F2P casual player: what decks to focus on?

[Marrilaife]

Hey guys, I mostly play wow and I tried hearthstone during open beta, didn't like it that much and quit. Few months ago my husband got this quest "watch and learn" and he convinced me to start playing again so he can get the pack. :P I saw the game got improved, they added tavern brawl and such so I came back.

I liked some tavern brawls, some less so. I never liked arena. I find them way too much rng on top of rng, can't even pick a class I want to play not even mentioning what cards you're offered afterwards.

So yeah, there's this problem: gold. Meaning: dailies. I need to be able to complete them to gather gold so I can buy stuff. I'm often getting completely steamrolled by people who have a lot of legendaries (things like Jaraxxus into Malganis or Dr Boom into Antonidas make me just insta concede, not even mentioning warriors who seem to fit every possible legendary into their deck), or even good epics like druids doing treants + savage roar 2 turns in a row...

I tried to invent my own decks (like a gimnicky reno mage etc.) and then I found out anything I thought of was probably invented 100 times over already and refined. I tried to "netdeck" with moderate success because I don't own many cards that are considered good for each deck.

I dusted most of "useless" stuff in my collection (cards that don't seem to be ever used in any netdeck neither did I have a special liking for them, or cards I have no intention of playing, like murloc decks).

I bought for gold some wings of Naxx (except last one), 2 wings of BRM and some wings of Explorer's (again except last one).

Now I'm buying classic packs for gold to expand my collection a bit.

So, my question is towards veterans of this game that play longer and went through the same route (preferably not people who just threw all the money into the cash shop and got all they wanted from there).

What kind of decks should I focus on crafting / saving cards for?

I'd like to be able to do my dailies without having to venture into arena or taking hours to fish for wins, or only be able to complete dailies that don't require wins (like summon minions, destoy minions, cast x spells etc.)

I can tell you what I've tried so far:

Face Hunter - seems to tragically lack card draw from mid game on, also your only board clear is trap from scientist and half the time scientist plays it at wrong moments, or plays the other trap when you want explosive.

Midrange Hunter - tomb spiders, savannahs and so on, vs aggro just dies before it does anything, vs non aggro just seems to not have big enough threats for later when they play theirs.

Face Shaman - with no doomhammers as they're too expensive, had moderate success but it's tremendously reliant on the mulligan / early draw, if you drop few good minions early game and then double lava burst face it's gg, otherwise it's auto lose, I'm not sure how worth is saving for the doomhammer because mid to late game when you can play it, that's where they start dropping big taunts (belchers, ancients of war, double molten shields up etc.) and weapon doesn't help against it, only spells.

Mech Mage - no Antonidas tho. Decent success rate however since the standard version doesn't run board clear or polymorph, both zoo-ish decks and decks with big threats counter this one, however not sure what would I even swap if I wanted to run any of these spells, especially I'm wondering why does the standard version not include them, must be a reason?

Oil Rogue - with no prep. Feels very slow. Doesn't have much to play before turn 4-5. Half of the cards require combo which means they can't be played on curve only with combination with something else. Or I just don't understand this deck?

Raptor Rogue - just can't make it work. And then I faced mirror match with Raptor Rogue with Sylvanas (which I obviously don't have) and I just give up, like Valeera, don't think I can make much out of this deck. And no, I'm not interested in some weird OTK Brann + Raptor + shadowsteps combos with leper gnome or mill with dancing swords or whatever else I saw on videos.

Zoo Lock - no sea giant or gormok or Mal'ganis etc., just the cheap part. Feels very vulnerable to board clears as you mostly have 1-2 health minions, lacks board clear in case opponent gets ahead, hard to bypass big taunts since unlike shaman it doesn't have a thing like earth shock and unlike mage doesn't have a fireball.

Egg Paladin - some new variation of aggro Paladin that is recently popular (don't have avenge tho), plays a bit similar to Zoo lock, I found it better than traditional aggro paladin because with this deck I could trade or set some taunts with defender of argus instead of just "face race" against opponent. A bit better than Zoo in a way you can use consecration or keeper of Uldaman to manipulate the board, however things like muster perfectly line you up into whirlwinds, holy novas, consecrations and explosive trap same as implosion imps do but without killing the enemy minion beforehand. Also unlike Warlock you don't have a card draw engine so I sometimes end up sitting on Divine Favour unable to use it while the opponent throws at me his topdecks and they are more valuable per card than mine.

Aggro Warrior - this deck is too 1-dimensional for me, either you go all face with good draw or you lose.

Worgen / Patron hybrid Warrior - like Oil Rogue, feels too slow, often before you can do your worgen OTK combo or spawn a lot of patrons you're so behind you just can't recover any more and opponent is so walled up I can't bypass it. Maybe I'm playing it wrong. And obviously I don't have Grom or any other expensive card.

For Druid and Priest I'm just rerolling those quests, I don't know if there's any cheap deck for them without epics that is worth bothering with and not suffering abysmal win rate.

So generally I'm looking for advice which deck to improve, what are maybe other deck archetypes that don't rely on legendaries / epics I can play for now, and am I doomed to play aggro until I expand my card / dust count 10-folds?

Obviously in my current stage of progress I don't see me playing control warrior, secret / midrange pally, hand/reno/demon lock or anything that centers around specific legendaries (or lots of epics) and is completely crippled without them. I've learnt from my reno mage experiment that iceblock + reno alone doesn't make an awesome non aggro deck if you lack any form of late game. I kinda regret crafting that ice block now that's why I'm making this thread so maybe I can hear some advice and avoid crafting cards that are good cards but only good in decks I can't play because I'm missing several other key components to make it work.

I don't have aspirations to go to legend or anything, just want to have decks with good win rate for as many classes as possible to do dailies fast without having to reroll too many quests. Also some deck I could maybe push the ranks at the end of the month a bit to get more dust from end chest. No idea how far I can get with cheap decks in general. Just trying to grab any easy dust I can both from weekly brawl and from the monthly ranked chest.

P.S. And how the heck can I beat priest? No matter what I play it seems it's always shadow word pain, deathlord, deathlord with velen's chosen that trades favourably with everything and gets healed after, belcher, second belcher, heal, justicar, more heal, shadow madness any deathrattle minion, holy nova, cabal, lightbomb, entomb, entomb, I have no cards, I lose.

Is there any deck that counters them?

I think I've faced more priests than the "dreaded" secret pallys really... For sure more than face hunters or aggro shamans. I think my most common opponents atm are mage (mostly flamewalker type, sometimes mech or freeze), priest, lock (zoo, hand or reno, most often handlock), combo druid, then maybe paladin and hunter.

[Mormolyce]

I recommend classic Zoo lock (not the demon-y variants you see these days). It's a good basic starter deck that's easy to craft (and any cards you don't have can be easily substituted), it's a good way of learning the essentials of HS, it's been competitive in one form or another since beta and it'll still be around in Standard once the changes go live without a doubt.

You will have problems with control Priest - it is designed specifically to constantly wipe your board so it pretty much beats any midrange deck. Unless you get a lucky burst. I dunno what would specifically counter them apart from an insane rush deck that puts out too much damage to heal in the early game. Maybe mill, but that's not really effective in general.

The other option is face hunter, but don't be that guy :P

[patseguin]

I don't care what anyone says, you can't play this game f2p and win. It's just no fun.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Focus on getting 50 or so dollars together and get some good cards instead of worrying about being f2p. Once you get a solid deck you can farm at rank 20 for 100 gold a day quickly and things get easy from there.

you don't have to spend hundreds of dollars, but you really can't play this without getting some legendaries somehow.

[Faltemer]

Face Hunter
Mech Mage
Zoo Lock

So generally I'm looking for advice which deck to improve, what are maybe other deck archetypes that don't rely on legendaries / epics I can play for now, and am I doomed to play aggro until I expand my card / dust count 10-folds?

I left the three decks that you should see the best success with of the ones listed. That being said Mech Mage will not work in standard mode, so I wouldn't suggest it.

As for Face Hunter, yes you will generally lack card draw. If you play true face hunter though you generaly want to be killing them by turn 6-7 which means it is fairly difficult to actually be down to topdecking by then. If you are still finding that problem, maybe shift some 1 drops to 2 or 3 drops. Also consider subbing in stuff like loot hoarder, which was an old staple of the deck.

Zoo Lock: I don't use any of the three cards you listed in my decks. Malganis is for demonlock only, Gormock and Sea Giant re for the echoing ooze/reliquary type decks that want 5-6 minions always. I find vanilla zoo better. Zoolock isn't meant to be that aggresive, it is all about smart trades and reallly high value minions. Nerubian egg can sometimes take out a 2 and 4 mana minion with 1 buff. If you are dying a lot to AOE try to build a stickier and stickier zoo deck. Cards with deathrattles really stop AOE from being useful. As do cards like shattered sun/defender (They take 1-2 cards out of range which cane be huge).

As far as other decks go, I think you could build a pretty cheap priest deck. http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/430084-cheap-priest

880 Dust, some Explorer/BRM/Naxx cards but all are fairly easily changed with something else. Sludges can be azures or Senjins. Emp is mostly cause I think the card is crazy good in almost any control deck but could be subbed in for any tech card or whatever. Curator could be another solid 2 drop, or like MC tech or BGH. Should see decent results, I mean above rank 15 any well built deck will beat anything. Just buiid your deck around what you are most often facing and losing to.

Rogue, Warrior, Paladin, and Druid might be hard starting out so I would stay away from those for winning for a little while.You can make a tempo mage I would think for fairly cheap. But yea otherwise you have Priest, multiple mages, zoo, face hunter, and maybe face shaman as viable decks starting out.

And don't tlisten to those that tell you you have to spend money, I didn't and now have a large collection. It's fine it just takes time. This way you also learn the game as you get more stuff.

[HisDudeness]

Play arena.

[Sentynel]

I don't care what anyone says, you can't play this game f2p and win. It's just no fun.

I never paid for anything in HS, yet I hit Rank 10 and up (10>) every season.

[HisDudeness]

I never paid for anything in HS, yet I hit Rank 10 and up (10>) every season.

And again. These are the idiots we have to deal with. Yeah! Neither have I! I've played the game for over 2 years now though. Oh I hit rank 10, Excludes how long he has been playing. You don't build up a good card base within a few months simply by just playing. You play it non stop, Yeah I suppose you will get a decent collection. The idiot population out weighs the intelligent one. Despite my terrible English.

[Barnfargen]

I never paid for anything in HS, yet I hit Rank 10 and up (10>) every season.

What deck are you using to reach a high rank while remaining F2P? I admit to not being very good at this game but even at rank 19 I seem to run across decks that would take me a long time to be able to craft and they just steam roll me. It's encouraging to know it's possible to get higher ranks but I have to agree with some other posters that say it's very frustrating and highly improbably to be successful and free.

[Deleted]

I don't care what anyone says, you can't play this game f2p and win. It's just no fun.

Actually you can, if you start early enough. I have never payed a dime and have all the current top decks and have tons of dust and gold to spare. But then again my enjoyment with HS is to earn and collect stuff, buying packs kinds of take away the fun for me.

Now if we are talking about people starting now, they obviously will have a harder time.

[Ravex]

And again. These are the idiots we have to deal with. Yeah! Neither have I! I've played the game for over 2 years now though. Oh I hit rank 10, Excludes how long he has been playing. You don't build up a good card base within a few months simply by just playing. You play it non stop, Yeah I suppose you will get a decent collection. The idiot population out weighs the intelligent one. Despite my terrible English.

I hit legend with shockadin while being f2p. Maybe played for 3-4 months.

Yup, SOME people are idiots, I agree.

[Mormolyce]

I don't care what anyone says, you can't play this game f2p and win. It's just no fun.

That depends what you think is fun. I choose not to buy packs when I could easily afford them, because I LIKE the experience of earning gold and buying packs and slowly improving. Motivates me to keep playing.

If you're the kind of person who insists on having all the cards available on day 1 then sure you won't enjoy that. That's the person the card store is for.

And if you're the kind of person who finds losing half your matches un-fun then you're not going to like HS no matter how many cards you have. I have almost everything and I lose roughly half my games overall. The matchmaking/ranking systems will eventually stabilise you to a ~50% win rate, the only time you win more is when you start ranking back to your natural position at the start of a season if you play ranked - and that's just an artifact of the season reset.

And again. These are the idiots we have to deal with. Yeah! Neither have I! I've played the game for over 2 years now though. Oh I hit rank 10, Excludes how long he has been playing. You don't build up a good card base within a few months simply by just playing. You play it non stop, Yeah I suppose you will get a decent collection. The idiot population out weighs the intelligent one. Despite my terrible English.

Dust acquisition rate is approximately 1 legendary card per month. Your call on what deck you want to play and how many legendaries it requires - if any. So there's really no way to say how long it takes to make a "good card base", it all depends on what decks you like.

You should work more on your attitude, your English is fine.

- - - Updated - - -

Actually you can, if you start early enough. I have never payed a dime and have all the current top decks and have tons of dust and gold to spare. But then again my enjoyment with HS is to earn and collect stuff, buying packs kinds of take away the fun for me.

Now if we are talking about people starting now, they obviously will have a harder time.

And I don't know why some people think they can walk into a game people like us have spent what, two years? progressing in and expect to be as progressed as we are for free on day 1.

Now the amount of expansions that have happened in that time means there's an ever increasing amount of catchup required, but hey, here comes Standard mode to solve that problem for them.

But again, all this is blown a little out of proportion when you can throw together a classic zoo lock deck out of basic cards and with a bit of elbow grease get yourself to about the same rank I'm at with my massive collection of cards. Or higher really. Shit I get my ass kicked on my shiny control warrior by basic bitch face hunters.

Or like, play arena where none of this even matters.