Last Updated: December 30, 2015
This is the tenth part of the Free to Play Journeyman Hearthstone Guide Series. Be sure to check out the other articles in the series here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8 and Part 9.
Adjusting Aim
There are far more decisions to make in Hearthstone than we realise at first, especially for those of us who commit to spending $0 on the game. Should I reroll that favourable but only 40g quest? Should I try something experimental in ranked play? Should I have one last chocolate? Those decisions seem trivial as all too often we are swayed by how we feel at the time or what motivates us to sit down and play the game today. Maybe we have a strong Paladin deck coupled with a 5 wins Paladin 60g quest, but somehow we would rather be playing the Rogue deck we built yesterday because it's more interesting and we're bored of having played Paladin the last 4 days straight. Maybe we'd rather play a deck that handles Mage a little better, having played 4 Mage opponents of the last 5. Maybe that chocolate has spent the day sitting in the sun and now is just a gooey mess. Certain decisions are rather more weighty. What to spend 1600 dust on, for starters. Once we have dispensed with the formalities (Dr. Boom


Redefining the Rules
As you may recall, when starting this series 7 months ago I said:"The goal is for all my decks to suck equally much in order that class-specific daily quests are not arduous for one or two classes while being a breeze for others."
My collection has matured significantly during the intervening period by opening over 120 packs (mainly Classic, with the frankly ridiculous rate of hitting a legendary minion almost twice as often as should be expected) while unlocking the cards from the first 4 wings of the Curse of Naxxramas (Naxx) and the first wing of the Blackrock Mountain (BRM) adventure sets. However, in the intervening period, Blizzard has released not only an expansion set (The Grand Tournament - TGT) but also another adventure set (League of Explorers - LoE), and the cards from these sets have dramatically altered the landscape in which the game in played. Cards that were good now suck, while others that sucked became good for a while and then got
banned nerfed. As this season progressed, I felt I needed to re-evaluate my goals. The introduction of the end of season chest reward provides a carrot for focussing on ranked play. It offers 5 packages rather than 4 starting at rank 10, so that must surely be the first target for the season's end. At rank 5 I believe the reward includes a random Golden Epic rarity card, which will either be a valuable addition to any collection or will provide 400 dust, either for an Epic of choice or as a down payment on a Legendary minion. As a famous football manager once said, "Aim for the sky and you will reach the ceiling. Aim for the ceiling and you will stay on the floor." Having reached rank 10 with my US FTP account, I think it's time to adjust my aim for something closer to the Legend sky; rank 5. To get there I will need to focus on "proper" decks, aka those good enough to take better players with more time through the ranks to Legend. This implies that, while my ultimate goal remains to have a collection where I can pull out any deck on any given day and it will remain competitive at my ceiling rank, for now I will have to focus, to pick my poison, and use that focus as provider for the decks that follow. It may be that as a trade-off I am forced to spend some time in the casual room completing quests. Although I took stock of my collection in Part 8 of this series, I've had another look at the current crop of viable decks in order to realign my goals with reality. In doing so I realised that my route must change.
What was I Thinking?


































Class Examination
Priest Let's start with what I consider to be my strongest class. There are 2 legend-viable strategies with Priest: Control and Dragon. The cards I am missing from a typical Dragon list are: 2 Cabal Shadow Priest








































































Summary - tl;dr
With 900 dust to burn the goal was abundantly clear. Craft: 2 each of Knife Juggler, Defender of Argus, Imp-losion, Eaglehorn Bow and Argent Horserider. Then save 1400g for BRM 2 and LoE 1 (getting Forgotten Torch




Next Installment
This article was quite exhaustive, so thank you so much for taking the time to read through my ramblings. As ever please feel free to provide your $0.02 in the comments section below.SHOW MORE
Last Updated: December 30, 2015
This is the tenth part of the Free to Play Journeyman Hearthstone Guide Series. Be sure to check out the other articles in the series here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8 and Part 9.
Adjusting Aim
There are far more decisions to make in Hearthstone than we realise at first, especially for those of us who commit to spending $0 on the game. Should I reroll that favourable but only 40g quest? Should I try something experimental in ranked play? Should I have one last chocolate? Those decisions seem trivial as all too often we are swayed by how we feel at the time or what motivates us to sit down and play the game today. Maybe we have a strong Paladin deck coupled with a 5 wins Paladin 60g quest, but somehow we would rather be playing the Rogue deck we built yesterday because it's more interesting and we're bored of having played Paladin the last 4 days straight. Maybe we'd rather play a deck that handles Mage a little better, having played 4 Mage opponents of the last 5. Maybe that chocolate has spent the day sitting in the sun and now is just a gooey mess. Certain decisions are rather more weighty. What to spend 1600 dust on, for starters. Once we have dispensed with the formalities (Dr. Boom


Redefining the Rules
As you may recall, when starting this series 7 months ago I said:"The goal is for all my decks to suck equally much in order that class-specific daily quests are not arduous for one or two classes while being a breeze for others."
My collection has matured significantly during the intervening period by opening over 120 packs (mainly Classic, with the frankly ridiculous rate of hitting a legendary minion almost twice as often as should be expected) while unlocking the cards from the first 4 wings of the Curse of Naxxramas (Naxx) and the first wing of the Blackrock Mountain (BRM) adventure sets. However, in the intervening period, Blizzard has released not only an expansion set (The Grand Tournament - TGT) but also another adventure set (League of Explorers - LoE), and the cards from these sets have dramatically altered the landscape in which the game in played. Cards that were good now suck, while others that sucked became good for a while and then got
banned nerfed. As this season progressed, I felt I needed to re-evaluate my goals. The introduction of the end of season chest reward provides a carrot for focussing on ranked play. It offers 5 packages rather than 4 starting at rank 10, so that must surely be the first target for the season's end. At rank 5 I believe the reward includes a random Golden Epic rarity card, which will either be a valuable addition to any collection or will provide 400 dust, either for an Epic of choice or as a down payment on a Legendary minion. As a famous football manager once said, "Aim for the sky and you will reach the ceiling. Aim for the ceiling and you will stay on the floor." Having reached rank 10 with my US FTP account, I think it's time to adjust my aim for something closer to the Legend sky; rank 5. To get there I will need to focus on "proper" decks, aka those good enough to take better players with more time through the ranks to Legend. This implies that, while my ultimate goal remains to have a collection where I can pull out any deck on any given day and it will remain competitive at my ceiling rank, for now I will have to focus, to pick my poison, and use that focus as provider for the decks that follow. It may be that as a trade-off I am forced to spend some time in the casual room completing quests. Although I took stock of my collection in Part 8 of this series, I've had another look at the current crop of viable decks in order to realign my goals with reality. In doing so I realised that my route must change.
What was I Thinking?


































Class Examination
Priest Let's start with what I consider to be my strongest class. There are 2 legend-viable strategies with Priest: Control and Dragon. The cards I am missing from a typical Dragon list are: 2 Cabal Shadow Priest








































































Summary - tl;dr
With 900 dust to burn the goal was abundantly clear. Craft: 2 each of Knife Juggler, Defender of Argus, Imp-losion, Eaglehorn Bow and Argent Horserider. Then save 1400g for BRM 2 and LoE 1 (getting Forgotten Torch




Next Installment
This article was quite exhaustive, so thank you so much for taking the time to read through my ramblings. As ever please feel free to provide your $0.02 in the comments section below.SHOW MORE
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