hearthstone gaf OP

[B]Hearthstone:[/B]
Hearthstone is a free to play online collectible card game.  There is no offline play, but there are singleplayer adventures and online play vs. computer controlled players.  There are two main categories of PVP: constructed and arena.  In constructed you build your own decks with cards available to you.  You may disenchant unwanted cards to create wanted cards or you can earn cards through opening packs.  In arena you build a deck chosen from 30 random sets of 3 cards.  Then you play the deck until you lose 3 times (or retire) and each win up to 12 earns you greater rewards.

[B]Available Platforms:[/B]
Windows, Mac, Ipad, Android
Coming soon: Iphones and android phones

See also: [URL="https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/hearthstone-system-requirements"]Minimum specs[/URL]

Download the client (Windows, Mac) on the main site. Note, you will also need a Blizzard account to log in to their launcher.

[B]Advice for Learning Hearthstone:[/B]
There is an in-game tutorial you will be forced to play, which teaches you the barebone mechanics of the game.  After the tutorial, you should unlock each class by beating them at least once against the AI in practice mode.  Once you have a grasp on the mechanics and an idea on how to play the game, you'll likely at this point want to get an idea of how playing other actual opponents works out.  My advice is to pick a class.  Play that class up to level 10 (in practice mode).  This is required to unlock all the basic class cards for that class.  After you hit level 10, pick a pre-built deck (hereinafter "net deck"), and give it a shot.  There are many net decks out there, but since you don't have any cards left you have a very limited selection.  Later in this post there will be links to netdecks that you can build right off the starting collection.  Having a well built deck is important for allowing a new player to focus on learning the basics very well.  And later you can dip into building your own deck much easier.

Once you hit a wall (and you likely will), it is a good time to start checking out some tutorials built by top players in the game.  I recommend [URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KjtRokhpvM"]Trump Teachings[/URL].  You can also use us, HearthstoneGAF, as a resource.  But the basics are going to be best learned via something like the videos linked.  If you're still having trouble after watching each video, then we're more likely to help you most effectively.

[B]Earn New Cards:[/B]
You will earn most of your cards by opening packs.  You receive packs by spending gold you earn from quests or winning matches or by spending real cash.

There are 2 adventures which provide roughly 30 cards each (not including duplicate copies of the same card).  Each wing provides several cards and 1 legendary card and costs 700 gold (may also be purchased for cash in bulk or separately).  Each of these 2 adventures have 5 wings, so 3500 gold for each adventure.  However, if you spend cash it costs roughly $25 (taxes may apply).  It is often recommended that if you spend money on hearthstone, you spend it on an adventure.  This is because you are guaranteed unique cards, several very strong and many very usable even if it isn't a top card.  The ratio of new cards from an adventure compared to an equivalent amount of cards opened from packs when bought with real cash, favors the adventure.  Also to note, adventure cards can only be obtained via the adventure and cannot be crafted (gold versions may be crafted once you earn the non-gold version).

You can earn cards by crafting them (explained below).

[B]Crafting:[/B]
There is no trading between players.  However, you can make use of cards you do not want (or have too many of).  Since you can never use more than 2 cards in your deck (or if it is a legendary then you cannot have more than 1), you'll never need more than 2 copies of any card.  You can disenchant these unwanted cards for dust.  And dust can be used to craft wanted cards.  The exchange rate is very expensive for players.  So be careful about disenchanting cards early on, because it may turn out that later you want that card you got rid of which will end up costing much more than you gained in the short term.  The safest disenchant (also referred to as "dust") is when you have more than 2 copies.

[B]Is this game Pay2Win?[/B]
This is not an easy answer, however since you can earn every single card by just playing the game, there are no pay barriers to becoming even a top player in the game.  Therefore, in general Hearthstone is not pay to win.  Depending on your goals with the game, the answer to whether you should pay into hearthstone or not will vary greatly.  If you aim to be a top competitive player, you will probably want to spend some cash.  If you just want to play a couple matches every once in a while, you can get by with not paying at all.  And there are a lot of players between those two extremes.

Just keep in mind, you don't need every single card that has been released.  You won't need all the cards now and you won't need all the cards ever.  The are a big bulk of cards that never see play in constructed.  And even more than that, there are cards that are only used in a few decks.

The most efficient way to earn cards over the long term is Arena.

[B]What's the balance like?[/B]
This far post release, the Hearthstone team is committed to only affecting balance changes when they are "absolutely necessary".  It is important to note that when cards are nerfed, if they were craftable then Blizzard grants a full dust refund for that version of the card for about 2 weeks.  So you don't have to worry about crafting cards you think may be nerfed, because if it is nerfed then you can dust it and get all your investment back.  This also works for cards you received from packs and it is a common practice to save cards you think might be nerfed to get a windfall of dust in case they actually are nerfed.  At the time of this post, the only card that people think may receive a nerf is Dr. Boom but Blizzard designers have stated multiple times now that Dr. Boom is not being planned for a nerf.  So the strategy over dusting cards tends to be, don't dust unless you're going to use the dust now.  Because dust sitting on your account doesn't do much.  But bear in mind that 99% of the cards are not going to be nerfed so you shouldn't worry about this too much.

[B]What are ranked seasons?[/B]
Every month is a separate season for ranked.  What this means is that at the beginning/end of each month, everyone's rank is reset to 25.  Players earn new ranks based on their previous season's performance, so not everyone starts at rank 25.  The highest rank starts about rank 15.  Because of this reset, new players can find it very difficult to play in the ranked playlist at the beginning of the month, but easier towards the end of the month after people have ranked up.

Each numerical rank has a certain number of stars you are required to earn by winning before advancing to the next rank.  Each loss you accumulate will lose you a star, so you can lose ranks if you lose too many stars.  However, you cannot lose stars until you are rank 20.  Each consecutive win after your first win will earn you two stars, so going on a win streak will rank you up very quickly.  But, you no longer earn two stars for consecutive wins once you hit rank 5.  Once you hit rank 5, you are about half way to the "legend" rank due to requiring more stars per rank and no more winning streak bonus.

The legend rank is what you become after you get rank 1 with full stars and win 1 additional game.  Once you become a legend, you will stay a legend for the remainder of the season even if you lose every game til the end of the season.  Your rank number is replaced with your ladder standing among all other legendary rank players in your region.  So rank 1 legendary means that player has the highest ELO (which isn't revealed) among all players in that region.

[B]If I like MTG/YGO/blah blah blah, will I like this?[/B]
Hearthstone has similarities to tradtional physical trading card games, but it also has several big differences.  One of the biggest is that you cannot interrupt your opponents turn.  Each player makes decisions on their own turns (labelled "asynchronous turns").  This means you have to anticipate what your opponent is going to do more often than not, since you cannot stop them from doing something on their turn.  There is one exception, which are secret type cards in the game.  These activate automatically and have automatic effects.  So while you cannot actively interrupt their turn, some of your cards do things on their turn (even non-secret cards may activate on your opponent's turn).  There are also some cards which impact your opponent's turn (Loatheb causes your opponent's spells to increase in cost by 5 for one turn).  However, there is no way to act on your own during an opponent's turn.

Hearthstone and MTG/YuGiOh, while similar in nature, have different challenges and different levels of complexity.  It is also generally agreed upon that Hearthstone is much easier to learn, especially if you already have card game experience.