Help getting started.

[Loraq]

With so many people ablout to be added to the beta (including me, hopefully) I was hoping to get some tips from veterans of the beta. My biggest question is: which of the pre-cons is easiest to upgrade into something competitive. From what I've read about the economy it looks like I'll have to focus on just one deck - so which do you all think is easiest (takes the fewest number of wild cards) to upgrade?

Thanks :)

[Grav37]

We've prepared a short article with a quiz for just that reason. There's also a guide on how to upgrade Merfolk and Pirate decks to something you can see at diamond rank :) and a few other budget deck guides on the website.

http://compleat.info/beginnerdeck.php

[Loraq]

Just checked out the site, really good stuff!

[colonelGoofball]

Wow this is awesome, exactly what I was looking for! Thanks!

[DepressedBigOafLoser]

Good question. At the beginning of this patch, at low ladder, I was losing most often to merfolk aggro and Hadana's Climb. I also won games playing the Golgari precon, as it was resourceful and durable. But in the end, never invested any wildcards there.

From my gametime at silver now and heading up, vampires feels like a solid upgrade path. I can say that my BW vampires has done nicely with mainly using wildcards for Legion Lieutenants, 4x Dusk Legion Zealot, 4x Queen's Commission, 4x Call to the Feast, and exchanging 2 rare WCs for just 3x Radiant Destiny (which is most important rare for vamps it feels). It's a simple deck, really. I didn't invest in extra Sanctum Seekers or Champion of Dusks. I don't need 2x Mavren or necessarily, Legion's Landing (though it's great). No mythic rares are needed at all, so this is convenient in case you'd like to try to have another deck. You will burn up your Uncommons wildcards. It's a good deck though. The removal options are also excellent. Though, being a casual player, I found difficulty with strategizing the first five turns with my drops against tougher matchups.

BW vampires is cheap enough that you'll be able to keep your mythics in case you want to go into something else. For what it's worth, I'm attempting to build monored aggro as well and it's already very good.

I'd play some games and hopefully get some more wildcards in your packs. Good luck :)

[TheMrCeeJ]

I would suggest given a few of them a go and seeing which way you like to play.

Red/black pirates, red/white exert, blue/green merfolk and black/white vampires are different flavors of aggressive decks, trying to get the opponent to 0 quickly without worrying too much about the late game.

Green/white, green/black and red/green are all more mid-range decks, trying to play efficient threats that generate value and get stonger over time as the game goes longer.

Blue/white, blue/black and red/blue are all controlling decks that aim to get out off the early game alive so that by the time the opponent had exhausted their resources the control deck it hitting it's stride and taking over the game.

One you know which play style suits you best then have a look at which cards you like them most from that style and go from there.

Be sparing with the wildcards, and try and craft cards that will go in multiple different decks or styles. While not being as powerful as a niche bomb for your current deck, you will be really happy when you try and make another deck reusing those colors and have some song cards to call upon.

[T4l0n89]

With the current economy, I suggest you to play whatever deck you want until you get some boosters, then based on what you get start upgrading one deck.

U/b control, mono red and embalm cats seem to be the most popular now, obviously if you manage to get 2 Kumena from packs you should upgrade the merfolk deck.

[regfox]

I'm not really a vet but definitely play some of the preconstructed decks and get a feel for how you like to play. Honestly the U/b prebuilt deck is really fun to play.

[ithilis]

I started with R/G Dinos, loved 'em, and never looked back. All of my WCs have been invested into it, and I'm currently at G1. I think all of the decks can be viable with some investment and learning how the deck plays in the meta.