so i bought $50 of packs.... now what lol.
Should i just pick 1 hero and dust up everything else?
Man, its been ages since i've played a tcg online or irl where you don't just have access to all the cards to dick around with lol.
So i guess finding some decks online would be a good place to start, while subbing in other stuff for the legendaries could be ok.
Do gold versions of cards do anything or are they just for looks?
I'd only dust unique stuff if you plan on making a deck for getting to legendary, otherwise, just dust the extras... you'll probably want the cards back eventually, and crafting is not done in your favor, you only get 1/4th the dust needed to craft a new card from the same tier from dusting, so it's a huge loss to dust > re-craft, with the exception of golden cards.
Gold versions are just for looks, and they dust for the same value as a non-gold version, instead of 1/4th it. So you can turn a golden rare to any normal rare, golden legendary to any normal one, etc. Dusting golden legendaries is a little iffy, because again at some point, if you ever want one, it's 3,200 dust to get it back... so just be sure you won't lol.
My best advice for what to do next is just enjoy it and not burn out. Play a couple games a day (not endless hours), a few arenas a week, and see how you make out. When you start losing games 2-3+ in a row, take out cards from the deck that aren't helping you and swap them for stuff you wish you drew instead. Meta always changes, so there's not really a perfect deck to build. I think if you just go all out and start playing 4+ hours a day, you risk getting bored and very upset/raging over the game at times.