Hearthstone Mechanics

[Damien 1,514]

This thread is for comments about our Guide on the mechanics of Hearthstone.

[Guest Hulesz]

I think they should rename "silence" to "mega-dispell".

[Guest osoviejo]

Excellent article.  Thorough and readable.  Your hard work is much appreciated.

[Guest Haggis]

Thank you for a superb guide. There are some interesting fact about traps that I noted and that are not in the guide.

1) when Misdirect triggers and forces a minion to attack a hero with a weapon it will take damage and further more interesting - the weapon will lose durability.

2) when Freezing Trap triggers and returns a card with a cost of 9+ mana, it will be impossible to play that card again.

Best regards

Haggis

[Guest rorschach]

hi, thanks for this article. a couple of things i noticed:

 

 

If you have a Cult Master on the board, and it dies at the same time as another one of your minions, the Cult Master's Deathrattle will be triggered by the death of the other minion (that is to say, you will not draw a card).

Cult Master's ability is not a Deathrattle, and the text seems contradictory...

 

 

 

It is interesting to note that you cannot have more than 1 of each type of totem on the board at the same time. If you have 1 of each type, the Hero Power becomes unusable.

i think there is an exception that if you have a totem in hand (through some means) you can play it even if that toten already exists on your board...

 

 

 

Second of all, the rule is that you can have a maximum of 2 of each card in your deck. This applies to Basic, Common, Rare, and Epic cards. Legendary cards are an exception; for them, the limit is a maximum of 1 per deck.

should probably note that this rule does not apply to Arena decks (though i'm not sure about the "one copy of each Legendary" part. i wonder what the odds are of seeing the same Legendary twice in one draft!)

 

 

 

another effect that can incapacitate minions with Divine Shield is being frozen by spells...

 

 

playing The Coin counts as a spell for cards like Gadgetzan Auctioneer...

 

thanks again!

 

 

[Guest Zuchy]

You could also mention that Druid's Wild Growth card allows you to draw an extra card if you have already 10 Mana crystals.

[Vlad 411]

hi, thanks for this article. a couple of things i noticed:

 

Cult Master's ability is not a Deathrattle, and the text seems contradictory...

 

 

i think there is an exception that if you have a totem in hand (through some means) you can play it even if that toten already exists on your board...

 

 

should probably note that this rule does not apply to Arena decks (though i'm not sure about the "one copy of each Legendary" part. i wonder what the odds are of seeing the same Legendary twice in one draft!)

 

 

 

another effect that can incapacitate minions with Divine Shield is being frozen by spells...

 

 

playing The Coin counts as a spell for cards like Gadgetzan Auctioneer...

 

thanks again!

Thank you. I forgot to reply at the time, but I made all the changes you suggested.

 

You could also mention that Druid's Wild Growth card allows you to draw an extra card if you have already 10 Mana crystals.

While I agree with you that it's interesting, I just don't think that it fits into a guide on general mechanics. If it extended your mana crystals to 11, that might be relevant to the crystal limit. I appreciate the idea though!

[Guest VroaxE]

Guide says "Secrets are generally triggered during the opponent's turn" but if I'm not wrong they can only be activated during the opponent's turn and are inactive during yours.

Great guys for beginners though.

[Sottle 221]

Yeah that's a remnant from the time the guide was written, Secrets used to be able to activate on your own turn, but Blizzard changed it in a patch.

[Guest LightFixture]

I am a brand new player not only to Hearthstone but to card games in general and I was reading intently to gain some insight. As such, I was very impressed with the clear, concise, and complete information you have provided. Excellent job with all your guides!

 

However, I believe I did find one inconsistency but since I'm not sure, I'll pose a question instead of declaring an error.

 

 

 

8.2. Maximum Minions on Board 
...There is no way to dismiss your own minions, so if you are in such a situation, the only way to make room is to wait until your opponent kills one of your minions, or to kill it yourself...

 

 

2.15. Returning Minions to Hand

Several cards and effects in the game cause a minion to be returned to its owners hand...

 

My question is, when you have placed the maximum number of minions on the board, is it possible to return a minion to your hand in order to free a space on the board for a new minion?

[Sottle 221]

It depends on the effect you are using. Shadowstep is a spell that returns a minion to your hand, which you are free to use when you have a full board. However, Youthful Brewmaster is a minion that returns a minion to your hand, and requires a free space on your board to be able to play it.

 

Prior to GvG Shadowstep was the only non-minion effect that could achieve this and it is a Rogue exlusive card, so I can understand why the statement was made the way it was for clarity, since GvG, another card, Time Rewinder was introduced that does the same thing, so the statement is now a little misleading.

[Guest Liz Johnson]

This may have been answered somewhere else on this site and if it has, I apologize, but can you explain the difference technically between Immunity and Divine Shield when it comes to a minion?

 

Do they not do the exact same thing? Also, there is a weapon that states "Hero is immune while attacking", does this mean the hero will not take damage from a minion when using that weapon? Thanks

[Guest Wolf]

Thanks for this guide. I recommend adding a rule to the section about secrets: secrets are activated in the order in which they were played.

[Sottle 221]

This may have been answered somewhere else on this site and if it has, I apologize, but can you explain the difference technically between Immunity and Divine Shield when it comes to a minion?

 

Do they not do the exact same thing? Also, there is a weapon that states "Hero is immune while attacking", does this mean the hero will not take damage from a minion when using that weapon? Thanks

 

Immune means the minion is untargetabble and will not take any form of damage from any attack, Divine Shield just absorbs one source of damage.

And yes, Immune Heroes will not take any damage from a minion when attacking.

[Guest Czirxo]

Great guide. If you intend to make it comprehensive, you may want to add a section about 'Inspire' minion ability.

[Guest hoylemd]

Guide says "Secrets are generally triggered during the opponent's turn" but if I'm not wrong they can only be activated during the opponent's turn and are inactive during yours.

Great guys for beginners though.

 

This is still in the guide, slightly misleading.

Good guide otherwise!

[goldenmane 0]

On 

2.17. Temporary Versus Permanent Effects, there is a mistake. Master of Disguise card was probably changed from give permanent stealth to until next turn, however the tutorial still states that the effect is permanent. Also when you hoover over the card in the card page it still shows the old card with old effect. Please fix.

[Guest mtn bear]

One thing I think should be noted as a fringe case for taunt is the Forgetful or Clumsy effect (I understand this is not a named mechanic rather a common name for an effect on multiple cards). I'm not deep in the meta so please check me on this but some minions such as Dunemaul Shaman have a 50% chance to attach the wrong target. In such a case they are required to target a taunting minion for the attack but might end up attacking someone else. Very much a fringe case but something I think would be helpful to have captured.

[positiv2 952]

7 hours ago, Guest mtn bear said:

One thing I think should be noted as a fringe case for taunt is the Forgetful or Clumsy effect (I understand this is not a named mechanic rather a common name for an effect on multiple cards). I'm not deep in the meta so please check me on this but some minions such as Dunemaul Shaman have a 50% chance to attach the wrong target. In such a case they are required to target a taunting minion for the attack but might end up attacking someone else. Very much a fringe case but something I think would be helpful to have captured.

Those cards are in wild only, and even there, they aren't important or common, so it was decided to keep it under the passive effects section and not to describe it further. Besides, it does what it says on the tin.