Spending Gold: Golden Packs vs Normal Packs

The title to debate. With recent patch allowing us to spend gold into golden packs, a new opportunity has arisen. There are some points I would like to point out:

• Normal Pack: Costs 100g, at least nets you 1x20+4x5=40 dust from a pack.
• Golden Pack: Costs 400g, at least nets you 1x100+4x50=300 dust from a pack.

Therefore, spending a golden pack rewards you more with dust than 4 normal packs ever could. However, there is also the legendary timer to consider. I know that buying first 10 normal packs guarantee you to get a legendary but beyond that, I don't know the math. Same goes for golden pack legendary timer, what are the odds?

One can also play Arena and/or Duels, provided you're really good at it. Yet, does it really compensate for buying golden packs?

In short, what should be the best option for a regular player? Spending gold on:

• Normal Packs?
• Golden Packs?
• Arena/Duels?

I look forward to hear your thoughts on this matter. Thanks for reading and I wish you everyone have a great day.

Golden packs dont have pity timers, although they do have a better chance at giving out signature cards (practically legendaries). All the opening rates are the same as a normal pack.

Its likely not worth getting golden packs over normal ones, simply because you open more packs in the latter which means a higher overall chance at getting a legendary and, more importantly, epics. People often focus hard on legendaries whereas in most cases its the epics that really hurt a f2p player.

Arena/Duels isn't in contention, because their value fluctuate. A good player can expect to get back his net spend gold maybe 70% of the time, and that's just better value than outright buying packs anyday. The only downside is that you need to spend an inordinate amount of time on these platforms, which may not be a fun experience.

Ultimately, golden packs are for whales who seek completion (especially for the signatures). Its never realistically a prospect for the average player who play maybe a game a day.

Another factor to consider is: would you actually dust the golden cards? Duplicates, sure, but what about the ones that aren't your favorite play style? 

It doesn't matter if it's a higher dust value if you are unwilling to part with them. 

Quote From anchorm4n

Not entirely accurate imo. Aren’t you guaranteed a legendary in your first 10 golden packs of each expansionas well?

If Im not mistaken, this was confirmed way back when golden packs came along, from a debate about the value of a golden pack bundle.

Quick reddit search: https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/sdj61o/are_the_golden_packs_worth_it_purely_for_dust/

Same goes for class packs as well. If we think about it, it kinda makes sense. Why would blizz allow such profligacy?