop that suddenly can get quite a bit of value, making him an excellent choice, which balances out to good. Unstable Ghoul For Paladins, this guy isn't as good. In any other case, he's quite strong. While he only has 1 power, his implosion allows him to deal with 3/2's just like anybody else. And if you are able to build around him (with Acolyte of Pain for example) you can actually 2 or 3 for 1 off this guy, taking out a Minion and drawing extra cards. Pretty handy AVERAGE Mad Scientist He's a 2/2 for 2, which is nothing special. Consider then his Deathrattle, which only works with 3 of the classes, and the fact you have to have Secrets for it to matter, makes him a very average, borderline poor choice. POOR/TERRIBLE Dancing Swords In an environment of 3/2's, why wouldn't you want Dancing Swords? Pretty easy really. Because even if he at bests, 2-1's for you, it's not really a 2-1 because they get to draw a card, meaning you HAVE to 2-1 with him just to break even. Not worth it. Nerub'ar Weblord A small 1 power Minion with an ability that may or may not affect him that could also affect you, I'd pass. Stoneskin Gargoyle For 3 mana, you could do better than this. It's garbage. ============================================================================== EXPLANATION, CLASS COMMONS BEST Avenge For 1 mana, you generate 3/2 of stats. That's freaking fantastic. Sure it can get silenced, sure it's random, but the value there is just obnoxious. Bonus points for "Get Down" being a stronger Arena choice meaning you can bluff your opponents too. Dark Cultist He's the games only 3/4 for 3 mana, that alone tells you of how good he is. Combine that with his really strong Deathrattle, and Dark Cultist is a best, if not one of the best choices you could take. Voidcaller Similar to Dark Cultist, this guy is really good. His stats are a bit low for a 4 cost Minion, however, getting a free Demon from your hand, is just REALLY FREAKING NICE. My last Warlock Arena won several games, simply because they killed my Voidcaller and saw a Doomguard show up; followed by an immediate concede from them. Voidcaller makes Warlock viable, almost. Death's Bite As described earlier, this weapon launched Warrior to #1 status in my book. It's another common weapon (meaning Warrior has 3 to choose from), but it also gives access (something I've yet talked about) to Warriors taking out 5 health minions (like Yeti or Das'Dingo) because of the explosion of the Deathrattle. It's awesome. EXCELLENT Anub'ar Ambusher He's fairly nice. He's a 10 stat, 5/5, for 4 mana, which is bigger than Yeti or Das'Dingo. However, his deathrattle can be very detrimental. If you can work around it, he is a very strong 4 drop though, I'd still prefer Yeti. GOOD Duplicate For constructed, Duplicate is decent. For Arena, it's still just decent. The problem being, that the game is ruled by 3/2's, meaning that Duplicate for 3 mana, will grant you back two 3/2's. It's good, but not great. If you can combine it with something like Das'Dingo, or Yeti, it becomes great. On the other hand, you could also Duplicate a Sheep. That's terrible. AVERAGE Webspinner Half the time he'll bring you goodies, the other half the time you'd wish it could be anything else. And then you'll get Captain's Parrot and be really sad. Reincarnate The only reason this isn't a terrible card is because it doubles as Silence. You can potentially get aid out of your Deathrattle, you can also heal a tankier Minion, and you can reset any enchantments on enemy creatures. All those add up to an average card. POOR/TERRIBLE Poison Seeds This thing is just horrible ============================================================================== Alright, so we're almost done here. Let's talk briefly about Mana Curve for your Arena. Concerning Mana Curve, what is good? Where should it be? I was actually thinking to myself the other day, about a way to numerically rate an Arena run before you play it. Basically, you could look at the deck, and accurately (+/- a win) predict how well you would do, assuming you play perfectly. Strangely enough, I actually came up with something pretty cool that I want to share now with you. Let's say, you can score up to 100 points. A score of 100, would be a 12-0 victory. The BEST, Arena deck. A score of 50 points, would be failing, and means you might get 5 wins. A 75 is a solid and average score, meaning that you'll get 7 wins. Following? 100.......12 wins 75........7 wins 50........5 wins 25........2 wins You can see, that it is not a linear scale as 100:12 would imply 75:9, 50:6, and 25:3, but it actually is quite close. Anyway, let's look at this. MANA CURVE (xx/50) Regarding curves, we want a nice bell-curve, skewed right. It should look: | -- | -- ---- | -- | -- | -- ______________________ We want the majority of our stuff, to be cheaper, with it tailing off towards the more expensive end. An approximate 30 card breakdown should look something like 1 or 0 | 10% | 3 cards 2 | 27% | 8 cards 3 | 20% | 6 cards 4 | 17% | 5 cards 5 | 13% | 4 cards 6+ | 13% | 4 cards Thus, there are some key distinctions here. We want a minimum of 7 two drops. This does not include spells. We want at least 7 Minions. This is vitally important to starting to establish board control. Note that in the case with several decks, they won't have anything less than 1, meaning the curve gets slightly adjusted to reflect that. Anyways, look at this 2 cost Minions | 7 < x < 9 Midrange (3-4) | 4 < x < 6 Late game (5+) | 5 < x < 8 These are just guidelines, but it helps. Also note that the 2 cost Minions is different than the rest, in the important of Minions. We're talking 2 cost Minions, but late game we are wanting strong late game plays. Mind Control for example is not a Minion, but it counts towards a Late game. Anyway, Mana Curve is a huge part, and as such it's worth quite a few points to try and nail for doing well. Even if your cards stink, just having a good curve is nearly half the battle. SPELLS (xx/15) Minions are good, spells are good, however, we want spells, but not all spells. I'm sorry, that sentence sucks. Let's try again. You want at least 7 spells, but no more than 12. Even if you're a Mage, if you start encroaching over that 12 barrier you run the risk of not having anything to play and you don't really want to Fireball their face pointlessly. MINIONS (xx/25) The essential factoid of an Arena run, let's talk about Minions. There is no way to numerically rate any generic Arena deck based on its Minions. But there is one way to look at it, using the Mana Curve breakdown there. Mana Curve is looking at just Mana Curve, here we want just Minions. Early Game (2>) | 7 Midrange (3-5) | 7 Lategame (6+) | 8 So you can see the importance of having those early plays. That means sometimes taking a crappy 2/3 Pirate over the 5/4 Priestess because you would rather get the body down early as opposed to simply passing the turn. CLASS (xx/10) What do I mean by this? No not what class you picked, but rather, did you get the defining class card? What does this mean? Let's take a look Mage: Fireball, Frostbolt, Flamestrike Priest: Shadow Word Death/Pain, Holy Nova Warrior: Fiery Win Axe, Death's Bite Druid: Swipe, Claw, Wrath Paladin: Consecration, Truesilver Champion Shaman: Hex, Fire Elemental Warlock: Voidcaller, Hellfire, Soulfire Rogue: Eviscerate, Assassinate, Backstab Hunter: Unleash, Animal Companion, Hunter's mark These aren't all the cards, but it's just to give you an idea. Realistically, you could have a list of all class cards that are excellent or better choices, and score a point for each one up to 7, then receive full credit for the category. Observe as well how this protects from the other categories, as having 10 flame strikes would give you 10 points here, but would deter from both the other categories as having 10 flame strikes would be a rather terrible deck. So now that we've talked about defining, let's talk about actually scoring this thing. Mana Curve (xx/50) Spells (xx/15) Minions (xx/25) Class (xx/10) Regarding Mana Curve: ------------------------- | Cost | Cards | Points | | 2> | 10 | 20 | | 2> | 7-9 | 17 | | 2> | 4-6 | 14 | | 2> | 3> | 10 | | 2> | 11+ | 16 | |=======================| | 3-5 | 12 | 15 | | 3-5 | 9-11 | 13 | | 3-5 | 5-8 | 10 | | 3-5 | 4> | 7 | | 3-5 | 13+ | 12 | |=======================| | 6+ | 8 | 15 | | 6+ | 4-7 | 12 | | 6+ | 3> | 9 | | 6+ | 9+ | 11 | ------------------------- *The points decrease if it's off, and if you're over that's what the last row in each section signifies Regarding Spells: --------------------- | 8-9 spells | 15 | | 5-7 spells | 10 | | 10-12 spells | 10 | | 4> spells | 5 | | 13+ spells | 5 | --------------------- *Spells are any Non-Minion Regarding Minions: -------------------- | 1 or 0 | 3> | 5 | | 1 or 0 | 4+ | 0 | | =================| | 2 | 7 | 5 | | 2 | 5-6 | 4 | | 2 | 8-9 | 4 | | 2 | 4> | 2 | | 2 | 10+ | 2 | |==================| | 3 or 4 | 7-9 | 5 | | 3 or 4 | 6|8 | 4 | | 3 or 4 | 5|9 | 3 | | 3 or 4 | 4> | 0 | | 3 or 4 | 10+ | 2 | |==================| | 5 or 6 | 4-8 | 5 | | 7+ | 0-4 | 5 | | 5 or 6 | 3> | 2 | | 5 or 6 | 7+ | 2 | | 7+ | 5 | 3 | | 7+ | 6+ | 0 | |------------------| *The reason 5+ is done the way it is; you are looking for eight 5+ Minions. The exact breakdown has variable, but you really don't want more or less than Regarding Class: This is done separately, for each Class Warlock Flame Imp, Soulfire, Dread Infernal Mortal Coil, Hellfire, Voidcaller Warrior Fiery War Axe, Arathi Weaponsmith, Arcanite Reaper Cleave, Kor'Kron Elite, Slam, Death's Bite Paladin Truesilver Champion, Consecrate, Blessing of Kings Hammer of Wrath, Argent Protector Shaman Fire Elemental, Hex, Stormforged Axe Flametongue Totem, Unbound Elemental Priest Temple Enforcer, Power Word Shield, Lightspawn Holy Nova, Shadow Word Death/Pain, Northshire Cleric Dark Cultist Rogue Backstab, Deadly Poison, Evicerate Assassin's Blade, Assassinate, Anub'ar Ambusher Druid Swipe, Druid of the Claw, Power of the Wild, Wrath Ironbark Protector, Claw, Starfire Mage Flamestrike, Water Elemental, Fireball Frostbolt, Polymorph Hunter Hunter's Mark, Unleash, Animal Companion, Houndmaster Score 1 point for each of those cards up to 10 for the category Warlock Lord Jaraxxus, Pit Lord, Doomguard Warrior Grommash Hellscream, Gorehowl, Frothing Berserker Paladin Tirion Fordring, Sword of Justice, Avenging Wrath Lay on Hands, Aldor Peacekeeper, Equality Shaman Al'Akir the Windlord, Earth Elemental, Doomhammer Lightning Storm, Feral Spirit Priest Cabal Shadow Priest, Shadow Madness, Auchenai Soulpriest Rogue SI 7 Agent, Perdition's Blade Druid Cenarius, Ancient of War, Ancient of Lore, Force of Nature Keeper of the Grove, Starfall, Nourish Mage Archmage Antonidas (only if you meet maximal spell criteria) Hunter Explosive Shot, Savannah Highmane Score 2 points for each of these cards (no limit) The reasoning here, is to see if you got a good number of cards that define the class (hence why you picked it). That's not to say a Mage with none of those above listed cards couldn't go 12 wins, it's just VERY UNLIKELY. Also, if you haven't noticed, commons score 1 point (and stop at 10) whereas anything rare or better (if it's on that list) scores 2 indefinitely. Now... I realize a deck of 30 Jaraxxus would be TERRIBLE. However, that won't happen, ever. That's not to say you should have 5 Explosive Shot, although it's a good card. On the other hand, a deck of 30 SI 7 Agent, while redundant, would be not bad. Except it would, as you would score 60 points here but then 0 almost everywhere else, meaning you might get 5 wins. Haha see it kinda works out. At the end of the day, what am I really talking about here? I'm talking about having a deck that's roughly 20-22 Minions, and 8-10 non-Minions. I'm talking about of those 30 cards, try to have at least 20% of them be Excellent Class cards. I'm talking about having a Mana Curve that makes a nice skewed-right bell shape. If you do those things, you should do just fine. My trials? Here, I'll load (I say that loosely) a couple of my Arena decks and test them to my rubrick and then I'll say at the end how accurate I was. This could be fun to see just how accurate my rubrick is. In the future, I may even list my whole Arena draft a couple of times just to give you an idea of what and why I decided to go with. Trump uploads tons of Arena runs, as does many of the other streamers do Arena quite a bit. Here it is for you in boring text; though much more detail =) Arena #1, Priest 1x Mind Vision 1x Power Word Shield 1x Lightwarden 2x Northshire Cleric 1x Undertaker 1x Acidic Swamp Ooze 1x Bloodfen Raptor 1x Ironbeak Owl 2x Loot Hoarder 1x Sunfury Protector 1x Shadow Word Death 1x Acolyte of Pain 4x Dark Cultist 1x Demolisher 1x Wolfrider 1x Auchenai Soulpriest 1x Dark Iron Dwarf 1x Lightspawn 1x Azure Drake 1x Silver Hand Knight 1x Boulderfist Ogre 1x Frost Elemental 2x Temple Enforcer 1x Stormwind Champion MANA CURVE | | = | == | | | | | |= | ==| | |__________=_____ That's what it looks like anyways. The exact breakdown is: 1 | 6 | 20% 2 | 6 | 20% 3 | 8 | 27% 4 | 3 | 10% 5 | 2 | 07% 6 | 4 | 13% 7 | 1 | 03% Which gives a general bellshape. We're looking for about 50-60% of our cards to be cheaper, and I'm a bit high here with 67% of my cards costing 3 or less. As for lategame cards, my 5+ count is at 7, which is a bit low. SPELLS Whoops, only 3 spells MINIONS Well my Minion breakdown is fairly good. A bit strong leaning towards early, but here is where Class comes into play, as we see that in that 3 cost is FOUR Dark Cultist. Let me tell you what, ain't nothing wrong with that. Them babies are strong and even drawing them late is just fine. So let's score this: 2>, 16 3-5, 12 6+, 12 Giving me 40 of 50 points for Mana Curve Spells, 3 ==> 5 Minions, 1 or 0 ==> 0 (although, I'm inclined to give me some back for having good quality 1 drops) 2 ==> 4 3 or 4 ==> 2 (again, the Dark Cultists...) 5 or 6 ==> 5 7+ ==> 5 Which gives me a current total of 40+5+16 or 61 points thus far, maybe an additional 8 up to 69 (heh) For Class cards, 10 points (lots of good class cards) plus an additional 2 points for the Auchenai giving me 12, or 73 to 81 points depending on how strict you keep to it. Should get 7 wins right? Let's see how I do In case you were wondering, it went 6 wins. Fairly accurate prediction though right? What were the weaknesses? I had no AoE, and I had very few spells meaning that it can be hard to steam-roll by clearing and saving Minions. Specifically, only 1 Shadow Word Death makes for a very tough time dealing with end game monsters if I don't have mine out there yet. How do you deal with bad luck, the RNGesus? Frankly you can't. You can do things to increase your odds, but what about when the game just gets a bit unfair? I have some really sad examples for you to share (others do as well). In one of my more recent runs, I was playing Priest. My first loss came from a Demolisher ruining my life. Normally, Demolisher only gains value for as long as he lives; but specifically it comes down to how many Minions he hits as that is where his value lies. Against this opponent (a Priest) he landed for 6 turns, his 2 damage nuke on the most convenient Minion. Normally this is a simple 50-50 chance as I'm not flooding the board, but by the end of the game he was still doing it with 33-33-33 chances. All in all, the odds were twisted in his favor, and to replicate those circumstances would be: (1/2)(1/2)(1/2)(1/2)(1/2)(1/3)(1/3) or 0.0344% chance Life isn't fair sometimes. Later in the run, my Deathlord died and gave my opponent Ragnaros. Earlier in a different match he gave my opponent Fire Elemental. This is what I mean when Deathlord can be really scary, as you assume he's giving a 3/2 Minion so when you face Ragnaros and Fire Elemental, you can make a sad face. I share this, to prompt my other submission for showing that my rubrick does work quite well for predicting your deck's win total, as well as it gives a good foundation for what you are looking for to build your Arena deck. 1x Circle of Healing 1x Leper Gnome 1x Undertaker 1x Shadow Word Pain 1x Bloodsail Raider 1x Kobold Geomancer 1x Loot Hoarder 1x Shadow Word Death 1x Dark Cultist 1x Deathlord 1x Earthen Ring Farseer 1x Emperor Cobra 1x Harvest Golem 1x Ancient Brewmaster 1x Auchenai Soulpriest 1x Gnomish Inventor 2x Lightspawn 1x Das'Dingo 1x Spellbreaker 1x Stormwind Knight 1x Fen Creeper 2x Venture Co Mercenary 1x Holy Fire 1x Cabal Shadow Priest 1x Sunwalker 1x Temple Enforcer 1x Stormwind Champion 1x Mind Control My mana curve is nearly a perfect bell, centering at 4, which is not so desirable. Definitely some questionable picks, including the Leper Gnome, which was taken because I have an Undertaker. The Circle I took because I had Auchenai, and to be frank I enjoy having at least 1 Circle because my decks tend to have more higher health Minions meaning I can get a fair amount of use from having Circle. I have good early game though, assuming not too many 4 drops, but having a fair amount of 2-3 drops gives good balance. Add in a sick lategame, with some really really strong 5+ drops, and I initially predicted the 7 win barrier. I'm missing key cards like Holy Nova, and most importantly Northshire Cleric but when you don't get them then what do you do? Exactly. What happens when you get RNGesus'd to death? Exactly. This is a perfect example of sucking it up and playing it out. Despite having those 2 tough losses, I still made it to 7 wins. Play hard, and don't get discouraged. 1x Avenge 1x Humility 2x Noble Sacrifice 1x Redemption 1x Zombie Chow 1x Argent Protector 1x Dire Wolf Alpha 1x River Crocolisk 1x Unstable Ghoul 1x Wild Pyromancer 1x Demolisher 2x Truesilver Champion 3x Blessing of Kings 1x Consecration 1x Hammer of Wrath 1x Yeti 1x Dark Iron Dwarf 2x Dread Corsair 1x Fen Creeper 1x Gadgetzan Auctioneer 3x Argent Commander 1x Boulderfist Ogre 1x War Golem If that is my list, what do you think the score is? How well should I have done? Here is the approximate mana curve breakdown: 0 - 1 | 6 | 20% 2 | 5 | 16% 3 | 1 | 3% 4 | 11 | 37% 5 | 2 | 7% 6+ | 5 | 17% 16 + 12 + 12 = 40 I have 12 spells = 10 Minion breakdown = 5 + 4 + 3 + 5 + 5 = 22 Class breakdown = 8 So what, that's 80 points? Should do above average right? Would you believe me if I told you that this deck went 11 wins? You might be surprised (I was) but let's take a look here at something that is impossible to score to any general rubrick, Combos. A combo (not to be confused with the Rogue ability) is any two cards that have better synergy with one another than others. Basically, if two cards can work together to accomplish more together than individually, there is a combo there. The easiest example is Echoing Ooze + any buff, as your buff gets "doubled" as the Ooze duplicates itself. So what about this deck? Here are some of them: Gadgetzan + Cheap spells I have 5 cheap spells. Normally that's bad; but when you have the Goblin then you can easily draw cards and dig deep. Normally you might think "why not just have better spells" but the beauty of these Paladin spells is that their effect gained is by timely usage. Makes the Gadgetzan very powerful here. Wild Pyromancer + Cheap spells See above Demolisher + Get Down Demolisher gains advantage and value by living longer each round. Thus, having Get Down is a natural fit as it makes it very hard to remove him without using removal. You can combine Demolisher with Taunts as well, but the beauty of Get Down is the 1 mana, 2 power protection he provides. Dread Corsair + Truesilver Champion A 3/3 taunt is unimpressive. But a turn 4, Truesilver + 3/3 taunt is a force to be reckoned with. 3 Argent Commanders Because, having enough "REALLY GOOD CARDS" can win you games that you shouldn't. See "having 6+ fireballs" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 13. Advanced Arena Strategies [DDDD] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ So this section could easily be its own guide, though I really don't know how long it will be. Not to mention, that this guide has already been receiving massive hits since it was posted so I say screw it! Let's add more to Arena. I've already linked Trumps guide at liquidhearth and it is fantastic. But I have one issue: there's very little strategy detailed out in the guide. Well frankly it's not a guide it's a list with explanations. There's some good that I whole heartedly agree with but there's also some that I have issue with. As such, the general scope of what I'm thinking is: neutral cards, class cards, class specifics (like what to aim for), and then any final notes I feel like adding in there. So here's the general idea. Trump uses six ratings, Best, Excellent, Good, Average, Poor, and Terrible; and these are based on if these are the first card you are taking. Frankly, that's dumb as your first pack will always be at least a rare, so already your commons are swayed because of your pick. That's not to say that using that guideline isn't bad; but should you always take Flame Imp because it's best? Probably not. Should you always take the excellent Scarlet Crusader? Probably not. So the ranking gives a good general baseline but after your first 10 picks, it's kinda worthless. After 20 it becomes even more worthless. Instead, you should approach cards with a more analytical approach. Cards in Hearthstone can be broken down into roughly five sections for Arena: Offensive, Defensive, Good, Situational, and Avoid. Strangely enough, Offensive is typically a Defensive measure; but it is how the card accomplishes that. For example, Dark Iron Dwarf is a perfect Offensive Minion because he's a 4/4 body, but he has that battlecry for +2 attack. Now, unless you are winning the game because of that +2 attack, you should always save it to trade a lesser Minion into a larger one. For instance you can send your 3/2 into Das'Dingo with Dark Iron Dwarf trading successfully which gives serious card advantage. On the other hand, a Defensive card is something that is more geared towards building card advantage but slowly. For example, Cult Master is a great Defensive Minion as you are expecting to trade at least 2 smaller Minions the moment you play him to draw some cards. So you lose some board position (replacing with a kinda ineffective 4/2) but you draw cards. On the other hand, you could also play Cult Master who will promptly draw the aggro and focus of your opponent immediately. You might say he's a false Taunt. There may also be a card like Das'Dingo. Now, he arguably is a Good card, but unlike Yeti, he fits more into Defensive because when you drop Das'Dingo he provides a good Defensive status for you on the board. Good cards, can be described as the Yeti section. If they are cost effective Minions that fulfill the 3, 5, 6+, 9, 10+, and 12+ stat ratio, they fit into "Good" cards because you can count on them to always be effective and trade well for you. Considering the question posed earlier, you could always take Chillwind Yeti, he's that brutal. Situational cards, are fairly simple. They are disguised as Good cards but have a flaw, sometimes fairly obvious othertimes fairly hidden. For example, Shattered Sun Cleric is fantastic, providing 7 stats for 3 mana. However, a deck of all SSC would be pretty terrible. Not to mention, despite SSC being a 3 mana Minion, he's not really something you play on turn 3 unless you have in play a Minion already needing to trade. (Something similar to Dark Iron Dwarf if you must). Now the difference between SSC and others, is because you can take SSC multiple times, but you probably don't want more than 3. A card like Scarlet Crusader on the other hand, is not nearly as good as it seems because if you face Mage, Rogue, Druid, and to some extent, Paladin and Shaman, your 3/1 trades but a single time. True it may trade for a 3/2 and then another 2 mana (from the Hero Power) but ultimately that's a 3 mana investment for a 4 mana investment. Really not so hot anymore. In particular, Mages have a field day shooting down the Crusader before it can even breathe. Another card-type is those vulnerable to something specific. One thing that comes to mind is Silence, however, that really isn't the concern. What comes to mind for me as a great example is Gurubashi Berserker. While Trump ranks him overall a "Poor" Minion, if you look objectively at him he doesn't seem that bad. He's a 9 stat Minion for 5 mana, which isn't that bad considering we look for a 10+ stat barrier. Now, his weakness obviously is the 2 Power. He does grow though, meaning he should tend to trade 2-1 most often. However, there's something to consider, Stampeding Kodo. This guy, kills a random 2 or less Power enemy Minion. Essentially, he eats Gurubashi (among others) for breakfast. Granted he is a rare, but when you are trying to make the best deck, you have to be prepared. For example, another card is Mind Control Tech. This guy doesn't seem all that powerful or dangerous, but stop and think of the utility provided by this 3 mana Minion. Even if you just have to cast him, he's 6 stats for 3 mana, not the worst Minion. But, even in the event where you steal a 1/1, you still are coming out ahead as you now have 8 stats for 3 mana (a bargain) but you've also removed 1 of your opponents Minions. Really a 10 stat tradeoff. The power only grows with the strength of the Minion stolen. If for example, your opponent has a 1/1, a 1/1, a 3/2, and a 4/5 Yeti, how can you rank these steals effectively? Is it a 50% chance to win? Depends on on what is winning. If we are aiming to at least steal a 3/2 as winning, that's a good basis. (Really though, anything stolen is a win). So, is it a 50% loss, 50% win? Could be; though is stealing a 4/5 is definitely better than a 1/1, and the 3/2 is definitely better than a 1/1. What we haven't looked at is the value of what goes missing on your opponents side. The best way to think about it is the EV, expected value. For those who don't understand math, EV is just the average, the mean. For this case, with 4 Minions and a combined 18 stats out there, the EV becomes 18/4 or 4.5 stats. Thus, that is how we come to skewed percentages. Even though it would appear that you have 25% for 1/1, 25% for 1/1, 25% for 3/2, and 25% for 4/5, when you factor in the EV and then the loss of his stats and your gain, that's where those numbers come from. In other words, don't worry about it. MC is a good card. The last section obviously is the avoiding cards. Try not to grab these. Typically, you'll find cards like Goldshire Footman there, because he's a bad 1/2 Taunt that won't accomplish anything. Similarly Mogu'shan Warden is bad. Sure he has a bunch of health, but that small 1 power is just... bad. Alright, so to quickly preface, one of the big things to note is where you are at in the draft. As your Arena draft builds before your eyes, you can see where you are lacking and where your strengths are. Generally, you want to check this at two points: 10 cards, and 20 cards. This means your draft is done in 3 parts. The first part is the first 10 cards; you want to grab the best card everytime. This means Good cards are your top priority. Also the top priority are top Offensive and Defensive cards. Things like Dark Iron Dwarf, Yeti, Cairne, Azure Drake... these you always take the first 10 cards. After 10 cards, we want to stop and look at what we have. This makes the next 10 cards our directional draft. We've taken cards, now we have an idea of what direction we are heading. Does our deck look more aggro or more control? Do we have lots of spells or lots of cheap cards? This means our next 10 cards we want to try and direct our cards to match similarly into this direction. This might mean taking a lesser Abusive Sergeant over the slower Oasis Snapjaw because we have a fairly aggressive deck and the turtle doesn't compliment it at all. At 20 cards, we are in the final stage, the rounding draft. As we have nearly 2/3 of our deck, we need to take cards to round our deck out. This is when Mana Curve becomes vitally important. Do we have just a couple 5+ drops? We might need an ineffective Core Hound simply because he's large; passing on the much better Das'Dingo. Do we not have nearly enough cheap cards? Might need that crappy River Crocolisk, or Silverback Patriarch over the better Boulderfist Ogre because we need cheap Minions. With that in mind... Let's get into this. LEGENDARY CARDS GOOD CARDS Cairne Bloodhoof Deathwing Feugen Millhouse Manastorm OFFENSIVE CARDS Ragnaros the Firelord Onyxia Kel'Thuzad The Black Knight Baron Geddon Loatheb Gruul The Beast Leeroy Jenkins DEFENSIVE CARDS Ysera Sylvanas Windrunner Illidan Stormrage Hogger Maexxna SITUATIONAL CARDS Baron Rivendare Harrison Jones Alexstrasza Captain Greenskin Malygos AVOID CARDS Stalagg Tinkmaster Overspark Bloodmage Thalnos King Mukla Nozdormu Nat Pagle Lorewalker Cho EPIC CARDS GOOD CARDS Sea Giant OFFENSIVE CARDS Faceless Manipulator Doomsayer Echoing Ooze DEFENSIVE CARDS Molten Giant Mountain Giant Shade of Naxxramas SITUATIONAL CARDS Blood Knight Big Game Hunter Southsea Captain Murloc Warleader Hungry Crab RARE CARDS GOOD CARDS Azure Drake Knife Juggler Wild Pyromancer Injured Blademaster OFFENSIVE CARDS Argent Commander Stampeding Kodo Mind Control Tech Defender of Argus Ravenholdt Assassin Arcane Golem DEFENSIVE CARDS Twilight Drake Sludge Belcher Sunwalker Imp Master Emperor Cobra Deathlord Sunfury Protector Demolisher Pint-Sized Summoner Master Swordsmith Young Priestess SITUATIONAL CARDS Nerubian Egg Violet Teacher Abomination Gadgetzan Auctioneer Questing Adventurer Crazed Alchemist Bloodsail Corsair Ancient Mage Secretkeeper Lightwarden Ancient Watcher Angry Chicken AVOID CARDS Wailing Soul Mana Wraith Mana Addict Coldlight Oracle Coldlight Seer Alarm-o-Bot Murloc Tidecaller NEUTRAL CARDS GOOD CARDS Chillwind Yeti Zombie Chow Harvest Golem Shattered Sun Cleric Acidic Swamp Ooze Venture Co. Mercenary Faerie Dragon Youthful Brewmaster Bloodfen Raptor Ancient Brewmaster Spectral Knight Spiteful Smith Bloodsail Raider (if weapon user class) OFFENSIVE CARDS Dark Iron Dwarf Boulderfist Ogre Earthen Ring Farseer Stormwind Champion Stormwind Knight Dire Wolf Alpha Stormpike Commando Darkscale Healer Bluegill Warrior Wolfrider Elven Archer Abusive Sergeant Ironforge Rifleman Reckless Rocketeer Southsea Deckhand (if weapon user class) DEFENSIVE CARDS Silver Hand Knight Gnomish Inventor Sen'jin Shieldmasta Cult Master Worgen Infiltrator Loot Hoarder Spellbreaker Frostwolf Warlord Stranglethorn Tiger Fen Creeper Frost Elemental Haunted Creeper Unstable Ghoul Oasis Snapjaw War Golem Amani Berserker Acolyte of Pain River Crocolisk Priestess of Elune Ironbeak Owl Leper Gnome Windfury Harpy Voodoo Doctor Murloc Raider SITUATIONAL CARDS Scarlet Crusader Mad Bomber Raging Worgen Flesheating Ghoul Razorfen Hunter Gurubashi Berserker Archmage Undertaker Mad Scientist Dragonling Mechanic Ogre Magi Kobold Geomancer Murloc Tidehunter Raid Leader Dread Corsair (if weapon user class) Dalaran Mage Shieldbearer AVOID CARDS Dancing Swords Jungle Panther Silvermoon Guardian Ironfur Grizzly Lord of the Arena Novice Engineer Booty Bay Bodyguard Argent Squire Core Hound Thrallmar Farseer Nightblade Frostwolf Grunt Mogu'shan Warden Tauren Warrior Magma Rager Silverback Patriarch Nerub'ar Weblord Stoneskin Gargoyle Goldshire Footman Stonetusk Boar Young Dragonhawk Wisp Grimscale Oracle Analysis and Explanations LEGENDARY CARDS GOOD CARDS Cairne Bloodhoof Topping the Good cards list overall is Mr. Bloodhoof who is an outstanding 18 stat Minion for 6 mana. There just isn't anything more you want from a Minion. He may not be flashy like Ragnaros, or shut down your opponent like Sylvanas, but he is brutal all the same Deathwing Trump isn't a fan of Deathwing and I'll admit he's tricky but when you are looking for a catch-all solution you won't find a better Minion than Deathwing. He's big; actually he's the biggest and largest out there. Oh you discard your hand; fine you might lose 1 or 2 cards. But you clear your opponents board and you get a large 12/12 that will win the game in 1, maybe 2 attacks. If playing against Mage, Shaman, or Priest, you do need to exercise caution with Hex, Polymorph, and Mind Control, but in the end when you need to exercise your right to make a statement Deathwing will do that for you Feugen His deathrattle is sad as you will never seen Thaddius, ever, but that aside, Feugen is this large 4/7 for 5 mana which is disgustingly efficient making him a very nice Minion to have on your side of the board Millhouse Manastorm Having a 4/4 is nice. Having it on turn 2 is even nicer. That being said, Millhouse does have a downside; free spells are never a good thing. Now, that being said, we're talking about Arena, an environment that is well over 70% Minions, meaning that when you drop him on turn 2 your opponent may have 1 spell in their hand. And I'd guarantee you, that often it's a spell they may not want to waste on Millhouse. Flamestrike? Alright... Fireball? Well we would like Millhouse to stick around but Yeti is better to keep around longer. Now this does mean that if you don't get Millhouse to drop turns 1-3, he becomes much weaker. So much, that you probably want to hang onto him until your opponent is down to 2 cards in hand. So he's high risk, but high reward, as a 4/4 that early can do some serious damage to your opponent ------------------- OFFENSIVE CARDS Ragnaros the Firelord When you are looking for immediate impact, Ragnaros can't do much more for you. He's fantastically huge, and does it all without taking damage. The trick with Ragnaros is then focusing on clearing your opponents board so that Ragnaros doesn't waste his huge 8 damage wallops Onyxia What's better than an 8/8? One that comes with an army of 1/1s! Onyxia is fairly expensive but the moment she hits the board she turns a grim situation into a 14 point swing next turn less any whelps that get struck down. She's extremely strong and a very good pick Kel'Thuzad KT is like the Cult Master of dreams. What's better than drawing cards? Just getting new Minions! Yes the power of KT is largely determined by your board status when you play him but KT will easily give huge and winning card advantage if he's not dealt with by your opponent next turn The Black Knight Normally he'd be a situational card, but with so many taunts in the game of Hearthstone, the Black Knight is a much better pick than that as he almost always has a target to hit. And even if you don't, he's still a nice large body so it's not a total loss Baron Geddon In terms of turning the game around, Baron Geddon does that in a huge fashion. Now, he's quite a bit weaker in Shaman and Paladin decks, but really not THAT much weaker because having a 7/5 that explodes the board every turn is fairly nice to have, especially for giving card advantage Loatheb A seemingly defensive card, Loatheb is actually very offensive as he gives you the control over your opponents turn. When you play Loatheb he's likely to be the largest Minion out there; and when you combine that with with the spell-immunity next turn you get a nice advantage Gruul These last 3 aren't nearly as flashy, but that's because of a downside you must consider. While Gruul is huge, and he gets bigger, there's something he lacks. Immediate impact. No deathrattle, no charge, and no huge implosion makes him something like War Golem. Your opponent must deal with him, but unlike other Legendaries he might not do anything for you besides eat a Polymorph The Beast Unlike Millhouse, the Beast suffers from oh crap I gave my opponent a 3/3. He's big, yes. However, unlike Millhouse, the Beast is a constant threat to give your opponent a 3/3 making him big but a weaker big Leeroy Jenkins With the nerf, he's an almost weaker version of Reckless Rocketeer. That being said, he's still not useless, he's just not the greatest ------------------- DEFENSIVE CARDS Ysera Ysera may not splash like Ragnaros, but Ysera will win you the game if your opponent cannot deal with her quickly. At 12 health, she's tough to bring down. Her low power of 4 is annoying, but actually makes her Priest-proof (well, everything-proof). You cannot go wrong with Ysera Sylvanas Windrunner The beauty of Sylvanas is you force your opponent to play very carefully. You get a 5/5 for 6, a fine deal, but the fact you get your opponent to trade everything away to negate her deathrattle means you get significant card advantage. In the event you steal something that just makes it that nice Illidan Stormrage Illidan is an interesting card. Unlike other offensive legendaries, he needs you to play other cards to maximize his effect. Thus, you might lose card advantage to gain it later so that you get use out of him Hogger Hogger is great. A nice large body that generates 2/2s is great. However, his use is largely Defensive in that you need to play him when you have board advantage, less he gets eliminated immediately Maexxna Maexxna is not great. That being said, she's preferred to some legendaries simply because her death ability forces your opponent to be worried and deal with her less Maexxna trades with an Ogre. So it's not really a huge victory, but I guess a victory nonetheless ------------------- SITUATIONAL CARDS Baron Rivendare If you have 5+ deathrattles, then take him. Otherwise I'd pass Harrison Jones If you get Harrison with any avoid cards, you can take him. Otherwise I'd probably pass, especially as you might only get to draw a single card maybe a few times. That being said a 5/4 for 5 is not so exciting Alexstrasza With Alex being such a bomb so often, she's surprisingly shitty in Arena. Often, playing Alex to heal yourself to 15 doesn't help as you probably have no board presence and your opponent probably can deal 10 damage anyway so whoop-de-doo. If the event of dealing the damage to your opponent, it probably won't be much besides giving you a 8/8. So where does Alex fit? Situationally in a few decks: Warrior, Mage, Priest, and to some extent Druid. The reason being that Warrior can Armor himself, with the heal complimenting it. Mage can easily clear the board the turn before setting up for Alex. Priest quite similar, leaving Druid who can use Innervate and to some extent, the armor as well. The other classes really don't get much use from Alex in Arena Captain Greenskin If playing a weapon class that has weapons, he's not bad. Otherwise he's quite meaningless. And even so, his active only really works out if you hit something like Arcanite Reaper, Doomhammer, Assassin's Blade, or Gorehowl, because buffing a 1/2 into a 2/3 is mediocre Malygos The ultimate situaional spellpower beast, Malygos at least gets the advantage of being a gigantic Dragon ------------------- AVOID CARDS Stalagg If you have to take one of these, Stalagg is the best. He too is a huge 11 stat Minion for 5. However, unlike Feugen, his 4 health makes him beyond vulnerable to die to silly cheap Minions making you sad Bloodmage Thalnos In constructed Thalnos is awesome. In Arena he's a weaker Loot Hoarder. I'd probably pass King Mukla Mukla is the weaker Millhouse. He cost more, only for 2 more stats, but let's compare downsides. Bananas are never going away, meaning your opponent always gets to use them whenever. Millhouse has a one turn downside that may not even matter. As such, Mukla is pretty bad here and despite his threatening size, he can easily give the game away Nozdormu We simply need more out of our expensive Dragons Tinkmaster Overspark I'd only take TinkASSter if your other choices were Nat or Cho Nat Pagle Dude sucks in Arena Lorewalker Cho Dude sucks. I guess arguably he could be Defensive as you force your opponent to play around him. The problem is he doesn't do anything besides that; including kill the Minions who are trying to kill you EPIC CARDS GOOD CARDS Sea Giant This guy is the epitome of brutal effectiveness. Rarely will he cost more than 6 mana, thus giving you a huge 8/8 body for cheap. Sea Giant is fantastic, there isn't much else to say ------------------- OFFENSIVE CARDS Faceless Manipulator He's always the best Minion out there; or at least tied with the best. The Great thing about Faceless though, is copying the best creature, and then eliminating it from your opponent. For example, Faceless+Polymorph. Take that Tirion! On the other hand, you can also Faceless things like Charging Minions to deal lethal, as well as duplicating Taunts for extra protection Doomsayer Doomsayer isn't great, but he can be. Why's that? Because when you drop him you control what goes down on the board next turn. Now he might get silenced or killed or whatevered, but in that case; your 2 mana Doomsayer ate a Polymorph for your Ogre. He's tricky to use but he can be nice to have Echoing Ooze At worst he's a 6 stat for 2 mana Minion. Granted, that's two 1/2s which kinda sucks. But any kind of bonus makes him extremely nice to have, granting a nice turnaround ------------------- DEFENSIVE CARDS Molten Giant None of the Epic Defensive cards are great, but they all do have some purpose. The easiest to use, is Molten Giant, as getting an 8/8 for 5 mana (ideal) is nice and in safe-zone for not dying. Dropping a Molten for free is key for Handlock, but we have no guarantee to Taunt him. Note that Molten into Alex could be the dumbest and most obnoxious combo ever if you get it Mountain Giant Unlike Twilight Drake who isn't a complete waste lategame, Mountain Giant is only good to have early as drawing it late makes it a complete bust. If you play Mountain Giant for 4, 5, or 6 mana he's strong. Otherwise he's losing out to other Minions. Shade of Naxxramas You've already read my description of Shade; here he fits into Defensive as that's all he gets. You might trade him as a 3/3 into a 3/2 right away, or let him sit around forever. Point being, he's less effective than other Stealth Minions as he takes too long to become effective ------------------- SITUATIONAL CARDS Blood Knight Three drops are fairly tricky. With the few exceptions of Minions like Injured Blademaster, you expect a nice battlecry out of your 3 drops. In cases like Blood Knight, he's not a bad pick persay, but if you have something to guarantee landing a 6/6 for 3 mana (maybe an Argent Squire or something else if you are Paladin) then he becomes gold Big Game Hunter He's situational, so how do you pick him? Basically if he's your choice among these last 3 Epics. Just kidding. While that part is true, a reason to take BGH is if you are in the last 20 cards and don't have any solid removal yet Southsea Captain He's like Blood Knight but not as cool. If you have some Pirates he becomes a fairly viable pick, but even so you are going to end up with a 3/3 for 3 which is fine, but not great Murloc Warleader This guy is fairly bad, especially as ALL Murlocs get boosted meaning you can help out your opponents Hungry Crab It probably won't work RARE CARDS GOOD CARDS Azure Drake Draw a card is always nice. A 4/4 is always nice. Combine those two together for 5 mana and we have a great choice you can almost always take. He may not be Yeti, but digging into more cards with a large body to boot is pretty nice Knife Juggler Easily the best 2 mana Minion out there, Knife Juggler commands respect and can easily draw laughable results from your opponent as they try to take him out quickly. The beauty is that you have to do nothing special except play Minions. Every Minion that played is just that much use out of Knife Juggler Wild Pyromancer He's a 3/2 for 2, so that's good. His ability is likewise fantastic as you control when you want it. Need a 5 damage Flamestrike? Need a 3 damage Consecrate? Need 4 damage out of that Lightning Bolt? Wild Pyro is spellpower but with the nice ability of being a 3/2 body but also enraging your Minions and drawing cards off of Acolyte of Pain Injured Blademaster He's 11 stats for 3 mana, incredible! Well if he gets thrown out there from Deathlord that is. Even as a 4/3, he's still awesome. Combined with a Priest he becomes an essential pick ------------------- OFFENSIVE CARDS Argent Commander Looking for splash? Argent Commander has immediate splash and always lives to tell the tale making him a great choice always Stampeding Kodo While his ability might not always go off; the plethora of Minions that will die is very high and thusly Stampeding Kodo is a high priority pick Mind Control Tech We've talked about him already. Of the 3/3 for 3, he's easily the best Defender of Argus You might ask if I have a thing for Defender of Argus. You would not be wrong. The only downside is it can be hard sometimes to get full use of his battlecry Ravenholdt Assassin These last two are less than great, but nonetheless, unlike other Stealth Minions, Ravenholdt is not meant so much for trading but for winning. He can trade, but when you have a 7/5 ideally you can whack and win Arcane Golem You'd almost always prefer 3/1 Wolfrider. Really Arcane Golem is quite weak giving up that mana crystal ------------------- DEFENSIVE CARDS Twilight Drake Twilight Drake tops the defensive status as you want to hang onto cards to get full use out of him. This means that you might lose some advantage early, but that is compensated by getting a 4/7+ on turn 4 which is simply awesome Sludge Belcher Is he better than Sunwalker? It's close. He's cheaper, and 1/1 less as such. And both have two lives. The reason Sludge gets the nod is because how easily Sunwalker can lose Divine Shield for any number of reasons, whereas Sludge Belcher has to be silenced less he shuts down your opponent over two turns Sunwalker That doesn't make Sunwalker weak; because he's not. It's just Sludge Belcher is better Imp Master Imp Master is interesting, because a 1/4 and a 1/1 on turn 3 isn't going to win any battles. But Imp Master can pretty quickly get fairly gross as she pumps out 1/1 Imps turn after turn giving you a scary board Emperor Cobra When you think of annoying, that is where the Cobra fits. While he may not 2-1, his ability to dictate how your opponent plays makes him a very strong and fairly high pick Deathlord I've mentioned him already, and there isn't much to add. At early levels he simply is a threatening foe to deal with. He's a rather high pick Sunfury Protector Sunfury is interesting as getting use of Taunt is not nearly as neat as it would seem. It's hard to guarantee taunting anything because it's Arena, and unlike Defender the lack of 1/1 stats makes it less impactful. That being said, Sunfury mostly becomes a 2/3 for 2 which is less exciting Demolisher The Demolisher is like the Cobra just not as flashy or exciting. That being said, every turn he lives you get more use out of him Pint-Sized Summoner These last 3 choices are all fairly weak, for many reasons. Starting with the little Summoner who tried, her impact is only at the beginning of your next turn which is a lot to ask for out of a 2/2 Master Swordsmith He's a lot better than the Young Priestess, but that being said, he himself isn't that exciting as a 1/3. Giving attack is cool as well but it's hard to get him out early with another Minion as well Young Priestess If she were a 1/2 she'd be better. That being said she dies 33% of the time immediately and the other times her impact is too low to accomplish much of anything ------------------- SITUATIONAL CARDS Nerubian Egg Getting a 4/4 for 2 is great. But you have to be able to kill it off, or boost it somehow to get use. Making it extremely situational Violet Teacher Having a 3/5 for 4 is mediocre. If you have spells to use then Violet Teacher becomes a nice pick Abomination Abomination is situational because he want to take him if you haven't many Taunts. If not he can be a bit of a grenade Gadgetzan Auctioneer He's similar to Violet Teacher, better in fact, it's just he's a bit harder to take advantage of with his higher cost and lower health making him easier to get rid of Questing Adventurer Take Questing Adventurer if you can pair him with an Enchantment or are playing a control deck. Otherwise pass Crazed Alchemist Crazed Alchemist is good if you have a couple skewed Minions, meaning high/low or low/high. He can provide utility Bloodsail Corsair Take him if you don't have an Acidic Swamp Ooze by 20 cards Ancient Mage Take him if you have at least 5 spells requiring spell power Secretkeeper Take her if you have at least 4 secrets. Even so not the greatest Lightwarden Take her if you are Priest or Shaman. Pass otherwise Ancient Watcher Take him if you have at least 4 ways to Silence and/or Taunt Angry Chicken Not a bad choice if you have at least 5 ways to boost health ------------------- AVOID CARDS Wailing Soul If you have to take one of these, having a 3/5 for 4 is the best bet Mana Wraith Besides being a crappy 2/2 for 2, his ability doesn't help unless you coin him out on turn 1 Mana Addict Sucks. End of story Coldlight Oracle If you have no means to draw cards... still not a good choice Coldlight Seer Only take him if your other choices are the last two Alarm-o-Bot Nope Murloc Tidecaller It's not going to work NEUTRAL CARDS GOOD CARDS Chillwind Yeti As we continually compare and reference to Yeti, there's a reason he is where he is. He's a 4/5 for 4, a perfect vanilla hero, and with his health skewed favorably (something that is different when we talk about 2 drops) Chillwind Yeti is fantastic and if you could draft 10 of them you should Zombie Chow Just missing the top pick, Zombie Chow is a fantastic card. I've already given his praise earlier, but concerning where he fits with the other cards, he's just that good. He's a 2/3 for 1 mana that simply commands the board the moment he hits the board. There just isn't anything else you want to play on turn 1 than Zombie Chow Harvest Golem Harvest Golem is an example of a Minion that if he gets silenced you become quite sad, but as it is, he's a good 2/3 the first time around, followed up with the 2/1 the second time around. Even if his second body gets killed for 2 mana, he will still almost always 2-1 and if not, he at least builds mana advantage Shattered Sun Cleric I knocked this Cleric earlier, but all that being said, the only knocking really comes when you have too many of them. An effective 7 stat Minion, the real strength is raising your Minion to that necessary kill amount, while surviving the exchange Acidic Swamp Ooze All of the 3/2 Minions are Good cards. The Ooze is the best of the bunch due to its ability being the best of all of them. Dropping Ooze as a 3/2 on turn 2 is a fine play. Dropping it to destroy ANY weapon of your opponents if a GREAT play Venture Co. Mercenary Venture Co. is an interesting card because the downside is rather huge. That being said, a gigantic 7/6 for just 5 mana is simply too strong and if your opponent can't deal with it right away you will win the game pretty quickly Faerie Dragon It's debateable if Faerie Dragon is better than Brewmaster, but regardless they are both great Minions. I think the Dragon gets the slight edge simply because it almost has to be traded off by a Minion because of its spell-ability-evasion. True it can't be healed or anything like that but that's not a huge loss as it also cannot be Shadow Worded, Frostbolted, or any 2 damage nuke from the classes Youthful Brewmaster Moving along, often the Brewmaster will be a 3/2 for 2 which is fine. But when you can get use of him by bouncing any huge battlecry, Defender of Argus, Temple Enforcer, or even Silver Hand Knight, he goes way up. He's also great for dealing with negative enchantments like Silence or Humility not to mention healing your Minions by allowing you to replay them Bloodfen Raptor Thus, we end the 3/2 list with the most basic of them, the Raptor. There isn't much to be said, dropping a 3/2 on turn 2 is one of the most important plays you can manage Ancient Brewmaster These are still good cards (these last 3) but they aren't nearly as strong as the previous bunch. Regarding the bigger panda, his stats are skewed the wrong way. See, with a 3/2, they can effectively threaten the board not to mention, threaten 3 drops of your opponent. Once you get into the 4+ range, you'd prefer have more health. As this guy can trade with Yeti and Das'Dingo, that's really good. His battlecry too can be quite good as well Spectral Knight This guy is quite similar to Spiteful Smith, but who is better? The Smith might get the nod if you have weapons, but even so, having a huge 4/6 body that cannot be hex'd, polymorph'd, fireball'd, or anything, is a very good thing to have. Toss down Defender of Argus next to him and be excited Spiteful Smith This guy is a great neutral, 10 stats for 5 mana. While we may want something more exciting out of him, it's alright. If we look at most 5 drops, they tend to have 4 health. For instance, Abomination, Azure Drake, Captain Greenskin, Gadgetzan Auctioneer, Silver Hand Knight, and Harrison Jones, all have 4 health (and not 6 power) meaning that he trades out 5 drops quite well. All in all, he's good and he gets better if you have a weapon Bloodsail Raider (if weapon user class) If you don't have a weapon, he goes to Defensive Cards. As most classes get weapons, he tends to be a better card then. Even simple Rogue daggers turn him into a 3/3 for 2 mana, so keep that in mind ------------------- OFFENSIVE CARDS Dark Iron Dwarf This guy is fantastic. As noted, the reason he is so good is that he makes your 2 drop trade into a 4 drop, while giving a 4/4 body. There isn't much else to be said about Dark Iron Dwarf Boulderfist Ogre This guy isn't quite a Good card, due to his higher cost, but unlike his other expensive counterparts, he fits into the Offensive category as he will win the game for you. At almost any time, when you play Ogre he will be the largest Minion out there and he commands respect. Unlike War Golem, his 6 cost means that late game he can be combo'd with other power 4 drops to give you an explosive 10 mana turn Earthen Ring Farseer You would think that health would be defensive, but it's actually quite offensive in that you give yourself immediate card advantage. Even if you don't immediately trade a Minion out and then heal; just getting the free damage across builds immediate advantage. You can always heal yourself as well but that loses some of the offensive capabilities Stormwind Champion Having a SSC for your entire team is fantastic. However, his expensive 7 cost prohibits him from being a Good card. His impact is immediate and like other large Minions, if he isn't dealt with the game gets away rather quickly Stormwind Knight So we're into the lower half of offensive cards. While all of these cards do fit the Offensive molds, they are weaker picks. Anyway, regarding Stormwind Knight, he sacrifices 2 stats for Charge. However, unlike his other Charge buddies, he ranks much higher as he can effectively trade with 2 Minions because of his 5 health. While 2 power may not take down the most threatening Minions, he can build you card advantage quickly Dire Wolf Alpha This is the watered down Stormwind Champion. His small 2/2 body is weak but the ability to raise your Minions attack up can be huge and game changing, thus being a good offensive fit Stormpike Commando This guy is only as high as he is because of his 4 power. The 2 health is frightening, and the 2 damage battlecry isn't the best, but it does find it's uses Darkscale Healer Similar to Earthen Ring Farseer, this guy (er Naga) can restore your Minions up giving card advantage. The downside is that 2 Health isn't nearly as good as 3 Health, not to mention a 4/5 for 5 is less exciting Bluegill Warrior Both Bluegill and Wolfrider serve similar purposes. The difference is that Bluegill is the perfect counter to 3/2s. The weakness comes in that Bluegill Warrior will only 1-1, so it's not the best card Wolfrider Wolfrider is quite weak. Frankly the rest of these cards are quite weak but regardless, Wolfrider is a 3 mana lightning bolt that can deal with anything smaller than 3 drops for the most part Elven Archer This awkward 1 drop isn't a 1 drop, because we aren't playing it on turn 1. That being said, it is better than Ironforge Rifleman because the 1 mana 1 extra damage is much more flexible to work with. That being said, it will likely die to ambient breathing and will only really serve to assist in a 1-2 trade on your losing end Abusive Sergeant While +2 attack earned Dark Iron Dwarf the top spot for Offensive cards, the small 2/1 body of the Abusive Sergeant is not nearly as exciting as it will just not be effective at any stage in the game Ironforge Rifleman The 2/2 for 3 mana isn't great. The 1 damage battlecry is less exciting. All in all, this guy isn't great Reckless Rocketeer A 6 mana not even Fireball's worth of damage makes this one of the crappier Minions in the game. That being said, you can pick this up if are looking for something offensive Southsea Deckhand (if weapon user class) Normally, 2/1's are defensive in that playing a 2/1 on turn 1 against any non 1 damage dealing Class (so 66% of the time it works) means you can threaten your opponent to be weary of their 3/2's losing out. The reason this guy gets a boost is that many classes have weapons, and as such you can tack on the 2 damage for just a single mana which offers flexibility ------------------- DEFENSIVE CARDS Silver Hand Knight Silver Hand Knight is a fantastic Defensive card. You may ask why not a good card or offensive; here's why. You get 2 Minions, a 4/4 and 2/2 that your opponent now must address. He won't overwhelm like a Boulderfist Ogre nor smash like a Venture Co, but he does force a decision as your 5 drop can easily now trade out 2 Minions Gnomish Inventor His card advantage is immediate, drawing a card. The question is does the 2/4 body make up for it? Most of the time it will, as it can tend to trade favorably with 3/2s. He's a fantastic card and is a great way to secure card advantage in the long run Sen'jin Shieldmasta We've already talked about Das'Dingo so there isn't much else to add. I guess I'll explain why he's third and not first is because he only has 3 attack instead of 4. That's about it Cult Master As explained, Cult Master is the epitome of Defensive. You can trade smaller Minions in for cards; but you can also play Cult Master as a false Taunt meaning that your opponent will attack and deal with it first before dealing with your other Minions as they don't want to give you more cards Worgen Infiltrator So we have quite a few 2/1s, but this guy is a beast. Because he cannot be dealt with short of AoE. Dropping a Worgen on turn 1 is the strongest turn 1 play except for Zombie Chow Loot Hoarder Normally a Good card, Loot Hoarder gets knocked down as 33% of the time it dies for 2 mana, meaning the turns were a "skip-go" as your opponent neither lost a card and you traded a 2/1 in for something else. In the event you aren't dealing with the 33%, you can trade your 2/1 into a 3/2 and giving yourself a card, nice! Spellbreaker Silence is kinda crappy, but nonetheless it's defensive, be it unfreezing your own Minion or dealing with an enemy enchantment (but not removing the creature). Spellbreaker is nice thanks to the larger body attached to the ability. While the 4/3 can lose to a 3/2, it calls on you to play it wisely unless you desperately need the Silence Frostwolf Warlord This guy is another huge Minion; but fits Defensively due to the nature of how he gets big. You need at least 2 Minions out there, which means playing defensively. The biggest he can become is 10/10 and it won't happen often, but if you can get him over to 7/7+, the game changes Stranglethorn Tiger Another stealthy Minion, he's fairly expensive though which makes him less appealing. He does chow on Yetis and Das'Dingos which is what he serves to do Fen Creeper A more expensive Das'Dingo that isn't more great; he provides a nice Taunt to hide behind but the 3 power can cause some problems Frost Elemental Freezing is very underrated. That being said, the 5/5 for 6 is a bit sad when you see Boulderfist Ogre against you. On the other hand, freezing a Minion that you can't deal with yet is a defensive measure to buy yourself a turn to find an answer Haunted Creeper He's a fairly good pick, it's just that he doesn't quite do as much as you want out of a 2 drop. However, he does dictate your opponent play carefully as killing the Haunted Creeper when they aren't able to deal with the 1/1s right away gives you a stronger offense on your next turn Unstable Ghoul Similar to Haunted Creeper, he forces your opponents into an awkward spot as the 1/3 can take out a 3/2, but he also can protect your 3/2s for you. Combined with Gurubashi, Acolyte, or even Frothing Berserker you get a nasty drop Oasis Snapjaw We're into the weaker section now. Starting things off is the turtle. He eats 3/2 Minions all day but we don't really need to eat THAT many 3/2s especially when we look to a 4 drop Minion. Then we look Stampeding Kodo and feel even more frightened War Golem Unlike Boulderfist Ogre, the 7 cost is prohibitive. He is big and he can win, but typically you'll see War Golem drop down to draw some attention to himself, making him a more defensive rather than offensive card Amani Berserker Like other 2/3's, Amani Berserker is no exception. We prefer 3/2s as they threaten more quickly and can threaten 3 drops. The exception is that Amani can at least be used threateningly if you can enrage him; the downside then being he will 1-1 for you Acolyte of Pain There's not much to say about Acolyte of Pain. His sole purpose is to draw cards. Unlike constructed though, he will tend to give you just 1 card making him a weaker Loot Hoarder River Crocolisk Just like Amani, except even more boring Priestess of Elune A 5/4 body attached to a 6 drop we would expect something great. Healing 4 health to your Hero and nothing else really isn't that great Ironbeak Owl Similar to Abusive Sergeant, the Owl just isn't as great as Spellbreaker because of its small body Leper Gnome Three of these last 4 are all 2/1 for 1. Sometimes, 33% of the time, they will be eliminated for 2 mana making them not a good investment. But 66% of the time you can threaten the board. They don't have Stealth though like the Worgen making them weaker and rather undesirable picks Windfury Harpy The Harpy is similar to War Golem, just not as exciting as it's easier to deal with Voodoo Doctor Murloc Raider ------------------ SITUATIONAL CARDS Scarlet Crusader As stated, this chick 66% of the time is brutal. It's just that the 33% of the time makes her a situational card that is good, but not that good Mad Bomber I have mixed feelings about Mad Bomber. He's a 3/2 for 2, but his battle cry for me pisses me off more than not. So for me he's situational in that if you can pick him alongside cards that want damage (enrage, Acolyte) then he becomes good. Otherwise I'd pass most of the time Raging Worgen A 3/3 for 3 seems fine. In fact, it also seems defensive. The problem is that enraging this guy is quite hard as you almost need a 1 power Minion to attack (unless you are a Mage) otherwise your Worgen dies before you can take advantage of it Flesheating Ghoul Unlike Cult Master, +1 attack isn't as exciting as drawing a card thus securing the Ghoul into the Situational section, making him better when paired with Paladin or Shaman Razorfen Hunter All of these summoners, except Silver Hand Knight, are situaional as their summon is eliminated 33% of the time right away turning them into subpar Minions. Typically I'd tend to avoid them, but if you happen to have Minions like Raid Leader, Stormwind Champion, or Frostwolf Warlord, (hell even Sea Giant) they become situationally better Gurubashi Berserker He cost 1 more than the turtle but with an ability. He's a mixed bag. Most of the time he's not worth it. If you are Mage or Priest he's better Archmage Spellpower is a somewhat meaningless ability in Arena. As you have more spells that enjoy it; these Minions value goes up. With Archmage, he is a *larger* Minion for 6 which is more appealing than others, but still not the best Undertaker He's situational as a 1/2 for 1 is unexciting. But if you have 3 or more deathrattles then he becomes much more exciting and a better pick Mad Scientist He's meaningless in most decks, and even in the classes that have Secrets there's no guarantee that he'll do anything for you making him a situational to bad pick Dragonling Mechanic Weaker than Razorfen Hunter but better than Murloc Tidehunter Ogre Magi See Archmage. A 4/4 for 4 is not so great Kobold Geomancer Even weaker, is a 2/2 for 2 Murloc Tidehunter The weakest of the summoners, still useable if the situation permits Raid Leader This guy is situational with Shaman and Paladin. Otherwise he is clunky and not so hot Dread Corsair (if weapon user class) If you have weapons, this guy is not bad as he can be effectively a 3/3 Taunt for free. The downside is a 3/3 Taunt kinda sucks. If you don't have weapons he becomes nearly unplayable. Actually he does Dalaran Mage A 1/4 for 3 sucks Shieldbearer This guy buys you a turn or two maybe. He's better than Avoid cards, but pretty bad all in all ------------------- AVOID CARDS Dancing Swords At the top of the Avoid list is Dancing Swords. If forced to take one, he is arguably the best as the early 4/4 can buy you some time, it's just that he must 2-1 for you less you completely lose the game and give your opponent card advantage Jungle Panther Here's the problem. He's not a 1 drop that threatens the turn 2 plays. He's not a 5/5 that is scary. At best he is a 3 mana 1-1 trade. It's really a situation you don't want. Add in that his 2 health can be eliminated via any number of AoE spells makes this guy unappealing Silvermoon Guardian While gaining 3 health for 1 mana over the Scarlet Crusader would appear to be a good thing; the problem is that he's a 3/3 for 4 mana. Compared to other 3/3 Minions for 4 mana, and we see they aren't very good. Divine Shield can be nice, but only if it's on something that is worth having in the first place as this isn't it Ironfur Grizzly A 3/3 Taunt that costs 3 that loses to 3/2s for 2 sucks hard Lord of the Arena If he were a 5/6, he'd be a bad Defensive pick. If he were a 4/7 Taunt then he would be fairly good Defensively. As it is, the 6/5 sucks Novice Engineer Loot Hoarder can threaten, Acolyte has a chance to draw multiple cards, and Gnomish Inventor is a solid Minion. Novice Engineer serves absolutely no purpose other than to draw a card so why not just have something different to begin with so you don't have to waste 2 mana to get there Booty Bay Bodyguard We've already explained why this guy sucks. Nothing to add Argent Squire Unlike 2/1s, Argent Squire at best can 1-1 into a 3/2. Argent Squire is a beast in constructed but in Arena not so much Core Hound Normally the large body seems good. Core Hound suffers from a bit too low of Health, making him an Avoid card Thrallmar Farseer Unlike the Harpy, Thrallmar Farseer serves no purpose and should be avoided Nightblade A 4/4 for 5 that deals 3 damage to the enemy hero? Yeah avoid this Frostwolf Grunt Whew avoid this Mogu'shan Warden Nothing has changed from earlier Tauren Warrior He's like the Ironfur Grizzly, but worse! How is that possible Magma Rager A 5/1 charge would be playable, a 4/2 for 3 would be playable, no not really. There's a reason we use the expression "don't let Magma Ragers live" referencing any high damage low health Minion. Don't draft this thing Silverback Patriarch Yawn Nerub'ar Weblord At least other 1 power Minions have Taunt. This guy is really quite useless and he can hurt your own plays Stoneskin Gargoyle If you Taunt him up, or drop Defender next to him, or give him a nice enchantment then he could become useful, but then again all of those things go well with other Mininos as well and those Minions aren't terrible when by themselves Goldshire Footman Snore Stonetusk Boar Even worse than others, this guy serves literally no purpose except maybe in Hunter Arena but why are you playing Hunter? It's a horrible Arena class Young Dragonhawk There are better things to take than this Wisp There is no reason to ever have Wisp Grimscale Oracle There is no reason to even have Grimscale Oracle. You'd rather have Young Dragonhawk over Wisp and Grimscale if that pack came to you So we get into class cards. I'm going to do each Class separately and all the cards will be broken down as one, with no separation between rarity. Generally class cards are good and almost always should be taken, but that being said, sometimes class cards are a fit for constructed and should be avoided here because of that Warrior-Paladin-Mage-Priest-Shaman-Druid-Warlock-Rogue-Hunter WARRIOR GOOD CARDS Grommash Hellscream Gorehowl Frothing Berserker Fiery Win Axe Arathi Weaponsmith Death's Bite Arcanite Reaper OFFENSIVE CARDS Commanding Shout Cleave Kor'Kron Elite Cruel Taskmaster DEFENSIVE CARDS Brawl Shield Slam Mortal Strike Slam Heroic Strike Execute Shield Block SITUATIONAL CARDS Upgrade! Armorsmith Warsong Commander Battle Rage Whirlwind AVOID CARDS Inner Rage Rampage Charge PALADIN GOOD CARDS Tirion Fordring Sword of Justice Truesilver Champion Consecration Blessing of Kings Avenge OFFENSIVE CARDS Avenging Wrath Argent Protector DEFENSIVE CARDS Lay on Hands Aldor Peacekeeper Equality Hammer of Wrath Blessing of Wisdom SITUATIONAL CARDS Guardian of Kings Humility Noble Sacrifice Redemption AVOID CARDS Holy Wrath Divine Favor Blessed Champion Blessing of Might Hand of Protection Light's Justice Holy Light Repentance Eye for an Eye MAGE GOOD CARDS Fireball Flamestrike Water Elemental Blizzard Polymorph Mana Wyrm Sorcerer's Apprentice OFFENSIVE CARDS Kirin Tor Mage Duplicate DEFENSIVE CARDS Frostbolt Pyroblast Vaporize Arcane Intellect Mirror Entity SITUATIONAL CARDS Archmage Antonidas Counterspell Ethereal Arcanist Arcane Missiles Cone of Cold Arcane Explosion Mirror Image AVOID CARDS Spellbender Ice Block Frost Nova Ice Barrier Ice Lance PRIEST GOOD CARDS Auchenai Soulpriest Temple Enforcer Power Word Shield Holy Nova Northshire Cleric Dark Cultist OFFENSIVE CARDS Cabal Shadow Priest Shadowform Shadow Madness Lightspawn Mind Control DEFENSIVE CARDS Prophet Velen Holy Fire Shadow Word Death/Pain Holy Smite SITUATIONAL CARDS Mass Dispel Mind Vision Thoughtsteal Divine Spirit Circle of Healing AVOID CARDS Mindgames Lightwell Silence Mind Blast Inner Fire SHAMAN GOOD CARDS Al'Akir the Windlord Earth Elemental Doomhammer Lightning Storm Feral Spirit Fire Elemental Hex Stormforged Axe Unbound Elemental OFFENSIVE CARDS Ancestral Spirit Flametongue Totem Forked Lightning Bloodlust DEFENSIVE CARDS Lava Burst Mana Tide Totem Rockbiter Weapon Lightning Bolt SITUATIONAL CARDS Reincarnate Windspeaker Windfury Earth Shock AVOID CARDS Far Sight Ancestral Healing Frost Shock Dust Devil Totemic Might DRUID GOOD CARDS Cenarius Ancient of Lore/War Keeper of the Grove Starfall Swipe Druid of the Claw Power of the Wild OFFENSIVE CARDS Force of Nature Wrath DEFENSIVE CARDS Nourish Bite Ironbark Protector Claw Mark of the Wild SITUATIONAL CARDS Innervate Mark of Nature Wild Growth Poison Seeds Naturalize AVOID CARDS Savagery Savage Roar Soul of the Forest Healing Touch Moonfire WARLOCK GOOD CARDS Lord Jaraxxus Doomguard Flame Imp Voidcaller Dread Infernal Hellfire Voidwalker OFFENSIVE CARDS Pit Lord Shadowflame DEFENSIVE CARDS Siphon Soul Felguard Soulfire Shadow Bolt Mortal Coil Blood Imp SITUATIONAL CARDS Twisting Nether Void Terror Demonfire Drain Life Sense Demons Corruption AVOID CARDS Bane of Doom Power Overwhelming Succubus Summoning Portal ROGUE GOOD CARDS SI:7 Agent Perdition's Blade Deadly Poison Assassinate Assassin's Blade Anub'ar Ambusher OFFENSIVE CARDS Cold Blood Defias Ringleader DEFENSIVE CARDS Edwin VanCleef Patient Assassin Master of Disguise Backstab Eviscerate Sprint Fan of Knives Shiv Conceal SITUATIONAL CARDS Blade Flurry Headcrack Betrayal Shadowstep Sap AVOID CARDS Kidnapper Preparation Vanish Sinister Strike HUNTER GOOD CARDS Gladiators Longbow Eaglehorn Bow Savannah Highmane Explosive Shot Animal Companion Tracking Unleash the Hounds Houndmaster OFFENSIVE CARDS Bestial Wrath Snake Trap Multi-Shot DEFENSIVE CARDS Misdirection Explosive Trap Freezing Trap Snipe Arcane Shot Hunter's mark Kill Command Deadly Shot SITUATIONAL CARDS Webspinner Starving Buzzard Timber Wolf Tundra Rhino Scavenging Hyena AVOID CARDS King Krush Flare ======================================= Explanation WARRIOR GOOD CARDS Grommash Hellscream Most legendary class Minions are good. Grommash is no exception. He has immediate impact and becomes very scary fairly quickly Gorehowl In terms of building card advantage, this thing can trade 3 or 4 Minions out for it. Gorehowl is amazing and a must Epic pick if it comes around Frothing Berserker One of the best 3 drops, Frothing Berserker gets out of hand in a hurry and can win the game by himself if your opponent cannot deal with him Fiery Win Axe Having this in your hand is a warm fuzzing feeling Arathi Weaponsmith A 3/3 ain't so exciting, but the weapon he brings is! God, so many weapons, so little time Death's Bite This addition from Naxxramas is much appreciated. It just increases the Warrior's ability to build advantage without drawing tons of cards Arcanite Reaper A solid and effective weapon ------------------- OFFENSIVE CARDS Commanding Shout Commanding Shout draws a card. That's great. Clearing your opponents board and not losing any creatures is even better Cleave Unlike other removal spells, Cleave 2-1 building an offensive advantage Kor'Kron Elite The chargemaster on steroids, Kor'Kron Elite hits hard and fast, and often lives to tell the tale Cruel Taskmaster Not nearly as awesome, but the utility between removal and giving +2 attack makes him a rather fancy Offensive pick ------------------- DEFENSIVE CARDS Brawl Using Brawl is all about timing. Obviously clearing 3 Minions when your opponent has 4 is good, but generally whoever has the most Minions will keep one meaning that Brawling to get rid of a huge threat when there are several Minions out there is very doable. Learning your 1/x values is helpful for probability of success, basically, 50, 33, 25, 20, 16, 14, 12, 11, and 10 percent are all you'll ever need for 2 down to 10 Minions out there for what chance any 1 Minion has to survive Shield Slam A great 1-1 spell that can remove most anything given enough Armor Mortal Strike A weaker fireball, it will ever only be 1-1 status Slam If you kill a 3/2, that's fine. If you remove Divine Shield with it, then you win. That's it you win Heroic Strike Removal, 1-1 Execute Removal, weaker as it requires something else to have happened, but it can get rid of anything hurt so that's good Shield Block +5 armor and draw a card, not bad, not great ------------------- SITUATIONAL CARDS Upgrade! Upgrade is decent if you have Arcanite Reaper or Gorehowl Armorsmith If you have several taunts, Unstable Ghoul, Whirlwind, or Death's Bite Armorsmith becomes an OK pick. Shield Slam helps too Warsong Commander Only take at 20+ cards and only if you have a fairly aggressive deck Battle Rage If you have no means to draw cards at 20, take one or two Whirlwind If you have no Death's Bite and/or Armorsmith/Acolyte of Pain/Gurubashi/ Frothing Berserker this is much better ------------------- AVOID CARDS Inner Rage This is fairly useless without the 2/2 body attached Rampage Better than some Neutral avoids, Rampage really doesn't work Charge Don't try it -------------------------------------- PALADIN GOOD CARDS Tirion Fordring The best Minion in the game, Tirion has to be silenced less he win the game for you Sword of Justice Giving +5/+5 out to your Minions is awesome Truesilver Champion The bread n butter, a Paladin without Truesilver Champion is probably a Paladin going 2-3 in Arena Consecration The essential removal spell Blessing of Kings Easily the strongest enchantment around, even turning a 1/1 into a 5/5 means you invested 6 mana for a 5/5, not a bad deal Avenge For 1 mana and 5 stats, Avenge is extremely sexy ------------------- OFFENSIVE CARDS Avenging Wrath Tricky to use, but it can give very nice card advantage if timed well Argent Protector Divine Shield is tricky to use; so what's better than Divine Shield is controlling when we use it. He's not really a 2 drop but regardless he makes trades far easier to swallow when you end up not trading at all ------------------- DEFENSIVE CARDS Lay on Hands Sure you lose a turn but you draw 3 cards and gain a ton of health. Lay on Hands wins games Aldor Peacekeeper Again, not really a 3 drop, but having a 3/3 body come into play while neutering their best Minion is nice. Especially nice if you target Venture Co. Mercenary Equality Sure it affects all Minions but it's the great equalizer and an essential one at that Hammer of Wrath If it costed less it would be outstanding but either way it's a good card Blessing of Wisdom The beauty here is flexibility. Drawing cards on your attack is nice, but dropping this on a threatening Minion can make it not attack all the same ------------------- SITUATIONAL CARDS Guardian of Kings A decent pick up if you are lacking 5+ drops Humility If you have no Equality or Aldor, I'd take a Humility after 20 cards Noble Sacrifice Noble Sacrifice becomes much stronger if you have Avenge, and/or cheap Minions like Knife Juggler you want to protect. He also works well with Cult Master and the Ghoul Redemption It's situational as you only want this to go off when you have a Divine Shield die, or something with a nice deathrattle; so that's when drafting it comes into play ------------------- AVOID CARDS Holy Wrath As our mana curve typically is about 3, it's a fairly expensive waste of space Divine Favor Aggro decks are fairly hard to build and this probably won't get much use Blessed Champion For 5 mana the result isn't that good Blessing of Might +3 attack to a Minion sucks. Compare to Rockbiter Weapon, you can control when you want it to go down Hand of Protection Just getting Divine Shield isn't all that great Light's Justice Like Minions, dealing 1 damage isn't great Holy Light Like other cards, just getting the heal isn't so great Repentance If it hits something awesome, great! Most of the time though you can do better than this Eye for an Eye I'd take any Minion over this -------------------------------------- MAGE GOOD CARDS Fireball The beauty of Fireball is its effectiveness. Driving it from Defensive to Good Flamestrike It's like Flamestrike but... Water Elemental Easily one of the best 4 mana creatures around. It's just brutal Blizzard It's like Flamestrike but weaker Polymorph It makes scary cards go away. It does take a 6 mana investment to make it go away completely but all the same Mana Wyrm A 1/3 is generally very good. Mana Wyrm is a good choice even when you don't have that many spells as half the time you'll have Coin and the others you just have a cost efficient creature Sorcerer's Apprentice What's that? A 3/2 for 2? Sounds good ------------------- OFFENSIVE CARDS Kirin Tor Mage A 4/3 for 3 is similar to Injured Blademaster. The difference is Secrets generally aren't good in Arena and the Blademaster can be healed Duplicate If you can control what you duplicate, then yes getting 2 more Sunwalkers is amazing ------------------- DEFENSIVE CARDS Frostbolt Awesome 1-1 removal Pyroblast Too expensive for more than 1 copy, but it can be very game-ending Vaporize You have to play around your opponent, but Vaporize can screw them over entirely if they can't attack but with their huge Minion Arcane Intellect Drawing 2 cards for 1 is fine, it just doesn't do anything putting you behind initially Mirror Entity The timing of this spell is essential less you get something crappy ------------------- SITUATIONAL CARDS Archmage Antonidas Antonidas situational? Yes. You need at least 8 spells and half of them costing less than 4 mana otherwise he is a 5/7 that will die on the opponents turn Counterspell If you are at 20 cards and don't have good spells yet, Counterspell can help fill a gap Ethereal Arcanist If you have several secrets he becomes a better pick though still weak Arcane Missiles Much better if you have spellpower guys, and or Mana Wyrm, Antonidas, or Sorcerers Apprentice Cone of Cold Something to take at 20 if you don't have good AoE removal Arcane Explosion Same as CoC Mirror Image If you have 2 Mana Wyrms this goes way up as Wyrm+Coin+Mirror Image is easily the strongest potential turn 1 play ------------------- AVOID CARDS Spellbender It's a weaker Counterspell that often never gets triggered Ice Block Essential to Frost Mage, here it's not very good Frost Nova It buys you a turn, but not really Ice Barrier Pass Ice Lance Pass -------------------------------------- PRIEST GOOD CARDS Auchenai Soulpriest A fantastic Minion to have. Auchenai without Circle is still amazing Temple Enforcer One of the best battlecries in the game. And a 6/6 to boot! Power Word Shield +2 health and draw a card, doesn't get much better than this Holy Nova It's like Flamestrike but crappier. Still good though Northshire Cleric A great 1 drop that can create all kinds of problems Dark Cultist The best 3 mana drop in the game. Nuff said ------------------- OFFENSIVE CARDS Cabal Shadow Priest What's better than munching a 2 power creature? Why stealing it of course Shadowform Turning 2 health heal into a 2 damage fireblast is rather nice Shadow Madness In terms of card advantage Shadow Madness is just brutal. Clearing 2 Minions is awesome; it gets better if you get Deathrattle use as well Lightspawn Super vulnerable to silence, Lightspawn pounds and ends the game quickly if left unattended Mind Control For the rich mans Mind Control Tech, sitting on a Mind Control is a warm feeling as you always feel protected ------------------- DEFENSIVE CARDS Prophet Velen He doesn't do much to win the game, but he brings it back fairly quickly Holy Fire A great 1-1 +5 health heal Shadow Word Death/Pain Bread n butter removal Holy Smite Go away 3/2 Minions! ------------------- SITUATIONAL CARDS Mass Dispel A potential pick up if you are lacking Holy Nova Mind Vision Better than most Avoid cards, using Mind Vision can be good or shit Thoughtsteal We have to assume we get two 3/2 Minions. It's not bad but generally speaking we can do better Divine Spirit If you have 3 or more Lightspawns this is a plausible card Circle of Healing I like having 1 if I have an Auchenai or 2+ Northshires ------------------- AVOID CARDS Mindgames What's worse than a 3/2 for any other price than 2 mana? Oh right, 4! Lightwell Well it can't attack. Darn Silence Not worth it without the Minion attached Mind Blast We'd literally prefer anything else Inner Fire It's best use is weakening Magma Ragers. Or just not have it ------------------- SHAMAN GOOD CARDS Al'Akir the Windlord Immediate effect, charge, divine shield... Yes Al'Akir is great Earth Elemental Whoa mama, this thing is huge and getting it on turn 5 is just wow Doomhammer The only thing better than removing 8 Minions is doing so in 4 turns instead of 8 Lightning Storm One of the best AoE removal spells out there Feral Spirit Generally 2/3s aren't exciting. Generally a 2/3 Taunt isn't good. But getting TWO 2/3 Taunts for 3 mana is well, awesome! Fire Elemental One of the most brutal Minions to date, a deck with 6 Fire Elementals is a deck that probably will win 12 times Hex The only downside is Taunt. Oh well, makes things go away Stormforged Axe Trading 3-1 is a good thing don't you agree? Unbound Elemental He's a 2/4 for 3, a fair deal. But given how good overload cards are there isn't any reason to think that this guy can grow very quickly ------------------- OFFENSIVE CARDS Ancestral Spirit Divine Shield, meet your maker. This works best on Deathrattles obviously Flametongue Totem An 0/3 that generates 4 attack screams for pick me please Forked Lightning The overload hurts, but 2-1 is always nice Bloodlust Probably only need 1, but Bloodlust is the ultimate game ending card ------------------- DEFENSIVE CARDS Lava Burst A 1-1 removal spell Mana Tide Totem It guarantees drawing a card. After it's second turn out there you now have gained card advantage Rockbiter Weapon Ultimate flexibility removal is great Lightning Bolt It's like Rockbiter but different ------------------- SITUATIONAL CARDS Reincarnate If you have many deathrattles and no Hex, this is possible Windspeaker A 3/3 isn't great, and Windfury is mediocre. He works well if you have several Rockbiters Windfury Earth Shock If you have no Hex this is a fairly good pick up ------------------- AVOID CARDS Far Sight Just have a different card Ancestral Healing Rarely will this do anything besides give Taunt to something. Not so good Frost Shock Freeze is less impressive without the 5/5 body attached Dust Devil Crazy potential. The downside is your turn is hampered next turn and it dies rather quickly Totemic Might HAHAHAHAHAHA no -------------------------------------- DRUID GOOD CARDS Cenarius Cenarius is an excellent legendary and always a consideration to be nabbed Ancient of Lore/War Both the Ancients are fantastic. If offered both then which to choose? I generally favor Lore as the flexibility of 2 cards verse 5 life is more favorable to having a big dumb Minion like War. Now, if you are in your 20 cards and are lacking late game, War becomes much better as his impact is independent of your deck, whereas the cards you draw from Lore can only be as good as you have cards in your deck Keeper of the Grove The ultimate 4 drop in terms of flexibility, you could realistically have 10 Keepers and be happy Starfall The essential Druid removal, Starfall offers large and mass removal for an efficient price that you want Swipe Swipe is strong, but it is much stronger when combined with even just a single spell power as 2 damage is twice as strong as 1. Obvious jokes aside, the 2 damage kills many more Minions than the 1 so consider that Druid of the Claw A deck with 10 Druids of the Claw would be a pretty good deck Power of the Wild The only thing better than a 3/2 for 2, is turning him into a Stormwind Champion effect later in the game when you don't need a 3/2. Power of the Wild is great ------------------- OFFENSIVE CARDS Force of Nature In terms of big offense, splash, and winning the game, Force of Nature delivers on all fronts. It's a great Offensive card Wrath Wrath isn't a Good card, but it's better than Defensive in terms of the utility it provides. It's just a spell, meaning 1-1 trading which puts it from the Good category into somewhere else, but a 1-1 trade, or a potential 1-1 trade and drawing a card is a good deal. Note that you typically do not want to trade a Minion just to get the 1 damage draw a card effect as you lose card advantage on that Mark of the Wild For 2 mana, this is the preferred enchantment as it gives steady stats and Taunt, letting you immediately take out something, and then later be traded. It's the stronger enchantment for sure ------------------- DEFENSIVE CARDS Nourish Nourish doesn't do much on its own, but it builds huge card advantage be it with the 3 cards or the 2 crystals to get to 7/8 sooner Bite A solid 1-1 trading spell, it's strong but runs the risk of having to attack with your hero which can be problematic Ironbark Protector Sometimes you need a big dumb huge Taunt. Ironbark answers. You probably don't want more than 2, and you generally don't want to play him when your board is empty as the 8/8 goes down surprisingly quickly Claw One of the best 1 mana removal spells around, Claw is very nice ------------------- SITUATIONAL CARDS Innervate Innervate can be good, but drawing them late in Arena can be a huge dead card. If you have 10+ 5 drops, Innervate becomes a better choice Mark of Nature If you lack Mark of the Wild and general offensive cards, Mark of Nature becomes better Wild Growth If your mana curve is 4+ instead of the 3 we want, Wild Growth becomes a better choice. If you have 7+ 4 drops then Wild Growth also looks better as a turn 2 Wild Growth allows for a 4 drop Poison Seeds Sometimes you find your lategame lacking and/or you fear running into large enemy Minions you can't deal with because you don't have good cards. Then Poison Seeds becomes an OK pick Naturalize Naturalize is much of the same. If you are at 20 cards and you notice a dropoff in good cards and lategame, then Naturalize could save your life ------------------- AVOID CARDS Savagery Generally it will be a 1 damage nuke. Not so good Savage Roar It's fairly expensive and we cannot be geared towards Force-Roar so it's better to have something more reliable Soul of the Forest Not really any reason why we would want this card Healing Touch Healing spells without a Minion attached generally suck Moonfire It's better than Stonetusk Boar but that isn't say much -------------------------------------- WARLOCK GOOD CARDS Lord Jaraxxus In terms of changing the game, the Warlock Legend will do that for you Doomguard His downside is fairly large but c'mon, a 5/7 Charge is just really good Flame Imp Weaker thanks to Zombie how but still one of the best 1 mana Minions around Voidcaller A fantastic 4 drop that is good even without Demons; but now you can draft Demons more reasonably thanks to Voidcaller Dread Infernal A large 6/6 body attached to whirlwind is fairly nice lategame drop Hellfire It's an essential Warlock card to have if you want to win Voidwalker Having 1/3 Minions is generally a good, thing, Voidwalker is no exception especially when paired with Flame Imp or other cheap Minions ------------------- OFFENSIVE CARDS Pit Lord Taking 5 damage is rough but a 5/6 for 4 mana demands respect. When paired with Voidcaller he is just that much better Shadowflame True you lose a Minion but Shadowflame is a good way to build card advantage still by blowing apart your opponents defenses ------------------- DEFENSIVE CARDS Siphon Soul Just a 1-1 trade, expensive, but in many ways is better than Polymorph as you gain 3 life for the same mana cost Felguard Not the best Demon card around, but Felguard is still a fairly defensive Minion that is better than many other rares Soulfire It's a great removal spell but as you tend to lose a card you have to be careful with playing it Shadow Bolt Which leaves Shadow Bolt as the ultimate in terms of Minion removal as it's a fairly strong nuke Mortal Coil Not the best card out there due to not many Minions having 1 health, but it is better than cards like Elven Archer Blood Imp It serves to slowly boost your army. So it doesn't do much but it can build card advantage if given time ------------------- SITUATIONAL CARDS Twisting Nether It's an extremely expensive card so you really only want it if you are finding your deck more geared towards the late game Void Terror A fine pick for constructed, but Void Terror in Arena often loses you your card advantage as he gets silenced and you've now lost Minions. He works well if you have a number of Deathrattle Demonfire It's pretty crappy but if you have a large number of Demons, particularly cheap ones it can work out Drain Life It's just a bit expensive for what it does Sense Demons It's a "draw 2 cards" spell with a string of getting Demons. Normally not something we need thanks to our hero power but it can work out if you have a large number of Demons, particularly Voidwalkers Corruption A fine card if by 20 you noticed your deck is lacking removal ------------------- AVOID CARDS Bane of Doom Speaking of expensive cards that aren't worth it, Bane of Doom is one Power Overwhelming Can't tell you how often you are holding these with nothing to target Succubus Losing cards for a 4/3 ain't worth it. And if you do wait until your hand is empty a 4/3 is far less impressive than a 5/7 Charge Summoning Portal Like most 0 power Minions, this thing kinda sucks -------------------------------------- ROGUE GOOD CARDS SI:7 Agent The Rogue card, a Rogue without at least 1 of these is a Rogue that might win 3 matches Perdition's Blade A solid weapon attached with a nice battlecry, Perdition's Blade can easily build a 3-1 card advantage Deadly Poison The Rogue hero power is largely crappy, as 1 damage attacking doesn't offer much utility to you. That's why Deadly Poison exists. It gives a Fiery Win Axe and we know how good that is Assassinate The Rogues answer card for large scary Minions, you will want 2 of these Assassin's Blade This weapon is the essential midgame Rogue card for keeping and building huge card advantage for you Anub'ar Ambusher Having a 5/5 for 4 mana is a solid Minion to own and the best part is that his effect can be used to your advantage ------------------- OFFENSIVE CARDS Cold Blood Cold Blood can give you the win, but it can also allow you for just 1 mana trade upwards saving a larger Minion. Thus, it can really give you a fairly nice advantage if you pull it off well Defias Ringleader Normally summoning Minions aren't that good, and Defias is no exception. The difference is that he is 4/3, or 7 stats for 2 mana when combo'd which isn't all bad. Add in the potential Coin-Defias and having a few of these is a good option ------------------- DEFENSIVE CARDS Edwin VanCleef Edwin is one of the weaker Legends in Arena, but if you do get him, he is one of those that requires you lose card advantage to have a larger Minion later. Though, he really isn't worth it to be honest Patient Assassin The ultimate Stealth Minion, he sits and waits to 1-1 for you Master of Disguise A kind of crappy Minion to be honest, the realy strength is that his Stealth is permanent meaning you can throw it on Minions like Cult Master or Gadgetzan Auctioneer and you never have to fear their death if you don't attack; unless AoE comes their way Backstab A great removal spell for 1-1 Eviscerate Having 3 or 4 Eviscerates in a deck is a nice group of spells to own Sprint It's expensive but it gives you 4 cards so it can build card advantage for you Fan of Knives It's rather crappy but as it draws a card then you can't rule it out completely Shiv Shiv is one of those that is essential to constructed but you probably want to pass in Arena Conceal This card doesn't much for you except maybe set you up for a win next turn. Generally speaking you would rather have any other card ------------------- SITUATIONAL CARDS Blade Flurry It has a nice clearing effect though you will need at least 3 ways to get weapon damage over 1; such as Deadly Poison or Assassin's Blade Headcrack Normally things that just deal damage to face aren't very good; the exception with Headcrack is that it can work well if your deck is particularly slow or if you have spell power and/or Gadgetzan Auctioneer Betrayal It can provide great 2-1 though Betrayal can also be rather useless if your opponents play smart. If you lack any AoE removal though the grabbing some can help Shadowstep Only worth grabbing if you have at least 5 good battlecry effects Sap The ultimate tempo card, it's just not as strong in Arena as they can just recast it ------------------- AVOID CARDS Kidnapper Whoof this dude is freaking bad Preparation Like many Rogue cards; great in constructed useless here Vanish Nope don't try it Sinister Strike Yeah 3 damage to face isn't going to do anything -------------------------------------- HUNTER GOOD CARDS Gladiators Longbow If there's any reason to play Hunter, it's because these top 4 Good cards are extremely good and can change the game. The downside is that 3 of these are rares and this one is an epic. That being said, Gladiators Longbow is one of the best weapons in the game as it allows for removal but it saves your hero from harm Eaglehorn Bow A fairly expensive Fiery Win Axe, but it can be combo'd with Secrets (most of which are decent for Arena) for added bonus Savannah Highmane Arguably one of the best 6 drops in the game, Scar demands respect and an answer less he eat your opponent in two bites Explosive Shot Another card that suffers from smart placement, but even so Explosive Shot will almost always 2-1, and generally 3-1. It's like a boosted Swipe that doesn't need the spell power Animal Companion The random factor stinks, but 33% of the time you get Misha which is what you almost always want. Leokk isn't half bad and Huffer can be nice when needed Tracking Even in Arena, Tracking is strong as you can search for what you need Unleash the Hounds Yes the Buzzard nerf sucks but Hounds is still one of the best removal spells around for 3 mana. Combined with Knife Juggler, Scavenging Hyena, or Cult Master you can get good results still Houndmaster Useless on his own, but when paired onto a beast he comes in with a ton of stats making him a fairly strong choice ------------------- OFFENSIVE CARDS Bestial Wrath An underrated Epic for sure, Bestial Wrath for 1 mana gives great flexibility in terms of building your advantage Snake Trap It's a rather weak trap, though if paired with effects such as Knife Juggler, Buzzard, or Scavenging Hyena then it can be really powerful Multi-Shot It's simple 2-1 removal at its finest ------------------- DEFENSIVE CARDS Misdirection As with the other traps, they tend to focus on your board position quite a bit more as your opponent tries to figure out what they are. Regarding Misdirection, it is best when you have nothing on the board and they have two Minions that can eliminate one another giving you 2-1 advantage Explosive Trap You tend to lose cards, but if you can get their Minions to 2 health you can wipe em out fairly easily Freezing Trap A much better tempo card, the riskiness being that you need them to not trigger a battlecry with this trap or you lose out then Snipe For 2 mana, 4 damage is a fairly good deal. The lack of control stinks, but dropping it early means you can 1-1 their stuff out of your way Arcane Shot It's simple 1-1 removal Hunter's mark It technically doesn't kill anything so it tends to cost you card advantage but when combined with effects like Explosive Trap or Hounds then you really don't lose anything Kill Command A strong removal spell, stuck to having to have a Beast Deadly Shot Removing a Ragnaros for 3 mana makes you smile. Removing a 1/1 for 3 mana makes you frown. It's still strong removal if it works ------------------- SITUATIONAL CARDS Webspinner A fairly weak 1 drop, the randomness tends to make this something you don't want. If you have a deathrattle theme going though then grabbing Webspinner is alright Starving Buzzard It's situational as in don't ever situationally grab this unless you have no other means to draw cards Timber Wolf An unimpressive 1/1, if you have 3 Unleash then grabbing a Timber Wolf can be nice as it allows for more effective board clearing Tundra Rhino A fairly expensive useless Minion, Tundra Rhino can be grabbed if you have 8 or more Beasts Scavenging Hyena If you have 3 or more Unleash then this works well ------------------- AVOID CARDS King Krush What's that? Avoid the legend? Yes, I would. King Krush costs too much and does too little. I'd take him over other Avoid Legends like Pat Nagle, Lorewalker Cho, or Mukkla, but you generally want to have legends that you can play right away or play them and have a splashy effect. King Krush is just a big dumb large charging Minion that deals less damage than Steady Shot+Kill Command Flare An essential constructed card, Flare is near use-less in Arena -------------------------------------- So now that we have gotten through the Minion lists, let's talk a bit about the classes and what you are really looking for. As usual, the order will go something like Warrior, Paladin, Mage, Priest, Druid, Shaman, Warlock, Rogue, and Hunter. So Warrior. He's a fairly simple class that is largely dependent on those weapons. You may be curious as to what's the deal with weapons, and here's why. Weapons innately give 2-1 advantage as your hero takes upwards of 6 or more damage in exchange for protecting your board and clearing your opponents. As the Warrior gets several, and in several powers, what he loses in Hero Power he makes up for with easy card advantage. His Hero Power doesn't effect the board but you can stack armor forever so even when you have nothing to do he still can armor up whereas the Priest can sit there and do nothing. Many of the Warriors cards are fairly responsive, Kor'kron is a large charging Minion you tend to not want to play unless you have a target, and Cruel Taskmaster is a 2 drop that needs a target in play. As such, something that is vitally important to Warrior in addition to weapons is having a good number of early drops. Things like Chow and Bloodfen Raptor, good 1 and 2 drops, are essential to getting something down. Your weapons build advantage but if you don't do anything with that advantage you could easily lose. One weakness of Warriors is that despite the advantage, they can run out of cards quickly. This is due largely to how cards like Slam and Execute work. As such, you want to have at least 3 ways to draw cards in a Warrior deck, be it Acolyte, Loot Hoarder, or the preferred Cult Master, to ensure cards stay in your hand. Something else to keep in mind is that Warriors with their weapons can be fairly aggressive, meaning they'll fall off later. As such, it is important to have some significant Minions that can stand alone in the late game. Large Stealth Minions come to mind as those that don't deliver, whereas having Boulderfist Ogre, or even larger more rare Minions can make that difference. Warriors can lose board control fairly quickly, and this is largely due to their poor AoE removal. As such, it is really important to focus on the board and not let it get away from you less you get overrun. When playing against Warriors, there are a few things to watch out for, -Try to avoid getting damage on valuable targets. This is obviously because of Execute -If they play a weapon and you can't destroy it with Ooze, you can't just not play something so you might have to swallow the loss and play something without getting attached -Warriors can do lots of damage fairly quickly between weapons and charges, so keep an eye on your life total -While Warriors lack board clear, they do have an Epic Brawl, which destroys all but 1 random Minion, so keep that in mind. It shows up more often than you might think So Paladin. The big thing about Paladin is lasting. Lasting to let that Hero Power begin to overturn and change the game. Adding a 1/1 to the battle field each turn when both decks are getting towards top-deck, this is when Paladin shines. As such, their deck needs to be geared towards lasting. You need good early 2 and 3 drops, to establish the board because at that stage making your 1/1 is kinda sad. Later on, you are looking for those midgame beasts to keep you in and through to the end. In particular, they get to have some fun with cards like Stormwind Champion, Raid Leader, and Cult Master thanks to all of their free Minions. One thing particularly important is having some Taunts to protect those 1/1 Minions; protect them so you can unleash them to protect your other Minions that aren't so weak. Their cards have some potent plays as well. Consecrate is an absolute necessary victory card, and True Silver makes a big deal as well. One thing unique about Paladins is their ability to adapt and deal, and that uses cards like Argent Protector, Humility, Equality, and Aldor Peacekeeper, only the latter two which is a rare. Those are essential cards to building up card advantage and then taking control. One weakness is running out of cards before you are ready to go. As such, on those turns 5-8, you often want to make a 1/1 and play a Minion as opposed to play a Minion and a Minion so that in the event of board clears, something very dangerous to Paladins, you are better protected from failure. When playing against Paladin, here are some hints -Paladins have secrets, which are rather exploitable. The easiest of which, is to attack the hero to test for Get Down. If that doesn't trigger, then Avenge is your next bet. If that doesn't trigger, then it could be any, but most of which aren't very good. To deal with Avenge, just be ready to clear or silence the target the moment it happens. On the other hand, you could just ignore his Minions though that is risky -Equality and Consecrate hurt, play cautiously with flooding the board of of too many Minions -In regards to point 1, Paladins are the most notorious class for pumping their Minions so you almost always want to clear their board every turn if able, not to mention those 1/1s can overrun you very quickly -If there's a card in their hand that has sat there a long time, it might be Tirion. He tends to win games if you can't silence him so keep that in mind So Mage. The easy mode class. Actually, Mage is one of the most frustrating classes in Arena, especially to play against as you just never know what you are up against. We all know how dangerous the Mage spells are, but how many do they have? Do they have multiple fireballs? Multiple flamestrikes? Multipled Polymorphs? What's that secret? Easily, Mage is the most frustrating class to face. It's also frustrating to build. Why? Because look at that list. Mage has no Minions, well they have some, but largely the Minions are not so good. Yes Sorcerers Apprentice is a 3/2, but there are like 6 of those Minions. Yes Mana Wyrm is a 1/3 that can get large, but it also needs spells. And yes, Water Elemental is strong, but it's only a 4 drop meaning it gets outclassed by stronger later Minions. It means that the Mage is very reliant on their spells to carry them to victory. You can also value-draft with good Minions but that will only get you so far if you don't have the key cards to carry you onward. For a Mage, the first 10-15 cards are the most important for the Mage, as you have to establish what your deck is going to be/do and quickly, as you assess what cards you need to round out your deck. Obviously, things like Fireball and Flamestrike can almost always be taken, but this is very important regarding Minions. Defense or Offense? Do I have the key removal? These are important questions to always keep in mind, for any class, but even so for Mage as the Mage, as I've reiterated a couple times, is so dependent on their spells. Like Priest and Warlock can take bad decks far, Paladin can run over with bad decks if he can cheese to victory. Mage decks are hard to cheese unless you cheese your way with 5+ Fireballs, which incidentally if you have 5 Fireballs you should win 12 times. Mage hints and tips -Generally, assume a turn 7 Flamestrike, as well as 2 Fireballs and 2 Polys Playing around it when they don't have it will help when they actually do play it and you're not caught with your pants down -Don't be afraid to play 1 health Minions like Loot Hoarder knowing it will die because if they spend their early game just pinging things away, especially 3/2 Minions, then that means they aren't playing anything and are investing a lot of time not doing much -Mages cannot play from behind well, so dealing lots of damage early is a great way to force bad Fireballs and desperate plays. Additionally, if you can prevent them from having Minions on the board when they Flamestrike you can regroup much more easily. One of the most devastating Mage plays is turn 6 Tiger, turn 7 Flamestrike. It hurts a bit So Priest. The Priest is quite powerful but frankly it is one of the harder Arena classes to work with as every turn is a choice to heal a Minion or play a new one. Your draft is important as many of the Priest cards are very good, and you don't know what you're going to get down the road. You may pass on a Mind Control thinking you'll get one later, but it may not come back around ever. You might end up with 4 Dark Cultist which is great. Typically, the Priest is looking for a tankier approach. Minions with higher health become much stronger here as the Priest is all about outlasting by keeping his Minions around forever. Regarding some specifics, Minions like Oasis Snapjaw or Stormwind Knight work much better in Priest decks thanks to their high health. Regarding some Priest cards, like I said before many of them are great and build tons of card advantage. Mind Vision is a tricky card, one I don't care for, but if you have it try to play it on turn 5 or later as you have a better chance to get something good. With Northshire Cleric, you may not want to play him on turn 1 simply because you'd rather be able to guarantee getting card draw, but it depends. Against Warrior don't, but against Paladin feel free. Something unique about Priests is their ability to deal with enraged Minions, just heal them! Solves problems usually. Lightspawn is fine, great actually, and with that Divine Spirit becomes an OK card if you have at least 3 Lightspawns otherwise it's rather pointless. One rare that is asked about a lot is Holy Fire. I really don't like it; it's better than some rares, but for instance Argent Commander is better than Holy Fire every time. Also only 1 Mind Control please, it's too expensive and can lose you the game if you get stuck with 2 copies too early. Regarding some tips and hints for playing against them, -Holy Nova is their board clear and frankly it's rather weak so keep that in in mind -If they ever go full Northshire, abuse the hell out of that and deck them quickly (more than 1 out there) -Four power Minions rule, so playing carefully about bumping 4s into the 5 range and vice versa trying to get 3s to the 4 is really key in terms of avoiding Shadow Word -Adding on, getting out of the 2 range stops Cabal Shadow Priest from yanking your Minions -Mind Control on turn 10, don't play anything you can't deal with being stolen and/or can't answer to -Generally, Priests win with your cards, meaning you can outplay them (or have to outplay them) to beat them So Druids. As I've said before, Druids are all about flexibility and choice. Many of the Druid cards are great which makes them all around, solid choices to play with in Arena. Thus, an obvious weakness of Druids becomes missing some key cards. Their Minions while strong are reactive meaning that if you miss out on your key removal, Swipe or Starfall, you can get behind as Keeper and Druid of the Claw aren't going to bring you back from a huge deficit of Minions on the board. Even though Druids can have explosive turns, they definitely have a much stronger late-game. As such getting that Ironbark, that Starfire, and those other big Minions is how a Druid secures victory. Regarding Ironbark, playing him on a naked board facing several Minions is fine, but generally you will still come out behind. You want to play Ironbark when you are in control, trust me it's just one of those things. One easy way for things to get out of hand is too many Minions. Despite having Swipe, Druids struggle to deal with fast rushes so it's really important to have that early game presence with those early drops. His hero power can clear small Minions sure, but generally it is not sufficient. Innervate and Wild Growth are fine cards, but you gotta be careful. Innervate in particular is a dangerous card as post turn 6 it becomes a dead card in your hand. As such, don't take them before 15 cards, and only if you are noticing an abundance of late game, 10+ later drops. Strangely enough, while Druids are associated with big, they struggle with big. This is because they lack any form of "go away" short of nuking it down. So dealing with an enemy Ironbark, or Earth Elemental, or Druid of the Claw, can be hard to deal with if you aren't in a good position as there is no Hex, Polymorph, or Assassinate. Thus, at cards 20 it becomes important to check how your deck is coming along. If you have some good Offensive cards, like Force of Naure or Dark Iron Dwarf, then you are probably fine, otherwise grabbing a Naturalize or Poison Seeds can save your life from an opposing Ironbark Protector. How to beat Druid -Druids are all about choice, so restricting their choice can help. Simply put, forcing Druid of the Claw into a 4/4 haste to take down something, or forcing Ancient of Lore to heal himself is a good way to reduce their advantage -Druids don't have many early game Minions, rather their Minions are mostly late game focused. So pay attention to what you see early as you can usually predict how good the player is as well as what their deck may end up as depending on those first cards you see. Coining Wild Growth for example can be a scare factor, but coin into a 2/3 and then on their next turn they just hero power indicates a lack of understanding -Druids are weak to silence on many fronts. Ancient of War gets silenced to a 5/5, Ironbark loses Taunt, and many of their pump cards can go away so if you have Silence try to save it for meaningful targets -And as stated, getting a good board presence and avoiding have many 1 health Minions is a good way to rush down a Druid So Shaman. The class that despite making Minions isn't as good as just making a bunch of 1/1s. This is fairly obvious, but due to how uninteractive the Totems can be. Healing Totem for example is useless against 55% of the classes for the most part. Regardless. Shamans got some great cards, among them, Hex and Fire Elemental are key cards to slam dunk your opponent. Bloodlust is a great game-ender, and as always some key removal like Lightning Storm goes a long way. Regarding overload, try to think about it before you play it. Before dropping a 2+ overload card, think about what do I want to do next turn? Can I do that? Overloading yourself into a position of just toteming is generally unfavorable and you want to avoid it. Some tricky and not so good cards, Earth Shock is great in constructed but in Arena it's just not as good though you can pick it up if you are lacking removal. Lava Burst is a card that looks good but I tend to find myself passing on it for others because it's expensive and just not all that good frankly. I mean Fireball is 4 mana for 6 damage, and Lava Burst is 3 now, 2 later, for only 5 damage. As Shaman, your biggest fear is Hunter. Yes they tend to not show up often but Unleash will eat you alive and sadly there just isn't much you can do to stop it because you kinda need those Totems out there. Just play smart and try to pull out a victory. Facing Shamans, -Like Paladin, you generally want to clear their board. This is because Rockbiter and Flametongue are huge pump up cards you want to avoid losing to. Additionally, Bloodlust deals 3/6/9/12/15 + base damage depending on their Minion count so you can lose in a hurry -Stoneclaw Totem is annoying. Get over it. Try to not get in a position to where you have just one Minion out there to be stumped by Stoneclaw -Doomhammer is awesome. If you run into it you really have to try and play Minions with at least 3 health, no way around it -Don't let Mana Tide Totem survive but one turn. It's usually their only way to draw cards -Shamans thrive on building advantage through huge clears, so try to play around that and don't leave yourself open to huge Lightning Storms So Warlock. Generally your Warlock deck is going to be more aggressive and that's fine, it suits his hero power. As such, having a larger emphasis on the 2-3 drops is more important than having so many late game beasts, as Warlocks outside of Handlock, struggle in the lategame as their hero power can become muted due to low life and the dangers of tapping. Many Warlock cards have downsides, so it's important to understand how to play around them. Flame Imp for instance shouldn't get cast when you are below 10 health, and Doomguard typically you want an empty hand otherwise you come out very far behind. Warlocks have some situational cards that is important to know when to grab them. Corruption is an example of a card that can save your life from threatening beasts, but it's slow so only take it at 20 cards if you find yourself lacking removal. Power Overwhelming seems awesome but in Arena it often sits in your hand doing nothing. Blood Imp seems amazing, but really the 1 health doesn't make that big of a difference and there's so many ways for him to die that he's often not worth it. Voidcaller is amazing, take many of them and don't fear taking other Demons then alongside him (not Succubus). Beating Warlocks -Obviously, once they dip below 10 health their hero power becomes frightening to use so rushing them down really helps. Saving direct damage to end them is a good answer as well -Hellfire is a big nuke early, be mindful of it -Typically, your match up against Warlocks depends on how quickly they come online. If you find them not swarming the board in the first 5 turns, then you should be fine. Your match up is also largely dictated by what cards they drafted. For example Voidcaller is great but if nothing comes out then their 4 drop was not the most efficient. Regarding Voidcallers, try to kill them on your terms so that you can So Rogues. True to their nature, Rogues are crafty and have to win using methods that don't necessarily aline with brute force or raw spell power. The Arena Rogue relies on big turns and eliminating key threats with their spells making way for their Minions. As such, their spells very important and with Rogues it is not uncommon to have 10 spells at a minimum to give energy to their deck. Cards like Backstab, Eviscerate, and Assassin's Blade are very powerful and are what define the Rogue. Other cards like Deadly Poison, Cold Blood, and Anub'ar Ambusher are the nice strong filler cards to round out their base. One issue with Rogues, is that many of their cards suck in Arena. Conceal, Preparation, and Shadowstep are a few that come to mind, though Shiv and Fan of Knives are not much better. The generally ineffecient constructed cards like Assassinate and Sprint fit here due to their raw power. As stated, SI7 Agent is an essential part to the Rogue. Other strong cards like Blade Flurry, and Patient Assassin are a bit harder to use but can also build strong card advantage for you. Stomping Rogues -Rogues rely on their spells. So your match up is 90% decided on what you have to run into. A Rogue with 4 Eviscerate is going to be much harder. A Rogue that Backstabs your 3/2s all day and drops Deadly Poison on their Assassin's Blade can ruin your game -Like Warlock and to some extent Druid, their Hero Power becomes neutered by huge Taunts and low life. Getting a strong front is important with Rogues. -Because of their explosive nature through cards like Defias Ringleader and Cold Blood, Rogues can deal quite a bit of damage so you really want to clear their board less something gets sapped and now you get attacked for 10+ damage. Also, Eviscerate and Assassinate hurt like hell and there's not much you can do against them -A Rogue with 0 cards in hand isn't very threatening. Surviving can be a great strategy to employ against a Rogue as well if you are having trouble getting a threshold Lastly, Hunter. There isn't much to say. It's the weakest Arena class and for good reason, their cards aren't the best and their Hero Power is so uninteractive. Many Hunter cards are valued solely on how much they exterminate, so if you're playing a Hunter keep that in mind. Typically, you are looking to rush down your opponent. As you can do 2 damage every turn, if you run out of damage you can still scrape a win if you can avoid losing. As such, getting the most out of your cards is important. Turn 1 Timber Wolf is really crappy. Hunter's Mark is best when combined with Unleash the Hounds. Deadly Shot is random, so try to reduce the random factor so it pisses off your opponents. Ever since the Buzzard nerf, it sucks hard. As such, Unleash is still really good but you want to try and pair it with something for splash, some options include Scavenging Hyena, Knife Juggler, or Cult Master. Because you have Unleash, it's not always a need to eliminate your opponents creatures as you want a bigger scarier Unleash. Not keep in mind that your opponent will suspect Unleash so they probably will hang onto Minions. As such Mind Cotnrol Tech is a bit weaker in Hunter than others. Surviving Hunter -Hunter is weak, but that doesn't mean you won't run into it and be posed with problem. Their cards are reactive, so let's briefly run over what we can do to help: Deadly Shot - Try to not play huge Minions by themselves Multi-Shot - Try to not have just two 3 health minions out there Explosive Shot - It deals 2 5 2, so pay attention to how you place your Minions. Placing 2-2-5 is better than 2-5-2 for instance, as he cannot 3-1 your Minions. Also separating important Minions can help, such as going 4-3-4 if those were your options Houndmaster - Only works with Beasts, so killing his Beasts can slow this guy down quite a bit Traps - The most common are Explosive and Freezing. We've been over testing for those; so just keep in mind what you might see based on what they do. Bluffing is key here to a Hunter so don't be afraid to take risk. If you suspect it is Explosive and you have lots to lose, don't be afraid to just focus on clearing his Minions first before triggering it So final notes regarding Arena. At the end of the day, you just have to play it frequently to get a feel for it. I could give hints all day long but as with many games, you have to develop a feel and just start to know. Start to expect. Just because you faced Mind Control Tech last game doesn't mean your opponent isn't sitting on one. It's turn 5, be careful of Stampeding Kodo and maybe not play your 2/7 right now. Often times, it does depend on the cards you get. Sadly, that's just how randomness works. However, with strategies that are tested, and using all of the knowledge we can possess to try and turn the tide, then hopefully, we can craft some new Arena players out there. I also realize that this might make it harder for me but whatever. It's like a couple of times now I've played against some Zoo-Lock and seen Owls dropped and though, to myself, dammit Owl isn't a standard Zoo card are they reading my guide? Oh well. I enjoy a better challenge instead of stomps. Happy Hearthstoning ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 14. Expansion Sets [EEEE] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ As I certainly hope to see many new sets in the future of Hearthstone, this section will be where they will be included. I may separate them with their respected gamefaqs sections; but for now I will include Goblins verse Gnomes here and keep Naxxramas where it is. Regardless, December 8, 2014 marks the date a new 136 card set will be added to Hearthstone, 13 of which are uncollectable and 123 being collectable. Each class gains 8 new cards and there will be 51 new neutral cards. The theme for Goblins verse Gnomes is absolutely randomness. Without a doubt, the cards are going to shake up Hearthstone to a whole new level. With this set, there is are two new races being introduced, Mechs and Ogres. Mechs, are without a doubt, going to be very interesting and add an interesting aspect to the game. Ogres on the other hand, are going to be prime for adding Wailing Soul to certain decks as these Ogres are underpriced for their size due to their ability being 50% chance to attack the wrong enemy. For the full cardlist and details, please check hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Goblins_vs_Gnomes MECHS To understand Mechs, there is something we have to look at, Spare Parts. These are 7 cards, all costing 1 mana, that all have simple effects. Here they are: Armor Plating: Give a minion +1 Health Emergency Coolant: Freeze a minion Finicky Cloakfield: Give a friendly minion Stealth until your next turn Reversing Switch: Swap a minion's Attack and Health Rusty Horn: Give a minion Taunt Time Rewinder: Return a friendly minion to your hand Whirling Blades: Give a minion +1 Attack These are the various cards that can be collected from the Spare Part cards. Are they worth it? Some of them are quite good and others are quite situational. So let's review the cards now: Clockwork Gnome: He's a 2/1 for 1 which fits perfectly for aggression. Unlike Leper Gnome who deals 2 damage, this guy gives a Spare Part upon death. I think he'll be a wonderful fit for aggressive decks going with a Mech theme. As for Arena, he is quite a bit more underwhelming. The Spare Parts are cool for sure, but being a 2/1 makes the whole process quite a bit weaker Cogmaster: He's conditionally a 3/2 for 1 which makes him again a great fit for aggressive Mech decks. Arena-wise, if you have at least 5 Mechs he could be useful Annoy-o-Tron: He's annoying that's for sure but how much he actually accomplishes is rather weak. In Arena, he's a fantastic little 2 drop that can really create problems for your opponent. Even when dealing with hero powers that deal 1 damage it takes 2 mana to just remove the deathrattle which begins to make it cost efficient. Now that being said, don't go hog crazy with these things Explosive Sheep: He's a Mech however he's actually much better off to counter aggression because of his deathrattle, deal 2 damage to all Minions. What deck to go in? I'm not entirely sure, but control decks if any. In Arena he could absolutely be a great pick up Gilblin Stalker: For costing 2, we would prefer a 3/2 instead of a 2/3. Stealth is a useful ability, however when they can use Stealth to trade up giving card advantage. As such, he's really not all that strong. In Arena is where he would shine as he can guarantee your trade without you worrying about some spell blowing him out of the way. Still not brilliant though Mechwarper: A staple to Mech decks for sure, his use in Arena will most likely be extremely limited Micro Machine: This guy is a fantastic 2 drop. Immediately, he's a 2/2 for your opponent to deal with. Your first attack with him is a 3/2. From there, he only gets stronger and more troublesome to deal with Puddlestomper: A fantastic addition to Murloc decks and being a 3/2 body for Arena is always great. Might make picking up Hungry Crab more viable now to counter the Puddlestomper Ship's Cannon: They are pushing for a Pirate deck and Ship's Cannon will definitely help that out. He's like Knife Juggler on steroids and actually for his use, has great stats as he's harder to kill. In Arena, his use will be strictly never unless you need more 2 drops Stonesplinter Trogg: I think this guy will be a great addition to Zoo aggression as he's not that scary, but if not dealt with, will become scary. He can easily protect your other Minions less your opponent makes him scary. In Arena, he won't be that strong simply because spells are much more limited there though he's still a better pick than most Flying Machine: Like most 1/4 minions, he sucks. The addition to windfury makes him more cool though he desperately needs allies to compliment his glaring weakness of 1 attack. Being a Mech, there could be a spot for him though I doubt it. In Arena, you can probably do better Gnomeregan Infantry: Silverback Patriarch is now strictly useless save for being a beast, but that doesn't make this thing any better. A 1/4 taunt is near useless, and giving it Charge won't help much of anything Ogre Brute: Our first Ogre, he's a 4/4 for 3 which is huge. The ability to attack the wrong enemy is actually quite cool, as you can attack past Taunts as well as attack Stealth'd enemies. If it proves frustrating, then simply silence him. In Arena, I think this guy will be a very high pick due to his huge size and not that bad of a downside Spider Tank: Dark Cultist was the first and now we have our second 3/4 minion for 3. As such, Spider Tank is very strong and being a Mech gives him that niche for Mech cards. I expect to see him all over the place Tinkertown Technician: Conditionally he's a 4/4 for 3 and you gain a Spare Part. That's awesome! For Mech decks he's a shoo-in and in Arena he's not that bad to begin with but having additional Mechs will make him that much more strong Burly Rockjaw Trogg: Similar to his cousin, this guy is very anti-control with his spell-like absorption. At 3/5, he's appropriately costed to begin with but combined with gaining +2 attack I expect he will be a staple in certain decks as a counter measure Lost Tallstrider: Hunter has gotten some fairly strong cards and this is no exception, as it's a 5/4 beast for 4 mana. Rather useless in most other decks, I expect this "chocobo" will be in nearly all Hunter decks Mechanical Yeti: RIP Chillwind Yeti. Just kidding, but he is that good. Giving each player a Spare Part seems like a downside; however this is something you can exploit due to the theme of certain cards gaining bonuses from your opponents hand Piloted Shredder: A 4/3 for 4 we would expect a good ability as a 4/3 goes down to a 2 drop 3/2; this one does. When he dies he gives you a random 2 cost minion. That's amazing! With the exception of Captain's Parrot, you cannot lose out on value when this thing goes down. In Arena, I expect this will be fairly strong pick Antique Healbot: Hard to say with this. According to Blizzard, 3 mana and 8 health is considered balanced. This guy then results with a 3/3 for 2 mana in addition to gaining 8 life. Seems strong; but if we step back we see it's 5 mana for a 3/3 so I'd say ehhhhhhhhhh probably not that good Salty Dog: He's a pirate, and he's a 7/4 for 5 which is good enough for Legendary standards. Now, he doesn't have Deathrattle, but he is a pirate and he is fairly huge for the cost. Not so good outside of Pirate decks, but in Arena I expect him to be fairly strong as he is simply powerful Force-Tank MAX: This guy is certainly huge however when compared to other huge neutral minions he is questionable. A 7/7 Divine Shield is great, but he costs 8 mana which is cumbersome. Ogre is a 6/7 for only 6 mana, and Venture Co is a 7/6 for only 5 mana. If you need a fatty he definitely fits the role though I would take Ogre over him any day Rares Our first rare is Target Dummy. Suffice to say this guy to me seems useless. Sure he's free, but he's an 0/2. If anything, Shieldbearer at least will absorb two attacks. In other words, free 20 crafting I assume Gnomish Experimenter: This guy is useless in Arena. As the majority of your cards are minions, that means you get a 1/1 chicken instead. Outside of Arena, he may have some use in constructed in very spell oriented decks as he is a 3/2 body attached to drawing a card opposed to the 1/1 or 2/4 Goblin Sapper: One theme we will see is powers based on your opponents hand. Instinctively, I think these cards are going to be quite weak as you cannot control your opponents hand save for mill decks. Regarding Goblin Sapper, having a 6/4 for 3 would be incredible, but on the other hand a 2/4 for 3 is not nearly as strong. He could have use in a mill deck but otherwise I think he is quite weak Illuminator: So this chick works in only 3 classes (4 if you count a Priest stealing something) but otherwise this thing is quite weak. And even having the ability trigger only results in 4 health. Quite weak though if paired with "hard to trigger" secrets you can gain significant amounts of life if she's well hidden AKA Ice Block, Avenge/Redemption, or any conditional Hunter secret Lil' Exorcist: I expect this card will see quite the play. A 2/3 taunt is nothing brilliant, but a 3/4, or a 4/5 taunt for 3 mana becomes simply obnoxious and that's only facing 2 deathrattles. Hopefully you will coin this out on turn 2 and the 4 power beatdown will begin Arcane Nullifier X-21: Yes it's a mech. It's also a 2/5 taunt that cannot be hit with spells or Hero Powers. I think this guy is quite strong and will be in control decks, as his 5 health keeps him alive against most 4 or less costing creatures, and his 2 power takes down many cheaper minions. I expect him to splash with quite the explosion Jeeves: This little Mech is going to be in every Zoo deck from here to Timbucktwo. Dropping him as your last card and drawing 3 cards simply provides so much card advantage that he will be around a lot. In Arena he's not brilliant as the quality of cards drawn aren't always going to be that great. However if you have no means to draw cards he can certainly fit into your 20-30 picks Kezan Mystic: This chick definitely would hope that a Sideboard mechanic was ever to be introduced. Without it, it's hard to say how to use her effectively as secrets aren't brilliant and without them she's quite weak. In Arena, I expect her to be considerably better due to secrets being more popular but otherwise I'd pass. Having played with her once I literally never had the opportunity to steal a secret and even once LOST a secret to her but it just didn't make a difference Bomb Lobber: For 2 mana, frostbolt does 3 damage and freezes. For 1 mana and overload lightning bolt deals 1 damage. Bomb Lobber is a 3/3 attached to a 4 damage nuke. Thus, you can either look at a 3/3 for 3 with a 2 cost nuke, or a 3/3 for 2 attached to a 3 cost nuke. Either way, he's extremely potent. The downside is that it is random; however since it only targets enemy Minions you can easily control which minion you want to be annihilated Madder Bomber: Frankly after playing with him I think this guy is just a waste. Mad Bomber has randomness attached however the 3 damage is actually more beneficial. Madder Bombers 6 damage is overkill and in 3 uses half the damage just hit me in the face. Now that's bad RNG, but think about it. When do you play Mad Bomber? To enrage your minion, to hit Acolyte, or when your opponent has at least one minion at 1 health? So when would you play Madder Bomber? Probably in a similar situation but the 6 damage is just overkill in all senses. Probably better off skipping this guy Epics Recombobulator: He has an effective cost and a neat battlecry. The only real downside is getting an Ancient Watcher or Doomsayer, but even those you can work around. Otherwise, you get "healing" as your minion is transformed and you can work out negative effects Hobgoblin: Already tried this guy out in Arena and frankly he's just not worth it. He himself is not cost effective and his ability seems cool but really what that means is your deck must contain 1 attack minions which we already know are BAD. They aren't good minions unless you have Hobgoblin so really he seems cool but he's simply not worth it Enhance-o Mechano: He like many other minions only benefits as much from how many minions you have in play. I expect Paladin and Shaman will see some use from him, as well as Murloc decks. For Arena, he's not nearly as strong due to his effect being "snowball" as opposed to "catch up" meaning that if you are winning he secures it but if you need something specific he won't answer that for you Mini-Mage: Ideally a 1/4 stealth'd spell power minion would be much better if you actually want spell power... as it is, you'd almost rather have Jungle Panther no joke. Kobold Geomancer is cheaper to add to spell power, and Arch Mage is a large body to contend with. Azure Drake is one of the most cost efficient minions in the game. Mini Mage is awkwardly costed with weird stats Fel Reaver: This guy redefines huge. His downsize is admittedly a huge one but only if the game goes long (which hopefully having an 8/8 won't let the game go long). This is because each random card discarded is just that, random. Sure you don't want to lose cards, but because each card is just as likely to get discarded there is no negative to you. Ironically, if there is a specific card you don't want to lose, then you have a fairly good possibility of not discarding it as you'd have a 1/x chance to discard it. Then there's always silencing this huge minion; which I think will put Fel Reaver into many categories of decks Junkbot: Unlike Hunter who can create a horde of beasts to die for his cause, this Junkbot lacks any guaranteed way to increase his size. As such, you're looking at needing at least 2 Mech deaths just to make this guy a 5/6 for 5. He may have some use in Mech decks but he seems to gimmicky and conditional Piloted Sky Golem: All these deathrattle minions are awesome and he's no exception. This guy is essentially a Cairne Bloodhoof Clockwork Giant: He could have some use in constructed but his downside is simply conditional and can be an absolute dead-draw late in the game. I'd pass Legendary Blingtron 3000: This guy is amazing. Besides giving weapons to any class now; he can be used to destroy and replace your opponents current weapon. He's also a Mech! I imagine he will be a shoe-in to nearly every constructed deck except for aggro. In Arena he is good but not that good Hemet Hesingwary: He has horrible stats but an awesome battlecry. He's an excellent counter to Hunter but the question is how many beasts might you say outside of Hunter? Druid has several new beasts, but other than that beasts aren't that present. Hard to gauge his usefulness right now Mimiron's Head: Is V-07-TR-ON worth it? I'd say yes. I expect this will be the "winner" in Mech decks as you turn them into MEGA-fury and win the game. In Arena I expect this guy to be an overpriced Yeti, which is still better than other legendaries Gazlowe: Like Mimiron, quite useless in Arena besides being an ineffective 3/6 for 6 however in Mech decks I expect this guy will be a staple Mogor the Ogre: Hard to say. He himself is less effective than Boulderfist Ogre. However the ability is a bit insane as it can really cripple your opponent. Hard to say what deck he'll fit into though Toshley: He's similar to other legendaries in stats, but is his ability good enough? Well, look at those Spare Part cards. Are those worth attaching to this guy? Maybe if combined with Gazlowe otherwise not so strong Dr. Boom: He's big and he gives fantastic board presence. Dr. Boom will be helpful in control decks and a shoe-in for Arena Toggzor the Earthinator: Wow, this guy could single-handily shift the game of Hearthstone. How do you deal with a 6/6 without casting a spell? Well you don't if you're behind. Troggzor is a very high Arena pick and for constructed we have to see how he fits in Foe Reaper 4000: If you're looking for an expensive game changer, the Foe Reaper will do that. His weakness is no immediate effect. His strength is an absolute game changer with just a single attack. Very strong Sneed's Old Shredder: He completes the trio of summoning and he gives a legendary one. His only weakness is that in Arena many legendaries are "conditional" meaning they go into specific constructed decks as well as many legendaries have battlecries that would not get triggered. You can also get Cairne, Sylvannas, KT or Ragnaros, so Sneed's seems like an excellent choice Mekgineer Thermaplugg: Whoof. He's gigantic. His ability is hilarious but pointless as having a 9/7 will win the game in 1-2 attacks regardless of how many Leper Gnomes are created. Because of this I expect him to not be as strong or popular as other Legendaries Druid Anodized Robo Cub: This guy redefines what you expect out of a 2 drop. The Taunt is stuck, but you can choose 2/3 or 3/2, that's awesome! Druid of the Fang: With Druid of the Claw becoming a Beast, I expect the Druid of the Fang will become a new terrifying beast in every Druid deck Grove Tender: A shoe-in for Ramp Druid, but otherwise the "each player" component makes Grove Tender quite weak Mech-Bear-Cat: This card has quite the potential. He's large, but if it takes even 2 instances of damage to kill him you get 2 free cards. A large Mech for sure Recycle: FINALLY Druid has a way to deal with large creatures besides using creatures. Control Druid will use this card liberally Dark Wispers: 5/5 and Taunt is nothing to sneeze at; and 5 wisps seems useless unless you consider Dark Wispers+Power of the Wild or Dark Wispers+ Knife Juggler or... you can see the potential Tree of Life: Near useless I expect Malorne: An ever-lasting 9/7 unless silenced? Sounds very cool! Hunter Glaivezooka: Adding a cheap weapon to Hunter is just unfair and this is very strong and useful Cobra Shot: Hard to say as it's very expensive and doesn't deal that much damage Call Pet: In constructed, very strong. In Arena, near useless Metaltooth Leaper: The Hunter Mech dream is real King of Beasts: The Hunter Beast deck is even more obnoxious Feign Death: Sigh, Hunter is really getting some options here that are going to make them the class to beat Steamwheedle Sniper: At 2/3 he's effective, but wow that hero power. He basically will cost "4" so you can get the effect right away but this guy is a game changer Gahz'rilla: Blizzard has a habit of overkill and this thing is no exception. Holy crap Mage Flamecannon: Mage has gotten some awesome cards and Flamecannon is just the first one. The random component is easily dealt with and now you can easily roast 5 health minions for 4 mana but without using Fireball Snowchugger: Normally 2/3's aren't exciting but Snowchugger gives them new meaning. This is but another card that makes Mages stronger as he is an excellent 2 drop Goblin Blastmage: At 5/4, he's cost effective. If you get his battlecry bonus he turns amazing Soot Spewer: He's effective but not exciting. Hard to say. His best use is that of being a Mech Unstable Portal: Yes! This card has so much potential. Sure drawing Pit Lord sucks if you are low, but drawing Windfury Harpy and playing her on turn 3 really makes a problem for your opponent Echo of Medivh: The aggro Mage deck could be making a HUGE comeback with Echo of Medivh Wee Spellstopper: Her small power is mediocre to say the least so the question becomes how to abuse this? Pair her with any of those Trogg Minions as she basically has "flagbearer". Knife Juggler is nice too Flame Leviathan: Faced this in Arena; it beat me. For Arena, It's not bad. For constructed, it's hard to say. Probably works in control but you have literally no way to control when you draw it so that is very risky Paladin Seal of Light: Cheap removal for Paladin? Sigh so obnoxious Shielded Minibot: Great for Mech decks, not so fantastic elsewhere Cobalt Guardian: The Paladin Mech deck is real! Muster for Battle: This creates 6 stats for 3 mana, so that's effective. I imagine you'll need to combo this with extra stat inducing cards, but definitely will be strong Scarlet Purifier: With the popularity of Naxxramas not showing any signs of waning, I expect Scarlet Purifier can go to any deck and be brutal Coghammer: Adding another weapon to Paladins is something they really needed. And you look at the battlecry and whoof that's nice; especially since you can control what minion you have in play Quartermaster: Combine with Muster for Battle? Conditional that's for sure but turning 1/1 into 3/3 even just twice is, well that's huge! Bolvar Fordragon: This guy has so much potential but it's so much conditional potential. I imagine control Paladin will enjoy him quite a bit Priest Shrinkmeister: The first battlecry of its kind, this guy is a shoo-in for Arena and for constructed really thanks to making Shadow Word Pain and Shadow Madness and Cabal Shadow Priest all THAT MUCH BETTER Velen's Chosen: Insane. Enough said Light of the Naaru: If Lightwarden didn't suck then this would be cool. But as Lightwarden sucks, this card kinda sucks Shadowboxer: He's like the Knife Juggler you wished for. Circle of Healing may become better in more than just Auchenai Upgraded Repair Bot: At 5/5 for 5, that's good. Giving 4 health to a Mech is wowzers. Very powerful Shadowbomber: Many people are questioning this use and frankly I am at a loss. Obviously the goal is that Priest can heal himself; however since Priest has to cut such corners to hit 30 cards anyway I can't see when you'd want this wee little 2/1 Lightbomb: Control Priest is crapping on you and you LIKE it Vol'jin: This troll is simply insane. Expect to see him all over unlike Master Velen the crappy prophet Rogue Goblin Auto-Barber: Backspace Rogue is loving this card as is Arena Tinker's Sharpsword Oil: It's expensive and a bit clunky but the effects are definitely all worth it Iron Sensei: This is what end-of-turn effects like Priestess should do. The Mech Rogue deck is real! Ogre Ninja: Wow. This guy is just unfair One-eyed Cheat: This guy looks strong but thanks to all the ways to deal one damage randomly I expect he will be forced into decks and not do well Cogmaster's Wrench: Sigh. Like other weapons I sigh at this. It's good Sabotage: So Rogues now have 2 ways to destroy creatures. Control Rogue could still be around despite the Miracle nerf Trade Prince Gallywix: This guy... looks insane. Gaining a spell in exchange for a coin? That's incredible value. He's a 5/8 for 6 which means he won't die all that easily and if they do use a spell... then you have it to use again. He will be everywhere Shaman Whirling Zap-Matic: Many Shaman cards are just insane and we start with a doozy here in the Zap-o-matic. 3/2's are always great... this one has WINDFURY which well, if you coin it out there or simply play it on turn 2 and they do not immediately deal with it you can deal 6, or even 10 damage if you play a certain totem next turn. Holy crap! Crackle: WoW! This is amazing! Dunemaul Shaman: WOW! This thing is INSANE Powermace: What a fantastic weapon addition to Shamans Vitality Totem: As Shamans have little to no way to gain life this could be used in Control Shaman. Could being the operative word as he doesn't do anything else Ancestor's Call: Could the Alarm-o-Bot Shaman be coming back? Maybe. By coming back I mean just starting. Alarm-o-Bot, Ancestor's Call, and Foresight could make it a thing Siltfin Spiritwalker: Whoa! Murloc Shaman is really coming to a reality! Neptulon: AHHHH Murloc Shaman verified! So yeah... Shaman has gotten some insane cards Warlock Darkbomb: It's cheap, it's simple, it's also cheap removal that Warlock really could use Floating Watcher: He's a large demon with potential but he seems too slow to really have any use Fel Cannon: Mech Warlock confirmed? Imp-losion: Looks like Zoo-lock just got a fantastic addition to their arsenal Mistress of Pain: She's interesting but 1 power just sucks Anima Golem: He's the largest cheapest minion. But that condition is extremely scary and not that hard to trigger Demonheart: They're pushing for a Demon deck and Demonheart is a huge step into that direction Mal'Ganis: And this guy confirms it. He doesn't have to go into a Demon deck thanks to his "your hero is immune" thing; but he can definitely launch a Demon deck into crazyness Warrior Ogre Warmaul: This weapon is horrible. It seems like it would be good, however unlike a minion that is a 4/4; there's no threat. The minion might still be targeted by your opponent whereas the weapon if it misses does nothing. It's bad. Warbot: Warriors have a 1/3 for 1 now. He becomes a 2/2 though. That's not great, but a 2/2 for 1 is respectable so not bad Screwjank Clunker: Warriors can definitely assemble a nice Mech Deck Shieldmaiden: I expect to see Shieldmaiden a lot. Considering Shield Block costs 3 for 5 armor plus a card, this basically means you get a 5/5 for 3 mana. Unlike gaining life, Warriors have a practical use for armor Siege Engine: See Shieldmaiden for explanation Bouncing Blade: This card has some insane potential. Strangely enough, it's use won't be "bouncing between minions" rather, using it on just a single minion and taking it out for 3 mana. Maybe your opponents Ragnaros after your board was cleared? Crush: I think Control Warrior can fine a use for this Iron Juggernaut: Holy wow. This guy will go into Control Warrior. As those games tend to go long, you force your opponent into an awful spot of needing cards to win, but sooner or later they will take 10 damage What does this all mean? As with any new set, changes will happen. While it is impossible to say right now what will happen, here are a few things that you can expect to see will change. 1. Big Game Hunter This guy was a staple more often than not, but with the growing number of 7 power minions, running 2 BGH will almost be required if to compete 2. Ne'rub Weblord This guy was laughed at so Blizzard tried to make him viable. There's one trend that connects all these great cards: Battlecries. Having a Weblord out there can slow your opponent down drastically so expect to see him worked into decks 3. Silence Ironbeak Owl and Spellbreaker could be seeing quite a bit more play to deal with the growing number of deathrattle and obnoxious abilities in the game 3a. Along with that, Wailing Soul could be dusted off and worked into a deck now along the lines of using stuff like Ancient Watcher, Venture Co, Dancing Swords, Ogres, and Fel Reaver. Expect these to work better in Druid or Priest due to their additional silence mechanics 4. Mind Control Tech A fantastic Arena card, with the growing odds of Mech decks and thus facing larger and larger enemy pools, MCT can be a game changer. Additionally Sea Giant could compliment Mech decks well as an 8/8 for 3 or 4 mana ain't bad 5. Pirates We've talked and oozed about Mechs, so what about Pirates? They received several new cards, namely Ship's Cannon, which give them so real validity. Most Pirates are weapon associated so I expect Warrior and Rogue to get use out of them. Specifically Rogue as Shadowstepping with Ship's Cannon can really deal some damage. Ship's Cannon is Knife Juggler on steroids 6. Beasts? Black Knight was always a potential threat, however he was a dead card if there was no target and typically the target was not "that" dangerous. The threat of Hemet Nesingwary though could really make most beasts not want to be played due to the free death. What beasts are affected? Druid has the Claw and the Fang which are staples... Lost Tallstrider is a new addition, and Stampeding Kodo shows his face all over. Then there's also Hunter cards. Certainly the threat of Nesingwary could have people pass on certain cards 7. Weapon Destruction The Ooze is going to be better than ever, but Harrison Jones and possibly even Bloodsail Corsair could become better than ever with the new wave of even more weapons coming out. Consider that every class now has access to weapons if they choose to means that your Harrison could potentially never be useless 8. Zoo Zoo is always so strong. But now every class has access to Explosive Sheep which makes a "boom" in slowing down aggression. Will it be enough? Maybe, but certainly Silence will become key now to Zoo 9. Spells? Gadgetzan, Violet Teacher, and Mana Addict all enjoy spells. GVG adds Spare Parts cards which are all cheap 1 mana spells. Will these new cards re-vitalize old ones? Only time will tell. 10. Deck potential? I expect everything will change. But for now, I'm going to give it at least a few weeks before I even think about trying to list the current strong/popular decks ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 15. The End? [FFFF] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ So here we are, the end. But we're never really done. This guide will continue to update as things change, and I'm certainly open to putting in a FAQS section if people would like that (and shoot me questions). This guide is copyright, Me, Todd Lesinski, NoWorries, tskisoccer, halla I'm the glorious writer who has done this. It's my property and you may use it; but in no way publish it under any other name besides my own. Blizzard owns Hearthstone, but I own my ideas =) If you feel the need to ask me anything regarding Hearthstone, including this guide, you may do so at: [email protected] Please make your subject line clear for what you want (like Hearthstone, or Hearthstone deck idea, or Your hearthstone guide) something that tells me you want my attention regarding Hearthstone. Otherwise, it might get deleted as I get quite a bit of spam and delete about 50 emails a day of spam so yup, make a clear subject line and I'll get to you as others will know from some of my other guides. Credits? At this point, I've done this so many times, it's the same! ERGH I'd like to thank Gamefaqs, for being awesome I'd like to thank Blizzard, for being awesome I'd like to thank MTG, for being an awesome inspiration for games everywhere I'd like to thank you, the reader. Congratulations, this is a long guide and you made it through. Good job. Oh and good luck with Hearthstone! Guide length: 382246 characters END TEXT