Ranked rewards guide - October 2016

Last summer's Grand Tournament expansion didn't just add a hefty new drop of cards to Hearthstone, it also introduced the concept of tiered rewards for the game. Put simply, the better you do on the ladder each month, the juicier the rewards chest you'll receive at the end of each month.

These chests contain crafting dust and Golden cards to help you boost your collection even further, and the higher you manage to climb each month, the more of both you'll receive. You'll also get a minor boost up the ladder for the following month, depending on how far you managed to climb up the ranks.

With a fair few months behind us since the release of this new system we've got a good handle on what exactly you can expect to receive for hitting various rungs on the ladder each month. If you want to know what rewards you're competing for - and what standard you'll need to reach in order to claim them for your collection - take a look through our round-up of all of Hearthstone's Ranked rewards chests:

Editor's note: Update #3 - We've completely overhauled our guide to the game's rewards system, from the contents of each chest, to the bonus stars received for competing each month. If there's anything else you'd like to see added to this guide, please let us know in the comments!

Hearthstone Chest Rewards - October 2016

The information originally here was a little bit out of date, so we've taken the chance to completely overhaul this section of our guide. Note that you'll need to reach a minimum rank of 20 in any given month to be eligible for any of these goodies - including each season's new cosmetic card back.

More great guides:

• The best Standard decks in Hearthstone
• The best Wild decks in Hearthstone
• The best free Basic decks in Hearthstone
• Hearthstone: Tavern Brawl guide
• Hearthstone Arena rewards list

Bonus stars by rank

To take a little of the sting out of starting from scratch at the start of each season, Blizzard also provides you with a handful of ranking stars at the start of every month. The better you rank in one month, the less you'll have to climb in the next.

Here are all of the ranks available in Hearthstone, and what kind of headstart you'll get by achieving each one.

Something to keep in mind about the rewards chests is that the system logs your highest reward tier achieved each Season, so don't stop playing if you lose some matches and are worried about missing out on extra goodies! You'll always be rewarded for your highest rung on the ladder.

As for whether or not you should turn your Golden cards into valuable Crafting Dust, it's important to consider a few things. First of all, if you're into collecting your beautifully animated Golden cards, you might simply want to add them to your collection. That's an entirely sensible thing to do.

Even if you don't care for these cosmetic improvements though - and you already have two of the vanilla version of the card - it can be worth holding onto the Golden version regardless. Blizzard does nerf overpowered cards from time to time, and they typically reward players with double the Crafting Dust by way of apology for the inconvenience caused.

If you've no urgent need to craft new cards now, it might be worth keeping that Golden edition somewhere safe - just in case...