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Preparing for Standard & Beyond - What to do Before the Expansion Hits
We're just under a week away from the announcement of what comes next, and assuming the expansion doesn't hit the week after like it did with the League of Explorers, we've got some time to kill and prepare for the awesomeness that is sure to come.
So, what can we do in preparation for that expansion? We're here to address that!
Please note that we are not taking "pity timer legendaries" into any of the following math.
For those not aware, the pity timer ensures that you get a legendary every 40 packs, or 400 dust.
#1 - Purchase GvG Packs for Wild Format
Whether you like it or not, Goblins vs Gnomes (and Dr. Boom!!) is going away - at least for Standard format. Once the next expansion launches, Goblins vs Gnomes card packs will no longer be available from the in-game shop, although all cards will remain craftable through the crafting system.
So, why should you buy those GvG packs now? To save money.
Let's say you want to craft a single common card from GvG to play in Wild format, that's going to set you back 40 Arcane Dust... or one card pack's worst case disenchant value. Refer to the table below to see how many packs it will take to craft other GvG cards.
We are assuming the cheapest possible pack cost of $1.167 USD per pack - this is packs purchased under the 60 Packs option in the store on PC and Mac.
Craft Target | Normal | Golden | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Dust Cost | Max Packs Req. | USD Value | Dust Cost | Max Packs Req. | USD Value | |
Common | 40 | 1 | $1.167 | 400 | 10 | $11.67 |
Rare | 100 | 3 | $3.501 | 800 | 20 | $23.34 |
Epic | 400 | 10 | $11.67 | 1600 | 40 | $46.68 |
Legendary | 1600 | 40 | $46.68 | 3200 | 80 | $93.36 |
Yes, a Golden Dr. Boom for Wild would take at most $93.36 USD to craft!
#2 - Purchase the First Wing of the Naxxramas Adventure
Hearthstone's first adventure, The Curse of Naxxramas is being removed when the new expansion hits, kind of. It will work differently depending on your ownership of the expansion.
- If you have purchased one or more wings of Naxxramas, you can continue to play them and buy missing wings.
- If you have not purchased any wings, Naxxramas the adventure will not exist for you at all.
- Naxxramas will still drop cards from defeating bosses, but they will also be available through the crafting system.
Want Naxxramas cards for wild? Buy at least one wing of the expansion now, whether that costs real money or gold.
Using our crafting table above for values..
- Want to craft Loatheb? That will set you back 4000 gold for the packs, more than double the 1400 to gain access to Wing 2 where he resides.
- Wait, how many? Craft Naxxramas for 13440 Arcane Dust - Which is at most purchasing 336 Hearthstone packs.. or $392.11 USD.
- Also a good source of dust! You can disenchant all of Naxxramas for 3140 dust.
Verdict: Naxxramas is a fantastic investment for both Wild and Standard players. Buy it or just a single wing now.
#3 - Craft Murlocs, but not Pirates
Mrglglgl! The cards in the reward set are no longer going to be rewards from quests when the expansion launches. They are going to be changed to craftable cards which for Old Murk-Eye means he's going to cost a lot more dust to obtain.
Only the normal version of Old Murk-Eye is worth obtaining through the quest system.
- Currently costs 700 dust to obtain. This saves you 900 dust if you want him!
- Obtained through crafting:
- Coldlight Oracle (100/800 dust)
- Coldlight Seer (100/800 dust)
- Murloc Tidecaller (100/800 dust)
- Murloc Warleader (400/1600 dust)
But, what about a golden Old Murk-Eye? Not at all worth it for most players. It is only worth it if you can craft 3200 dust or less of Murlocs. Keep in mind you are also going to need the following cards golden, which come from leveling up certain classes.
- Bluegill Warrior - Reach level 53 & 54 with the Paladin class.
- Grimscale Oracle - Reach level 53 & 54 with the Warlock class.
- Murloc Raider - Reach level 51 & 52 with the Priest class.
- Murloc Tidehunter - Reach level 53 & 54 with the Rogue class.
Captain's Parrot? More like Abandoned Parrot. It can be worth it depending on what you already have in your collection, but honestly, Pirates?
- Currently costs 2220 dust to obtain 2 copies of it. It will cost 800 gold later to craft them both.
- If you already have Captain Greenskin, it's worth crafting the rest.
- A golden version will set you back 6800 dust for the two of them through the quest. Crafting two goldens later on will only cost 3200 dust.
- Obtained through crafting:
- Bloodsail Raider (40/400 dust)
- Dread Corsair (40/400 dust)
- Southsea Deckhand (40/400 dust)
- Bloodsail Corsair (100/800 dust)
- Southsea Captain (400/1600 dust)
- Captain Greenskin (1600/3200 dust)
Verdict: Depending on your collection, the only thing worth getting is a normal Old Murk-Eye.
#4 - Farm and Save Gold!
Everyone wants to play with the new cards when they come out, so the more gold you farm now means the more packs you can open on launch day without spending your hard earned cash. There's several ways you can obtain gold.
- Dailies - Login every day and complete the quest you obtain. If it's worth only 40 gold, roll it for another one. If that one is too, you can opt to save it until tomorrow to roll it again.
- Winning - By simply #winning games, you too can be like Charlie Sheen. Well, only the part about making bank. 3 wins gives you 10 gold up to a maximum of 100 gold per day.
- Tavern Brawl - If you can win brawls faster than you can win normal matches, rack up those wins through this instead!
- Arena - There is quite a bit of gold that can be won via the arena feature if you play your cards right. As a bonus you can also get classic packs and golden cards which can help you get dust to craft stuff you want in the next expansion.
In addition to spending gold on the new packs that come out, you may want to also blow it all on Goblins vs Gnomes packs if you're missing quite a bit from that set and want those cards for the Wild format.
#5 Don't Disenchant Anything
As the title says, don't touch that disenchant button yet. You never know how the future will play out and there's cards you may regret getting rid of now. There could also be a nerf to a card in the classic collection which could fetch a higher value once that change is made rather than now.
This has been corrected, merci.
Just to point out typo/mistake. In your Parrot obtaining part:
While he costs 400 Dust.
"Mistakes were made" - Valeera
The same mis-calculation was used on the parrots themselves.
Mistakes were indeed made, sorry about that. Fixed the issue with Capn and incorrect value on Parrots.
Once Naxx is cycled out of standard...will you still be able to get the Heroic card back if you bought the adventure prior to it going wild??
Yes, you can.
I spent 3200 dust to craft two rares and an epic. I opened 5 packs and didn't get them. Still sitting on 6000 dust and 5700 gold. It's funny... I only cared about old murk eye after I realized he was gonna be gone.
My mother WAS a Murloc :(
Another reason you shouldn't disenchant cards is because you can still use them in tavern brawl and adventures, tavern brawl will be standard or wild at random each week but when it is using the wild format you might need a certain card like Loatheb for the summoner's competition brawl to stop a person casting spells in the mid game, if you like doing heroic bosses you might need Kel'Thuzad and Troggzor the Earthinator for a certain boss but you don't have them because you disenchanted them. these may not be good reasons but dienchanting cards will be a mistake later because you never know what blizzard will do later and you might need cards like Dr. Boom and Mad Scientist.
Yeah that save gold for next expension tip is very useful :D
Too bad im spending all my gold always :( so i got only 40 gold atm
Nah just kidding ive been saving since LOE finished or so :D
So i got like 5700 gold already
Im aiming for 7k-8k gold when spring 2016 expension drops
@Fluxflashor
Will the golden versions of murlocs that you get from leveling certain classes still be obtainable when the new standard format hits?
What about the golden versions of pirates?
Cheers for the post !
They should be. I couldn't see why they would remove these from the leveling system but it is possible some of them could be up for changes / nerfs.
Golden Pirates definitely won't be going anywhere since they're all Classic set cards.
The calculations in the post are skewed though. If you don't take into account at least the pity timers (56 dust per pack excluding goldens cause I don't know their expectancy), then all the prices are 1.5x. Also if you are considering the general average dust per pack, which I remember being around 95 dust, then most of these prices are ~2.5x more. This would seem a lot more expected than what was posted here.
For example, instead of the 80 packs suggested to craft a golden legendary, you would only need 35. That's even less than half, and it's a huge deal.
I believe you didn't consider the pity timers/average dust for the sake of simplicity and to scare off people. Anyway, Regardless of the final values for the cards, I do agree that it's worth buying GvG packs right now as I've also done in the past weeks.
I very much dislike this blog post.
Whether it's wise to spend gold/money on GvG packs / naxx adventure depends on a player's collection and their future focus on Wild / Standard. Players that want to play Wild tend to be those that already have a good chunk of GvG cards and all of naxx. For these players, investing in gvg packs doesn't make much sense, because they are mostly missing epics and legendaries and packs would probably just generate dust. They would be better off with just saving all their Gold and investing it in the upcoming expansion's packs, getting a good chunk of the new cards and left over dust for missing gvg cards. Newer players have more incentive to buy GvG cards to get a good stock of commons / rares or buy the naxx adventure to get Belcher / Loatheb. But newer players might not even want to invest in Wild at all and just save their gold to get a better start once Standard launches. So for most people, I feel, buying GvG packs isn't the best course of action and you should not generally recommend it in a news post like this.
In addition, your calculations are just silly. What do they even mean? I have to (at most) open 80 packs to craft golden Dr. Boom after gvg is rotated out? And how high is my chance of getting one from opening gvg packs? I have to get it from dust either way, so why bother with a set, that drops in value soon.
Tips #3 to #5 are fine, though. Good work on these.
I feel so lucky that i only spent 800 dust for a rare murloc to get the golden old murk-eye.. Got the golden warleader out of season reward chest ^_^
I've been buying as many GvG packs as I can (with gold obviously, I don't have the money to waste on this game) in the hopes of completing my collection before it gets phased out, but only got a pointed reminder of how fucking abysmal the game's distribution is. I get one rare (I'm using the REAL rarities, not the doctored bullshit Blizzard use to make themselves sound more generous than they are by pretending "uncommon" doesn't exist) about every 8-9 boosters and it's almost always one I've already gotten 2 (or 3 or 4 of 5) copies of already. I finally got an epic not too long ago... and it was another copy of the Dr. Boom I crafted last year, despite me only having 4 out of the set's 20 epics. And there are still several uncommons I don't have enough (or AN) copies of, including Light of the Naaru, Imp-losion, Unstable Portal and Powermace. Fuck, it took me about 70+ packs just to get a full set of COMMONS! I'm just buying packs of 40 dust here and it feels like a complete waste of gold that I should be saving for the expansion- it doesn't matter HOW many I buy, I'm just going to get more useless crap and dust.
Well written tips, would be nice if this was posted sooner :D
I don't really like the use of the minimum amount of dust per pack (40) to compare crafting costs to gold/money. I'd rather use the average dust value of a pack, which is ~100 (source: Card pack statistics). Just take the example of the golden legendary. Almost everybody who opens 80 packs will get enough dust to craft 2 golden legendaries.
Also, suggesting to buy Naxxramas with gold in order to disenchant all the cards for 3140 dust is just plain bad advice. This is discussed at some length in this thread.
I think the overall message is pretty straightforward:
And for those of you who track their pack openings: remember the pity timer. You are guaranteed to get a legendary if you haven't opened one in the past 39 packs. So if your last 30 GvG packs did not give you a legendary you're guaranteed to get a legendary in the next 10 packs. In those cases it may be interesting to buy GvG packs untill you open that legendary.
Just a reminder: pity timer was discovered during tgt unpacking, and was never confirmed for classic and gvg packs.
Good point, I don't think there is enough statistical proof to confirm it 100%.
But I do track my pack openings (since closed beta) and I can confirm that I've never gone more than 39 packs without a legendary. Admittedly, I have had only one case of going exactly 39 packs without a legendary (which was with GvG) and this is a very small sample size. For what it's worth, similar experiences are reported in this reddit thread.