I’m sure we’ve all heard of a little game called Magic the Gathering. I recall playing it back in junior high when the Revised Edition and Fallen Empires (for those of you that play) was new. The biggest problem with Magic the Gathering for me is that you need to have a lot of friends that play, the friends need to live nearby, and the cards can cost a lot of money. While I loved Magic the Gathering, I stopped played decades ago, despite actually enjoying the core game. This is where my love for Hearthstone comes in.

Hearthstone is a online card game from Blizzard Entertainment, the same people that brought you World of Warcraft. The game is free to play. You can earn (or purchase) virtual packs of cards that can be used to play the game online. This solves all the sad friends, or lack of friends, issues as well as keeps costs down, since you can earn cards by playing games (albeit lots of games).

For anyone familiar with the game, I play a Warlock specifically what is often referred to as a “Handlock”. Warlocks trade life points for the ability to cast more spells and summon minions, which in Hearthstone means drawing more cards. The long short of it is that the goal of playing a Handlock deck is to draw a ton of cards faster than your opponent so that you can play specific cards that are really big and cheap when your hand is really large.

Anyhow, you don’t need to really understand all of that if you do not play. The recent milestone I achieved in this fantastic game is 500 Wins with my Warlock.

Yes, that is quite a lot of games. I’m not really great at the game. I’ve reached single digit ranks a few months, but never hit “legendary” status. All the same, I’ve been playing the game since winter of last year, and it is the number one game when you are going to number two…

If you’re still with me after that awful mental picture, seriously though, if you’ve ever enjoyed games like Magic the Gathering, yet you really don’t know a lot of people that play, consider Hearthstone. It is very well done. They have a number of different gaming modes and expansions to the game, so if you really like it, there is always more to do. Hit me up as Sprawl#1558 on Battle.Net if you decide to give it a try.