Hearthstone definitely was New Player friendly when I started playing near the beginning. I can’t imagine how it would be if I started playing now, but it is much more friendly now in terms of getting rewards for investing play time than before. It is a little more complicated now than before with new modes like Battlegrounds, Duels and Mercenaries. It also has a lot more cards than before, 8 years ago, but it introduced the Core Set in Standard Multiplayer Mode, which I think is the most popular version of the game that continues on as long as the developers make it which could be as long as this game sees a profit for them.
I’d say overall that Hearthstone is at least somewhat friendly to new players because it has a great tutorial (as far as I know) and the rewards are much easier than before AND you can play a bunch of cards for FREE in Standard with the Core Set. I’d probably say to just to focus on their for a while and get a general round-about of ideas for what you think is good and play that for a while till you get bored and come back to Hearthstone again when you get bored.