I get you, it feels pretty bad when you are missing cards from across all the sets and can’t really look to craft cards since you only have 1000 dust or so.
The main thing is, getting some wins with what you have, limited expansion cards, etc, not feel completely hopeless. Do know however, that you are guaranteed to have all commons by pack 30 of a set, and all rares by around pack 65.
In Apr, I made a couple of decks: decks more budget than budget, for 5 classes.
The aim was the decks to have:
- 2 copies of most commons,
- 1 copy of rare except 2 copies for key rares,
- 0 epics and legendaries.
New Player Beginner decks to help bridge the gap (Part 1)
Mage was a tricky one to get going, but there is a budget build there, however, Kael’thas and Dragoncaster got nerfed to 7 mana so the deck might not work as well.
There is also this deck here, a super secret Mage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWdb8tdB0II
I created a spreadsheet for those that have a limited collection to refer to: What cards are good? - Spreadsheet updated!
This can help determine the cards you open, where they stand in growing your collection and decks. Some cards might be only good for specific deck archetypes.
Since the new expansion is nearly upon us, at this point I’d advise to not craft anything that isn’t in Staple tier already.