Hearthpwn

i've only managed 7 wins twice in my first 10 or so Gvg arena runs. The games are really swingy. You can be way ahead on board then something ridiculous ie unstable portal, enhanco mechano or a random spare part just flips the board.  i guess its "exciting" but its shot down a couple deck of my decks i was certain were going 10-12. 

oh and i want to punch force tank max in the face...unless its my force tank max. in constructed it may never make the cut but i cannot imagine a harder card to deal with in arena. 

no prep -> vanish ? if im making the pirate deck i want those cannon unloading as much as possible :) 

the nerfs are not very well thought out imo.

gut buzzard and auctioneer and force everyone to use azure drakes. just cap the card draw at 1 a turn and put these guys back into the utility mana slots instead of direction competition with mid-late game legends and sludge belchers.

 leave sludge belcher alone which is 11 points in stats + double taunts which murders every other 5 drop in the game.

nerf soul fire but continue to ignore the real problem which is the warlock hero power. 

flare - the mana cost wasnt the problem?! it was the insane value if you removed more than 1 secret. just cap flare at 1 secret 

i dont get it.

the key is actually recognizing what part of the season you are in. at the beginning of the season all the pros and try hards will ladder hard with aggro decks to 5 then switch to control. at the end of the season its the wild west and people will play whatever because they already hit legend or know they wont reach legend and just want to have fun.  

you want to ladder in a stable meta - beginning - >middle of season.

you want to ladder in crazy town - >end of the season

if you are facing primarily hunters try out undertaker face warrior. unless they roll double misha or get a snapjaw taunted up its pretty easy to burn them down before highmane can take over the game. 

im missing garrosh so i was looking for something to play on turn 7 that wasnt gorehowl and on a whim i stuck in stormwind champion. it really seems to confuse a lot of people and adds a surprising amount of value in the standard sludge belcher/slime/armorsmith/baine/cairne/loatheb pile up that seems to happen in just about every game on the ladder now.

cairne not being able to trade down into the front half of belcher or loatheb is a common problem and when you drop champion everything is a lot cleaner for you and less so for your opponent.

if you are looking for a budget replacement for one of the fatty legends in warrior control give the champion a try. he just might surprise you. 

i think its pretty hard to ladder up this season. i've barely run into any zoo but ive see a ton of handlocks and control warriors even in the 20-15 range which makes for longer grindy games. sludge belcher imo has warped the meta. the card is a brickwall in a very important turn. that gap between tazdingo and sunwalker is a turn a lot of aggro decks need to get the opponent in lethal range and its gone.

sludge belcher is a pretty solid addition to pally too. a redemptive sludge belcher or one protected by get down is really hard to deal with efficiently. i personally think he is better than sunwalker because turn 5 is often a trouble turn against aggro decks since they exploit the gap between tazdingo and sunwalker to hit you in the face and make your guardian of kings too late. 

its pretty ridiculous in combination with all the other cards in a control warrior deck. just had a control warrior brick wall my face warrior deck with ghouls + armorsmith/acolyte. i actually managed to fight my way through both sludge belchers but the ghouls wiped out my board while gaining him armor and drawing cards lol...it fits in control warrior for sure. 

what king krush needs is trample which im shocked isnt in this game yet. for non mtg players trample does the excess damage directly to the player so if you ran krush into tazdingo he would kill taz and roll right to the face for another 3 instead of taz absorbing the entire 8 damage. trample would also make bestial wrath slightly better too.

im not sure how i feel about the haunted creeper vs river croc/dire wolf. not being able to trade vs opposing 2 drops in some matchups can be a loss. the knife juggler in particular comes to mind. 

mana addict could be interesting. rogues probably get more use out of him since they can conceal but he could very annoying hiding amongst the feral spirits and taunt totem either hitting for a lot more damage than he should or trading up into something really big. 

Quote from BoobTheNoob »

I play f2p , always bought packs with gold, around 3 every 2 days

started arena yesterday since my gf plays arena and she gets 3 to 6 wins , meaning its profit over or even to buying a pack., 

got 11 wins ( mage with 3x flamestrike and 3x poly but 0x fireball) tried again today , got 11 wins again xD ( 1x concecrete and 2x blessing of kings)

I did try to get a strong minion option for each mana cost and some getting back into tempo cards. 

Have 800 gold now, in 2 days. been playing the game all wrong.lol

mage, paladin and rogue are very good classes to play in arena when you are first starting out. if i was disciplined enough to always pick one of those three classes whenever they came up i would probably have 10k gold right now but i started watching Hafu and Massan get 12 wins with the other arena classes on their streams and decided if i was going to improve at arena i needed to become better with all the classes. i know trying to get 12 wins with warlock cost me thousands of gold (still stuck on 11) and i had similar experience with hunter and druid where i sunk hundreds of gold to learn the class. 

i just got my 1000th arena win and thought id share what i have for newer players who are considering trying to get all the cards via arena or spending money. ive been playing since the end of closed beta and almost all of my gold has come from arena and dailies. i did reach rank 8 in the very first test season but  i have only played enough ranked to get the different card backs since then..

in general i played 3-4 arena runs a day when the max win total was 7 and 2-3 arena runs a day when the max was pushed to 12 so bad math puts this at 2 hours a day for 10 months...yeesh ...which if i /played in WoW would be 25 days played.

i pulled 7 of the 26 legendaries having unfortunately pulled leeroy 3 different times. if i was luckier id have 9 different legendaries from packs. my first three legendaries were lorewalker cho, malygos and millhouse manastorm lol...oh well my last one was tirion so maybe my luck is changing.

i have playsets of most of the epic and rares notably missing earth elementals, murloc warleaders in epic and  aldor peacekeepers and doomguards in the rares.

i have 5040 dust. i believe ive had roughly 7000 dust total having crafted ragnaros for 1600 and a variety of the pre-nerfed cards like defender of argus and argent commanders. 

i probably have another 2000 dust in golden cards. i kept them all. shiny. 

i have 4305 gold and i peaked at 5200 last month. i didnt keep stats but i have to think without the dailies id be just a break even arena player. if i had to assess my play skill is above average but my draft skill is sub par. im fairly certain bad druid and warlock drafts are significant gold leaks for me.

in conclusion if the grind is the game for you then don't spend real money. for me the grind is the game. i enjoy the process of drafting a deck, trying to cobble together enough wins to at least break even and cracking that pack in hopes for a card that fills in a gap in my collection. without that chase i do not think hearthstone would be as enthralling to me. 

if streaming constructed play, laddering and competing in tournaments is your goal then i would definitely spend real money. actually gaining all the cards through the arena is an incredibly long grind and you will be frustrated trying to be competitive in constructed without a healthy chunk of the entire card pool. 

anyways i hope this helps newer players in particular make an informed decision on whether or not they want to invest real money in hearthstone. 

your picks look fine. i might have picked nourish or alchemist at 30 instead of the 3rd defender and i would have picked savage roar at 3. 

as a druid i would gamble and avoid subpar taunters early because odds are you will see great taunters later.