How Card Advantage Wins

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How Do You Win in Hearthstone?

Have you gathered the cards from a top legend deck list, yet still can’t get far in the ladder? Have you been religiously following an arena pick order list and still can’t consistently achieve 7+ wins? If you are struggling with actually winning in Hearthstone, you likely don’t fully utilize the theory of card advantage. This principle, almost on its own, can dramatically improve your win rate across the board once you can consistently put it into practice.

As you play games of Hearthstone, take note of how many cards are left in both your own and your opponent’s deck when the game is coming to an end. I think you will find fairly consistently that the player with the smaller deck is on pace to win the game.

You should also note how many cards are in each player’s hand as the game is finishing. Again, you will often see the winning player with many additional cards, especially if the game wasn’t close. Over time, if you examine these things, you will begin to learn that in a lot of cases, especially in Arena, the player who has access to more cards over the course of a game, wins. Or in simpler terms, whoever has the most card advantage usually wins the game. The question becomes, how do you gain card advantage?

Gaining Card Advantage

The most obvious way to gain card advantage is to play a card that draws two or more cards, such as “Arcane Intellect”. There are a handful of cards like this in the game currently, and they will generate card advantage, but often at a cost of tempo, or time. The issue is if you spend turn 3 playing an Arcane Intellect, you are not advancing your board presence, which can then snowball to a point where you can’t recover, and you may end up losing while unable to use the extra cards you drew. Where these sort of cards shine is in the late game when you have 10 mana available, and you can make great use of the cards you have drawn right away.

Another classic way to gain card advantage is to kill an opposing minion without spending a card of your own. A great example is Fire Elemental. If you can kill an opposing minion with your Fire Elemental’s battle cry ability, you are left with a 6/5 body that will typically require at least one additional card from your opponent to deal with. If your opponent were to Fireball your Fire Elemental in this example, you would have obtained a classic “2 for 1″ trade from your opponent. You expended two of his cards, for your single Fire Elemental. Any time you can pull off a “2 for 1″ is a gigantic deal in any card game, as even just one such exchange can lead to a victory in a close game. If you can pull off multiple “2 for 1″s, you will likely win in a landslide as your opponent will eventually run out of cards to match your own. This is the primary reason Flamestrike is one of the more powerful cards in Arena, as it can be very easy to trade it for two or more of your opponent’s minions.

Hero Powers

A great way to generate card advantage in Hearthstone is through using Hero Powers. The Warlock’s power is fairly obvious in that it straight up draws you a card, and their class cards are tuned with that in mind (ie they are a little weaker). The Warlock hero power is the driving force in both the Zoo Lock and Hand Lock strategies in constructed, two of the more dominant decks available. Drawing cards, without spending cards of your own, is always a recipe for power in card games, Hearthstone being no exception. When playing a Warlock, you should be actively looking for windows to use your hero power when you have the spare mana. Often in the Zoo strategy, this happens later in the game after you have dumped your hand onto the board. In the Hand Lock strategy, you often spend the first few turns tapping to play a Giant or a Drake on turn 4.

In Arena, you should generally just be tapping whenever you don’t have a relevant play to make, again this will happen more often in the late game. If you are afraid of going too low in health, Warlock may not be the right class for you! Your health is a resource to be spent, and you should consider it an achievement when you win a game with under 10 health as you spent it wisely. The only health point that really matters is your final one, or if you are afraid of Leroy, your final 6.

Other hero powers such as the Mage, Rogue, and Druid can directly attack minions, which can lead to solid card advantage as well. Combining the hero power with minion combat, spells that Cantrip (draw a card when cast) or just picking off X/1 minions, means these powers can generate a lot of advantage. If you are playing one of these classes, you always need to be searching for ways to use your hero power to kill a minion of your opponent.

The Priest ability offers a more subtle form of card advantage in that you can heal higher toughness minions so that they can kill multiple opposing minions. You should usually be looking to heal up minions before healing yourself, unless you find yourself in a late game scenario where you may be close to death. The decision of whether to start protecting your own life total, or that of your minions, comes with experience, but I would recommend defaulting to healing minions which will lead towards card advantage.

The Shaman and Paladin abilities actually generate minions, which can potentially then trade with opposing minions, which can lead to card advantage. These classes also have specific cards which can buff minions, and playing a buff card on a “free” minion is usually a strong play. As with the other hero powers, you must be vigilant in looking for situations where you can trade your hero power minions with opposing cards as that is a great way to generate card advantage with these classes.

Finally, the Warrior and Hunter powers do not have the means to generate card advantage, unfortunately. There is more than one way to win in Hearthstone, luckily! These powers can help you win in other ways, but it just means you will have to be extra vigilant in using your minions, weapons, and other spells to generate card advantage when playing these classes.

Why is the card Chillwind Yeti so valuable? One reason is that it will often take multiple cards of your opponent to destroy it. Card advantage! Often times you will need to use your minions to generate card advantage through attacking. If you can use your Yeti to eat a 3/2 minion and then another minion of your opponent’s on the following turn; that is a job well done! You should be looking to using your minions in this way so that you make the most of each minion’s health throughout the game. The more cards you can kill with each minion, the more advantage you are gaining.

In your next Hearthstone session, try and spend your time only looking for ways to get card advantage. Don’t worry about your life total or your opponent’s life total. Only attack the opponent when their board is clear. If you are struggling in Arena, I can assure that you will start seeing more wins if you play in this way!

Thanks for reading
Ben Chapman