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Hearthstone Deck Guide: Card Crafting

Done and Dusted (the latest in our series of expert playing guides)

Hearthstone Deck Guide: Card Crafting

A bunch of lucky Hearthstone players are sitting on a crock of Dust right now. Dust is the currency that's used to craft new cards and after each nerf, the affected cards are worth extra.

So if you've got Carrion Crawlers, Bonemares or copies of the legendary cards Patches or Razakus, melt them down right now. None are seeing play at the moment and, if that changes, you can craft them again for exactly the amount they're currently worth. Hurry though: this elevated value won't last forever.

What, then, to do with all that lovely, dusty loot? Well, that's what we're here to tell you.

General Advice

The bulk of this series consists of guides to the most powerful and popular decks in the game. The first point of advice is to choose one you've already got most of the cards for and try to finish it. Then another, and another and so on. Soon, you'll have a big enough pool to try all the decks you want.

Focus on crafting neutral epic cards from the classic set at first. If you're new, that might look impossible but, trust us: you'll soon have all the common and rare cards you could want. Epic cards are far more unusual and are often key to getting decks to work.

Aiming for neutral classics is mere common sense. Neutral cards can see play in a deck of any class, so they have the widest possible range of use. Classic cards will never rotate out, so won't ever be a waste of dust.

After that, you can think about class-specific cards and those from recent expansions. In the end you'll even be able to afford legendaries, too. But be careful buying expansion cards. They're no longer allowed in "classic" mode games after about two years. So don't craft too many older ones: try to stick to recent expansions for best value.

Now, on to the cards that are proving most useful in the current meta.

Epic

After all that advice, here's some bad news. At the moment, there are almost no neutral, classic epic cards running in multiple decks. The closest are Mountain Giant and Murloc Warleader, which form a part of Cubelock and Murloc Paladin respectively. However, both cards have historically performed well, and will likely continue to do so in future.

Given all those Murlocs, Hungry Crab doesn't look to be a bad choice right now, either. That might not last, though, so craft with care.

It's not a much better story if you look at neutral epic cards from the latest expansion. Spiteful Summoner shows up for Priest and Arcane Tyrant for Druid at the moment. But their powers make them good candidates for wider application further down the line.

Moving on to class-specific neutral epic cards, Rogue and Mage players might want Preparation and Ice Block. Both these cards run in current decks, and have proved useful since the game's inception.

And for expansion cards for classes, any Druid players are going to want Ultimate Infestation. It's so powerful that many expected it to get a nerf, but it's escaped so far. Psychic Scream has proved a defensive staple for Priest, as Voidlord has for Warlock.

Finally, Call to Arms looks to become an aggressive one for Paladin.

Legendary

Neutral classic legendary cards are a bit better established. There are two that have almost never gone out of fashion although, ironically, they're not much used right now. But the massive burst finish of Leeroy Jenkins and the card cycling of Bloodmage Thalnos will come back into fashion soon, no doubt.

Dragons are a good second tier pick. Ysera is probably the most used, with Alexstrasza, Malygos and Deathwing not far behind, in that order. Other cards which see common play include Cairne Bloodhoof and, with the prevalence of weapons right now, Harrison Jones.

After such a long time since release, it's also quite clear by now which classic class legendaries are keepers. Edwin van Cleef is at home in a wide range of Rogue decks, as Tirion Fordring is in Paladin. Others have patchier presence but Archmage Antonidas and Prophet Velen both see play.

Moving on to the most recent expansion, it's all about weapons. Aluneth is a boon in almost any Mage build. The Warlock and Paladin legendary weapons, Skull of the Man'ari and Val'anyr, get some use in specific builds, as does Warlock card Rin.

Instead, the focus is on the powerful Death Knight cards from the last expansion. Those for Warlock, Priest and Druid are still in frequent use as, are more occasionally, the cards for Rogue and Hunter. Neutral common Prince Keleseth from this set is also in a couple of common builds.

Matt Thrower
Matt Thrower
Matt is a freelance arranger of words concerning boardgames and video games. He's appeared on IGN, PC Gamer, Gamezebo, and others.