The Great Dalaran Heist Has Launched! Two Wings This Week, First Wing Free
Hearthstone's newest adventure, The Great Dalaran Heist, has launched!
Join the newly-formed League of E.V.I.L. in their attempt to subdue the magical, treasure-filled city of Dalaran.
What Launches This Week?
There are two chapters available this week.
- You can get started for completely free with the first chapter, The Dalaran Bank, today.
- The second chapter, The Violet Hold, is also open today and can be purchased for 700 gold or $6.99.
- You may purchase the entire adventure for $19.99, a discounted cost.
- Other wings may be individually purchased ahead of time, allowing you to unlock Zayle, Shadow Cloak early.
- The remaining three chapters unlock one at a time over the next three weeks.
This Week's Twists
Each chapter has a special passive mechanic called Twists. These effects are active during all your games in that wing and will change up how you play against each boss. Here are the twists you can expect for this week's chapters.
- Dalaran Bank (FREE Chapter) - Coin-filled Coffers
- A 0/3 Cache spawns on the opponent's side of the board. Breaking it gives 2 Coins to each player.
- The Violet Hold - Imprisoned Minions
- At the start of the game a random minion from each player's deck is locked on the board. It will unlock once enough turns have by that are equal to its mana cost.
Is The Adventure Worth It?
There has been a lot of discussion about whether the adventure was worth the cost, so let's break it down. First though, what do you get when you buy the entire adventure?
- 15 Rise of Shadows Packs
- 1 Golden Classic Pack
- Zayle, Shadow Cloak Golden Legendary Card
- Two Card Backs
- The Great Dalaran Heist Solo Content Adventure
Let's make some quick assumptions to make this real easy.
- Everything in this article has been priced in USD, you may value your local currency differently.
- We don't care about the gameplay - everyone will value it differently.
- You're buying the entire adventure at once. Don't buy wings individually with money, it is $28 =(
- Golden Zayle, Shadow Cloak is hard to price. The decks aren't perfect and it is pointless if you have a large collection.
- The card backs are cosmetic and have no gameplay changing value so we don't care about them.
That brings to the real meat, the card packs. Is the adventure worth buying for the card packs?
Sort of. Kinda. It Depends.
Forgetting the golden classic pack, which has a minimum dust value of 300, let's talk about store prices. You can purchase the 15 Rise of Shadows packs in the shop for $19.99, the exact same price as the adventure. That establishes a nice base of the adventure being completely worth purchasing if you were looking for some more Rise of Shadows packs. We aren't getting a deal on the Rise of Shadows packs, but we also forgot a ton of content above.
Now, if you're on team gold, I've got some bad news. This is not at all worth it for the packs. You're losing 1300 gold on the Rise of Shadows packs purchase which means all the stuff we were going to temporarily forget about, that needs to be worth 13 card packs to you. We can bring that loss down a bit though if we consider you get at least 300 dust from the golden classic pack (worth 300 gold) so you end up paying 1000 gold extra for a golden legendary, two card backs, and solo content.
TL;DR: Buy with real money if the packs are your main concern and you want the most pack value. If you don't need the packs and hate solo content, don't buy.
Ultimately, Buy The Damn Adventure
Just have some damn fun with the game for a change!
Adventures have always been worth purchasing in Hearthstone. Even though the format and the rewards have changed over time, Blizzard does a really good job at making sure the rewards are fantastic - they want us to buy it =).
Dalaran looks to be the best piece of solo content the Hearthstone team has ever put out for us, so if you enjoyed past content (paid or free) you should love this one. Hearthstone is supposed to be a fun game and solo content can add that value of joy to the table quite easily. Forget about ladder for a day a week over the next month and chill with the League of E.V.I.L.
Anyone else that enjoy that Bartender that shows throughout the run? He is my kind of bro.
one of many great features in this solo content! It helps break things up without feeling like it's wasting your time
A lot of people are going to disagree but it’s just not worth $20/2800g to me. I’d much rather put that into arena, have more fun, and get more packs.
I agree with you. I just played the first 3 Bosses and stopped playing. For me it is boring and I still don´t like that you can´t build your own deck. I don´t like this randomness and I´m not very lucky with it. I also don´t like monsterhunt, dungeon run and all that new adventures. I just finished them with one hero up till now and I don´t think I will finish it someday. Personally I like the old adventures more.
I don't disagree with you, it's a perfectly legitimate opinion. I personally love solo content in any game I own, and I can't always devote my undivided attention to Hearthstone (I have a kid with another on the way in autumn), so I think I value this more than many players would.
If I had more time, I would only do solo content for the sole purpose of collecting the card backs (even though I rarely remember to change mine from the default back). Arena is a way bigger value, even if you're only winning 3-5 matches a run.
The best Solo Adventure to date, in my opinion. It's really really fun. Already finished couple chapters and can't wait to play everything through.
For 19.99 it's not only all campains, but packs as well. Pretty good deal imo.
Is The Adventure Worth It?
As a F2P player you'll only need to invest 2800 Gold (which can easily be farmed in <1 month) in order to receive: plenty of hours of new content and some brand new game modes, 15 Rise of Shadow Packs, 1 Golden Classic Pack, a very fun and somewhat playable Golden Legendary and up to 2 new card backs! That's some amazing value right there. Even if you have 0 Gold right now, it's still 1 month until the final Chapter unlocks so no one is left behind. Thumbs up, great job Blizzard.
Tldr; YES, the Great Dalaran Heist Adventure is definitely worth your gold!
Personally I'm not a fan of solo adventures and prefer spending my gold on arena.
However, 20$/EUR is hardly going to break the bank. Play the first wing and if you enjoy it then get the rest. It's not a lot of money for the fun/time/prizes you get out of it.
Depends but I had about 20,000 Gold. I'd rather spend some of that than pay $20. I'm glad they gave the option to use gold, would suck it it was pay with money only.
Instead of giving actual cards like it was with old adventures they give packs. And asking money for this. Bli$$ard.
The exact opposite dude
I think I'll wait for all wings to be released before buying it. Makes more sense to buy the full thing than pay now and have to wait maybe months for it to finish.
If you have the patience and don't mind that the 'newness' would have all rubbed off by then, it's not the worst plan.
It's also due to not any real "new" cards being given, like in the old adventures.
I've spent over 1000 usd on the game but I'll be purchasing all of these adventures with gold.
Ok. But it doesn't make any sense. Why you should spend gold?
Because I always use gold when I can instead of money.
What are the random decks? Are they just completely random once you unlock them or are they set decks?
Bomb Warrior, Silence Priest, Tempo Rogue, Plot Twist Warlock & Control Shaman. (There randomnly chosen, just like Whizbang)
You can find the decklists here: https://www.hearthpwn.com/news/6719-how-zayle-shadow-cloak-works-all-five-decklists
Value for $20 is really good. But unfortunately it expect you to play it, so no thanks.