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Imagine I have 300 gold in Hearthstone. I have two choices on how to spend it:

  • 2 Arena entries
  • 3 boosters

If we ignore the time spent in the arena (both from a time spent and fun perspective) and focus only on the rewards, how many wins do I need to be able to get before arena becomes more profitable than buying boosters?

Comic Sans Seraphim
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2 Answers2

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If you take a look at this answer, you'll see the break even points for gold. I'm not considering dust or cards as part of breaking even since its hard to value those:

  • You have the possibility of breaking even (100g for a booster + 50g back) after just 1 win.
  • You will always break even after 5+ wins (though at 4 wins its very close to break even as well).
  • After 7 wins, you will be playing the arena for free as you'll get your entire gold entry fee back.
Community
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l I
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  • just have to add, a lot of the high end players (who have a lot of time) swears by the arena and never buys boosters. – l I Feb 12 '14 at 12:42
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    If you are skilled go for Arena. If you don't feel comfortable, meaning don't know too many cards etc. than learn some more normal games, but don't buy boosters – RayofCommand Feb 12 '14 at 15:36
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Three games is widely considered to be the break even point. The Arena costs 50 gold more, and at three wins you tend to get around 50 gold back (or a mix of gold and dust). Three wins is also the number of wins a statistically average player is likely to achieve.

You also have to consider that playing constructed would earn you 10 gold per three wins, so the actual break even point taking that into account is probably a bit higher than three wins.

I'd summarize the decision in the following way:

  • If you like playing Arena, then just play it
  • If you're at least an average player, you're likely to break even
  • If you're a better than average player, the arena is better than buying booster packs
  • If you're a great player and can achieve 7+ wins on average, you can earn boosters continously for however long you're playing Arena
Mad Scientist
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    good point about the 10g per 3 wins – l I Feb 12 '14 at 19:50
  • Considering the 10g/3, Arena has a higher revenue than Constructed starting with 6 wins on maximum gold payout(Mgp) and 7 wins on minimum gold payout(mgp). These figures completely ignore packs, dust and cards received as their value is hard to determine. Interestingly, if you plot the Constructed (10g/3wins), max Arena (Mgp on each tier) and min Arena (mgp on each tier) curves, you see a notable increase at 6 (max) resp. 7 (min) wins. Basically, these mark the threshold for a profitable Arena run. But if you receive mgp, you need 11 wins to really beat Constructed! You do get other stuff tho. – scenia Apr 11 '14 at 15:23
  • A few notes on the math: The "statistically average" player will receive less than three wins on average. The mean number of wins-per-run may be (near) three, but what matters is the median, which will be much lower since the better players will end up playing more games. Also, "if you can achieve 7+ wins on average" should read "7+ wins every time". – BlueRaja - Danny Pflughoeft Apr 25 '14 at 13:26