Update your deck and take advantage of all the new content in Hearthstone
Source: Windows Central
Hearthstone is a continually evolving game, regularly releasing new content while phasing out old cards to keep the game fresh and competitive. If you haven’t played in years, or at all, it might seem intimidating to jump in now. But the start of a new competitive season in April and an event going on through July means that now is a great time to give the digital collectible card game a try.
Blizzard makes it easy for new or returning players to join in, providing tutorials, notes in your interface about what’s new, and starter cards so you can quickly build a competitive deck without investing any money. The game is free and playable on your phone, tablet, or computer, making it easy to get into. This guide should help make the process even more stress-free and let you just focus on having fun.
Get back in the game
Hearthstone
Journey to Outland in the new expansion
With a new expansion and competitive season plus a constant release of new content over the next month, it’s the perfect time to jump back into Hearthstone. New players will even be welcomed back with a free deck.
What is Hearthstone?
Blizzard Entertainment first launched the free-to-play game in 2014 and has supported it with regular expansions, which contain between 100-200 new cards, and adventures, which introduce about 30 new cards that are unlocked by playing through the game’s story mode. The latest expansion, Ashes of Outland, was released in April.
It took Wizards of the Coast four years to catch up with what Blizzard Entertainment by launching Magic: The Gathering Arena, but Hearthstone still has a host of advantages because it was designed to be digital rather than converting an existing game into an electronic format. Magic is more interactive, requiring players to wait on their opponents to see if they want to respond to spells being cast. Hearthstone instead uses secret spells that trigger automatically when certain conditions are met. This makes the game faster paced while still requiring players to consider the cards their opponents have or haven’t played to try to anticipate their moves.
How can I play Hearthstone?
Source: Windows Central
New cards and classes
Unlike most CCGs, players in Hearthstone don’t just design a deck but pick a class. Classes are represented by signature characters from the Warcraft games, each with their own special abilities. Your class will also determine what cards can be in your deck. Inspired by aspects of the Burning Crusade and Legion World of Warcraft expansions, Ashes of Outland introduces the game’s first new class, the Demon Hunter.
You’ll receive 20 cards to use in your Demon Hunter deck if you complete a three-part prologue adventure featuring the signature Demon Hunter Illidan Stormrage. The deck you use for the prologue is built for you, and the fights aren’t that hard, making it a perfect way to remind yourself of the rules.
The Ashes of Outland expansion contains 135 cards. More of the Common and Rare cards are devoted to Demon Hunters than any other class to help them build the options that will let them be competitive.
Competitive play
Source: Windows Central
If you haven’t logged in since the Standard rotation changed, you’ll be notified of the cards that can’t be used in Standard and have the opportunity to automatically convert your decks to ones that only use Standard cards. Some of your Basic and Classic cards may have also been phased out to help game balance. If that happened, you’ll be given a dust refund. Dust can be spent to craft new cards for your collection. Old cards are still valid in the Wild format, which can be used in Adventure mode and Hearthstone’s more casual Tavern Brawl mode.
New mechanics
Source: Windows Central
You can find out what any card ability in Hearthstone does by hovering your mouse over it, so it shouldn’t be too hard to pick things up. However, if you want to gain confidence, you might want to try some Casual games first. You’ll still be able to earn gold and experience and complete quests while doing this without having to stress about affecting your player rank.
Pay to win?
Source: Windows Central
A $10 Tavern Pass (https://us.shop.battle.net/en-us/product/hearthstone-tavern-pass) will get you four tickets to use in the Arena, where players draft decks and compete for substantial rewards. Competing there usually costs $2 or 150 gold. Tavern Pass holders also get some extra perks in Battlegrounds, an eight-player competitive mode that launched in November. If you want those benefits but don’t want to pay real money, you can also buy a Tavern Pass for 1,250 gold.
Packs of cards cost 100 gold, but you can also pay for them in real money, starting at $3 for two packs. As of this expansion, once you have the maximum playable number of a given card, you’ll never get an additional copy. This helps remove frustration and let you grow your collection faster. As an added incentive, Blizzard is giving a free deck from a class of their choice to players who haven’t played the game in the past four months as soon as they make their way out of the New Player competitive league.
What’s next?
Get back in the game
Hearthstone
Journey to Outland in the new expansion
With a new expansion and competitive season plus a constant release of new content over the next month, it’s the perfect time to jump back into Hearthstone. New players will even be welcomed back with a free deck.