260 packs (give or take) should be enough to open most of the cards, and give you enough dust to craft the cards you didn't open. The assumption is that both pre-orders were purchased, which gives you two of the 23 legendaries. (After 260 packs you'll probably still need to craft 10 epics and 6 or 7 legendaries, while you should end up with roughly 40 * 260 = 10 400 dust.)
How did I get there?
Legendaries: 2 (pre-orders) + 1 (gift) + 1 (first 10 packs) + 13 (1 every 20 packs on average) = 17. Epics: 1 epic every 4 packs on average = 65, but from experience quite a few will be duplicates. Dust: It use to be an average of 100 dust per pack, but you can't get duplicate legendaries any more, so there you loose 50 dust per pack, and most of the cards you open in your first 100 packs will be new cards. So the average comes down a little more to about 40 dust per pack.
I preordered for the first time last expac and I opened 130 pack. And aside from about 3-4 legendaries I wanted, I got about 95% of the what was good. Really I got all common and rare, I just needed to craft like 2 epics. I am aiming for 130-150 again knowing that I'll need a little more dust to get me to what I want.
F2p here as well( so don't give him the "f2p good luck lol" comments pls -.-). I have not really counted my packs, but I've been opening about 200/250 packs every expansion and I think I've got any card in the collection that I want, or I am able to craft it right away. This time, opening 60 packs as soon as expansion hits and will then probably open a hundred more before I start saving for next expansion. I am dropping the numbers a bit this time as I think I've got enough dust in the bank to allow myself having more gold for next exp.
My general rule is - play arena (if you are good at it) for the first month and a half extensively that helps you stock up on a lot of gold. Then when hype wears off do dailies on ladder or whatever makes you happy - do not restrain yourself from playing whatever mode you like, even if some (like arena) cost gold, just do not overdo it (5 arena per day) if you are averaging 4 wins... :D. Finally, usually when they announce or maybe a bit before that I start being a bit more conservative on what I spend my gold on and try to save as much as possible. Currently sitting at 7.5k gold and I think that's good for now.
I watched Kripparian's pack opening stream for Witchwood and I think he hit his last legendary around pack 400, but didn't stop until somewhere around 423 when he got his first repeat legendary. So he opened 23 legendaries in 423, that's 18.39 packs/legendary which is pretty much average when you open a ton of packs. However, if you open enough packs you should also have enough dust to then craft the legendaries and potentially epics you're missing. So about 300-350 as someone mentioned above should be about right.
EDIT: The fact that you can't repeat a legendary until you have all of them in a set actually made it a lot easier to get all the cards (easy being a relative term here...). Using Kripp as an example again, if you search Youtube for his pack opening videos a lot of them before the no duplicate legendary rule he opens 700 to 1,000+ packs to make sure he gets them all (since he used to never dust any cards). Since that rule was put in the game, it's been more like 400 to 450.
If you want the full set you'll have to buy both pre-orders and then ~200 packs more as others have said. However, there's a lot of thrash you don't need so you'll get a competitive collection with just the 50 and then paying gold for ~50-100 over the course of next months. In the end it's up to whether you want the Mecha Jaraxxus or not.
This has been bumming me out since the announcement, because its my first time preordering so im wondering which bundle to choose :/
Hahahahaha as f2p. Never. It's not possible.
80 % of the card in each set are useless so, things are easier for all of us
~600 so good luck lol
around 300-350 packs for around 80%
10 (guaranteed legendary in first 10 packs) + 40 times 22 (number of legendaries - 1) max = 890 packs
I am too lazy to do the math about dust average and epics to get :P
I will open 50 packs and then will spend 2 or so months spending gold on them and I will open 70% of the collection I guess.
To OP:
260 packs (give or take) should be enough to open most of the cards, and give you enough dust to craft the cards you didn't open. The assumption is that both pre-orders were purchased, which gives you two of the 23 legendaries. (After 260 packs you'll probably still need to craft 10 epics and 6 or 7 legendaries, while you should end up with roughly 40 * 260 = 10 400 dust.)
How did I get there?
Legendaries: 2 (pre-orders) + 1 (gift) + 1 (first 10 packs) + 13 (1 every 20 packs on average) = 17.
Epics: 1 epic every 4 packs on average = 65, but from experience quite a few will be duplicates.
Dust: It use to be an average of 100 dust per pack, but you can't get duplicate legendaries any more, so there you loose 50 dust per pack, and most of the cards you open in your first 100 packs will be new cards. So the average comes down a little more to about 40 dust per pack.
And yes, this is just an educated guess...
Without using dust youll have all the cards besides a few epics with over 400 packs.
I preordered for the first time last expac and I opened 130 pack. And aside from about 3-4 legendaries I wanted, I got about 95% of the what was good. Really I got all common and rare, I just needed to craft like 2 epics. I am aiming for 130-150 again knowing that I'll need a little more dust to get me to what I want.
F2p here as well( so don't give him the "f2p good luck lol" comments pls -.-). I have not really counted my packs, but I've been opening about 200/250 packs every expansion and I think I've got any card in the collection that I want, or I am able to craft it right away. This time, opening 60 packs as soon as expansion hits and will then probably open a hundred more before I start saving for next expansion. I am dropping the numbers a bit this time as I think I've got enough dust in the bank to allow myself having more gold for next exp.
My general rule is - play arena (if you are good at it) for the first month and a half extensively that helps you stock up on a lot of gold. Then when hype wears off do dailies on ladder or whatever makes you happy - do not restrain yourself from playing whatever mode you like, even if some (like arena) cost gold, just do not overdo it (5 arena per day) if you are averaging 4 wins... :D. Finally, usually when they announce or maybe a bit before that I start being a bit more conservative on what I spend my gold on and try to save as much as possible. Currently sitting at 7.5k gold and I think that's good for now.
Hope this helps
I watched Kripparian's pack opening stream for Witchwood and I think he hit his last legendary around pack 400, but didn't stop until somewhere around 423 when he got his first repeat legendary. So he opened 23 legendaries in 423, that's 18.39 packs/legendary which is pretty much average when you open a ton of packs. However, if you open enough packs you should also have enough dust to then craft the legendaries and potentially epics you're missing. So about 300-350 as someone mentioned above should be about right.
EDIT: The fact that you can't repeat a legendary until you have all of them in a set actually made it a lot easier to get all the cards (easy being a relative term here...). Using Kripp as an example again, if you search Youtube for his pack opening videos a lot of them before the no duplicate legendary rule he opens 700 to 1,000+ packs to make sure he gets them all (since he used to never dust any cards). Since that rule was put in the game, it's been more like 400 to 450.
If you want the full set you'll have to buy both pre-orders and then ~200 packs more as others have said. However, there's a lot of thrash you don't need so you'll get a competitive collection with just the 50 and then paying gold for ~50-100 over the course of next months. In the end it's up to whether you want the Mecha Jaraxxus or not.
You can run opening simulation here:
https://speedodevo.github.io/packr/
If you open 100 packs, you can get ~100% common and about 92% rare cards, 33% epics and 21% legendaries and about 3065 dust.