# Introducing the Hearthstone-AI Competition

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.04238 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.04238/

## Key facts

- Cited by 10 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 6 May 2019.

## Built on by (most cited first, 10 of 10)

- [Games for Artificial Intelligence Research: A Review and Perspectives](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.13269/) (2023)
- [Mastering Strategy Card Game (Hearthstone) with Improved Techniques](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.05197/) (2023)
- [Summarizing Strategy Card Game AI Competition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.11814/) (2023)
- [RaidEnv: Exploring New Challenges in Automated Content Balancing for Boss Raid Games](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.01676/) (2023)
- [Learning With Generalised Card Representations for "Magic: The Gathering"](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.05879/) (2024)
- [Introducing Tales of Tribute AI Competition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.08234/) (2023)
- [UrzaGPT: LoRA-Tuned Large Language Models for Card Selection in Collectible Card Games](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.08382/) (2025)
- [Developing a Successful Bomberman Agent](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.09608/) (2022)
- [Learning to Beat ByteRL: Exploitability of Collectible Card Game Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.16689/) (2024)
- [A Taxonomy of Collectible Card Games from a Game-Playing AI Perspective](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.06299/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The Hearthstone AI framework and competition motivates the development of artificial intelligence agents that can play collectible card games. A special feature of those games is the high variety of cards, which can be chosen by the players to create their own decks. In contrast to simpler card games, the value of many cards is determined by their possible synergies. The vast amount of possible decks, the randomness of the game, as well as the restricted information during the player's turn offer quite a hard challenge for the development of game-playing agents. This short paper introduces the competition framework and goes into more detail on the problems and challenges that need to be faced during the development process.