How to invest Gold?

[CzarnyAfgan 0]

Hi. 

I have question to all f2p players how to invest gold to get missing cards. 

I have all gadzetan cards exlude few not important legendaries and i still miss many classic cards - esspecialy class epics and legends. 

And here is my question - better to spend gold for packs or rush arena and craft cards from dusted once? 

[positiv2 950]

This highly depends on your current collection and on your average winrate in arena. 

So, the first question is: Arena or Packs? (assuming you already have all the important adventures).
Arena is a better source of both gold and dust if you are good enough. If your average is at least 4 wins, feel free to buy arena. If you are unsure of your average, buy 5-ish arena runs and then decide based on your average. 

If your average in arena is less than 4, you should buy packs. Now, there is the second question: Which packs to buy?
The answer is quite simple - find a deck you want and keep buying cards from the set you are missing most cards from for the deck. For example, if you are missing 5 classic cards, 3 WotOG cards and one MSoG card, you best bet is to buy classic packs, then WotOG packs and preferably craft the MSG one.
Now, this is nothing but a general advice and there are a ton of exceptions and improvements, like calculating the chance of getting a card you need, when the set is going to rotate and how important those missing cards are, so if you have a more specific question, feel free to ask.

[Guest]

Like positiv2 said, arena is good if you get 4wins+.

But arena has one negative point: You always get a pack of the acutal expansion. If you don't need this one and you can only dust most of the cards it is difficult to decide how could you have to be in arena until it is worth it.

(Example: If you win 50 gold + pack you are even - since you paid 150 gold and the pack is worth a 100 gold. But if you can only dust it your gold would have been way better spent buying a pack where you have a good chance of getting cards you need.)

But getting epics / legendaries is quite hard, classic has a lot of epic cards (lot's of them not realy usefull) - so getting your needed epics is not a sure thing. (Personally I got around 400 - 500 classic packs through the years. Yet I have no Doomhammer or Pyroblast or Ice Block or Cabal Shadow Priest )

Taking this into account you could argue, that it is better to get packs the cheapest way possible, dust everything and just craft every card you need. And here we are - arena, yet again^^

Here some stats about arena, maybe you will find it usefull to decide:

I played 55 arena runs. Each pack I got from arena I valued with 100 gold. Each card I got in arena (you can get common, rare, epic, even legendary - golden or normal) I valued with the amount of dust I would get when I dusted the card.

Average Winrate: 5,0

Total Gold gained: 3280 *

Total Dust gained: 1000

 

*But don't forget, 55 arena runs means I got 55 packs of MSoG - which have a gold value of 5500 in my math. If you value these packs less, your total gold gained will be drastically less!

 

And there is the fun. Personally I like playing arena a lot. Winning in arena feels so much greater then winning a normal game (winning a normal game doesn't give you much, but winning an arena game means getting better rewards).

Believe me, the first time you get to 12 arena wins is amazing :)

 

Giving arena a try seems definitly a good advice.

 

[CzarnyAfgan 0]

Thanks guys for response :)

Yeah, i really enjoy arena, usually have around 5+ wins and have some 10+ runs last time, so in math is deffinately better for me to play arena. Only reason i have those question is that i have all what i want from gadzetan. But you guys have right - chance to find specific card is is really low and i have more profit dusting cards and make new for dust :)

[Valkyr 55]

Disclaimer: these pointers dictate my personal strategy. I by no means claim this to be an absolute or the best strategy and would welcome any pointers or corrections to things i may have wrong.

 

TL;DR:

1. If you get max avg.  of 5 wins in arena, you have to see if you need more epics and legendaries in classic or current set. (i find arena to be too risky for a format based on quite a bit of RNG. i.e. causal and ranked cost nothing and ranked yields its own end season rewards.)

2. Stick to one set until you get a legendary from that set. (it is impossible to open 40 packs of a particular set without getting a single legendary and chances of getting a legendary after opening 20 legenadaryless packs of a particular set, are very high i.e pity counter). Since you get around 1.2 classic packs for free every week, its actually slightly faster to get a classic legendary than any other set for a F2P player. (if you are spending gold on buying packs)

4. Compare your ratio of no. of cards (epic or legendary) needed in a set vs. total no. of cards (epic or legendary) in a set. this helps determine if you get a legendary/epic in a pack that you actually need and lets you decide which set to buy. You can customize this ratio by giving more weightage to legendaries that are used in more decks or more classes,. (patches vs. vancleef vs. alexstraza)

3. In the long run, Classic cards in many cases trump new cards, since they wont rotate out of standard (for the most part), and when they do, you get the craft value in dust back, allowing you to craft something else of the same rarity for free. It is advisable to get most of the useful cards and legendaries from classic first. (this may change with Rag and Sylvanas leaving classic since it will reduce the ratio; # of useful classic cards vs. # of total classic cards) This may also change with power levels of subsequent expansion but so far blizzard philosophy is to keep a "healthy" no. of classic cards alive, unless they leave no room for new cards to be played.

--------------------------------------------------------- Detailed pointers below----------------------------------------------------------

As many have said averaging 5 wins in arena means you are in profit as far as packs to gold ratio is concerned. (not talking about infinite arena's here, which requires 7+ wins). But there is a lost opportunity cost involved here, which is simply, where else could that gold have been gone if it wasn't for arena. (towards a set or adventure from which you actually needed the cards... in your case, classic)

I would recommend getting a decent classic collection first. That way you can focus on the most recent sets as they come. otherwise you will always be playing catch up. e.g: TgT had many unused cards. It was better to just buy classic cards in those days for a f2p or new player. Question is, how do you know when you have graduated from the new player threshold to the "I have enough classic cards" threshold. 

I base this decision primarily on [no. of legendary and epic cards i need from a set/total no. of legendaries and epics in a set] for any two sets, since there is a hard limit on how many epicless and legendaryless packs you can open before getting an epic or before getting a legendary. (10 for epic and 40 for legendary). The rares and commons i see as a biproduct of opening packs while looking for a particular epic or legendary. If this ratio comes out to be the same for any set vs classic, I would seek classic sets first, since classic will never go out of standard for the most part.  Infact, even if the ratio is a bit less for classic, I would stick with classic. Now you can make this more comprehensive by looking at specific class legendaries, or legendaries for a specific deck.... (e.g patches is used currently in ALOT more decks than alexstraza)...

If you are looking for just dust value, classic will net greater dust value in a shorter span of time, since you will be getting on average around 1.2 free classic packs from tavern brawl and quests per week (estimated figure) you will be hitting your pity counter more frequently.

 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Valkyr said:

2. Stick to one set until you get a legendary from that set. (it is impossible to open 40 packs of a particular set without getting a single legendary and chances of getting a legendary after opening 20 legenadaryless packs of a particular set, are very high i.e pity counter).

 

 

Your chances of a legendary increase after 35 (or was it 37?) packs (same set) without a legendary.

Not after 20.

[positiv2 950]

1 hour ago, WedgeAntilles said:

Your chances of a legendary increase after 35 (or was it 37?) packs (same set) without a legendary.

Not after 20.

Yeah, it increases after 35 packs.

[Valkyr 55]

I stand corrected. However in my experience, if you have average luck, you tend to get a legendary around 20-25 openings.

[Guest]

45 minutes ago, Valkyr said:

I stand corrected. However in my experience, if you have average luck, you tend to get a legendary around 20-25 openings.

From my experience with several hundred opened packs I can't agree.

I get a legendary at around 30 - 35 packs. Closer to 35 then to 30.

Friend of mine has similiar stats. He too opened a few hundred packs and get at most every 30th pack a card. More like every 35th.

 

[Valkyr 55]

Really? I have come to expect 2 legendaries for every 50 packs i open on average. Usually, both of them are boogeymonsters.

Edit: ofcoarse it can be 1 legendary in those 50 too, but another one will pop up soon enough if i keep at it.

Edited March 7, 2017 by Valkyr

[Guest]

I started to list my packs a few month ago. And since I didn't disentchant my cards I could recreate how money packs from some expansions (the later ones)

MSoG: 62 packs, 2 legendaries. (the last one was 6 packs ago)

Whisper of the old God: 71 packs, 1 legendary - pity timer will kick in soon.

Grand Tournament: 44 packs, 2 legendaries -> Very lucky

Original packs: I don't have a correct number here, with some calculations about earned money and free packs / week I can guess a number which is halfway accurate. With this number I get around 30 - 35 packs till I get a legendary.

 

If you get around 2 legendaries in 50 packs, may I ask if this includes opening lots of packs at once? If you look at the opening vids on youtube with players opening lots (sometimes hundreds) of packs at once you realize that they get an average of around 1 legendary on 20 packs. Maybe all of them are very lucky and me and my friend are just the least lucky players in the world. But I still think (even if KingMe + positiv2 don't agree) that there is another counter if you open lots of packs at once:

https://www.icy-veins.com/forums/topic/26732-opening-packs-a-theory/

I have found lots of vids which support the theory. And I haven't found a single vid with 100 packs opened and only 2 or 3 legendaries appearing.

Edited March 8, 2017 by Guest