Catching up on cards

[PPN]

Some time ago, i didnt thought i would make such a post. But lately i feel like the expansions are popping out so quick, there is no chance to gather not even all cards, but just cards to make some classes valuable. For me these are especially epic cards, that are just auto include in, as it seems, all decks of a certain class. Its not even the legendaries that make the difference.

I play since the start of HS and every new expansion i always buy the promotion 50 packs and from then on i purchase packs with gold until i start to save for the next expansion. I do all my daily quests mostly on the way to work every day, so i dont miss gold.

Dont get me wrong, i have a huge amount of cards. It just feels like lately when i build a deck im always missing something, because the cards seem to be more irreplacable for good synergies then they used to be. I dont even have the cards i would like to have from the last 1-2 expansions and a new ones is comming this week.

There was a time i could build almost every deck i wished. I dont see me comming back to that point.

Is that just intended so we spend more money?

Some time ago i introduced some friends to HS and they now play too. Atm i wouldnt tell a friend start to play. I mean, even i feel like falling behind with my collection...how would they feel.

I could disenchant a lot of cards and craft some. But thats not my plan, i like to build decks for example around funky/less popular legendaries. And who knows what comes and suddenly they may be good again.

[Pawstruck]

The entire game is one gigantic dice-roll. I don't mean that merely rhetorically; from the moment you boot up the game, you might as well be sitting down with a stranger rolling a very complicated set of dice to see who wins. This especially applies to card packs, not to mention the gameplay itself.

I have no idea of the human fascination with games of chance, but the illusion of choice seems to be a key factor.

[Deleted]

Blizzard said they expect 3 expansions per year, so you can assume expansion is released every 4 months (120 days).

Assuming that average quest is 50 gold (actually it is around 52 if I remember correctly), and you get another 100 gold by grinding 30 daily wins, which is quite effort by the way, you get about:
50 gold * 120 + 100 gold * 120 = about 180 packets. Which is not even close enough to build all the decks you want from the expansion.

Point being: either you pay to get all decks you want or you need to both get really good at arenas and play a lot of arenas.

[AbalDarkwind]

One of the reasons I don't play HS anymore is due to the large amount of cards to collect. I love the game, and I don't mind dropping 50 bucks every expansion, but trying to collect all the cards has become nearly impossible without spending hundreds of dollars per expansion.

[Twoddle]

The key is to plan ahead. You know what you're getting into when you sign up for the game, it's useless to moan about it 3 to 4 years later when you already knew expansions would repeatedly come out putting you further back with each one. Play it for what it is or cut your losses and quit.

[Jester Joe]

The key is to plan ahead. You know what you're getting into when you sign up for the game, it's useless to moan about it 3 to 4 years later when you already knew expansions would repeatedly come out putting you further back with each one. Play it for what it is or cut your losses and quit.

Except this isn't exactly true until this year.

Before this, Blizzard would also put out adventures, which you would get all the cards at one flat fee. Which would also give you time to continue to collect whatever the last expansion was.

Now, it's just expansion after expansion, no adventure lulls to give you a bit of leniency.

[Deleted]

Losing adventure hurts a lot. They also added two legends to each class now too. With each expansion most new decks usually cost a lot and require some of the new class epic and class legendary.


50 pack doesn't really cut it anymore. I wonder how long they can keep up with it like this. Thought I think I heard HS is making more money than ever so nothing will change for awhile. I wouldn't want to start playing the game at this stage.

[Nikkaszal]

This would be a legitimate concern if every single card released each expac had value in meta decks.

Which is quite simply untrue. Look at DKs for example - Priest is obviously meta-defining, and druid, mage and warlock are pretty good. Rogue is alright but very situational. Shaman, Paladin, Hunter and Warrior are gimmicky.

Then look at the KoTF class legendaries:
Rotface - gimmick in DMH Warrior
Bolvar - lol who?
Putricide - lol who?
Moorabi - fear the unstoppable power of Freeze Shaman!
Hadronox - saw some play at the start in Taunt Druid, now rarely seen
Lilian Voss - meme card
Blood-Queen Lanathel - lol who?
Benedictus - gimmick
Sindragosa - Arena card.

Then the neutral legendaries:
Keleseth - saw favour... after a LONG time
Taldaram - anyone seen him played yet?
Valanar - Mill Rogue tool, not much else.

So you look at just those KoFT legendaries and think... how many of them did you actually NEED for this meta? Turns out its less than a fraction - just a couple of the DKs, in fact, and maybe a Prince.

And that's just the legendaries. Never mind all the other cards printed which were Arena cards, gimmicks, evolve bait or otherwise packfiller. The best damn card in the expac was Bonemare - a COMMON. Look at the current top tier deck, Razakus - know how many KoFT cards it needs? TWO - the DK and Spirit Lash. Thats it! Literally everything else is from previous expacs!

[Yizu]

The entire game is one gigantic dice-roll. I don't mean that merely rhetorically; from the moment you boot up the game, you might as well be sitting down with a stranger rolling a very complicated set of dice to see who wins. This especially applies to card packs, not to mention the gameplay itself.

I have no idea of the human fascination with games of chance, but the illusion of choice seems to be a key factor.

Randomness on a card game, shocking. If you have played the game past the tutorial and basic cards youll know winning games is more than just draw of luck.
@everyone its a COLLECTIBLE CARD GAME, if everyone can get every single card for 50$ this game would not retain its playerbase, part of what keeps people playing is the "collecting" part of it. You need to feel invested, you are not suppose to have every single meta deck on day 1 of the expansion. Your 50$ should get you 1-2 construted meta deck at most, getting a new one after that should feel rewarding for most players. You can get roughly ~150 packs at most as a f2p player in between expansions, and that is more than enough as far as 99% of f2p games offer. If you dont use your dust wisely and just craft whatever random card you think is good then you wont get anywhere on this game coz your doing it wrong.

[Deleted]

This would be a legitimate concern if every single card released each expac had value in meta decks.

Which is quite simply untrue. Look at DKs for example - Priest is obviously meta-defining, and druid, mage and warlock are pretty good. Rogue is alright but very situational. Shaman, Paladin, Hunter and Warrior are gimmicky.

Then look at the KoTF class legendaries:
Rotface - gimmick in DMH Warrior
Bolvar - lol who?
Putricide - lol who?
Moorabi - fear the unstoppable power of Freeze Shaman!
Hadronox - saw some play at the start in Taunt Druid, now rarely seen
Lilian Voss - meme card
Blood-Queen Lanathel - lol who?
Benedictus - gimmick
Sindragosa - Arena card.

Then the neutral legendaries:
Keleseth - saw favour... after a LONG time
Taldaram - anyone seen him played yet?
Valanar - Mill Rogue tool, not much else.

So you look at just those KoFT legendaries and think... how many of them did you actually NEED for this meta? Turns out its less than a fraction - just a couple of the DKs, in fact, and maybe a Prince.

And that's just the legendaries. Never mind all the other cards printed which were Arena cards, gimmicks, evolve bait or otherwise packfiller. The best damn card in the expac was Bonemare - a COMMON. Look at the current top tier deck, Razakus - know how many KoFT cards it needs? TWO - the DK and Spirit Lash. Thats it! Literally everything else is from previous expacs!

A lot of DK are needed if you want to play a top deck and they are class specific and then there are epics. I am not sure why you assume everyone have Razakus just because it from an older expansion. It was almost never used so you need craft it now if you didn't get it from a pack, you would rather craft some thing like Aya back then.


I am not saying you need everything for just 50 packs, but the cost of new deck have gone up significantly. One average you get 2-3 legends from 50 packs and maybe around 2500 dust. There are 18 class legends alone if you are unlucky you hit some garbo legends. This is for each expansion with adventure mode gone.

[Nikkaszal]

A lot of DK are needed if you want to play a top deck

Only one DK is needed to play a "top" deck, and that is Priest

Thats it. That is the ONLY DK for a top-tier deck type that is absolutely mandatory.

Only three DKs are needed to play "decent, mid-tier" decks, and they are Druid, Shaman and Warlock.

Mage and Rogue DK are tech flavour. Hunter and Paladin DK is basically just for fun. Warrior belongs solely to one mid-tier deck type, DMH.

- - - Updated - - -

I am not sure why you assume everyone have Razakus just because it from an older expansion. It was almost never used

Did you not play earlier?

Reno Priest was one of the most annoying control decks around.

Raza and Kazakus have always been the best and most used Highlander staples besides Reno himself.

- - - Updated - - -

I am not saying you need everything for just 50 packs, but the cost of new deck have gone up significantly

Again... the best decks at the moment are adaptations from previous ones with only a few new tools added. Chain Gang, Scalebane, Bonemare, and then specific flavour like UI and Dreadlord and DK cards and such. Most decks have possibly three to five KOFT cards added to them, and - HINT! - since those staples are so damn good its the same three to five KOFT cards being added to each deck . Again... Chain Gang, Bonemare, Scalebane.

[Twoddle]

So you look at just those KoFT legendaries and think... how many of them did you actually NEED for this meta? Turns out its less than a fraction - just a couple of the DKs, in fact, and maybe a Prince.

Need is a subjective term as far as I'm concerned, who is anyone to tell me what I need and don't need? You don't NEED a computer and the internet. I need Bolvar in my Paladin deck because it suits my playstyle very well and roflstomps anyone who doesn't expect it at whatever rank or game mode I choose to play. If I believe it increases my win rate or hell even the fun factor of the game then that is enough for me to say I need it.

If I want to create a fun deck I saw someone stream it but I can't because I don't have the cards, then I need those cards, even more so if I think it will help my winrate, you have no right to tell me I don't NEED them. Even just having cards available is enough to say I need them because that enables me to put them in a deck of my choosing (not yours) whenever I want and whenever I see fit for whatever purpose.

[Nikkaszal]

and then there are epics.

You know what, just for fun, I am going to go through and list ALL the epics from this expac - ALL classes AND Neutral - that saw play in the meta

Ultimate Infestation (Druid only)
Obsidian Statue (Priest only)
Skulking Geist (only one copy needed, ever)
Nerubian Unraveller (very specific tech)
Corpsetaker
Rattling Rascal (Evolve Shaman only)
Treachery (Warlock meme deck)
Bring It On! (DMH Warrior only)
Dead Mans Hand (DMH Warrior only)

Thats all!

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Need is a subjective term as far as I'm concerned, who is anyone to tell me what I need and don't need? You don't NEED a computer and the internet. I need Bolvar in my Paladin deck because it suits my playstyle very well and roflstomps people who don't expect it at whatever rank or game mode I choose to play. If I believe it increases my win rate or hell even the fun factor of the game then that is enough for me to say I need it.

If I want to create a fun deck I saw someone stream but I can't because I don't have the cards, then I need those cards, even more so if I think it will help my winrate, you have no right to tell me I don't NEED them. Even just having cards available is enough to say I need them because that enables me to put them in a deck of my choosing (not yours) whenever I want and whenever I see fit for whatever purpose.

Right, so if you have enough comfortable dust/gold income that you CAN craft the fun stuff, thats no problem.

The point is you did not "need" all the cards to be competitive which is what people are going on about

[Deleted]

Only one DK is needed to play a "top" deck, and that is Priest

Thats it. That is the ONLY DK for a top-tier deck type that is absolutely mandatory.

Only three DKs are needed to play "decent, mid-tier" decks, and they are Druid, Shaman and Warlock.

Mage and Rogue DK are tech flavour. Hunter and Paladin DK is basically just for fun. Warrior belongs solely to one mid-tier deck type, DMH.

I guess I mean top deck or more competitive version of each class.

Did you not play earlier?

Reno Priest was one of the most annoying control decks around.

Raza and Kazakus have always been the best and most used Highlander staples besides Reno himself.

I did, iirc it was kind of a gimmiky deck in didnt want to invest in. Instead I played dragon priest which costed only 400 dust for a 2nd Fire Potion.

Again... the best decks at the moment are adaptations from previous ones with only a few new tools added. Chain Gang, Scalebane, Bonemare, and then specific flavour like UI and Dreadlord and DK cards and such. Most decks have possibly three to five KOFT cards added to them, and - HINT! - since those staples are so damn good its the same three to five KOFT cards being added to each deck . Again... Chain Gang, Bonemare, Scalebane.

I am pretty sure you get kind of boned if you just run Chain Gang, Bonemare, Scalebane, rogue and warlock decks.

For rogue you need Keleseth and Zoo need both Keleseth and DK.


Can you imagine building a deck like that as a new player. A competitive Keleseth rogue deck had: Vancleek, leeroy, Shaku, Patches, Keleseth, two captains and two Vilespine Slayer.

[Nikkaszal]

I am pretty sure you get kind of boned if you just run Chain Gang, Bonemare, Scalebane, rogue and warlock decks.

For rogue you need Keleseth and Zoo need both Keleseth and DK.


Can you imagine building a deck like that as a new player. A competitive Keleseth rogue deck had: Vancleek, leeroy, Shaku, Patches, Keleseth, two captains and two Vilespine Slayer.

You might wanna go back and re-read what you quoted. You missed it entirely.

[Gravity2015]

One of the reasons I don't play HS anymore is due to the large amount of cards to collect. I love the game, and I don't mind dropping 50 bucks every expansion, but trying to collect all the cards has become nearly impossible without spending hundreds of dollars per expansion.

the new dungeon run is pretty sweet for players like us, you get every card for every class with random buffs - and actually challenging bosses .... for free!

[Bythedar]

It is the sheer number of epic cards needed to construct the top decks that really has put me off this expansion. And the lack of an adventure in the middle has added another 50% card construction this year.

I don't like dusting cards, so I am loathe to dust all of my old cards from previous expansions, and I am quite disheartened this season because anytime I look at a cool deck, it has 8+ epics and 3+ legendaries in it. I get it, I am not spending a lot of money on the game, so I am cool with it.

Not angry or bitter, just disheartened to the point I hardly play the game any longer.

All good things, I guess.

[Aoyi]

In all honesty, I don't feel the Epic cards in Hearthstone are (generally) that important to good deck construction. Legendaries can make or break certain decks, but I really feel the rares are more what seem to define a lot of decks. Those can get expensive if you're crafting a lot (100 dust each), but the epics (400 dust), might only have a couple if any in a solid deck. Try not to rely so heavily on net-decking if you are feeling things are too expensive. I'm not saying you have to be 100% original, but think about what replacements you can make with what you have to build a solid deck around the same themes you are looking for. I honestly couldn't tell you the last time I fully net-decked anything.

I build all my own decks and occasionally get inspiration from people I've played against, but I don't go to a website that says "Make this one for 5200 dust" and then panic that I only have 2105 dust at the moment. If a deck calls for Bloodmage Thalnos and you don't have it, ask yourself why they put it in that deck. Was it for the spellpower, or for the card draw? Chances are, its for the card draw. In that case, a Loot Hoarder fills that niche just fine. Just check out whatever expensive card is recommended for a deck and ask yourself, "Is it worth crafting for this one deck, or is it better to substitute?" You'll find that you can build quite similar decks for cheaper if you need to and it has the added benefit of throwing off your opponent on occasion when you play something. I can't tell you how many times my opponent has stopped play for a second against me to mouse over a card I've played. I can almost here them going, "wait, what? What does that do?" Its fun when it feels like almost everyone is net-decking and you know exactly what deck you're playing against by turn 3 these days.

[PPN]

In all honesty, I don't feel the Epic cards in Hearthstone are (generally) that important to good deck construction. Legendaries can make or break certain decks, but I really feel the rares are more what seem to define a lot of decks..

I agree on your replacements thoughts, but i still feel like many cards that are epics are very crucial. You see it on the fact, that they appear in about 90% of a classes decks. (It might be not true for all i list below, but they are for sure strong)

- Primordial Glyph
- Shadow Visions
- Vilespin Slayer
- Voidlord

And then there are many epic cards, that just give your deck a lot of identity or the deck can be build around or with them for fun...those would be for me

- Ultimate Infestation (super boring card, but important for certain types of decks)
- Obsidian Statue
- Gnomeferatu (id love to have it just for fun, not that it would be very strong)
- Dead Mans Hand (Control Warrior)
- Carnivorous Cube
- Skulking Geist (Depends on the meta)
- Corridor Creeper
- Primordial Drake

I feel like all those cards can make huge swings in a game and the decks also rely to some extent on them.

I guess i just need to accept, that i cant play all the decks id like to try. There was a time where i could do this with just doing dailies and buy 50 packs at the start of the expansion.

[Pantalaimon]

I'm seeing this a lot here and on hearthpwn, and from what I hear reddit probably also suffers from this, but you don't need to have a competitive deck for every class to be considered 'caught up' on the cards for each expansion. There is not even a tier 1 or even tier 2 deck for every class in any single HS meta, so how is having the options open for you to have a foothold for every class a need exactly?