The Arena game in Hearthstone can be a constant source of Expert Packs, gold and dust, or it can be the bane of your time with the game, constantly going 0-3 or 1-3. While there is some randomness involved in Arena and Hearthstone in general, how you build and play your deck will have a drastic impact on how well you perform in Arena. These deck-building tips will help you learn to build a solid deck, no matter what choices you’re given during the deck creation phase.
Character Selection
Before you can even think about drawing a deck, you first must select your character of choice. Given that you only have three characters to choose from, you can’t always pick your favorite. In fact, there will almost certainly be Arena runs in which you will not have any characters you enjoy playing. Nevertheless, you still need to make a selection and move on to your card draft.
When selecting a character, it’s important to choose a character that you’re familiar with. Even if you don’t know any of the character options, there’s a good chance you know one of the characters more so than the other two. This is the character you should be selecting. Yes, Mages, Paladins and Druids tend to be considered the best Arena classes, but if you don’t know much of anything about a Mage, but know a little bit about Rogues, you should be picking a Rogue over a Mage.
Your card draft will have a greater impact on your Arena run than you class selection, but many of the cards you’ll get are directly related to the class you select. If you don’t know what kind of deck you want to build, or how a class should be played, it’s very difficult to draft a quality deck.
Draft Speed
Unless you’ve been playing and winning for quite some time, it’s never good to rush through your draft. Take your time with each and every pick, and evaluate your deck and the strategy you’re going for every five cards or so. The more experience you have, the longer you can do between deck evaluations, but for newer players, every five should be your limit.
When it’s time to evaluate your deck, look at the cards you have and determine exactly how you plan to use each one. What is the strategy you’re going for with each card, and with your deck as a whole. Is it an aggro deck? Do you have the cards you need to play the deck with that strategy? If you don’t, you either need to start drafting cards that fit into that strategy better, or change your strategy. Remember, you don’t have control over which three cards you can choose from, so if you’re holding out on a few cards as the basis of your strategy, there’s a decent chance you’ll never get those cards.
Deck Quality
When you’re playing with a constructed deck it’s easy to determine the quality of your deck, and when and where you should be playing cards. In Arena, the quality of your deck changes with each draft selection. It’s extremely important to draft cards that work well in many situations, as opposed to cards that only work well in combo situations.
It’s also important to look at your Mana curve. Do you have several 5- and 6-Mana cards, but very few cards in the 1-3 Mana range? What are you going to do during your first few turns? It’s very important to gain deck control early on, or have a way to turn the tides before it’s too late. Even if you have some of the best high Mana cards, they will do you no good if you’re almost dead by the time you can play them.
Sometimes it’s better to go for the decent 2-Mana card over a good 6-Mana card. But if you have plenty of low Mana cards, that 6-Mana card is your recommended choice. You really have to examine your deck build and see where you’re at. If you’re new to Arena, your card distribution should look like a pyramid that peaks at 4-Mana. That means you should have more 4-Mana cards than anything else, and roughly equal numbers of 3- and 5-Mana cards.
