List Day: Hearthstone Tips and Tricks

I'm not a great Hearthstone player, although I have won every game that I didn't lose. Here are some beginner tips and tricks to get you started.

1. Just because you have enough mana to play a card, doesn't mean it's the right time to play that card, especially on Turn One!


2. If you don't like one of your Daily Quests, you can reroll it for a new random quest one time. On the Quests page, click on the X in the upper right corner of the quest card.


3. Don't overcommit. Sometimes it's better to play it safe and keep a few minions in your hand in case the board is wiped on the next turn.


4. Pay attention to whether a card specifies friendly or enemy minions specifically. If not, you may be able to come up with unexpected ways to play that card. For example, you can use the Mage Hero Power to hurt your own minions, triggering Enrage conditions or Deathrattles. Or, you can Silence your own minion to remove a Frozen effect.


5. Generally, I've found that a good deck ratio is roughly 20 cards that result in minions and 10 pure spell cards.


6. You don't have to use up all of your attacks every turn.


7. You can only have 10 cards in hand. If your opponent has 10 already and you can force him to draw more, those extra cards will get destroyed. When I see a Priest drop two card-draw Clerics, I like to spend the whole game healing things until he runs out of cards. I lose, of course, but it's funny.


8. If you are about to craft your first cards from enchanting dust, you can't go wrong with Harvest Golem or Defender of Argus.


9. You can give your constructed decks titles by clicking on the default title ("Custom Mage") and typing. I like to put the date in my titles ("Mage 4/15") so I can remember when the last time I added cards to it was.


10. Don't let clearing the board of enemy minions distract you from the ultimate goal of killing the hero. I used to treat each round of the game as a standalone zero-sum math puzzle -- this distracts from the big picture and puts you in a constantly reactive play style.

Also, someone in this household has been playing too many murloc cards.