Secret

Secret is one type of special spell card which can be activated during opponent turn. Therefore, when a secret is played, it can prevent opponent to gain fully control on his particular turn.

So far there are only 3 hero have the access of secret cards with different cost.

Mage: 7 types of secret which cause 3 mana

Hunter: 5 types of secret which cause 2 mana

Paladin: 5 types of secret which cause 1 mana

Secret sometimes play an turn table role when opponent start to guess your secret and accidentally lose his tempo or play the card inefficiently. Therefore secret poses psychology pressure and uncertainty to your opponent.

However, the scary of secret does not lie on the secret card itsef, but on the supplement cards of the secret. The supplement cards of secret give huge advantages such as tempo, man efficiency and board control to the player.

For example, mad scientist a 2/2 minion with cost 2 but a powerful deathrattle to play a random secret from your deck. Normally with cost 2, you can only play a minion with 2/3. but with mad scientist, you extra play a secret card which cost 3 mana for mage and 2 mana for hunter. You have gained 3/2 mana advantages.

Besides, mage has 2 more secret supplement cards which are Kirin Tor Mage and Ethereal Arcanist. Hunter has a Eaglehorn Bow. 

Hero Power

One of the main differences between each hero is their hero ability. Every hero has its own special hero power which can be used only once every turn. The main question why and when using the hero power.

First we will look at the equivalent card of some hero power.

Paladin: summon a 1att 1health minion

Which is equal to zero cost card named Wisp

Mage : deal one damage to any minion

Which is equal to Moonfire

  

In short hero power which using 2 mana is actually only equal to a card with 0 mana. When we use hero power, it results in inefficient mana usage and board control.

Then why and when we should use hero power?

1 Save a card

If we have not much left cards on hand, and we have mana left during that turn, we can use hero power to save the usage of card on hand especially you have less card with the ability to draw more cards.

2 Suitable timing

Sometimes it is quite suitable to use hero power. For example, when you are a mage and opponent board has a one health minion, use 2 mana to kill a minion is quite efficient. When you are a priest and have a cleric and injured minion, you hero power can heal plus gain one more card.

3 Card in hand not suitable to play

Not suitable in term of cost or timing. For example, when you do not have minion with small cost in first few turns, you can use hero power. For example, you do not want to put too much minion on board because you suspect opponent has flamestrike or control tech, so you can use hero power.

Maximize Mana Usage

In hearthstone, each player is given one mana in the first turn and then the mana is increased by one eacn turn until you have a maximum of 10 mana. Players use mana to play card or hero power. Each card has its own cost and can be played if the sum of the cost is lower than the allowable mana each turn. There is a few ways to maximize using the mana.

1 Has a smooth curve of card's cost

Each card has its own cost range from 0 to 20. When choosing card, besides thinking about the combinations and suitability of the card, we should provide a collection of cards with different costs.

For example, The cards you possess all are costs 4. This means you will forfeit the uses of full mana in many turns. Turn 1: no play Turn 2: Hero power Turn 3: Hero power Turn 4: 4 cost minion. Turn 5: 4 cost minion. Turn 6: 4 cost minion and Hero power. Turn 7: 4 cost minion and Hero power. Turn 8: two 4 cost minion. Turn 9: two 4 cost minion. Turn 10: two 4 cost minion and hero power.

Total mana waste=  1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0=5

2 Has enough cards on hand

There are some players who can maximize the mana in the beginning until they run out of the card. We only draw one card automatically in each turn however the mana that we can utilise become more and more after a few turns. We tend to use more than one card in one turn in order to maximize the usage of mana. If we do not do something, we tend to use out our cards on hand and our opponent will catch up.  There are several ways to prevent running out of cards. First, has enough card which possess the ability to draw card (especially when most of your minion cost less). Second, use your hero power effectively. Although using hero power has less benefits than playing a card, but it actually saves you a card. Since hero power can only play once a turn, when you think you have the possibility to run out of cards, you can use hero power  to use up your mana.

3 Manipulate the mana

There are some cards that can be used to increase the mana or decrease the cost of minion and spell. The hero that usually use such a tactic is Druid. This is one of the way to mess up your opponent's plan especially when he is a professional one.

Maximize the option

In a strategy game, we need to make a lot of decision.  Option is the available different choice of decision that we can make. The more option we have, the better chance we can choose the best decision.

In hearthstone, we need to make decision each time during our turns. We need to make a decision on which card has to be played, which target to attack, which minion to sacrifice, and even which location that a minion should be put (based on targeting spell from opponent). One way we can make a better decision is to maximize our option.

However, there are many restrictions that restrict our choice, such as insufficient mana, less cards on hand, higher cost of minions……

There is a few suggestions to maximize our options during the play.

1 Avoid to have 2 similar cards in deck

When you have 2 similar cards on your hand, which mean you have less a card option to choose from. Unless the card is very flexible (can combo with many other cards) and detrimental (plays turntable role like engineer for rouge).

2 Have more card on hand

More cards on hand mean more options on which card to play. If you only have a card on hand, you only have two choices. Play it or skip it. Keep some card which can draw more cards is a wise decision.

3 Always have minion on board

Minion only can attack after one turn it is put on the board unless it has charge. Therefore, if you do not have minion on board, you cant deal damage to minion or opponents in the next turn unless u have spell or hero power or weapon that can directly deal damage. Besides, there are some supportive spells that strengthen your minion stats. It cant be used if you do no have any minion on board.

4  Do not sacrifice your minions unless necessary

Having more minions on board give you more options. Having two damaged minion on board is always better than having one full health minion unless certain specific circumstances such as meet with warrior.

 

Minimize the Option of Opponent

After last chapter discussing about maximizing the option of ourselves, we will discuss about how to minimize the option of our opponent

1 Destroy enemy minions on board especially those with permanent skill

The logic is simple, when opponent does not have minion on board, he can not attack you or buff them, left them less choice to choose.

2 Put enemy life at risk

When enemy life is threaten, especially below 10, enemy will do some unprofitable trade in order to protect his life.

3 Utilize minions with the ability taunt and stealth

Minion with taunt ability makes opponent having no choice but to attack it first. Minion with powerful skill can hide behind the minion with taunt. Minion with stealth do not give opponent the option to destroy it unless using splash damage.

Rules

Every game has its own rules, so does Hearthstone.

Rules make a game simple, and becomes the boundary of a game.

Most of the time, the difference between a winner and a loser is about fairly understand the rules of the games.

Anything allowed by the rules is allowed. Anything does not forbidden by the rules is allowed. Usually most of the players know the first one but only a few players know the second. That makes the difference between winner and loser.

What are the rules in Hearthstone?

1 You can and must only have 30 cards in your deck. Inside your deck, there can only be two identical minions and one legendary minion.

What is the use of this rule?

Very important. You can use this rule to predict opponent's cards. There are several specific cards which are powerful and mana efficient which is a must in every deck.. You can make your strategy based on the card that opponent had used.

2 In every beginning of the game, each player can change the cards on your hand once.

Ya I know it, So what?

Then do you know we can also see which card that the opponent choose to discard? Based on the decision of the opponent, you can predict the cards that opponent possess on hand to decide your strategy (aggressive or passive)  

Usually a normal player will keep  a series cards of continuous mana cost so that we can play it by using full mana effectively. However in special circumstance, we will keep some cards to counter opponents. For example when facing an aggro opponent, we will keep a area damaging spell card to counter it.

3 Each player is given a fixed time each turn to decide.

So what?

The point here is not about how fast your opponent play a card. But the difference of speed that he playing throughout the game. For example, your opponent in early game is a fast decider. However when reach one turn, he spends more time than normal. This situation maybe indicate he has more than one solution to decide.

 

4 You and your opponents can communicate with specific words.

Word is one of the ways of communication. 

Through communication, you can know your opponent well and fake your real intention. For example, you want opponent think that you are making mistakes but instead you want to trap him, you can use Ooops. If you want opponent to think you are an aggressive player, you can threaten him always. If you want your opponent think you are a pro, try to greet him.

5 You can play with the stuffs surrounding the board.

Well, this is just for recreation.

How to choose a better minion?

There are several ways to decide which minion to put in your deck. One of the ways is based the stat of the minion. Stat simply means the total of attack and health of minion that you can summon per mana spent.

The diagram above shows common minions card with pure stat and without specific skill  for each cost category.

So the basic formula for stat = 2*cost+1

By having 2 mana, you can summon common minion with total 5 stat maybe a raptor with 3att and 2health. So if you can summon a minion with more than that, then it is a beneficial. For example a warrior with a fiery war axe can summon a Bloodsail Raider with 5att  and 3health a total of 8 stat with the same 2 mana can gain advantage.

Although the stat equal to the total of attack and health of minion. However, the closer  the number of  attack and health, the more efficiency the minion it is. (less waste) For example, we compare 2 same cost minions which are Core Hound with 9 attack and 5 health, with War Golem with 7 attack and 7 health. Both with 7 cost and a total of 14 stat.

However it only cost opponent with a five attack to kill Core Hound such as a tiger. Although Core Hound can deal 9 damage to tiger, however tiger only has 5 health, extra 4 damage is waste.

 
On the other way, your opponent need a tiger and an extra minion with 2 attack to kill war golem. It is a better trade.

The next example, when we compare a warden and a yeti。

If opponent has 3 minions with 3attack. A Warden can only deal a total of 3 damages but Yeti can deal a total damages of 8 and take out 2 opponent minions.

However, class specific minions and legendary minions usually have better stat than normal minion.

For example, if we compare a priest specific minion which is dark cultist and a common minion which is injured blade master. 

Although both have 3 cost and 7 stat , however dark cultist has a deathrattle which is adding 3 health to a friendly minion which contributes about 9 stat or 8 stat because usually you don’t have a minion beside when you play it. But if u have one, your opponent will think twice about which to attack.

For example, legendary card Cairne Bloodhoof  with 6 cost have 9 stat with a deathrattle to summon another 9 stat which approximate 16 stat minion with 6 cost. We usually do not simply sum up the stat together(9+9=18) because it has a chance to be silenced. But compare it to a common 6 cost monsters which is ogre with a stat of 13, it definitely worth a lot.