Bolding things below as a TL;DR, not for emphasis.
FWIW, I was one of those Excel people. I used XP/hr. data from Firestone; a 0.776:1 dust:gold conversion ratio based on average dust rates per pack from the data available on the Hearthstone wiki; and the most average player I could imagine (50% winrate and playing only to clear all daily and weekly quests [i.e. playing nothing else besides 3 ranked games a day]). The new system, even in its first iteration, was tremendously better--honestly, it gave this player roughly double what he/she would have earned in gold under the old system.
When factoring in sources of XP from both gameplay and quests (not achievements), the average player (as defined above) would be earning XP at a rate of roughly 1986 XP per day. Given the initial iteration of rewards track rewards, and assuming the 0.776:1 dust:gold ratio, 19 XP equaled 1 gold--again, only under the initial rewards track (you get more gold per XP now). 1986 XP per day meant roughly 104.5 gold per day under the very first iteration of our current rewards track.
To put this in context, under the previous daily quest system (where the average daily quest was worth 60.5 gold), this player would have to complete the daily quest and win 14 games (for a total of 107.2 gold) to achieve the same amount of daily gold that he/she got under the initial iteration of the rewards track (104.5). For those of us who do spend hours on the game every day, we would need to have been winning 15 or more ranked games a day (and therefore playing probably 20-30) to be making less gold under the first iteration of the new rewards track. For everyone who wins fewer than 15 ranked games a day, the very first version of the rewards track was immediately more profitable and less grindy than the old system.
I play both Standard and Wild, and I definitely agree with you that Wild gets less attention than other game modes. I do want to point out a couple reasons why Blizzard is incentivized to promote Standard over Wild, though.
1) By its very nature, Standard incentivizes longtime players to acquire more cards than Wild does. Even though Wild decks definitely still incorporate new stuff, the percentage of cards per Wild deck from the most recent expansion is inherently lower than in Standard decks. Blizzard, by its very nature as a for-profit company, is incentivized to maximize profits. By encouraging players to acquire more new cards as opposed to working with cards they already have (i.e. play more Standard than Wild), Blizzard maximizes the money spent on the game.
2) Hearthstone Esports use Standard format. I would surmise that encouraging players toward Wild could/would prevent at least some potential esports competitors from ever making it into the competitive pipeline because they end up maining Wild. Research would obviously need to be conducted to determine whether that number would be large enough to actually have an effect on the pipeline, but it does make logical sense that it would have at least some impact on the number of players being funneled into competitive Hearthstone. (And unfortunately, although I do believe Wild would definitely work as a competitive format, I don't think Blizzard will ever introduce it as another league or another division of Grandmasters because it has less potential entertainment value--the competitive meta in an evergreen format like Wild would likely change far less than the meta does in a rotating format like Standard. "Freshness" drives curiosity--it's how our brains' reward systems are wired--and curiosity means greater engagement, and greater engagement means more people spending money on the game/more money from advertisers. For a for-profit company whose primary goal is to maximize profits, Standard is the only way to go when it comes to esports. Incidentally, this is also probably why Blizzard funnels players toward Duels, Battlegrounds, and even Arena [before they deleted that quest] but not Wild.)
The morality of this profit-above-all motivation is obviously up for debate, but the point that Blizzard has little to no incentive to funnel players toward Wild still stands, regardless of the morality of pure capitalism. So I would ultimately say that the intention of treating Wild players as second-rate consumers has almost certainly never crossed Blizzard's collective mind; rather, what drives the decisions of Blizzard shot-callers is a commitment to maximizing profits for Blizzard and its shareholders. The Hearthstone devs clearly love the game and pour their heart and soul into making the game they love as good as it can be--they even engage with and listen to the HS community, which, while we may have come to expect and/or demand it, is something they definitely don't owe to us! However, Blizzard investors don't care about Hearthstone--they care about maximizing the value of their investments. And because Blizzard investors care most about Hearthstone's profitability, Blizzard brass also cares most about maximizing Hearthstone's profitability. Until Wild becomes more profitable than Standard, Blizzard will direct the dev teams to funnel players toward Standard, and there's not really anything we or the Hearthstone devs can do about it.
I'm a little late to the discussion here, but just wanted to put this out there for anyone who, like me, may have just heard the news. Guessing Deathspeaker gets nerfed to "Battlecry: Give a friendly minion Immune during (on? until the end of?) its next attack." Deathspeaker would fully retain its intended functionality, so the wombo combo can be deleted with no (almost no?) collateral damage to Arena balance or other decks that might run any of these three cards. Thoughts?
Bolding things below as a TL;DR, not for emphasis.
FWIW, I was one of those Excel people. I used XP/hr. data from Firestone; a 0.776:1 dust:gold conversion ratio based on average dust rates per pack from the data available on the Hearthstone wiki; and the most average player I could imagine (50% winrate and playing only to clear all daily and weekly quests [i.e. playing nothing else besides 3 ranked games a day]). The new system, even in its first iteration, was tremendously better--honestly, it gave this player roughly double what he/she would have earned in gold under the old system.
When factoring in sources of XP from both gameplay and quests (not achievements), the average player (as defined above) would be earning XP at a rate of roughly 1986 XP per day. Given the initial iteration of rewards track rewards, and assuming the 0.776:1 dust:gold ratio, 19 XP equaled 1 gold--again, only under the initial rewards track (you get more gold per XP now). 1986 XP per day meant roughly 104.5 gold per day under the very first iteration of our current rewards track.
To put this in context, under the previous daily quest system (where the average daily quest was worth 60.5 gold), this player would have to complete the daily quest and win 14 games (for a total of 107.2 gold) to achieve the same amount of daily gold that he/she got under the initial iteration of the rewards track (104.5). For those of us who do spend hours on the game every day, we would need to have been winning 15 or more ranked games a day (and therefore playing probably 20-30) to be making less gold under the first iteration of the new rewards track. For everyone who wins fewer than 15 ranked games a day, the very first version of the rewards track was immediately more profitable and less grindy than the old system.
I play both Standard and Wild, and I definitely agree with you that Wild gets less attention than other game modes. I do want to point out a couple reasons why Blizzard is incentivized to promote Standard over Wild, though.
1) By its very nature, Standard incentivizes longtime players to acquire more cards than Wild does. Even though Wild decks definitely still incorporate new stuff, the percentage of cards per Wild deck from the most recent expansion is inherently lower than in Standard decks. Blizzard, by its very nature as a for-profit company, is incentivized to maximize profits. By encouraging players to acquire more new cards as opposed to working with cards they already have (i.e. play more Standard than Wild), Blizzard maximizes the money spent on the game.
2) Hearthstone Esports use Standard format. I would surmise that encouraging players toward Wild could/would prevent at least some potential esports competitors from ever making it into the competitive pipeline because they end up maining Wild. Research would obviously need to be conducted to determine whether that number would be large enough to actually have an effect on the pipeline, but it does make logical sense that it would have at least some impact on the number of players being funneled into competitive Hearthstone. (And unfortunately, although I do believe Wild would definitely work as a competitive format, I don't think Blizzard will ever introduce it as another league or another division of Grandmasters because it has less potential entertainment value--the competitive meta in an evergreen format like Wild would likely change far less than the meta does in a rotating format like Standard. "Freshness" drives curiosity--it's how our brains' reward systems are wired--and curiosity means greater engagement, and greater engagement means more people spending money on the game/more money from advertisers. For a for-profit company whose primary goal is to maximize profits, Standard is the only way to go when it comes to esports. Incidentally, this is also probably why Blizzard funnels players toward Duels, Battlegrounds, and even Arena [before they deleted that quest] but not Wild.)
The morality of this profit-above-all motivation is obviously up for debate, but the point that Blizzard has little to no incentive to funnel players toward Wild still stands, regardless of the morality of pure capitalism. So I would ultimately say that the intention of treating Wild players as second-rate consumers has almost certainly never crossed Blizzard's collective mind; rather, what drives the decisions of Blizzard shot-callers is a commitment to maximizing profits for Blizzard and its shareholders. The Hearthstone devs clearly love the game and pour their heart and soul into making the game they love as good as it can be--they even engage with and listen to the HS community, which, while we may have come to expect and/or demand it, is something they definitely don't owe to us! However, Blizzard investors don't care about Hearthstone--they care about maximizing the value of their investments. And because Blizzard investors care most about Hearthstone's profitability, Blizzard brass also cares most about maximizing Hearthstone's profitability. Until Wild becomes more profitable than Standard, Blizzard will direct the dev teams to funnel players toward Standard, and there's not really anything we or the Hearthstone devs can do about it.
I'm a little late to the discussion here, but just wanted to put this out there for anyone who, like me, may have just heard the news. Guessing Deathspeaker gets nerfed to "Battlecry: Give a friendly minion Immune during (on? until the end of?) its next attack." Deathspeaker would fully retain its intended functionality, so the wombo combo can be deleted with no (almost no?) collateral damage to Arena balance or other decks that might run any of these three cards. Thoughts?