Gold, dust and crafting guide to keep your collection competitive, without breaking the bank. *Updated for Ashes of Outland. – April 28, 2020 at 08:28PM

Hi everybody.

About three months ago I posted a dusting and crafting guide on CompetitiveHS. Here is the link:

https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveHS/comments/ekzag3/gold_dust_and_crafting_guide_to_keep_your/

A lot of the info in the old thread is still valid. But some of it isn’t so I decided to update it.

Most of my info comes from Hearthstone Mathematics. Check out their Youtube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqhOimrdTEFrEAyswb3pViA (FYI I have no connection to them. I just like their stuff)

I’m going to assume you’ve read the old guide. If not: read that first. Then read the updates. Or you can just stick to the updated part. Most of the old info should be known anyway.

A short recap.

1. Start saving at the start of an expansion. You can have 10k to 12k gold at the end of an expansion. More if you play arena or HS tournaments. You get free packs for participating in certain HS tournaments. Check the old guide for more details.
2. Craft decks not cards.
3. Don’t dust or craft anything in the first two weeks of an expansion. Nerfs will happen. Even faster now it seems.
4. Have patience. You don’t need all the cards right away. You will get enough to play at least one or a few competitive decks.

A disclaimer: This guide is to get the maximum result out of your time and money to make a few competitive decks. If you want all the cards or most of them to have fun with that strange meme deck, you’re going to have to spend money. Or be very patient.

Getting golden legendaries from packs.

In the old system, if you had the money, you could buy a lot of packs, get all the legendaries, then disenchant the one you want in golden, then open packs till you get that legendary in golden. I’ve seen BMKibler do it. That is no longer possible. If you disenchant a card you will no longer get that card from packs. I’ve tested this when the nerfs hit right after the Ashes of Outland release. I dusted a rare that was nerfed, then opened a pack. I have all the other rares, so the ‘no duplicate rule’ means I should get that dusted rare. I didn’t get it. I got a random one.

How many packs to buy and open?

After 27 packs you should have all the commons. After 70 to 72 packs you should have all the rares. Depending on the expansion. After 230 packs you should have all the epics. After 470 packs you should have all the legendaries from just packs. There is no reason to buy that many packs. 110 packs is just right to get all the commons and rares and most of the epics and enough legendaries to make at least one, but probably more, tier 1 decks. You can buy more, but that is not optimal. Remember that duplicates and golden cards also give dust to craft whatever you’re missing. And crafting is a lot safer now.

The monthly rewards

The monthly rewards are a lot better for F2P, new and returning players. About the same for whales. In the old system you would get a golden epic and two golden commons for getting rank 5. Getting to legend wasn’t worth the time. Apart from getting the legend card back. In the new system you get a reward for getting to a certain rank for the first time and an end of season reward.

Source: https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Ranked#First-time_rewards

and https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Ranked#Highest_Rank_Bonus_chest

Note that you get all the rewards, so getting to legend for the first time will get you 5 classic packs, 8 classic rares, 2 classic epics and a classic legendary. At the end of the season you will get another 7 rare cards (standard rares you don’t own), 5 packs from the latest expansion and one epic from standard you don’t own. The main reason the new rewards are better is because a golden epic that is good shouldn’t be disenchanted (because you won’t get it from packs). So a golden epic (that is decent) is worth the same as a regular epic. During an entire expansion you should get 20 packs from the latest expansion, 28 rares and 4 epics. The 20 packs will, on average, give 1 legendary and two more epics.

The ‘no duplicate’ rule.

Hearthstone now has a ‘no duplicate’ protection. The wiki explains it best I think:

https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Card_pack#Duplicate_protection

This protection basically means you never have to craft commons or rares. Unless you open a very small amount of packs. And it’s safe to craft epics. In the old system I crafted two Psychopomps and the got two from packs. Bye bye 600 dust. That won’t happen again. Thank the maker!

Nerfs

In the old system it would be beneficial to disenchant the nerfed cards for full value and hope you get them again in packs you open. That can’t happen anymore. If you have all the cards of a certain rarity, except one, you will still not get that one if you disenchanted it before. It will be random. So there is a very small chance to still get it. After nerfs I’t still beneficial to disenchant the nerfed cards. Especially if you have golden copies. You can always recraft them.

It’s always a good idea to keep extra copies of a card if you can. Especially if they’re golden. I had a golden Bad Luck Albatross that I held on to. Got me 800 dust. (Woot!) My prediction is that the following cards will get a nerf some time in the future.

Battlefiend. This card needs to be changed. Maybe to a 1/1, not a 1/2. At 2/2 it was the most busted card ever. Or to two mana. It’s still too snowbally as it is now.

Priestess of Fury. My guess is it will only hit minions. Or only excess damage goes face.

Twin slice also needs a nerf. The second card should cost 1 mana instead of 0.

Unfortunately only Priestess of Fury is a craftable card. So only she will give a dust refund. Maybe Altruis will also be nerfed to not hit face. But I’m a bit iffy on that.

The ‘improved’ daily quest system

I don’t like it. It doesn’t give you a 60 gold quest consistently anymore. That will cost about 60 to 120 gold less per expansion.

Buying adventures with gold is not efficient use of your gold. Thanks to Hearthstone mathematics to figuring that one out. Source; this video: (around the 1:45 minute mark) https://youtu.be/-L2GWitnZBQ If you want to get the best cards you still kinda have to get the adventure anyway which is a bit of a bummer.

A little backstory about my own experience. I started playing during Whispers of the old Gods. I’ve bought a few preorders, but not since the Blitzchung incident. I buy about 110-120 packs with gold per expansion. I don’t have a full collection, but I do have almost all the classic cards. I also have competitive decks for at least 5 classes in both standard and wild. I have about 40k for dust in extra and golden cards. I currently have about 4000 gold. And climbing. I also hit legend for the first time ever yesterday after getting to regular dad legend (rank 5 in the old system) before. After getting to legend I had some spare time on hand so I decided to update my dust and crafting guide.

Those are the updates to my guide. I hope it helps you get the most out of your time and money. If you have anything to add or questions I’ll gladly answer them. Don’t forget to check the older thread. Maybe your question has an answer already.

N.B. This got removed from the CompetitiveHS subreddit. So I’m posting it here, slightly edited.

Edit: added more info and links.