Spend my gold on...

[netwolff 0]

Hi, as a casual (but motivated) player I wonder - should I grind my way through all adventures, go into the arena or simply buy decks with the hard earned gold? I am not willing to pay actual money so what do you suggest, which way to go?

[Valks 2,373]

1 hour ago, netwolff said:

Hi, as a casual (but motivated) player I wonder - should I grind my way through all adventures, go into the arena or simply buy decks with the hard earned gold? I am not willing to pay actual money so what do you suggest, which way to go?

In all honesty, I think it depends on your card selection. If you're missing a huge number of cards, I'd say buying packs is the way to go. Adventures can be great, but the cards are often designed to fit into a pre-existing deck. If you don't have 25 of the required 30 cards, having the 1 adventure card just isn't going to help.

That being said, if you have a solid collection already with a few pre-existing decks, then I'd definitely say go for adventures. If you're playing F2P, I would say leave arena alone. Yes it can be fantastic, but in all honesty, unless you're very good at arena, you're going to end up losing a lot of gold.

[VaraTreledees 138]

Well.  I would definitely buy Kara.  As far as the rest of the adventures, I am not sure if it is more dust/gold efficient to still get those and disenchant them or not, but both BRM and league are rotating out next year, most likely fairly early, so it might not be worth your time to buy them just for the cards (even though quite a few of them are fairly strong).  Also the value of the adventures vary depending on what decks you want to play (Like rogues get basically nothing out of BRM).  Otherwise, arena is a more efficient way of getting dust then buying packs if you enjoy it.  Also this is mostly advice for standard.  If you are playing wild, the adventures are all well worth it.

[Paracel 165]

I would disagree on Karazhan's importance. It's a really good pickup going forward into Standard, but as Blainie said, adventure cards are mostly about complementing existing decks. Karazhan' design is exactly this.

Buying BRM and League isn't exactly great either, however those two are really stocked on playables. Dark Peddler is probably the best Warlock card ever printed, and it belongs to 1st wing of LoE. Same goes for Thaurissan who is common in a lot of decks. Zoo, Aggro Shaman and Token Druid are top tier decks that have LoE cards at their heart, so I'd really advice to pick it up. 

I should mention, though, that buying adventures with cash is a good gold/cash ratio, if you ever wish to open up your wallet. Grinding gold is an exhausting task. But AFAIK you earn enough gold to buy all adventures and 75% of expansion cards doing dailies over a year. A year of dailies, mind it. 

Arena is a huge trap for new players. You need 3 wins to break even and even that's not an easy task. Avoid it unless you are really certain about your skill level and have some gold in your back pocket.

[positiv2 950]

Just like Blainie said, packs are the way to go for newer players, unless you have extensive experience with other CCGs, which would allow you to play arena without losing gold. You need 4+ wins to gain value over buying regular packs, and 7+ wins on average to be able to permanently play arena.
Classic packs offer the highest value as they are a core set, meaning that they will never rotate out of standard, unless Blizzards decides to change the rules. Classic cards are also the most used ones in decks. So, go for classic packs.
Once you have most of the cards you need, or there one specific card you really want from an adventure, such as Tunnel Trogg or Flamewaker, then start the adventures that contain them. Saving for one wing should take about 10 days on average with optimal rerolling strategy - reroll 40g and 50g quests and complete one of only when you have 3 of them.

These are just general rules, and from experience, you should rarely stick to general rules, as there are just too many exceptions. 
One of the most popular strategies to buying packs is to choose a deck to be your "dream deck" and then start buying packs of set that contain most of the missing cards.
Another strategy is to keep buying packs of one set until you find a legendary and then switch to another set. This maximises the effect of pity timer.
There is one similar strategy that revolves around buying packs of set that contains the legendary you want (not necessarily the one you need), and then just keep buying the one set while crafting cards for other sets from the dust you get. I personally use this strategy.

[netwolff 0]

Thank you guys for the quick and good replies :)