Hello Steemians!
As I have wrote about in two of my previous work. I made mentioned that the most time I spend on a game right now goes to Hearthstone. If you do not know, Hearthstone is Blizzard's very own Card Game that was derived from the heroes, monsters and maybe part of the lore on their MMO World of Warcraft.
I have been playing this game a few months after the launch in 2014. And I have to admit, at that time, I did not find it very appealing. Maybe because my time was spent on other things in life and having Hearthstone (No luck whatsoever on any legendary) is going to make things a little more difficult to juggle around. So I decided to just leave it there for now.
I only played the game again when I bought my very first flagship phone from LG, the V10(Deceased). I had to shorten my game time on the other games just to accommodate Hearthstone.
Hearthstone proved to be very slow. As an F2p player, getting destroyed by Dr. Boom is not a very wonderful experience. Seeing that card alone would cause me to concede a game more than I can remember. I know this will be a very long journey.
As a Free to Play player, having powerful cards (Legendary Cards like Dr. Boom) does not come very fast. And you literally have to purchase/open packs to get them faster and at random. It is also not easy to make one as they would cost 1600 arcane dusts to craft. Bloodmage Thalnos was my very first legendary card. I got it a few months after I restarted my journey in hearthstone. I guess they do not just say Legendary for nothing.
After getting my first legendary, I was inspired. I wanted to get more into the game than ever but as F2P. Getting consistent Rank improvement month after month was my step goal, getting legendaries along the way is a plus. Ranking up is not easy with my own decks as I have a limited card pool, I lack experience. I have to follow what is hot and cheap at the same time. That was the only way for me to get to higher Ranks. (FaceHunter?)
Whispers of the Old Gods came along, April 2016. And change was everywhere. The introduction to "Standard", a format that is being used in Magic the Gathering, is to limit the number of expansions used for the current season. This also means the elimination of Dr.Boom from standard play(Yey!!). This is very good for players like me because I just cannot keep up with all the cards since way back. Every single expansion is dedicated into saving gold to buy the next Solo Adventure, and my that more than just a handful of games.
I may have forgotten to tell you that I am playing this casually but with Legendary as a goal. So basically every month, I am limited to maybe average <400 games played. Sometimes when I feel like I am on a roll, I squeeze in a few games while I am at work. For as long as I can multi-task (not a good idea), and luck is on my side (RNGods) then I go for it.
After standard play started, I have been able to hit past Rank 5 every single month. Topping Rank 1 from time to time, but after losing streaks, Rank 5 has been a constant ground for me. I have been getting lucky with legendary cards as well that enabled me to start building decks. Standard helped out since the wild cards can be disenchanted if I really needed the dust to create new cards.
The most recent Expansion, "The Journey to Un'Goro," was filled another addition to how ranked play is setup. They now apple Ranked Floors where you no longer Rank Down after hitting that certain Rank. This is made on Rank 15, 10, and 5. This made everything easier as I no longer get to worry about going below Rank 5. A whole lot of the competitive community would really highlight that the journey from Rank 5 to Legend takes more games played that from Rank 20 - 5 because of the lack of bonus stars, and eventually, getting to play with more "seasoned or experienced" players.
On the release month of "Journey to Un'Goro," April 29th, was the very first time I hit legend after spending a year ++ on the game as an F2P. It was 343 games recorded on my Main Computer (53% win rate), that is without the ton of games I played on my phone and on the laptop.
When I hit that legendary status, I literally screamed in both excitement and exhaustion. I never thought I would be able to hit legendary after having tried and failed for more than a year. Never have I thought that persistence would let me achieve a goal I have always wanted for myself. The reward is the satisfaction of achieving a goal, even if it is just a game.
I know this is quite a WALL, but Hearthstone has literally taken up a year or so in my life. This was an experience that proved to be lengthy yet satisfying and maybe an inspiration to other F2P players that would like to hit legend in the game as well. It is a tedious task, a whole lot of research and failures, literally a chore. But hitting legendary is a possibility. I started out with nothing about card games, strategies, win-rates, cards... NOTHING. So if I was able to do it, I am sure you can too.
If you liked this or you would like to share your experiences as well, please feel free to comment, upvote. And if you would like to share this as an inspiration other Hearthstone players please do hit resteem or maybe even follow me. Or maybe you would like to do practice games with me, or trade 80g, then maybe you would like to add me looterdevil #1579 im on NA.
Thanks alot! Till next time!