HeartStone, Blizzard
PC

HearthStone is one of the best games of the decade. It is a free fantasy card game full of dragons, pirates and legendary fun.

At the core the game is about playing short card games against a real-life opponent. To ensure that you duel against people with an equal level of skill there is a ladder system designed to advance you to a group of better players if you win more games than you lose or the other way if you lose more than you win.

A proven concept
At its core the game is inspired by non-computer trading-card-games like the World of Warcraft card game, which I enjoyed immensely and Magic the Gathering. By simplifying the game rules, the creators have managed to make a game which is simple to learn and play but very difficult to master.

Last month I was ranked level 4 and so far this month I’m level 5 in standard play. One day I’ll reach Legend. Just have to keep at it :-)
(update: I did reach Legend in both Standard and Wild, will get there too in Classic one day :-))

I can recommend the game, but the player base which consists of millions of players worldwide has become better and better at playing the game, and even on low levels you see people playing well and with tier-one decks found and copied from the many internet fan sites. Getting a high ranking have in my opinion never been more difficult. If you don't want to play the ladder you can play casual games against other players or single player dungeon runs. 

Too big for it's own good
There are also a couple of things not so great about the game. Though the game is free to play you will need to cough up cash if you want to have any chance of building the best decks, and unfortunately, I can't play HearthStone on my iPad any longer, as the games gotten so big it fills up nearly the entire hard disc! Maybe they should do something about that? I also gave up playing the phone version because the cards there are so tiny you can’t read the text on them, and often bad wi-fi reception in an area (read at the dentist or while on vacation in the country side) can make the game frustrating to play, so now I exclusively play it on my pc.

PS: Thanks to Thijs Molendijk, Brian Kibler and other elite players for making such great decks! Often, I have a really good idea for a deck but can't completely realize it in an effective enough way to win consistently, and then I see the same idea realized flawlessly in a beautiful deck list made by some of the world’s best players. Thanks for all the decks!

/Rune S. Nielsen