Returning from several years ago

New Player Tavern
1

Hey all, thanks in advance for your time and advice. So I’m thinking about returning to Hearthstone and I haven’t played a game in 3-4 years. I have a couple of questions to start out with.

  1. I have, of course, an older collection containing cards of all rarities across Naxxramas, Goblins v. Gnomes, Black Rock Mountain and Grand Tournament. I have heard that IF I have no intention of playing Wild (I don’t) then I should dust all these cards in order to get an immediate reserve of dust to build 1-2 relatively solid decks with. Is this true?

  2. Having watched several rounds of the recent Grandmaster series lately, I’ve seen and am vaguely familiar with the popular Warrior, Rogue and Mage decks. Are at least the Mage and Rogue decks relatively inexpensive (dust-wise) to put together? Are there any other classes out there that can put out a solid deck that’s fun to play? ( I know this is subjective but any opinions will be taken into consideration)

  3. Is it true that, overall, it’s easier to earn gold than it used to be 3-4 years ago?

Thanks again for any help!!

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  1. Yes, if you don’t intend on playing wild then disenchant the old cards, however, you can use wild cards in tavern brawl sometimes.
  2. Warrior, rogue and mage decks are all not cheap, if you are looking for a budget deck for climbing, try out midrange hunter, mech hunter, and zoolock, they are relatively cheap compared to the other meta decks.
  3. It’s still the same, the only way to earn gold is through quests and win bonus(10gold for 3 wins).
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  1. Dusting all your Wild cards is an option, but it’s a personal decision that varies from player to player. There have been many who have ended up regretting dusting their Wild cards later down the line, but it also depends on how much/how long you intend to continuously play Hearthstone. An in-between option would be to dust all but the Wild staples like Sludge Belcher, Reno Jackson, Ragnaros, etc.

  2. Hunter decks are fairly cheap and have several varieties. The main cost will be from those few legendaries if you want to “finish” a deck, but aren’t entirely necessary for winning games and climbing ladder. Rogue, you can play without Myra’s and Togwaggle, but if you add in all the legendaries for a “full list”, the cost starts to add up. For Mage, Khadgar, Mountain Giant and Conjurer’s Calling looks almost irreplacable in certain archetypes, a version without Khadgar looks fairly untested. This unfortunately means that Mage’s cost, if you want to stay with the meta, is increased. A similar story can be said for Dr. Boom, Mad Genius, in Warrior. It is in 97% of Warrior “meta” decks.

You may want to look at Old Guardian’s budget decks to Legend: https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveHS/comments/bnoczs/i_played_to_legend_without_a_single_epic_or/
Silence Priest, for example is a cheap deck that is hardly mentioned, and is fairly solid.

  1. Daily quests are now a minimum of 50 gold, when they used to be 40. So yes, the gold rate is increased a bit.
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Yes, but be aware that wild cards can also be used in some Tavern Brawls, and in the old-format solo adventures (where you built a deck from your own collection to beat each boss).
Tavern Brawl awards a free classic pack for the first win each week so can be worth your time and effort even if you don’t like the format.
For over a year Blizzard has released adventures that don’t require a collection of your own, but there is no guarantee they’ll never do anything like the old format again.

Decks that do well in tournaments will not necessarily do well on ladder. A tournament deck is built to counter the decks a player expects their opponent to bring. Ladder decks are built to counter the decks that are most popular on ladder.

Not just gold, also packs and dust.
All 40g daily quests have been increased to 50g and the requirements are reduced.
Several new quests were added that award 60g, 80g, or even 100g.
Free pack (almost) each week in Tavern Brawl
Almost every expansion you get about half a dozen free packs of that new expansion just for logging in
More frequent balance adjustments than earlier, which means more opportunity to benefit from the full-value dusting
Two or three events each year where you predict a winner for a big tournament and get some free packs as reward
One or two events each year where quest rewards are temporarily increased

However, the down side of this is that you also NEED more resources. With three full 135-card expansions each year (as opposed to 50% expansions and 50% adventures), more cards than before are now added to the meta. In standard, the yearly removal of three sets means even more pressure to change decks if you want to stay competitive. Nerfs to one card can also lower the value of other cards, but you will not get dust refund for those others and still have to replace them in your decks.

So bottom line: yes it is easier to gain resources, but you also need more resources. No idea what direction the balance tips to at the end of the day.

1 Like
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I can’t believe that you left for about 4 years! I get mad crazy if I miss a day! I’ll miss days from being too busy with GF and work.