Just remember folks, everything you see from Out of Cards datamining is subject to change before the launch of Hearthstone Mercenaries.
We've uncovered pricing information for Hearthstone Mercenaries packs thanks to our datamining of an early access client.
What Are Mercenaries Card Packs?
Much like regular packs, Mercenaries Card Packs contain 5 different items which can be of the following types:
- Mercenary Cards
- Allows you to play that Mercenary character in the game.
- Mercenary Coins
- Used for crafting Mercenaries or to upgrade Abilities and Equipment.
- Each Mercenary has their own coin - "Jaina Coins" "Alexstrasza Coins"
- Mercenary Portraits
- Cosmetic appearances, "Hero Skins", for your Mercenary characters.
The cards found inside of the packs are unique, you will never find duplicates until you own all Mercenaries of that tier (Rare, Epic, Legendary), at that point you find skins of the same rarity. There are some other rules though with the drop contents.
- One item in your pack will always be a Mercenaries card.
- A rarity is rolled on pack opening to determine which rarity of Mercenary you will get.
- Once you've collected all Mercenaries of a given rarity, these will instead be guaranteed Portraits for Mercenaries of that rarity.
- The remaining 4 items can be any of the above item types, including additional Mercenary characters.
- It is possible to obtain a Mercenary Portrait before the Mercenary itself. You can play with that Portrait as if you owned the base Mercenary.
How Much are Hearthstone Mercenaries Card Packs?
The big reveal! This information may not be final but here's what we can expect for pricing details as of this week.
Because Hearthstone has a global audience, we need to put this into perspective when looking at regular card packs.
We're happy to share that when looking at the Canadian prices of packs, they are equivalent to what you would pay for a regular card pack. 60 Card Packs is $88 CAD, and 60 Mercenaries Card Packs are also $88 CAD. Its nice to see that Blizzard kept the pricing the same between the modes, which finally gives us a better idea of how much the pre-orders are worth.
Are the Hearthstone Mercenaries Pre-Orders Worth It?
Simply put, yes. If you are interested in the new game, you do gain a good boost of content by picking up any of the pre-orders. Now, keep in mind that we still think Blizzard needs to talk more about the mode prior to its launch, so don't go out and give them an interest free loan a month in advance of the mode coming out. Wait and get a better idea of the full picture before making the commitment to purchasing packs for a game no one has been able to play.
Let's look at the bundles that are available for pre-order.
- Diablo Bundle - $62.99 CAD
- 50x Mercenaries Packs
- 1x Diamond Diablo Mercenary Portrait
- Lich King Bundle - $62.99 CAD
- 50x Mercenaries Packs
- 1x Diamond Lich King Mercenary Portrait
- Sylvanas Bundle - $37.49 CAD
- 30x Mercenaries Packs
- 1x Golden Sylvanas Mercenary Portrait
All the bundles have a Legendary Mercenary in them, the name of the bundle, and the portrait included is the default skin.
Normal portraits for these Mercenaries - click on them to view their abilities and equipment.
For the Diablo and Lich King pre-order bundles, with the CAD pricing shown above we can easily see that we're getting an additional 10 packs for the same price, and a Legendary Mercenary character, which like normal Legendary cards, are going to be harder to get than one that is Rare or Epic. With 25% extra packs for the price already being a good deal and the Mercenaries an average opening rate of 20 packs for a Legendary Mercenary, and a Diamond portrait only showing up 10% of the time, its hard to argue with the amazing value - if you care about Diamond cosmetics.
For the Sylvanas pre-order bundle, its a bit harder to make a direct comparison since you cannot purchase 30 packs with a discount. The best we can do is to purchase 15 packs twice which ends up being $50 CAD. We do get a nice 25% discount from that price, which is the amount of extra packs you get on the large Diablo and Lich King pre-orders. However, with Sylvanas we don't get a Diamond portrait and only get to see a Golden version. Legendary Mercenaries have a 30% chance to see a Golden portrait when a portrait is opened, so its not quite as rare as a Diamond portrait would be.
Ultimately, all three bundles have some good value and if after seeing more information about the mode you like what you see, we think it is worth buying the pre-orders.
Comments
Great post Flux! I appreciate the breakdown and all the info! I cannot wait to see more about the mode.
Isn't just really dumb for Blizzard to put a preorder on a card game who nobody never played except them, then publishing the price of the individual packs? like Flux sayed, is really weird how bad Blizzard is making announcements, and i not say it in a pejorative way, her me out, only it confuses me, and then makes me sad, idk. Btw, out of all the sh!t who Mercenaries (including the announcements, the prices, the bundles, etc.), the game mode/game (cuz is just a so much different game to HS, overpassing the BG to the moon) seems pretty fun, so that i may think reinstalling Hearthstone and play some Spell Hunter in wild waiting for the Mercenaries in October.
Also, im so into it, that im studiying the Mercenaries game mechanics/engine and balancing my own take on the game, im making it D&D themed so its going to have, instead of characters, Classes, and each class is going to have a spells equipped and passives and magic items and all of that weird stuff.
If I'm understanding this correctly, Mercenaries packs might contain COSMETIC items INSTEAD of playable cards? I am not in favor if this at all. I know many players really enjoy cosmetics, but I am not one of them. I like how hero skins and fancy coins are things you can CHOOSE to pay for. That way, I can CHOOSE to spend my in-game currency on things I actually want: playable cards.
My interpretation is that every pack will contain exactly 1 mercenary card, but it chooses rarity first, so if you roll a 'rare' and already own all rare mercs. you'll get a cosmetic for a rare, not a new epic or legendary card. I.e. they only contain cosmetics instead of playable cards in packs where you wouldn't have got a new playable card anyway.
The only other way about it would be to replace those rares with cards from higher rarities, but then we'd only need 52-8 = 44 packs to get every character, which would be a brave move on Blizzard's part.
While true that portraits exist inside of packs, at the very least you can play with Mercs you obtain portraits for if you didn't own them already. So, like, if you didn't own Diablo but you pulled Dark Wanderer Diablo, you could play with Dark Wanderer Diablo as if you owned the base "card". I think that's pretty cool.
They also did that to slow down one's eventual "I own all the Rares, so what happens now?" situation from occurring. There are no dupes in Mercs, so you've got to fill the packs with something I guess.
I would not value it vs the normal cost but compare the amount of fun I expect and the amount of time I'm going to invest.
30$ for 8 hours and not much fun: to expensive. 130$ for hundreds of hours I enjoy? Count me in!
I wish Blizzard had made these 2-week post-launch promos instead of pre-orders. I'd say the information (both official and unofficial) out there is insufficient, but even with more info, there's simply no substitute for trying out the game mode for yourself to determine whether it is worth spending any money on, let alone the $160+ they're asking for.
Are we able to chose between Normal packs and Mercanarie in arena??
You can use your Arena-won gold on Mercenaries packs.
pretty sure that the only other way to get them is through bounties, daily pvp rewards or merc quests.
I can see it from a business pov they are trying to force you to play constructed and pull you into it with packs, but atleast for merc which is build around packs it would be decent for us arena players to get them there if we like it.
They are not worth it because their cost is insane considering the game mode isn't even out yet. Hearthstone became an all out money grab with all these mercenary+battlegrounds+base game preorders & 'real money-only' bundles, all at once.
Imagine a company creating products and offering them for sale. What a world we live in!
As they said, Regrets Always Comes Last. Make sure you know precisely what you are buying. So far, I just see the bundles as a clickbait and nothing else. Especially if you found out later that the game is not fun to play.
We still need a lot of information, including gameplay, leveling, ranking, upgrading, best chars/class, PVP/PVE, etc.
I'm confused about what information you think is missing.
There's a gameplay video of a full Bounty run. You can find full XP tables on this very site, as well as lists of all stats-per-level, powers, equipment, and upgrade costs for every single merc. We know exactly how PvE works, and a pretty good idea of the PvP system.
I'm not saying you should buy it before you try it, but if you think information is missing, it makes me think you are simply not trying to find it.
What is missing: the cost of acquiring and fully upgrading a mercenary so it is viable. Since mercenary coins are totally random and each mercenary have specific coins and you need a LOT of them for full upgrade.... this may be very heavy investment
To upgrade an ability to rank 2 is 50 coins. Rank 3 is 100 coins. Rank 4 is 120 coins. Rank 5 is 120 coins.
The total cost per ability is 390 coins. For all three abilities, that comes to 1170 coins.
To upgrade equipment to rank 2 is 150 coins. Rank 3 is 180 coins. Rank 4 is 200 coins.
The total cost per equipment is 530 coins. It seems that most mercenaries get one piece of equipment that is Rank 4 immediately, so you only need to upgrade two, for a total cost of 1060 coins.
So it's 2230 coins for all abilities and equipment.
We don't know what it costs to craft a merc or a portrait, but once you do own a merc, you should easily be able to upgrade all of its abilities and equipment by the time you get it to level 30. Mercenary coins from a Bounty are NOT totally random. I believe it's something like 4 of the 5 coin stacks will always match members of your party.
I still need to know how it affects coin drops from bounties, PvP and packs if I have a 100% fully upgraded merc.
Do coins for that merc no longer drop? If they continue to drop, is there a way to trade them in for some other resource? Do they just sit rotting in my inventory for all eternity?
I feel it's impossible to make an informed decision on the pre-order until I get these answers.
Sorry @Fluxflashor, but I feel the need to point out my thought that you SHOULDN'T recommend purchasing these bundles until the game mode officially sits at our fingertips. It is discriminatory, to say the least, without 'clicking something first', in the second decade of the 21st century (for that matter). While Outofcards points out that...is a good deal, to purchase (right now), I think given the novelty of the game itself (and the shadiness of its first occurence), all of us are bound to catch up AFTER the release, that's why I don't think it's such a good deal UPFRONT. Feel free to comment.
I pretty clearly stated I think that Blizzard still needs to release more information before you can realistically be expected to pre-order. I also believe they should let these bundles exist for a week or two after its release. It is unbelievably stupid to put up unrefundable pre-orders for content you can't play.
Regardless, I do still stand by my statement that the bundles are good value if you compare them to what is available in the shop.