Thursday, January 21, 2016

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

Hearthstone is a digital card game.  Nay Sayers claim that being digital eliminates the legitimacy of the game.  I disagree.  I played Magic for a few years and Yugioh for a few months and I actually enjoy Hearthstone even more.

The aspect of this game that I enjoy most is the fact that Hearthstone is a new game.  There are less cards.  There is still the ability by players to try unusual decks.  In Magic, the decks have been so optimized that the entire game requires new cards constantly for the sake of new decks.

Hearthstone also has the advantage of being digital.  This allows things such as drawing random cards from the deck to be far more optimized.  And while Blizzard Entertainment has stated that there will not be forced discards from hands (minus the self inflicted ones in Warlock) should they add such cards, the random element will be immune to card manipulation.  As a plus there is no need for opponents to shuffle each other's decks.  Computer randomization has its advantages.

But for the non Trading Card Players here, what is this game?

Its a game where two players draw cards and play spells or creatures with the goal being to kill the opponent before their foe does the same.  To make the game complex there are also 9 classes.  Each class has multiple play-styles defined by their spells, the 2 Mana (the resource used to use cards) Hero Power.  Each class also has a few minions unique to them.  these cards are slightly better than other cards of the same cost.  Then once unique cards are factored in, there are also minions that can be placed into any deck known as neutral minions.

The nine classes are Warlock, Priest, Warrior, Hunter, Mage, Shaman, Druid, Paladin, and Rogue.  Each class has had a rise and fall at some point as new cards have been added and older ones become less useful (and sometimes more useful) At the moment each of the classes have at last one viable deck and some such as Hunter and Paladin have a few infamous decks.

Now that you have a little bit of understanding of this game, I want to talk about how this affects me.

Recently, I have played in a few tournaments to see how good I actually was in this game.  And I did far better than expected.  I have managed to attract the attention of a few players in the Orlando Area.  It is my hope to play in their team.  While I do not envision myself to be a professional video gamer, it would certainly help me to get better at this game.

I am more than just a writer, I am a storyteller.  And video gaming is one of the newest forms of storytelling medium.  As I try to gain a fan base, I use any form of outreach that I can.  In the case of me playing this game, I have been and will be live streaming my pursuit of being a better player.

And as I work towards improvement, I hope that you will watch.  I will do my best to entertain and keep you compelled as I do with the other forms of storytelling I employ.

http://www.twitch.tv/praughx

Through this link, you can help support all that I do.  The more viewers I get, the more attention I can draw, and the more successful all of my endeavors become.

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