Exactly How the Upcoming Legendary Drop Changes Will Work
We're getting closer to the next Hearthstone expansion, Knights of the Frozen Throne, and with the launch of the expansion we're going to have some very welcome changes to how Legendary cards will be dropping from card packs. Due to some confusion out there about exactly how this will work, and a recent update on it from Daxxarri, it seems like a good time to go over it.
How Legendary Drops Will Work
The following will only be true AFTER the Knights of the Frozen Throne patch goes live. This will happen sometime in August.
You will no longer receive duplicate Legendary cards.
- If a specific Legendary is in your collection, it will not drop again from packs until you've acquired all the legendaries from that same set.
- Golden cards and Normal cards are considered the same for the purposes of this feature.
- Disenchanting a Legendary removes it from your collection which allows it to once again be found in packs. Ew.
- No longer do we need to feel bad about crafting a Legendary and then immediately after opening it up from a pack. Woot!
You will receive a guaranteed Legendary within the first 10 card packs opened of a new set.
- This will remain the case long after an expansion has come out. Great for new players or players who have been absent from the game.
- Players who have opened 1 or more packs from a specific set prior to the change going live will not receive this bonus for that set.
Completing the Frozen Throne Prologue gets you a Death Knight Legendary.
- Upon completion of the Prologue, you will receive a random Death Knight Legendary card.
- This Legendary uses the same no dupes rule that is described above.
- We don't know if future expansions will do something similar through their mission content, but it would be cool.
The Starter Pack Legendary follows the non-dupe rule too!
- The Classic Legendary card you get from the starter pack won't be a duplicate.
- If you own all the Classic class legendaries though, you will get a dupe.
- This is sourced from Yong Woo on twitter.
Our Recommendations
- Don't open any card packs you obtain from now until the expansion. This is because before the expansion goes live, you're still able to obtain duplicate legendaries and that would be sad.
- Hit up the weekly brawl to get that classic pack. It will help put a dent into that pity timer!
- Save your gold. If you aren't already saving your gold, it's not too late to start. A few Icecrown packs will be good to go.
- When the Frost Festival begins, play arena! You're going to get a free run each week during the Frost Festival. This will give you Un'Goro packs and an Icecrown pack.
- Use Amazon Coins to Save on Card Packs! You can buy packs at a discount with the currency provided you have an Android device that can launch Hearthstone.
Recent Updates
Quote from DaxxarriUnfortunately, no. If you've opened any packs of a set before the change goes live, you won't receive a Legendary in your first 10 packs.
However, you will get that legendary for any new sets that come out, and for any sets that you never acquired any packs for.
Ah, I didn't know that. Good deal. I'll keep saving my mountain of coin then!
That's a concern, too, but I think the bigger one is the fact that the pity counter is expansion specific (something I didn't know when I posted). Honestly, I wouldn't have worried about the dupes so much if the counter was global as I would have simply waited for the new expansion (thus no dupes), opened Un Goro packs until the counter was hit (15 packs max), and then switched to Frozen packs.
But now I'll just save my gold and dive into Frozen when the time comes and someday 'clean-up' my Un Goro counter.
Why do you get three then?
3x legs. how?
he is probably referring to the pity timer and the hero card from the prologue. pity timer is 40 packs, preorder gives you 50 packs... a legendary in the first 10 and 40 packs after that.
1 Deathknight card for the prologue, 1 from your first 10 packs and a third before 40 packs
Not to mention the average amount of legendaries is 1 in every 20, so you'd get give or take 4
Really like these changes, especially the no-duplicate thing
Don't you mean an Un'Goro pack and an Icecrown pack? Un'Goro because it would still be the most recent released expansion by then and Icecrown packs are the special reward.
Yeah this was an issue in an earlier version of the article. Sorry about that!
If you happened to open every legendary from a set, would subsequent legendaries opened from those packs only be golden then? Me thinks that is not the case but one can dream.
"Golden cards and Normal cards are considered the same for the purposes of this feature"
I would guess you can start getting multiple copies if you already have all the legendaries from a set.
No. When you have all legendaries from a set, then again yo will receive a random legendary, but it can be normal or golden. No golden garantized
What about classic packs?, i have 10 packs waiting for koft!
too hard to read these days, apparently... then again why should someone put any effort into reading comprehension when he can flood a forum with useless lazy questions and the others can provide him with the right answer? =)
So, it is more efficient to keep any legendaries you get, to increase chances of dropping the others.
And disenchant bad legendaries only AFTER you stop buying packs from given set (ie. when new expansion is released).
These changes look really good, and I really enjoy the idea of a free Death Knight Legendary card. Reminds me of when C'Thun was given for free, which was really fun.