Hey all! This is my first time here at Duelyst! Coming from Hearthstone, I’m looking to find the right card game that has a good mix between card game mechanics vs. actual tactics. Duelyst seems to fit that niché!
Anywho, any tips or pointers on what to do for starters, it would be appreciated! 
Hi Young! Welcome to our game and the forums A good place to start is to get all the factions to level 10 and then figure out what faction and/or general you enjoy playing with.
Craft Primus Fist and Dancing Blades as soon as you can. They’re strong commons that pull a surprising amount of weight.
Good positioning wins games. Thoughtful placement of minions will keep them alive longer and limit your opponents movements and attacks. Don’t be afraid to body block with your general.
Fellow player coming from HS here.
Duelyst is a little more complex than Hearthstone, having a grid and all. But other than that the two games are very similar. You will find that learning Duelyst will come easily to you. I would recommend doing the solo challenges for the gold as well as getting a feel of what all is possible as far as mechanics go.
Like what was stated above, familiarize yourself a bit with each of the factions, see which ones you like and such. Each one has their strengths and staple cards.
You will quickly discover that Duelyst is a very aggressive card game, none of that freeze-mage or control warrior nonsense. Control exists but it’s not as pronounced as other card games. Be prepared to lay down the pressure and start working towards your plan turn 1. Most matches won’t last 10 turns, and if they do it’s likely just delaying the inevitable.
Welcome, and enjoy yourself! I still play HS but I like Duelyst a lot more. I think you’ll enjoy it too.
Go for the regular orbs to begin with, as they do have many staples which are needed for most decks.
In terms of which factions to play to begin with, I’d go for lyonar, as they have some very solid minions to begin with. On the other hand, vetruvian can also be nice as they have access to some nice cantrips, which the basic cards from other factions seem to lack.
On ladder, you will meet many magmar, abyssian and lyonar decks. If you are meeting many magmars, which have a lot of burst, slot in some healing (healing mystic is a nice place to start). With abyssian, board clear and burst are both quite important, and with lyonar just try to gain control of the board.
The main thing that you’ll want to get acquainted with in this game is dispel. Once a minion is dispelled it loses its buffs, as well as all the stats it received. So a 1/1 that got buffed to 4/4 and lost one health after will die if silenced.
As a final note, it is much easier to get legendaries in this game than hearthstone, which is one of the many reasons I prefer it.
Thanks for the tip on dispel!
Just wondering, why would it die? IIRC, from Hearthstone, the Silence mechanic does not “kill” a damaged buffed minion, so I’m wondering why it does this for Duelyst… 
It essentially negates a buff. When a minion in Duelyst takes damage, it’s base health is the value that is subtracted from first and therefore it relies on the extra hp from the buff. Once the dispel gets rid of that, it drops to it’s original base value and since this has been damaged and the minion is at 0 health, it dies.
It essentially removes all stats given to it by buffs. If it’s only living due to buffed health, it will therefore die when silenced.
Dang, I guess they literally take that interpretation of calculating buffs/dispels, by removing health from base stats. I would think it would be more intuitive if it removed from the buffed portion of the stat first, since it was an addition first, before subtracting.
I suppose I’ll have to get used to that twist in the mechanic 
It’ll be worth the effort bro.
Duelyst forever. Spread the word to the other Hearthstoners.
This game will blow up as long as we keep playing. I guarantee everyone will catch on to how clever and well made it is in time.
Good art always finds its audience.
@youngsqueezy Hi there, welcome to Duelyst! I’m not a veteran myself but I would like to suggest you to do solo challenges, they can be some good examples of what deck combos that can be built. Just a curious question, what is your favorite faction so far? 
So far, Magmar and lyonar is pretty fun. But I also like Vetruvian and Abyssian too; the zoo aspect with making extra minions is quite fun and I would imagine it would be more important in a position-based game.
If you want to look at the highest level of the game to see how that’s played, I’d recommend watching some tournaments. They’re streamed every few days and many VODs are posted on youtube or twitch.
It could also be worth checking out the tier list at bagoum.com to see what people generally think is strong, any deck on the list could get you to S rank with good play. However, I wouldn’t feel pressured to use the decks or cards other people think are strong. Just play at your own pace and find the cards that work for you. Literally any deck can take you to gold or diamond rank, it all depends on your skill piloting it.
Lyonar and magmar are very good factions to be starting with, they have some powerful and cheap stuff available right away. Abbysian is good, but you do generally require a few cards to get it to really be amazing. Vetruvian generally is either at the top or bottom of the meta, atm they are unfortunately sitting at the bottom. Don’t let that scare you away though, everything is viable, if you win 200 games with vetruvian and have a half decent deck built you’d be doing better than if you just played lyonar for a game instead. So play whatever you enjoy and as long as you keep playing you’ll climb the ladder and improve 
I’m a vetruvian myself and I can’t disagree with vetruvian being on bottom. They’re not particulary bad, it’s just other factions might have more positive traits than the vetruvian. Although that won’t cease my love to the dominion. I’ve fight dozen strong and skillful vetruvians and I too, would like to be one myself someday.
@youngsqueezy Lyonar requires basic gameplay but is strong enough by that simplicity itself, however any decks can be deadly with a skillful play nonetheless. That’s what I love 'bout duelyst, a fair duel ground to all so far.
I really wasn’t trying to imply vetruvian is bad, not at all. I feel the same as you do about them being not bad but outweighed in strength by other factions.
Edit: is outweighed even a word?
If your looking for legendaries I suggest getting a set of spelljammers as they’re basically in every meta deck right now
Lol, maybe you’re stuck in October, because that’s not true.
Most factions have some sort of In faction draw(like trinity oath and tectonic spikes) and many decks choose to run soljourner over spelljammer
However though Spell Jammer is the first legendary that anyone should craft because it is the most useful and will provide the most value in the long run both in game and in ur soul