I’ve been playing Hearthstone since the beta, but have never taken in interest in learning how to craft cards. Until recently, that is. I got tired of being paired with opponents who had cards with Windfury on them.
Windfury allows a card attack twice in one turn. Obviously, that’s an advantage over the minion cards that can only attack once per turn. I did not have any cards that had Windfury.
It seemed to me that the only way to make sure that you get a particular card (or a certain type of card) is to craft it. Sure, packs will give player five cards – but they will be random ones.
If you want something specific, there really is no other option than to craft it. Little did I know that my first attempt at crafting a card would earn me a reward! The screenshots you see in this blog were taken on March 1, 2015.
In general, I like to give every aspect of a video game a try. I tend to start out with whatever looks like it will be fun, and mostly stay within my comfort zone after that. Eventually, I will get curious enough to try out parts of a video game that I hadn’t tried yet. At the very least, that will show me whether or not I like the new thing I am trying out.
The screenshot below gives a glimpse about what inspired me to go ahead and learn how to craft a card in Hearthstone.
This was one of several opponents, in a row, that had a Windfury card. More than one of that group had the Raging Worgen card. I figured it must be a fairly decent Windfury card to get, since so many players had it in their Decks. I was playing a Priest Deck because I was working on some Daily Quests that required me to win a few games with that Deck.
The Raging Worgen has a number of things going for it. It has Windfury, which means it can attack twice each turn (instead of just once). It also has Enrage. When the Raging Worgen card attacks for the first time, it becomes Enraged.
The screenshot above shows what that looks like. Enrage gives the Raging Worgen card an additional attack point. The card requires only 3 mana. That means a player could drop this card on the board early in the game before his or her opponent could drop one of those much bigger minions. (Well, that’s assuming the shuffle worked out and the card showed up early in the game).
I decided that this was the card for me! At the very least, this card would allow me to learn how to use a Windfury card (something I had not had the opportunity to do yet). My hope was that it would be a card that would give me the same advantage that it seemed all of my opponents were enjoying.
I clicked the button that said “Crafting Mode” and gave it a try. When I started, I had 25 Arcane Dust.
I found the Raging Worgen card, but it was “greyed out” (for lack of a better term). I couldn’t immediately figure out why I could not access this card.
The text box says: If he’s raging now, just wait until he gets nerfed. It also says that this card is from the Classic set and is Common. The artist is Alex Horley Orlendelli. Good to know, but it didn’t clarify why I couldn’t access the card I wanted.
Eventually, after staring at it for a while, I guessed that the problem was that I didn’t have enough Arcane Dust. The Raging Worgen card cost 5 more Arcane Dust than I had at that moment. The way to get more Arcane Dust is to disenchant some cards. In other words, if I wanted the Ranging Worgen, I was going to have to sacrifice at least one of my cards in order to get it.
After going through my cards, I decided to disenchant one Jungle Panther card. Doing so would give me the 5 Arcane Dust I needed to get the Raging Worgen card that I was after.
The text says: Stranglethorn is a beautiful place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there. It also says that this card is from the Classic set and is a Common card. The artist is Jaemin Kim. Again, good to know.
Why did is pick this card to disenchant? There were several reasons. I’ve got two of these cards, so disenchanting one would still leave me with one to play with. This is a card I hardly ever use because it has Stealth on it and I haven’t quite figured out how to use Stealth cards effectively. Another reason why I picked this card to disenchant was because doing so would give me exactly the amount of Arcane Dust I needed to obtain the Raging Worgen card.
A warning appears when a player indicates that he or she wants to disenchant a card.
The warning says: Are you sure? Disenchanting this card will leave you with less than the amount you could use in a deck. I had to stare at this warning for a while because it didn’t make any sense to me. Like I said, this wasn’t a card I’d been using – and I’ve put together several decks.
Disenchanting it is not going to leave me with only 29 cards. I’m going to assume that this warning pops up regardless of how many card a player happens to have.
There goes the Jungle Panther – turning into Dust!
If you look closely at the bottom corner of the screen, it shows that I have 30 Dust. I started with 25, disenchanted the Jungle Panther for 5, and that makes 30.
Unexpectedly, the act of disenchanting a card for the very first time results in a reward.
Crafting Time – Disenchant a card. I have been awarded 95 Arcane Dust. That’s quite a bit more than I came in with! I did not expect to earn Arcane Dust by disenchanting a card. I came in with 25 Arcane Dust – got 5 more Arcane Dust from disenchanting one card, and now have ended up with 125 Arcane Dust. It feels like the game is trying to encourage me to craft more than the one card I came in here to craft.
Back to the Raging Worgen card. It has now turned blue – which seems to indicate that it is a card that I have enough Arcane Dust to obtain. Great! If you look in the bottom corner of the screen, it says I have 125 Arcane Dust.
I clicked the “Create” button and crafted the Raging Worgen card. I finally managed to obtain a card that had Windfury on it (and Enrage, too)!
If you look closely, it shows that the Raging Worgen card cost 40 Arcane Dust. This leaves me with 85 Arcane Dust (which is significantly more than the 25 Arcane Dust I started with). At some point, I’ll have to see if I can figure out an awesome card to craft that costs 85 Arcane Dust (or less). Essentially, the game has granted me the opportunity to get a free card of my choice – so long as it costs 85 Arcane Dust or less.
I have had the chance to use the Raging Worgen card since I crafted it. It took a while before the card even appeared in my hand. When I was able to put it on the board – the other players would immediately kill it.
The best strategy I can come up with to keep my Raging Worgen card alive long enough for me to actually get to use it is to put a Taunt card on the board and then put the Raging Worgen out with it (or on the next turn). That forces the opponent to have to kill off the Taunt card before it can attack my Raging Worgen card. So far, I’m having fun with this card.