Hello All
So been playing similar type games at a very high level for a long time. Was introduced this past weekend to this game and was fascinated by it. I want to dive in from scratch and start building my way up as fast as possible to play at the highest of levels. So my newcomer question is this. Can I build decks and such that will allow me to compete at top levels without buying decks for cash? And if they answer is no what card decks would you recommend to purchase to be able to compete on the highest level?
Thank you
You won’t be able to craft a deck from scratch to compete at top levels. There are a lot of budget decks out there you can craft that can help you climb ranks, though.
My suggestion is to get all your classes to level 10 to get all the basic cards, try and do your daily quests, and you should be able to gather enough gold to buy some packs or do some arena runs. I’d take arena over buying packs, since you’ll get a card pack no matter what (and if you have enough wins, extra dust and gold), and it’ll help you learn the cards and how to play. It takes more than just cards to reach the top.
Since the last expansion of this rotation is coming up (the rotation is the first expansion of the year, which means the first three expansions of Standard go to Wild), I’d suggest you check out the last two expansions.
3 Likes
There have in the past been Twitch streamers who did the challenge of taking a new account, spending zero money on it, and trying to get to Legendary ranks as fast as possible. Most made it within a month.
But that takes a month of solid play, typically four to eight hours daily, by a player who has lots of prior experience with not only card games in generic but also this specific game, who knows the meta, and who knows all the cards.
For you, no matter how good you are at card games in general, your lack of HS experience makes it unlikely that you will succeed.
If you want to climb the ranks fast, you will need to spend money. Question is, where to spend it.
- For every expansion, you are guaranteed a legendary in the first 10 packs. After the first legendary, the drop rate reduces to 1 in 20 packs average, with an (undocumented) guaranteed minimum of 1 in 40. This is tracked per expansion.
So if you buy packs, start with the packs you can get for free (there is a list of all hidden and unhidden quests and rewards at the Hearthstone Wiki), open them, then buy and open 1 pack at a time per expansion, until you hit that first legendary. It may be a bad legendary but you can then always disenchant it for 400 dust and craft a few good epics instead.
- Playing WIld is a bad idea for a new player given the much deeper card pool. So what SuddenReal says is true: avoid the three expansions that cycle out of Standard in April next year. Either buy packs from them until that first legendary or don’t buy at all.
- Classic packs are a solid investment since these cards never leave Standard. (Or, if they do, you receive compensation). So you can never go wrong with buying a fair amount of these. However, these cards are generally of a slightly lower power level than the expansions, that’s the trade off. (And if you play for a long time, you will from time to time receive classic packs as random rewards).
- The suggestion to play Arena is solid. If you manage an over 50% win rate, you get on average more value for money then when you buy packs directly (except when you have already bought so many packs of the last expansion that you don’t need any more and want to buy older expansions now, in that case you need ~70% win rate to make Arena profitable).
The flip side is that time spent in Arena is time not spent playing ranked, getting to learn the meta, and getting to learn to play the game. Some strategies are very different between Arena and ranked. So if you want to be a top ranked player as fast as possible, then Arena is a waste of your valuable time.
I hope this helps. Good luck!
Thank you both for the replies that is big help
It depends on what sort of player you are. But the answer is yes. There are cases of players picking up Hearthstone, building decks and collection with a strict competitive mindset, and playing Arena to increase their rate of acquiring cards, without spending money.
You will most likely have to strictly choose what cards you want to keep and disenchant if competitiveness is your main goal.
Going by your first sentence, it seems you have experience of playing other games to a high level previously, and so climbing the Ranked ladder to Legend should be a good challenge for you.
A lot of self-research is required, but the people that were able to pick up Hearthstone like this were already accustomed to doing this elsewhere.
Rank 5 is a decent compromise however, for staying competitive, but having some leeway for fun.
That being said, if you like to play lots of different cards and have a good collection, it is impractical as F2P: buying a pack bundle from a couple of expansions will give you more options.
You can actually find nice budget decks, and also with the new expansion coming out, there’s almost no way Blizzard won’t release some way to get some packs easily. Second, If you play for about two weeks, and make sure to do daily missions, you can probably get enough gold to make a cheap deck.
Yes… but it’ll take a while. Starting right now, it will be practically impossible to jump straight into the competitive game unless you happen to land the perfect set of cards through opening random packs. However, once you’ve developed a classic deck and if you’re willing to show up everyday, you can play f2p.
How to f2p?
- Every day, you get a quest giving you 50-100 gold. If you have a 50 gold quest, reroll and look for a better one (at least in the beginning). If you average 60 gold from quests a day, that’s around 7,200 gold per expansion or 72 packs. Not enough to get you every card but enough to build a couple of META decks
- DISENCHANT! Not every card is good. Some are just pure garbage. Do your research. Disenchant legendaries and epics that are useless so that you can craft the cards that will be usable in your decks. Also disenchant cards that you know you won’t enjoy playing.
- Play the game! For every 3 games you win, you earn 10 gold. If you win 3 games a day, you get 1,200 gold an expansion or 12 additional packs.
- Play Arena (If you’re good). Winning 3 games in Arena generally means you earn back everything your spent plus just a tiny bit extra. Win 6 games and you get a free pack. If you can consistently win 4ish wins, then Arena is worth the investment.
- Take Advantage of the free stuff. With every expansion, Hearthstone generally releases a free legendary (in the case of descent of dragons: 6). Additionally, Hearthstone offers a set of free packs (generally 6) and a set of quests that offer large sums of gold or packs!
- Wait for the META to settle before crafting! You don’t want to craft a card that was supposed to be excellent and then turned out to be garbage.
What to spend money on?
The welcome pack is a great place to put your money. If you want to play competitive, it’s a good idea to have a decent amount of the classic cards because those are the cards that never cycle out. The welcome pack, for 5$, offers 10 classic packs along with a dragon classic legendary, almost all of which is decent.
Additionally, every once in a while, Blizzard will release special discount packs which offer a decent amount of packs for a cheap amount of money.
question to follow up all the great info. I have basically gotten all 9 heroes to level 10. I was thinking about dropping money to buy some packs in the WW, BDP, ROS, SOU and I am going to buy that 60 pack offer for the new expansion coming. These card sets seem to offer the cards needed to build some of the strongest decks around but my one question is this. Do I need to be a certain rank or hero level to use these purchased cards or are they wide open?
In Standard games, any card that is considered part of the Standard set at that time can be used (and note that this will get a major overhaul in April, as three sets rotate to wild). The only restriction is that you cannot have more than two copies of the same card (golden or non-golden is ignored for this) in a deck, that you cannot have more than one copy of a legendary, and that you can obviously only use neutral cards or cards of the class you make the deck for.
In Wild, the same rules apply, except that here all cards are allowed. Also, in the “Main Streets of Gadgetzan” expansion, there were a few cards that were considered “tri class”. They are listed as neutral in the collection manager, but they are in fact only allowed in decks for the three relevant classes. Since I assume you won’t play Wild any time soon, I won’t include more details.
Finally, other game modes have their own rules. Arena and Battlegrounds offer cards regardless of whether you own them or not, and from different pools of available cards. Tavern Brawl has different rules each week. And most solo games either offer cards regardless of what you possess, or allow you to build a deck with the same restrictions as Wild play.
I hope this helps.
When you see people playing in tournaments like for example at blizzcon. They are using standard games or something else?
Almost all official tournaments use cards that are part of the Standard set at that time, yes.
One or two years ago Blizzard tried for a short while to get some tournaments on WIld started but the attempt was rather half-hearted and failed.
And sometimes people decide to set their own rules for deckbuilding for tournaments, but those are typically at “fun” events. You will not see this in “serious” matches.
That is great, Do you know where one can find these schedules. I really aspire to practice practice practice and get good and then check on out. You use your own decks in tournaments ?
I hope someone else can help you there. I’m not a competitive player at all. I do sometimes watch tournaments on Twitch, but only if I happen to see them when I am bored.
Have you tried googling for “Hearthstone tournament”?
First of all, welcome. It’s great to see someone approaching the game confidently.
I did a little digging into the tourney scene back when this was my main game and you really can just google HS Tournaments.
These also might be useful.
I’d also be really interested in finding out about the other CCGs you’ve played. It might help people get a frame of reference of your skillset.
Hello, Great stuff and thank you for the information.
I got my start playing a lot of magic the gathering. I live in New Jersey and we have quite a few hobby shops that you would be able to go play. Also not that this the same but I find a lot of the ways to think and strategies are similar. I spent a few years back 7 years ago playing poker for a living. Cash games. Again not 100% the same but the ideas and fundamental ways of thinking are similar
As Shred says, Arena Drafting is the best way to grind stuff in the game but only if you’re winning enough games. It usually doesn’t start being that rewarding until you’re averaging about 4 wins and sometimes hitting 7 wins. If Draft wasn’t your jam in Magic, then you can just leave it alone because there’s no point playing a mode just for it’s rewards.
Hey mate.
Your biggest letdown/difference is that cards you do not like are worth about 8 times on average less than in any other real life card game where you instead can trade them with others. Here you have to destroy them for a fraction of their value in cashback.
It’s a scam, but it’s a fun scam until I find an other.