I don’t deny that it’s nigh on difficult for new players to ease into the game, but I’d like to offer my own counterpoints and perspective. I have put some extended discussions in spoilers to get to the point quicker.
Also logical because in Standard you have less cards to learn to play around: playing Wild effectively requires that you have learnt some “history” about each of the sets and their cards.
I’d recommend to play F2P before you decide to get invested with $$$.
I’m not saying this is ideal, but this is the form of progression for a new player that has been most natural, given the rewards and free packs you receive.
For now, that is getting familiar with the Basic/Classic cards and adding DoD commons/rares, which are very much your lifeblood for a new casual player. Some examples include Dwarven Sharpshooter, Sky Raider, Blazing Battlemage, Bad Luck Albatross and you will likely have opened the likes of an Argent Squire or Dire Wolf Alpha in Classic packs, which fill in the gaps for what would otherwise be more synergistic cards.
Sure, Bloodfen Raptor and River Crocolisk in the Basic set are memed on as being “terrible cards” and “power crept to hell” (eg: Phase Stalker is just strictly better), but they are still minions with stats that put pressure on the board.
Learning that is a key point in being able to adapt and add new cards to your decks as you open them, because you can evaluate a card based on its efficiency and value, rather than on whether it’s in the meta right now.
After grinding to 25, 20-15 is where you will likely spend many games in, at first. It is possible to find your own way and hone your deck that is (usually) midrange to be able to out-tempo your opponent enough for an aggressive finish. The reason is, try to go slow and you will most certainly get outvalued. So you need to go fast, but also be strong on the board.
TL;DR - Classes to do this
While I say it’s possible, even for me I can only confidently do this in a couple of classes with homebrew hodge-podge decks, namely Mage, Hunter, Druid. These classes have strong Basic/Classic cards and/or direct damage that allow you to fight that uphill battle. Eg: also with Druid, Rise of Shadows is an excellent set to build up your Token Druid options. A couple of Acornbearers and a copy of Blessing of the Ancients can go a long way.
Rogue has strong Classic cards, but I would not recommend it as one of your first classes, as the Combo mechanic and weapon management can take getting used to. Warrior can be a good class to learn weapon management.
Paladin and Priest have the problem of being the most reliant on expansion cards, and as such, they have significant peaks and troughs in their viability for players with limited collections. Shaman, to a certain extent, as well, though Bloodlust is a very accessible win condition for any Shaman deck to go wide on the board.
Warlock is in the mix, because while they have strong Zoo options every expansion, their theme of self-damaging themselves can sometimes be too much: it cripples the slow decks and even affects the faster Zoo decks. Or that everyone is just bad at playing non-meta Warlock decks 
. Learning to utilise the Warlock hero power is an important part in understanding to use health as a resource.
Now, going from Rank 15-5, the homebrew/hodge-podge deck way.
I will refer to DisguisedToast’s Un’Goro run to Legend with Midrange Hunter, while old, I feel illustrates this concept well.
DisguisedToast did not have a fully polished deck until after he hit Rank 10. https://youtu.be/o2TlqswALdg?t=99
Rationale
Sure he had Alleycats and Crackling Razormaws, which were staples for Hunter at the time, but also a bunch of basic cards. The 1 Raptor Hatchling in there, which I assumed he opened in a pack. This, ideally is the sort of deck that gives a new player the best chance to bridge the gap between “Basic deck” and “expensive meta deck”
There is a certain misconception that you need the “full deck” or just abouts to even have a chance to get out of 20-15. I myself have never believed this to be the case and played multiple deck archetypes with substituted cards up to Rank 5.
After Rank 10, however, there is more merit to having a polished deck with 2 copies of all the core cards. You want this for consistency’s sake, in being able to draw a card that will be useful to you, most of the time. If you have, for example 1 copy of Springpaw and 1 Argent Squire substituted, then the times when you need those Rush 1/1s and you draw the Squire, well that could impact your winrate, per se.
This requires more dusting of your collection, and well a new player doesn’t know what card’s good or bad! It’s what I said before, in being able to adapt and add new cards to your decks as you open them, evaluating cards based on their efficiency and value, rather than on the meta.
IMPORTANT PART: Because you have a limited collection as a new player, you have to IGNORE what the popular decks tell you to build and craft, and go by what you opened in collection.
And welp, yes, I know that doesn’t suit a decent portion of the population, and it’s not clear cut black or white either (everyone’s different).
I think you mean Arena for “spending gold” since you should always try and get the free Classic pack from Tavern Brawl every week. Some Tavern Brawls that require you to build a constructed deck can be difficult, but if you have been playing ranked the homebrew/hodge-podge way, you will be far better equipped to build a deck, that suits your collection, to get that free pack.
This one I have to agree on, and the last few sets have only made the problem worse. But I’ll break it down.
So, a player with a limited collection, they have their commons/rares forming the bulk of their budgety decks. They have a few legendaries, and this is where things really fall down.
There are 5 main types of legendaries that you open, and what type your first couple of legendaries are can make or break your experience and fun:
-
Legendary staples, neutrals that can go into multiple classes or a class card staple useful in multiple decks.
My personal example during my new player days, was when I opened Sunkeeper Tarim. That single legendary opened the whole of Paladin to me at the time.
Examples: Zilliax, Leeroy Jenkins, Malygos, Tirion Fordring -
Good legendaries that require support, that could be rather expensive
Examples: Shudderwock, Reno the Relicologist, Valdris Felgorge, Heistbaron Togwaggle, -
Fun/unique legendaries, without or without support, but not necessarily top competitive
Examples: Toki, Time Tinker, Tess Greymane, -
Hard to use legendaries, still a unique effect to have some fun with. Not competitive at this point.
Examples: Dr. Morrigan, Illidan Stormrage, -
99.9% unusable legendaries, they may as well be trash.
Duskfallen Aviana, Harbinger Celestia
And even these interpretations can change and are subject to the meta (i.e. I even had a friend argue to me how Celestia could be somewhat useful)
The question becomes, can you have fun with a legendary you opened on a budget? Note I am talking outside what’s “meta” at this point.
Example
During Uldum, I created a thread outlining how a player might make use out of a legendary or 2 they opened, and potential crafts they might want to look at. Tips on using each Legendary from Saviors of Uldum
I don’t really know if I got the message across, but this is what you face as a new player with limited resources. Dusting a leg for 400 is really bad value, and you most certainly cannot afford to craft a lot of legendaries you want either. Maybe only for 1 class.
And the answer to the question is… sometimes. The answer becomes a series of specific cards in the Standard meta that only go in one or two decks. Say a new player opened Reno the Relicologist. Great card, though it has to be in a Mage deck with no duplicates. So, does that mean Zephrys becomes a must craft, otherwise there is no payoff for highlander!
Additionally, a limited collection will have trouble finding 30 single cards to put in their deck without a couple being too suboptimal. Reno is just a 4/6 for 6 mana and why wouldn’t a new player just put a Boulderfist Ogre in instead?
On the other hand, Toki, Time Tinker could be a decent card to play around with and try for fun. You still get a 5/5 and more value in another card later on. That’s the difference in the type of legendary you open.
A new player just wants to use Reno
For trying to build highlander Mage on a budget to play casually:
Kalecgos can be substituted, but the substitute may as well be another legendary, Ysera. That is if you happened to open a decent Classic Legendary. You don’t have the flexibility to adapt your highlander deck to have more cheap spells if you don’t happen to own those spells in Standard (Magic Trick, Ray of Frost, Elemental Evocation)
All this is additional dust cost, and dust is scarce as heck for these types of crafts, when it’s more dust-efficient to open them in packs.
Repeat this process for a player wanting to get into a new deck archetype. I was able to do this but I would be very conservative and go for the least crafts possible, and most slow decks were not open to me as a result. There is frustration here in never feeling like you have options and being unable to catch up in time because of the fact that you did not play in the earlier years of Hearthstone.
This is a fair point, but I also do think the type of information needed for new players is lacking/limited and/or outdated. It is quite easy to forget what it was like as a new player, and too often when us established players talk, it sounds like another language to those casual and new to the game. I certainly remember feeling that for a long time when I started out.
I’ve wanted to create my own set of articles/videos on this sort of thing, but I haven’t been satisfied with keeping things concise enough, but leaving things open for players to learn for themselves.
This new player series by Asmodeus does go through a lot of useful content for new players though https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUH30gok49s
If a new player is determined, they can beat the “collection curve” by religiously playing Arena. The collection they acquire this way will outpace the new expansions every 4 months, they will eventually find themselves with excess gold and dust to be able to spend on fun stuff from older sets. However, when even established players who have played for many years find it quite difficult to consistently play and enjoy arena, how can you expect new/casual players to do so if that’s their only option, other than to pay?
This is where Wild is better for long term investment on a budget, because you can craft a Branching Paths for Druid and it’ll be good for a very long time. But it’s even more bewildering for a new player to learn. You have to learn all the older sets. For me, I enjoyed learning the “history” of what old cards and decks were good and how they are now, as well as once useless cards that are not so useless now, because of new cards. But some people hate history. There’s the temptation to just dust everything for one deck that’s top right now, and when it gets nerfed, then your collection has trouble adapting to find another deck.
The most important thing though, is to have fun playing Hearthstone. There are just many ways to fall in the trap of getting frustrated.