Beginner’s Guide to Crafting

Introduction

Greetings beginners! Hector here, welcome to Crafting for Beginners. Let’s dive right in!

In Hearthstone there is only a few ways to obtain new cards:

• Buying packs – With either gold or real money.
• Winning cards in the Arena – although rare, you can still win new cards in The Arena.
• Crafting – Using dust earned from disenchanting you can craft new cards of your choosing.

As you can see the only way to get cards of your choosing is by crafting them.

What is Crafting?

Crafting in Hearthstone is the construction of new cards from dust. Dust is the stuff produced from disenchanting (breaking down) unwanted cards. However, when you disenchant (breakdown) cards you get far less dust for the card, than the required amount to craft that same card. This is why you must ration your dust and only spend it sparingly. For example a rare card would cost 100 dust to craft but only render 20 dust when disenchanted.

All cards are rated by their quality from Basic (obtained by leveling the heroes to level 10) to Legendary (from expert packs):

Basic

• All players start with most basic cards (more class specific cards unlocked when you level up that class)
• Golden basics unlocked when you level your class up
• They are soul bound (can’t be disenchanted) or crafted.
• Unlocked by leveling the Hero to level 10 (class cards)
• No gem on card

Common

• Cost 40 dust to craft and render 5 dust when disenchanted
• Golden version costs 400 to craft and renders 50 when disenchanted
• Most common in packs
• White gem on card

Rare

• Cost 100 dust to craft and render 20 dust when disenchanted
• Golden version costs 800 dust to craft and renders 100 when disenchanted
• Always get one rare when a pack is opened
• Blue gem on card

Epic

• Cost 400 dust to craft and render 100 dust when disenchanted
• Golden version costs 1600 dust to craft and renders 400 dust when disenchanted
• Quite rare in packs
• Purple gem on card

Legendary

• Cost 1600 dust to craft and render 400 dust when disenchanted
• Golden version costs 3200 dust to craft and renders 1600 dust when disenchanted
• Very rare in packs
• Most legendaries are based on gimmicks that aren’t all that reliable in games
• Orange gem on card

Golden cards are purely for show, they are gold (obviously) and there is a different animation on the card art for each card. The only reason to craft these cards is for collectible reasons.

Recommended Cards to Craft

Common

harvest-golem

Great value card which is a real pain to deal with efficiently. Fits into many decks. With its deathrattle the Golem is basically a 4/4 for 3 mana, just in two parts, which actually could mean it is more difficult to deal with. It also means it is resistant to AoE.

loot-hoarder

Weak but has enough damage to kill the popular 3/2 in the early game. Drawing a cards give you more opportunities to win, which is always nice. Fits into many decks. Card draw is great in the early game if you haven’t draw any playable cards. This card is awesome as whatever happens you get something, if he dies: a card, if he lives: two damage a turn. Unless he is silenced by something like ironbeak-owl or earth-shock.

silver-hand-knight

Great value as it is basically a 6/6 for 5 mana in two parts making it more difficult to kill. Cannot go wrong with this card. Fits in many decks. the squire has weak stats but can be useful at dealing that extra damage or taking care of smaller minions. Cards like bloodlust combo well with this card as you have more minions to have increased damage.

Rare

azure-drake

Amazing card. Card draw is phenomenal as it creates opportunities to win the game or get that taunt to survive the game. Spell power can make average spell game changing making a simple swipe,a combination of starfire and consecrate, often overlook by opponents. Great versatility, fits into pretty much all decks. The 4/4 stat line render the drake immune to the powerful priest removal shadow-word-pain and shadow-word-death.

defender-of-argus

Great card at controlling the board and creating favourable trades. Also great at stopping aggro decks and generally saving your life. Fits into all control decks and even in the aggressive Warlock ‘Zoo’ deck. The Argus pretty much re-shapes the board, forcing you opponents to use more cards to get rid of these new, annoying taunts. This card also forces aggro decks to reassess their strategy and can sometime change the tempo so much you win the game.

knife-juggler

This may seem average, but when you play multiple minions this card can change games in an instant by destroying cards for free, but only if your lucky. The 3/2 stat line is still very good as it will generally trade up for higher cost minions with 3 health. Great in aggro decks. Viable in control decks that consist of lots on minions. Because of its great ability, the knife-juggler is seen as a high priority target. This is great as it will then trade out for bigger minions or higher cost removal spells. When those two knives stop a charging leeroy-jenkins you’ll be thanking this guide.

Epic

faceless-manipulator

This card is great as it has the potential of becoming any minion, as long as this minion on the board. The Faceless allows you to make multiple copies of anything which could be game changing if this card happens to be ragnaros-the-firelord. As it can become a copy of anything, this card is basically everything and therefore has the benefits of all cards. You can make a copy of a taunt, a charge minion or a spell power minion, so long as there is one of these minions in play.

big-game-hunter

Good stats and an amazing battle cry if it gets used. This card should be held onto until the late game to get the best value. The BGH allows you to get way ahead of your opponent by killing their main minion and then controlling the board with 4/2. Usually one of these cards are ran as removal in decks. The key benefit is destroying such a large minion at such a low price. This card has the potential to kill deathwing, a 12 mana card for only 3 mana! Having that one BGH in your deck can give you the edge in what was a pretty evenly matched game.

sea-giant:

Although it costs 10 man for only 8/8 the battle cry allows you to get it out early as there will generally alway be minions on the board. Fits perfectly in decks that run a lot of minions. In rush decks you can spam minions out quickly and have the potential to get this card out on turn 5 or less which would definitely turn the game in your favour. A great addition to any rush deck.

Legendary

ragnaros-the-firelord

Although he can’t attack, he is able to destroy minions and damage the hero without taking damage himself, meaning he is able to hide behind a taunt sniping many minions over the turns after he is played. This makes him game changing and really difficult to kill efficiently. Ragnaros is especially hard to get rid of, so is best dealt with using mind-control or polymorph. This means he will have essentially trade equally with the P except he has already dealt 8 damage. He is definitely the best legendary to craft as he can fit into ANY deck. You can’t go wrong with Rag.

bloodmage-thalnos

Thalnos is an immensely useful card that is commonly used in mana decks. This includes: Miracle Rogue, Shaman, Freeze Mage and many more. The card draw, alike the Azure drake give you more opportunities in the early game to get ahead and more opportunities in the late game to win. The spell power, also alike the Azure Drake means Thalnos can make average spells excellent and give you that little push to take the game.

Although his stats are poor, he is meant to be combined with other spells in the same turn. Therefore taking advantage of his low-cost. He is worth crafting to add that little edge to tip any game with spells in your favour.

leeroy-jenkins

Leeroy is a great finisher as he can be brought out cheaply and does a great deal of damage. The two whelps your opponent gets are irrelevant if you kill them shortly after playing Leeroy. He is quite versatile as he can be combined with many class cards like the Rogue’s Shadowstep or the Warlock’s Power Overwhelming. With these combinations he deal up to 26 damage in 1 turn! Worth crafting for those combo/rush decks.

What Cards to Disenchant?

I would recommend disenchanting any cards you feel you don’t need. For example if you get a Rogue’s Epic card that you personally feel that it is no use then feel free to disenchant it. Another tip is to never disenchant anything until you are about to craft something. This s because the worts feeling is disenchanting something too quickly, only to later find that you need to craft that card (and for five time more that you just got it for).

Conclusion

Hopefully this guide has shown you the ins and outs of crafting, as well as giving some examples of what cards to craft. If you have any question leave them below or on Twitter (@HectorCarrie) and I’ll be sure to answer them, happy crafting!

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