Hearthstone - Rank 25 to Legend in 1 week, Free-to-Play by opant108

I have been playing Hearthstone since it became available to the public. Earlier this month I decided to give away my original account on which I had all the cards. I didn't want to spend anymore money on it and I knew I would if I still had the account. 

A week ago I decided to start a new Free-to-Play account with the goal of earning enough gold to buy all the adventures and to gather as many cards as possible without spending any money. I decided on Warlock Zoo as the deck I would focus on first. It took me one week, one 11 and one 6 win Arena run, earning enough gold to buy the first wing of Naxx and LoE, and 224 games as Zoo (not counting games played getting each class to rank 10 for the Gold reward between ranks 25-20). Below are the stats vs each class for my games played as Zoo.

• Druid 22-15 %59.4 
• Hunter 29-11 %72.5 
• Mage 18-14 %56.3 
• Paladin 21-18 %53.8 
• Priest 8-3 %72.7 
• Rogue 11-4 %73.3 
• Shaman 4-5 %44.4 
• Warlock 25-9 %73.5 
• Warrior 3-4 %42.8

Total 141-83 %62.9

Here is proof of Legend and the deck I used at the end.

This isn't the final version of the deck that I want to have, since I want to get at least Imp Gang Boss and Loatheb but that will cost me 2100 in Gold to buy the Adventure wings in which they are available. Until then, I think this is a good deck for someone to start with.

Getting wing 1 of Naxx is very important so if you're starting out, you will want to save 700 gold for that after which you'll be able to use both the Haunted Creeper and Nerubian Egg. Dark Peddler should be your next goal, costing another 700 gold for wing 1 of LoE. It's a new card and many still have doubts to its usefulness in Zoo but it has on many occasions won me the game with a draw of Soulfire or Power Overwhelming for the final burst to kill my opponent or with a Voidwalker to keep Face Hunter from rushing me down. After that I would recommend saving 1400 gold to buy wings 1 and 2 of BRM so that you can get the Imp Gang Boss in wing 2. Finally another 700 Gold for wing 2 of Naxx to get Loatheb. 

From my final version of the deck I would most likely take out 1 Piloted Shredder, 1 Harvest Golem, and either 1 Dire Wolf Alpha or 1 Shattered Sun Cleric for the 2 Imp Gang Boss and 1 Loatheb. The rest of the cards that are in this deck can be crafted once you accumulate the required dust, though it shouldn't take long to get enough dust as the only non common cards that can be crafted are the 2 Defender of Argus, 2 Doomguard, 2 Knife Juggler, and 1 Imp-losion (all rare). I am considering 1 Sea Giant or 1 Enhance-o Mechano as the next cards to craft but I don't have the dust for them yet and I don't even know how well they would fit in this deck.

I just wanted to share this guide to show that you don't have to pay to win in hearthstone, you just have to be good at the game and play enough games (though it only took me a week and it's easy because games playing with Zoo don't take too long).

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