Is this game pay to win?

Is this game pay to win?
i just started playing

pretty much

It's pay to have fun. But pay to get to the top of the ladder.

gotta get lucky and get the fun cards.

Its much less P2W of you have an understanding of the game.

Many streamers have hit high ladder ranks and even legend with F2P accounts, but this is because they know the game very well. They know what cards to keep and what to dust and use to craft other cards.

If you do some research Im sure you can climb ladder decently enough.

its not pay to win it just speeds up the process.

If you learn to play arenas and average high wins, you get free packs. It's what I did and I have every card, and a few full golden decks.

Doesn't take that long to get enough dust to craft some good decks though. Some of the best decks in the game are cheap.

>can you buy more gameplay options in this game?
Yes
Don't listen to the shitters that don't qualify as pay2notgrind as pay2win, they're running on faulty definitions

It's pay to play. You can't compete without buying a shitton of packs.

But you have to pay for arenas...

Technically you can get every card for free with luck and dust.

However the expansions have cards essential to most decks and take a lot of grinding to get for free. So it's probably less painful to just buy them with your cash.

How's the rarity distribution? Do you actually get playable cards at lower rarities, or is it all rare+ like MTG.

Even if you dont do arena like this user suggests, just taking some time to do some dailies piles up gold decently.

Make sure to do Tavern Brawls every wednesday for a free pack (sometimes great for getting quests done too if decks are premade for you.)

You can also do some tricks to get free packs by playing the game on an ipad or android device and other shit. Pretty sure you can even emulate it and itll work for the freebie.

You can buy arena with gold too, it takes longer but that's exactly what user said

>its not pay to win it just speeds up the process.

I would spend money, but I HATE gambling on virtual stuff. When I spend money on microtransactions, I want to get the thing. I don't want a chance to get the thing.

>Is this game pay to win?

all card games are paid to win, the only good thing about standard is that they have trimmed down the amount you need to sink to have a good deck.

You can play with basic decks (mage is best) but you're gonna have a hard time getting a decent deck with 100 gold a day.

Honestly alot of the solid cards are common or rare at best for a majority of decks, especially the more aggro and midrange stuff, even some of the recent stuff from the new Expansion like Buff Paladin.

Legendaries are awesome but you can make plenty of decks work without them.

I'm trying to stop playing this piece of shit game but I keep booting it up even though I don't have fun with it, any advice?

At a low level, yes. Past rank 10, no because everyone has all the cards. At that point it's just "get lucky to win".

T. Someone who played the game daily for 2 and a half years before dropping it at the latest expansion

That's pretty cool if you can get playables at lower rarities.
The last online tcg I tried was solforge, and that game was pretty fun, until they went full retard with rarity. Like at least 40% of every deck was the highest rarity.

Go outside.

Have fun until the next xpac, then quit when it ruins balance by becoming the strongest card set

Haven't played it for a few months now, but let me give the the breakdown


List of actual viable cards is actually not that big
Its only pay to win if you want the good cards fast
Once you acquire good cards, thats when your wallet will go on vacation, because the game gives you plenty of free cards as it is.
Be smart with which cards you craft, and you should be good.

You should know card knowledge takes a long way, the skill ceiling in HS is relatively low. Heck, even Twitch chat notice the optimal move before the 'pros' do them.
This is not a bad thing though, as you will 'climb' relatively fast because of it.

Remember not to get mad, kick back and enjoy the RNG madness that sometimes unfolds.

Not saying you should avoid HS but I'd also recommend you give Shadowverse a shot, OP. The high satire cards have a lot higher drop rate and you get like 40 free packs right from the start. With a good roll it's easily possible to be running a tier 1 deck day 1.

Ignore all the people who just circlejerk to the anime girls all day - the actual game itself is good.

I follow a streamer who likes to do budget decks and youd be surprised how decently lower rarity stuff works.

Legendaries are rarely worth it for newbies. They cost so much resources to craft and inly fit in 1 or 2 decks at best. There are some really great ones that can find a home almost anywhere, like Ragnaros and Sylvanas, but for 1600 dust youre better off filling ots with solid commoms and rares first. Azure Drake and Loot Hoarder are the cards everyone tells you to craft first because they fit almost anywhere. Drake is Rare and LH is a common

its not get lucky to win. Some games sure, but to be a good ladder player there's a lot more than luck

The amount of inexchangable staples in the standard is high. You're at huge disadvantage if you ever fall behind with day to day daily grind too much. Frankly, the only catch-up mechanic in the game involves your wallet.

>friend nags that its pay to win and he cant win
>make a new account deck, the most basic of basic decks
>he beats all netdecks with it while i guide him how to play

I disagree. I think if you know the game enough and play aggro or midrange most stuff you can replace with value cards like Hoarder, Drake, Ooze, etc. until you get better

>high satire
High rarity*. No idea how that autocorrected to that.

>but to be a good ladder player there's a lot more than luck
Anyone can make it to legend because it's impossible to drop out. The best players in the game have maybe a 51% winrate across all matchups, the most complex the game gets is choosing the most favorable deck against the current meta.

The idea of HS pros is the biggest joke, they're all just big streamers and their buddies. If you can count to 20 and have better luck, you can be the best in the world at HS for a day.

>Is this game pay to win?

Hardly cause your skill doesn't play that much part in this game.


This game is a fucking slot machine when it comes to winning.

There are decks that you can just put on autopilot bot and they will reach legend for you.

Paying to win means that you can gain some advantage with money that cannot be obtained through normal in-game means, so no.

If you're retarded, maybe. Paying to skip a grind that would otherwise take the better part of a year or two is still P2W.

If you can pay for an XP boost, that isn't really P2W. If you can pay to unlock every item in the game, that's P2W.

I think Trump tried to go full F2P several times and he reached a point where it was impossible to win without spending money to get legendary or epic cards.
That seems like P2W

>Year or two

Trump got to the Rank just under legend in like 2 monthes

He actually did hit legend almost every run.

The only time he failed was cause he chose Dragon Priest as his F2P deck and that particular deck takes alot of gold and alot of legendaries to make work, so you can argue he chose a bad deck to do a F2P run with.

> The best players in the game have maybe a 51% winrate across all matchups

You misunderstand how the pro scene works. To get rank 1 legend (which I've done multiple times) you need waaay higher than 51% w/r. Usually somewhere around 75% if a good amount of games. Most pro players have around 58%+ winrate over the month. Some around 65% in 1000's of games. If you check the top 100 finishes for the past months you will see a lot of the same players in top 25.

The tournament meta goes a lot deeper than you think. Yeah some players will get invited to tournaments because they're big streamers but there are also a few players who can consistently win or place top 8 in 100+ person tournaments.

In tournies a lot of the skill comes from preparing a lineup of decks that will beat other lineups that you think people will bring.

This game doesn't have the highest skill ceiling but it's definitely more than a luck-fest.

Source: I'm semi pro, made over 10,000$ from hs in the past 6 months. (it's a hobby to me, not full time)

Amnesiac?

well trumps definition of f2p didn't include grinding even a little bit for cheap cards. He was literally using the most basic cards in the game. Of course it's going to be hard to climb to legend.

yes but so are literally all CCGs

Uninstall.

The midrange Shaman meta broke me and I haven't played in months. I don't understand how you're still playing

no, amnesiac is more known than me, but i dont want to reveal who i am even though no one here would recognize me. I would be pretty surprised if that kid browses Sup Forums

No the problem was he chose decks that need very particular cards.

He hit legend with his F2P mage way back when and I think there was something else he did before doing the Dragon Priest. Dragon Priest is terrible for F2P because you spend loke 2100 gold for 2-3 cards out of blackrock mountain xpac.

fuck yes it is. anyone that tells you different is some kinda fucked up.

my experience with this game is that almost everyone you face has Legendary cards or just completely bullshit cards that you cannot obtain unless you get lucky and even then, really fucking good cards are also locked behind the "Story Modes" you need to pay for.

you gain ranks as you win but losing takes you down a bit and you never go lower than 20, so you have everyone stuck in this fucking bracket or intentionally losing to stay in this bracket so they can fuck you up with their cookie cutter decks they amassed.

its a joke, really. inb4 gitgud. yeah i'll get on that with my basic deck while the enemy gets cards that give him 5 legendaries ABOVE the card cap and cards that literally wipe out my side of the board with little to no fucking cost

Shit game.

>He thinks Malachazaar is good

Dont you have a shield to polish?

it is fucking good you idiot.


when you literally start the game with the basic deck and all you end up against is faggots with that spell and more, you kinda get outplayed constantly, unless the stars align and you get the right cards at the right moment. fuck off.

>Just started
Stop right now. You will never catch up and have fun unless you drop heavy cash. Go and play Shadowverse or Elder Scrolls CCG instead if you want to play CCG. SV gives 3 missions a day instead of 1 like HS, it also gift you with a lot of free stuff, daily login reward and 40 or starting packs to build whatever 1 tier-sss deck you want.

No. And don't let some fucking scrub who can't win without tell you otherwise.

Malchazaar isnt even a spell, so it's clear youre shitposting and trolling. Here's a second (You), Happy Feast of WinterVeil

lol you're retarded, You don't need legendaries for a lot of the good decks. I went from rank 14 to legend on my eu account in 12 hours total with aggro shaman last weekend. I run one legendary, and 1 epic.

150 gold and win 7 or more arena games every single arena

DO NOT SPEND A FUCKING DIME ON THIS SHIT

You clearly know nothing about HS, don't try to give other people advice. Please fuck off.

jesus christ you faggots are dense.

if you have malch in your deck it gets used right off the bat and adds 5 cards to your deck, over the limit the amount you can normally have, im done arguing this shit with you people.

its like talking to fucking Libs.

You can get away with doing around 5 or 6 average which is definitely do-able for most players. 5 or 6 wins + the daily is usually enough for infinite unless you do like 3 or more arenas every day.

Pretty sure this is bait but if you're truly this fucking dumb, then look at legend decks. Hmm not a single one has malchezaar. I wonder why?

>rank 10
>not rank 20

elaborate, i just started and am scrounging for more cards.

different user, but if you want to get lots of cards, try to learn arena and average as many wins you can. If you get 7+ wins you make your gold back and you earn some extras like a pack dust and some cards. If you make it even further you get a lot of gold. You can triple the gold you put in.

I'd say it's pay-to-catch up.

cool, thanks

You have a few options:

1. Play the game casually. It's fun enough that way.

2. Drop some cash and get good. Just dropping the cash will carry you halfway because after rank 10 or so everyone has all the good cards and all that matters is skill.

3. Get good in arena. If you are an above average player, it's basically free stuff. You can just play arena for a while and end up with more gold than you know what to do with. Plus, you might find it more enjoyable than constructed.

if i want to drop cash on the game, how much money would i spend and on what?

last time i did the math it was about $9600 to get all the cards, so anywhere around there and you'll be good

Yes

find some decks that look interesting to you and craft the cards you need, maybe watch some youtube videos or streams to find decks that you might like playing. around 80% of legendaries are bad (if you're try hard) so dont worry about getting every card

That is P2W

That is P2W

That is P2W

That is a incorrect definition.

Yeah at launch you could easily F2P off daily quests/match gold (not to mention people were really bad at arena which made going infinite on that way easier than it is now) and be able to buy adventures and get enough packs/dust to play top tier decks even at expansion launches. Nowadays it is a lot harder since way more people know how to play/have a lot of cards and there are way more cards than at launch even in standard.

Yes it really is

As someone who is a week 1 player and does most of the daily quests I have had a pretty good experience with f2p hearthstone.

That being said I have no idea how someone is expected to to play this game without dropping money if they started today, even at rank 20 you will constantly see 10k dust decks, there is just no way to compete with the basic decks you start with.

I'm on my way to become a full time twitch streamer / youtube content creator by specializing on these 3 games. most likely i'll drop smash but I'm confident I can play with the big boys with these two games.

wish me luck

What's a good warlock deck?

>le content creator

God this triggers me hard.

most posters on v are shit at it, so they will blame anything other themselves on why they never got legend.

There have always been budget decks that are legend viable. There have been pros who went f2p legend in a month. You're unlikely to hit legend in a month unless you're really good, irregardless of if you spent money or not.

Most people seem to think unless you can hit legend instantly then you haven't won but really you're looking at a couple of months of hard learning and acquiring some decent cheap cards. The super expensive ones are just there if you want to be able to play more than 1 deck archtype. So, it's more pay to not be bored out of your mind playing 300-600 games of one aggro or midrange deck.

reno warlock is tier 1 right now

No. It is p2mw. Pay 2 maybe win. A rng cancerfest. Play the superior game: Shadowverse. Spent 0 money. Already have 85% of the cards and a lit of legendaries. Rank A3, soon AA.

Get a fucking job.

A real one. Posting videos on youtube isn't a real job.

>content creator

You fuckers always talk about averaging 7 in arena yet when blizzads released stats of the top arena player having an average of 7.1 you stayed real fuckin silent

The infinite arena dream is a meme

I can confirm this. Been playing shadowverse for a month and the game still keeps showering me with free stuff and rewards. Haven't spend a single dime and have three top tier decks already.

you just need to average 5 or 6 to go infinite with dailies. It's very easy if you have a brain.

yeah okay lad because the daily quests aren't real shit these days, not to mention that if you roll a good one it has to be a relevant class

Except a lot of very good cards can't be crafted and you have to grind or pay to get them through the single player adventures.

If you don't have the cards to build netdecks or something to counter netdecks you're fucked nowadays.

So it's quite pay to win nowadays.

Shadowverse isn't.

If you have nothing against weeaboo aesthetics then there is literally no reason to play HS over Shadowverse.
HS art is shit and all over the place anyway

Its dont be a poorfag to win yes...dont play it you wont be missed.

It's pay to win like every card game but the algorithm also provides favorable RNG to players that spend a lot of money.

It's a pavlov's dog sort of thing

>it's not pay to win because they give you a lot of packs at the start
Idiotic logic

now more that ever, since they're rotating out the old expansion packs with every new expansion.

Not just in the beginning. Just from doing your daily quests, you should expect >1.5 free packs every day. The packs generally hold more value than HS's, too.

They give you free stuff for doing pretty much anything. The ladder in fact rewards you as you advance, not until the end of the month, for example. You get money or packs just from logging in every day. You can easily get 15 packs a week if not more between money and rewards.

source?

it has the moba, defeatist surrender attitude...
The second someone starts losing they surrender

fucking this. you'll easily find tier one netdecks in 25-20

its pay to win

To an extent.

Once you have the cards needed to make a decent deck, it's more about skill.

It's pay to win for the first few weeks.
All collectible card games are pay to win like that.
If you don't have many cards you can't build any good decks.
When you get more cards you get more options and you can build a better deck.

it's grind to win
just stick to rank 20 and grind out the 30 wins a day
with quests and brawl you can get a decent collection just takes time
its a fucking card game its a money pit in the first place