So you’ve decided to get into Hearthstone. maybe you are a world of warcraft fan who wants to experience the card game based on the series, maybe you are a fan of card games who wants to try something new, or maybe you just found this article and I have tempted you to play. You’re welcome, welcome to the club.
There are several things you’ll need to do when getting started. If you go through the following list, you’ll learn the first actions you should take when beginning your Hearthstone adventure. With that in mind, let’s learn:
4 steps to start in Hearthstone
1. Complete the Tutorial: Assuming you have already created a battle.net account and logged into the Hearthstone game, your first step is to launch Hearthstone and complete the tutorial. You’ll play five simplified games as a mage, during which you’ll learn the basics of the game, such as playing cards, managing your mana, and seeing what minions are on the board. If all of that sounds complicated, don’t worry, the tutorial makes it nice, simple, and quite entertaining to get started.
2. Unlock the other classes: When the tutorial is over, you will be in the game itself, but you can only play as the wizard. If you want to play as any other class, you’ll need to unlock them first, which should be your first step regardless. The easiest way to do this is through the practice mode. Just click Solo Adventures, then Practice, then Normal, and you’ll be able to select your deck and which opponent you want to fight. Complete a battle against each class to unlock them, and when you’re done with all battles (including one against another mage), you’ll be able to play as any class, plus get Ready to Go! Achievement and 100 gold for your effort.
At this point, you will unlock several new game modes, including Arena and Adventure. We are going to postpone them for a while; they cost gold/money to enter, and you need more experience with the game before you can expect to do well. First, you need to rank your heroes up to (at least) level 10, by:
3. Beat expert level AI opponents: With all the heroes unlocked, you can try to take on the Expert level opponents. They are, as you can guess, much more difficult, but give your novice heroes more experience (when they are not below level 10 – you will need to switch to a new hero at that point when facing AI opponents to gain more experience). You can (and should) create custom decks for these battles; While basic decks can hold their own against normal opponents, you’ll need to upgrade your possessions when facing more difficult opponents. When you defeat all the Expert level opponents, you will complete the Crush Them All quest and get another 100 gold.
4. Fight against human opponents in game mode: At this point, you should have mastered all the basics of the game, so it’s time to try your luck against some human enemies. Go to the Play section and you can select Casual or Ranked to choose your preferred play style. In Ranked, each win will earn you one star and improve your ranking, while each loss (when you’re rank 20 or higher) will cause you to lose one star. Not casual, though don’t let that fool you; players can be just as badass, especially once you get above rank 20.
A good approach for new players is to play ranked until you’re at rank 20 (since you can’t lose any rank until that point), then switch to casual; You’ll get plenty of practice, plus getting to level 20 earns you a new card back every month. You’ll get the First Blood quest (and a card pack) for your first battle against another human, and The Duelist quest (and 100 gold) for getting three wins against real people.
Play with each of your characters until they reach level 10 and you have all the basic cards in the game. The first character you reach level 10 will grant you the Level Up achievement and a card pack, while getting them all to level 10 will give you The Basics! achievement (since you have all the Basic cards you gain by leveling up) and 100 gold. You’ll also get 10 gold for every three wins you get in Ranked or Casual mode, which can add up quite nicely.
At this point, you should have a fair amount of gold, some card packs, and a decent understanding of how the game works. Where to go from here will largely depend on what you hope to achieve in this game, but hopefully this has helped you jump-start your Hearthstone adventure.