In the end I bought one (1) pack of TGT for each account. It was ok. Got some commons I needed, but nothing amazing. I will probably keep 500G in reserve to get TGT packs in case Totem Shaman becomes a thing, but for now I will just craft the Argent Horseriders and spend the rest of my gold on Classic packs. The chance to get Sylvanas, Druid Epics, or Priest Epics is way more enticing than even the legendary TGT cards.
I definitely think you should save up your gold for at least Naxx and probably the first wing of BRM too (though the second wing is worthwhile just for Imp Gang Boss). Iâve been helping my sister to improve her account from around a month and a half ago. She had basically nothing and hadnât even leveled all her heroes to 10. Now she has:
- Two wings of Naxx
- Two wings of BRM
- Good Aggro Paladin for dailies
- Good Zoo Warlock for dailies
- Good Face Hunter for dailies
- Good Mech Mage for dailies
- Decent Aggro Shaman for dailies
Not saying that her decks are full power or anything. They donât have all the best cards, but they arenât playing any bad cards either. And it wouldnât have been possible to build most of those decks without the power of Naxx and BRM cards.
I will cross-post a âzero to heroâ guide I wrote for another forum. Hope this helps:
Spoiler
You start by completing all the basic cards. Do all the default quests for newbies. You really shouldnât waste too much time playing against other people until youâve gotten all your classes to level 10. From there, you build your basic deck. It should look something like this:
2 Acidic Swamp Ooze
2 Bloodfen Raptor
2 Shattered Sun Cleric
2 Ironfur Grizzly
2 Chillwind Yeti
2 Senjin Shieldmasta
2 Gnomish Inventor
2 Frostwolf Warlord
2 Boulderfist Ogre
2 Stormwind Champion
10 Class-specific Spells
Sometimes there wonât be enough good class specific spells to go up to ten. In this case you use Bluegill Warrior or Wolfrider because they can serve as pseudo removal spells by charging into opposing minions.
The main issues with the above deck are the three and five-cost minions. Ironfur Grizzly is basically unplayable, as is Frostwolf Warlord. You will want to replace them ASAP. An easy way to replace the Grizzly from the get-go is to take the worst card you got from your initial free packs and disenchant it. Youâll get some small amount of dust, plus a bunch more as a reward for dusting your first card. This will be enough to craft two Spider Tanks, which will be a great investment that you will continue to use for many months.
The five-drop is trickier. You wonât have much dust left after crafting the Spider Tanks, and there arenât really any great common options for five-drops either. You might have to make do with those Frostwolfs for a bit, but if youâre impatient you could craft some Stranglethorn Tigers or Silver Hand Knights. What I actually suggest is to go for Azure Drakes or Sludge Belchers.
Azure Drake is a rare card in the basic set. You get 4/4 stats and draw a card, plus a fringe spellpower ability. Pretty good. You could probably play enough to get two of these in a week. You wonât be using them in a ton of decks after youâve built up a collection, but they will see some play. If you want a five-drop that you will be using over and over again in many lists, you should go for Sludge Belcher from the second wing of Naxxramas. The problem with that approach is you need to save up 1400 gold to get two Naxxramas wings. Youâll have to do that eventually though, so maybe itâs fine.
Once youâve shored up the cards for turn three and five, your basic decks should at least look respectable. Something like this:
2 Acidic Swamp Ooze
2 Bloodfen Raptor
2 Shattered Sun Cleric
2 Spider Tank
2 Chillwind Yeti
2 Senjin Shieldmasta
2 Gnomish Inventor
2 Azure Drake
2 Boulderfist Ogre
2 Stormwind Champion
10 Class-specific Spells
Among the cards you unlock for getting to level 10, here are the additions I suggest you make:
Mage
Arcane Missiles / Arcane Explosion
Frost Bolt
Fireball
Polymorph
Flame Strike
Water Elemental (replacing Gnomish Inventor)
Hunter
Hunterâs Mark
Arcane Shot
Multi-Shot
Kill Command
Animal Companion
Houndmaster (replacing Gnomish Inventor)
Shaman
Rockbiter Weapon
Flametongue Totem
Hex
Bloodlust
Fire Elemental
Paladin
Hand of Protection / Blessing of Might
Hammer of Wrath
Truesilver Champion
Consecration
Blessing of Kings
Priest
Power Word: Shield
Shadow Word: Pain
Shadow Word: Death
Holy Nova
Mind Control
Northshire Cleric (replacing Bloodfen Raptor)
Warlock
Soulfire
Mortal Coil
Shadow Bolt
Drain Life
Hellfire
Warrior
Execute
Fiery War Axe
Heroic Strike
Cleave
Shield Block
Korkron Elite (replacing Gnomish Inventor)
Rogue
Backstab
Deadly Poison
Fan of Knives
Assasinate
Assassinâs Blade
Sprint (replacing one Stormwind Champion)
From this point youâll want to concentrate on collecting the âMechâ cards from the Goblins and Gnomes expansion. They provide the best value for gold by a wide margin, and collecting them will put you well on your way to building one top tier deck (Mech Mage). Here are the initial cards youâll want to get from packs or craft:
2 Mechwarper
2 Piloted Shredder
2 Mechanical Yeti
After some time your basic decks should look more like this:
2 Acidic Swamp Ooze
2 Mechwarper
2 Shattered Sun Cleric
2 Spider Tank
2 Piloted Shredder
2 Mechanical Yeti
2 Senjin Shieldmasta
2 Azure Drake
2 Boulderfist Ogre
2 Stormwind Champion
10 Class-specific Spells
Once you have the above list, youâll be done with the âbasicâ build for each class. Youâre going to want to diversify your lists into actual decks with specific strategies. I suggest to build the following decks in this order:
- Mech Mage
- Mech Shaman
- Aggro Paladin
- Face Hunter
- Warlock Zoo
- Patron Warrior
- Control Priest
- Ramp Druid
- Oil Rogue
Go online and look for budget versions of those decks to build towards. Donât waste time crafting cards you donât need for those lists. If you get a card from a pack and itâs not played in those decks, dust it to craft the cards you do need.
You could keep a card you like if you think itâll be useful in a deck you want to build later, but the utility of this is debatable. Say you get a golden Antonidas (legendary card), and you want to keep it since you want to build a fully-powered Mech Mage or Waker Mage deck down the line. Itâs possible that youâd be better served turning it into dust and crafting all the rares and commons you need to build decks for all your classes. This will supercharge the decks you use to complete daily quests, and maybe even result in you earning back that dust to re-craft Antonidas in the meantime.
In the end itâs up to you, but personally I would err on the side of dusting cards if your collection is still small. If youâve got a nice selection of commons and rares you could just keep it in reserve.
One more piece of advice: when doing daily quests if you are matched up against a slow deck and itâs not going well just concede ASAP. Donât waste time banging your head against a wall. I could concede three times on early turns and win two games with Face Hunter in the time it takes to finish one game against Freeze Mage.
