Zeriyah is giving away one thousand Hearthstone beta keys starting August 27 until September 3rd. There will be more opportunities in the near future. Make sure to visit Blizzplanet and the new social accounts. To participate in Blizzard’s beta key giveaway fill their form.
Want to be one of the first to customize a deck of powerful character, spell and ability cards, and lead your Warcraft heroes into epic battles? Then begin creating your card collection and strategizing your victories by entering the Hearthstone Beta Key Sweepstakes!
On August 27th and September 3rd, we’ll randomly select 500 winners each drawing to receive a key to our exclusive Hearthstone beta test. Therefore, a total of 1,000 winners will be selected among the two drawings.
Interested? Of course you are! Signing up is easy. Simply follow Hearthstone on Facebook and complete our official entry form between now and September 2nd for your chance to win. For more information about eligibility, please check out the official rules. Good luck!
Hearthstone games are quick. With steady mana, limited defenses, and a heavy slant on offensive power Hearthstone’s contests of cards are about early advantages and constant presses. Laying minions often and early is a great way to stress your opponent – even big guys can only attack once. There are ways to clear the board, like flamestrike and lightning storm, but they’re more common for some heroes than others. This isn’t necessarily an issue; the heroes are designed around the classes of WoW (perhaps vice versa) and their spells are drawn from well known class abilities.
The issue, at least a common point of controversy, is the Coin. On its face the card doesn’t appear to give a significant advantage. The player going second is given a zero cost spell that grants one mana for one turn. It doesn’t sound like huge boon. At best, the second player can put down a minion or cast a spell a turn before the mana actually accrues or play a combination of cards for great effect. The bonus mana isn’t really a problem. Smart players, or players fortunate enough to have a good hand of cards, can take advantage of it and turn the tide or press a advantage further toward victory. The problem is that the Coin currently counts as a spell.
That makes sense. It is a spell. It has a spell effect and it certainly isn’t a minion. But the zero cost spell for the second player provides a secondary, and arguably more powerful, bonus. Cards that take advantage of spells cast that turn are boosted because of an arbitrary turn order, not because clever deck construction. The Coin’s advantage is supposed to be a one time mana bonus. The mechanical advantages for player turn order are already present: player one is one mana ahead, player two is one card ahead. The Coin is a nice bit of gravy; going first is quite an advantage and the bonus mana can switch the momentum. Any other advantage it provides is superfluous. It’s effect as the 31st card is too potent.
The Coin shouldn’t be a spell, it should just be the Coin. A card all of its own.
We recently tested out the in-game store which is available to all Hearthstone Beta Players.
If you can’t see properly, Click on the picture. If not Click Here
Players can purchase the packs of cards for real money. The prices range from 1 Pack (100 gold), 2 packs for $2.99, 7 packs for $9.99, 15 packs for $19.99, up to 40 packs for $49.99.
Each pack contains:
5 Expert Hearthstone Cards
At least 1 card will be Rare or better
Thus, the 40 packs contain 200 Expert hearthstone Cards and at least 40 Rare or better cards.
So how do you open booster packs? we uploaded a video for you to watch.
I had some free time in the afternoon, so I did a quick match in Hearthstone Beta… and whoa.. I didn’t expect things to get this crazy.
If you can’t see properly, Click on the picture. If not: Here
Yes that’s 23 Attack / 15 Defense on a creature. I still won though, he had only 3 health left and his creature couldn’t attack my hero. Had one taunt creature, he had to force himself to attack it, then on my turn just used Arcane Shot & Steady Shot to get the win!
Greetings everyone, my name is Andy “Pandy” Go, I am very happy and thrilled that I am now part of the Blizzplanet Team. I have always been a loyal fan to Blizzplanet ever since the website started back in 2003. I have always been a huge Blizzard fan from Starcraft to Diablo to Warcaft and now Hearthstone.
I hope to provide you all the in-depth information and latest news of all Blizzard Games, and mainly Hearthstone.
UPDATE: Entries are now closed. The form has been removed, and winners will be chosen. Thanks for participating. I’ll inform on the front page and social accounts if new beta keys are provided in the near future.
Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft finally went into closed beta for both veteran TCG/CCG players and new players. We thank Blizzard Entertainment for developing this game and for providing us beta keys for the staff and our visitors.
Just to show you how addicting this game can be — I have unlocked all class characters, reached level 23 on my Jaina (mage) character, three level 10 characters, and one level 5.
So how will these Hearthstone beta keys be given away to fans? Simply fill the form below. I’ll pick random winners. Please, follow us on Twitter and Facebook to follow our breaking news, future betas, etc.
Update: Added a form to submit entries. Please one entry per player.
Note: Below the form is a list of fellow Hearthstone fansites also giving away beta keys.
Our comments system allows you to post using your facebook, twitter, google+, linkedin and Open ID login username and password.
Other Fansites Giveaways
As a thank you, there are even more ways to win a beta key. Visit GamersBook which is running their own giveaway. Note: below the form is a list of fansites giving away beta keys too.
Join Eamon as he discusses the introductory features of Hearthstone, deck building, hero system, and card mechanics. As an active gamer, he is currently heroic raiding Throne of Thunder while still finding time for weekly Magic: The Gathering tournaments. He can be found live-streaming matches here: http://www.twitch.tv/eamon2tweet or feel free to listen to his blabbering on Twitter @eamon2tweet
Hearthstone, an elegant game from a more civilized time.
If you are a fan of Warcraft or card games in general, chances are you are dying to get your hands on Blizzard’s latest release, Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft. While many people are used to the crash & smash nature of Warcraft, Diablo & Starcraft – Hearthstone is a more elegant game harking back to Blizzard’s early development style.
While still in Closed Beta, Hearthstone is a free-to-play digital strategy card game that is expected to be released as free-to-play. Players choose one of nine epic Warcraft heroes to control, and then take turns playing cards from customizable decks to cast spells, use weapons or abilities, or summon powerful characters to crush their opponent.
Hearthstone is designed to be easy to understand and teaches you how to play through simplified card matches and an integrated quest system (think dailies). Upon logging in, you are thrown right into a pre-made match pitting your hero (Jaina) against a computer-controlled opponent. The fight is very simple and is designed to teach you controls, resource management, and card mechanics.
After working your way through the first set of pre-made encounters you are freed into the wilds of Hearthstone with a couple paths available to you. If you are feeling brave, you can immediately jump in to player-vs-player matches and start earning badges and leveling up. I decided to focus on the player-vs-computer practice match-ups which let you unlock additional heroes, cards, and further increase your level.
As a new player, you will need to unlock every hero you wish to play with via battle. For example, if you wanted to play the always-healing Priest or the shape-shifting Druid, you would need to first defeat them in battle. The more you play with your selected hero in either practice or ranked matches, the more they will level and unlock additional cards for you to play with. By the time I had unlocked most heroes, I found myself at level 10 on my Shaman hero with each level providing Shaman-specific cards. Each hero has its own level, completely independent of your other heroes.
After you get a couple of wins in practice mode you will be guided to the deck creation interface to customize your favorite deck with your newly won cards. When it comes to deck building, there is a set of class-specific cards which is accentuated with a massive pool of neutral cards which can be used by any hero once unlocked. For example, a Shaman can add totem-enhancing abilities to his deck while also pulling from the pool of neutral creatures.
Deck building is a bit of an art form and your deck should combine both your play style and strengths. My best advice is to pick a specific focus and maximize it. For example, there are a multitude of Murloc cards which either summon additional Murlocs or buff existing ones. The same can be said for the charge mechanic, allowing you to attack as soon as your character enters the battlefield. Once you figure out what mechanic tickles your fancy, grab every related card that emphasizes it. Some mechanics are stronger than others but you will quickly figure out what strategies work best against your deck and how to counter them.
And so ends our first peek at Hearthstone and its game mechanics. In the coming week, I am comparing and contrasting Hearthstone to Magic, the Gathering. Additionally, we will explore the player-vs-player aspect of the game and discuss Arena play. As mentioned in the preface, I am actively streaming Hearthstone in the evenings on Twitch. If you can’t get enough Hearthstone, feel free to join and ask questions. Additionally, Blizzplanet.com will be hosting the latest and greatest articles and gameplay footage of Hearthstone and I encourage everyone to check it out.
As everyone knows from past Hearthstone interviews, and Q&As decks contain 30 cards which you can play throughout each match. Ever wondered what happens when a player runs out of cards during a match?
I learned the hard way! I played against the AI when suddenly I heard my Jaina emote that I was running out of cards. I had about 2-3 cards left on the right side of the gameboard. I reached my last card, and after the enemy’s turn was over, instead of drawing a card automatically, for lack of cards materialized before me a card with a skeleton skull wearing a black hood.
Across the center of the card is read “Fatigue” with the text “Out of cards! Take 1 damage.” For each round, or for each “Draw x card” your character will take damage.
The first round after I ran out of cards, my character suffered 1 damage. Next time 2 damage. Next time 3 damage. Then I lost the match with a +9 hit from a Core Hound.
I thought it was just a random thing that rarely happened, but lo and behold — it happened a second time. This time, however, my Jaina fought against Thrall. I defended myself like cat on its back pawing out its eyes like no tomorrow. The hilarious part is … he couldn’t kill my character. The Fatigue card killed my character.
Here is the second livestream on my second day of Hearthstone beta gameplay. This morning I reached level 16 on my mage deck. I lost so many times it’s embarrassing but at least I hope I let those not-yet-in-beta enjoy the mechanics and all the great strategies some people used against me.
Hope upcoming livestreams come from Travis and Eamon. Eamon (draiken) informed me he wanted to join Blizzplanet again. This time not as the hosting server admin (back in 2004) but as a Hearthstone writer. He is a veteran Magic: The Gathering card player. That way you have livestreams from the point of view of a noob, and from the point of view of veteran players.
