I got my 2 packs for Silvermoon right away. Same with week 1 of Grandmasters. Strangely I never got my week 2 of Grandmasters packs, but hopefully it will work in the coming weeks.

After all that, I feel compelled to use this card back for a long time! Although my personal favorites are still Secret Level and 30 Years of Blizzard, both of which were easy to get.

On the first puzzle (Rogue), my left minion didn’t always get highlighted as being able to attack. I don’t know if anyone else sees that bug. So the first time I did the puzzle, I ended the turn after attacking each minion, and I died. Then I tried again, attacking with it even when it wasn’t highlighted, and it worked. To save other people from making the same mistake, you never want to hit end turn on that puzzle (or any of the other puzzles I think).

Good to know, thanks!

Thanks for the reminder. I saw that I forgot to dust my regular Mor’shan Watch Posts before. Even if you want to keep a full playset, there’s no reason to keep them. In the rewards track, we get the golden versions that are uncraftable.

That makes me wonder, has anyone picked up any golden copies of the golden uncraftable cards in the rewards track? Is it impossible to get golden Mor’shans in packs? In which case you technically couldn’t get 800 dust for one.

I’m definitely spending more time playing than I should. I’d guess I’m averaging somewhere between 3-4 hours/day since the rewards track came out. Once the vaccines roll out more and restrictions get lifted, I expect to play less. Probably back to my estimated 2 hours/day before, which was getting me around 8,000 gold between expansions.

I tend to play a lot more when an expansion first comes out, and then mostly just keep up with the quests and play battlegrounds when I get tired of the meta (which is starting to happen to me now). I’m sure the mini-set will boost my time playing again. But I doubt I’ll keep up the same amount of time played each day until the next expansion, so I should clarify, I may be on track to reach 15,000 gold but I doubt that will happen. Realistically, I’m guessing it should be at least 12,000 gold. I’ll be pretty happy with that, considering I made it just past 10,000 gold once before.

I feel like the race to level 50 was making me addicted to playing more than usual. Now that I’ve reached it fairly early this expansion, I know it’s not going to feel as urgent the next time. Also, I’m sure the novelty of the new system and collecting achievements influenced me to play more than usual. Plus I’ve been playing more due to the fact that I bought the tavern pass, which gives you more value the more you play. I’m not sure if I’ll get it again, unless they make improvements. I think it’s going to give me decent value plus some cosmetics that I’m using but don’t care too much about (I’ve never bought any of the standalone cosmetics). But I don’t think it’s going to be immense value. I’ll have to do a proper calculation towards the end, but I figure it’s going to give me somewhere between 2,000-3,000 gold extra.

I’m the type of person who will play more when there’s a specific goal, like reaching level 50 or reaching legend. If/when I hit that goal, I lose a lot of interest and end up playing less. People who just want to get as much gold as possible are probably used to playing at a more consistent rate. I think the new system is more addicting to people like me, who pay more attention to the leveling up, than people pay more attention to their gold count, which starts off going up way more slowly than before and feels discouraging.

I got the tavern pass, so my XP/gold is boosted. Currently, I’m at level 55 and 4,915 gold. I spent ~1,000 gold in the first few days trying to hit the pity timer on one more legendary before I started crafting. So I would have had ~5,915 gold if I started saving when I normally do.

I went after a bunch of achievements already, so I don’t expect much more XP from those until the next expansion. I estimate that the XP from achievements I’ve earned so far account for 800-900 of the gold I have (600-700 gold, plus the XP boost). So it’s a little over 5,000 gold from quests and playing time.

We’re about 1/3 of the way between expansions. So if I play the same amount, it looks like I’ll have around 15,000 gold by next expansion (not counting what I might need to spend when the mini-set comes out). Without the tavern pass, it would be ~12,000-13,000 gold. Either way, it’s significantly more than the ~8,000 gold I used to get between expansions in the old system.

Not to mention the new system’s given me 10+ packs, 2 legendaries, 1 epic, and 2 tavern tickets, which I personally value at around 5,000 gold. Add that into the calculation and it looks to me like I’m getting at least 2x the gold/rewards value than previously, even without the tavern pass (which I may end up skipping in the future). So all the complaints seem pretty ridiculous to me.

I think part of the reason why people think it’s bad is because there are a lot of non-gold rewards going up to level 30. The first month or two (depending on how much you play) you’re going to see gold accumulate more slowly than you did previously. The further you get, the faster you’ll see your gold accumulate. I believe I had 2,000-2,500 gold or so a week ago, and it’s doubled in the past week.

I think it was a mistake by Blizzard to have so many non-gold rewards at the beginning of the track. The new system is hard to wrap your head around, and in the early days of the expansion it feels bad to not see your gold go up at the previous rate. When I decided to get the tavern pass, it was partly because I wasn’t sure if I would reach level 50 by the end of the expansion otherwise. It turns out my initial guess was way, way off.

I also think the different amount of XP and different amount of gold between levels is messy and confusing. (Thanks Stonekeep and others for grinding the numbers for us.) They could just make every level the same as what’s past level 80 now, 1500 XP and 50 gold. Replace the packs from earlier expansions with DMF packs, I think almost everyone would prefer that. Make the extra packs and cards as bonuses on top of the gold in the early levels (not replacing the gold as the reward), or do bonus gold or dust instead of the packs and cards. For cleaner numbers on the levels, I wouldn’t mind seeing an even 1000 XP and 35 gold for each level.

Correction: I’ve gotten around 15,000 XP from achievements in duels and gameplay (at the time of my comment), equivalent to 5 packs. My calculation used the 15,000 XP number, but I mistakenly wrote 45,000 XP in my comment. So yeah, that’s a significant difference in terms of whether going after achievements is worth it.

According to Stonekeep’s article on the progression system guide, there’s a maximum of 27,300 XP you could get from achievements in duels and Darkmoon gameplay. If you use the basic calculation of 30 XP = 1 gold, that’s 910 gold maximum you could get from all those achievements. When I think about it that way, it’s not really worth the time (for me) to go after the harder ones to try and get that last 400 or so gold.

I wouldn’t complain about more rewards, but 4x seems a little excessive. I think 90% of the people who currently pay for packs would then have no reason to pay anything, because they could get a full collection going F2P. That’s cool and all, but that doesn’t leave much of a business model.

I started paying for bundles a couple years ago when I decided I didn’t want to spend so much time choosing what old cards to dust. Before that, I was able to make plenty of competitive meta decks by crafting the cards I needed.

My general feeling is that casual players should be able to enjoy the game F2P, but expect to have some limitations. You can always sacrifice older cards in your collection to craft missing new cards you need for a top tier deck. That’s what I did early on.

If you’re playing semi-competitively (entering tournaments or trying to get to legend), I feel like you shouldn’t have a problem with paying a little bit of money (i.e. $80 for a bundle, 3x a year) and dusting old duplicates to get 95%+ of the cards in an expansion, and probably all the ones you’re going to play with. If you’re a completionist and need the full set on release day because you want to show off, or you want to craft the remaining bad legendaries to make silly/meme decks, then you should expect to pay more.

I do think the dust ratio is an issue. Dusting 4 legendaries to get 1 of your choice is painful. Reducing the ratio from 4/1 to 3/1 or 2/1 would be more reasonable. I think that would be an easier sell than increasing the rewards by a significant amount. Of course, if Blizzard changes the dust ratio, people will complain if they just dusted a bunch of cards because they’ll feel like they’ve been ripped off.

It’s true that getting a full expansion set, without dusting and crafting any cards, is expensive. But I don’t think that’s necessary to enjoy the game or to play competitively. Several of the legendaries each expansion never even see play. I’m perfectly fine not having cards that I know I’m not going to use. Also, if you really need to get a full set, do you really need to keep buying packs until you get all of them? Why not just craft the ones you need? Are you saving your duplicates and your dust for something else?

As far as the gold/XP calculations here and in other places where people are complaining that Hearthstone is too expensive, a lot of things are missing. If you take everything into consideration, it’s much harder to calculate, but it seems obvious to me that they add up to a lot. I haven’t done the math, but I think the dust value equivalent of the following items (for my expected gameplay) is worth more than 50 packs. I don’t think the system is nearly as greedy as some people are making it out to be.

Other comments have already mentioned dusting cards and arena as ways to work towards completing a set besides just buying packs. Here are some more ways to get packs and other rewards:

The monthly ranked chest rewards, the one-time ranked chest rewards, a pack a week for the tavern brawl, heroic duels (with rewards like arena), XP for certain achievements in duels and gameplay (I estimate I’ve gotten about 45,000 XP from those, equivalent to 15 packs), in-game festivals that give you free stuff and legendary quests, and promos like Twitch drops and choose your champion that give you packs.

Also, the rewards track for each expansion up to level 50 doesn’t just give you gold. It gives you 2 legendaries, an epic, 2 tavern tickets, and 11 (I think?) packs.

Many of these rewards are not going to give you packs or cards for the current expansion, but they are worth dust you can use to craft missing cards, at the very least.

I’d guess that in the current system, someone who buys the pre-order and plays for a couple hours per day could collect a full expansion set if they wanted, by dusting duplicates and crafting the missing cards. Although it may take you until closer to the end of that expansion to complete it.

Great writeup as always! I just reached legend yesterday with bomb hunter and wanted to add a couple of my ideas. I was stuck around rank 3 for a long time with a similar deck (2x Tracking and 1x Harrison Jones instead of the Ooze and 2x Hounds), then after dropping to rank 4, I tweaked it to go even more mech-heavy, and went 32-16 to legend. Instead of the Ooze, Dire Wolf Alphas, and Hounds in this list, I run 2x Skaterbot, 1x Upgradeable Framebot, and 2x Bronze Gatekeeper.

The Framebot and Gatekeepers help you stay alive against zoo and token decks, which usually don’t run much removal, if any.

Skaterbot is very versatile in this deck, and I’m surprised I haven’t seen anyone else use it yet. You can use it by itself to ping a 1 health minion, or give another mech +1/+1 and rush, useful for when your opponent is smart enough to clear your bombs and you have a Venomizer or Spider Bomb in hand and you don’t have anything to stick it to (or a Fireworks Tech for your Spider Bomb). Very helpful for tempo and can often be the difference to swing the board in your favor.

With those changes, there are 24 mechs in the deck, 15 of which are magnetic. Galvanizer becomes more powerful because there are 5 more mech targets, and you have 4 more magnetizers for your bombs.

Not sure if everyone knows this, but if you magnetize a deathrattle mech onto another deathrattle mech, Fireworks Tech will trigger both. So you can get a Spider Bomb + Goblin Bomb, Replicating Menace + Ursatron, etc. I haven’t been greedy enough to try 3x deathrattle, but I imagine it would work.

I love that Missile Launcher + Venomizer combo. If you’re lucky, you can hold your Galvanizer until you have one of each of those in hand, and you can drop it on turn 6 instead of 8. Also remember that both of those are magnetic, so if you stick them to a mech already on board, you can push 6 extra damage to face and then wipe the board.

And if you somehow can get Zilliax onto Missile Launcher + Venomizer, or even just Zilliax + Missile Launcher, and there’s still a bunch of stuff on board (like your bombs), it can heal you up for a decent amount. It’s rare, but I saw it pulled off once – against me, unfortunately.

The only one of those I think could have been a problem is Malygos, but with the new rotation, Kobold Illusionist leaves standard, which kills the Malygos rogue combo, and clone/resurrect priest loses so many cards it’s unusable too.

And after all, it is the Year of the Dragon, so it wouldn’t be right to move any dragons out …

You’ve still got a bunch of time to gather some more dust. And then there’s always next time. It seems like the HoF changes are always going to coincide with the first set of the year, probably around April. So it would be a good idea to save up dust in anticipation of that every year, if you can remember.

Agreed with PennFifteen. While you should be safe to wait until the end of the month, it’s easy to forget, and then you might be kicking yourself for missing out.

If you’re not planning on keeping the cards after, then I would start with getting a golden Genn Greymane (which you don’t have, unless I’m misreading) for 3200 dust, since you can afford that. You’ll get the best return on that one (50%) since you don’t already have it. (Don’t upgrade your Baku to golden, there’s no net gain.) You’re “investing” 3200 when you craft the golden Genn, then you get 3200 back in the HoF refund, and you can disenchant the golden Genn for 1600.

These are the return percentages if you don’t have the dust to “invest” in them all (again, assuming you don’t already have these cards):

Golden legendary (3200 investment, 3200 refund, 1600 disenchant) – 50% return
Regular legendary (1600 investment, 1600 refund, 400 disenchant) – 25% return

Golden epic (1600 investment, 1600 refund, 400 disenchant) – 25% return
Regular epic (400 investment, 400 refund, 100 disenchant) – 25% return

Golden rare (800 investment, 800 refund, 100 disenchant) – 12.5% return *
Regular rare (100 investment, 100 refund, 20 disenchant) – 20% return *

Golden common (400 investment, 400 refund, 50 disenchant) – 12.5% return
Regular common (40 investment, 40 refund, 5 disenchant) – 12.5% return

* Typically you want to go down this list, in order of decreasing rarity, but if you have limited dust to invest and can’t get them all, you’ll want to prioritize the regular rares after the legendaries and epics.

Hope that helps!

Yes. If you plan to use the golden versions for a while, this makes sense to upgrade.

However, if you were thinking about doing this just to disenchant all versions of those cards right after, then you’ll get the same result in not doing anything right now. If you have non-golden versions for each, you’re going to get 1600 for each for free when they go into the HoF, then you can disenchant them for 400 each after. You’ll net 2000 dust each (4000 dust total) for getting rid of both of them after the HoF rotation.

If you upgrade to golden before and then disenchant your golden version after, for each one you’ll pay 3200 to craft the golden, get 400 for disenchanting the regular, get 3200 back in the refund, and get 1600 for disenchanting the golden. You’ll net 2000 dust each (4000 dust total), which is the same as not upgrading at all.

If that’s your plan, the only difference I can see is that you’ll have some dust tied up and you’ll temporarily have golden versions. If you think you’re going to use the goldens for a while, it’s not a terrible idea. But if you’re going to disenchant them right away, it might not be worth the effort.

Yup! That’s another good point. If you don’t have some of these cards, and you don’t want them at all, you can use this strategy to get free dust. Craft the card, wait until you get the same amount you paid to craft it back as a dust refund, then disenchant it and get the disenchant value as a bonus. The disenchant value should stay the same “forever” so you don’t have to disenchant it right away.

I personally find that most of the cards moved to the HoF are still powerful in Wild, so I like to keep them and I don’t think about disenchanting them after. However, I’ll probably end up disenchanting my Gloom Stags and Glitter Moths if/when I need the dust.

You only get the free dust for cards up to the maximum you could use in a deck (which you’ve already hit). Technically, yes it’s a free craft to get the golden for a card you already have the regular version of. But you get less free dust overall. For example, in your case you would get 100 dust free for each regular Divine Favor. Net gain of 200 dust. If you craft 2 golden versions, it would cost you 1600 dust (800×2), you would get 1600 dust in the free refund, and the 2 regular Divine Favors don’t get you anything since they’re beyond the maximum in a deck. You could disenchant them before or after and get 40 dust for them. Net gain of 40 dust. You could look at it as, would I rather have make my 2 Divine Favors golden and get 40 free dust, or just get 200 free dust instead?

For these cards going into the HoF, the net dust costs to “upgrade” regular versions to golden (assuming you already have the max cards for a deck) are 35 for common, 80 for rare, 300 for epic, 1200 for legendary. You take the regular version HoF dust refund (what you would have gotten for free if you didn’t “upgrade”) and subtract the disenchant value for the regular version. (The cost of crafting the golden version and the golden version HoF dust refund are part of this calculation, but they’re equal so they cancel themselves out.)

Normally, or for cards not going into the HoF, the net dust costs to upgrade are 395 for common, 780 for rare, 1500 for epic, 2800 for legendary. You take the golden crafting cost and subtract the disenchant value for the regular version.

I spent the dust to upgrade my commons and rares going into the HoF. I’m willing to pay 35 or 80 dust for cards I might use in Wild. But I’d rather have an extra free 300 dust than to switch to a golden version of Gloom Stag or Glitter Moth, and I’d rather have an extra free 1200 dust than to switch to a golden Genn or Baku (though I do like them, 1200 is still a lot).

Hope this helps some people out (and hopefully my math is correct).

I’m not sure where the additional 5600 is coming from in your calculation? I count 12800 for all of them, golden and non-golden. Either way, that’s still a lot of dust!