Checked my email and got a Hearthstone Beta key – yay! Something to do besides banging my head on the keyboard!
Or so I thought…
Never played many card games of the CCG variety before, so this was New and Exciting.
Aside from some rather unintuitive and strange UI issues, I started at the basic Practice mode with the default Mage and promptly got stomped into the ground by the Hunter.
I tried another couple of Heroes and eventually won and unlocked the Rogue.
Cue my game buddy (who also has the Beta) asking me which class I was playing.
Ummmm….I’ve only unlocked the Rogue. Can’t get the Hunter. Paladin wipes up the floor with me. Ditto for Priest, Warlock and you get the picture.
So my buddy plays a couple of games with me and lets me win so I can unlock the ones I can’t beat.
Trust me – letting me win wasn’t as easy as it sounds.
It’s tough to lose a match when your opponent (me) is down to about 2 health, no cards up more powerful than “3” and you’ve got the entire play area filled with your hard-hitting cards and almost full health.
Yup, he even had to use one of his cards to heal me up so I would survive long enough to win.
Not to mention having to tell me which one of my cards would be best used against his cards.
Gotta love a game buddy like that – pure gold.
So…rack up another game I suck at, and a F2P one at that where I would have to spend $50.00+ to get the “good” cards and probably still suck.
Yeah, F2P…
The best thing about this game? Watching Anduin getting smashed in the face with an attack animation. Made me giggle every time.
I eventually got all the Practice ones open and promptly got my behind handed to me in the “Expert” mode.
And they want me to spend money on this…
That ain’t Free to Play – that’s Pay to Lose.
WoW Misadventures 
8 comments
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October 10, 2013 at 4:21 pm
koalabear21
Crazy woman! You don’t play in expert mode as soon as you unlock it!
BTW the AI druid is SUPER easy. Try playing as the warrior deck. The cards you get are quite useful.
October 11, 2013 at 9:02 am
wolfgangcat
I will try that! I’ve just been playing the Hunter but I guess I’m not really very good at strategy games…unless *someone* is there to help me out.
October 11, 2013 at 9:21 am
koalabear21
I’ve never played games like this before, so I went in not knowing anything.
The way Slice explained it to me is you want to build decks with enough lower cost cards (1-3 mana) to get through the first couple turns then have enough heavy hitters to knock out the competition in the later levels.
The warrior, rogue, and I think hunter, can all equip weapons. This allows them to attack the opposing hero and/or the minions. I know the warrior has a card that does two damage to two minions. It is VERY useful!
But yeah, stay away from expert mode until you are more experienced and have some more cards to work with.
October 11, 2013 at 9:46 am
Cheap Boss Attack
I love Magic: The Gathering, but never got in to the actual WoW TCG when it came out. I only bought them for loot cards (that I never got). Hearthstone is definitely appealing, although I never signed up for the beta, but I wish it were something intergrated in to WoW itself. I’d have a lot more fun collecting cards by killing mobs and bosses and stuff than I would spending real-world currancy on virtual cards.
October 11, 2013 at 2:03 pm
wolfgangcat
Oddly enough I don’t have a problem buying virtual WoW pets with RL money, but anything else that smells remotely like F2P is a definite “no.” I guess I hate the F2P business model so much I vote against it by not spending money.
October 11, 2013 at 12:38 pm
repgrind
You don’t *have* to spend anything. As long as you are content taking your time to get cards, you can earn gold just through the quests to buy packs with. You’ll probably lose quite a bit, I know I do, but as long as you stick to unranked play, you’ll eventually run into someone who is even less experienced at it than you are.
October 11, 2013 at 2:07 pm
wolfgangcat
I don’t mind spending the time, but if it gets to the point where you are crippled in the game without spending money (as is usually the case of F2P) then I’d rather play something else.
Don’t get me wrong – I think it’s a fun game – but not enough to keep sinking more and more money into it. P2Lose is no more fun than F2P.
October 13, 2013 at 12:37 am
wolfgangcat
LMAO – go for it! 😀
In my defense, when I signed up for the Beta I didn’t know it would be F2P 😛
In retrospect I should have known because what else would it be?
Don’t worry – I already know I won’t be playing it when released.