A Few Notes on the Returning Player Experience – Who Qualifies For the Free Decks

Update: Hotfix is out and eligible players should now get their free decks!

Since players had so many questions about the free new / returning players decks, Blizzard has made a post with clarifications. Here’s a summary:

  • Returning players are players who haven’t logged in between November 18, 2019 and March 17, 2020. If you haven’t logged in during that period, log into the game now and you should get a Legendary Quest line, starting with three, custom bosses you will need to beat. After you finish all three Quests, you will be able to select a free deck.
  • If you’re a new player, you will need to complete the tutorial, your starter Quests AND get out of the “New Player Ranks” (Rank 50-26, those will get updated in the new system). After doing that, you will be able to select one of the free decks.

However, if you qualify for the new deck and still didn’t get it, don’t worry! Blizzard has identified an issue affecting some players and they’re looking for a fix.

If you want to see a full list of decks or you aren’t sure which one to pick, check out this post!

Here’s a full blue post:

As our new Returning Player Experience went live along with the 17.0 update, we’ve found a few places where we think we can clarify the process and what you can expect.

To expand upon the eligible time period, we’ve defined a returning player as one who had not logged into Hearthstone for four months as of March 17th, so your last login to Hearthstone needed to be before 11/18/2019 to qualify. If you logged in on or between 11/18/2019 to 3/17/2020, you would not qualify as a returning player and receive the Class Deck.

If you’re a returning player who has not logged in since before 11/18/2019, to earn your free deck

  • Log into Hearthstone and be presented with a new Legendary Quest line, which is made up of three total quests. In the first quest, you will face three bosses made specifically for the quest line. In the final two quests, you will play 30 cards then deal 100 damage to an enemy hero.
  • Upon completing the third and final quest, you will be able to select your free Class Deck once you return to the main menu.

If you’re a new player and have not completed the new player ranks,

  • Log into Hearthstone and complete the tutorial and the Starter Quest line
  • You will need to graduate from the New Player Ranks (Ranks 50-26)
  • Upon completing these quests, you will be able to select your free Class Deck once you return to the main menu.

If you have played Hearthstone before, but either did not complete the tutorial or the New Player Ranks, you will need to do both before receiving the free Class Deck. Note that there’s also a chance you’ll see the Returning Player quests and need to complete those as well.

As a final note, it is possible that you may not see the deck in your deck list if you did not have an open deck slot when you chose your free Class Deck. If this happens, don’t worry! You will still receive all of the cards from that deck. If you would like to delete one of your existing decks, you can then navigate to this page and use our deck list. From here, copy the deck code, and you can then add the deck to your deck list from within Hearthstone.

We hope this helps to clarify the experience for everyone! In addition, we are going to keep investigating any potential issues with the returning player decks, and we will provide updates as we learn anything new.

EDIT 1: Quick update: the team has indeed identified an issue that we know is affecting some players. We’re currently investigating the steps needed to fix it. I may not have an update again until tomorrow, but I’ll let everyone know what to expect as soon as I know more.

Source

Stonekeep

A Hearthstone player and writer from Poland, Stonekeep has been in a love-hate relationship with Hearthstone since Closed Beta. Over that time, he has achieved many high Legend climbs and infinite Arena runs. He's the current admin of Hearthstone Top Decks.

Check out Stonekeep on Twitter!

Leave a Reply

14 Comments

  1. JoyDivision
    March 29, 2020 at 10:20 AM

    Just a comment: The returning player experience is a very good thing, but … I alone have 2 friends who haven’t played a single game of HS in the last 6 months. BUT they logged in once in a while to do updates.

    So I think it would be very clever from Blizzard if they’d done it that way: Not if you have logged in, but if you haven’t played any game mode during that period.

  2. MetthewN
    March 27, 2020 at 6:11 PM

    Blizzard released an hotfix some minutes ago for everyone eligible that didn’t receive the deck!

  3. BraydenF
    March 26, 2020 at 10:40 PM

    How does this work with using the Europe servers if you only play on American? does it consider you an active player if i decide to make a free to play hearthstone on Europe servers?

    • Rickert von F
      March 27, 2020 at 5:43 AM

      I logged in to Europe for the first time in a while and it gave me the free deck.

      • BraydenF
        March 27, 2020 at 5:59 AM

        awesome, ill just have to get to rank 25 then

        • Stonekeep - Site Admin
          March 27, 2020 at 7:11 AM

          It’s pretty quick & easy, since those ranks have very little stars and you don’t lose anything for defeats – you can only climb up 🙂

    • Stonekeep - Site Admin
      March 27, 2020 at 7:10 AM

      You will still count as a new player on another server. But keep in mind that you can use this promo only once per account.

      • N45H
        April 2, 2020 at 10:57 AM

        Hi Stonekeep
        I know this post I’m replying to was some days ago, but I have conflicting info on this. In the blue test it really says ‘once per account’. But people reading this post please see this link: https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/260329 . There it says ‘once per play region’, which would be 3 times per account, right? Just wanted to direct your attention to this ambivalent info.

  4. Deadpoolrising
    March 26, 2020 at 9:06 PM

    Hello Stonekeep! I love the site and all of the articles you and the rest of the writers put out, been reading and using this site for a few years now.

    But I have a suggestion/question, would it be possible to make a Dark Mode for the site? The iconic white and blue is nice but, as most nerds do, I have a cave and tbh the brightness is somewhat blinding at night, making it somewhat difficult to keep up on my second screen to read a lengthy article while I play on my main.

    Anyway I hope you’re doing well in this time of crisis and keep up the good work! Love reading.
    Wasn’t sure how to contact you so I’m hoping this works :p

    • Stonekeep - Site Admin
      March 26, 2020 at 9:18 PM

      Hey! Thanks for the suggestion, I’ll talk with the devs and see what we can do about it.

      In the meantime, if you’re using Google Chrome, I recommend “Dark Reader” extension. I’ve been using it for a while and it’s working really well. The only problem is that some images disappear on the front page 🙁 But honestly it doesn’t matter once you click on the actual article, and maybe there are some better extensions out there.

      Thanks for reading our content & stay safe!

      • Deadpoolrising
        March 26, 2020 at 9:39 PM

        Thank you! I appreciate you taking the time to look into it.

        And thank you very much for the tip, I just installed it and wow what a difference! That helps immensely. I have been trying to read the longer articles as I play HS and WoW all week long, this is gonna help so much! Unfortunate about the front page pictures :/ but tbh I read everything that gets posted so it won’t matter for me 😀

        Thank you and you too 🙂