Hearhstone: Heroes of Warcraft released earlier this year to a huge amount of positive fan feedback. Blizzard Entertainment, developers of the game, have worked tirelessly to craft an experience that can stand the test of time – the hallmark of any great trading card game.
There are those of you who are familiar with other games like Magic: The Gathering or Yu-Gi-Oh, if not Hearthstone itself. If you've spent any amount of time in your local game store or card shop, one word that you've probably heard is the "META." Some of you might be scratching your heads right now, so I'll do my best to explain. The META is any given game's current state of affairs. This includes what decks are powerful, which are not and the number of any given deck that you will probably see when you try to go up the ranked ladder. As an avid Magic player, I can attest to the importance of knowing your local META.
In Hearthstone, there is a much smaller pool of cards currently. While this will certainly change over time as more cards are released, the game is essentially memorization at this point. If you can familiarize yourself with what decks are being used and what is possible on each turn of the game, you can likely be very successful in Hearthstone. However, the most powerful decks are rarely filled with the most powerful cards. The trademark of a good player is their ability to build a deck to counter the meta. This is where many popular streamers found their following(s). They made their own deck, played it to the very top of the game's ranking system and people wanted to watch them because of it. It's a simple formula that merits great reward.
Take a look at the video below, where a number of Blizzard Entertainment developers talk about the history of Hearthstone.
