Hearthstone 101: Game of Whispers

Can you hear them? Can you hear the whispers? They are coming!

These are very exciting days. At least if you're into some good ol' Hearthstone. The new expansion, "Whispers of the Old Gods" is coming out, along with new cards and game modes. But for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, let me explain.

Hearthstone is a virtual card game where you put your deck of cards up against an opponent's deck. Each player can choose 30 cards, with the maximum of two copies of any one card. Each card is different, with different powers and abilities. Each player starts out with 30 points of health, and once all of one player's health is gone, the game is over.

In order to build a deck, you have hundreds of cards to choose from. Some cards can be used by anyone, but there are also some cards that can only be used by a certain class. Before you build your deck you have to choose which class you want to play as. There are nine different classes, and each has its own special power. The Priest class, for example, has the ability to heal two points of health every turn. This sounds very good, but you have to take into consideration that using this power costs resources, called mana.

At the beginning of each game, both players start out with one "mana-crystal". These are your resources that you can use. Every time it is your turn again you will gain another crystal, until you reach turn ten. Ten crystals is the max. As I mentioned, the special ability each class has costs two crystals. On top of that, each card has its own cost. The least powerful ones cost somewhere between zero and three crystals, while the most powerful cards will cost upwards of 8 crystals. How you spend your resources is critical to your success.

So why is this game so popular? Well, one of the main reasons for that is the fact that the cards and classes are based on the Warcraft universe. The different heroes you can play as are all major characters in Warcraft, and given that World of Warcraft has several million subscribers worldwide, it should come as no surprise that some of them would pick up this game as well.

Another factor in regards to the game's popularity is how easy it is to play it. This is truly one of those games that are easy to learn, hard to master. Once you start playing Hearthstone, though, you are given a basic tutorial, some basic cards, and the option to do some practicing against a the AI. After that, it is all about buying packs of cards and start collecting.

The game is free, and so are the cards. You can go through the entire game without paying a single cent. As you level up your characters you receive in-game currency which you can use to unlock all the essentials. There is also an option to pay with real money, which lets you get the cards you want faster than if you would only use the in-game money you get from playing.

Once you have all the cards you want there are plenty of ways and styles to play, and if you find something that lets you play how you want to play you're going to have a really good time. You can play just for fun, or you can try to play ranked matches. These matches will let you climb the ranks, and if you get really good you can get the legendary rank. I have never been able to do that.

The Whispers of the Old Gods expansion is out on April 26th here in America, and April 27th in Europe and Asia.

If you want to try it out for yourself you can download it for free right here:

http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/

Build a deck and see if you can get all the way to legendary.

Good Luck!

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