Everyone who reads my blog knows that I am a big fan of Magic the Gathering. But these days it seems Wizards of the Coast just keeps releasing more and more sets that kind of dilute the power of Magic cards. More and more cards seem overpowered or strictly superior to the older cards, that annoy me.
Recently, I found an online-only card game, called Hearthstone, which is very similar to Magic, except that its free to play, every card can be gotten for free (with enough grinding), and its very simple to play. Basically, they took Magic’s principles, kept the fun strategy and interaction and mana restraints, but eliminated the complicated stuff like tapping to attack, blocking, mana pools, turn phases, etc.
In Hearthstone, every player starts out with 3/4 cards and 30 life, has a maximum of 30 cards in a deck and 2 copies of any card, draws a card every turn, gains mana every turn, has a maximum of 10 mana, and only one turn phase in which they can do everything. All creatures (minions they are called) must wait a turn before attacking, and can either attack the player directly or another minion, just like Magic. Every player has a special hero ability that can be used once per turn for 2 mana. And the goal is to reduce the opponent’s life to 0. That’s it. They basically distilled Magic’s rules down while still keeping it fun, which is great.
That said, I’ve been playing Hearthstone a lot these days, and these are the decks I currently use online. As with Magic having 5 colors, Hearthstone has 9 classes you can play as with special cards available with each class.
Mech Mage
This is a Mage deck that uses Mechs and an aggro playstyle to win the game.
//22 common/basic
2x Frostbolt
2x Snowchugger
2x Fireball
2x Clockwork Gnome
2x Cogmaster
2x Annoy-o-Tron
2x Mechwarper
2x Harvest Golem
2x Spider Tank
2x Tinkertown Technician
2x Piloted Shredder
2x Polymorph
//2 rare
2x Goblin Blastmage
//5 legendary
1x Loatheb
1x Dr. Boom
1x Archmage Antonidas
1x The Black Knight
—————————–
Midrange Paladin
This Paladin deck uses a ramp strategy which balances the cost of the cards in a normal distribution across the deck, going from small threats early game to big threats late game.
//1-2 cost
1x Equality
1x Ironbeak Owl
2x Knife Juggler
2x Shielded Minibot
//3 cost
1x Big Game Hunter
2x Muster for Battle
2x Aldor Peacekeeper
1x Mind Control Tech
//4-5 cost
2x Piloted Shredder
2x Sludge Belcher
2x Truesilver Champion
2x Consecration
1x Loatheb
1x Harrison Jones
1x Antique Healbot
2x Quartermaster
//6+ cost
1x Tirion Fordring
1x Sylvanas Windrunner
1x Emperor Thaurissan
1x Dr. Boom
1x Lay on Hands
——————————-
Fatigue Rogue
The goal of this Rogue deck is to run the opponent out of cards so that they have no options, and therefore lose the game eventually due to fatigue.
//18 common/basic
2x Backstab
2x Deadly Poison
2x Eviscerate
2x Sap
2x Gang Up
2x Shadowstep
2x Antique Healbot
2x Vanish
1x Fan of Knives
1x Youthful Brewmaster
//8 rare
1x Blade Flurry
2x Coldlight Oracle
2x Deathlord
2x Azure Drake
1x Sludge Belcher
//2 epic
2x Preparation
//2 legendary
1x Bloodmage Thalnos
1x King Mukla
——————————-
Warlock Zoo
2x Power Overwhelming
2x Abusive Sergeant
2x Flame Imp
2x Leper Gnome
2x Voidwalker
2x Young Dragonhawk
2x Annoy-o-Tron
2x Dire Wolf Alpha
2x Haunted Creeper
2x Knife Juggler
2x Nerubian Egg
2x Arcane Golem
2x Imp-losion
2x Dark Iron Dwarf
2x Piloted Shredder
Video
Here are some of my decks in action…
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoucIJVdFbs
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fThe4KcIQHw
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25NkSfMdt_I
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWLXcYyqZPs