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.
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted May 18, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)This adventure is definitaly better than previous in case of gameplay;D
Esp King's with Wife dialogue at 1st stage:D
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted May 17, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)You only get 12 packs for $20 those, because 3 packs are free...
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted May 17, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)Can someone clarify. I purchased with USD, but only received Zayle. How do I get my golden classic pack and card backs?
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted May 17, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)I believe golden pack and card back is for completing all wings. So you'll have to wait for the chapters.
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted May 18, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)Hey thanks for clarification. Much appreciated!
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted May 17, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)I had fun, normal mode I breezed through - coming back for Heroic I find more of a challenge. I'm an achievement hunter/unlocker, so totally going to grind to unlock the hero powers and deck variations.
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted May 17, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)Its worth it if you've got cash or gold laying around and want to have fun. this is not worth it if you actually need cards.
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted May 17, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)So far I'm enjoying it quite a bit. The balance feels right. I cleared the first two chapters, went back to play as Hunter, got a bad deck, and lost on the 7th boss. The quest-like unlocking of decks and hero powers feels good. Has anyone had much success in heroic mode? I've made it to the fourth boss twice, and gotten absolutely obliterated both times. I can't imagine what kind of deck I would need to clear a run. The challenge is certainly out there for players who want it. It's definitely the best implementation of Dungeon Run yet, and just a lot more of it.
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted May 17, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)Yep I played a lot of heroic, to unlock the abilities etc for since they're a different unlock than normal.
About the time I unlocked the 3rd character completely I managed to scrape a win on heroic in the first chapter with a transform hero power murloc shaman deck (special abilities: the poison immune weapon + initial boom bots)
Theres a LOT of randomness unlike old heroic adventures where you could construct your deck completely vs ONE specific character, and some of the HEROIC bosses are from what I;ve seen nearly impossible to beat if you're unlucky enough to get them.
As for whether it's worth buying, I'd say you're throwing away 700 per chapter which is 7 packs and getting 3 packs only and 1/5th the way to a golden zayle. So as the OP said if you need cards from the set then dont do it this way.
I feel they needed to have MORE cosmetic rewards like getting the HENCHMEN as alternate heros would then have been worth it
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted May 17, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)Normal mode cleared without a loss. Only managed to meet the final boss once and got obliterated. Treasure is very important
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted May 17, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)I may be missing something but it sounds like all the different chapters have the same pool of encounters and differ only in these "twists" and the classes you may play with. I've played chapter 1 on normal and heroic now and while it was fun I don't feel like spending money or gold just to play the same with a different class and/or the "minion in a bubble" gimmick.
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted May 17, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)Is it worth it? Maybe if you have gold to spend on it, but do not waste money.
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted May 17, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted May 17, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)I bought the adventure but only got the Zayle, Shadow Cloak Golden Legendary Card. When do you get the rest of the rewards (Golden Pack, card backs, etc.)?
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted May 17, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)You have to complete the wings to get the other rewards.
3 packs per wing. Golden pack for all 5 completed and the card backs likewise, one for normal difficulty, one for heroic.
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted May 17, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)Ah ha. Thanks!
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted May 17, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)I have had a lot of fun with this solo campaign. It's taking the Dungeon Run formula, giving us varied hero powers like in Monster Hunt, and allowing us to customize our starting deck and power. We have heroic mode if you want to be a completionist and get all the card backs, too.
I think this is the best content yet.
I've been saving gold to get each wing without spending actual money, so that's proven to be a good route to go even if you haven't saved (if you can grind out 700 gold a week). I personally can't justify spending $20 just to get $15 packs and a golden legendary I could simply work toward with in-game gold (and is just a worse Whizzbang).
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted May 17, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)Yeah, he's got all the hook-ups. It's mad real!
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted May 17, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)Las time we saw a payable adventure we get a lot of legendaries. Now only one and a few packs....
Bli$$ard
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted May 17, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)Yeah, but this time, no cards other than the golden zale, are locked behind this. Meaning that if you aren't interested, you don't need to buy to keep up with the meta.