Tried to return to the game after being away for a few years. Spent $80 each on the last two expansions, grinded through the entire reward tree, and still can’t make a single top ten deck due to the large amount of legendary and epic cards required to make deck mechanics work. If I’m spending $80 on a game every 3 or 4 months, I expect to be able to make at least one competitive deck without having to dust my entire collection. I’m not spending any more on the game because the investment has very little return. Blizzard if you were a little less greedy for money and spent more time making the game feel rewarding for players you might actually make more money and have a larger user base.
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Strategic dusting is an important part of being able to make one or two competitive decks for each expansion. Even an F2P player can expect to make at least one competitive deck if they dust most or all but a couple of their favorite classes.
Ideally you should dust after at least one round of nerfs after an expansion launches, or else you might miss out on full dust refunds, or worse yet craft something that ends up fading and being unplayable.
But yes if you want to not dust anything and have a large collection of cars and lots of options, then you have to be a dolphin or whale or some other large sea creature. (Just trying to help any poor new players who might wander in here and read this.)
Following up on ElvenAcademy’s advice, here are some more tips for F2P (and C2P - cheap to play) players on how to optimize your gold and dust.
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Reroll low-value (900 xp) quests in the hope of getting a higher value quest; never reroll a high value (1000 xp or better) quest (unless it’s one you know you’ll never be able to finish); always make sure to have a daily quest slot available before the day ticks over; always finish all weekly quests before the week ticks over. Also, always make sure to get at least one win in the Tavern Brawl each week, for the free pack.
Reason: For the quest rerolling: a 900 xp quest will often reroll into another 900 xp, but sometimes you get 1000 xp instead. Rerolling a 1000 xp quest will, as far as I know, always result in a 900 xp quest, so you lose xp. And of course, finishing quests and having slots empty guarantees maximum new quests, hence new xp and more progress on the rewards track. -
When you get “extra” cards (third copy of a rare; golden common when you already have two regulars; etc) - do not dust them. Of course, when you need dust to craft a card so you can build a deck you want to play, then those extra cards should be the first to be dusted. But otherwise, just keep the extras.
Reason: As long as you don’t use the dust, there is no difference between a third rare copy or 20 dust - until there are nerfs. So leave them as extra cards and don’t routinely disenchant extra cards. -
When there are nerfs, immediately disenchant the nerfed cards. Not just the extras, but all of them. (Hint: Type ‘refund’ in the search bar)
Reason: During a period after the nerf, those cards disenchant for the same amount of dust as it costs to craft them. Dusting your extras is a no-brainer, you simply get more dust for those cards at this time than at other times. But dusting ALL copies is also a no-brainer. “But what if I still want to play them?” Simple, you craft them again. That costs you exactly the dust you got when you dusted the card, so you lost nothing. Dusting ALL copies is a risk-free way to maximize your dust gain. -
When dusting extra cards (because you need dust for a deck you build), always dust the highest quality (signature, golden) before the regular quality. Sure, they look better, but they give you more dust, and as a F2P player, you can’t afford to waste dust on cosmetics. Similarly, when crafting a card, craft the cheapest quality (regular). Also, when selecting what cards to dust, prioritize cards that are very unlikely to ever be nerfed.
Reason: Most is quite obvious, the priority for dusting cards that are unlikely to be nerfed is because those that DO get a nerf will, at that time, be worth more dust. -
Don’t go overboard with creating new decks. Yes, when watching streamers constantly switch decks to adapt to the meta, it is tempting to follow their example.But as a F2P player, you simply cannot afford to keep crafting and disenchanting cards. Ideally, you should never disenchant any card you might still ever need in the future.
Reason: Obvious, I think. If you disenchant a card and then later craft it again, you lose a lot of dust. -
(Last one!) It can be a good choice to dust all cards of sets that leave Standard. But only do so if you are sure that you will (1) never want to play Wild; (2) never want to play Twist; and (3) don’t really mind having a limited card pool in Tavern Brawls that use Wild deckbuilding rules.
Reason: Well, if you are really sure that you are never going to use those cards again, then it’s essentially free dust. And it can be quite a lot. But do think this through, especially now that we don’t really know what future rules might be used in Twist.
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They ran a marketing exercise last year - gave a number of players a varying number of packs for free to see if they would return to the game. Was something like 10 packs, 50 or 150.
Considering that we see no changes I assume it was a failure with low correlation to renewing player interest.
They also floated the idea of having a subscription bridge. Since sets are in standard for 2 years, the subscription would give the previous year’s card set in full (as long as you paid the sub fee). Players would build the current years card sets and when the next year’s rotation came along they could stop subbing (since the old set would be rotating out) and just buy packs. Nothing came of this either.
While money is an issue, I think the actual problem of the game is the entrenched community. Long time players demand and expect to get the same kinds of experiences they have become used to. When new players come into the space and complain about something that has been there for a long time you get a meme response like “get off my lawn”.
It may have been a failure because people came back, and quickly realized the game is very expensive to get current cards.
Last expansion was my last one until something changes. I had spent about $100 for about three expansions in a row, and realized that even spending that much money, I couldn’t play all the decks I wanted to.
You should get all the cards for spending up on $80 or whatever the ultimate bundle costs. I understand historically these collectable card games have always been “spend a lot of money on a chance to get cards” but it’s honestly exploitative and people need to snap out of it.
Hearthstone is fun, but I can no longer justify spending that kind of money every 3 months and still not have all the cards to have fun with.
I saw that they added ridiculous bundles for “signature” cards and 5 packs for like $60 each. That’s ridiculous.
I bet they could make more money selling entire expansion sets for $29.99 and attracting more players, vs exploiting an ever shrinking playerbase with ridiculously expensive bundles.
Hope Blizzard rethinks their strategy with the new ownership.
They should tie hearthstone in with the world of Warcraft subscription.
They could get a boat load of new or returning people playing both games that way.
I opened these 50-100 card packs when I thought of coming back. It gave 0 legendaries. I also tried decks they suggest. 6 decks and you can keep one after a week of playing. Each one made by people who never played their own game. 0 winrate against actual players (not bots that they added to pretend their game is alive when you are wood rank)
PS I forgot to mention, that packs of many cards gave cards from addons that leave the game in 2 weeks mostly. Scamming even there
Leave only Standard format, not the game 
someone thinks wild is playable? wow
I prefer Wild, its the Sayan League, but If it’s playable for me it doesn’t mean it’s playable for others, everyone plays what they want.
I just wrote that they don’t leave the game but the format 
This game is a scam. Play another one.