Hearthpwn

Welcome to Heartstone, pal!

On the subject of learning material, I suggest to all newcomers Trump's series on the basics, if you have not watched yet. It shows some nice basic decks while teching important concepts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KjtRokhpvM&list=PLvEIxIeBRKSjprrvlbAcbVjzHsnH9PjDX

The first "goal" you can try to set to yourself is to defeat the Inkeeper on the expert level. There are a few "hidden" quests you get extra goodies, you can see al in: http://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Quest#General - This says you still get the legendary C´Thun and 2 Beaconers of Evil if you open an Old Gods pack, I am not 100% sure it is still on, but you should try to do it, even for a newby 100 G is not that much.

The first collection management tip I give you is: never desenchant any cards you do not own more than 2 of. You will feel tempted to do so if you get a legendary or epic you think is bad, but, on the long run, it will hurt your collection (pesonal experience: dusted a Far Sight I saw as a bad card, didn´t get to play some cool control shamman stuff).

The second think you should do is to get a free pack every week from Tavern Brawl. Even on the constructed ones, you should be able to win a game after a couple of losses.

The third is to maximize your gold from quests. You shoul always reroll 40g quests and avoid completing a 40g quest unless you already have 3 of those or is somthing inavoidable (eg 3 wins). I did some math, and I feel like you should also reroll the 50g, but that is more debatable: http://www.hearthpwn.com/forums/hearthstone-general/general-discussion/183442-quests-how-to-maximise-gold-earning

On the subject of debatable stuff, I just realized that it might be a good idea to save money to but the first wing of Blackrock Mountain and League of Explorers. Those expansions will rotate out and, if Blizzard keeps their policy, the adventures will not be available for newer players. It might be too hard to spend your hard-earned gold on cards that will soon rotate out, but if you have the first wing, you will be able to buy the others eventually and experience the PVE content, which I find nice. This will give you a more complete collection on the long run, but will hurt you bad on the beginning. Totally up to you to decide.

I didn´t play that much arena on my first year of Heartstone, but people say it is the fastest way of growing your collection. I won´t give you advices on that matter because I don´t know the average winrate of newbies on Arena and I don´t feel confortable telling you to do something that might cause you to have negative return on your 150G investment. Anyone can help with that?

If you decide to spend any real money on Heartstone, I would advise you to get the Welcome Bundle first, since it gives you a nice return on your money, with a lot of classic packs and a "free" classic legendary. Besides that, there are also pre-orders bonus when expansions release. Depending on where you live, there is some kind of Amazon Coin promotion, but I never managed to use it here in Brazil.

You should also try to add people to play agains (feel free to add me!) and to watch/help you on your plays. Debating plays is always good, especially with people more experienced than you.

The final advice is: hava fun. Heartstone is a card game, your main goal should be feeling good while playing. It is harsh on new people and very unforgiving, even more if you play Ranked Ladder, but you shouldn't forget you are playing it to have fun. Don´t become another salty guy angry for not reaching Rank 10 on your first month of play.

I can see that you play mostly hunter (more Golden Basics), probabliy due to some nice cards (Krush, CoTW, Highmane). I can also see you havent got all classes to level 10 (miss Rogue, Shaman and Worlock), and I suggest you do. Besides learning more about the game, there is a hidden quest for you to get all basic cards, and other for defeating all expert AIs (full list: http://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Quest).

As a beginer, I´d suggest you watched the Trump Teachings videos, especially the basid ones (link). I agree with most of the tips for you, avoid dusting cards and try to have lots of fun playing!

Regarding your deck concerns, I'd watch Trump deck teachings on Standard Midrange Hunter (link).Call of the Wild was nerfed after the video, but considering your collection, its a nice card for you to use, alongside King Krush.

I´d try to make the best of the Beast sinergy, w/ double Timber Wolf, Kill Command and Houndmaster, as well as Animal Compannion, Savana Highmane, Call of The Wild and King Crush.

You don´t have trap-synergistic cards, but you should use some of the better ones, such as Explosive and Snake. Snake trap will catch a lot of you opponents offguard, beacause in lower ranks, newer players don´t know or play around a Epic trap.

For the neutral minnions, you should use the better ones: Worgen Infiltrator, Acid SwanpOoze, Dire Wolf Alpha, Jungle Panther, Yety, Sen´jin, and Azure Drakes. I would put in Thinkmaster, he is far from a Tier-1 legend, but is a card that can both help you win games and teach a lot about how to make high-risk plays.

If you need any further help, feel free do add me.

OP's post was, indeed, clickbaity and misleading, but that is no excuse for ofenses.

Lest break your point down:

a) You (as most, me included) assume Kazakus' potions are evelly distributed. That is a fair assumption.

b) There is a 64% chance of being offeredan especific effect for 1 mana potions and 58% for 5 and 10.

c) For the 5 and 10, there is 70% chance of getting at least one of AoE and Transform. Keep in mind that transform might not be what you are looking for on 5, since its not an Area effect.

Given the statistics alone, most people that need an AoE should get at least one effect. I see two problems with the OP:

i. there might be Selection Bias, which means you only remember the times Kazakus didn´t deliver and forget the times you got the exact perfect potion. After you begin to suspect the "nerf", there comes the Confirmation Bias, which makes you pay attention only to the instances in which Kazakus does what you expect (act "rigged").

ii. Personal experience is not a good way to do science. There are both the Biases problems, as well as most likelly a too small of a sample size. What I would reccomend as an experience is to collect data from a couple of streammers who play a lot of Kazakus, in real games, and compare the options offered w/ a couple of variables (class played, board state, # of minnions dead, quality of minnions dead, etc), to see if the distribution is random or if any variables affect it. The alternative is to play a friend, each cast 100 kazakus and compare the results. That is a less robust experiment, but it will most likelly show that the potions are, indeed, random, and you are only on a streak of bad luck.

I was just listening to Kliber's design insights (link). I agree with him in a number of topics, and people are discussing the video on another topic (link), but I'd like to discuss something he almost said, but left out.

Kliber mentioned how arena discorages trying to get synergistic decks, because you might just end up with a terrible or even unplayable card (in his exemple, an early Ancient Watcher, with no silence or taunt enabler). What do you guys think about the possibility of having a 35 card draft, from which you choose 30 cards in the end?

That would off course have an impact on average deck level, since people could just draft the 35 "heartarena-best" cards and choose the 30 "curvestone-best" amongst them, but at least it could encourage people to try to get that one or two dragons, or that Auctioneer, try to get some synergy on the dack and, if that does not pay out, you just don't take the "worst" card for you final deck.

Another more complicated option could even be a "sidebord" option, with 1 or 2 minutes pre-game to switch between the 5 extras and your deck. That would make situational cards less "dead". You could opt-out your Eather of Secrets against a druid, and put it back on if your next game is against a Paladin. I don't think this is a good idea, since it would make arena games take longer, specially for less experienced players who would not know how to properlly use a sideboard, but I'd like to hear what you think about it. (also, it would cost more development time...).

It does not make sense to me to buy classic packs right now, hoping for nerfs:

- There are no garanteed nerfs. Even if they are likelly, nerfs may came only to a couple of rares and epics you wont even get in your specific packs

- You should get at least 40-60 packs of the new expansion in order to avoid having to waste dust on commons and rares.

That said, I think I will start saving gold now. If they announce a big amount of nerfs, I might consider buying classic packs, but wont do so before.

On a similar note, yesterday I made the math on reroling 50G quests, and found out you should always do it. If you wanna checkit out: http://www.hearthpwn.com/forums/hearthstone-general/general-discussion/183442-quests-how-to-maximise-gold-earning#c15

I wouldn´t start with Druid, if I were you. Druid has some interesting archetipes, including C'thun, Jade/Miracle and Malygos, but none of those are playable without core expansive cards. The main advantage of Druid is to ramp and mana-cheat, but without some big epics and legends, you will be ramping towards an Ironbark Protector, which is only OK.

If you decide to go with Druid anyways, Cenarious benefits from token-generation, such as Living Roots (common, TGT), Power of the Wild (common, Classic), Violet Teacher (rare, Classic).

There are some powerfull Druid tools that are rotating out next year, such as [card]Raven Idol/card] (LoE, last wing), which you would miss right now but may not be worth the effort to get, even tough Explorers has four (Finley, Bran, Elise and Reno) very nice legendariesthat will be missed in Standard.

It might be a good idea to sync your collecion here so that people can advice you on what to build.

Hi, Haardsteen, I´ll try to help here.

I played as a F2P from April 2014 until the Old Gods, and then purshased both Old Gods and Gadgetzan pre-releases (have also all adventures bought in gold). I have lots of fun with Heartstone, especially after the rotation, since I have access  to more diverse cardbase and decks.

When I started, mechs were all the rage, and I soon built a MechMage, with which I played some months, reaching up to rank 10, if I remember correctly. I would advice you to find a deck that has three main carachteristics:

- you enjoy playing, since in the begining you will not have the cardbase to change decks every other game

- is cheap or has a cheap core, so that you wont have to ivnest much in it

- is relativelly competitive, so that you can win, climb the ladder to better rewards, get gold and have more fun

Most people will advice you not to craft any commons and rares, and that makes mathematical sense, since you are likelly to get those from packs soon. That said, I do not regreat the dust "lost" when I oppened duplicate Azure Drakes or Mechwarpers, because having a strong cheap deck made the game more fun for me on the first months and got me better rewards and gold.

When I (and all somewhat experienced players) started, the "Welcome Bundle" was not a thing. If you plan on pouring any cash on Heartstone, you should do that first, since the class legendary you get may dictate wich class you will have more resources on the begining.

As far as decks go, I think the pirate stuff is the way to go in terms of cheap and efficient. You can go a long way without crafting Patches or any epics. If you want to learn more about the concept, Trump had a F2P road to legend during the launch of the Old Gods with a pirate warior. I lacks some (important) Gadgetzan cards,but the concept is the same: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvEIxIeBRKSiM5SWHIU3FY-MKqhZOvrOR.

Another option is the always-reliable Zoolock, since its core is based the Warlock hero power, not any particular card, and you can use all the cheap and efficient minnions you got, replacing them for more "optmized" ones as you go. This deck tought me a great deal about board control, efficient trades, playing around board clears, risk taking w/ taps, etc.

The more important is to play and have fun. If you want any other tips, you can add me and we can play some games. Arturvf89#1577

I think rank 5, to get to rank 5 you need to play considerably well, and from 5 to legend its prety much the same play level

I think everyone agrees that the achievement system is missing from the game.