Q: What the fuck is Hearthstone?
A: A Warcraft flavored CCG that's free to play with mild monetization incentives.
Q: I ain't going to get my ass beat by a bunch of people with deeper pockets than strategy!
A: CCGs are not for you. Also, there are two ways to spend money in Hearthstone: buying 5 random cards, or buying a ticket into the FAAAABULOUS ARENA MODE which will guarantee you 5 random cards at the end of it. It is literally impossible to "buy power" outside of throwing tons of money into pulling the slot machine of 5 random cards.
Q: Alright, so I can't buy the cards I want. How do I deck?
A: Starting out in Hearthstone will pit you against some AI characters to teach you the basics of the game. Once you get through this, you'll be tempted to go and throw yourself to the wilds of the internet savages! STOP: LOOK: LISTEN: NO. The way you want to start your Hearthstone career is thus: Finish the tutorial. After that, begin to unlock the classes. You'll do this by facing off against simple AI characters one by one. Beat the character, get the class. As you play matches, you'll level up your class. This is largely meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but the first 10 levels of every class are required to unlock all of their basic cards.
Q: Wait, basic cards?
A: There are a few tiers of cards in Hearthstone: Basic, Common, Rare, Epic, and Legendary. Basic cards have no gems and are obtained simply by unlocking each class and leveling it up to 10. Common cards have white gems and cost 40 dust. Rare cards have blue gems and cost 100 dust. Epic cards have purple gems and cost 400 dust, while Legendary cards have orange gems and cost 1600 dust. You can have two of any card in a deck except for Legendaries, which are 1 per deck.
Q: Dust? But I hate EVE!
A: Dust is the second way to get cards in Hearthstone other than spending money or Blizzard Ye Olde Fashioned Funbucks (aka gold, earned for winning and questing). When you get more than 2 of any given card, you can disenchant the card to get dust which you can then use to craft more cards. This will come in handy later!
Q: Okay, so I've got the classes unlocked, now what?
A: Now you want to get them all to level 10. You can do this by grinding against the basic AI. Getting your first class to level 10 will earn you one free card pack!. Unlocking all of the classes will earn you 100 free gold, which is the cost of one card pack. Getting every class to level 10, thus unlocking all of the basic cards, will give you another 100 free gold. Disenchanting your first card will give you 95 free dust. Once you've gotten these basic quests out of the way, or in the midst of working on them, you might want to hit up the Play mode to toss yourself into some unranked games. Your first win will also reward you with one free card pack. On top of that, the FAAAABULOUS ARENA MODE! will comp you one free entry right out of the gate -- but it's highly recommended that you get some of this way out of the first so you have a decent handle on the basics before throwing that key away. It's the equivalent of 150 gold!
Q: What the fuck is the FAAAABULOUS ARENA MODE?
A: Alright, now it's time to really play: there are three basic ways to play Hearthstone at launch. Unranked Constructed, Ranked Constructed, and Arena. Unranked Constructed has a hidden MMR that will try to pair you against relatively equally skilled players, but it will be totally random. Ranked Constructed allows you to climb the ladder from rank 25 all the way up to the top Legendary rank, and simply participating in a ranked ladder (which last one month, starting next month) will reward you with a new cosmetic backing you can use to customize your cards. Arena mode is Hearthstone's version of draft: when you pick arena, you will be given 3 of the 9 classes to choose from. Pick your class, and you will be given three cards. Pick one, and then repeat that 30 times, and you've now got your deck. Arena is blind goddamn luck, and you will end up facing people who got much better draws than you, but you can use sites like http://www.arenavalue.com/ to painstakingly check what any given card is thought to be worth until you get your own feel for what you prefer in a deck. An arena ticket is good for one run only, after which you need to pay 150 gold or a bit of $$REALMONEY$$ to go again.
Q: So why do I want to keep playing?
A: Well, because it's fun. But every day, you will be given a single quest at random. These quests are worth between 40 and 100 gold, and you can have three at a time -- it's not a bad idea just to play every two or three days to build up and knock out quests, if you want. Quests are simple tasks such as "Win 2 games with one of these two classes" or "Play 40 minions with a mana cost of 2 or lower", and they're the steadiest way to build up gold. Once you knock out the initial achievements, you can earn gold three ways: doing your quests, getting 10 gold for every 3 wins in Play mode, or by winning in the arena. The arena goes until 12 wins or 3 losses, whichever comes first, and the more wins you sock under your belt the more prizes you'll get. Get around 6 or 7 wins and the Arena will usually pay for itself. Get up into the higher registers, and you'll profit enough for endless arena runs!
Q: Got any constructed tips?
A: Focus on the class you like the best. If you absolutely hate a class, feel no remorse in dusting any of their cards you get out of packs so you can craft the decks you actually WANT to play. If you're insanely patient and willing to work with what you have, dust nothing except extras and slowly build up toward the decks you want instead. If you intend to spend any money at all on Hearthstone, it's best to drop some cash to get a starting stipend of booster packs right off the bat. Those cards you get when you have no chance of getting duplicates will be more valuable in the beginning than later on when you might end up with a pittance of dust from a booster. Don't rage too much about legendaries. They're good, but they're susceptible to the same shit as everything else. Once you know more or less what they do, you'll know when to save your big guns for them or how to work around them. If you lose because of a legendary, especially the powerful late game ones, chances are good you were already losing anyway. Look up some basic deck ideas for budget decks and work toward those in the beginning.
Q: And for the arena?
A: Check out the http://www.arenavalue.com website when getting started. Focus very hard on your early and mid game minions, as 2/3/4/5 mana cost minions are usually far more of a factor in your victory than amazing and hilarious spell combos that you might not even draft the second half of. If you have a strong early game, your opponent often won't even get to the end game. Mulligan hard for early game success. You can get more than 2 of a card in Arena, which can be amazing, hilarious, and a trap all at the same time. Those 5 Truesilver Champions will sound amazing until you have a hand literally full of nothing but Truesilver Champions. Arena is also a fantastic place to try cards you've never seen or used before to see if you might like to craft them for constructed.
Q: Niku-san Niku-san, can you help us with the finer points of strategy?
A: I am not that good, sorry. :3c But I can at least help suss out some decent plans of action if people are interested.
Q: None of those achievements from before are viewable anywhere? Are there MORE amazing secrets!?
A: Sure are! Craft or unbox every Pirate card to get the Epic Captain's Parrot. Craft or unbox every Murloc card to get the Legendary Ol' Murk-Eye. Crank the AI opponents up to Expert and beat them all for another 100 gold. I suggest doing this all at once, since they don't signify when you've beaten them, or at least go straight down the list. Win 100 games to get 300 gold! Wowza! Getting that again at 1000 wins is less impressive, but still helpful. And getting every single Expert card means you probably don't need the 100 gold, but hey, it's there.
Q: Pfft, I'll stick to WoW.
A: Well, you're in luck! Log in to Hearthstone, get through the tutorial, and win 3 games in either constructed or arena and you'll get your very own HEARTHSTEED for WoW! You are now safe to uninstall the silly card game. Continuing the cross promotion, buying the D3 expansion will get you a free card booster, and the CE gets you two.
Q: Wait, there are Murlocs in this?
A: YOU'D BETTER FUCKIN' BELIEVE IT
Also, add me at Niku#1251
