When I first started playing Hearthstone, naturally I noticed different skill levels among the players, but it seemed almost irrelevant because of the pay-to-win cards. Even though I was obviously a much better player than most of my opponents, they would kill me if they had the pay-to-win cards.

As soon as I saw the first murloc come out, or the first dragon cartouche or C'thun minion, I could would just hit the concede button right then and there and hope for a more fair match in the next game. This was very discouraging and I almost gave up the game as pointless for those who didn't buy cards.

This changed for me around level 22. By buying card packs with earned bold I acquired enough "rare" cards to have some chance. Once I had 3 blues (Lightwarden and Achenai Soul Priest and Holy Fire) plus the white, Acolyte of Pain, I was actually able to win some games against loaded players (the bad ones of course) using skill.

So, how well does this scale? Can an expert player beat (more than 50% of the time) a loaded deck with just vanilla cards or is there some threshold (like my 3 blues and a white) that you need to reach for skill to start making a big difference?

Also, at the top level (the best players), will one with a elite cards always beat somebody with vanilla cards? So, to compare this with chess: an average master with an extra piece will nearly always beat anyone, even Garry Kasparov. Is that true in Hearthstone, that if you have an elite deck that once you are pretty good player, you can beat anybody with a vanilla deck, even the best player in the world?