TL;DR: By the time a player completes the Aprentice Track, opens the 5 Catch Up packs, and claims their free deck (from among the loaner decks), they should have:
A). About 29% of the Badlands, Titans, and Festivals cards (mostly common and rares).
B). 9-16 craft-able Legendaries
C). Enough dust to craft a Legendary card
D). 200-300 leftover gold
E). Around 21 unopened Standard and Whizbang packs, if like me, you choose not to open those packs earlier.
My tips:
1). Choose your server/region carefully!
Each Bnet/Hearthstone account can create a card collection on each of the three different servers (Americas, Europe or Asia). Please note that the cards that you acquire on a particular server are only available to use on that server, so choose your server carefully, if you plan on playing on only one of them.
You can play on all three servers, but the cards earned while playing on a specific server are not available for use when you log into another region.
2). Recruit-a-Friend
If you know someone who plays Hearthstone, have them send you a “Recruit-a-Friend” link, before you have accumulated 20 total character levels on a new collection, so that you can earn a free pack of cards.
Official Details for Recruit-a-Friend Promotion:
You must activate the Recruit-a-Friend link before you have obtained 20 combined character levels on your account in order to be eligible for the reward! You do the promotion to earn one free pack. You can earn the Morgl the Oracle Shaman portrait or additional free packs by recruiting up to four friends of your own to participate in the program.
3). As soon as you are able to access your collection and swap better cards into your deck, do so. There is even an early quest, which prompts a player to switch a card in their deck.
To do most of the Apprentice Track, I just focused on leveling up a Mage. I would sometimes alter my Mage deck a bit to help complete quests, like “draw three cards in a game.”
As soon as your able to unlock and access your card collection you should begin swapping out weaker cards, like Elven Archer, Shooting Star, Glacial Shard, Murloc Tidehunter, Kobold Geomancer, Arcane Intellect, and Malygos the Spellweaver, and replace them with some better cards, like:
A). Babbling Book, which may give a random useful card like Flamestrike, Blizzard, Reverberations, etc.
B). Vulpera Scoundrel to “discover” a spell when played.
C). Firelands Portal. One Firelands Portal in a starter Mage deck pairs well with Kalecgos
D). Kalecgos. The tempo and spell synergy that Kalecgos provides is better in most situations than the late game spell draw that Malygos the Spellweaver gives.
Here is my first improved Mage deck:
Improved Mage
Class: Mage
Format: Standard
Year of the Pegasus
2x (1) Babbling Book
2x (1) Flame Geyser
1x (2) Bloodmage Thalnos
2x (2) Frostbolt
2x (2) Loot Hoarder
2x (2) Redgill Razorjaw
1x (2) Wandmaker
1x (3) Stargazer Luna
2x (3) Tar Creeper
2x (3) Vulpera Scoundrel
1x (4) E.T.C., Band Manager
1x (1) Arcane Artificer
1x (7) Firelands Portal
1x (7) Flamestrike
2x (4) Fireball
1x (4) Footman
2x (4) Sen’jin Shieldmasta
1x (5) Night Elf Huntress
1x (5) Taelan Fordring
1x (6) Blizzard
1x (6) Gnomelia, S.A.F.E. Pilot
1x (7) Firelands Portal
1x (7) Flamestrike
1x (8) Kalecgos
AAECAf0EDKiKBP6eBJegBO/TBPHTBP3EBd/4BbOeBu/mBuHrBuLrBuPrBgn9ngSmnwShoATEoAS6tASf1ASXpAWyngaF5gYAAQP+ngT9xAXe+AX9xAXf+AX9xAUAAA==
To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone
By the time I completed the Apprentice Track my Mage deck looked like this:
Improved Mage
Class: Mage
Format: Standard
Year of the Pegasus
2x (1) Babbling Book
2x (1) Flame Geyser
1x (2) Audio Splitter
1x (2) Cosmic Keyboard
1x (2) Dryscale Deputy
2x (2) Frostbolt
2x (2) Watcher of the Sun
1x (3) Starlight Whelp
2x (3) Tar Creeper
2x (3) Vulpera Scoundrel
1x (4) E.T.C., Band Manager
1x (1) Arcane Artificer
1x (7) Firelands Portal
1x (7) Flamestrike
2x (4) Fireball
1x (4) Footman
2x (4) Time-Lost Protodrake
1x (5) Night Elf Huntress
1x (5) Taelan Fordring
1x (6) Blizzard
1x (6) Gnomelia, S.A.F.E. Pilot
1x (7) Firelands Portal
1x (7) Flamestrike
1x (7) Prison of Yogg-Saron
1x (8) Kalecgos
AAECAf0EDqiKBP6eBO/TBPHTBIDCBf3EBejFBd/4Bf74Bdr6BeuYBuHrBuLrBuPrBgj9ngTEoASf1ASXpAWt7QWn+gWyngaF5gYAAQP+ngT9xAXe+AX9xAXf+AX9xAUAAA==
To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone
A lot of new players, switch to playing DK or Paladin when they start facing real players, but I just continued to level my mage, and I did fine versus these other classes.
Once you unlock the loaner decks, you can just play one of those.
2). When you complete level 4 on the Track, you will have 100 gold to spend. As you earn gold from the Apprentice Track rewards, go to the shop to buy and open one pack from each of the Standard expansions: Showdown in the Badlands King, Festival of Legends, TITANS, and Whizbang’s Workshop. This way you will start unlocking the free promotional Legendary card for each of those expansions.
I recommend buying a Festival of Legends pack as your first pack to get E.T.C., Band Manager, which will be a great addition to most basic starter decks. You do not have to open the pack to get E.T.C., but if just click on “Open Packs” to inspect your accumulated packs, it should trigger the E.T.C. promo card to appear in your collection. E.T.C. can help you store and later discover a useful card for particular situation, like a Flamestrike or a Firelands Portal.
https://imgur.com/a/a1FAnIe