Using this site you can do a practice run of arena and then link to it in the end; the idea is that we can all look at similar drafts and figure out which cards were poorly or aptly chosen and which were debatable. Arena is the only part of the game that's not entirely transparent on the deck construction front though it's still relatively easy to do with a large amount of luck involved.

Here's one I just did:

Pick 1: I picked Al'Akir because he has a new visual effect, also he's not as bad as he looks, Onyxia is the best pick normally. Captain Greenskin is meh without Doomhammer.

Pick 2: Bloodlust vs Acolyte of Pain is a tossup, its entirely possible to go 7-12 wins without Bloodlust but it can make certain games go faster. Nightblade is meh.

Pick 3: Arcane Golem is better than people think, Pint Sized is mediocre, and Feral Spirit is excellent.

Pick 4: Kodo is by far the best card of these three.

Pick 5: 1 Stormforged Axe is always excellent for a Shaman

Pick 6: Kind of crappy cards but Deckhand synergizes with the previous pick.

Pick 7: Windspeaker is solid, already have Bloodlust, and Turtle is meh.

Pick 8: Hex is a mandatory spell card for any arena run (the other is Lightning Storm...), more than one Stormforged is okay but not necessarily required.

Pick 9: Another Axe over a mediocre 2 and a mediocre 3.

Pick 10: Ravenholdt is basically a fireball that might get more than one hit in, if I had a Windspeaker in hand + Ravenholdt on the board that's potentially 14 damage. Lava Burst is alright, Ancient Watcher is terrible in Arena (though I guess the Chinese use it in constructed)

Pick 11: Lord of the Arena is alright, Rocketeer is sub par, Shieldbearer is terrible in Arena.

Pick 12: Boulderfist is great, Forked lightning is alright, Ancestral Healing is terrible in Arena.

Pick 13: Frost Elemental is quite solid, don't have any spells at this point so Kobold is not good.

Pick 14: Snapjaw is not great but its better than this trash.

Pick 15: Shattered Sun Cleric remains the best 3 neutral drop in the game even with the nerf.

Pick 16: Raid Leader is okay for a shaman or paladin, other two cards are terrible.

Pick 17: Dark Iron Dwarf is extremely good.

Pick 18: Blademaster is solid, already have enough lategame in this deck.

Pick 19: Rockbiter is very good removal.

Pick 20: Ancestral Spirit combos well with Al'Akir, Gadgetzan is good but I don't have that many spells at this point.

Pick 21: Feral Spirit vs Kodo is a tossup, already have one of each but I do have Bloodlust so I went with Feral.

Pick 22: Frostwolf is great for a shaman, Senjin is good too.

Pick 23: Cult Master is great for most decks but especially good for Shaman and Paladin.

Pick 24: Harvest Golem is very difficult to remove, Worgen is okay but dies easily, just picked a Frostwolf but having another wouldn't be bad either.

Pick 25: Spiteful Smith is great with weapons, pretty good without weapons, too.

Pick 26: Rockbiter is great removal, Earthshock is okay, and Darkscale healer is okay.

Pick 27: Ogre Magi is solid for the stats alone and I don't have many 4 drops, Youthful Brewmaster is good, Acolyte is good, most debatable pick other than the first one.

Pick 28: Faerie Dragon is great, Ancient Brewmaster is very good, Earth Shock is alright.

Pick 29: 2 bad three drops and one that's mediocre, Thrallmar isn't terrible like the others.

Pick 30: Faceless is great, Blood Knight is okay in arena, Southsea is only good with 3 or more pirates in your deck (pick would still be Faceless even then)

Post your runs/critique mine/ask for random advice at will!

Cool, thanks for this. Just did a proper arena run with 7 wins, to check out the new reward system after the patch.

This will be useful later though =)

Cool, I do MTG draft simulations every now and then but somehow didn't think Hearthstone would already have one. Will have to get on that.

Are they still giving beta keys for this? I've been waiting for awhile to try it or is the open beta soon enough anyway?

They're still giving keys out and claim that everyone who opts in will be in the beta before it completely opens up. I've had no luck yet sadly either. Checking my mail every day just to see nothing. Open beta was supposed to be this month or if they felt it was necessary they mentioned pushing it back to January. Right now they're still having server issues just from the waves of people they're adding in, so I doubt they're ready to go open this month. Knowing Blizzard we should probably keep our hopes in check and expect to see it around March or so.

Here's a bad Mage deck I made. Tell me all of the ways I fucked up. I'm pretty sure this deck is bad, but I don't think I know how to play Mage other than "Polymorph is pretty good, you guys". Open to suggestions.

Pick 1: Went with Demolisher. Bloodsail Corsair seems like a waste of a rare pick, every time (honestly, why would you ever run that card when Acidic Swamp Ooze exists? I guess a Pirate deck or something). Kirin Tor Mage has decent stats I guess, but I'm not at the point in the game where I could even tell you how many secrets the Mage has available, nor the likelihood that I'll encounter them while drafting (many of the good ones are not common), so I'll pass on her.

Pick 2: Went with Polymorph. I like Polymorph. Maybe shoulda gone with Lord of the Arena.

Pick 3: Between Mana Wyrm, Faerie Dragon, and Ice Barrier, no idea. Ice Barrier may as well read 3 mana for 8 life, which is decent, but whatever, I'm here to destroy the other guy, not sit around healing. Went with Mana Wyrm.

Pick 4: Went with Thrallmar Farseer. Jungle Panther and Silver Hand Knight are both fine, I guess? Maybe Thrallmar is only good if you can buff it? I don't fucking know.

Pick 5: Went with Novice Engineer. No idea if Murloc Raider or Ice Barrier is more worth picking.

Pick 6: Went with Frost Bolt. Venture Co. Mercenary is maybe good to play once you're mostly out of creatures to play? Also the game really wants to give me an Ice Barrier.

Pick 7: Went with Frost Bolt again, because I have no idea what I'm doing and wasn't too hot on the alternatives (Grunt and Murloc Tidehunter).

Pick 8: Faerie Dragon, because I have enough Frost Bolts, and Snapjaw never seems to work out for me.

Pick 9: Went with Dragonling Mechanic. Maybe shoulda got Core Hound? Fuck if I know.

Pick 10: Ancient Watcher and Ethereal Arcanist both require too much setup for an Arena deck, so Abomination is the only pick. Unless I'm completely wrong.

Pick 11: Harvest Golem, I guess.

Pick 12: Arcane Explosion, since I need to be able to fuck over 1-health swarms. I'm never sure if Cone of Cold is any good, and I don't need another Dragonling Mechanic.

Pick 13: Went with Flamestrike. Footman isn't my fave, and Flesheating Ghoul is alright.

Pick 14: Went with Water Elemental, but for all I know, Booty Bay Bodyguard is the right pick.

Pick 15: Went with Frostwolf Warlord, because you can usually find a way to give him decent stats.

Pick 16: Went with Scarlet Crusader, though no idea if Ironforge Rifleman is considered the better pick. But I'm a mage, so I already know how to ping guys for 1.

Pick 17: Took another Mana Wyrm. Coulda taken the Water Elemental, I guess.

Pick 18: Took Dire Wolf Alpha, but really had no idea on this one. Razorfen Hunter can be good, and I didn't feel like I had enough freeze to justify Ice Lance, but I could always get more (too much setup?).

Pick 19: Went with Mirror Entity, because that card can be dumb in late game.

Pick 20: Faceless Manipulator seems like the really obvious choice. Big Game Hunter is wicked situational, and Ice Block just buys you one more turn to win when you're about to die, but doesn't actually help your position in any way.

Pick 21: Acolyte of Pain? I picked that mostly for mana curve, and if you're lucky you can draw 2 cards off it.

Pick 22: War Golem, because I am severely lacking in big creatures.

Pick 23: Archmage, because I am severely lacking in big(ish) creatures, also spell damage is nice.

Pick 24: Wild guessing. I feel like a noob whenever I think Nightblade or Stormpike Commando is any good, since their stats are kinda bad for their cost. But Archmage has kinda crap stats too. Went with Commando.

Pck 25: Went with Frost Elemental, which felt like the obvious choice.

Pick 26: Ironforge Rifleman, since Magma Rager is too easy to kill.

Pick 27: Went with Shattered Sun Cleric. Arcane Explosion was a little tempting.

Pick 28: I don't know how strong Gurubashi Berserker is. I know my deck has zero ways to heal it. I went with it, but maybe should've gone with Snapjaw for mana curve reasons?

Pick 29: Silver Hand Knight, because what the fuck do I know.

Pick 30: I went with Blizzard. Mind Control Tech seems bad. I've seen Young Priestess be really irritating, but it's at this point that I take stock of my deck and realize I only have one taunt creature, so the odds of me keeping her alive are low, unless I go first AND play her first turn AND he has no turn 1 play AND his hero ability doesn't deal minion damage.

In retrospect, maybe I should've taken Lord of the Arena early on, but since that was the only Polymorph I ever saw the whole time, I guess I'm fine with that pick. On that note, I'm totally glad I picked up the 2 Frost Bolts, since the RNG saw fit to only give me one Polymorph and no Fireballs. Maybe should've chosen Booty Bay Bodyguard over Water Elemental, since I feel like this deck has very defensive creatures in terms of stats, and is also horribly lacking in taunt? On the other hand, maybe I should've taken more Water Elementals, since it was one of the only 4-cost creature I saw that I liked, and now my deck is really short on 4-cost creatures and has way too many 5-cost spells. Probably could've taken another Water Elemental instead of the second Mana Wyrm or Mirror Entity. I would've liked to see even one Ogre Magi or Senjin, but apparently nope, fuck you. Actually, I only passed up 3 Snapjaws, 2 Water Elemental (already had one), and 1 Dragonling Mechanic (already had one), because I was holding out for something better, I guess. No Arcane Intellect is a bummer. Or is it? I don't even know. I would've played one.

In general, I bet this deck would play terribly, and Frost Elemental, Flamestrike, and War Golem are probably not sufficient to turn around whatever fucking machine of death most people cook up in arena in the first 5 turns. I feel like I got dealt a really shit pool of cards, but I feel that way every time in arena because I'm bad at it. I got kinda shafted on any good 4-cost creatures. In the entire 90-card pool, all I was given were Snapjaws, Water Elementals, and Dragonling Mechanics.

I know the game is still in beta, but it does a terrible job at explaining deck construction to new players, beyond suggesting cards in constructed. Luckily I've played MtG, but more casual Constructed than anything, and my experience with Limited is, well, limited, so I'm still total rubbish at drafting/Arena. Like seriously, the game doesn't even explain what is a reasonable mana curve to aim for, and just shows you the current mana curve of your deck. Nor does it make any baseline suggestions of what a good split is between creatures and spells in a deck. I guess it almost forces that on you, since each deck type only has access to a few spells, so the rest of your deck is sort of forced to be creatures (except for Rogue, which is silly because the starter Rogue set is ALL spells).

@fredchuckdave: Why Boulderfist over Forked Lightning? It was only your 12th pick, and in that situation, I would've picked the lightning, since it's one of Shaman's only multitarget damage spells, whereas there are plenty of neutral and Shaman-specific 6- and 7-cost creature that hopefully you will encounter in the next 18 picks. Though I think my Arena decks are trash usually, possibly because I'll often take removal over creatures I perceive to be plentiful, only to find that the RNG fucks me and never gives me a creature like that ever again.

@bisonhero: Boulderfist is a good, hard to remove creature; I wouldn't want more than 2 in any given deck but it's still good. Forked Lightning is slightly above average or thereabouts; since it was early on I'm still banking on getting a lightning storm at some point; in retrospect knowing that lightning storm and forked never came up again I would pick forked lightning, but obviously you can't pick cards in hindsight. The problem with Forked Lightning is that it is always a dicey play early game, on turn 3 you could totem and use it but the only thing you could do on the next turn is totem, additionally if you didn't get a spellpower totem sometimes you just get screwed by it. If it's a choice between a solid card like a Chillwind Yeti or Boulderfist and not-always useful removal then I'll take the solid creature. Granted if I was playing mage I'd pick basically every fireball and frostbolt without thinking about it; but Shaman isn't so fortunate. With a class specific card you can rely on it possibly coming up again and your choices being not as good at that point.

For neutral good minions I think the cutoff for having a very large number of them is 5 mana (there's plenty of class cards that are exceptions to this rule and Argent Commander); even something amazing like Stormwind Champion you wouldn't want more than 2 unless your other potential picks were terrible, simply because if you get a hand that's all huge cost cards you could just get completely screwed right out of the gate. But if you want to pick 5 Stranglethorn Tigers or 3-4 Venture Co. Mercenaries then go right ahead, those cards are incredible.

@bisonhero: With the deck you didn't do too bad, there are a few questionable picks however.

Pick 1: Kirin Tor Mage is almost always going to be better than Demolisher unless the Demolisher stays alive for several turns (unlikely)

Pick 4: Both Panther and Silver Hand Knight are significantly better than Thrallmar (Silver Hand is probably the best pick here but there's situations where you would pick panther), Thrallmar is only good with buffs and mages don't have buffs.

Pick 9: Dragonling vs Youthful Brew is a tossup, your deck didn't wind up with that many 4's so you made the right pick. You'd basically never pick Corehound over these two; it has too low HP for a big drop.

Pick 12: Cone of Cold is always better than Arcane Explosion, but could pick the Dragonling as well.

Pick 17: Mana Wyrm is pretty good, Water Elemental is absurdly good for 4 mana (easily beats Booty Bay as well)

Pick 19: Always pick a solid minion over Mirror Entity, so Water Elemental here as well.

Pick 20: Faceless vs Big Game is a tossup, the best two neutral epic cards.

A lot of the picks are debatable but you could make a solid case for either side (e.g. War Golem vs Acidic Swamp Ooze, weapons aren't as big of a deal as they once were) so I won't worry you too much about those. I'd say your deck has maybe a little too much lategame on the curve but it's only like a card or two. The deck is solid and by virtue of being a mage it's not particularly hard to completely wipe the opponent's board several times since you got Flamestrike and Blizzard (though you could have had even more removal if you chose to build your deck that way).

@fredchuckdave: I'm always afraid if I go too heavy on removal Mage, I'm going to find myself playing out this hand of removal and then have almost no creatures that I've actually got around to playing, especially in that Arena card pool where I got zero Arcane Intellects to gas up my hand. I guess I could've gone heavy on Acolyte of Pain and Loot Hoarder to make sure I always have some cards in hands, but yeah, my experience with MtG draft is to not go so heavy into removal that you don't end up with enough creatures in your deck (especially in Hearthstone, where every colour plays like mono-red in MtG and has SOME damage spells).

Also, I've picked Big Game in other Arena instances, and then go through all my matches where they play an endless stream of minions with 6 or less attack.

@bisonhero: Big Game is just a huge swing card, you can't play it most of the time but if you do play it and it kills an Ironbark or Ragnaros or something that got buffed a whole bunch it's just insanely valuable. Faceless is similar but costs a little more mana and is a little more random in the end result/yields initiative to the opponent. Faceless is only rarely not useful though so personally I would probably pick Faceless. But if Druid became more popular/got buffed in the future I might pick Big Game. There's also plenty of plays that involve something like Dark Iron Dwarf + Big Game Hunter that are quite solid as well.

While I largely agree, I ended up taking a few different turns. I took the Infiltrator of the Deckhand because, at that point, I only had one axe and would rather take a more generally solid pick over a potential combo in something as volatile as Arena. I also took Lava Burst overf Ravenholdt, and ended up with a Ravenholdt later instead of a Blademaster. Removal removal removal! I took the Auctioneer and the Brewmaster of the Magi because at that point, I only had two axes and one creature for my 2 drops.

I'd add that for pick 23, I'd take the Raging Worgen instead and for 26 I'd take the Cone of Cold over the rifleman.

Here I'll do one for fun too:

1. Chicken sucks, Holy Wrath is way too RNG for me, Sunfury Protector is fucking rad
2. Divine Favor, the other two cards suuuck
3. Violet Teacher, still no real decisions to be made, also lots of rares?
4. Blessing of Kings, no weapons yet and Ironfur Grizzly is meh
5. Silver Hand Knight, 6/6 for 5, but this deck is starting to feel top-heavy, especially with Divine Favor
6. Truesilver Champion, easy
7. Blessing of Kings again, Acolyte would help me stabilize my curve but I'm being optimistic
8. Stormwind Champion for synergy with hero power
9. Faerie Dragon, start getting my low drops
10. Ok seriously? Arcane Golem is the least worst pick. Chicken could be cute with BoK but I hate relying on combos
11. Amani Berserker
12. Consecration, need some sweeping
13. Consecration again
14. Scarlet Crusader, grunt sucks and my deck doesn't feel aggro enough for BoM
15. Blessing of Wisdom, Mage sucks and War Golem is super vanilla
16. Shattered Sun Cleric - sneep
17. Frost Elemental is marginally more useful than the other two, Freeze is always sexy
18. Noble Sacrifice is great for tricks and often trades with a 2-drop when played early
19. Hammer of Wrath, free removal
20. Sword of Justice, they're all good cards but I like sword
21. Cult Master, great synergy with hero power
22. Consecration, although maybe I should have taken the tiger instead
23. Young Dragonhawk, Flesheating Ghoul might have been a better pick but it works well with 2 BoK and BoW
24. Blessing of Wisdom, since I have that Dragonhawk now
25. Boulderfist Ogre to give me some more top-end strength
26. Ironbeak Owl for the silence
27. Faerie Dragon for more low drops
28. Stormwind Champion for more high end
29. Cult Master, as much as I love the Yeti, but now I think I have way too much card draw for Divine Favor
30. Equality, works well with 3 Consecration and hero power

@starvinggamer: Your picks over mine are relatively defensible; though I do think Ravenholdt doesn't get enough play, even in constructed Ravenholdt can be good without buffs.

Re: Worgen vs Archmage, Worgen is really good for mage if it stays on the board but typically it just dies the turn after you play it, so depending on the mana curve I'd probably pick Archmage 65% of the time. I do think Cone of Cold is an objectively better choice than Rifleman but there are situations where the Rifleman would wind up being more useful (and people seem to have newfound respect for Elven Archer of all things so a better version of that is not too awful).

For your draft let's see here...

Pick 4: I would pick Kings but it's worth noting that Spiteful Smith is pretty good even if you don't have any weapons.

Pick 12: You could pick Bloodsail raider here since you already got a Truesilver and chances are you'd get another consecrate; typically Paladins only need 1 consecrate to win a match.

Pick 15: War Golem is a good card, wisdom is fine as well.

Pick 17: Frost Elemental vs Guardian of Kings is basically a total tossup, few weeks ago most would pick the Guardian but people are getting an ever increasing respect for freeze.

Pick 18: Paladins don't have early game removal, Wolfrider is early game removal and therefore quite useful. Noble Sacrifice can be really good in constructed but is meh in Arena (assuming the opponent is competent).

Pick 23: Ghoul is the correct choice, but I can see picking Dragonhawk.

Pick 24: 1 wisdom is fine for a Paladin deck but if you ever wind up with 2 in your hand early game it's rough going. Kings is amazing, pick Kings.

Pick 29: Already have a Cult Master so I'd pick the Yeti, but kind of a tossup.

Thanks for participating!

I just drafted a Warrior deck and saw 0 Fiery War Axe, Arcanite Reaper, Warsong Commander, Kor'kron Elite, or Heroic Strike.

@starvinggamer: Pretty nasty stuff, Warrior with Fiery War Axe + a bunch of Kok'rons is extremely good but if you wind up getting none of their good class cards/weapons you're screwed. Personally I've had the most 9 win runs with Warrior though that does include the Battle Rage glory days. Frothing Berserker might be the best 3 drop in the game.

Here's a draft I just did quickly, woeful on the 2 drops but a pretty good deck aside from that. Tyrion/Leeroy is nice though.

I figured I should do a Warrior draft or two since I'm reasonably competent at the class in Arena and most have trouble with it.Your basic theory for Warrior is that you want a solid early and mid game because eventually you will always run out of cards because your hero ability is useless and you have no class card-draw; as such you want a deck that peaks at 3 4 or 5 and you want almost no cards past that point, a single Stormwind Champion or Gorehowl or Argent Commander is fine but generally you don't want anything bigger than a Venture Co outside of legendaries. The other component of a good Warrior deck is Fiery War Axe, that is the end all be all of any arena warrior deck and you can probably pick up to 4 of them, though 3 is fine and 1 or 2 is workable. Alexstrasza might be the number 1 legendary for Warriors.

Here's a non ideal draft following these principles, obviously if you're given a choice between crap and a decent 6 drop you can take the 6 drop. In a recent game I played an Acolyte of Pain on turn 3 and the opponent responded by playing a Yeti, my next turn was double cruel task master on the Acolyte into killing the Yeti; essentially I killed a Yeti, drew 3 cards, and had 2 2/2's on the board for free afterward. This is why Cruel Taskmaster is nuts.

Here's a much better draft following the same principles. A casual observer might think that the curve for the first draft is way better but for warrior it is all about early-mid game. I've had a deck with 4 heroic strikes that went 9 for instance. You will eventually run out of cards just by default, just make sure the opponent is nearly dead by then or you have a dominant position on the board.

The first deck would win 5-7 or thereabouts with random luck skewing it either way, the second deck is almost a guaranteed 9.

@bisonhero Don't worry too much about being good at the game or what have you, you'll improve over time. Like any post-Starcraft Blizzard game there's a lot of eristical elements that want to disparage anyone that's even slightly worse than they are, but in reality the skill cap is very low and ultimately everyone just copies one another in some sort of test of who can be the most tedious, boring person imaginable. Arena is better but you'll still run into 30-40% mages and stuff like that, so it's not that much different. Just play the game and try to have fun with it. My battletag is Efreet #1563 if you want to mess around sometime.