Comprehensive guides

[Jasmeralia 3]

I've seen guides on how to do dungeon runs, but beyond that I haven't found a lot. I know there a lot of archetypes like Dragon Priest, Zoolock, etc., but I'm not sure what all of the archetypes are or how to figure out what works best without requiring too much dust. I'd like to go through the solo content but also get more familiar with casual standard play. And I know once you get into that territory, the "best" combination of decks will vary wildly based on the current state of the meta and recent patches/nerfs, and I don't know where to go to track that. I know you can also see decks from highly ranked players on Hearthpwn, but I'm not sure who to follow. (And that may require a lot of dust, right now I have 1775 atm.)

I'm working towards getting to level 10 with all the classes so I have all the basic cards gained from that, but my focus has been my mage (L20 with Archmage Antonidas, Pyros, Aluneth, Sindragosa, Dragoncaller Alanna), rogue (L11 with Perdition Blade), Walock (L11 with Lakkari Sacrifice, Rin the First Disciple, and Bloodreaver Gul'dan), and paladin (L10 with Uther of the Ebon Blade, Lynessa Sunsorrow, and Val'anyr). The one I'm levelling now is a priest, she's around 5.

https://www.hearthpwn.com/members/Jasmeralia/decks 

TLDR; how do I get more serious about this game to the point that I can dip my toes into ranked play confidently vs expecting to fail miserably?

[Caldyrvan 377]

1. About guides/archetypes:

Once you get used to browse on Icy Veins you will easily find most of the content you are looking for, try the Search it's not as stupid as on many forums I saw and I usually find what I was looking for. What the archetypes mean is well explained, e.g: Aggro/Tempo Rogue. The guide explains the base idea, tactics and core cards of the type, followed by a number of decks of that archetype. Not all decks of one type are played exactly the same but every deck has it's own guide to explain what's going with that deck.

2. Getting Familiar:

The list of guides you can find here, Guides to get started with Hearthstone are also written well and will answer most of your question as well as giving you more insight to how the game in general, certain mechanics, meta etc work.

2. Getting good decks/how to use Arcane Dust:

Short Note: Don't spend gold/dust/money on packs/cards for the sets Whispers of the Old Gods and Mean Streets of Gadgetzan and the Adventure Karazhan. If you want to play standard this would be a waste because those sets will rotate out of standard in about two months (no exact date for this currently)

As a fairly new player I would suggest to save your dust for now. Once you get into the game you will have a better insight what is useful to craft as well as what is fun/desirable for you to play. Start with classes you already enjoy and you feel comfortable to play, look for cheap deck lists and slowly try to modify your decks by including better/more useful cards. Additionally you may look at your decks which cards there make sense and which not (e.g. Dragoncaller Alanna, it may look temping to use a legend but not every legend is great or does not fit in all decks, in this case if your deck can't make sure you will have played at least 3 spells which cost 5 or more mana this card is not something you want in your deck)

4 Final word:

It's hard to cover everything and to answer all question a newer player has but I hope this is at least a bit helpful and after some time you will get used to a lot things which may look strange for you atm.

 

I wish you fun :)

[VaraTreledees 138]

The three websites people use to track the meta are generally HSreplay, vicious syndicate, and tempo storm.  Most people prefer either VS or HSreplay, they are data driven websites which track statistical win rates of decks and put them into tiers based off of that.  I prefer Tempo storm, for several reasons, their tier lists are curated by legend players who have a large amount of experience in their respective classes, and I find the information to just be a little more relevant, and I have never found statistic based analysis of win rates to be an effective way to determine the power level of decks.  There are several reasons behind this, the main one is that harder decks always have a much lower win rate then easier decks, VS has miracle rogue at around a 45% win rate, which is no where near my win rate with the deck, but the deck is incredibly difficult to pilot.  Also, hearthstone has no API, so all the statistics these sites gather are inherently flawed, because they only take user submitted data into account.  That being said, statistical analysis of decks can be very useful, and it isn't necessarily a bad way to approach the game, it just isn't my way.

 

On a note of more general advice, download a deck tracker for this game.  It makes things so much easier, lets you see what cards are still left in your deck and what cards your opponent has played, I cannot recommend them enough.  I use hearthstone deck tracker, there are a few more, find one you like.  Also Aleco, one of the writers on this site, has 2 or 3 very well written  guides for new people who want to get serious about this game, I would recommend reading them.  They are the "legend in the making" guide under the HS tab, read them, love them.

 

Also, as Caldyrvan said, I would save your dust.  Standard rotates soon, so what is going to be good in April is going to be much different then what is good right now.  And if you have not yet, I would suggest buying the mammoth bundle and, especially, the intro pack, really good value for your money, unless you don't want to spend any money on this game at all.  There are also some solo content to do, gives you a free legendary weapon and death knight hero card.

Edited February 18, 2018 by VaraTreledees

[Jasmeralia 3]

Thanks everyone.

9 hours ago, VaraTreledees said:

The three websites people use to track the meta are generally HSreplay, vicious syndicate, and tempo storm.  Most people prefer either VS or HSreplay, they are data driven websites which track statistical win rates of decks and put them into tiers based off of that.  I prefer Tempo storm, for several reasons, their tier lists are curated by legend players who have a large amount of experience in their respective classes, and I find the information to just be a little more relevant, and I have never found statistic based analysis of win rates to be an effective way to determine the power level of decks.  There are several reasons behind this, the main one is that harder decks always have a much lower win rate then easier decks, VS has miracle rogue at around a 45% win rate, which is no where near my win rate with the deck, but the deck is incredibly difficult to pilot.  Also, hearthstone has no API, so all the statistics these sites gather are inherently flawed, because they only take user submitted data into account.  That being said, statistical analysis of decks can be very useful, and it isn't necessarily a bad way to approach the game, it just isn't my way.

 

On a note of more general advice, download a deck tracker for this game.  It makes things so much easier, lets you see what cards are still left in your deck and what cards your opponent has played, I cannot recommend them enough.  I use hearthstone deck tracker, there are a few more, find one you like.  Also Aleco, one of the writers on this site, has 2 or 3 very well written  guides for new people who want to get serious about this game, I would recommend reading them.  They are the "legend in the making" guide under the HS tab, read them, love them.

 

Also, as Caldyrvan said, I would save your dust.  Standard rotates soon, so what is going to be good in April is going to be much different then what is good right now.  And if you have not yet, I would suggest buying the mammoth bundle and, especially, the intro pack, really good value for your money, unless you don't want to spend any money on this game at all.  There are also some solo content to do, gives you a free legendary weapon and death knight hero card.

I already bought those bundles along with 40 or so K&C packs and same with Classic packs (I think maybe WOTLK as well, can't remember).

Edited February 19, 2018 by Jasmeralia
Typo

[Jasmeralia 3]

Are there any cards I should explicitly dust btw? Like Alanna for example, is she worth keeping in any fashion or is she more valuable as dust?

 

Still working my way through the links, thanks again for that wealth of info.

[VaraTreledees 138]

2 hours ago, Jasmeralia said:

Are there any cards I should explicitly dust btw? Like Alanna for example, is she worth keeping in any fashion or is she more valuable as dust?

 

Still working my way through the links, thanks again for that wealth of info.

Alanna is good if you want to play control mage, if that isn't your thing, then she is probably more valuable as dust.  If you don't know what you want to play, save it.  You can always dust it later.

[Caldyrvan 377]

Maybe an important information regarding legendary cards:

As long as you don't have all legends of a set you can't get duplicates. So if you plan to get more packs from Kobolds & Catacombs it is better to keep them (my opinion) because if you dust it the next legend you get from the same set might be the legend you disenchated again.

For the moment, and I guess especially when you are new and lack dust and good cards, it might be nice to have 400 dust but on the long run it's worth to keep them.

An exception might be if you have all legends from one set you want and you don't care if the next legend you get is the same again or one you miss and/or you don't want to spend any more gold/money on a certain set and you are satisfied with the cards you have from that set.

[Jasmeralia 3]

I didn't realize there was deduplication code but that makes total sense, thanks.

[Caldyrvan 377]

You can get unlimited duplicates of common, rare and epic cards. Not long ago this was true for legendary cards too.

They changed it because getting a legend should be something great and because not all legends are good (some are totally useless) it is even more disappointing to get the same legend you don't want again.

Edited February 19, 2018 by Caldyrvan

[FanOfValeera 253]

28 minutes ago, Caldyrvan said:

You can get unlimited duplicates of common, rare and epic cards. Not long ago this was true for legendary cards too.

They changed it because getting a legend should be something great and because not all legends are good (some are totally useless) it is even more disappointing to get the same legend you don't want again.

Plus, that serves to eliminate one of the biggest disappointments in this game; crafting a legendary with your hard-earned dust, only to get it from packs the same day, or the next day.

[Caldyrvan 377]

1 minute ago, FanOfValeera said:

Plus, that serves to eliminate one of the biggest disappointments in this game; crafting a legendary with your hard-earned dust, only to get it from packs the same day, or the next day.

Oh right, I totally forgot about that, these were very bad times.

[Synesthesy 114]

On 18/2/2018 at 9:28 AM, Jasmeralia said:

I've seen guides on how to do dungeon runs, but beyond that I haven't found a lot. I know there a lot of archetypes like Dragon Priest, Zoolock, etc., but I'm not sure what all of the archetypes are or how to figure out what works best without requiring too much dust. I'd like to go through the solo content but also get more familiar with casual standard play. And I know once you get into that territory, the "best" combination of decks will vary wildly based on the current state of the meta and recent patches/nerfs, and I don't know where to go to track that. I know you can also see decks from highly ranked players on Hearthpwn, but I'm not sure who to follow. (And that may require a lot of dust, right now I have 1775 atm.)

I'm working towards getting to level 10 with all the classes so I have all the basic cards gained from that, but my focus has been my mage (L20 with Archmage Antonidas, Pyros, Aluneth, Sindragosa, Dragoncaller Alanna), rogue (L11 with Perdition Blade), Walock (L11 with Lakkari Sacrifice, Rin the First Disciple, and Bloodreaver Gul'dan), and paladin (L10 with Uther of the Ebon Blade, Lynessa Sunsorrow, and Val'anyr). The one I'm levelling now is a priest, she's around 5.

https://www.hearthpwn.com/members/Jasmeralia/decks 

TLDR; how do I get more serious about this game to the point that I can dip my toes into ranked play confidently vs expecting to fail miserably?

Remember to feel free to post some decklist here, we are glad to help :)

You seem to have a good collection, so I would give you my piece of advice: experiment. The more deck you learn to play, the more good you become. It's true that some archetype needs specific cards, but you can learn how to play them with budget version (and here in the forum, there is people really good at budget sostitutions :) ). Don't focus too much on ranking, focus on fun and on learning. When you'll be ready, rank 5 and then legend will no longer be away.

And remember that owning a meta deck is good, but is not everything. Knowing how to play a weak deck is often better then playing a strong deck bad.

Last but not least, if you can use a decktracker. They help a lot. And they give us replay to watch for helping developing better strathegy.