Hearthstone Top Decks F2P BTW Challenge: Week 4 Update

Introduction

Week 4 of the Hearthstone Top Decks F2P BTW Challenge has come to an end! Here, you see my end of week rank, keep up with my current decklist and get a sense of how I spent my time, gold, and arcane dust for the second week of the challenge.

End of Week 4 Rank

Current Deck List

I will continue to update my decklist as I gather new cards during the challenge. You can see my current build below:

Week 4 Summary

Week 4 was the last full week of the Hearthstone Top Decks F2P BTW Challenge. As such, it was my last chance to make a push for Legend ranks. Unfortunately, despite getting very close I just missed crossing the Legend threshold. The end of the week included a slow, frustrating decline back to Rank 3 where I finished on Sunday.

Ranked Play

Ranked Play started off well enough, but was a point of major frustration by the end of the week. After shifting towards an Aggro Druid deck and having a great amount of success, I became annoyed with my decision to select Hunter as my class early on.

Even without any copies of Living Mana at the beginning of the week, my budget Aggro Druid was pushing a 60% win rate beyond Rank 5. Eventually, things started to cool down, but still maintained a strong push up the ranks.

By the time Thursday rolled around, I was on an impressive hot streak. Now armed with both Living Manas and Vicious Fledglings, the deck felt nearly unstoppable. Every Flappy Bird Adapt seemed to have Windfury as an option, to the point where I was surprised when I was unable to attack twice with the pink bird. Every Savage Roar seemed to come at the right time and give me the exact amount of damage to find lethal.

The result was a strong push to Rank 1. On stream, I eventually made my way to the final boss, only to come up short several times. Frustration, fatigue, and tilt began to set in and I decided to end the stream at Rank 1 with 3 Stars confident I could finish the push in the morning.

Unfortunately, this is where my streak of good fortune seemed to correct itself. Now, games seemed impossible to win. My lethal setups consistently seemed to get thwarted by topdecked Dragonfire Potions, Spreading Plague (from both Druids and Rogues alike), or Leeroy Jenkins for surprise counter kills. I consistently drew the top end (which in Aggro Druid is a very unlikely set of about 4 cards) of my deck in my opening hand.

Granted, much of this was my poor mindset from coming so close the night before, but I felt helpless as my rank spiraled into decline. Normally, I’m able to enjoy Hearthstone regardless of the outcome of matches, but the game has never felt less fun than during this period. By the time I fell out of Rank 2, I decided I’d had enough and needed to call it quits on my push. Ranked play was becoming nothing more than an annoyance at this point, and jamming games was accomplishing nothing positive.

While it’s frustrating to have put so much time into the challenge only to come up one win short of the Legend threshold (multiple times, no less), it wasn’t worth ruining my love for the game to earn a card back on an account.

Dual Class Arena

Week 4 introduced an exciting Arena event and another chance to earn a quick card pack. Always a fan of the Arena game mode, the even offered me the new challenge of the multi-class draft.

For the Dual Class Arena, I was fortunate enough to draft a high-value Mage/Warlock combination that, on paper, looked extremely powerful. Unfortunately, however, I wasn’t offered many low-cost minions and my lack of 2 drops mean I was frequently playing from behind. The result was a rather disappointing 4 wins and yet another 40 Arcane Dust Knights of the Frozen Throne card pack.

Tavern Brawl

The Tavern Brawl for Week 4 was The Headless Horseman Rides! While it was nice to have another Brawl that didn’t rely heavily on a well-stocked card collection, the unique nature of this particular encounter meant I couldn’t use it to complete quests. As such, despite being a fun one-off, it had little replay value for me. I quickly completed it on my first attempt with the Wizard costume, getting great value off of a doubled up Molten Reflection on a large minion.

Week 4 Statistics

Throughout the F2P BTW Challenge, I’ll be collecting detailed statistics related to Win Rates, Pack Openings, Card Crafting, Quests Completed, and Time Played.

Win Rate

My end of week win rate is disappointing for a variety of reasons. Not the least of which is the fact that it is representative of my rank tanking after being so close to Legend.

Much of the week, my win rate was hovering around 60%. To see how far I feel is frustrating, but dry streaks are a big part of ranked play in Hearthstone.

All games this week were played in the same Rank 5 to Rank 1 band, so the statistics below are all from that range.

Week 4 Pack Openings

Week 4 was a lucrative week in terms of pack value. I was already closing in on the 10 pack pity timer for Mean Streets of Gadgetzan and quickly opened a Krul the Unshackled, completing my recommendation of opening one Legendary card for each set. Soon after, I shifted my focus back to the Classic Set where I opened a second copy of the increasingly popular Southsea Captian, resetting my Epic pity timer for the set.

My playset of these Pirates seemed to indicate I needed to chase down a copy of Patches the Pirate to bolster my new Aggro Druid deck which dearly missed shooting the obnoxious scallywag out of a cannon and into play. In a last-ditch effort, I began frantically opening more Means Streets of Gadgetzan packs knowing full well that another Legendary was highly unlikely.

Despite the poor odds of this misguided venture, I was surprised by a glowing orange border around one of the cards in my 4th Mean Streets pack of the week. I flipped the other cards to find a bit of garbage then held my breath and hoped to reveal the 1 mana minion I was seeking. The gods of RNG seemed to be mocking me, however, as the Legendary ended up being the very dustable Mayor Noggenfogger. Fortunately, 400 dust goes a long way in crafting a new deck and I soon had enough to craft two copies of Living Mana that my deck desperately needed.

Classic Packs

• Number of Packs: 3
• Average Dust Value: 71.67
• Legendary: None

Knights of the Frozen Throne Packs

• Number of Packs: 1
• Average Dust Value: 40
• Legendary: None

Mean Streets of Gadgetzan

• Number of Packs: 4
• Average Dust Value: 262.5
• Legendary: Krul the Unshackled, Mayor Noggenfogger

All Sets

• Number of Packs: 10
• Average Dust Value: 143

Card Crafting

After getting burnt out on Midrange Hunter, I shifted gears a bit this week and began to transition my deck towards an Aggro Druid. Fortunately, the double Legendaries I pulled from Mean Streets of Gadgetzan packs this week were enough to supply me with enough dust to fill in most of the cards for the deck.

That said, I did bend the initial rules of only disenchanting Legendaries from the Safe to Disenchant List. Having already met the goal of Rank 5, both Arfus and Baron Geddon were dusted to make the push for Legend. Each of these cards has a very low play rate and are not currently run in any of the Top Standard Decks, so I feel this was a reasonable decision in the bonus round of the challenge.

This extra dust contributed the remaining resources necessary to assemble a near meta Aggro Druid list (sans the Pirate package) that performed quite well for most of the week.

Common

• Mark of the Lotus x 2
• Mark of Y'Shaarj x 2
• Argent Squire x 2
• Crypt Lord x 1
• Spellbreaker x 1

Rare

• Vicious Fledgling x 2
• Druid of the Swarm x 2

Epic

• Living Mana x 2

Total Arcane Dust Spent: 1520

Quests Completed

In Week 4, resource accumulation was less important as I had already gathered much of what I needed to rank up. As such, fewer than usual Daily Quests were completed. Likewise, I was far less concerned with maximizing efficiency as I was jamming ladder games.

Daily Quests

• Destroy them All: 40 gold
• Only the Mighty: 40 gold
• The Meek Shall Inherit: 40 gold
• Beat Down: 40 gold

Time Played

The grind from Rank 5 to Legend is heavily reliant on time (and patience). Because of this, time played increased pretty significantly this week, especially in the middle of the week. By the weekend, however, I was extremely burnt out and distressed from my decline in ranks, and time played tailed over dramatically.

• Monday: 1 hours
• Tuesday: 4 hours
• Wednesday: 0.5 hours
• Thursday: 1.5 hours
• Friday: 4.5 hours
• Saturday: 2.5 hours
• Sunday: 0.5 hours

Week 4 Total Time Played: 15 hours

Overall Statistics

Win Rate

Pack Openings

• Total Packs Opened: 48
• Average Dust Value: 111.46
• Legendaries Opened: 6

Card Crafting

• Total Dust Spend: 5720

Time Played

• Total Time Played: 51 hours

About the Author

A card game veteran, Roffle has been infatuated with Hearthstone since closed beta. These days, he spends most of his time tinkering with decks on ladder or earning gold in Arena (f2p btw). In particular, Roffle has a wealth of experience in competitive Wild Hearthstone, including a top 16 finish in the inaugural Wild Open Tournament and numerous high end of season finishes since the format’s inception. Follow him on Twitter or check out some of his articles on Roffle.net.