this is a game made by Blizzard Entertainment!
it is horrendously addictive!
it's kind of like magic, except not!
over 300 cards, 9 classes!
make a deck with your class specific cards and neutral minions and duke it out!
cards cost mana (you start with 1 and gain 1 every turn until you have 10) and you always have a hero ability available that costs 2
you get a mulligan on your first draw of 4 cards and whoever goes second gets the coin which they can use to gain 1 mana that turn
mulligan correctly! this varies by class that you're facing but there are some no-brainers (pagle, fiery war axe, 1 drops)
here are the classes i guess
used to be amazing in constructed with the frozen giants deck which was fucking absurdly broken and deserved a nerf (although they nerfed all of the wrong cards and left the one thing that made it broken, ice block, completely untouched)
nowadays they are in a pretty bad spot, all of their freeze spells costs too much mana except frostbolt (which is the best removal spell in the game), you can try using a gimmicky secrets deck or just play goodstuff minions but you'll probably just get rushed down and lose
hands down the best class in arena, their hero power (deal 1 damage to ANYTHING) is so good at maintaining board control and tempo
good class specific cards: mirror image, arcane missiles, mana wyrm, frostbolt, water elemental, fireball, polymorph, blizzard, flamestrike
ps. mana wyrm > coin > mirror image is horrifying to be on the receiving end of and one of the strongest openers you can get in hearthstone
unleash the doges
very very scary class to face, their hero power (2 damage to enemy hero) adds up to a LOT of chip damage over the course of a game and really puts the opponent on a timer
their playstyle was predominantly hyper aggro (which was garbage bullshit, boring and unfun to play as and against) but more recently they are shifting into a more control game with freezing trap and houndmaster/highmane
they are ok in arena if you can draft enough unleash the hounds (which got buffed a shit ton and is now one of the best spells to punish your opponent for building a board)
good class specific cards: hunter's mark, tracking, unleash the hounds, traps (except for snipe, never play snipe), starving buzzard, deadly shot, eaglehorn bow, animal companion, houndmaster, savannah highmane
heh, greetings
warrior are kings of control, a well played deck can have the opponent utterly at their mercy from turn 1 with the insane amount of efficient, cheap removal until lategame where you just drop bomb after bomb after bomb
reynad popularized an aggro variant last month which has started falling out of vogue as the meta slowed down and became more taunt heavy, its problem was always running dry on cards in the mid-late game and not having answers
warriors do alright in arena but are very dependant on getting good class cards; their hero ability (gain 2 armor) does nothing except draw games out which is useless if your deck is garbage
good class specific cards: execute, shield slam, whirlwind, fiery war axe, cleave, slam, armorsmith, cruel taskmaster, frothing berserker, shield block, brawl, gorehowl, grommash hellscream
shaman's thing is overload; do something powerful right now, and pay for it by locking x mana crystals next turn
their flavor is pretty much control + board spam with their hero ability (summon a random totem, hope for the 0/2 taunt)
they are very good in arena due to their class specific cards being strong (shamans have access to fire elemental, the best 6 drop in the entire game)
good class specific cards: earth shock, lightning bolt, rockbiter weapon, stormforged axe, flametongue totem, feral spirit, hex, lightning storm, unbound elemental, fire elemental, al'akir the windlord
bow to the godclass
druid is all about diversity, a lot of their cards give you multiple options to adapt your gameplay to whatever you are facing
this means they never really have 'bad' matchups and they can keep up with the board/rush via their hero ability (gain 1 attack this turn and 1 armor)
druid is overwhelmingly popular in constructed, consistently placing top in tournaments
they are great in arena due to their flexibility and the bullshit you can pull off with innervate/savage roar/swipe
good class specific cards: innervate, claw, wrath, savage roar, keeper of the grove, swipe, druid of the claw, force of nature, ancient of lore, cenarius
the asshole class
priest kills you by taking all of your shit from you and beating you to death with it
they have multiple ways of doing this: the most obvious one being mind control (10 mana these days so potentially risky, but you really have to be careful of your biggest, best minion being used against you), cabal shadow priest (no harvest golem/nat pagle is safe) or shadow madness
their removal is great and very cheap
priests biggest weakness, and this is huge, is ~every single minion in the game with 4 attack~
this sits between the attack values that shadow word: pain and death prey upon and means that if you flood the board with 4 attack guys, the priest is going to have a very bad time
they are dogshit in constructed and only marginally better in arena
good class specific cards: circle of healing, holy smite, northshire cleric, power word: shield, shadow word: pain, thoughtsteal, shadow word: death, shadow madness, auchenai soulpriest, holy nova, holy fire, cabal shadow priest, mind control
rogues do combos by playing their cheap cards one after the other to unlock their stronger effects
they are the best class at gaining and keeping tempo with stuff like backstab/si:7 agent, sap and preparation/conceal bullshit combined with gadgetzan auctioneer
their hero ability makes a 1/2 dagger which you can save for a rainy day (deadly poison/blade flurry)
arena wise, rogues do very well; their spot removal is good, varied and strong and their class cards are great at keeping them ahead
good class specific cards: preparation, conceal, shadowstep, backstab, deadly poison, cold blood, shiv, blade flurry, eviscerate, sap, si:7 agent, assassin's blade
paladin summons 1/1 shitters that annoy you and chip away at your life/minions
they have insanely good 4 cost cards compared to most classes; expect a paladin to bust out a truesilver champion and go ham on turn 3/4
both control and rush variants are in a good spot right now; with their sustain and immunity to topdecking, they can go toe to toe with most matchups
paladins do very well in arena since their hero ability benefits things like knife juggler/frostwolf warlord
good class specific cards: noble sacrifice, equality, argent protector, aldor peacekeeper, divine favor, truesilver champion, consecration, avenging wrath, guardian of kings, lay on hands, tirion fordring
warlocks have the strongest hero power in the game:
draw a card and take 2 damage
this lets them maintain tempo and outdraw their opponent more often than not
warlocks can play three major archetypes; low mana rush, murloc rush, or handlock control
they are all scary, but handlock is the scariest
turn 4 mountain giant is a fucker
warlock doesn't tend to do that well in arena due to a lot of their class specific cards being garbo
good class specific cards: soulfire, mortal coil, power overwhelming, voidwalker, flame imp, shadow bolt, hellfire, shadowflame, doomguard, siphon soul, lord jaraxxus
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alright well that wraps up the overview
the game is in open beta and free to play, download it from the battle.net app
good streamers: nl_kripp, trumpsc, itshafu, reynad27, thegwalls, kolento, badrazor, strifecro, savjz, kitkatzy, realz, massansc
up all night to get salty