I highly recommend against buying the mini xpac..

Imho aside from maybe 5 or 6 cards, the rest are not worth your resources and will not see play.

The warlock legendary is meant for a control style which at least at this moment doesn't even exist.

The priest one has a larger chance to make it, but is such a horrible top deck it will be overated like the dragon reduction one from DoD.

Moonfang the neutral is a 5 Mana do-nothing that might as well be a 5 Mana 6/6 which is not good enough.

The Rogue/Mage legendary is probably the best, being a small spell nets you two hopefully good cards but is for control and neither class is currently working that either.

These four cards are largely what you are paying for and after rotation some certainly can be promising but I predict none of them finds a home in any high tier deck *now...

The solo epic (you pay to get just one...) Is ridiculous underpowered as well, though I'd love to see it in Battlegrounds XD

This leaves us with some rares and common that are worthwhile such as Lucky soul Hoarder, Guidance, Arbor up, Libram of Judgement, and especially Sparkjoy Cheat. The thing is... They are rares and commons. Just open or craft them! That's my 2 cents. Don't waste your gold on this dissapointing release.

I don't know about it being disappointing, since expectations and reality are often misaligned, but I do agree the low number of high rarity cards means anyone who hoarded packs in anticipation of the mini-set should seriously consider just using them and not buying the bundle.

I personally will craft a golden Keywarden Ivory anyway (gotta keep a full golden rogue legendary collection), and I'm not overly fussed with the other legendaries, so the ~25 DMF packs I have stockpiled will do fine for me. There will also be more DMF packs coming in the future, e.g. from Arena and end of season rewards, which will probably help fill in the few remaining gaps.

Maybe if you play a lot of Arena and you're going to open packs anyway the math is different, but if you're buying packs with gold or real money, the mini expansion seems to be better value than Darkmoon packs.

And whether a card is worth it depends on the player: I like building decks, so even if a card isn't in a tier 1 deck, it can be worth having if it's unique or it enables an archetype that isn't tier 1.

Peoples' expectations of cards against reality are very often wrong. Remember Glide? [Hearthstone Card (Star Student Stellina) Not Found]? Prince Keleseth? Mecha'thun? Besides, it's fun to collect new cards and theories decks, even if they aren't tier 1. 

@Kerrek on this thread did the math and figured out that if you buy 20 packs instead of the bundle (assuming you have all the commons and rares from DMF), you'll end up with 5 fewer rares, 3 fewer legendaries, 2 more epics and about 300 more dust. If you have all the epics, then instead of 2 more epics you'll have about 500 dust. And even if you buy the bundle and decide you don't like the legendaries, you can very easily dust them and end up with 3 epics of your choice, instead of the random pack ones. I have all the commons and rares from DMF, so 2000 gold for 66 guaranteed, chosen cards feels like way better value than a maximum of 2 random epics and maybe 1 legendary.

Now, if you're hoarded packs for this miniset and you couldn't care less about the legendaries and you're missing some cards from DMF, then sure, it makes sense to just crack open the packs. If you don't like the cards, then there's nothing I can do to convince you otherwise. 

I have 26 unopened expansion packs. More than enough to get all the common / rare. There is just one epic, so I should get it as well and hopefully one Legendary. I have dust to craft the others if there are meta- suitable decks. So I will defintely not buy the expansion.

This is perhaps the hardest to evaluate, but it really just boils down to what kind of player you really are in hearthstone. If, like me, you're one of those guys that alternate between serious laddering and playing weird non-meta decks, then having a larger collection of somewhat useless cards is the optimal way to go. In this case, its better to get the bundle, whether in gold or in cash, because its the better value compared with 20 packs.

But if you're one of those players that dusts every useless card available and hang around only in the tier 1-2 club, then I would agree with you that the mid set ain't worth the penny. I'll throw my predictions right now and say that pure pally will top the list, followed by tickatus/galakrond warlock, midrange aggro shaman, ramp dragon druid, and rogue (whether its stealth, weapon or secrets). Pally will have at least 3 archetypes viable at least. So by my estimate you'll need at least 7 unique commons, 5 unique rares and perhaps 1 legendary from this set. All in all, achievable in around 7 packs + 1600 dust.

This is the one time I would say that team5 got it right in terms of pricing and options. Its flexible enough that it doesn't feel forced; you can just get the good cards with dust and call it a day, or get the bundle for a price and feel like you've bagged a rather large butterfly in an open field. The choice is entirely up to you.

Quick question: if I own some Darkmoon Races cards by opening packs and I buy the miniset, will still two cards of each Common/Rare etc. be added to my collection? I'm asking this because I want to max out duplicates for potential nerfs.

Quote From aposteljoe

Quick question: if I own some Darkmoon Races cards by opening packs and I buy the miniset, will still two cards of each Common/Rare etc. be added to my collection? I'm asking this because I want to max out duplicates for potential nerfs.

I believe so - you are paying for the full mini-set after all.

Mathematically, it is worth buying the bundle. Even if you don't like the cards, you can disenchant them and end up with more dust than if you had bought packs.

But the chances for duplicates of Races cards are smaller then. It's more likely to get an extra copy of a normal DMF card because there are more of them. The only risk I see is to get one of the new Legendaries before buying the set. 

4 legendaries for the price of 20 packs in gold seems like a steal to me.

Quote From aposteljoe

But the chances for duplicates of Races cards are smaller then. It's more likely to get an extra copy of a normal DMF card because there are more of them. The only risk I see is to get one of the new Legendaries before buying the set. 

If you get two copies of a common, you gain 70 dust. For one rare, you gain 80 dust. But if you draw an epic or legendary, you risk getting a duplicate instead of a potentially useful DMF epic or legendary, which sets you back by 300 or 1200 dust respectively.

If you're only looking for very specific epics and legendaries, gaming the system like that might be worth it. But if you're trying to build a broad collection you might be better off by making use of the duplicate protection and opening DMF packs after getting the expansion.

Quote From GameTheory345

Remember Glide?

Why do people bring up Glide so much when new cards come out. This isn't the 5 star card Troggzor the Earthinator, people were mad about glide because it would be terrible for the game if it ever saw play, not that it would see play in every single demon hunter deck which is what i see whenever someone brings up Glide nowadays(Which is everyone's defense when it comes to hearthstone(rez priest isn't bullshit even though it's not fun to play against it's not even tier 0, who cares that everyone is spamming it)). I was one of the loudest who spoke about Glide, if the card ever sees play the game will be worse for it, i still believe that today. Essentially bricking the mulligan which is one of the only ways you can guarrantee a card for a certain turn, either it being aoe against aggro, or a win condition against control. Remember glide. Remember Divine favor. Punishing your opponent for having card advantage the same way Divine Favor did, by screwing your opponent for having a large hand against an aggro opponent, where glide would be most advantageous. The only reason glide never saw play wasn't because it was bad it was because Skull of Gul'dan exists. And now we have Voracious Reader, and all kinds of other aggro BS, so thank god we never have to deal with glide. Now games are over on turn 4 instead, when you play against a demon hunter. And since people always nitpick whenever i post shit like this.

"But clawz demon hunter kills you on turns 5-6 not 4 so your entire argument is wrong."

I agree with the comment made that if you are not a whale it is a great deal. Who knows what synergies await when the next expansion comes out. If you are a whale, do not bother investing.

Looking at the HSReplays data, Glide has an overall "win-rate when played" of 33%, rising to only 35% against the slow decks the card is meant to punish. Most of the decks running the card don't run Skull of Gul'dan, because of the negative synergy - so the observation that SoG is the "only reason" Glide doesn't see play doesn't make a lot of sense.

In practice, the card is a lot like a 4-mana Secret Passage - but note that 1-mana Secret Passage current has only a 50% "win-rate when played." The potential upside of screwing a slow opponent also has to be measured against the potential downside of allowing a fast opponent to refill their hand (without first having to spend 4-mana.) It's also a fairly expensive Outcast card - SoG mitigates its higher cost by reducing the cost of the cards it draws, so you often do something the turn you play it, even if you cast SoG on curve. Glide just clogs up the hand - the kind of deck that wants to abuse Glide isn't the kind of deck that also wants to pass on turn four.

Quote From PopeNeia

4 legendaries for the price of 20 packs in gold seems like a steal to me.

Absolutely.  Also worth noting that while could get all the commons/rares of the mini-set from packs, that's also dust you are missing out on from duplicates (some golden if lucky) you'd otherwise get.

Not huge maybe but my dust total will be grateful :)

I actually love their fun factor. Not all of them are Hard Hitters, but most seem fun as f... Have 17 packs to open, will do after buying so I get more missing legs and epics.

Quote From Live4vrRdieTryn

I agree with the comment made that if you are not a whale it is a great deal. Who knows what synergies await when the next expansion comes out. If you are a whale, do not bother investing.

If you are a whale, you bought it the moment it was available and are laughing at all the weird logic in this silly thread.