The Arena

The Arena gives players the opportunity to test their on-the-fly deck building skills against other players. The Arena becomes available once all Heroes have been unlocked. The first Arena run is free, but all other runs will cost either 150 gold or real-world money.

The Great Equalizer

The Arena is the most egalitarian mode in Hearthstone. While it's possible to gain a true power advantage through earning or buying Cards in regular play, Arena mode forces competitors to build their decks from a pool of relatively balanced and equally limited resources.

A player who masters the deck Building principles of Arena can reap rich rewards against far more experienced players. Players have found that winning above seven games in an Arena run can result in obtaining at least a pack of Cards and enough gold for another Arena entry fee. If you are good enough in the Arena, you can consistently enter the Arena and and gain Card packs very often. It goes without saying, that because of this; The Arena has turned out to be the most beneficial way to earn Cards, gold and dust for skilled players.

How the Arena Works

Upon entering The Arena, a player is given three randomly selectedHeroes to choose from. After choosing a Hero, the player is then shown three randomly selected Cards, the player chooses one Card and is then shown another three randomly selected Cards, this process is repeated until the player has chosen thirty Cards to complete their Arena deck, of which they will then use to compete against other Arena players with their Arena decks.

In The Arena you have three lives. Once you have been defeated three times in The Arena, you are given rewards dependent on how successful your run was.

Building an Arena Deck

Building an Arena Deck is very different from building a normal deck. The key difference in the limited scale of the Card environment. Most of the familiar combos you'll see in regular play aren't possible in Arena, since the pool of Cards available to each player is too small to create consistent combinations.

1. Arena decks are therefore much more fundamental. You want to keep a good mana curve (ratio of cheap Cards to expensive Cards).

2. You'll want plenty of Minions at your disposal.

*Learn How to Draft Neutral Minions in Arena

3. Look out for Cards which provide strong Card advantage. AnyCard that offers two-for-one rewards, either by providing two minions or destroying two or more enemies, is very important. Likewise, Cards which allow you to draw more Cards are powerful.

*Learn More About Building Card Advantage

4. Keep an eye out for direct effects, Cards which can be used for removal or to steal or immobilize enemy Minions. These abilities are invaluable.

Playing An Arena Deck

Learning to use Arena decks demands patience. Adjusting your play tendencies from your custom deck strategies to the improvisational world of Arena takes a while, and you'll likely lose quite a few matches before you really get the hang of it.

Since you never have the opportunity to tune the deck through play testing, you're going to need to learn to live with your mistakes and learn from them. Every Arena match is an educational experience, especially the losses, which teach you just where your deck is weak. Adjust your play style accordingly.

For example, you may discover that you've stacked your deck with good, cheap Minions and Card drawing, but you're shorter on large closing Minions and removal than you realized. You may want to adapt your next game play strategy to pure Aggro (all out attack) in the hope that the vulnerability will never have a chance to manifest itself.

Arena Rewards

Depending on how many wins you get in your Arena run, you will be rewarded with an Arena Reward Key at the end.

Wins	Key Title
0	Novice Key
1	Apprentice Key
2	Journeyman Key
3	Copper Key
4	Silver Key
5	Gold Key
6	Platinum Key
7	Diamond Key
8	Champion Key
9	Ruby Key
10	Frostborn Key
11	Molten Key
12	Lightforge Key

The more wins you get in one Arena run, the better the Key. The better the Key, the better the rewards. Rewards come in small boxes that pop up on the screen after you use your Arena Reward Key at the end of your run.

Even if you are defeated three times in a row, you are guaranteed at least a pack of Cards for your efforts. Thus making playing The Arena, often more beneficial than simply spending all of your Gold directly on Card%20Packs Card Packs.