Hearthstone pro player hits legend in 3 days on a free-to-play account

Some people complain that despite being free-to-play, you need to pay-to-win if you want to succeed in Hearthstone. One player went out of his way to prove that isn’t true.

PawełHS is a professional player has hit Legendary, the highest rank in the digital card game’s Ranked Mode, multiple times in the past. For a new challenge (which he detailed on Reddit), he started a new account and try to reach Legendary without spending any money. Joost van Dreunen, analyst at market research firm SuperData Research, told GamesBeat that Hearthstone makes $20 million a month, and it’s the leader in the $1.2 billion digital card game segment. This money largely comes from players buying packs of digital cards.

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For his challenge, PawełHS used the cards that you start with, the three free packs you get with a new account, and more cards earned from one Arena run (this mode lets you construct a deck from random choices that include all the cards in the game, not just the ones you own, and your reward are card packs) to make a Pirate Warrior deck. You can see what’s inside the deck here. He reached Legendary in just three days with this deck, with a record of 138-75.

You can watch when he hits Legend in the video below.

Now, obviously skill is important in Hearthstone. PawełHS was able to do so well because he’s played a lot and knows what cards he needs to use to optimize his chances of winning. Still, this shows us an important lesson: You don’t need to spend a lot of money to succeed in Hearthstone. And while randomness will always play some kind of role, you can minimize its impact with smart planning.

Three days is a short period for any deck to climb the Ranked Mode ladder. I’ve been playing Hearthstone since its launch in 2014, and my best rank for a month was 5 (you reach Legendary at Rank 1). Some say that it’s too much of a grind, complaints that Hearthstone lead designer Ben Brode has acknowledged.

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I think there is room for improvement. We've been discussing it recently.

— Ben Brode (@bbrode) June 28, 2016

It’s a tough challenge, since reaching Legend should feel like an accomplishment. But it can feel like a slog for expert players who have routinely reached the top status.