@Elasmobranch: Personally, I wouldn't use $25 to get the wings; I would just grind for the gold to buy the wings. I only complete 60g and 100g quests and only complete 40g quests if I have to. For example, I would look at the quests I get everyday and use my once-a-day reroll to reroll a 40g quest. If a 60g quest pops up, I would immediately do that, but not finish any other 40g quest at the same time. If I rerolled 3 days in a roll with no 60g or 100g quests popping up, I'll just do 1 40g quest. You might think this seems slow for getting gold, but I've gotten 3 quests of 60g, 100g, and 60g at once before. Also, the new GvG cards are supposedly only coming out in Arena and since they're not out yet, I would just aim for the Naxxramas cards first

@crazypoorer
@jh92

Is the expansion really worth it with GvG coming out? I don't know if it's worth dropping $25 for a couple of good cards when I could just as easily get them for free.

The naxxramas expansion gives you a lot of really good cards like loatheb, undertaker, and sludge belcher. Although you can buy it with gold, it's much easier if you pay real money.

I hit rank 8 without spending a single cent. the only legendary i had was tirion (and that was from a pack)
i agree that hearthstone requires an RNG factor, but skill trumps RNG and legendaries any day. Speaking of "trumps", Trump hit Legend rank with nothing but a basic deck. no commons.
however, if you do really want packs, I recommend Arena like everyone else. If you know what you are doing, you should average around 3+ wins per arena run, and I believe the rewards Arena distributes "breaks even" along with the cost at around 4 wins (eg: 4 wins may get you 65 gold and 1 pack, which is around 165 gold, and the entry was 150 gold, so you profit.)

No it's not required.

On a fresh account I made, I got to legend playing undertaker zoo without spending a cent on it.

My main account on the other hand I've dumped at least 100 on that, in which I have pretty much every card in the game except for the bad legends. I still spent a lot of time in the arena grinding out cards though. I've hit legend 5 times, peaking in top 100.

Thing is though, once goblin vs gnomes comes out the gap between f2p and paying becomes even greater. You will no longer be able to grind normal packs in arena as they only give out GvG packs and only be able buy them for 100 gold each.

So not only will you lack cards from the regular set but from GvG as well.

On the other hand however, if you are able to become proficient in arena you should be able to do fine. Arena will teach you about value, tempo and how to trade efficiently which will help you in constructed.

There's videos of people getting to legend with free to play decks, literally just cards you start the game with plus a few easy to craft ones. Of course they're very good at HS, but it's a matter of skill instead of money alone. Money does play a bit of a role if you want cards fast, but they certainly aren't mandatory to have fun and do well.
I went rank 2 with a shaman deck with 0 epics and 0 legendaries

I haven't put a single penny into Hearthstone and I do fine in ranked, assuming ranked 9 is good enough for you.

When I started, I just watched some videos of TSM Trump's arena drafts and plays to know which cards to draft and when to play them.
I suggest not buying packs and just focusing on arena in the beginning since it's your best way to learn the game while gaining packs + gold.
Some people have great luck when it comes to opening packs for legendaries, but during the ~8 months I've played, I've only opened 4 legendary cards and 2 of them were the worst of the worst.
I also suggest buying the Naxxramas wings immediately since they're a great boost of cards in constructed and arena.

You have to start from 0 to get anywhere. Just arena for cards, learn get 7 wins+ and you'll be making 'profit'.

You definitely don't need money to become good, and it doesn't take months to build up. Just search up the quests and you should get a good 500g, then arena arena arena.

There's daily quest everyday, try to cycle them for 60g quests. I don't put too much time into it, I just do daily quests and arena on weekends.