One of the most common complaints I see here, especially from newer players, is that Hearthstone is completely pay to win and that player skill doesn’t matter - the better deck wins.
Neither of these is true, but you do have to get yourself off to the right start. That means knowing what to do, how to manage your resources and how to play well.
I’m writing this to not only show it can be done, but also to share my experience and method with newer players. I was simply going to switch to the EU server for this little project but upon hitting rank 45 I promptly high rolled to hell and back, pulling 3 legendaries in 2 packs. This was waaaaaaay too unrealistic to accurately represent the NPE and as a result I’ll be playing this on the Asian server instead. Hopefully without that level of nonsense. I am going to be using the free Quest though, as all players get one. On this, I was very lucky. I received Untapped Potential, which means this run will be done with F2P Quest Druid.
I’m unsure whether I want to update this with edits or comments, but everything that’s happened tonight will be in this post regardless. Before we get to that, however, I’m going to go over basic tips.
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Many of the tutorial fights teach you more than they let on. Millhouse tells us we can’t simply play big cards or we’ll lose before we can play them. Cho teaches us that controlling the board is important. Mukla teaches us that sometimes, you need to ignore the board to hit the opponent. Hemet teaches the opposite - that we can’t always ignore the board. Finally, Illidan shows us that strong early decks often fall off later on. These are all important.
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Especially early on, hitting your opponent with your spells is usually a bad idea. Save them for minions unless they’re contributing to killing this turn.
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Likewise, ignoring your opponents minions to hit them all the time is not a good idea unless you’re playing a dedicated aggro deck. At this stage, you are not. Learning when to trade and when to hit face can take a while to get the hang of, but it’s a very important skill
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your card pool is very limited at first, and until you complete the basic quests and get your freebie, it’s very possible your opponents will have better decks than you. Wins don’t matter right now though, as we just need to play 4 games.
Once you’ve finished the basic quests, log out and log back in for your free quest card. These are cards of varying power that always start in your hand, provide you with a task to perform and change your hero power to a much better one when you complete it. While most of them are very good, if you receive the Warlock, Mage or Hunter quest it is likely better to disenchant it for 400 dust and pick a cheap deck like Zoo Warlock to play. The other six, though, are all viable and can be built around fairly easily. You will want to consider both cars that help you complete the quest and payoff cards that benefit from it. The cheaper the better, so try to start with the commons. 10 commons will help you much more than one Epic.
Regarding packs, it is VERY important you know what you’re doing here. Within your first ten packs of a set, you will get at least 1 Legendary card guaranteed. After receiving this legendary, there are no more guarantees until 40 packs further in. This means a few things:
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Never buy Classic Packs until you have 10 of each set. You receive more than 10 free classic packs from ranking up through the beginner ranks, meaning you do not need to spend gold on Classic at this time.
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Once you pull a Legendary from a set, stop buying packs from that set until you have pulled a Legendary from every standard set.
This feature is the cornerstone of F2P. It is vital and you should absolutely take advantage of it.
You will also want to have a plan. Mindlessly crafting cards is a huge mistake as an F2P. While there are many excellent classic cards to start you off, avoid them unless they will go in your deck. From the very beginning, we need to be crafting our final build. This is where research comes in. Sites like hearthstonetopdecks have builds for every class that can perform at the highest levels. You want to find one that’s relatively cheap (few epics and mandatory legendaries) and work towards that.
With all this said, I think I’ve covered most of it. I will be replying to this to begin my own F2P journey, as this is already massive.