I Am a Legend: Hacking Hearthstone

Architecture and Background

I am a legend: Hacking Hearthstone with machine learning Elie Bursztein SECURITY RESEARCHER, GOOGLE Celine Bursztein FOUNDER, PETSQUARE Want to become a legend at Hearthstone -- Blizzard's new blockbuster collecting card game -- or simply learn how to play better? Then pull up a chair by the hearth and join us for a talk about Hearthstone mechanics and how to improve your chance of winning using machine learning and data mining. This talk is packed with examples that show how to use the tools that we are releasing at Defcon. First, we will show you how to uncover the most undervalued cards by building a pricing model reflecting the cards' abilities.

Vulnerability Analysis

Next we will explain how decks can be optimized by tweaking their mana curve to maximize mana efficiency. Finally, we will cover how to predict with relatively good accuracy what opponents are likely to play turn-by-turn by data-mining game replays and building a predictive model that uses that information. Even if you've never heard of Hearthstone before (shame on you!), you should still come to to the talk. That's because it's fun and the techniques discussed can help you improve your performance on other collectible cards games including Magic.

Exploitation and Demonstrations

Elie leads Google's anti-abuse research, where he invents new ways to protect the company's users against cyber-criminal activities and Internet threats. He recently redesigned Google's CAPTCHA to make it easier, and made Chrome safer and faster by implementing better cryptography. Hacking games has been a long time hobby for Elie, who spends far too much time playing Hearthstone and Starcraft. He even managed to turn his passion for games to defcon talks, research papers and won a best paper award for his work on map-hacking.

Remediation and Defensive Strategies

Born in Paris, France, Elie wears berets and love to do cards tricks when in good company. Celine is the founder of PetSquare, a Silicon Valley startup dedicated to animals and their owners. She's crazy about animals and building a product about them was a great way to combine her biology and engineering skills (she holds a PhD in biology and a master's degree in computer science). When Celine is not busy visiting every zoo on the planet or playing Diablo 3 and Hearthstone, she picks every lock she can. She discovered this lockpicking passion when she successfully cracked her father's safe at the tender age of 7.