Decision Making for Beginners

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Hearthstone - The name of this game is on every Blizzard and TCG Gamers lips. I constantly see the twitter masses clamoring for beta keys, so that everyone can start laying down their cards. Among the masses are players like myself; we’ve either played fleetingly with TCG’s in the past, or are straight up new to this kind of game. However, the competitive nature, backed by the track record of Blizzard, draws us to it nonetheless. And this is where the problem arises; we aren’t very good.

The problem is our decision making. Trading, Board Control, Mana Efficiency, Aggro Decks, Top Decking… none of that really means anything to someone just breaking into this genre. So here’s a quick way to help keep your play on track.

The players that make the big plays, or snowball into board control, or do any number of incredibly successful things… it all comes down to your decision making.

So here’s a quick way to help remember things that you need to do per turn in order to try to create your advantage:

Survive

Do whatever you need to do this turn in order to survive. If that means trading out, wiping the board, proc’ing a secret, then do it. Because you can’t come back if you die.

Example - As a Rogue, you have many useful tools to remove smaller minions in the beginning of the game. Backstab, Eviscerate, Combo damage from SI:7 minions. While Eviscerate can do up to 4 damage, sometimes in order to clear, you have to settle on 2. This is perfectly acceptable, because you will survive without taking the damage.

Build

Now there’s two ways to interpret this, and it is largely situation dependent. You can either build up either your:

• Card Advantage - Keeping more cards than your opponent in hand
• Board Control - Keeping more minions on the board than your opponent

Learning this second step will likely be the hardest for those newer to the genre, but it should be a bit easier for those with a TCG background. Learning when to play a card and when to hold back can make or break your game.

Example - Your Mage has no 1 cost minions to play. Enemy Hunter coins out a 3/2 Bloodfen Raptor on Turn 1. Your Mage has a Knife Juggler, but only 2 Mana. You could put out the Knife Juggler, but then you have a high chance of these scenarios:

• not getting to use the passive at all (Hunter kills it, but trades)
• Hunter ignoring the trade and landing 3 early damage on you (since you likely can’t kill the Bloodfen Raptor without losing the Knife Juggler on turn 2
• Hunter using Arcane Shot or something similarly fatal on the Knife Juggler, and keeping the full health Bloodfen Raptor, and landing 3 damage on you anyways

Now, the scenario’s above are listed in your best to worst scenario’s, but it’s something I think about when considering using the Knife Juggler. All things considered, playing the Knife Juggler is a loss to you in many scenarios, and only a very slim chance of it working out in your favor.

So a better idea then would be to keep the Knife Juggler, and use your Fire Blast to bring the Bloodfen Raptor to 1 hit point. Now, on your next turn, you can kill it with your Fire Blast. You still take the damage from the Bloodfen Raptor, but the advantage here is that you are now up by 1 card over the enemy Hunter.

So this is a situation where I would keep my cards, and build my Card Advantage. You have 30 hit points per Hero, and more if you have armor and/or healing. Just rushing out minions to their death, or even worse a pointless death, just does not satisfy either step #1 or #2.

Aggress

Chances are that if you’ve followed steps #1 and #2, you have fought off attacks, laid waste to minions, and have some kind of favorable advantage, either on the board or in your hand. This is where the fun begins - you take to the offensive!

• If you have kept the card advantage, and the enemy is running out of options, then you have a good chance to use that card advantage you built up to start laying down the pain. If you were able to keep back a good few minions and still maintain your momentum into the mid or late game, then it’s time to cash them all in!
• If you have kept the board control, but the enemy has a few cards to his name, then focus on maintaining that board control. If you can maintain the minion momentum, your enemy will be more likely to play any and every card they can in order to try to Survive (see step #1). This is where you maintain the focus of offense, and use your card draw as needed. Maintaining board control and building up your card advantage is almost a sure win.

Warning: The danger of maintaining board control is Area of Effect board clears. You need to find out what options different classes have in order to reduce your control, and be wary of them. In Constructed Decks (you create the deck), they can have at most 2 of any card. Count. Write down the spells you’ve seen, or notable minions. Know when to commit, and when to hold back for a turn because of the danger of losing a fresh minion for nothing.

There are of course many more intricacies to the play style of the game, and themed decks or “meta” decks, but that will all come with experience and practice in Hearthstone. For now, focus on developing your decision making, knowing when to kill a minion (A Paladin’s Blessing of Kings can make his 1/1 into a 5/5) or when to go for the throat (A Mage’s Pyroblast, A Hunter’s Release the Hounds), and applying your new knowledge into defeating your opponents.