Hearthstone Theory: The Strategy of Card Packs 

6010 -> 5810. The first pack he opened must have been actually great so he needed to cut the clip. XD

The actual best way to part Hearthstone ftp is to start playing in 2014

Penniless: How much gold is dust worth? Me: 100 gold = 40 dust Penniless: 1:1 Me: [Head explodes]

False. Everything is at its minimum value when you main Whizbangggggg

Math make hulk head hurt

I only use money to buy the "welcome pack" since they're cheap. I never spend over 5 dollars at a time on hearthstone.

I once had 7000 gold and bought an un'goro pack, didn't stop buying un'goro packs till I hit 0

Another simple thing I do and wasn't commented on the video: As I open packs, I keep updating a list of how many packs of each expansion I have opened without opening a legendary. Like this I can see more clearly what kind of packs are closer to a legendary. :D

On dusting the cards: Decide as late as possible (if you don't have to choose earlier). You may get the additional data in future that may change your mind :)

also before a expansion comes out, they often do a 1000 gold tavern brawl arena style so You run out of gold to buy new expansion with real money

Unless you play a lot of hearthstone being a free to play player isn’t gonna result in a very fun experience. The new player experience is terrible, depending on the time of year you need cards from 4-6 expansions as well as the classic set. It’s defiantly doable and pro players do a free to play to legend all the time but those are pro players and not some new player who doesn’t know what commons are strong. I’ve been playing playing hearthstone and buying a few classic packs was the best thing I ever did for myself. Once I had collected most of the classic set I employed my new strategy of this: First expansions of the year: enchant all necessary cards from disenchanting rotation and hall of fame (got like 20k from 2017) Second: If the expansion looks like is has some ridiculously OP or cool cards then defiantly buy the preorder. But if it’s an expansion like Rastakans Rumble where only 2/9 classes get some good cards you defiantly don’t want to go wasting your money. Third: almost never spend money on this xpac, enchant what few critical cards and get the rest from random card packs. Those are some very basic tips but they keep me having a rich hearthstone experience with only spending like $60 per year.

There is a diminishing return on buying Classic packs. Since you will get a free pack once a week with the tavern brawl, and you will likely buy some. Sometime in the second year you will likely have the playable cards and most of the legendaries because you will craft the best ones you didnt get. At that point think long and hard about buying more Classic packs since you will continue to get a free one each week and eventually get them all if you continue to play. The rest of the suggestions are good and close to what I do.

Pennyless finally found ressurect at the bottom of his deck

I find that using arena to compare dust and gold isn't exactly always the best. I mean, I've seen multiple time where the 12 wins reward has a Golden Legendary in it (along with other rewards). I wish that the 12 wins rewards wasn't just complete RNG like Hearthstone in general. Because usually that card for me is a golden rare. Feelsbadman. When Un'goro came out, I did some research and it turns out if you dusted all cards you got from packs and crafted non-golden AND golden cards of ALL sets (including wild), it would cost about $33,000 (1051925 dust). And that was when Un'goro came out. I'm sure each expansion has increased that amount by a few thousand. Now obviously, no one is gonna dust a card only to recraft it, but it is still quite insane, especially when some of them are no longer collectible through card packs.

I don't think this video told that. WHEN CARDS GET NERFED you get full dust refund for A LIMITED TIME. I didn't know that. Lost over 3200 dust when the raza patches nerfs came around, because i hold down the cards for too long. I think it was 2 weeks then.

I always wondered why the power creep on cards was more of a 1 - 2 - 3 /year begins/ 1.5 - 2.5 - 3.5 instead of a 1 - 1.5 - 2 - 2.5 - etc.. I guessed it must've something to do with that, but never actually understood the exact reasoning behind it. Thanks for this video! it cleared me not only that, but a lot more doubts. :D

I just got whizbang from the free boomsday pack and now I'm set for life.

I would like to know how being a new player might adjust these recommendations. It would be easy to say the recommendations still apply to new players, but I don't think this is exactly the case. Unless a new player lucks into several cards that all work into one very high tier deck and run with it, it's likely they will have to buy packs as they go. Saving is not really an option for them initially, because doing so will hurt the quality of their decks a lot more than a long time player. Unless they are a masochist, in which case saving may work great for them.

Rewatching this I think it's also important to ( depending on if you spend actual money on hearthstone or not ) take pre-order purchases into account. Considering that at least in Europe ( since I don't know if prices are different in other regions ) 60 card pack cost 70 euros so buying 120 packs would equal 140 euros but when you pre-order and purchase both bundles for 130 euros cost you 130 euro. So not only do you pay 10 euros less but you gain 10 pack more packs. In addition to that you gain 2 guaranteed golden Legendaries from the expansion set when you do so! Also dat free legendary at the beginning of the expansion. And since after around 80 or so packs you have every common and rare from those expansions in your collection, it'll net you a ton of extra dust meaning you can get some other juicy Legendaries or epics that are strong/that you want in your collection. All I'm saying is that if you want to spend money, have a decent classic collection already and of course have enough money you will be set until the next expansion comes out because it covers A LOT of cards. This is why I consider purchasing pack mid-expansion a waste, at least when you buy them with money. I know not everyone can afford this method of purchase but those are just my two thoughts on the matter.

"Buy 50 - 100 Packs per expansion" in a guide for the consumer shows that Blizzard did nothing wrong.

Nice to see that what i've always done seems to be pretty close to what you've come to. New expansion comes out, i spend all my gold on packs, typically getting between 60-80. For the first few weeks any gold I make goes towards new packs. This period lasts until I get bored of the current constructed meta, which usually happens 3-4 weeks after release. From here on my gold either goes towards Arena runs (because i like drafting) or into more packs of whatever i'm missing legendaries that I want from (usually is the newest expansion, but when it's not it's either Classic or one of the older ones that has a legendary i REALLY want). Once i get my newest legendary from that pack type i stop buying packs of that expansion and let myself make cards out of the dust i've accumulated. Then in the period between expansions all of my gold goes towards Arena (again, because i like drafting). Once the next expansion is announced i stop going into Arena and start saving for the next expansion. New expansion comes out, i spend all my gold on packs, typically getting between 60-80. Repeat. While i'm not FTP (I've bought both of those starter deals or whatever they're called where it's like 5 bucks for a guaranteed legend and a bunch of packs) and i've bought some of the Expansion Wings, I haven't bought packs with actual money in years, nor have i felt the need to thanks to having more than enough dust to make whatever i want when it strikes my fancy. And overall the amount of money I've spent since I started playing (around Naxx) is way lower than the amount i spent on MTG back in my last 2 years of high school, so i'm not complaining.

Would love a follow-up about arena value.

If you want a complete collection and/or want to maximize dust accumulation, know that legendaries will always roll as one that you don't have yet (unless you already have all legends of the set). Given that opening a legendary is the best thing you can do to minimize the total dust requirement (-1600 dust cost), and that any pack will do it, you have to look for the second best thing: epics. Always buy packs from which you have most epics missing.

Great guide. Hope this channel returns man. I am only 5 day player I LOVEE HEARTHSTONE SO MUCH ! I will try to get ur success myb one day with Hearthstone content but ur CONENT is 100/10

30k dust because i have no self control

You forgot one of my most important rules. Stop spending on packs when you get a legendary, and if you spend again spend until you get the next one (be prepared to buy at least 30 packs). The pity timer is a big portion of a packs expected value - so don't end your pack buying when in the next 5 you have a guaranteed legendary.

Unbelievable! as a 4-year f2p player, i was always buying and crafting this way! except i never made a video about it, helping new players! gj man

amazing work man, thank you so much

2.5) After 50 packs, stop buying an expansion when you get any legendary

"A card like Giggling inventor isn't going to be turned into 20 dust" That didn't age well.

I had no idea of the math and reasoning behind this but I'm glad that I do exacly as subscribed, have done for the last 5-6 expansions. I buy all the packs I can afford with gold I have when the expansion drop, maybe create a card and then I play with whatever I have and save all incoming gold for the next expansion. Naturally this means that I'm stuck at rank 20-15 or so because I don't have the cards to build a stronger deck but on the other hand I have not paid a single real dollar for this game.

I just always save up 6-8k gold trough quests then open only 3 legendaries, while someone with 30 packs opened 3-5 then i wonder why im still playing, since the same thing's been happening for 3 years

I would have liked a quick overview about the validity of arena when obtaining card packs, but I’m sure I can google it.

One good tip (although it might be worthless) is to keep track on your golden cards. It just happens that i realized that i had 3k-worth dust if i disenchanted my extra golden copies, but HS didn't told me i could disenchant them. lemme explain: if you have 2x copies of a kind, but you have a golden copy of the same kind, HS wont consider this as a 3rd copy, thus not allocating it amoung extra disenchantable cards. This happens (prob.) cuz HS wants you to keep this golden card, and gives the player the opportunity to chose between keeping the gold one and disenchanting the vanilla copy, OR getting rid of the golden card and getting extra dust. im certainly saving my dust for april, next year, since un goro, DKs and kobolds will rotate out, focusing on the newest year should give me a better upperhand latter on rather than crafting strong legs "from the past".

How to strategically use your money in hearthstone: avoid constructed and only play arena

Man your videos are amazing! Really love to watch them and get inspired as a F2P player too!! Thank you for your great content

That's a subscribe from me, you're the first analytical HS channel for this kind of thing

Guess giggling inventor is worth 100 dust after all. Prediction on point hahahaha

@ThePennilessPlayer This weeks 100,000,000 player celebration is given out 5 100g quests to play against friends

some tips for optimize gold for f2p. Always deny a 50 gold quest, because it can transform into a 60 gold quest or even 100 gold or a classic pack quest. Do it EVERY day. I even stop playing few days to continue deny 50 gold quests, but never saturate quests too! If you have 3 quests pending, always finish the highest one, then wait. You I'm playing since beta 2013 and spent under 60 $ on the game. This helps if you don't want to invest your salary into random packs.

"every 20 hearthstone packs contains a legendary card" from what dimension you are?! from 40 packs- in my world.

Finally opened legendary after long, long, loooooong wait. Gruul.

I'm so happy, I'm a f2p player and I own almost every relevant legenday and 2x epic card in the game. All my friends are always complaining how hearthstone is a pay 2 win game and they attribute my collection to the fact that I've played since beta and therefore have had more time to build a collection. But without doing the math or anything I've actually done everything this video is telling me to do ever since blackrock mountain came out. I rarely disenchant my cards (I even keep the bad golden ones) and I'm currently sitting on 2000 dust waiting for the next xpac. This video confirms that my strategy is what's building my collection and not just that I'm "luckier and that's why I have all the legendaries"

Thanks for the video I was waiting for a guide like this

Only notable exception to your power creep rule to me is Knights of the Frozen Throne. The percentages line up with it, but the power levels of the Death Knights were insane. Granted, that doesn’t seem to have been intentional, I think it’s pretty clear that Blizzard messed up with them, as evidenced by the more toned down hero cards that have been released this year

what about wild players ? we're people too ;-;

The Giggling Inventor nerf is not a laughing matter. Nice Video!

I'm giggling about him picking giggling inventor as an invaluable rare when everyone saw a nerf coming.

What a great video! You've really outdone yourself.

"A card like giggling inventor isn't going to be turned into 20 dust." Now it will.

Looks like me for the last five years ,one pack at a time

9:35 *insert rastakhan joke here*

I think something you missed was to not disenchant your legendary cards because you can't get dupes. If you get a bad legendary and disenchant it you can get it again making your chances of getting good legendary cards for down

So thaaaat's why you're called penniless

When card moves to hall of fame or get nerfed,you get all dust from them and you can also disenchant them after!

I’m confused with why we would want to hold off on using the dust extra cards button. It doesn’t make a difference when you dust extra cards because you could never use them anyways right? If I had a third copy of a card it’s value would never appreciate any time later unless they decided to change the rarity of a card or something right?

I like use of term "hypothetical viewer" very much. Hehe

Most of it wasn't what I was looking for, I try to get them all, but a great card vs dust explanation.

I can see the logic how a stockpile of cards is more likely to increase in value than the raw dust. However, Millhouse is a poor example for keeping a card, even when Call to Arms was big in the game he was a risky thing to have in hand, it'd be better to have Dirty Rat in his place which has some actual use. Still your point is right, it's better to keep 4 spiteful summoners until you really want to get dust for cards rather than just keep a pile of dust and miss a nerf refund

Hearthstone needs to be a physical card game too

I haven't play in over 2 years, but I do watch the funny videos every now and then, it is worth coming back?, are a lot of people still playing it?

this realy helped thx

Astral Rift is good in the new mage giant deck. :p

ITS a Penniless world for us f2p player out there

Fantastic video!

I feel like it would be very informative if you broke down what every hero / hero power is meant to be used, eg. Jaina and Jaina's Fireball for removal/control deck

Love your channel and your content :D

I'm going to disagree on the buy classic option, because if you have most of it, you disenchant most cards vs keep most in new expansions which you have less cards of.

I'm an idiot and i dust all the classes i don't play when i want a new deck or legendary and i buy card packs when i have 100 gold but i do have several viable decks that i enjoy but when i want to try out a new class i never have enough cards to make a decent deck. These are habits i'm trying to break because my collection suffers. Great video i'm gonna try to use some of the things i learned from you thank you.

Brilliant insight into the 'real meta' in Hearthstone. Thank you

13:00 its at this point you will have handful of legendarys " your thinking yeah right " I'll tell you my last expension I opened 82 packs of rastakhan and got 4 leg and the guaranteed leg was the 3-4 so about 70 ish decks for 3 leg which is bad below avg of 20 ...So i kept opening packs for 1 more month from release and got to about 105 packs we got (4 as gift) and alas i found 3 more leg .My point is if you open a lot packs and go for 30+ pecks with no leg don't stop when you open the first leg because the next leg you open should come way faster . It also happened that after a very bad 35+ packs close to pity timer i got double leg pack so yeah the average 20 should always be there if you open enough

oh also, it says on average 20 packs per legendary but iirc the packs are coded so that every 10 packs of the same set is a garuanteed legendary card

How about the greatest tip of them all : learn to play arena and never buy packs once you're good at it

Wait what do you mean by “less time to use them” do the disappear????

Nice usage of the cross to transition to the seven cost spiteful (not sure if you've used this before but this is the first time ive seen it)

R.I.P giggling inventor

I started in the whitchwood, and my strategy to start up my collection is a bit different first i went for 10 packs in each set, and now my goal is 2 legends from each rotating set standard set. my goal was establishing a decent base of commons and rares. i'm getting all of my classic packs from brawl right now, but that's ok. the plan for next year is a third legendary from whitchwood -> and then ~ 50-70 packs from each new expansion with excess going to classic/arena?

Every Pack value is 100 gold into 40 dust , others things are only random .

Don't forget about nerfs too. Later expansions have less chances to get nerfed and affect the overall power of the meta.

BUT THE BUTTON GLOWS

Thanks Penniless!

Like the video, ill put this in practice, next expansion... Thanks very useful

I cant belive I never thought of never dusting until needed, that's actully insanely smart. But now it hits me with a another question, if I have 10 copies of a card will the need give me the extra dust for all 10?

The Giggling Inventor example didn't age so well :D

Though some statements and assumptions in the first half of the video are kinda iffy, all the conclusions seen to be correct. Just one important addition: if you're a decent player and you want to get the most out of your gold, you should invest it into arena. It takes a lot of time and you won't be able to play with all the new stuff in the combinations you want, but valuewise this is probably the best you can do.

Dust let's you choose card by card. Clearly the best way to get cards once you have a bunch already. Gold does open the Arena option though, so with gold you can get cards/dust AND Arena runs....

thanks for the lesson, teacher!

imo penniless forgot one important fact: don't stop opening packs until you get the next legendary. When you open a legendary card concider if u want continuing opening packs of that expansion. if u do so open packs until you get the next legendary card. then stop. (because every expansion has an individual pity timer!)

Wuh-Oh, then by these theories, I've already gone wayyy overboard. I was always Diablo 1st, W.o.W. 2nd (and those 2 have since swapped places in my game-play) & then just last year, I had given H.S. a chance & am pretty addicted to it. I felt way overwhelmed at first & still am (NOOB, F.N.G., etc. I know)! 1st off: I've got only 1,905 Gold & 1,165 Arcane Dust as of log-in moments ago. I've also got 192 Open Packs & here's the breakdown as to what I've got left to open (sorry, but I can't remember what each deck is called, so I attempted to name them as best I can, based on the colors of the card-backs along with my limited experience in characters/areas of W.o.W.:

Never heard about Epic pity timer for every 10 packs.

Since I realized Blizzard wasn't going to give us *any* quest card(s) or hero card(s) for free, or through any adventures, I stopped giving Blizzard money. The Lich King card was just another slap in the face.

So cobolds is also rotating out?

Last I checked one pack gives me 40 dust every time. :/

Just came back after a +2 year break from HS, only to realize i have to spend 70 euro x 6 to get back on track when it comes to owning all the cards? Thank you so much for making this video and telling me to uninstall the game again!

Agree with most of these advices, but as a completely free to play player, from a ton of experience: dust is absolutely more valuable than gold (1 gold = around 0,7 dust). And about buying single expansion in my personal opinion, don't cross the 80 packs, its waste of gold.

But when card rotate to wild i can dust it for full cost?

Great video, if i had watched it when i started playing i would some many more cards xD

Its easy to open 5-7 packs per day if u are good at Arena (atleast 7 wins per run)

Later sets are stronger HERE COMES RASTAKAHNS RUMBLE

Very good video