I'm still trying to figure this out. I started to play HS lately due to other interests in video games. And i can't understand how am i supposed to compete to others with such better card collections. I started a couple of moths ago and all i could manage is to craft 9-10 cheap cards and only one that cost 1600 dust.. I also made it to standard ranking level 18. I have my cards synced through innkeeper so if anyone has the time to make any kind of suggestion to the better or help feel free to. Cya later.
Man i feel ya, when i started playing it felt like i was never going to have a big colection of cards or all the good legendaries but eventualy you get really good stuff, if you are free to play that takes longer of course but you will get there, keep playing, have fun watch other people play and learn , it took me like 6 months to really play well and not missplay so much dont worry about it.
Of course there is still room. As much as this forum likes to bitch about how the cost of tier 1 decks have been increasing, there are still plenty of decks that you can make with little to no dust. On top of that, there are plenty of ways for a new player to earn more gold by doing one time quests. For a list of all of them here's a link. As for what decks you can make, decks like secret mage and aggro pally/dude pally are rather cheap (sorry for not going through your collection, just it's so laggy on my computer that I hate using it). Even still, in the early ranks you can easily rank up if you know what to do. However, before you make a deck, I would recommend waiting for the new expansion to hit so you can see how the new meta adjusts.
The best thing I can recommend for you to do right now is to just learn the fundamentals of the game, like knowing when to trade, when to go face, card advantage, etc as most decks still value these principles. If you want, you can also try finding people to help teach you/find a person on youtube to watch to do the same. There is also plenty of mostly F2P decks featured here that you can try.
Overall, the best advice I can give you is to just play. You'll learn more, you'll earn more cards, and if you get to a certain rank every month, you can get a golden card(s) that can help make better cards. It will take a while, sure, but I wouldn't say it's enough to make the game unenjoyable.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I don't have something witty about this deck, I just like it because Malygos is fun.
One last quick thing I forgot, go and open 10 packs of all the rotating expansions or until you get a legendary. Blizzard recently (not really but within the last year) made it so that you are guaranteed a legendary within the first 10 packs of an expansion so even if the card is rotating out, that is still an easy 400 dust.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I don't have something witty about this deck, I just like it because Malygos is fun.
When I started, back when the game went live, I just played casual and a lot of arena to gain my starting collection. Back then I was F2P, but after a couple of expansions I gave up and started to buy the starting bundle every expansion. I Still play a lot of arena, but instead of causual I play ranked now.
I can only imagine it being a hell to start right now. My starting advise would be to start getting the basic collection since only a few of those go to hall of fame after a year and then focus on getting the important standard cards. I would wait untill the new year kicks in to expand my standard collection since there is no way to tell what the meta will be next expansion - expecting a huge inflow of cubelock since they don't really loose anything to rotation.
If you want to compete today, within just a couple months of playing, you'll need to drop some money. I recommend pre-ordering the next expansion, if you really want to be serious about playing this game (think of it as buying a new game, rather than spending money in a "f2p" game).
You can look for cheap hunter decks to play, and you can even play a budget secret mage (it would be more midrange and less face aggro, but could still work). I think there are cheap ish aggro druid decks to play.
Anyways, the most important thing is it's hard to catch up right now, since there are 2 full years of blocks worth of cards to play against. In a month, it'll just be the 2017 expansions, plus the new expansion coming out, so you might have a better time.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Twitch name: Anatak15 NA Legend Season 48, 49, 52, 53, 54, 74
If a new player thinks it's reasonable that they should be able to dive in and immediately thrash a three-year veteran, and if that's the only way they can have fun, then no. There's no room in Hearthstone for that new player.
If you can manage to have fun playing in Casual (where the MMR will guarantee you a win rate of 50 percent), completing quests and building your collection, then yes, there is a place for you.
If you want to test your skill in the Arena, where everyone is on completely equal footing and collections don't matter, there is a place for you. This is also a great way to build a collection if you are actually good at it.
If you lack the skill to compete in Arena, then I'm not sure why you think you should be able to compete in Ranked. They are two different skill sets, yes, but your complaint seems to be that the collection disadvantage is what's holding you back in Ranked, and that does not exist in Arena.
If, on the other hand, you accept that your problem is a combination of lack of skill and lack of cards, the correct path forward is to complete quests in Casual for a while. You will gain both cards and skill there, and you'll eventually have enough of both to play more Ranked.
The only benefit to be gained in Ranked is the five-win monthly prize. Once you've got that, there's no reason to play there.
And hey, if you like the game and want to jump-start your collection, pre-ordering the expansion is a pretty good idea.
Now is actually a very good time to start if you are new as Standard is about to consist of only the last three sets. Certainly you should be able to get caught up on some of the more important cards at this juncture. Yes, it will help to drop some cash, but I don't think it is necessary. There are lots of opportunities to play without an outlay of cash (arena doesn't even care about your collection), and if your objective is to have fun then don't worry about it. Rank 18 is good.
Yes the room for new players will be made in April when standard rotates. Whenever standard rotates new players have a chance to come in and become a part of the game. The only disadvantage they will have is the lack of cards from Classic. I feel as if Mr. Brode needs to buff how much gold we receive or even give newer players increased gold income for a week or something like that. Or at least give them like 20 classic packs to start.
It's hard for even Veteran players to keep up at times. There are other card games coming out and Hearthstone needs to make changes within this next year to how their economy works or enough people will pick another card game. Artifact is releasing this year and alongside the Elder Scrolls Legends, Gwent, Magic Arena, and Shadowverse, Hearthstone is going to quickly take a backseat to something else UNLESS they make some major changes to the economy.
Rank 18 is actually fine for a new player (don't expect more than rank 15 in first months).
When I start playing back in 2014/2015 i was wondering the same thing, but with a lot of hours/money spend you will achieve a nice collection and with (even more ) defeats/wins you will be able to compete in higher ranks.
I'm a new player myself, just started 2 months ago, I'm not really F2P anymore, but I am pretty frugal about my spending. I never pay $ for individual card packs, but I do buy well-discounted ones. I would say I'm doing well, rank 11 last season, rank 10 so far this season. Here is what worked for me:
Before you get a decent collection, just do daily quests to get gold and play arena.
Don't disenchant anything, don't craft anything until you know the exact cards for the deck you need (especially don't craft legendaries, the cost-reward ratio imo just isn't there for someone starting out - i.e. you're much better off crafting Savannah Highmane than King Krush, for example).
Secret Mage, Face Hunter, and Midrange Hunter tend to be the cheapest decks that still perform well on the ladder. Of them, Secret Mage is Tier 1, the rest are Tier 2-3, but I crafted the hunter because I had more cards for it and there are fewer cards rotating out than for mage.
Whether you're starting out or not, ladder is a lot of grinding. Just because you're a tier 1 deck, doesn't mean people just concede to you. My first hunter build kept losing to Cubelocks, my current iteration has about 55% win rate against them, not bad considering my deck is ~2000 dust and theirs is ~20k.
Even if you consider yourself F2P, some things are just too much value to pass up. For example, the $5 Welcome Bundle is just worth it. Until I got it, I felt like I couldn't build anything meaningful, you either buy it or accept that you'll be 2nd class citizen for first 3-4 months. I ended up buying that, Mammoth Bundle, and pre-ordered Witchwood via Amazon coins. I probably won't buy any other expansions next year, but for $65 I've made the game a lot more fun for myself.
One of my students started playing less than 2 months ago. He took my advice and is doing quite well for himself at this point.
I told him to choose a class (or even better, a deck) and focus on that exclusively. All your dust goes into making THAT deck. All your gold goes into arena. Terrible at arena? Practice. Here he is 6 weeks later with a healthy Cubelock deck.
I spent my first year of this game playing nothing but Warlock. I'm F2P and have every card I could want, plus 20k gold and 26k dust for the one's I don't. Granted, I've been playing for years at this point, but it just takes time. Be patient, and be proud of yourself for getting rank 18 as an essentially "new" player. I didn't get Legend until last year.
I started last year after Un'Goro released. It struggled at first, but practice improves a lot. getting to rank 15 was difficult the first month, but by the 2nd month i was trying to build 1 solid deck to climb. By the time KofT came out, I was able to reach rank 5 (expansion releases are a great time to collect a lot of new cards for free)... arena experience helps a lot after the first month, if you are able to master that style of gameplay/deckbuilding to get high rewards (getting 200+ gold plus 1-2 card packs for reaching 8+ is ridiculous if you can get gud). I am now able to have 3-4 solid decks (combo priest is easiest to build to, but wait until new expo to find a new version of combo priest or paladin to try and build your 1st competitive/cheap deck). focus on 1 deck that you can climb to r5ish... aggro paladin can be awesome for this. This gets you better end of month rewards to help build your deck. do not miss a quest day- if you have 3 quests, complete one before the next day. Do not miss the hearthstone "choose a champion" rewards... and don't pick Kolento if you are superstitious :D
Finally, friend request ppl you see are good/experienced and try to watch games and learn from others. Watching streams, look for similar decks and current videos (not from old expansions) to keep up-to-date with what decks are actually competitive- you may be surprised to find some cheap options that you can build towards. Take your time choosing how to spend dust- try to save and do a mass dust/deckbuild when you know how much dust you can have, how much you need, and do it all together to build one solid deck (not 2-3 cards at a time, this is counterproductive). You also might not want to dust legendaries, unless they are golden, or unless they are from the first 10 of other packs. try to buy 10 of each card pack (including old gods and others rotating out) just for the legendary. this is 1000 gold each to reach a legendary, so spend your early dust on these before they rotate- then dust the legendaries after rotation to get an easy 800 dust towards a new legendary/2 epics for a top meta deck. It is all about card packs and gold in the early days, so focus on the long-term and not the short-term. You should wait to try your hand at arena until you are experienced and can recognize which cards are which, how good or how bad they are, etc etc. Heartharena will be helpful when you do venture into arena, to ensure you pick the best cards based on stats.
Remember- do not create your meta deck until after the expansion, just focusing on harvesting gold and getting to your 10 packs for each expansion for the most legendaries you can possibly get. save everything except gold cards for now. dust all gold cards. after expo, spend the first 2 weeks collecting all freebies you can from blizzard. after a good amount of dust, legendaries, etc, take a look at how the meta decks are going, what cards you have/need from each top deck, and figure out how much you need to build each, how much dust you have from dusting from ALL other classes, and work out which tier-1 deck you are interested in. once you get your first meta deck, you can climb ladder and complete quests/100g per day easily if you spend 2-3 hrs playing with something like dude paladin or whatever you choose to play. this will help build up dust and cards over the next 3 months of the expansion, during which time you can begin playing around arena and trying to build up a 2nd deck to play/collecting all the cards you can that are not dupes. Once the next expansion comes out again, this should be your time to start dominating mofos with all your awesome cards you've collected, dust you've earned, and experience gained. Save dust leading up to each expansion for about 1 months (before then, focus on the best epics and legendaries that you can craft that fit into other archetypes you want to play. dk's and neutral epics would like be of most value at this time, until you find a 2nd competitive deck you are close to building).
Also, track your card pulls. Every 40 is your pity timer, so make sure you don't miss that free legendary by spending too much on arena!
This is the much touted 'New Player Experience' team hard at work. So essentially what you are doing is what everyone has done at some stage, whether you started this game in beta or not. Incomplete collections are how you learn the game.
I completely understand the frustration but believe me when I tell you that we have all done it and resolved the situation with either time or money. So that is what you need to invest - one or other but not neither. The good news for you though is that the expansion should hit in less than a month by the best guesses. This means a mass rotation of cards out and a load of new cards in. Also bear in mind standard is going to have a smaller card pool due to having less sets in it. I'm assuming you will be spending your gold or hard earned cash on the expansion even if it isn't the 50 pack bundle. Your collection will begin to fill out a lot better and you can make informed crafting choices.
So there is hope but you need to have perseverance. You can't take up rugby and expect to be playing for your national team in a few months just because you have got the same boots as some other guys. That's not how games work.
Obviously a small collection will affect how many decks you can play.
So for now, your priority should be buying the preorder for witchwood and get gold for it. Then wait a bit (get gold and more packs during that time) to let the meta settle. Then buy packs accordingly to what you want/need
!! I really enjoyed reading every single post you wrote guys! By reading your posts feels the same as building a great deck... Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me, i hope we can play together some time. I usually do not have much free time but i will definitely follow your advice and use patience and maybe some cash too. Add me Falcon#2378
I reached my one year anniversary not long ago. Its possible to build a good competitive collection for standard. But it will take time or cash, or a combination of the two to do it. At the one year point in standard you should be on an equal basis with most of the players in standard because of the rotation. Until that time play, learn, have fun, and do quests to build your collection. You dont need a super large collection to have fun.
Honestly I struggled for about 3 or 4 months playing very regularly slowly grinding until I had a tier 1 deck. Than I spent $80 and the game really opened up. I don't know how free to play handles this game. I think you need to be willing to spend some cash on this game if u really want to enjoy it.
I'm still trying to figure this out. I started to play HS lately due to other interests in video games. And i can't understand how am i supposed to compete to others with such better card collections. I started a couple of moths ago and all i could manage is to craft 9-10 cheap cards and only one that cost 1600 dust.. I also made it to standard ranking level 18. I have my cards synced through innkeeper so if anyone has the time to make any kind of suggestion to the better or help feel free to. Cya later.
Man i feel ya, when i started playing it felt like i was never going to have a big colection of cards or all the good legendaries but eventualy you get really good stuff, if you are free to play that takes longer of course but you will get there, keep playing, have fun watch other people play and learn , it took me like 6 months to really play well and not missplay so much dont worry about it.
Of course there is still room. As much as this forum likes to bitch about how the cost of tier 1 decks have been increasing, there are still plenty of decks that you can make with little to no dust. On top of that, there are plenty of ways for a new player to earn more gold by doing one time quests. For a list of all of them here's a link. As for what decks you can make, decks like secret mage and aggro pally/dude pally are rather cheap (sorry for not going through your collection, just it's so laggy on my computer that I hate using it). Even still, in the early ranks you can easily rank up if you know what to do. However, before you make a deck, I would recommend waiting for the new expansion to hit so you can see how the new meta adjusts.
The best thing I can recommend for you to do right now is to just learn the fundamentals of the game, like knowing when to trade, when to go face, card advantage, etc as most decks still value these principles. If you want, you can also try finding people to help teach you/find a person on youtube to watch to do the same. There is also plenty of mostly F2P decks featured here that you can try.
Overall, the best advice I can give you is to just play. You'll learn more, you'll earn more cards, and if you get to a certain rank every month, you can get a golden card(s) that can help make better cards. It will take a while, sure, but I wouldn't say it's enough to make the game unenjoyable.
I don't have something witty about this deck, I just like it because Malygos is fun.
One last quick thing I forgot, go and open 10 packs of all the rotating expansions or until you get a legendary. Blizzard recently (not really but within the last year) made it so that you are guaranteed a legendary within the first 10 packs of an expansion so even if the card is rotating out, that is still an easy 400 dust.
I don't have something witty about this deck, I just like it because Malygos is fun.
When I started, back when the game went live, I just played casual and a lot of arena to gain my starting collection. Back then I was F2P, but after a couple of expansions I gave up and started to buy the starting bundle every expansion. I Still play a lot of arena, but instead of causual I play ranked now.
I can only imagine it being a hell to start right now. My starting advise would be to start getting the basic collection since only a few of those go to hall of fame after a year and then focus on getting the important standard cards. I would wait untill the new year kicks in to expand my standard collection since there is no way to tell what the meta will be next expansion - expecting a huge inflow of cubelock since they don't really loose anything to rotation.
If you want to compete today, within just a couple months of playing, you'll need to drop some money. I recommend pre-ordering the next expansion, if you really want to be serious about playing this game (think of it as buying a new game, rather than spending money in a "f2p" game).
You can look for cheap hunter decks to play, and you can even play a budget secret mage (it would be more midrange and less face aggro, but could still work). I think there are cheap ish aggro druid decks to play.
Anyways, the most important thing is it's hard to catch up right now, since there are 2 full years of blocks worth of cards to play against. In a month, it'll just be the 2017 expansions, plus the new expansion coming out, so you might have a better time.
Twitch name: Anatak15
NA Legend Season 48, 49, 52, 53, 54, 74
If a new player thinks it's reasonable that they should be able to dive in and immediately thrash a three-year veteran, and if that's the only way they can have fun, then no. There's no room in Hearthstone for that new player.
If you can manage to have fun playing in Casual (where the MMR will guarantee you a win rate of 50 percent), completing quests and building your collection, then yes, there is a place for you.
If you want to test your skill in the Arena, where everyone is on completely equal footing and collections don't matter, there is a place for you. This is also a great way to build a collection if you are actually good at it.
If you lack the skill to compete in Arena, then I'm not sure why you think you should be able to compete in Ranked. They are two different skill sets, yes, but your complaint seems to be that the collection disadvantage is what's holding you back in Ranked, and that does not exist in Arena.
If, on the other hand, you accept that your problem is a combination of lack of skill and lack of cards, the correct path forward is to complete quests in Casual for a while. You will gain both cards and skill there, and you'll eventually have enough of both to play more Ranked.
The only benefit to be gained in Ranked is the five-win monthly prize. Once you've got that, there's no reason to play there.
And hey, if you like the game and want to jump-start your collection, pre-ordering the expansion is a pretty good idea.
"Why, you never expected justice from a company, did you? They have neither a soul to lose nor a body to kick." -- Lady Saba Holland
Now is actually a very good time to start if you are new as Standard is about to consist of only the last three sets. Certainly you should be able to get caught up on some of the more important cards at this juncture. Yes, it will help to drop some cash, but I don't think it is necessary. There are lots of opportunities to play without an outlay of cash (arena doesn't even care about your collection), and if your objective is to have fun then don't worry about it. Rank 18 is good.
Yes the room for new players will be made in April when standard rotates. Whenever standard rotates new players have a chance to come in and become a part of the game. The only disadvantage they will have is the lack of cards from Classic. I feel as if Mr. Brode needs to buff how much gold we receive or even give newer players increased gold income for a week or something like that. Or at least give them like 20 classic packs to start.
It's hard for even Veteran players to keep up at times. There are other card games coming out and Hearthstone needs to make changes within this next year to how their economy works or enough people will pick another card game. Artifact is releasing this year and alongside the Elder Scrolls Legends, Gwent, Magic Arena, and Shadowverse, Hearthstone is going to quickly take a backseat to something else UNLESS they make some major changes to the economy.
The only Human Cube
Rank 18 is actually fine for a new player (don't expect more than rank 15 in first months).
When I start playing back in 2014/2015 i was wondering the same thing, but with a lot of hours/money spend you will achieve a nice collection and with (even more ) defeats/wins you will be able to compete in higher ranks.
As everything in life, time brings experience!
Sorry for english :|
Best regards
Sylvanas Windrunner
I have no time for games.
I'm a new player myself, just started 2 months ago, I'm not really F2P anymore, but I am pretty frugal about my spending. I never pay $ for individual card packs, but I do buy well-discounted ones. I would say I'm doing well, rank 11 last season, rank 10 so far this season. Here is what worked for me:
One of my students started playing less than 2 months ago. He took my advice and is doing quite well for himself at this point.
I told him to choose a class (or even better, a deck) and focus on that exclusively. All your dust goes into making THAT deck. All your gold goes into arena. Terrible at arena? Practice. Here he is 6 weeks later with a healthy Cubelock deck.
I spent my first year of this game playing nothing but Warlock. I'm F2P and have every card I could want, plus 20k gold and 26k dust for the one's I don't. Granted, I've been playing for years at this point, but it just takes time. Be patient, and be proud of yourself for getting rank 18 as an essentially "new" player. I didn't get Legend until last year.
Best luck.
I started last year after Un'Goro released. It struggled at first, but practice improves a lot. getting to rank 15 was difficult the first month, but by the 2nd month i was trying to build 1 solid deck to climb. By the time KofT came out, I was able to reach rank 5 (expansion releases are a great time to collect a lot of new cards for free)... arena experience helps a lot after the first month, if you are able to master that style of gameplay/deckbuilding to get high rewards (getting 200+ gold plus 1-2 card packs for reaching 8+ is ridiculous if you can get gud). I am now able to have 3-4 solid decks (combo priest is easiest to build to, but wait until new expo to find a new version of combo priest or paladin to try and build your 1st competitive/cheap deck). focus on 1 deck that you can climb to r5ish... aggro paladin can be awesome for this. This gets you better end of month rewards to help build your deck. do not miss a quest day- if you have 3 quests, complete one before the next day. Do not miss the hearthstone "choose a champion" rewards... and don't pick Kolento if you are superstitious :D
Finally, friend request ppl you see are good/experienced and try to watch games and learn from others. Watching streams, look for similar decks and current videos (not from old expansions) to keep up-to-date with what decks are actually competitive- you may be surprised to find some cheap options that you can build towards. Take your time choosing how to spend dust- try to save and do a mass dust/deckbuild when you know how much dust you can have, how much you need, and do it all together to build one solid deck (not 2-3 cards at a time, this is counterproductive). You also might not want to dust legendaries, unless they are golden, or unless they are from the first 10 of other packs. try to buy 10 of each card pack (including old gods and others rotating out) just for the legendary. this is 1000 gold each to reach a legendary, so spend your early dust on these before they rotate- then dust the legendaries after rotation to get an easy 800 dust towards a new legendary/2 epics for a top meta deck. It is all about card packs and gold in the early days, so focus on the long-term and not the short-term. You should wait to try your hand at arena until you are experienced and can recognize which cards are which, how good or how bad they are, etc etc. Heartharena will be helpful when you do venture into arena, to ensure you pick the best cards based on stats.
Remember- do not create your meta deck until after the expansion, just focusing on harvesting gold and getting to your 10 packs for each expansion for the most legendaries you can possibly get. save everything except gold cards for now. dust all gold cards. after expo, spend the first 2 weeks collecting all freebies you can from blizzard. after a good amount of dust, legendaries, etc, take a look at how the meta decks are going, what cards you have/need from each top deck, and figure out how much you need to build each, how much dust you have from dusting from ALL other classes, and work out which tier-1 deck you are interested in. once you get your first meta deck, you can climb ladder and complete quests/100g per day easily if you spend 2-3 hrs playing with something like dude paladin or whatever you choose to play. this will help build up dust and cards over the next 3 months of the expansion, during which time you can begin playing around arena and trying to build up a 2nd deck to play/collecting all the cards you can that are not dupes. Once the next expansion comes out again, this should be your time to start dominating mofos with all your awesome cards you've collected, dust you've earned, and experience gained. Save dust leading up to each expansion for about 1 months (before then, focus on the best epics and legendaries that you can craft that fit into other archetypes you want to play. dk's and neutral epics would like be of most value at this time, until you find a 2nd competitive deck you are close to building).
Also, track your card pulls. Every 40 is your pity timer, so make sure you don't miss that free legendary by spending too much on arena!
This is the much touted 'New Player Experience' team hard at work. So essentially what you are doing is what everyone has done at some stage, whether you started this game in beta or not. Incomplete collections are how you learn the game.
I completely understand the frustration but believe me when I tell you that we have all done it and resolved the situation with either time or money. So that is what you need to invest - one or other but not neither. The good news for you though is that the expansion should hit in less than a month by the best guesses. This means a mass rotation of cards out and a load of new cards in. Also bear in mind standard is going to have a smaller card pool due to having less sets in it. I'm assuming you will be spending your gold or hard earned cash on the expansion even if it isn't the 50 pack bundle. Your collection will begin to fill out a lot better and you can make informed crafting choices.
So there is hope but you need to have perseverance. You can't take up rugby and expect to be playing for your national team in a few months just because you have got the same boots as some other guys. That's not how games work.
And what did you expect? Legend Rank?
Obviously a small collection will affect how many decks you can play.
So for now, your priority should be buying the preorder for witchwood and get gold for it. Then wait a bit (get gold and more packs during that time) to let the meta settle. Then buy packs accordingly to what you want/need
!! I really enjoyed reading every single post you wrote guys! By reading your posts feels the same as building a great deck... Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me, i hope we can play together some time. I usually do not have much free time but i will definitely follow your advice and use patience and maybe some cash too. Add me Falcon#2378
Have a good night
Room for new players? in hearthstone?
I reached my one year anniversary not long ago. Its possible to build a good competitive collection for standard. But it will take time or cash, or a combination of the two to do it. At the one year point in standard you should be on an equal basis with most of the players in standard because of the rotation. Until that time play, learn, have fun, and do quests to build your collection. You dont need a super large collection to have fun.
If you are in your first year of playing please read this post.
Dust does not burn a hole in the jar. Be careful what you craft, especially before and right after a rotation.
Honestly I struggled for about 3 or 4 months playing very regularly slowly grinding until I had a tier 1 deck. Than I spent $80 and the game really opened up. I don't know how free to play handles this game. I think you need to be willing to spend some cash on this game if u really want to enjoy it.
Or gitgud at arena.
80% of hs players are rank 15+ so do not worry