Showcased at this year's Blizzard and openable today, Hearthstone's new catch-up packs bring us an easier way of getting caught up when we haven't been playing for a while. Here's how they work and Blizzard's recommendation on how you open the packs to get the most possible value, which we agree with.

What Are Hearthstone's New Catch-Up Packs?

Catch-Up packs are a brand new type of Hearthstone card pack that are being introduced with Showdown in the Badlands.

  • Catch-up packs contain cards from 5 different expansions in the current Standard format.
    • Sunken City, Castle Nathria, Lich King, Festival of Legends, & TITANS.
  • They contain between 5 and 50 cards in each pack.
    • You will get up to 10 cards from each of the sets listed above.
    • Owning 25% or less of that set: 10 cards from that set.
    • Owning 75% or more of that set: 1 card from that set.
    • Between 25% and 75% completion: scales with collection completion percentage.
  • Catch-up packs won't be available to purchase alone, but will be in bundles.

Blizzard has provided additional details on the rarity distribution, quality, and legendary guarantees.

  • Rarity Distribution: At least 20% (rounded up) of the cards in each Catch-Up Pack will be a Rare or better. The overall rarity distribution for Catch-Up Packs is the same as normal packs.
  • Quality: All cards are normal quality (non-Golden).
  • First Legendary Guarantee: One Legendary in the first 50 cards from each expansion (yes, that means you get to capture five different Legendary offering bonuses in these packs).
  • Mass Pack Opening: You can Mass Pack Open up to 20 Catch-Up Packs at once.

How to Obtain Catch-Up Packs

  • 2 free packs for logging in during Showdown in the Badlands launch. No end date provided.
  • 5 packs available from the Badlands in-game event.
  • 3 packs for purchasing the BlizzCon collection. Available until April 30, 2024.
  • 10 packs in the pre-order bundle for Badlands.
  • 20 packs in the mega pre-order bundle for Badlands.
  • Catch-up packs will also be available to new and returning players via tutorials.
  • Some bundles in the shop will include catch-up packs.

How to Optimally Open Your Card Packs

With catch-up packs, class packs, standard packs, and expansion packs, it can get a little confusing on the most optimal order to open them in. Here's what you need to do if you're looking for the best bang for your buck:

  1. Open catch-up packs. Always do this first.

Then, there are two different strategies you can go depending on your goals.

If you want the most total cards, fewest dupes:

  1. Catch-up Packs
  2. Expansion Packs
  3. Class Packs
  4. Standard Packs

If you want the most latest-expansion cards, more dupes:

  1. Catch-Up Packs
  2. Standard Packs
  3. Class Packs
  4. Expansion Packs

So there we have it, the two definitive strategies for optimally opening your card packs!

Quote From Celestalon

- Always open Catch-Up Packs first, since their card count is based on collection size.
- If you want the most total cards (fewest duplicates), open Expansion Packs, then Class Packs, then Standard Packs.
- If you want more latest-expansion cards, at the cost of more duplicates overall, open Standard Packs, then Class Packs, then Expansion Packs.

Am I right that if we have all cards from previous standard expations standard back and class pack order doesn't matter or is their something I'm missing?

Yeah, if you have all previous standard cards, order of Standard vs Showdown doesn't matter (unless you care about *which* cards you're getting dupes of).

For that reason I open expansions last. I have all the cards. So opening standard first guarantees I get more of the latest expansion. Latest expansion cards are the most likely to get nerfed in the next month so the more I have the more dust value I get.

Yeah, if you really have everything, so they’re going to be dupes anyway, and you think new cards are more likely to get nerfed, you can do that.

Isn't it better to open class packs before expansion packs? Because they grant you for example a complete class and then you have a better chance of getting more neutral cards which are harder to get than class cards (because there is more of them + no neutral packs)?

Only true if you have everything from past expansions. If you’re missing even legendaries, I think that works out to be a loss.

So if I do have *every* card in Standard before an expansion launch, I should focus on class first? Then what's recommended?

Yeah, if you have *every* past Standard card… Class then Standard then Badlands. But the difference at that point is merely *which* cards you get dupes of. (And general opinion is that it's better to have dupes of newer cards than older cards, due to nerf potential.)