Hearthstone Deck

Hearthstone: How To Build A Good Deck

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Scott Lantz came on the show a month ago to show us how to pick the best cards in Hearthstone. It was easily our most-heralded episode, bringing in more positive feedback and reviews than any episode of the show so far.

So we rushed Scott back onto the show to continue pouring out his brilliant knowledge into our earbuds. This week, Scott builds on the knowledge of the previous episode and takes a look at the basics of deck building. How do we turn good cards into a good deck?

Be sure to share your own tips in the comments below, and let us know if you have any questions! Scott and I will be trolling the comments section and helping out however we can.

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The Links

Hearthstone Group Play Art

Hello!

  • Scott is on the show this week
  • Topic: The Arcane Druid deck
  • Reasons to be happy this week

Basic Rules of Building a Deck

  • Rarity does not equate directly to Power
  • Skill is more important than deck
  • It’s valuable to play current popular decks
  • Decent skills and a slightly decent deck can take you to 15 or higher
  • There is a difference between lower-level and higher-level decks
  • “The Meta” applies less to lower levels and more to higher levels

Major Deck Types

  • Aggro (fast)
  • Mid-Range (medium)
  • Control (slow)

Hearthstone Barbarian Face

Aggro Decks

  • Attack the enemy player, make them spend their attacks killing your creature
  • Wants: Charge, direct damage, creatures
  • Ignores: Board control
  • What does “reach” mean and how does it affect health totals?
  • How valuable is card draw?
  • Silence = removal
  • Examples: Murloc Warlock, Shockadin

Hearthstone Power Cultist

Mid-Range

  • Use efficiency and flexibility to win in many different scenarios
  • Wants: Card advantage, some early pressure, some late-game pressure
  • Ignores: Extremes on either end
  • Your creatures can 2-for-1 Aggro creatures
  • You must be faster than Control decks
  • Removal comes in all forms
  • Example: Valuedin, Paladin Survival

Hearthstone Free Priest

Control

  • Kill everything your opponent plays to control the board and have more choices when attacking
  • Likes: Efficiency, removal, big creatures
  • Ignores: Tempo, early aggression
  • Card draw is moderately useful. Your cards tend to be expensive, so you often can’t cast them all.
  • Removal can take any form. It can be more expensive cards to get more bang from one card, or cheaper removal to help you get to late game.
  • Examples: Druid decks, Handlock

The Value Spectrum

  • Good Stuff deck: Efficient cards that are strong on their own
  • Combo deck: Okay/weak cards that become powerful when used together

Deckbuilding Considerations

  • Strategy: How do you want to win, and what types of cards work towards that win condition?
  • Synergy: Turn a card’s negative effect into a positive boost for a different card whenever you can
  • Mana curve: What’s right for each deck, and how to interpret the mana bars in-game

Deckbuilding Pitfalls to Avoid

  • Be realistic: avoid best-case-scenarios and remember the bad times as well
  • Quiz: Power Word: Shield or Lightwell or Lightspawn
  • When to take multiple copies of a card
  • When to only take one copy of a card, even if it’s a good card
  • Rule of thumb: If having two of the card in your hand is bad, you should be careful about having two in your deck

Community

  • Macross: [A heap of deckbuilding questions]
  • iTunes Reviews: Thank you!

Card of the Week

Hearthstone Redemption

Farewell

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