Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[markusin]

My preference for a tourney is all-cards-no-legendaries. I feel that even a basic+commons deck can compete with decks including a good deal of rares and epics. Still, I'd be fine if it was restricted to basic+commons. It's not like I have many rares. It's also easy to enforce, seeing as you just need to look at the gems on the cards to know if a player has complied.

I'm okay with any format so long as there is a choice on what heroes are used. New players like me aren't accustomed to play with all 9 heroes. I don't want to randomly be given the choice to only play as a Shaman, a Warlock, or a Mage.

Oh yeah, "healing your hero is for wimps and Priests". I suppose decks like Mage decks and Paladin decks can use healing to buy time until they can have enough mama to deal with a zoo deck. I don't know, I don't run a zoo deck. I just that healing cards of your deck and make it harder to get board control. With the priest it's different, because Priest decks have all sorts of synergies with healing effects.

[Grujah]

I hate to say and don't want to sound too harsh, but all this to me sounds like "Scrub" mentality.

Decks with more legendaries isn't by default better than deck another deck with zero or few.

Most legendaries aren't "build-around", and most legendaries aren't vastly overpowered.
Most legendaries aren't even centerpieces of the decks. Take Amaz's priest that I linked earler. I'd really, really rather play that deck without Black knight than without, lets say, Soulpriests or Wild Pyro. Those are the main cards there, you build around them, not around epics or legends. And that is quite a strong deck, IMO.

Leeroy is build around only if few decks (Miracle Rogue, for example) in most other decks he is just a fireball with some pros and some cons. And he is replacable with not as good but still decent cheaper alternatives.

Having more cards certainly is an advantage, as it gives you more choices, and to extent better decks. Edit: And some decks really are very legendary-depdendant. and some are not. As I said before, sometimes legendaries are much easier to replace with "weaker but decent" alternatives than some cards of lesser rarity.

And I'm not sure why you think somebody dropping Rag, Ysera and Malygnos turn 8-9-10 is more unfair than somebody dropping a Fire Imp and Voidwalker turn 1.

And all this is especially true in smaller groups/tournaments, where underdogs and good "metacalls" an easily win.

@markusin - having all-but-legendaries only makes it that certain decks are unaffected, certain are somewhat weaker and certain decks are completely unplayable.


But, the most important thing, IMO, is this.
Getting the cards (by money, or grinding) is part of the game. Playing an cheaper and/or underdog deck against more expensive ones is what drives the game. It's what makes you a better deckbuiler, what makes you want to play more, grind more, beat them and "get there".
Scrubs what whine about people droping Rag will always be scrubs whining about people droping Rag.

This is from personal experience of starting playing MTG now almost 2 years ago and trying to play competitively from the start. People who scrubed when I started still scrub today, people that went in as underdogs with budget decks and each week tried to improved are now a) better at the game b) have better decks. And that game has more power disparity among cards.

I like to think I'm the one of the latter group, and while I do have tier 1 decks in various formats I still like going with a homebrew now and then.



@markusin - Control Paladins, Watcher Druids, Miracle Rogues and Handlocks (all those who go for longer games) all utilize heals.
Mage doesn't relly need it that much as  a) Control Mage is not that great now, IMHO and b) they have freezing.

[Davio]

Here's a fun little thought experiment.

P1 and P2 want to play a match with pre-constructed decks.

The rules for selecting a class and deck are as follows:
- P1 starts and selects a class and deck
- P2 knows the class and deck selected by P1 and may choose his own class and deck
- Now P1 may react and pick yet another deck/class
- Players may not pick a matchup that's already been chosen.
- At any time (from P1's second pick) a player may accept the current matchup at which point they will simply play out the match

For example:
- P1 picks Warlock
- P2 picks Hunter
- P1 picks Mage
- P2 picks Warrior
- P1 picks Warlock
= P2 now must choose something else than Hunter, picks Mage
- P1 accepts


What would the order of picks be if P1 starts with any of the classes or one in particular? Just assume that both players will just pick whatever works best against the other player's class.

[ashersky]

I hate to say and don't want to sound too harsh, but all this to me sounds like "Scrub" mentality.

Decks with more legendaries isn't by default better than deck another deck with zero or few.

Most legendaries aren't "build-around", and most legendaries aren't vastly overpowered.
Most legendaries aren't even centerpieces of the decks. Take Amaz's priest that I linked earler. I'd really, really rather play that deck without Black knight than without, lets say, Soulpriests or Wild Pyro. Those are the main cards there, you build around them, not around epics or legends. And that is quite a strong deck, IMO.

Leeroy is build around only if few decks (Miracle Rogue, for example) in most other decks he is just a fireball with some pros and some cons. And he is replacable with not as good but still decent cheaper alternatives.

Having more cards certainly is an advantage, as it gives you more choices, and to extent better decks. Edit: And some decks really are very legendary-depdendant. and some are not. As I said before, sometimes legendaries are much easier to replace with "weaker but decent" alternatives than some cards of lesser rarity.

And I'm not sure why you think somebody dropping Rag, Ysera and Malygnos turn 8-9-10 is more unfair than somebody dropping a Fire Imp and Voidwalker turn 1.

And all this is especially true in smaller groups/tournaments, where underdogs and good "metacalls" an easily win.

@markusin - having all-but-legendaries only makes it that certain decks are unaffected, certain are somewhat weaker and certain decks are completely unplayable.


But, the most important thing, IMO, is this.
Getting the cards (by money, or grinding) is part of the game. Playing an cheaper and/or underdog deck against more expensive ones is what drives the game. It's what makes you a better deckbuiler, what makes you want to play more, grind more, beat them and "get there".
Scrubs what whine about people droping Rag will always be scrubs whining about people droping Rag.

This is from personal experience of starting playing MTG now almost 2 years ago and trying to play competitively from the start. People who scrubed when I started still scrub today, people that went in as underdogs with budget decks and each week tried to improved are now a) better at the game b) have better decks. And that game has more power disparity among cards.

I like to think I'm the one of the latter group, and while I do have tier 1 decks in various formats I still like going with a homebrew now and then.



@markusin - Control Paladins, Watcher Druids, Miracle Rogues and Handlocks (all those who go for longer games) all utilize heals.
Mage doesn't relly need it that much as  a) Control Mage is not that great now, IMHO and b) they have freezing.

I get that you are awesome at the game and all that, but you can't expect everyone to be the same skill level.  So, when using a matchmaking system that's supposed to match you up by skill level, the measures available are win/loss record and card inventory.

I haven't won enough games overall, nor do I have a big enough inventory, to be defined as an even match for you.  Is that a "scrub" mentality?  Maybe, in the sense that of course I'm a scrub, I've been playing for weeks, not years.

None of this makes it any less frustrating to have someone drop three legendaries starting at turn 4, not turn 8, when you are playing in the level 20s or casually, with a deck full of commons.

From your winner's perspective, of course the losers whine and are scrubs.  But as you claim to have been one of us losers in the past, can you not empathize with our frustration?

If it was a matter of just having Legendaries and winning, anyone could just buy packs and packs and packs.  But I think you have to admit that there's no way I'll ever learn to build decks with legendaries, learn their strengths and weaknesses, etc. until I have them (barring random arena runs where you can't plan for or around them).

So, sorry for being a scrub who likes the game and bugs you.

Edit: This is basically a card version of PVP in WOW, at least back when I used to play.  You'd have arena rankings, gear, all sorts of things to let you know how well matched up you were.  That's either not working here, or not intended.  But it's frustrating nonetheless for those of us who want to get better/grind gold/buy gear(cards) to just get camped at the graveyard all day.

[Titandrake]

I think Grujah's point is that legendaries are overrated and that you can get pretty far up the ladder with cheap decks. Yeah, they hurt. But I still fear turn 1 Coin + Innervate + Yeti a lot more.

I proposed soulbound + commons because it seemed like a neat deckbuilding exercise that would be cheap enough for most people to play in (at most, you're spending 1200 dust.) In terms of being an actual format, I have my doubts, but it'd be fun to see what's doable there after you lose some of the useful rares/epics.

[popsofctown]

I would find a dust budget for each deck a very fun, interesting deckbuilding exercise that remains pretty level for newbies.  It encourages soulbound card use as their dust cost is 0, and if the dust cost max limit is less than say, 3000, legendaries (a legendary, rather) are more of a liability than an unfair advantage.

Murkeye and Captain's Parrot are soulbound, by the way, and have no dust cost.  You could do with them as you like.

So, Zoo.

I think this is worse than just allowing everything.

We could also have multiple tiers:  People who are okay with people playing whatever, and people who aren't, and have some limit.

Zoo has counters, and many methods of countering it aren't that high rarity.  Plus you have an expectation for zoo going in.  Every meta has some kind of centerpiece.  I don't think it's a bad idea. Doomguard is epic and YP a rare, so a dust budget of something like 1k would throttle the amount of high HP zoo has available, creating a weakness

Doom Guard is rare as well.

Oh, really? That's rough.

[nkirbit]

Sub 1k zoo:

2x Soulfire
2x Mortal Coil
1x Elven Archer
2x Flame Imp
2x Shieldbearer
2x Voidwalker
2x Young Priestess
2x Amani Berserker
2x Acidic Swamp Ooze
2x Dire Wolf Alpha
2x Scarlet Crusader
2x Shattered Sun Cleric
2x Chillwind Yeti
2x Dark Iron Dwarf
2x Doomguard
1x Argent Commander.

This is what I threw together in about 5 minutes.. I'm sure there are better lists.  But it's absolutely a very good deck for the format, if not too good.

[popsofctown]

Here's a fun little thought experiment.

P1 and P2 want to play a match with pre-constructed decks.

The rules for selecting a class and deck are as follows:
- P1 starts and selects a class and deck
- P2 knows the class and deck selected by P1 and may choose his own class and deck
- Now P1 may react and pick yet another deck/class
- Players may not pick a matchup that's already been chosen.
- At any time (from P1's second pick) a player may accept the current matchup at which point they will simply play out the match

For example:
- P1 picks Warlock
- P2 picks Hunter
- P1 picks Mage
- P2 picks Warrior
- P1 picks Warlock
= P2 now must choose something else than Hunter, picks Mage
- P1 accepts


What would the order of picks be if P1 starts with any of the classes or one in particular? Just assume that both players will just pick whatever works best against the other player's class.

It's interesting.  If this format was played with the current popular decks, I think P1 would pick something like Miracle Rogue to start off.  P2 probably picks a really strong counter to Miracle Rogue, like face warrior, which doesn't get played much because it has issues with most everything else.  Then P1 would probably want zoo for face warrior, which would draw out handlock from P2.  Then P1 would pick Hunter, still probably the best Handlock counter.  Then P2 could pick Miracle to counter Hunter and it comes full circle. 

Of course it keeps going from there.

I think optimal strategy isn't actually to pick the hardest of counters each time like I did here.  Your probably want to pick a deck with very few counters every time it is even a soft counter.  That exhausts your opponent's counters to that deck as quickly as possible, until you eventually pick that deck and they don't have a counter, so they pick amongst susceptible remaining decks they have and then you accept the matchup

[popsofctown]

Sub 1k zoo:

2x Soulfire
2x Mortal Coil
1x Elven Archer
2x Flame Imp
2x Shieldbearer
2x Voidwalker
2x Young Priestess
2x Amani Berserker
2x Acidic Swamp Ooze
2x Scarlet Crusader
2x Shattered Sun Cleric
2x Chillwind Yeti
2x Dark Iron Dwarf
2x Doomguard
1x Argent Commander.

This is what I threw together in about 5 minutes.. I'm sure there are better lists.  But it's absolutely a very good deck for the format, if not too good.

Yeah, my misunderstanding of Doomguard's actual dust cost totally ruined my assumptions

[popsofctown]

For the record though, it's pretty bad to play Shieldbearer and forget the DWA.  Those two are married.

[nkirbit]

Sub 1k zoo:

2x Soulfire
2x Mortal Coil
1x Elven Archer
2x Flame Imp
2x Shieldbearer
2x Voidwalker
2x Young Priestess
2x Amani Berserker
2x Acidic Swamp Ooze
2x Scarlet Crusader
2x Shattered Sun Cleric
2x Chillwind Yeti
2x Dark Iron Dwarf
2x Doomguard
1x Argent Commander.

This is what I threw together in about 5 minutes.. I'm sure there are better lists.  But it's absolutely a very good deck for the format, if not too good.

Yeah, my misunderstanding of Doomguard's actual dust cost totally ruined my assumptions

If you look closely, there are only 28 cards in that list.. DWA should be in there.  My mistake.

[blueblimp]

Getting the cards (by money, or grinding) is part of the game.

In some sense I admit that's true, in the sense that "who can pay more" can be considered a game, but it's a crap game that I have no interest in playing. To Hearthstone's credit, it's fairly light on the pay-to-win, as you point out. Apart from Leeroy, it's really only control decks that absolutely require legendaries (because stalling to late game is pointless if you have nothing worth playing there). But that said, even if they are just nice-to-have, having more options allows for creating stronger decks, that's undeniable, even if legendary cards are not necessarily stronger than cards of lesser rarity.

I think it's worth pointing out though that the amount of time required to get a handful of key legendaries is really not that much, assuming you play arena well and do your quests. I haven't played that much but I've picked up a couple good legendaries from packs (Leeroy, Cenarius) and been able to craft 2-3 more (Thalnos, Edwin, have enough dust for another one but haven't picked yet, maybe Mukla). Considering that 1 gold is worth about 1 dust, crafting one key legendary (probably Leeroy) should be well within the reach of everybody who plays much at all.

[Jorbles]

How about all soulbound and all commons? I think you'd still be somewhat aggro dominated, but it might not be too bad, and you get a lot more selection/decent cards with commons in the mix.

We could also try the "King of the Hill" format. Each player makes 2/3 decks, each for a different class. Winner has to keep the same deck, loser switches to another deck. First player to run out of decks loses. That way, you have the option of making a deck that specifically beats aggro. The question is whether such a common-only deck exists; I'm not sure if it does.

I like this.

[blueblimp]

OK, here's a crazy idea for a restricted deck format. I think what dust limits are partly trying to go for is to force not just filling a deck with the best cards possible, but it's not great at that because there are plenty of cards that are great and cheap (like Chillwind Yeti) and cards that are expensive and terrible (like Nozdormu). So the idea is to put some limit on the total "goodness" of the cards in a deck, so that you're forced to create decks that make good utilization of cards that might normally be bad.

Trouble is, how to find an appropriate valuation of the goodness of cards? The lack of a secondary market in cards hurts, because cost in the secondary market is a good way to measure this.

Arena rankings are easy to come by, but don't fully apply to strength in constructed. For example, Mountain Giant is terrible in arena, but great in handlock. Still, assigning point values to different tiers in some arena ranking is a possibility. (Doesn't matter too much whose ranking, since they are all pretty similar, but for example AntiGravity's since it has every class.)

Another alternative is to use frequency-in-deck statistics from somewhere. Hearthpwn has some but they seem dubious (Preparation in 0% of Rogue decks?). Surveying some popular deck lists could work, I guess.

[Kirian]

I hate to say and don't want to sound too harsh, but all this to me sounds like "Scrub" mentality.

No.  "Scrub" mentality is "You shouldn't be able to use [card X|combo Y|deck Z] because it's auto-win."  The main complaint here is "You shouldn't be able to use [card X|combo Y|deck Z] because not everyone has access to it."

At a guess, it's going to take me 12-16 hours of solid arena play--solid enough that I don't have to stop and do quests for gold--to get enough dust for a single legendary.  (Obviously ignoring the possibility of P2W, which ain't happening for me).  That's two weeks or more of play time for me.

Decks with more legendaries isn't by default better than deck another deck with zero or few.
Most legendaries aren't "build-around", and most legendaries aren't vastly overpowered.

Call me crazy, but almost all the people in the top ranks are playing with legendaries in their decks.  Not half, not just the majority; almost all.  It's possible, with perfect play, to get into the legend ranks without legendaries in your deck.  But getting above that?  Unlikely.  You don't see real tournaments where there are players with no legendaries.  You don't even see dech teck articles that don't have legendaries, though they often will have a side of "if you're really poor, you can substitute these others in but your win rate is gonna drop."

Getting the cards (by money, or grinding) is part of the game.

OK, that's... cool I guess?  I mean, it's cool for you since you've already done it.  Not all of us have had the time for it.

Playing an cheaper and/or underdog deck against more expensive ones is what drives the game. It's what makes you a better deckbuiler, what makes you want to play more, grind more, beat them and "get there".

I can see where you're coming from here, but the point remains that the underdog deck isn't likely to win the tournament.

And I guess that's the thing.  I have nothing against playing games for the hell of it, whether to grind gold, or just to have fun with a ridiculous deck.  But playing in an actual tournament wouldn't be fun, because I know most of the other decks will be better.

Winning at Dominion requires skill + luck, with skill overpowering luck for the most part, especially in a six-game series.  Winning at Hearthstone requires skill + luck + having most of the cards available.  Obviously that last part isn't just about legendaries, but all the cards.  Right now I couldn't set up a good Hunter deck without spending about 200 dust on crafting hunter-specific commons.

Edit:  I'll admit I'm feeling a bit bitter right now because my most recent arena run got eaten by my ISP.

[nkirbit]

Winning at Dominion requires skill + luck, with skill overpowering luck for the most part, especially in a six-game series.  Winning at Hearthstone requires skill + luck + having most of the cards available.  Obviously that last part isn't just about legendaries, but all the cards.  Right now I couldn't set up a good Hunter deck without spending about 200 dust on crafting hunter-specific commons.

It depends what you mean by "winning at hearthstone".  If you are talking about getting to legendary, then it does require the best cards.  There's no way around that, although I don't see the issue with it.  It also requires hundreds of games in a month for even the best players, so the players interested in reaching legend will gain a collection simply by playing a lot and practicing.  For players who aren't interested in reaching legend, they might not have the best cards, but they don't need them at the ranks they're interested in playing at.

If "winning at hearthstone" is defined as being competitive and winning a little bit more than half your games, or maybe even just half your games, that's completely doable with zero legendaries at lower ranks.

[nkirbit]

I just don't get why it's so unfair to lose a game of hearthstone to someone who has a legendary because they played the game for 10 more hours then you, but when you beat someone in a game of dominion because you're a member of f.ds and read a bunch of threads about different kingdom layouts and how to approach them, it's fair and you won entirely on your skill.

Reading f.ds for strategy tips and playing a bunch of games of hearthstone to get the dust you need for a legendary are not that different.

[blueblimp]

If you are talking about getting to legendary, then it does require the best cards.

100% disagree here. There have been some streamers that have taken free-to-play decks to legendary. (Amaz recently with a free-to-play Priest, which admittedly had Ragnaros, but having one legendary is not out of reach for anyone. I think Trump did a while ago with a free-to-play Mage deck.) I'm sure there are many non-streamers who've managed it too.

Of course, anybody capable of getting to legendary _without_ the best cards would achieve a better rank in legendary _with_ the best cards. Anyway, with 1 month seasons, achieving legendary is as much about investing a lot of playtime as it is about skill.

If "winning at hearthstone" is defined as being competitive and winning a little bit more than half your games, or maybe even just half your games, that's completely doable with zero legendaries at lower ranks.

This is a tautology. Ignoring win streak bonus stars, you'll converge to a rank where you win about half your games, given enough time, no matter what deck you play, well, unless your deck/skill is so bad that you can win half your games at rank 20.

I just don't get why it's so unfair to lose a game of hearthstone to someone who has a legendary because they played the game for 10 more hours then you, but when you beat someone in a game of dominion because you're a member of f.ds and read a bunch of threads about different kingdom layouts and how to approach them, it's fair and you won entirely on your skill.

If you won because you studied the game to increase your skill, then of course that's considered winning because of skill, almost by definition. I don't see your confusion here. Grinding to flip some bits in Blizzard's data centers does not increase your skill, which is why winning by superior cards is not considered a skill win.

[nkirbit]

I just don't get why it's so unfair to lose a game of hearthstone to someone who has a legendary because they played the game for 10 more hours then you, but when you beat someone in a game of dominion because you're a member of f.ds and read a bunch of threads about different kingdom layouts and how to approach them, it's fair and you won entirely on your skill.

If you won because you studied the game to increase your skill, then of course that's considered winning because of skill, almost by definition. I don't see your confusion here. Grinding to flip some bits in Blizzard's data centers does not increase your skill, which is why winning by superior cards is not considered a skill win.

My confusion is that I don't get why one is any more unfair than the other.

[Kirian]

I just don't get why it's so unfair to lose a game of hearthstone to someone who has a legendary because they played the game for 10 more hours then you, but when you beat someone in a game of dominion because you're a member of f.ds and read a bunch of threads about different kingdom layouts and how to approach them, it's fair and you won entirely on your skill.

If you won because you studied the game to increase your skill, then of course that's considered winning because of skill, almost by definition. I don't see your confusion here. Grinding to flip some bits in Blizzard's data centers does not increase your skill, which is why winning by superior cards is not considered a skill win.

My confusion is that I don't get why one is any more unfair than the other.

At no point did I go for the word "fair," because, well, life isn't fair.  But if you want to have a tournament among the mall number of f.DS HS players, then you're going to need to level things somehow.  Making it Swiss is one leveling mechanism.

[blueblimp]

I just don't get why it's so unfair to lose a game of hearthstone to someone who has a legendary because they played the game for 10 more hours then you, but when you beat someone in a game of dominion because you're a member of f.ds and read a bunch of threads about different kingdom layouts and how to approach them, it's fair and you won entirely on your skill.

If you won because you studied the game to increase your skill, then of course that's considered winning because of skill, almost by definition. I don't see your confusion here. Grinding to flip some bits in Blizzard's data centers does not increase your skill, which is why winning by superior cards is not considered a skill win.

My confusion is that I don't get why one is any more unfair than the other.

Good question. This comes down to philosophy, no? After all, what does "fair" mean anyway? To be a skilled card game player, I'd assume you need some baseline amount of intelligence, and intelligence is largely genetic. So some people will _never_ have the ability to achieve high skill in Hearthstone, simply because of their genes, which doesn't seem very fair. Whereas one could argue that everybody has the ability to acquire a full set of (good) Hearthstone cards, but then maybe that's not true either, since some people will have neither the free time nor money required to do that.

Maybe "fairness" is the wrong goal to aim for, anyway. A better question, I think, is to ask what is more "interesting", which to be fair is also entirely subjective. Completeness of card collection is not very interesting, in my opinion, and you certainly don't need a tournament to measure it, since you could just count the dust value of each player's cards and be done with it. What I consider interesting to see in a tournament is creative deck-building, clever plays, astute meta-gaming, etc., all of which would normally be considered "skill". Then, tournament rules should be designed to select for those aspects.

[Grujah]

1.I haven't won enough games overall, nor do I have a big enough inventory, to be defined as an even match for you.  Is that a "scrub" mentality?  Maybe, in the sense that of course I'm a scrub, I've been playing for weeks, not years.

2. None of this makes it any less frustrating to have someone drop three legendaries starting at turn 4, not turn 8, when you are playing in the level 20s or casually, with a deck full of commons.

3. From your winner's perspective, of course the losers whine and are scrubs.  But as you claim to have been one of us losers in the past, can you not empathize with our frustration?

4. If it was a matter of just having Legendaries and winning, anyone could just buy packs and packs and packs.  But I think you have to admit that there's no way I'll ever learn to build decks with legendaries, learn their strengths and weaknesses, etc. until I have them (barring random arena runs where you can't plan for or around them).

1. By scrub I mean having an expectation of that all other players should play by the arbitrary rules that you have, for example, "turn 4 legendaries are not cool". A player who doesn't try to win cuz "it's unfair".


2. I still don't get whats the big fuss about somebody dropping 4 legends from turn 4. Which are so impossible to deal with?



3. I still only have 1 legendary that I actually DO play in any of my decks, and I still grind against Control Warriors with 7 of them. Also against Zoolocks with 0 of them which are just as good.
For a best part of my first year in MtG, I played Red Deck Wins (to go cheap deck) in very, very unfriendly enviorment for it. Still, I never asked for tourneys where people cannot play "cards that are worth more than 15$", instead I tried various strategies and tactics to actually beat Thragtusk and Sphinx's Revelation.

4. As for the last point, I completely agree. You can learn to play against them, but not with them. And that is a frustration that I share - I cannot see how good a card would be before I get it, something that I can do in Magic.

I think Grujah's point is that legendaries are overrated and that you can get pretty far up the ladder with cheap decks. Yeah, they hurt. But I still fear turn 1 Coin + Innervate + Yeti a lot more.

Yes.
To illustrate this point, just look at the cards that were nerfed as they were deemed too strong since I started playing (at least those that I remember):

Nat Pagle (L)
Tinkermaster Overspark (L)
Argent Commander (R)
Blood Imp (C)
Unleash the Hounds (C, nerfed 2 times)
Flame Imp (C)
Starving Buzzard (C)
Pyroblast (E)
Blizzard (R)
Cone of Cold (C)
Mind Control (C)
Battle Rage (C)
Warsong Commander (C)
Novice Engineer (C)

2 Legendaries, 1 Pyroblast, 2 Rares and 9-10 commons.
and the most broken of all was probably old, old UTH.

Edit: On second though, might not be the best way to illustrate the point, but it is still somehow-valid.

@nkbirit - I would fit in 1/1 divine shielders and Leper Gnomes if possible

Call me crazy, but almost all the people in the top ranks are playing with legendaries in their decks.  Not half, not just the majority; almost all.  It's possible, with perfect play, to get into the legend ranks without legendaries in your deck.  But getting above that?  Unlikely.  You don't see real tournaments where there are players with no legendaries.  You don't even see dech teck articles that don't have legendaries, though they often will have a side of "if you're really poor, you can substitute these others in but your win rate is gonna drop."

You are crazy, the hands-down top deck of May was Zoolock.
Now, lets see, Gosu Tourney #12, for example (first that come to my mind).
Guy who won, among 5 of his decks, he had 2 with no legendaries, and 3 with 1 legendary each.
http://www.gosugamers.net/hearthstone/features/3885-gosucup-12-decks-and-champion-interview-shaman-has-become-more-and-more-consistent

[ashersky]

As an aside, how are people getting 1600 dust to craft Legendaries?  If I'm unlucky, I get two cards out of five in a pack that I already have two of that I can DE for 5 dust each.  The arena rewards are inconsistent, and it see more gold than dust there.

The time calculations are just astronomical.  150 gold per arena run, and at 10 hold per 3 wins, that 45 wins per run.  That's shortened by quests and arena winnings, but still, that's a lot.

Am I missing something?  I've yet to spend any real money, of course.  Are people just getting 3+ gold cards a lot and DEing the spares?  I've gotten a grand total of 2 goldens, 1 legendary, and probably 6-8 epics in around two months of daily play.  Is is that I just play/win enough?

[blueblimp]

I saw some estimate that a pack is worth roughly 100 dust if you DE the whole thing. OK, here's some page that claims it's more like 90 dust: http://kotaku.com/here-are-the-actual-hearthstone-legendary-card-drop-rat-1586156518. At 90 dust per pack, that's almost 18 packs worth to craft a legendary. Let's say quests are worth 50 gold on average. So then ~36 days worth of quests will get you enough dust to craft a legendary, assuming you DE everything. That doesn't seem so bad, since you'll also get some legendaries in packs, and get some excess gold from skilled arena play and constructed play, as well as one-time bonus gold for various things.

This isn't going to get you enough legendaries for a control deck any time soon (which can want to run 7+ of them!), but for other deck types, you can get enough in a reasonable amount of time.

[ashersky]

If I DE full packs, I guess I can see how you get one legendary.  But then I have no other cards...I assume this is after you get a complete commons collection?

I finally gave up waiting and had to craft two Argent Squires...I can't see how one can afford to dust every card they get.