Where Un’goro focused on Quests, Knights of the Frozen Throne focuses on alternate heroes. Corrupted by the Lich King, this is Blizzard’s answer to a ravenous fanbase wanting Death Knights showcased. Every class gets a “hero card” that replaces your hero with a Death Knight version of that hero. They’ve only opted to showcase the Hunter hero card, Deathstalker Rexxar. He’ll get you armor, damage the board, and most importantly, twist your hero power into something that lets y

Hearthstone is both a video game and collectible card game, and this leads to a bit of a balancing act on Blizzard’s end. Compare Hearthstone to the most obvious *other* in the card game space, Magic the Gathering, and you have a much cheaper experience. To get one, competitive, Standard deck in Magic,  you’ll be spending well over $150. The catch is that you can resell that deck at a later time, and you’ll potentially have rarer cards that could get more of your money back.

We’ve known that Hearthstone is owed a new expansion, and we’ve pretty much known that it’s going to be based on the prehistoric homage that is Un’goro. Blizzard finally let us in on the opening act of the Year of the Mammoth in Journey to Un’goro. Breaking down the big mechanical shake-ups, we’ve got Adapt. Reminiscent of the Discover mechanic from League of Explorers, this allows you to give your minion one trait from three random ones. Your 5/4 for four mana all of a sudde

The Year of the Kraken has been pretty exciting for Hearthstone. At its inception, we saw the popular card-game concept of rotations find its way in, but still kept all the cards in a separate mode for players who just want them all. We’ve seen two expansions and an adventure shake up the metagame in the ten months since Whispers of the Old Gods launched, and we’re already looking into Hearthstone’s next calendar year: Year of the Mammoth. “Once the Year of the Mammoth offici

Hearthstone is in a quiet period at the moment – an all-too-familiar lull in between adventures and expansions where the meta is figured out and we know that there’s more on the horizon. Blizzard’s been toying with new modes, new heroes, and new promotions to get people on board, which makes the reveal of the Heroic Tavern Brawl a bit of a head-scratcher. We hope that our Heroic Brawl scratches the competitive itch of the players looking for a high risk, high reward experienc

It’s no secret that Reno Jackson decks have been some of my favorite. The archetype allows for a lot more creativity and versatility when compared to most decks, due to the simple fact that Reno decks are only allotted one of any card (for the most part). Cards that I’ve opted to try out aren’t particularly played often. Avian Watcher can be great when you throw down the Ice Block secret early in the game, as can Medivh’s Valet. A lot of this deck boils down to a Control arch

Hearthstone has really ramped up incentives to get new players involved in Hearthstone from the get go. From exclusive hero portraits to card pack discounts, it’s a far cry from the 2014 days of Hearthstone, which offered virtually nothing in this sort of department. Blizzard is opting to give players the Welcome Bundle. For $4.99, you get ten classic card packs. Since classic cards will always be in the Standard game format, it’s important to build up a collection, and essen

It’s been a rough time for Priests in Hearthstone. While the cards obtained from One Night in Karazhan aren’t as bad as we had originally thought, the class doesn’t dominate in any particular area. It’s swamped by aggressive and mid-ranged decks, and generally loses the control match-up later on. However, the newest iteration of Priest is one of the most fun archetypes I’ve had in this Standard world. Resurrection Priest is the name of the game, and if you play your cards rig

During our first week in Karazhan, we fought Disney parodies and played intriguing games of chess. The cards we got as a result were generally interesting, though not exactly meta-defining. Like Beast Druid before it, Discard Warlock, an archetype Blizzard’s been trying to make viable since launch, finally got enough tools to take a second look at. Note, Malchezzar’s Imp isn’t in this particular version because as of this publishing date, it isn’t live yet. Keep that in mind.

The Hearthstone community at large has had a history of making mountains (and memes) out of molehills. Dr. Boom, Combo Druid, Flamewreathed Faceless – these cards in particular came under a lot of scrutiny for being over powered. However, no card in the history of Hearthstone got as much criticism as Purify, one of the new Priest cards from the “One Night in Karazhan” expansion. Purify is a common, 2-mana spell that silences a friendly minion and then draws you a card. There

Warrior as a class has always been a solid choice that tends to lean into long, drawn out games. With the Warrior’s armor build up, outlasting your opponent is a core tenant of most Warriors. However, recent developments in the meta game after Whispers of the Old Gods and Standard format have brought a more tempo oriented deck to the top of the meta. Enter the Dragon…Warrior. For the uninitiated, tempo refers to the ability to use your mana in a cost-effective way, spending a

The excitement of  Whispers of the Old Gods and the Year of the Kraken is starting to simmer down. Deck archetypes are starting to settle, and we’re already wondering what our next adventure will entail. Before we get to that, however, Blizzard’s given us an update out of the blue. The patch includes fixes to golden cards, a friend referral system, and a new hero portrait for the Shaman class. Morgl the Oracle. Humorously described by Thrall as the most powerful shaman alive,

The Hearthstone meta game is starting to slow down and take shape, as we’re seeing classes like Warrior and Shaman flourish, while Priests and Paladins weep. It’s a good meta for the orcs among us, but not for the servants of the light, so it seems. As is the case with any meta, odd, fun decks will pop up, and while they probably won’t get you to Legend rank, they’re good for a few laughs and actually have a few tools up their sleeves. Let’s take a look at Druid’s take on a Y

Whispers of the Old Gods, combined with the implementation of the Standard and Wild formats and the Classic card nerfs, has made the game the best it’s ever been. Key to the Whispers of the Old Gods expansion are the titular Old Gods, ancient beings that wish only to bring darkness and chaos into the world of Azeroth. Their Hearthstone cards all bring something special to the table, so let’s take a minute and rank them by their usefulness, effects, and all around monstrousnes

One of the most established decks in the history of Hearthstone is the Miracle Rogue. Through all the nerfs, expansions, upgraded toolkits, and the Standard and Wild split, the fact that Miracle Rogue is still able to persist in this crowded meta is something that makes the deck stand out, and worth looking into. The crux of Miracle Rogue is waiting until the last possible minute to strike. This balance can be a scary scale to keep up with, as waiting until you’re down below

Aggressive decks have dominated the Hearthstone ladder since the game’s been a known quantity. Cheap both in terms of how they play and how much they cost, flooding the board with lots of tiny minions has done wonders for classes like Warlock and Hunter. How does this philosophy fit into a jack of all trades class like Paladin? Aggro Shield Paladin deals with getting lots of small-health and usually small-attack minions on the board, and then using Steward of Darkshire to giv

There’s a terrific movie hidden within Warcraft that would have made me want to go see it more than once in theaters, but that’s not the movie that I got when I sat there for almost two hours. Instead, I just got a pretty okay film. I was never a hardcore fan of Warcraft. I played WoW in a pretty hardcore manner for almost a decade, but I never fell deeply into the lore of the original games. As I said earlier, Warcraft is just okay, but it’s a damn shame because you can see

Yogg-Saron is one of the strangest cards in the entirety of Hearthstone. His effect – for every spell you’ve casted during the whole match, Yogg-Saron will dish out a spell, but its target is completely random. You’ll have the same chance of taking a Fireball to the face as you do dealing Frost Nova to your opponent’s crowded board. This deck is literally 28 spells and two minions – the aforementioned Old God, and King’s Elekk, which will pull Yogg Saron into your hand. Fortu

As is customary for your traditional Dragon Priest, the goal of the deck is to curve out your game plan – meaning you’re going to want to play one-cost minions on turn one, and so on and so forth. Saving big-cost minions like Ysera and Chillmaw can swing the game in your favor if you play your cards right. Chillmaw’s interaction with N’Zoth also gives him more value, and he’s already a really solid minion. Deathwing, Dragonlord. I got him out of one of my free packs and have

C’Thun was the poster child for Hearthstone’s Whispers of the Old Gods expansion. Literally anyone who opens the game gets to put him to good use, and with his many minions who serve him, there’s a lot of room for experimental C’Thun decks. Some use as many C’Thun related cards as possible, while some only need him to reach 10 attack to do what he needs to do. This C’Thun Druid of mine is somewhere in the middle, leaving room for some fun interactions with Fandral Staghelm. T