A Handy HearthStone Guide: Building your own decks to suit your play style

In HearthStone it’s easy these days to just go online, look up a deck, build it and play. For some though, building their own deck is a big part of the enjoyment in the game. In this article I'll give you a few pointers on what to look for if you are interested in building your own deck. When you go to build your deck the first question you want to ask yourself is what playstyle do you enjoy playing the most? There are many different styles and cards to build from but the two main styles are aggro decks and control decks.  There are a few variations of aggro and control decks such as a creature or turtle deck, but these are still essentially a type of aggro or control deck, so we will stick to those two general styles for this article.

If you decide to go with an aggro deck then you will want to focus on low mana cost cards. With an aggro deck your goal is to overwhelm your opponent early before they can have a chance to put out their larger mana cards and board clear cards.  If you have enough minion control you can keep going for face damage, forcing your opponent to try and clear the board rather than attack you.  Look at the Mage or Hunter hero if you are unsure which class to go with.  While any hero could ultimately be built into an aggro role these two are pretty popular and easy to work with when it comes to this deck style.

The Mage, with her hero power Fireblast, allows for great poke and board control.  Fireblast deals one damage to any minion on the board or the enemy hero at the cost of two mana. Add this to her many damaging spells and freezing spells and she can be hard to contain in the early and mid-game.  The Hunter and his hero power Steady Shot deals two damage to the enemy hero for a cost of two mana, making him another good pick for an aggro deck. The Hunter kit allows him to flood the board with beasts and deal consistent face damage to his enemy opponent, causing the opponent to play more of a defensive game over their intended game plan.

For players who like to take a slower pace and control the board a control style deck is definitely for you. With this type of deck you will focus more on mid-game and late-game cards so you can gain card advantage.  Adding in low mana counter cards are also a good idea to help clear the board of early threats until you can put out your bigger creatures. One of the more popular control decks out there right now is the handlock deck used with the Warlock hero. While Goblins vs Gnomes added some counter potential to the deck it can still be a difficult one to battle against. Add in the Warlock hero power Life Tap that allows him to draw a card at the cost of two mana and two health. This allows for a card advantage over opponents very early in the match, giving you a great advantage going into the late game. Another popular choice for a control deck if you aren’t a fan of the Warlock is the Priest.  Lesser Heal, the Priest hero power, restores two health, making it quite difficult for opponents to clear cards such as high health taunts.  The priest also has multiple spell cards that can help him survive an early game assault, letting him hold out till late game where he can do the most damage.

 

The key to building your own deck is patience.  You need to face multiple opponents and multiple scenarios before you can really tell if a deck is worth keeping, tweaking or trashing. Building your own deck allows you to learn the game more, learn your character and even the other characters more by paying attention to what is working and what isn't.  Grabbing a deck off the internet isn't always bad and can be good if you just want to try and get some quick wins.  If you want to truly get better and know your opponents in and out consider building a few decks of your own and seeing how you do!  In the next article we will start to breakdown each class and what their pros and cons are to each style.