Is it possible for a returning player to play the game without spending money?

Multiplayer Discussion
1

Hi so I used to love this game in the past. I quit playing some years ago, now I am back to the game but I realized that it seems you can only survive in this game if you put lots of money on it… is that true? A friend of mine quit 3 months ago saying that “I can’t go back to the game without spending tons of dollars”.
I tried to find info again on all hearthstone websites but I could not find any deck that I could even have and I can’t past rank 15.

2

There are relatively cheap competitive decks around, like mech/midrange hunter and murloc shaman. The problem with not spending any money is it will take a lot of time to build a decent variety of decks, but that depends on if this is what you’re after.

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3

This. You can build competitive decks easily on a budget, but you’re not going to have a lot of variety (unless you decide to go all in on Arena, maybe?).

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4

It is possible but with conditions attached.

You will need to either start a new account and rework your way to gain a reasonable collection or, if your current account have enough resources to support current game play.

Assuming you will be on a F2P route, you may need to invest a few months of your time with proper management of your gold/dust to reach a comfortable collection for competitive play.

Once you identify your options, then the community can better advise how to proceed.

5

Thank you all for answering. So… I play mage, I just want to have 1 decent mage deck that I could at least get a better rank. I don’t mean getting to rank 1 or 2… no… I just can’t believe I have to be stuck on rank 15 and can’t past it. And I am playing this wild thing, cause I was checking the Standart and it is even worse.

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Short answer, yes.

It’s entirely possible to have a brand new account and spend zero dollars and go to rank 15 or even 5, even on your 1st month. I did it myself last season. Took a brand new account and piloted it to 5. Well, technically I did it over a season and half, but it’s perfectly doable within a season too.

However there is a catch. In order to be quickly competitive you’d have to blow up your collection and in doing so risk being stuck with just one or two decks, and that trust me, is just ain’t no fun.

To your specific situation, as a returning player I’m assuming you have at least a small collection to work with. Look up decks on HSReplay and Vicious Syndicate. Try to build a budget version of the better performing decks.

However if your collection is too small too make any kind of decent decks, consider creating a new account to take advantage of the newbie benefits.

Add me as a friend. I’m sure I can help with you with the deckbuilding aspect.

2 Likes
7

Blizzard nerfed tons of basic and classic cards.
It makes sure that you pay $$$.

Every time a nice guy creates a budget deck.
It gets nerfed within a week.

8

Hearthstone is pay to get advantage, so yeah you can slide back into the game but its gonna be tougher than if you pay and get immediate acces to the cards you need/want.

But with grinding you can achieve the same yeah, your only gonna have less diverse decks most likely.

9

In Wild, you should have plenty of options for Mage. Tempo Secret Mage should be fairly cheap (minus Aluneth or Luna). But there’s plenty of other options and you can make your own one.

And, yes Standard mage is kinda limited to some sort of miracle with Mana Cyclone and Conjurer’s Calling, Khadgar, Mountain Giant seems irreplacable, it’s very limiting.

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I can second this, I play secret mage in Wild - i’m hovering around rank 8 at the moment with it. It’s a very cheap deck to craft, I believe Alumeth is my only legendary in it, I don’t run Luna.

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no one is required to spend real money for this game unless you want immediate access to good cards.

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Sure. Just start collecting the current expansion, save up your gold between sets, buy 70 or so packs with your gold when a new set releases, and Bob’s your Uncle. By the next set rotation you’ll be doing just fine. Classic cards will come to you over time just from Brawl packs, Ranked Rewards, Arena, or various quest rewards. No need to knock yourself out chasing Classics.

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For Mage you want to open Boomsday and Shadows packs to catch up. Actually, regardless of class those are the best sets, spend your gold on those two.

For Standard without money you will be hard pressed to fully catch up before the next rotation. But for Wild you can catch up much faster (how fast depends on what you had and how long ago you quit).

A few things that have changed to help you:

  1. Quests now always give 50g minimum, rather than 40.
  2. Legendary cards, you cannot open duplicates from packs anymore.
  3. Blizzard has monthly events that provide more free packs, cards, gold, and dust. For July it’s the Ragnaros Fire Festival.
14

Mage is a very expensive class. The budget versions aren’t fun. I’d rather recommend Rogue, Druid, Warlock or Hunter

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I’m an F2P player myself - and unfortunately, due to my lack of funding - as well as lack of decent deck-building skills) none of my decks seem to last more than 2 games in the arena. I’m not saying it’s IMPOSSIBLE, but it’s definitely a challenge. One that I’m still pursuing.

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(Actually, Bob’s the BARTENDER.) :rofl: :wink: