Card advantage

Info

Strategy

Controlling the rate at which the player and their opponent gains and loses cards is key to attaining and maintaining card advantage. There are several methods for doing so:

• Card draw For the game conclusion where neither player wins, see Draw Card draw is a term used to refer the process or mechanic of drawing additional cards from the top of the deck, and adding them - This is the simplest way of gaining card advantage. These cards generate card advantage by simply drawing you more cards than you lose. This may be by drawing several cards (e.g. Arcane Intellect Arcane Intellect Set: Basic Type: Spell Class: Mage Cost: 3 Abilities: Draw cards Draw 2 cards.Playing this card makes you SMARTER. And let s face it: we could all stand to be a little smarter.See this , Nourish Nourish Set: Classic Type: Spell Class: Druid Rarity: Rare Cost: 5 Abilities: Choose One, Draw cards Tags: Mana-related Choose One - Gain 2 Mana Crystals; or Draw 3 cards.Druids take nourishment from many things: the , Sprint Sprint Set: Basic Type: Spell Class: Rogue Cost: 7 Abilities: Draw cards Draw 4 cards.Rogues are not good joggers.See this card on Hearthpwn data page] Sprint is a rogue spell card, from the Basic set. ) or by providing you with a card in addition to a minion (e.g. Novice Engineer Novice Engineer Set: Basic Type: Minion Cost: 2 Attack: 1 Health: 1 Abilities: Battlecry, Draw cards Battlecry: Draw a card."Half of this class will not graduate… since they ll have been turned to chickens." - Tinkmaster ). The warlock hero power Life Tap Life Tap Type: Hero Power Class: Warlock Cost: 2 Abilities: Deal damage, Draw cards Hero PowerDraw a card and take 2 damage.See this card on Hearthpwn data page] Life Tap is the warlock s basic Hero creates card advantage by drawing one card, in exchange only for Health Health, sometimes referred to as life, hit points or HP, is an attribute found on heroes and minions, reflecting the remaining survivability of the character. Health can be reduced, almost always by taking damage. If and mana Mana is the resource used in Hearthstone to play cards and use Hero Powers, each of which has a mana cost that must be paid to use it. The supply of mana is represented by . Card draw can also come from minions Bloodfen Raptor, a simple minion card. A Beast-type minion, it has 3 Attack, 2 Health and a mana cost of 2. Minions are persistent creatures on the battlefield that will fight for their hero. Minion through specific events, such as Northshire Cleric Northshire Cleric Set: Basic Type: Minion Class: Priest Cost: 1 Attack: 1 Health: 3 Abilities: Draw cards Tags: Healing-related, Triggered effect Whenever a minion is healed, draw a card.They help the downtrodden and distressed. Also and Starving Buzzard Starving Buzzard Set: Basic Type: Minion Subtype: Beast Class: Hunter Cost: 5 Attack: 3 Health: 2 Abilities: Draw cards Tags: Beast-related, Summoning-related, Triggered effect Whenever you summon a Beast, draw a card.If you feed him, , offering potentially unlimited card draw in addition to the minion provided.

• Area of effect Area of effect (AoE) is the term for an effect which affects all characters of the specified type. Common targets for AoEs include all enemy minions, all minions, and all characters. AoE is defined in (AoE) - These abilities and spells may clear the battlefield of multiple minions. Every class in Hearthstone has one or more cards that are capable of doing this, and several neutral Neutral is the term used to describe cards which are not limited to a specific class. Neutral collectible cards can be included in any deck, regardless of hero. Neutral cards use a plain, grey card minions can do the same. AoE generates card advantage by trading the card itself (a loss of 1) for the death of several opponent minions (a gain of 2 or more). Example: Player A has 3 minions in play. 2 of them were played from the hand, 1 is a Silver Hand Recruit Silver Hand Recruit Set: Basic Type: Minion Class: Paladin Cost: 1 Attack: 1 Health: 1 See this card on Hearthpwn data page] Silver Hand Recruit is an uncollectible paladin minion, created by the paladin Hero summoned with Reinforce Reinforce Type: Hero Power Class: Paladin Cost: 2 Abilities: Summon Hero Power Summon a 1/1 Silver Hand Recruit.See this card on Hearthpwn data page] Reinforce is the paladin s basic Hero Power. Contents 1 Summoned minions . Player B now plays Starfall Starfall Set: Classic Type: Spell Class: Druid Rarity: Rare Cost: 5 Abilities: Choose One, Deal damage Tags: Area of effect Choose One - Deal 5 damage to a minion; or 2 damage to all enemy , destroying all minions of Player A. This results in a 2-for-1 trade A trade is the loss of one or more cards in exchange for the elimination of one or more enemy cards. Most often, trading refers to minions dying in combat, but the term may be for player B and a 1-for-2 trade for Player A. Although Player B kills 3 minions, it is not an 3-for-1 trade since one minion was not created with a card, and therefore does not represent a card lost by Player A. Area of effect cards are occasionally called "sweepers", a term borrowed from other card games.

• Favorable combat - The most common source of card advantage is favorable combat. Whenever 2 or more minions trade with 1 minion, card advantage for the controller of the single minion is created (with the exception of minions that did not come from a card). Establishing card advantage through favorable fighting is the common way of winning games in the Arena, since more refined strategies are less likely to be available.

• Economy - If a player is consistently losing fewer cards each round than their opponent, they will be gaining card advantage. One way to improve card economy is to make use of hero powers Anduin Wrynn with the basic priest Hero Power Lesser Heal A Hero Power is a special ability displayed to the right of each hero s portrait. Usually Hero Powers can be used once per turn and . For instance, by using Fireblast Fireblast Type: Hero Power Class: Mage Cost: 2 Abilities: Deal damage Hero Power Deal 1 damage.See this card on Hearthpwn data page] Fireblast is the mage s basic Hero Power. Contents 1 Notes 2 Strategy 3 to kill a Young Priestess Young Priestess Set: Classic Type: Minion Rarity: Rare Cost: 1 Attack: 2 Health: 1 Tags: Random, Triggered effect At the end of your turn, give another random friendly minion +1 Health.She can t wait to learn , a mage Contents 1 Heroes 2 Overview 3 Background 4 Hero Power 5 Strategy and gameplay 5.1 Common deck types 5.2 Counters 6 Spells 6.1 Uncollectible 7 Minions 7.1 Uncollectible 8 Leveling rewards 8.1 Starting cards 8.2 can destroy one of their opponent`s cards without using one of their own. Similarly, the shaman The  Shaman is one of the nine classes in Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, represented by Thrall and Morgl the Oracle. Contents 1 Heroes 2 Background 3 Hero Power 4 Strategy and gameplay 4.1 Counters 5 and paladin The  Paladin is one of the nine classes in Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, represented by Uther Lightbringer and Lady Liadrin. Heroes edit | edit source] Uther Lightbringer is the standard hero for paladins. Players who hero powers Reinforce Reinforce Type: Hero Power Class: Paladin Cost: 2 Abilities: Summon Hero Power Summon a 1/1 Silver Hand Recruit.See this card on Hearthpwn data page] Reinforce is the paladin s basic Hero Power. Contents 1 Summoned minions and Totemic Call Totemic Call Type: Hero Power Class: Shaman Cost: 2 Abilities: Summon Tags: Random Hero Power Summon a random Totem.See this card on Hearthpwn data page] Totemic Call is the shaman s basic Hero Power. Contents 1 can be used as substitute for low value minion cards, allowing the player to populate the board without using any cards. While hero powers generally offer an inefficient mana economy, their regular use can allow the player to accumulate significant card advantage while still responding to events on the board.

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Terminology

Card advantage is an equation which takes both sides into account. Arcane Intellect Arcane Intellect Set: Basic Type: Spell Class: Mage Cost: 3 Abilities: Draw cards Draw 2 cards.Playing this card makes you SMARTER. And let s face it: we could all stand to be a little smarter.See this draws 2 cards, but also loses 1 card ( Arcane Intellect Arcane Intellect Set: Basic Type: Spell Class: Mage Cost: 3 Abilities: Draw cards Draw 2 cards.Playing this card makes you SMARTER. And let s face it: we could all stand to be a little smarter.See this itself). Changes in card advantage are typically expressed as "X for Y" where X is the number of cards the player gains and Y the number they lose. The above example of Arcane Intellect Arcane Intellect Set: Basic Type: Spell Class: Mage Cost: 3 Abilities: Draw cards Draw 2 cards.Playing this card makes you SMARTER. And let s face it: we could all stand to be a little smarter.See this would result in an "2 for 1" which indicates a positive outcome for the player since the gain is higher than the loss.

Card advantage is ultimately an expression of the difference between the rate at which a player gains cards, and the rate at which they lose cards, in comparison to that of the opponent. If the player is gaining more cards each round than they are losing, they will be accumulating card advantage - provided the player does not exceed the 10 card hand limit, or exhaust their deck A deck is a collection of exactly 30 cards. All cards drawn by the player during a game come from their deck. Each deck is tied to a specific class. Decks can be created and . If the player is slowly seeing a net loss of cards, but the opponent is losing them faster, this is another form of card advantage.

Note that card advantage can involve both cards in the player`s hand, and cards placed on the battlefield as minions Bloodfen Raptor, a simple minion card. A Beast-type minion, it has 3 Attack, 2 Health and a mana cost of 2. Minions are persistent creatures on the battlefield that will fight for their hero. Minion . If a player can play a single spell card to destroy several of their opponent`s minions, they will have gained card advantage. Similarly, if a player is forced to use several spells to destroy a single minion, the minion can be considered to have generated card advantage for its owner. While a spell card is generally considered to have been used or `lost` once it is played, a minion card is generally only considered lost once it has been removed from the board.

Virtual card advantage

The concept of virtual card advantage describes the lack of usefulness of cards in certain situations. Whenever a card is not usable, for example because there are no valid targets for the card, that player`s hand is virtually down by one card. The same goes for cards with expensive casting cost. As long as a player does not have the option to play a card, it is useless.