Hearthstone Arena Guide: Drafting and Pro-Tips cover image

Hearthstone Arena Guide: Drafting and Pro-Tips

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Become an infinite Hearthstone Arena player with this Guide. How to orient your draft to have a 12 win deck in five tips.

If you are looking to farm resources in Hearthstone, Arena is the best place to do it, and this guide is the best way to learn how. The arena is different from the constructed play. Fundamentals apply the same, but you need to tweak some concepts. In this Hearthstone Arena Drafting guide, we will tell you what you need to have the best possible deck and get those 12 wins.

Hearthstone Arena Guide

By now, you probably have already read our Hearthstone Arena Tier List Guide. With that information, you know which are the best classes and the best cards to pick. What else do you need to make it to 12 wins? Here you have some Pro-tips to complement the Hearthstone Arena Tier List info.

Drafting a Curve

The first tip in this Hearthstone Arena Guide is: to have something to do every turn. So, you can take your first 15 or 20 cards to pick the best card available. However, when entering the last part of the draft, make sure you have enough low-cost cards for your deck to be consistent. This way, you will likely have a good play to do in the first three turns. If you are lacking two or three drops and you are on the last 10 cards, that would be a good time not to strictly follow the Hearthstone Arena Card Tier List.
Draft a Curve
Draft a Curve
Don’t worry much about having too many expensive cards. Every game will last at least five turns. However, not every game will last 10 or more turns for you to play your most expensive cards. The HearthArena Drafting tool is an excellent guide that can help you in your Hearthstone Arena runs.
HearthArena Drafting Tool
HearthArena Drafting Tool

A Guide on Tempo and Value in Hearthstone Arena

Similar to the Curve concept, an important thing to have in mind is how much Tempo or Value-oriented your deck is.
What’s Tempo? In simple words, spending your mana to put stats on board. What’s Value? It’s how much does your whole deck cost. Roughly, more expensive things are higher Value.
Make sure not to be too greedy while drafting Value cards. If your deck is too “heavy”, it is likely that your opponent will rush you down before you can play your big threats. Arena is a tempo-oriented format. Put stats on board as quickly as you can and try not to worry much about potential synergies. Once you have control of the board, you can close the game with your late-game bombs.

Premium Cards

The next tip for this Hearthstone Arena Guide is Premium Cards. Following the Hearthstone Arena Card Tier List concept, there are some cards that you should definitely prioritize picking almost in any circumstances. Most of these cards are premium tempo minions or cards that can put stats on board while having some reactive capability. If you can develop your tempo while removing your opponent’s, you will rule the Arena.
HsReplay Arena Card Stats
HsReplay Arena Card Stats
Each Class will have its popular and OP cards. But, to keep things nice and “short”, we have only highlighted the Neutral cards. So if you want to go deeper than this guide, you can check each Hearthstone Class best Arena cards on HsReplay or HearthArena Tier Lists.

Which cards should you play around?

Arena has lots of differences from Constructed gameplay. Most of the time, you won’t be able to predict your opponent’s cards as you do in Ladder. However, knowing the most popular cards and the available card sets will give you an edge when making important decisions.
You can check the most popular Hearthstone Arena cards in the HsReplay Tier List. Furthermore, as a rule of thumb, you can always have in the back of your head the current sets included in Arena:
  • Core
  • Forged in the Barrens
  • United in Stormwind
  • Fractured in Alterac Valley
  • Voyage to the Sunken City
  • Murder at Castle Nathria
  • March of the Lich King (including Return to Naxxramas)
  • Path of Arthas
Have in mind that all these sets are standard sets. This means that the Arena power level is quite crazy right now. There are few bad cars, so expect strong decks from your opponents. More so if you are beyond the 5-wins record. That being said, try not to fall for complicated synergies they would be harder to pull in Arena. Tempo is always king!

Go Infinite with Free Tickets

One last Arena life hack to finish this Hearthstone Guide. You can get Free Arena Tickets with every rotation. If you have an ongoing run when an Arena Rotation happens, you will be able to rip off the rewards for your wins, and on top of that, Hearthstone will grant you Free admission as compensation. So make sure you play until you lose twice before each rotation to squeeze every cent. This tip also works with Duels rotations, and those Admission Tickets can be used in the Arena.
Get infinite Hearthstone Arena Free Tickets
Get infinite Hearthstone Arena Free Tickets
I hope you have enjoyed this Hearthstone Arena Drafting Guide and the extra tips. If you haven't already, check our Hearthstone Arena Tier List. Stay tuned to Esports.gg for more Hearthstone news and updates. See you next time, in the tavern.
Manuel "Rane" Delgado
Manuel "Rane" Delgado
Editor | Twitter @RaneTDF
Manuel “Rane” Delgado is an experienced Hearthstone caster, content creator, and tournament organizer from Argentina. He started his career on Esports casting his own tournaments, now he currently casts the Hearthstone Esports circuit for the LATAM region, among other content creation and tournament organization.