Today wasn’t just a regular morning where I combine coffee with news, Hearthstone, and whatever else comes my way. It had a lot more Hearthstone in it because Blizzard made available its newest expansion, Knights of the Frozen Throne.
I’ve been playing the game at an amateur level ever since it first launched a few years ago, but I started getting more serious about it once Blizzard released the smartphone version. And for the first time ever, I actually bought the $49.99 fee that got me 50 brand new packs to discover. Add to that the free de you get after completing the first three new single player missions, the three packs that Blizzard will give you as soon as you log in today, the three free packs Blizzard awarded as prizes for Arena quests, and all the packs I could buy with the gold I kept grinding for the past month, and you end up with 76 brand new packs to discover. Here’s my audit of that experience.
So how long does it take? I’ve never had to open more than 20 packs so I wasn’t sure how long it would take so I started early — but not before completing the prologue and the three mission I mentioned earlier. That chore took about half an hour and got me one Legendary card, and an extra pack. But opening the packs took me about 20 minutes of labor on iPhone. Mind you, I already knew what cards are included in the expansion, and what cards I wanted, so I didn’t spend too much time looking for the loot.
Here’s what I got!
At 5 cards per pack, I opened 380 cards. In total, there are 247 cards in Knights of the Frozen Throne — that’s assuming you get two of everything except the Legendary cards that can’t be duplicated in a deck. So did I get them all? Not by a long shot.
From the 380 cards I drew, I had 21 triples (or more) in the Rare category and a whopping 171 triples (or more) in the Common category. That’s not as bad as it sounds, as this earned me exactly 1,275 in Arcane Dust to spend on cards that I did not get. As a fun fact, you’d have to pay 8,940 Dust to create these 192 cards from scratch.
Of the 380 cards I got, 11 were golden, but only of the Common and Rare variety. What does one do with golden cards? Well, if you don’t Twitch or care about the special effects, you sell them for 800 Dust — that brings my total to 2,275 of Dust available for other purchases. Needless to say, I only sold the golden cards if I already had the Common or Rare versions.
Moving on, I won 62 rare cards (including doubles), which means I got at least one copy of most of the rare cards in this expansion. That’s a lot better than I expected, as only two rare cards remain to craft. That’s a 6,200 value in Dust.
It’s not as great in the Epic department, where I’m left with 17 cards (including doubles), which would cost 6,800 in Dust. Yes, Dead Man’s Hand is one of them.
Finally, the Legendary draw is the worst, just as expected. I only got two Legendaries from the 76 packs, but I was lucky enough to grab The Lich King and a Death Knight card. Add to that the free Legendary I got from the prologue, and I ended up with three Legendary cards that would cost me 4,800 in Dust. In all, there are 23 legendaries in this expansion, and I still have six of them on my list.
Add to all of that an extra 4,280 of Dust, which the 107 Common cards I got would cost, and you have the full picture: I received more than 24,000 in Dust value from 76 new packs and a free Legendary minion.
Yes, it’s very annoying that half the cards I got were tripled (or more) versions of the same card, which aren’t good for anything but trading for dust. On that note, Webweave, I’m looking angrily at you. I got more than 9 copies.
And yes, it would be great if you could buy Dust directly. But, all in all, this was a great experience. And if you were to spend money on a mobile game, then Hearthstone is definitely one to consider. And Knights of the Frozen Throne is guaranteed to bring over an interesting new gameplay experience.
As a tidbit, I recorded the entire pack-opening experience on the iPhone, using the brand new Screen Recording feature in iOS 11 — sadly, a phone call interrupted the recording, and the progress was not saved.
