During the BlizzCon’s opening ceremony, Senior Game Designer Cora Georgiou has announced a new type of card packs. They’re called “Catch-Up Packs” and they will be a great way to start your Hearthstone collection or very useful when you come back after a longer break.
Catch-up packs contain between 5 and 50 cards, depending on your collection progression. The fewer cards from current Standard expansions you have, the more cards they will contain. A player with no Standard cards at all will get over 1000 cards after opening just 30 Catch-Up packs.
The first type of Catch-Up packs are Badlands Catch-Up Packs. Those will ALWAYS contain cards from the previous 5 expansions that are currently in Standard (from Sunken City to TITANS), even if you open them years from now. In the future, Blizzard will introduce new types of Catch-Up packs containing cards from different expansions.
The packs will contain 1-10 cards from each expansion, depending on how many cards from a given expansion you have. If you have less than 25% cards from an expansion, you will get 10 cards. More than 75% – 1 card. Between 25% and 75% will be scaled accordingly. All of the cards in Catch-Up packs are normal (non-Golden) and their rarity distribution is the same as in the regular packs. One Legendary is guaranteed in the first 50 cards from each expansion (so if you have no cards from those expansions, you will get 5 guaranteed Legendaries within the first 5 packs).
All of the players will get some Catch-Up packs for free. 2 of them will be added to every account, while 5 more can be gained from an upcoming event in Patch 28.0. Players attending BlizzCon or owning BlizzCon Legendary Collection will get extra Catch-Up Packs. They were also added to Badlands Pre-Purcahses – 10 for regular bundle and 20 for mega bundle. On top of that, players will be able to buy them in shop bundles.
Learn more about them in the blog post below:
As we celebrate BlizzCon together, we’re excited to keep making the Tavern a place that’s open and inviting to everyone. Often, when we talk to players who have been away for a while, or who are looking to try Hearthstone for the first time, they tell us they’re most concerned with building up their collections.
Today, we announced new Catch-Up Packs—game-changing packs designed to get you caught up to the new expansion. Each Catch-Up Pack contains up to 50 cards! We’re giving everybody some Catch-Up Packs for free and we’ve added a ton to both Showdown in the Badlands Pre-Purchase Bundles at no extra cost. For players with small Standard collections, this can mean hundreds of extra cards!* Come find out how.
* A player with no current Standard collection who opens 30 Catch-Up Packs will receive over 1000 cards!
What Are Catch-Up Packs?
Catch-Up Packs are a new type of Hearthstone Pack that include a variable number of cards in them—between 5 and 50 cards per pack—based on the percentage of prior Standard expansion cards you’ve already received.
These first Catch-Up Packs are specifically Badlands Catch-Up Packs. They’re designed to catch you up to our upcoming expansion by including cards from the five prior Standard card expansions: Voyage to the Sunken City, Murder at Castle Nathria, March of the Lich King, Festival of Legends, and TITANS.
These Badlands Catch-Up Packs will always include cards from those five sets, and only those five sets, regardless of when you open them. If we do Catch-Up Packs for a different set in the future, we’ll make a new type of Catch-Up Pack at that time.
Badlands Catch-Up Packs will be able to be opened with the launch of Showdown in the Badlands, on November 14!
How Do Catch-Up Packs Work?
Here are all the tasty details:
- Number of Cards: Each Badlands Catch-Up Pack includes 1-10 cards from each of the five included sets, for a total of 5-50 cards per pack. The number of cards you get from each set is based on the percentage of cards you’ve received* from that set:
- 25% or less of that set: 10 cards from that set
- 75% or more of that set: 1 card from that set
- Between 25% and 75% completion: scales with collection completion percentage
- 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.
See the full Pack Disclosure Site for more details.
* Like duplicate protection, this counts any cards you’ve received from the set, including any cards you crafted, regardless of whether you later disenchanted cards. Collection percentage only counts up to 2 copies of each Common, Rare, and Epic card, and 1 copy of each Legendary card.
How Do I Get Catch-Up Packs?
Catch-Up Packs have also been added to both Showdown in the Badlands Pre-Purchase bundles: 10 in the regular Pre-Purchase bundle and 20 in the Pre-Purchase Mega Bundle!* Everyone attending BlizzCon in person, or who purchased either BlizzCon Collection level, gets 3 Catch-Up Packs automatically added to their BlizzCon goodies. There will also be a free login reward of 2 Catch-Up Packs, and an event that grants 5 Catch-Up Packs with Patch 28.0—more details on those are coming in the 28.0 Patch Notes. Also in Patch 28.0, Catch-Up Packs will be added to the new and returning player experience. Finally, there will be bundle offers in the Shop that include Catch-Up Packs.
Badlands Catch-Up Packs unlock with Showdown in the Badlands, on November 14—that’s when you’ll be able to open any Catch-Up Packs you get before then.
* These have been added to the accounts of people who already got their Pre-Purchase Bundles.
We’re really excited to see how Catch-Up Packs open Hearthstone up to all our players—those who are brand new, those who play every day, and all those in-between! We can’t wait to see you in the Tavern.
Very good idea imo. I think that one of the most painful and discouraging things about being a new or returning player is trying to build a viable deck for ladder from scratch. The cost barrier to entry can be really high, especially if you’ve missed several expansions that are already in standard. I guess it depends on how much they cost, but this seems awesome for new/returning people. And as long as current players are getting these as a bonus, seems like a win-win.
I feel like loaner decks were a great start and now these new packs are even better. I personally wouldn’t have gotten back into the game if loaner decks weren’t a thing (I took a break for a few years). If these were available at the time, I probably would’ve bought these packs… as long as they are priced reasonably ofc.
People like me, who regularly spend real money for the game could feel a little bit stupid now that others who did not spend anything get so much for free/cheap.
To buy 1000 cards, usually you have to spend like 150-200€, but those who get full benefit from catchup packs will only pay like 15% of that amount (depending on the price of catchup packs)
At least collectors get 5 cards (from different expansions they have probably almost completed) per pack, at first I thought it was a single card per pack.
I get where you’re coming from, but do you feel stupid when something you buy goes on sale and gets cheaper later? It happens with everything. Games, movies, electronics etc. If you buy a full single player game on day 1 for 60€, 2 years later it might only cost 10€. Catch-up packs are basically like a discount on the old releases, something that happens with most of things.
Because you spent 200€, you could play the game all the time and enjoy it, have fun with it during those 2 years. And a person catching up still won’t get nearly as big of a collection as you have. The packs are great to get all the commons and rares, they aren’t great at getting all the Epics and Legendaries. Plus they contain no Golden cards, so their dust value is much lower. And they will have to pay full price going forward.
Yes, I think that’s the point:
I may have paid more money, but I had many months to play with those cards, while those who now benefit from the catchup packs per definition have not played serious hearthstone for a long time.
Now if they only discounted the old editions (or at least wild packs) so I can advance my collection (many cards from darkmoon and before are missing). Given the constant power creep, older editions are barely playable in wild, and in standard they are banned anyway, so it is not really justified that the old editions still cost the same as the new ones.
I always have full card in any expansion, so this is so garbage.
You’re getting these for free, so free dust for you. Why is that bad?
For me personally, this is absolutely useless.
Like giving me cosmetics for Mercenaries, which I don’t play at all.
It’s not useless though – those packs are added for free to the pre-purchase bundles, so it’s like getting 10-20 extra Standard Card Packs (that can’t give you cards from Badlands) if you buy one. That’s free dust even if you own all of the cards from those sets.
So the most active players are the most punished ?
They aren’t “punished”, nothing about their card acquisition has changed. In fact, it became even easier if they buy pre-purchases, because they get a few Catch-Up packs for free (and they still act as regular packs even if you have a full collection).
I don’t think “active players are getting punished” should be the narrative. Making it easier to start as a new player or get back to the game as a returning player is an AMAZING feature for everyone who plays the game. Hearthstone dying from the lack of fresh blood is the last thing “active players” should want.
This is the problem with human nature, people only finding value in what brings them as an isolated individual value, rather than the collective. Of course both are dependent on one other to function.
I aggre that its a good thing and yes a new player has hard time catch up when he has 0 card and need to craft from 6 expansions.
I also know its a “gift” so we don’t loose and its still cool.
Its just that if for exemple you buy every preorder in standard you pay like 300$ to have a big collection but now you will only open 5 cards in these packs will the one who didn’t buy preorder will receive bunch of cards. (Sorry for bad english)