Booster Packs

Veterans of the TCG genre will be very familiar with Booster Packs - those being small foil-wrapped packs that contain anywhere from 6 to 12 cards with at least some promise of a rare one in the mix.

Sold as the primary means for building a good collection and thus better decks, these little babies are the money sink of TCG (both physical and digital) and a major source for buyers regret in the early days of Magic the Gathering thanks to their rather loose system for distribution rare cards.

Well the problems that plagued early games do not - we are happy to say - impact Hearthstone. Indeed, players who buy Booster Packs for this one can count on getting at least one of the good ones. Well that is not enough detail is it? Alright pull up a pickle barrel...

Each Hearthstone Booster Pack contains 5 cards from (here are actually two different card sets now, the original - or “Classic” - and the Goblins vs Gnomes cards.

Each Booster Pack will have Common cards of course, but they also have a chance to contain a rare, epic, or even legendary card. In fact they are guaranteed to contain at least one card of rare or better quality and thanks to this being a digital product there will be no unfortunate distribution eeks to mess that up.

So sure, a majority of cards in the packs will be commons - but that is OK because you actually NEED those to play - but hey good news mates, in addition to there being at least one rare one it is actually possible for there to be more than that!

Word is that the system that creates the packs actually does a random role when you purchase the pack (that is when its contents are locked in BTW) so it is totally possible to end up with two or even in some rare cases three rare or better cards in a single pack! Woot!

Each card also has the chance to become a golden version of that card - you will be familiar with the Golden Versions as those are the ones we sometimes get as rewards from Level 10 and up when we level our Heroes... Golden Versions are good to have, but still...

If you happen to be one of those gamers who really needs to have numbers attached to your chances in order to feel like you are in control, Kotaku.com's Steve Marinconz put together an odds sheet last June by scientifically evaluating card yields in Booster Packs, and his results include the following rather amusing and interesting facts:

• There is only a ~0.80% chance to get a Booster Pack with just one (1) Common Card.

• There is a 0.4% chance in getting two (2) Legendary Cards in a single Booster Pack.

• There is a 16.26% chance for obtaining any Golden Card ina single Booster Pack.

• You have a 1-in-1m chance of obtaining 5 Legendary Cards in one Booster Pack.

• You have a 1-in-3.2b chance of obtaining 5 Golden Legendary Cards in one Booster Pack.

Another thing to get excited about - there will be no trading of cards so Richie is not going to be able to cherry pick a killer deck, he will have to trust to luck just like the rest of us - but hey, there is even better news mates: real-money is not the only way to get these.

The system that was created to create the Pack contents is very fair we are told, so the chances of getting an additional rare - or Golden - version card are about the same for each card generated by the system before they are inserted into the digital package.

It is also worth noting that the game does NOT consult its own records of what cards you own or otherwise leverage that information to determine what you get in your Boosters - which is as it should be because hey, random should mean RANDOM!

Since card rarity will be a little difficult to detect until you have some serious experience with both the game and deck building the wizards who created Hearthstone added a simple system for ID'ing the rare ones - basically they apply a magic border to clue you in when you have acquired something special!

What you do is hover that finger over the card and that will reveal a special border that, depending on the rarity of the card, will be different.

The Border System works as follows:

• No color border means the card is a Common;

• A glowing Blue Border means the card is a Rare;

• A Glowing Purple Border means the card is an Epic;

• An Glowing Orange Border means the card is a Legendary.

That should be easy enough, right? What is easier is acquiring the Boosters and thus the special cards, since there is more than one way as noted above.

To keep things fair and make the Booster Packs available to all in addition to obtaining them by spending real-world money, players will also be able to purchase them with in-game gold earned from play via specific quests and for triple-wins of online Arena Matches.

For those of you who will be going the real-world money route the following information will be of particular value to you - the pricing will depend on several factors like how many packs you buy at any one time and where in the world you happen to be when you buy them.

What? You are asking... Hey, let us explain! Below is the cost scales based on the different criteria. This is listed as # of Packs - Gold Price - Real-Money Price*

• 01 - 100 - US N/A / UK £ N/A / EU €N/A

• 02 - N/A - US $2.99 / UK £1.99 / EU €2.69

• 07 - N/A - US $9.99 / UK £6.99 / EU €8.99

• 15 - N/A - US $19.99 / UK £13.99 / EU €17.99

• 40 - N/A - US $49.99 / UK £34.99 / EU €44.99

• 60 - N/A - US $69.99 / UK £47.99 / EU €62.99

Note that the price shift clearly indicates that the cards are discounted when purchased in large amounts. Also when we looked the 60-Pack option was NOT available in iOS - which you know was strange but we hear it is only available via PC?

If that confuses you here is the deal - you cannot buy ONE pack with real-money you can only get 1 pack with in-game gold. The smallest number of packs you can purchase with real-money is two (2) packs. Simple enough, right?

* Real-Money Price is listed in the major currencies that apply - basically the ones we think are most likely to actually play the game. Basically that means US Dollar, UK Pound, and European Euro - if you happen to live elsewhere you will need to convert that in your head from one of the others. The amounts we list above were the amounts listed on the site at the time we wrote this and they may have changed since then so please verify the prices on the official site BEFORE you smash that piggy bank, right?

As we have not covered the whole matter of in-game money - why we have not done so yet is a mystery - we thought we should do that now.

There are two types of currency in the game: Gold and Dust.

This is the most common in-game currency acquired by the player, and can be exchanged for card packs and for entry into the Arena. You are allowed to bank a maximum total of 20,000 Gold at any one time, and when you reach the cap your account will not be permitted to win any more - so it would be an idea to spend some on Booster Packs before that happens!

Gold can be acquired in three different ways in the game: Winning Matches, Arena Victories, and Special Quests.

Special Quests: It may surprise you to learn that the majority of the quests you will tackle actually pay off in Gold - but they do. These include one-time quests like the series for unlocking each hero type, and for winning 100 games & etc.

Game wins will lead to special quests, and there are also daily quests that usually pay something like 40 Gold or more, while Arena Quests can pay a lot more.

Winning Games: The player is awarded 10 Gold for every 3 Game Victories up to a maximum of 100 Gold per day - so you now know what your goal is for daily play :)

The Arena: The point to Arena play is NOT the special Reward Chests that are found there... OK maybe the point partially IS the Reward Chests that are found there, but still...

When you play in the Arena there are a number of actions that can (will) result in the award of a Reward Chest, including retiring successfully from Arena Play, retiring unsuccessfully from Arena Play (having lost 3 games in a row), Winning 12 Games in a row, and other activities - which will result in the award of Reward Chests.

Reward Chests have a chance of containing Gold - and of course the Arena also awards Booster Packs - but remember that you have to pay a 150 Gold admission fee to battle there, and that being the case it is an idea to try to go for as long as you can in a given session so that you definitely get your 150 Gold returned in the form of rewards like Packs and Chests and the like!

This alternate currency is obtained in the game as an Arena Reward as well as for disenchanting cards you do not need or want - and it is in addition to being the alternate currency in game also the primary crafting resource!

That's right you can use Arcade Dust to craft NEW CARDS.

This side of the game is accessed via the “My Collections” section and is the quickest and most direct means for obtaining a specific card that you want/need - that is provided you actually possess the amount of Dust that is required to craft it!

Most regular cards can be used to disenchant but you should be aware that Basic and Reward Cards are considered “soulbound” and thus may NOT be either crafted OR disenchanted.

The card crafting system was created as the alternative to card trading - and really if you think about it it not only levels the playing field but makes Deck Building so much easier!