Need new cards / Arcane dust.. Is buying packs with cash my only option?

[Pabzi]

Well I just started and I'm getting gold really really slowly...

Is my only option to buy packs with cash? Or is there other methods to get arcane dust / craft better cards for top decks..

[zoomgpally]

Take your time to do dailies.
If you want to speed it up you can find some cheap decend deck and farm gold for wins(10g/3wins i believe)
A basic hunter rush deck should do the job just fine.

[Eon Drache]

Do arena. If you get good at it you can run it indefinitely for a free pack a day, even more.

[Deleted]

Do dailies (plenty of gold but gated per day)
Play lots for 3 win sets (very slow)
Be successful in arena (can be fast, can be slow, can be RNG based as well as skill based so could go either way depending)

[Deleted]

If you want the cards immediately, buy them with cash. Otherwise just do the dailies and get the gold slowly at some 700 per week.

[Deleted]

Mastering Arena is the best and msot efficient way.

[Jackielope]

Don't worry so much about getting "top decks" as getting good cards to play in general and finding your own groove. There can and will be classes and styles within classes that people find they're particularly suited for because of how the cards play out. The way to figure out what works for you is going to be practice, practice, and more practice. Arena is very often useful for that since even on no wins and three losses you still get a pack and some reward of gold or dust.

Honestly, I'd recommend getting a cheap deck together and just play. Probably work your way up to buying Naxx wings to get those cards (you have gone into the first wing through the event, yes?). Many of them offer significant gameplay options and since the cards are known you don't have to worry about the RNG in card packs.

[grom33]

Do arena. If you get good at it you can run it indefinitely for a free pack a day, even more.

While this is technically true, it is also nearly impossible.
Arena, same as ranked or casual, has a combined (all players) win rate of 50%. For every 7 win run (going infinite) you have, two people must go 1win/3loss (or yourself in the next days).

Play arena if you enjoy the format. Thats all.

[kyraka]

Any f2p deck should get you to rank 5. From there you need some cards, but there are cheap decks that can get you to legend.

[Deleted]

Zoo Warlock is an excellent guaranteed Legend rank deck. It requires very little dust, very little skill and very little effort. It's easy to learn and easy to master.

Oh, and it's easy to find aswell. One of the most used decks. One of your biggest adversaries is going to be other Zoo decks also scooting to Legendary but the draw usually determines the outcome of such matches.

Alternatively you can just do like me. I do have a Zoo deck but I currently play my own Paladin deck which is not an 'optimal' deck but suits my playstyle well. I'm completely F2P with most cards unlocked except some epics and legendaries and I have fun crafting decks just for the fun of it. As an added bonus, you will loose more often for sure than if you play a cookie cutter deck but beating said decks with skill feels SO rewarding

[Nikkaszal]

While this is technically true, it is also nearly impossible.
Arena, same as ranked or casual, has a combined (all players) win rate of 50%. For every 7 win run (going infinite) you have, two people must go 1win/3loss (or yourself in the next days).

Play arena if you enjoy the format. Thats all.

The people who decide to get better at Arena beat the people who aren't so good at the Arena style, or don't bother thinking about what makes a good draft.

It's safe to say that there are more bad Arena players than there are people on the HS board to give this advice to.

[r3d3mpt10n]

Theres a few things you can do to earn some gold when you start.

Beat the computer to unlock every class, I believe its 100g.
Beat the computer on every class on expert, again is 100g.
Do your First Arena Run for free, which, depending on how well you do, will net you some gold, and a card pack (even if you lose 3-0)
Do Dailies.


Other than this, the best advice is to just try and expand your collection of cards rather than go for a certain top deck. This is because the meta changes a lot more than not, so a deck which is popular one day, might not necessarily be another day, or next week for example.

There are PLENTY of cheap decks which you can make to grind out wins/ladder with. Id suggest going with one of these to try and gain some gold via wins.

Id suggest that you google trumps f2p decks, as it will give you guidelines of a deck you can potentially build with limited resources, which should allow you to do relatively well early on in your Hearthstone career.

[tonten]

I got all my cards from arena. 2000 wins.

Now, it's just about collecting gold cards.

[Deleted]

In the past it was way easier to get an Arena that kept on giving because people picked bad cards/classes/doing bad choices. For example I often met priests with Lightwell, people picking Magma Rager or people hexing/polying a worthless minion.

But Hearthstone got really really popular and now people have a much better understanding what to pick/do thanks to streams/guides/etc. While before I could get any draft to at least 7/9, now I can't get some of them to 7/12 and my 12/12 win drafts are usually pretty sick.

A new player trying to "master Arena" is going find it a lot harder then people describe.

[Pwellzor]

I got all my cards from arena. 2000 wins.

Now, it's just about collecting gold cards.

2000 arena wins. Really

[Jackielope]

2000 arena wins. Really

I'm quite suspicious of that too. When it was at 9 wins max 2000 wins would mean a minimum of 223 runs. At 12 wins max it's 167 runs minimum. Considering win rates will not be regular I'd guess 2000 arena wins would need roughly 500 runs or more. That's literally an incredible number of runs given the gold/money cost of each one.

[grom33]

The people who decide to get better at Arena beat the people who aren't so good at the Arena style, or don't bother thinking about what makes a good draft.

It's safe to say that there are more bad Arena players than there are people on the HS board to give this advice to.

This:

In the past it was way easier to get an Arena that kept on giving because people picked bad cards/classes/doing bad choices. For example I often met priests with Lightwell, people picking Magma Rager or people hexing/polying a worthless minion.

But Hearthstone got really really popular and now people have a much better understanding what to pick/do thanks to streams/guides/etc. While before I could get any draft to at least 7/9, now I can't get some of them to 7/12 and my 12/12 win drafts are usually pretty sick.

A new player trying to "master Arena" is going find it a lot harder then people describe.

And also, my experience is that there is not a lot of "bad" players in arena, but even considering the percentage of bad players debatable, once you get past 3 or 4 wins the flukes are gone, and you are facing good players with good decks. Certainly your skill is a factor, but luck (of the draft and of the draw) is an even bigger factor.

I believe it is extremely difficult for any player to maintain an average of 7 wins over a long strech of Arenas. Let alone for a new player.

[Temp name]

I'm quite suspicious of that too. When it was at 9 wins max 2000 wins would mean a minimum of 223 runs. At 12 wins max it's 167 runs minimum. Considering win rates will not be regular I'd guess 2000 arena wins would need roughly 500 runs or more. That's literally an incredible number of runs given the gold/money cost of each one.

Some people are good enough to get a surplus of gold on average, so they can just keep spamming arena. That said, you have to get like.. 6-7 wins to get another 150 gold.