Legend in Hearthstone, Finally

I remember seeing Hearthstone before it was released and being completely amazed. It looked like a combination of two of my all-time favorite games, World of Warcraft and Magic The Gathering. It turned out to be exactly that, but smoother to play and entirely online.

Hearthstone features a ladder system where players gain and climb ranks. While the system has changed over the years, it essentially boils down to two tiers: Legend and Pre-Legend. Once you reach Legend, you stop climbing ranks and instead get an overall number rating relative to other Legend players. Wins and losses affect your rank within Legend, but you can’t fall out of it.

In the ten years I’ve been playing this game, I never once made it to Legend. Partly because the grind is intense and partly because I’ve never been interested in playing the “meta” decks with high win percentages. My preference has always been to play for fun—whether that’s chasing memes or experimenting with whatever flavor of deck excites me during the current expansion.

Last month, something shifted. For some reason, I picked Hearthstone back up and decided it was time to get the Legend monkey off my back. I climbed all the way to Diamond with three wins—just one away from Legend—only to hit a terrible losing streak. Frustrated, I gave up.

Then, at the start of January, I had a change of heart. I told myself, “Get back in there, see how it goes, and if you happen to climb well, maybe go for it.” I picked up the same deck I used last month, Secret Hunter, and shot up from Bronze to Diamond in just a few days. I’d never climbed that fast before.

From there, I mostly stuck with Secret Hunter but mixed in a few games of Swarm Shaman whenever I ran into decks heavy with Taunts. After countless games, I finally made it to Legend! Check out the screenshot from my first game at Legend—you can see just how insane this Hunter deck can get in only a few turns.