Blizzard just announced a bunch of new news: Madness at thee Darkmoon Faire expansion, Duels mode, and a new reward system. However, one of the key points that was only mentioned a little bit was the mini-sets that appeared mid-season. In this article, we’ll go over the concept of mini-sets in detail and point out the pros and cons of this new schedule.
What are mini-sets and why do they appear?
Hearthstone has three major expansions every n years (containing 135 cards each). For a card game, that kind of new content isn’t nearly enough. Hearthstone struggled due to the constant meta in the second half of the four-month cycle in the expansion. The dev team has made several efforts to reduce this situation: mid-season balance adjustments, and various events that bring old and new cards into the expansion (like the Doom in the Tomb event bringing 23 cards. Wild returns temporarily in 2019 – included Evolve that everyone hates) and the 35-card mid-season adventure expansion, Galakrond’s Awakening, in 2020.
From this accumulated experience, it seems Blizzard has concluded that adding new adventure sized cards in the middle of the expansion cycle is the most effective way to refresh the meta.
Mini-sets will be 35-card expansions that come out in between expansion cycles. Unlike adventure, they are included in the current expansion and are not sold separately. It turns the 135-card expansion into a mid-season 170-card expansion: the cards from the mini-set are instantly craftable and they open in the same pack of the main expansion.
From a gameplay standpoint, it sounds great. Galakrond’s Awakening succeeds in refreshing the Descent of Dragons meta. And the mini-sets will have a good chance of keeping the game fresh for longer than the current system.
But what is the price? Will the player be able to keep up with the new cards?
Mini-Set cheaper or more expensive than Adventure?
The direction Blizzard wants to go is that you will be able to craft cards from the mini-set in no time. There are clearly some obvious advantages: wanted to play Warrior for the past 10 months but was lacking Risky Skipper? Bad luck, you need to open three chapters of Galakrond’s Awakening to get it and that will cost 2100 gold. Or Highlander Mage but we don’t have it The Amazing Reno? A total of four chapters, which is 2800 gold or $19.99.
Mini-sets are cheaper than adventure if you only want a certain card from them.
However, things change dramatically when you want to play multiple decks that need cards from them, or collect entire sets.
We don’t have the rarity distribution of the mini-set cards yet, but one thing is for sure it will be 35 distinct cards. The previous Galakrond’s Awakening also had 35 separate cards in it, so we can refer to this adventure.
The rarity ratio in Galakron’s Awakening is as follows:
- 4 Legendary cards
- 4 Epic cards (8 copies total)
- 12 Rare cards (24 copies total)
- 15 Common cards (30 cards total)
If the mini-set is the same, then collecting all the cards will be very expensive: the cost of crafting all the cards is 13,200 dust (equivalent to 132 packs, of course no one will craft all of them but will open several packs. ra) and it costs dozens of packs to get them all in case you already own the original 135-card set:
- Opening 4 Legendary cards from a pack costs an average of 72.7 packs
- Opening 8 Epic cards from a pack costs an average of 36.2 packs
- Opening 24 Rare cards from a pack costs an average of 21.0 packs
- Opening 30 Common cards from a pack costs an average of 8.4 packs
If disenchant all cards to craft the last Legendary, you need to open an average of 50 cards to get the entire mini-set. Remember Galakrond’s Awakening adventure cost $19.99 or 2800 gold? The full mini-set costs about $60 or 5000 gold. It increases the cost by 200% compared to similar sized adventure.
In addition, all mini-sets will take place in three annual expansions. The cost of collecting the entire Hearthstone set increases by $180 per year – it’s more expensive than paying 1 year for World of Warcraft. Compared to three adventurers instead of three mini-sets, the price increased by only $120 per year.
Even if we just try to collect all the Common and Rare from each mini-set it will cost 63 more packs per year and it’s more expensive than buying the whole adventure. The addition of cards in the middle of the expansion cycle further complicates matters: do you open all the expansion packs or leave some for the mini-set? What should we do in the current situation?
When should you open the pack when the mini-set now joins?
The mini-set adds new depth to the pack. Sorry, but this is not fun at all. Collecting all of the cards in each expansion shouldn’t be a problem if you have plenty of money, but for most players we need to weigh our decisions carefully.
As you know, with duplicate protection you are guaranteed to get all the Common and Rare cards within the first 70 packs, usually more. After that point, you need to decide how many packs to open and how much to keep for the mini-set. Mini-set requires about 21 more packs to get all Common and Rare. If opening less than 100 packs per expansion, the most cost-effective way to open packs is to stop opening more packs after you get the original Rares, and open the remaining packs after the mini-set is out. . This means we will have fewer Epic and Legendary cards early in the season to play with to maximize the amount of packs you have.
Opening the pack as soon as you get it is no longer the optimal strategy. This completely goes against the idea of entertainment.
We don’t know the full extent of the new bonus system. How many packs you need to keep for the mini-set depends on how many packs you will earn in a cycle. If packs were more rewarding, it’s possible that players would open all packs on the first day of the expansion and start saving for them later when the mini-set comes out.
Hope not?
There are still some glimmers of hope. Blizzard has two possible ways to adjust mini-set costs:
First, Blizzard can adjust the rarity distribution in the mini-set. They will certainly be more expensive than adnveture, but if the team only adds two Legendary cards instead of four, for example, this will help keep the cost down.
Second, the reward system will be shared on November 12th. Blizzard keeps saying that the new reward system will give players more gold and packs than the old one. Once the mini-set price is obtained, the bonus system needs to be higher to keep the player cost of the game in place. In addition, in order for players to reduce the cost of entering the game, the developer needs to double the reward compared to the current system. Maybe that will happen. November 12 will be a big day for us to know the cost of playing Hearthstone in the future.
Then, we will have an analysis to know specifically how quickly you can earn gold and packs with the new bonus system. For now, we can only pray.
According to hearthstonetopdeck
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