Hey Hearthstone forum! The one person who reads the credits at the bottom of our articles already knows this but I am one of the editors who helps behind the scenes here. When we -- the Hearthstone team -- write our guides and articles we do so assuming that many people are new to the online card game genre. That said, it is not possible to define every term in the context of each article: this post will hopefully clear up some commonly used terms you may encounter.
Below you will find a list of terms from other TCGs (trading card games) that have been around for awhile and that you may bump into while reading posts here. The first two sections -- Deck Archetypes and General Terms -- are fairly self explanatory. The final section on more advanced concepts is more focus on explaining the ideas that have been around for awhile but don’t fit into the other two groups. Where General Terms mostly pertains to the cards themselves, Advanced Concepts concerns itself more with how the game is actually played.
Disclaimer: I've played Magic: the Gathering for basically ever. Most terms were defined by this game so there may be some allusions: though we will hopefully make them clear.
Deck Archetypes
- Aggro: The deck that seeks to take initiative and close out the game. This archetype is obviously well established and pretty straight forward. One distinction we have to make, however, is that Aggro does not always mean fast or swarm style. "Stompy" or "Big Aggro" are slower decks that still fit into this category: their goal is to set up in the early game and then play bigger than average threats through the rest of the game. Chillwind Yeti is a good example of a “Big Aggro” type of card because he will usually be the biggest body on turn 4.
- Control: Another well established deck already in Hearthstone. The control deck plans to survive and win out with a smaller number of more powerful threats in the late game. You are a Control Deck if you only play Ragnaros/Ysera/Lord Jaraxxus as win conditions and the rest of your game is just surviving until one of these big threats can win the game for you. In the beginning of Hearthstone there was a bit of confusion surrounding this archetype as it was often confused with the next category.
- Midrange: Many of the decks which get classified as "Control Decks" are actually Midrange. To be fair, the line is not hard and fast; however, there are still some distinctions to be drawn. A midrange deck is characterized by trying to gain incremental value on every play: a prime example would be Argent Commander or the buffing creatures. If your deck is built to play solidly throughout the game and bury your opponent in incremental advantage, you have a Midrange deck. The defining aspect of a Midrange deck is that it has to play Control vs. Aggro and Aggro vs. Control if it wants to be successful.
** Aside: Some of the confusion between Control and Midrange is that the midrange deck will often try to “control” the board with bigger creatures/better value spells. This will be elaborated later, but just because you are playing a controlling role in one game does not make you a Control Deck.
- Combo: This is the hardest category to build because true combos are hard to find as game designers usually kill them before the game launches. Hunter OTK is the best known Combo Deck we have had to date. Hunter OTK is the less frustrating of the two true Combo branches: interactive and non-interactive. Non-interactive combo is something I would be surprised to ever see in Hearthstone but -- in the interest of fully covering the topic -- it would be described as "do x+y+z and you win the game." It may seem like Hunter OTK is like this, but since your opponent does actually have ways to stop you if they set up for your big turn, it is still an interactive combo: Taunts or Ice Block for example usually prevent this combo from winning outright.
** Another aside: Based on how Hearthstone is designed -- with no real to act on your opponent’s turn -- I don't think any broken/non-interactive combo will make it past R&D. They exist in some Magic formats but only because the combo player has to determine when it's safe to make their play because their opponent may always have counterspells etc.
- Aggro-control: This is an archetype more possible in Hearthstone than Magic because of how combat interactions work. An Aggro-control deck will revolve around smaller threats but locking your opponent out quickly. These decks will be slower than pure aggro, but will have more game against a wider variety of decks. I can see weapon based classes fitting this role most easily: they can attack with creatures and control the board with their weapons. Most of the decks being classified as “Board Control” are variations on the Aggro-control theme: their goal is to control the board and lock out the opponent while getting progressively better trades.
- Tempo: Tempo is one of the hardest archetypes to build. Tempo is a non-conventional archetype in that it mostly does away with Card Advantage. The goal of Tempo is to get one or two fast threats out -- Mana Wyrm being the perfect example -- and then prevent your opponent stopping it for the rest of the game. Tempo cards are often things like Freezing Trap or Frost Nova, these cards will never gain Card Advantage, but if you only need to buy your Mana Wyrm an extra turn or two then it’s fine. The ideal form of a Tempo Deck would be composed of creatures Mana Wyrm/Faerie Dragon/King Mukla and then be filled with spells like Sap/Counterspell/Conceal/or Frost Nova.
General Terms
- Board Wipes: Cards like Flamestrike or Holy Nova that deal damage to multiple targets. Many Hearthstone discussions use the term AOE which -- while not inherently wrong -- does not apply to TCGs as well as it does to Starcraft because the "area" concept is a bit weird. One could make a case for calling Cone of Cold or Explosive Shot AOE, but they are better described as having splash damage or being “multitarget removal”.
- Bounce: The term for "return a creature to its owner’s hand". This is very common in Tempo decks but do note, this is Card Disadvantage. Bouncing is far worse than killing a creature because they get to keep their card: be careful building with these.
- Burn: "Deal x damage to y." Fairly straightforward, we just have a word for it. Also see, "burning them out" or "reach": these are things an aggro deck would do if they get you close to dead and then finish you off.
- Cantrip: Anything that has the text "draw a card". These cards are obviously good because they replace themselves; therefore, gaining card advantage off of them is fairly straightforward as you are already "card neutral" if you will.
- Clock: This is term is rarer but is an important concept nonetheless. The "clock" your threats represent is how fast you can kill your opponent if unanswered. On an empty board and at 12 health, an Argent Commander is a 3 turn clock. This is most important to Aggro and Tempo decks, but a Control may consider it in the context of "what kind of clock/how much pressure am I under?"
- Curve: or Mana Curve, how your spells look when you sort by mana cost. This is most important to aggro decks, but each archetype has its own type of curves: Aggro will tend to be short and high whereas Control will be longer with more top end.
- Filtering: Filtering is going through some portion of your deck and picking what you need now. Similar to cantripping, this is card neutral, but you can gain an incremental advantage by getting the right card if you do this right. This is a very powerful effect for Combo decks and some Control decks. An example would be Tracking.
- Going Off: A Combo deck "goes off" on the turn they kill you. This one is fairly straightforward.
- Mulligan: The process of replacing certain cards in your initial starting hand.
- Ping: An action where you deal only a single point of damage to a single target -- Mage Power or Shiv -- to finish it off, let a weaker minion trade with it, or kill a low health high attack minion.
- Ramp: Ramping is the process of using a card to gain resources in the future. This is mainly the function of Druid cards and can be built into a strategy of its own. The function of ramping will allow you to play more -- or larger -- threats faster than may be anticipated. The Coin is -- in essence -- a one off ramp spell.
- Synergy: First of all, this is not synonymous with combo. A "combo" is something that will win the game when it hits -- Hunter OTK for example -- a synergy is a set of cards that work together to be bigger than the sum of their parts: an Enrage minion plus Cruel Taskmaster for example. This is a subtle difference but it's important.
- Top Deck: This term comes in a two forms: either getting a Top Deck, or playing off the top. It originates from physical card games and refers to the top card on your deck. When you "need a Top Deck xxxxx" or your opponent "got the perfect top deck" it means that the situation on board swung because of the card that was just drawn. When you are "playing off the top", you are playing with no cards in your hand and are relying on whatever your top card is to make plays.
Fancier Concepts
- Beatdown vs. Control: This is one of the most important concepts in 1v1 TCGS and you should read this: Who's the Beatdown, by Mike Flores
This article is relevant to almost any type of gamer, but in essence it states that in every matchup there is a Beatdown and a Control player. This is what was referring to above when discussing the Midrange archetype. It doesn't matter if you are control in 99% of your match ups, sometimes when decks line up you have to be the Beatdown in order to win. To elaborate upon the Midrange comment, it is called Midrange because these decks are built to be between Beatdown and Control in most match ups and pick whichever is appropriate.
- The Vanilla Test: A cool test that Magic players use. It states that "if this rules text was blank, how is this card?" Monk alluded to it in the second trends article with Shattered Sun Cleric, and this is the perfect example: a 3/3 for 3 is perfectly fine, and in the cases where the rules box is not blank? that is pure upside. This test also works in reverse: that Ancient Watcher is a 4/5 for 2 is too good, so we expect a downside.
- Card Advantage: This is a very commonly discussed term, but it is not always properly described. The most controversial example is Novice Engineer. When you cast this card, you get a 1 for 1: you get one card of value -- through the cantrip -- for the one card you used to cast it. This is a reasonable baseline for the Novice, but does not make it great on its own. The reason why Card Advantage is a bit weird right now is because the "Value of a Card" is not yet an established in Hearthstone. In my opinion, a 1/2 on its own is not worth a card; therefore, to be able to trade up or get additional value out of the Novice to call it a 2 for 1. Azure Drake on the other hand, is a "straight up" 2 for 1 because it replaces itself and you get a big body on the field from it. Casting Flamestrike to remove two of your opponent’s minions is the cleanest example of a 2 for 1 that exists in Hearthstone and should be the standard for explaining this concept to new players: you cast one card to undo what your opponent did with two cards.
A common misconception of Card Advantage is using it to describe “cards in hand” or “minions on the battlefield”. The correct way to think about Card Advantage is to image a scoreboard where players are scoring points for being more efficient with their resources in card form. The central tenet of Card Advantage is that cards are a resource, just like Mana Crystals or life. A player is winning in terms of Card Advantage if and only if they are being more efficient with this resource.
- Expected Value: Expected Value is a term used across many games but is most common in Poker. Expected Value is a property of a play that can be calculated by considering the average outcome of any play or series of plays. Most often, Expected Value is calculated in reference of what percent chance a play gives you to win the game: here is an example.
If you are a Mage and you have only draw step left to win the game -- by virtue of Ice Block -- and three cards left in your deck -- which you know to be Pyroblast, Fireball, and Leper Gnome -- the Expected Value of making a play resulting in putting your opponent with 6 life is 66% whereas a play resulting in your opponent going to 10 life is only 33%.
This is a good list. For Magic player, there are other words synonymous with board wipes, like sweepers and wraths. I'd add a little bit to the cantrip definition. Usually cards that are considered to trip are those that replace themselves as soon as their played, like Novice Engineer, but not like Loot Hoarder.
We also use ping to describe one damage of burn, shock for two damage, and bolt for three damage. Not too sure on whether or not the Hearthstone community uses these terms though.
I'm not sure about your classification of aggro and tempo. Aggro decks are supposed to be the beatdown, and they don't really care about having more card advantage. Sure, that doesn't always mean swarm decks, but it does mean being proactive most of the time. As far as Hearthstone goes, the only cards that I would think of as good in tempo decks but not in aggro decks would be Counterspell and Mirror Image, because they allow your minions to get in while the opponent has to focus on other things. I also think that Chillwind Yeti is a perfect example of a midranged beater.
This is a good list. For Magic player, there are other words synonymous with board wipes, like sweepers and wraths. I'd add a little bit to the cantrip definition. Usually cards that are considered to trip are those that replace themselves as soon as their played, like Novice Engineer, but not like Loot Hoarder.
We also use ping to describe one damage of burn, shock for two damage, and bolt for three damage. Not too sure on whether or not the Hearthstone community uses these terms though.
Board Wipes versus Wraths or Sweepers was something we talked a lot about and Wrath didn't seem to fit and Board Wipe was the more intuitive of the two left. Shock and bolt both had the same problem as Wraths in that Magic players would understand immediately but they don't correlate to anything in HS really. Ping makes sense and we missed that + Show Spoiler +
I also think that Chillwind Yeti is a perfect example of a midranged beater.
Not sure if I agree with this one: think Thragtusk versus Deadbridge Goliath.
I suppose this is useful. The expected value explanation is a bit off but for the rest it's fine although it's a bit magic oriented. The archetype classification in general is quite useless I think and only leads to bad tendencies often like quotes as 'control > aggro > combo > control' and what not.
Just read the linked article and found it really interesting. Even though the cards are old and the strategies for each deck a little beyond me the principles and example cards are very very important, especially for me personally as I usually run a mid range wlock or shaman deck.
Nicely written, and really helpful. I agree that it might also be nice to add some of the common acronyms, like SSC, RNG, and MTG, so we have everything in one place.
There are a few terms which come from people needing to announce them in real life (in Magic), so while they're not strictly necessary it's helpful to know them, as they get used from time to time.
"I swing for 6" = I attack with my creatures for a total of six damage. "I ping that creature" = I use a spell or ability to kill that (relatively small) creature.
I have a suggestion/request to make to the Hearthstone team here at teamliquid. Would it be possible to rewrite or adapt the linked article (Who's the Beatdown, by Mike Flores) but with Hearthstone cards and examples so it is easier to follow (obviously giving the proper credit and referencing the original article). For those of us who have never played MTG it is not straight forward to follow the examples. I have come across this article many times when reading about Hearthstone and since you guys have some of the best Hearthstone articles on the web I am sure you would do a great job. It could become a classic on the Hearthstone web "literature" like the previous article seems to have become for MTG.
In any case, thanks for all the work you guys are doing.
On December 28 2013 00:06 mostlyharmless wrote: Very nice.
I have a suggestion/request to make to the Hearthstone team here at teamliquid. Would it be possible to rewrite or adapt the linked article (Who's the Beatdown, by Mike Flores) but with Hearthstone cards and examples so it is easier to follow (obviously giving the proper credit and referencing the original article). For those of us who have never played MTG it is not straight forward to follow the examples. I have come across this article many times when reading about Hearthstone and since you guys have some of the best Hearthstone articles on the web I am sure you would do a great job. It could become a classic on the Hearthstone web "literature" like the previous article seems to have become for MTG.
In any case, thanks for all the work you guys are doing.
I don't really know who we'd have to talk to about that article but I really like the idea.
There are going to be some updates coming soon to include some of the terms we missed the first time. We're leaving out token though because it doesn't really make sense in Hearthstone. In Magic, a token is handled differently by the rules and mechanics of the game. In Hearthstone, however, they just make a new card when a "token" would be spawned: an example being that you can bounce a totem etc. So really you never get a token in the MTG sense but rather get a new card named Stoneclaw Totem.
I've found people ask about abbreviations such as 'tap' and concepts such as 'going for the face'. Also, 'board wipe' has slowly morphed into 'board clear.'
Actually, the concept of 'trade' as compared to ones like 'sack', 'smack' or 'clear' create confusion too.
thank you for making this thread Hayl_storm, i had an idea of what most of these terms meant just didnt know when it applied. also tnx for explaining the arch types :D
This is a perfect guide for players that are getting into TCG for the first time! Or even players that have played a couple times but don't know all the terms
On December 26 2013 09:13 Hayl_Storm wrote: - Expected Value: Expected Value is a term used across many games but is most common in Poker. Expected Value is a property of a play that can be calculated by considering the average outcome of any play or series of plays. Most often, Expected Value is calculated in reference of what percent chance a play gives you to win the game: here is an example.
If you are a Mage and you have only draw step left to win the game -- by virtue of Ice Block -- and three cards left in your deck -- which you know to be Pyroblast, Fireball, and Leper Gnome -- the Expected Value of making a play resulting in putting your opponent with 6 life is 66% whereas a play resulting in your opponent going to 10 life is only 33%.
I am new (and apparently dumb), can some one explain how these values were arrived at?
On December 26 2013 09:13 Hayl_Storm wrote: - Expected Value: Expected Value is a term used across many games but is most common in Poker. Expected Value is a property of a play that can be calculated by considering the average outcome of any play or series of plays. Most often, Expected Value is calculated in reference of what percent chance a play gives you to win the game: here is an example.
If you are a Mage and you have only draw step left to win the game -- by virtue of Ice Block -- and three cards left in your deck -- which you know to be Pyroblast, Fireball, and Leper Gnome -- the Expected Value of making a play resulting in putting your opponent with 6 life is 66% whereas a play resulting in your opponent going to 10 life is only 33%.
I am new (and apparently dumb), can some one explain how these values were arrived at?
If I understand it right: You have one turn left before the opponent kills you, no cards in hand, and 3 cards in deck (Pyroblast, Fireball, Leper Gnome). If the opponent has 6 life, the expected value of making a play is 66 percent because out of the 3 cards, 2 (Pyroblast, Fireball) can actually kill the opponent and win you the game, while Leper Gnome can only deal two damage and will lose you the game.
However, if the opponent has 10 life, expected value is 33% because the only card that lets you win the game is Pyroblast (1/3rd of all cards, hence 33%).
On December 26 2013 09:13 Hayl_Storm wrote: - Expected Value: Expected Value is a term used across many games but is most common in Poker. Expected Value is a property of a play that can be calculated by considering the average outcome of any play or series of plays. Most often, Expected Value is calculated in reference of what percent chance a play gives you to win the game: here is an example.
If you are a Mage and you have only draw step left to win the game -- by virtue of Ice Block -- and three cards left in your deck -- which you know to be Pyroblast, Fireball, and Leper Gnome -- the Expected Value of making a play resulting in putting your opponent with 6 life is 66% whereas a play resulting in your opponent going to 10 life is only 33%.
I am new (and apparently dumb), can some one explain how these values were arrived at?
If I understand it right: You have one turn left before the opponent kills you, no cards in hand, and 3 cards in deck (Pyroblast, Fireball, Leper Gnome). If the opponent has 6 life, the expected value of making a play is 66 percent because out of the 3 cards, 2 (Pyroblast, Fireball) can actually kill the opponent and win you the game, while Leper Gnome can only deal two damage and will lose you the game.
However, if the opponent has 10 life, expected value is 33% because the only card that lets you win the game is Pyroblast (1/3rd of all cards, hence 33%).
Exactly, it's a little bit awkward to write out examples but this is correct. The idea is that you want to put yourself in the best situation to capitalize on your potential draws.
If I understand it right: You have one turn left before the opponent kills you, no cards in hand, and 3 cards in deck (Pyroblast, Fireball, Leper Gnome). If the opponent has 6 life, the expected value of making a play is 66 percent because out of the 3 cards, 2 (Pyroblast, Fireball) can actually kill the opponent and win you the game, while Leper Gnome can only deal two damage and will lose you the game.
However, if the opponent has 10 life, expected value is 33% because the only card that lets you win the game is Pyroblast (1/3rd of all cards, hence 33%).
On January 22 2014 21:42 Melliflue wrote: What does "proc" mean? I've seen it used a few times but I don't know what it is short for.
You know I know what proc means but I had no idea what it actually was short for and never realized that until I tried to answer it, well according to this -> http://www.wowwiki.com/Proc it comes from "special procedure" and in the context of hearthstone it roughly means an ability on a card that is activated by something else, for example the knife juggler procs every time a minion is played because whenever that happens it throws out a random knife.
On January 22 2014 21:42 Melliflue wrote: What does "proc" mean? I've seen it used a few times but I don't know what it is short for.
You know I know what proc means but I had no idea what it actually was short for and never realized that until I tried to answer it, well according to this -> http://www.wowwiki.com/Proc it comes from "special procedure" and in the context of hearthstone it roughly means an ability on a card that is activated by something else, for example the knife juggler procs every time a minion is played because whenever that happens it throws out a random knife.
Thanks. I had seen it a lot and it seemed to mean 'trigger' or 'play' or something else depending on context. I could always work out from context what was meant but I could never work out why it was 'proc'. So thanks
A common misconception of Card Advantage is using it to describe “cards in hand” or “minions on the battlefield”. The correct way to think about Card Advantage is to image a scoreboard where players are scoring points for being more efficient with their resources in card form. The central tenet of Card Advantage is that cards are a resource, just like Mana Crystals or life. A player is winning in terms of Card Advantage if and only if they are being more efficient with this resource.
This in itself is a misconception. Scoreboarding your card's efficiency is not describing card advantage, it describes card value -- that is, the extraction of maximum value out of a minion trade, or a board clear, so that the end result of the exchange creates a net card advantage. Card advantage itself ignores card value, and literally only describes your total "cards in hand" and "minions on the battlefield" compared to your opponent. It's a very basic examination of cards themselves as a resource; an observation of who holds more cards after an initial starting condition where each player begins with a set number of cards. Going beyond that definition to discuss the practicality of card advantage goes into defining card value.
I also think board control and mana efficiency should be defined, as they're both very related to the discussions of what the goal of a specific deck style is, and the over-arching decisions one makes in the pursuit of card value and card advantage. Card value (from the perspective of the perceived inherent value in a card when building a deck) is tethered by mana efficiency, and board control is another byproduct of card value.
Nice guide and excellent redaction. Most of the concepts are clear to me now, but how would you describe the concept of "meta". I'm new to hearthstone and I've been reading a lot of it. Thanks.
Meta, or the metagame, literally refers to actions outside an actual match but which effect it: which decks are popular, the playstyle of your opponent, etc.
On February 12 2014 08:31 Hayl_Storm wrote: Meta, or the metagame, literally refers to actions outside an actual match but which effect it: which decks are popular, the playstyle of your opponent, etc.
Thanks a lot!. So when I read "this balance change will affect the metagame" actually means that it will affect the way players use the cards affected by the balance change.
One more thing. I disagree on calling hearthstone a TCG because so far we can't trade cards. Instead I prefer to call it a CCG which stands for Crafting Cards Game. What do you think about it?
the term "zoo" come from Magic the gathering where a popular deck was playing cheap efficient creatures and some burn spells to kill really fast an opponent. The name zoo was just because these creatures were lions, apes, cats and other animals.
In hearthstone, reynad, who had been playing Magic for years, created a similar deck in this purpose (cheap creatures, some burn spells, a clock) and called it the same : zoo. And now it refers to the warlock aggro deck that you see everywhere.
If you want to expand a bit all the aggro decks in hearthstone are zoo decks by essence, aggro Mage, aggro paladin, aggro hunter (they all are beast !) they have all efficient early creatures and then burn at the end to finish the opponent (fireball/frostbolt... Avenging wrath/truesilver champion... hero ability/etc..) but only the warlock aggro deck is called zoo.
In magic the gathering there are other names to distinct other flavors of aggro but in hearthstone there is not a lot of names to differentiate decks ("miracle rogue" sounds way more badass than "combo rogue" ^^; "shockaladin" is better than "aggro paladin").
so what is Token? OP says that the token wouldn't make any sense in HS, but still I hear it a lot. recently some streamer or commentator called the Paladin 1/1 guy a token. I'm getting more and more confused by the use of this term. do people actually use it correctly? I always thought it's when "token druid" has a violet teacher and gets 1/1 guys by casting a spell, but I've recently seen decks that call themselves "token druid" and don't even use violet teacher.
On September 18 2014 22:03 leather gracket wrote: so what is Token? OP says that the token wouldn't make any sense in HS, but still I hear it a lot. recently some streamer or commentator called the Paladin 1/1 guy a token. I'm getting more and more confused by the use of this term. do people actually use it correctly? I always thought it's when "token druid" has a violet teacher and gets 1/1 guys by casting a spell, but I've recently seen decks that call themselves "token druid" and don't even use violet teacher.
A "token" is any kind of minion that is created by the effect of a card. In other card games, when a minion/creature/monster is created, you need to represent it somehow, so you often use coins or other objects (in other words, a token).
Hearthstone is a bit different, because the Tokens themselves are cards. In other games, you cannot return a token back to the hand for example, but you can in Hearthstone.
On September 18 2014 22:36 leather gracket wrote: so simply put, in Hearthstone token=minion/everything that is on the board?
No - hopefully I can clarify: Think of a "Token" as a symbol or item representing something else. In general, TCG's will refer to creatures/minions/monsters that are "created" or "spawned" by another card's effect as "Tokens" - this is because we usually represent those creatures/etc with something else - as mentioned above, by a coin or die, another card turned around, that sort of thing. S1eth explained this adequately above, but I thought I'd go into a little more detail for your benefit.
So in Hearthstone, where you get a minion that isn't actually a card in your deck, but created by another effect, we call those "Tokens" - they aren't actually "Tokens", because they are represented as cards, but you should be able to glean what I'm saying.
Essentially, your 1/1 Paladin Dudes, Imp Master's Imps, Violet Sorc's Dudes, Leroy's little drakes - these are all considered "Tokens".
On September 18 2014 22:36 leather gracket wrote: so simply put, in Hearthstone token=minion/everything that is on the board?
No - hopefully I can clarify: Think of a "Token" as a symbol or item representing something else. In general, TCG's will refer to creatures/minions/monsters that are "created" or "spawned" by another card's effect as "Tokens" - this is because we usually represent those creatures/etc with something else - as mentioned above, by a coin or die, another card turned around, that sort of thing. S1eth explained this adequately above, but I thought I'd go into a little more detail for your benefit.
So in Hearthstone, where you get a minion that isn't actually a card in your deck, but created by another effect, we call those "Tokens" - they aren't actually "Tokens", because they are represented as cards, but you should be able to glean what I'm saying.
Essentially, your 1/1 Paladin Dudes, Imp Master's Imps, Violet Sorc's Dudes, Leroy's little drakes - these are all considered "Tokens".
Hope this helps you understand more clearly.
ok now I clearly understand this. thanks.
and why are "Tokens" in HS different from Tokens in other TCG?
If possible, please edit the first post because it contains the abbreviation "OTK" few times, but actually does not explain that this means "one turn kill".
On September 18 2014 22:36 leather gracket wrote: so simply put, in Hearthstone token=minion/everything that is on the board?
No - hopefully I can clarify: Think of a "Token" as a symbol or item representing something else. In general, TCG's will refer to creatures/minions/monsters that are "created" or "spawned" by another card's effect as "Tokens" - this is because we usually represent those creatures/etc with something else - as mentioned above, by a coin or die, another card turned around, that sort of thing. S1eth explained this adequately above, but I thought I'd go into a little more detail for your benefit.
So in Hearthstone, where you get a minion that isn't actually a card in your deck, but created by another effect, we call those "Tokens" - they aren't actually "Tokens", because they are represented as cards, but you should be able to glean what I'm saying.
Essentially, your 1/1 Paladin Dudes, Imp Master's Imps, Violet Sorc's Dudes, Leroy's little drakes - these are all considered "Tokens".
Hope this helps you understand more clearly.
ok now I clearly understand this. thanks.
and why are "Tokens" in HS different from Tokens in other TCG?
Speaking from Yu-Gi-Oh experience.
Typically in TCGs, you aren't expected to have a physical card for the summoned token. Like the previous poster said, you're expected to use coins or paper clips or whatever is lying around to represent them on the board.
At least in Yu-Gi-Oh, physical cards for the tokens are sometimes made, but mainly as novelty items. You aren't required or expected to have the card for the token when you have a card effect that says "Summon X amount tokens with Y/Z stats".
As such, not everything that effects normal cards effect Tokens in the same way. Typically, when a card is destroyed, it is sent to the Graveyard. In other TCGs, there are usually cards that let you get a card back from the Graveyard in a certain way (i.e. cards like Kel'Thuzad in Hearthstone that let you revive fallen creatures are a lot more prevalent in older, more established TCGs). When a token is destroyed in normal TCGs, it's just destroyed, no way of getting it back. Not so much in Hearthstone. Cards like Kel'Thuzad can still revive Token Creatures.
Another example is that Tokens normally can't be sent back to the hand in traditional TCGs. Because, as was said before, in a normal TCG, you're pretty much expected to use coins or tokens to represent the tokens. And it would be kind of silly to expect you to have a coin in your hand of cards. As such, cards that normally Bounce cards back to the hand typically destroy Tokens under normal circumstances in TCGs. Not so in Hearthstone. In Hearthstone, the tokens themselves are actually cards, and you can send those tokens back to the hand as actual cards.
This isn't necessarily any better or worse. Just the fact that Hearthstone is a Digital Card Game that makes it clearly different in this aspect.
On December 22 2014 04:44 8882 wrote: If possible, please edit the first post because it contains the abbreviation "OTK" few times, but actually does not explain that this means "one turn kill".
One turn kill. It literally means to completely kill you opponent in one turn. Doing 30 damage (or more) to the face using a combination of spells, abilities and attacks.