Hearthpwn

Hello,

I am Nehir, new on the forums :) I am really curious about your opinions on the question: "Is hearthstone p2w?". Please explain your opinions. I myself think it's hard to say because people have different opinions on the deffinition of "pay to win". I would love to hear back from the community! Have a nice day <3

- Greetz from the Netherlands, Nehir

Midrange Hunter…has 4-5 rare cards in it. The rest are common or core cards. Easy rank 5. Legend if you want to grind those last 5 levels.

As close to F2P as you can get.

the is not pay to win so much the ones who pays have big advantage other the F2P but still as a F2P you can still play some tier 1 decks with farming and being good at arena

more like pay to lose 

 Of course it is. Some decks are much better than others. Also having all the tech options available make it so much easier. If someone has 5 decks that are top tier available to them they have a huge edge compared to someone that doesn't like playing Hunter and is f2p.

For full f2p players HS is less fun. Because they can't build every deck that they want. Yes, you can have 2-3 tier 1 decks every expansion but you need completing quests every day. It takes some time. With real money you can save it.

Meh, it depends on what you mean... If you want to be able to play the most expensive top tier decks it can be considered ''p2w'', but if were just talking getting one of the best decks you can do it within a weeks or something along those lines of playing. (Pirate Warrior cost around 5k dust and Midrange Hunter costs a little less, and both can make it to top legend) 

Its a CCG, its not P2W, it's just a CCG. you need cash for cards, you need skill to win... so... its p2w per definition, its not considering that its a CCG and thats how you get the cards to win. 

But... no skill no wins... so... it isn't p2w....

Thanks a lot! The results are very interresting, I love to read the reply's and think in other perspectives. The poll is also really interresting. 

No it's not P2W.  You can still make a  very competitive deck with midrange huntard for very cheap.  Sure you can have a wider VARIETY of competitive decks if you buy packs.  But if you focus you can make one.

My experience as a f2p:

Started over two years ago. Lost constantly to decks full of legendaries (Sylvannas into Boom into Grommash into Nefarian into...). You think about legendaries, but it also takes a year just to get the rares you need. Took me forever to get Eaglehorn Bow and Savannah Highmane.

I think I only stuck with it because I had enough "hearthstone" type moments where I won a game I should have lost or topdecked the perfect card. It did feel good to beat the decks with all the cards, even if it happened infrequently. Plus, HS would kick in the occasional "free" legendaries from adventures. Those were really nice to have. Loatheb!

Arena was great, and so was tavern when it started. Those are places a f2p can still experience the fun cards.

Eventually, I had some legendaries (Maly was my first and Doom was my first craft).

Early on, I was sure I was losing simply because I didn't have the cards that others had. Turns out I was right. My rank has grown slowly with my collection over the years. Skill and strategy is basic enough that it comes really quickly. The collection comes slowly. 

Un'goro has been tough because so many of the good cards are legendaries or epics. On the other hand, just about any cheap aggro deck does fine in un'goro. When they announced quests, I thought for sure they would give one random quest free to everyone. They wouldn't introduce a new mechanic and not make it available to everyone, right?

No just NO

Hearthstone in not P2W by definition of P2W itself. Pay-to-Win mean that if I can pay real money then I'll get an advantage that a Free-to-Play player will never get. In HS everybody have access to the same pool of cards, so none will ever get something extra to improve his personal performance.

Someone can argue that paying will get you more cards and dusts giving you advantage because you'll be able to craft more powerfull cards to build better decks, but also that is not totally true: lots of very competitive decks are also very cheap to craft (Midrange Hunter and Pirate Warrior, just to get a couple of them from the actual meta).

A more accurate definition may be Pay-to-Skip: instead of investing your time farming gold, you pay real money to skip the resource gathering phase and go straight forward to grab packs.

Quote from Toymachine >>

No, regardless of anyone's opinion. P2W means that you need to pay to win, which you don't. 

Also you don't even need that much time to make a single top tier deck, plenty of them are very cheap with like 1 Legendary card (Quest Rogue, Pirate Warrior, Mid Hunter doesn't even use legendaries) and they are Legend viable. So not even an argument like "you need eternity to make a good deck" is valid. Now you don't even need many/any adventure cards also so you can craft all you need for a top tier deck in relatively short time.

If the question was "Is it easy to have all cards for free?" or "Can I make top tier deck in 1st 2-3 weeks?"  - No, not possible and it shouldn't ever be. But the game is not P2W at all, everything can be bought with in game gold.

This is exactly what I mean, people have different opinions on the definition of ''Pay to win''. This is why it makes it harder to tell if HS is ''pay to win'' or not. 

Also, thanks all for taking the time to respond <3 

I started playing hearthstone a year ago, only payed for the welcome bundle 2 month ago because it is a bargain. (compared to the "normal" price of packs) so basically i could say i play for free.

I manage to get up to rank 5, didn't try the grind for legend yet as i'm just a casual player. But thinking about doing it to get the legend card back someday.

So yes it is an absolute f2p if you are willing to be patient :) but you will mostly play cheap aggressive no brain decks and you'll get lots of wins in no time. But i don't really like to play these types. I prefer control decks way more fun, but more expensive. I would say i have only one (two before the rotation) viable controle deck because i miss a lot of good epic/legendary cards. And 2 to 4 good cheap aggro decks as you don't need much epics and legendaries. 

And on other side if you are not patient, you will have to spend some money, and a lot of it. But you won't necessarily win because you paid. I have beaten some huge decks with my little cheap midrange hunter and token druid ^^ 

In the end i think, without paying you learn how to play better, because you have to play with what you have, you think about what card could be a good replacement to most expensive one that uou don't have, and you analyse more the game. :) 

Quote from Phoenixfeather >>

It's not really P2W. As a mostly- free player, I found that I'm often stuck on one or two decks. (I bought Blackrock, which has rotated out, and I only play standard)

I am often missing specific legendaries and epics, which forces me to budget. It's almost impossible to get all the legendary decks for the more expensive decks, and I'm basically forced to stay with one or two decks in order to play competitively. I lacked Aya Blackpaw AND Patches all throughout Gadgetzan. I don't have Tirion Fordring, Alexstrasza, Garrosh Hellscream, or Edwin VanCleef so rip all paladins, freeze mages, most warriors, and 90% of all rogues. I don't have Lord Jaraxxus so rip Control Warlock. I don't have any good Un'Goro legendaries yet (rip Quest Rogue, all the Warriors, Elemental Shaman, Exodia/Freeze Mage, and Miracle OTK Priest) only having 1x Unite the Murlocs, 1x Clutchmother Zavas, and 2x Lakkari Sacrifice.

And, I'm probably one of the top F2P players out there, getting Rank 7 last season.