24.0 Patch Notes - Content Updates For Game Modes, Expansion, New Features & More!
Blizzard just published patch notes for patch 24.0 featuring the addition of the new expansion, content updates for game modes, new features, and more!
This patch is LIVE!
Quote from BlizzardPatch 24.0, launching tomorrow, sets the stage for Hearthstone’s newest expansion, Murder at Castle Nathria, launching August 2! This patch also includes updates to Battlegrounds, Mercenaries, Duels, and Arena, as well as bug fixes and more.
Murder at Castle Nathria Launches on August 2!
Hearthstone’s next expansion, Murder at Castle Nathria, goes live on August 2! The new expansion includes 135 all-new cards, featuring 10 Legendary suspect minions, the new Infuse keyword, the all-new Location card type, and more! See all the new cards in the official card library today and don’t forget to get your pre-purchase bundle before the expansion launches.
With the launch of Murder at Castle Nathria comes a new Rewards Track with tons of cosmetics, XP boosts, packs, and a huge infusion of Gold! Check out our Rewards Track Refresh blog for all the details.
Battlegrounds Updates
New Emotes!
Starting with Patch 24.0, all players will have access to the base Battlegrounds Emotes. Players will also be able to obtain special Emotes that they can equip over the base emotes in their Battlegrounds Collection. The first set of Battlegrounds Emotes – Mystery Mayhem, will be a collection of Nathria and murder-mystery themed emotes that will be available one week after the expansion goes live! Whether you’re sweating like a suspect or casually sipping on some tea, it’s got just the emote for you.
New Hero
Heistbaron Togwaggle
- The Perfect Crime
- [9 Gold] Steal all minions in Bob’s Tavern. Each turn, your next Hero Power costs (1) less.
- Dev Comment: At the end of each Recruit phase, the cost of your next Hero Power will reduce by 1 automatically. Each time you use Heistbaron Togwaggles Hero Power, its cost resets to the original 9 Gold cost and starts the cycle over again.
Players with Battlegrounds Perks will have early access to Heistbaron Togwaggle ahead of his formal release on August 9.
Hero Updates
- The Lich King, Sneed, and Edwin VanCleef can now all target minions in Bob’s Tavern as well as friendly minions. (Effects that are not “for one turn” effects will carry over to the next Recruit phase if you Freeze that minion in the Tavern).
Minion Updates
- Red Whelp
- Old: 1 Attack, 2 Health
- New: 2 Attack, 2 Health
- Evolving Chromawing has been reworked and returned to the minion pool.
- Evolving Chromawing [Tavern Tier 1, Dragon]
- 1 Attack, 1 Health. After you Upgrade your Tavern Tier, gain +1/+1 for each friendly Dragon.
Mercenaries Updates
New Limited-Time Event: C’Thun
Sensing that its Old God brethren had awakened, the ancient one C’Thun has emerged from its prison to begin its own assault on Mercenaries! Defend your Village and tame the final Old God in this limited-time event, starting on August 16. The event will consist of 10 special Tasks centered around the Old God C’Thun. Two new event Tasks can be unlocked on each of the first five days of the event, but you have until September 6 to complete all 10 Tasks. Completing all 10 Tasks will get you the C’Thun Mercenary, a random Golden C’Thun Portrait, the Diamond C’Thun Portrait, and 700 Mercenary Coins! Dragons and Protectors will be important for protecting your Village from C’Thun’s wrath.
New Mercenaries
C’Thun (Legendary Fighter)
- Old God
- 10/85 Maxed Stats
- Abilities:
- Mind Flay 5 (Shadow): (Speed 7) Deal this Merc’s Attack damage to an enemy. Deathblow: Summon a 5/15 Tentacle of C’Thun.
- Tentacle of C’Thun 5 (Old God): (Speed 5) 5 Attack, 15 Health. Rush. Whenever this attacks, give your C’Thun +5 Attack and Old Gods’ abilities Refresh (1).
- Mask of C’Thun 5 (Shadow): (Speed 4, Cooldown 10) Deal this Merc’s Attack damage to all enemies. Deathblow: Restore 20 Health to friendly Old Gods.
- Equipment:
- Heart of C’Thun 4: Battlecry: Summon a 5/15 Tentacle of C’Thun. It gains Taunt, but loses Rush.
- Maw of C’Thun 4: Battlecry: Gain +4 Attack. Destroy a random enemy Minion.
- Body of C’Thun 4: Bench: Gain +5/+10 after you summon an Old God.
Sir Finley (Epic Protector)
- Murloc
- 11/78 Maxed Stats
- Abilities:
- Adventure Awaits 5 (Nature): (Speed 6) Gain +8 Health and Attack an enemy. If your opponent has fewer characters, gain Divine Shield first.
- Murlocology 5: (Speed 2, Cooldown 1) Discover a dilapidated Murloc Ability.
- Dev Comment: This is a pool of Abilities from all existing Murloc Mercs when Finley is released.
- Lead the Charge 5 (Holy): (Speed 3, Cooldown 1) Give a friendly character +12 Attack and Divine Shield. Give your Murlocs +5 Attack.
- Equipment:
- Maxwell, Mighty Steed 4: Your Murlocs have +10 Health. Your Explorers have +6 Attack.
- Exploring Monocle 4: Passive: Lead the Charge also gives Explorers Attack.
- Finley’s Pith Helmet 4: Passive: After a friendly character loses Divine Shield, deal 10 damage to a random enemy.
C’Thun, Sir Finley, and their respective Portraits, will not initially be obtainable through packs or crafting. C’Thun and its Portraits are part of the C’Thun event. Sir Finley will be awarded for free to all players on the Murder at Castle Nathria Rewards Track, and his Portraits can be earned by players who have the Tavern Pass. C’Thun and its Portraits will be obtainable through normal means in a patch after its event ends. Sir Finley and its Portraits will be obtainable through normal means in a patch after the 24.0 expansion cycle ends. Tyrael, Yogg-Saron, and their respective Portraits, are now available through all normal means.
Merc Updates
- Summit Campfire 5
- Old: Gain +4 Frost Resistance. Your characters deal Critical Damage toenemies whom have already acted.
- New: Gain +5 Frost Resistance. This turn,enemies who have acted take Critical Damage.
- Dev Comment: In addition to being reworded and giving +1 more Frost Resistance, Summit Campfire has had some bugs addressed that prevented its full effect from working. Now, when the effect triggers, enemies who have already acted will take Critical Damage and any enemies who act after this effect goes will take Critical Damage for the rest of the turn; if Brann dies, all enemies already impacted will stay impacted, but no additional enemies will be afflicted.
- Extra Spirit 4
- We’re Rich 4
- Old: Battlecry: If you have at least two Explorers in play, restore 100 health to friendly characters.
- New: Battlecry: If you control two other Explorers, restore 100 health to your characters.
- Treasure Inspector 4
- Old: Deathrattle: Cast two random abilities.
- New: Cast a random one of Reno’s Looted Powers! Twice!
- Old: 12/79 Maxed Stats
- New: 12/84 Maxed Stats
- Creeping Madness
- Old: Speed 8
- New: Speed 4
- Tail Swipe 5
- Old: Deal 20 damage, randomly to the left or right-most enemy.
- New: Deal 15 damage to an enemy.Deal 5 damage to all enemies to the left or right of it.
- Old: 10/73 Maxed Stats
- New: 10/81 Maxed Stats
- Spirit Guide
- Dev Comment: Brightwing’s fantasy of swapping between bench and battlefield struggled because of randomness. We decided to strengthen her kit overall and reduce the randomness in it so players could direct her effects and choose what she swaps with.
- Old: 7/77 Maxed Stats
- New: 8/88 Maxed Stats
- Faerie Breath 5
- Old: Deal 10 damage. Give a random friendly Merc on your bench +3/+5.
- New: Deal 12 damage. Give the lowest health Merc on your bench +3/+10.
- Phase Shift 5
- Old: Restore 25 Health to this Merc and swap it with the highest health Merc on your bench.
- New: Restore 25 Health to this Merc. If you control another Merc, return this to your bench.
- The Cooldown is now 1 for all levels of this Ability.
- Brightwing’s Ring 4
- Old: Phase Shift restores 25 more Health.
- New: Bench: After a Merc dies, summon this and cast Faerie Breath 5 at a random enemy immediately.
- Brightwing’s Necklace 4
- Old: Faerie Breath gives an additional +5 Health.
- New: Battlecry: Give your lowest health Merc on your Bench +15 Health.
- Dev Comment: Lady Anacondra always felt like a Merc that needed her Equipment just to get her Abilities to baseline levels. So we baked two of the Equipment effects into her Abilities and updated those Equipment with new Viper-summoning effects so that more players can experience that part of her kit.
- Old: 8/76 Maxed Stats
- New: 9/84 Maxed Stats
- Serpent’s Bite 5
- Old: Deal 6 damage. At the end of this turn, it takes 6 damage.
- New: Deal 12 damage. At the end of this turn, it takes 12 damage.
- Mend Beast 5
- Old: Restore 15 Health to a character. If it’s a Beast, also give it +15 Health.
- New: Restore 15 Health to a character and this Merc. If it’s a Beast, also give it +15 Health.
- Toxic Venom 4
- Old: Serpent’s Bite deals 4 more damage.
- New: After you cast 3 Nature abilities, summon a 0/15 Nightmare Viper. (3 left!)
- Signet of the Wilds 4
- Old: Mend Beast restores Health to Lady Anacondra as well.
- New: Battlecry: Summon a 0/15 Nightmare Viper.
- Dev Comment: Morgle always wanted to be the healer for the Murloc party, but unfortunately other characters provided more value. We’ve redesigned his healing to give him the tools to be the Murloc healer he always wanted to be.
- Old: 9/83 Maxed Stats
- New: 10/93 Maxed Stats
- Murloc Missile 5
- Old: Deal 10 damage. Give your Murlocs +5 Health.
- New: Deal 14 damage. Give your Murlocs +6 Health.
- Healing Wave 5
- Old: Cooldown 1. Restore 15 Health. If the target hasn’t acted yet, restore 30 Health instead.
- New: Cooldown 0. Restore 15 Health to a character and 10 Health to your Murlocs.
- Dousing Rod 4
- Old: Healing Wave restores 10 more Health.
- New: Passive: After one of your Murlocs takes 20 or more damage in a single hit, restore 8 Health to it.
- Dev Comments: Guff always relied on Bramblethorn Totem to keep Living Brambles’ damage up. We built that damage into Living Brambles to give him more Equipment options, including a new option as a backline character with the Bramblethorn Totem rework.
- Old: 10/80 Maxed Stats
- New: 12/91 Maxed Stats
- Living Brambles 5
- Old: Deal 10 damage. Nature Combo: Repeat this.
- New: Deal 14 damage. Nature Combo: Repeat this.
- Bramblethorn Totem 4
- Old: Living Brambles deals 4 more damage.
- New: Battlecry: Restore 20 health to your characters.
- Mak’Gora 5
- Old: Attack an enemy. It Attacks this Merc back.
- New: Take 5 less damage this turn. Attack an enemy. It Attacks back.
- Additionally, Mak’Gora is now Speed 5 at all levels.
- Old: 13/88 Maxed Stats
- New: 14/92 Maxed Stats
- Frostbite is now Speed 5 at all levels.
- Cookie’s Cooking 5
- Old: Bleed (5) to all enemies. Restore 5 Health to friendly Murlocs and Pirates.
- New: Bleed (10) to all enemies. Restore 10 Health to friendly Murlocs and Pirates.
- Dev Comment: Cookie was the first playable Merc that we designed with the Bleed effect. At the time, we thought it would be a good idea to allow Bleed to scale with Spell Damage. We’ve decided that Bleed shouldn’t be increased by Spell Damage buffs, so we’ve adjusted the base power of the Ability to compensate for that change.
- Old: 8/77 Maxed Stats
- New: 9/86 Maxed Stats
- Upstart Acolyte 4
- Old: Passive: +20 Health. Whenever a friendly character is Frozen, Freeze a random enemy.
- New: Passive: +20 Health. The first time a friendly character is Frozen each turn, Freeze a random enemy.
- Dev Comment: Uther has always struggled to find a place on the Holy team focusing on Anduin and Velen. We think this is a flavorful change and we hope this change will bring more role diversity to Holy compositions. Uther now has the distinction of being the first Protector to deal Holy damage. For justice!
- Old: Caster
- New: Protector
- Old: 11/82 Maxed Stats
- New: 12/91 Maxed Stats
- Hammer of Justice 5
- Old: Deal 12 damage to a character. Its next ability is (3) Speed slower.
- New: Deal 15 damage to an enemy. Its next ability is (3) Speed slower.
- Old: 12/73 Maxed Stats
- New: 12/76 Maxed Stats
- Devilsaur 5
- Old: Cooldown 1
- New: Cooldown 0
- Old: 14/74 Maxed Stats
- New: 14/77 Maxed Stats
- Old: 7/83 Maxed Stats
- New: 8/86 Maxed Stats
- Old: 10/81 Maxed Stats
- New: 12/83 Maxed Stats
- Old: 11/78 Maxed Stats
- New: 13/84 Maxed Stats
- Old: 9/84 Maxed Stats
- New: 10/87 Maxed Stats
- Old: 9/82 Maxed Stats
- New: 10/90 Maxed Stats
- Old: 10/76 Maxed Stats
- New: 10/79 Maxed Stats
- Old: 9/69 Maxed Stats
- New: 10/75 Maxed Stats
- Old: 6/73 Maxed Stats
- New: 7/76 Maxed Stats
- Dev Comment: Originally, the fantasy of Vanessa was that she’d steal a bunch of attack and then get a big payoff with Makeshift Weaponry. In practice, however, spending all your Stolen Attack was too high a cost. It also meant that Makeshift Weaponry was a dead Ability on her first turn. We’ve increased its base power, reworked the Extra Pockets synergy, and made the downside less punishing, so we increased the speed to 7 to compensate for those buffs.
- Old: 13/75 Maxed Stats
- New: 13/86 Maxed Stats
- Makeshift Weaponry 5
- Old: Speed 3. Spend Stolen Attack to deal that much damage to all enemies.
- New: Speed 7. Deal 12 damage to all enemies. (Improved by Stolen Attack)
- Extra Pockets 4
- Old: After using Makeshift Weaponry, this Merc keeps up to 10 Attack.
- New: Battlecry: Steal 4 attack from an enemy opposite this.
- Old: 10/80 Maxed Stats
- New: 10/87 Maxed Stats
- Old: 13/83 Maxed Stats
- New: 13/86 Maxed Stats
- Old: 12/90 Maxed Stats
- New: 14/94 Maxed Stats
- Old: 10/70 Maxed Stats
- New: 11/75 Maxed Stats
- Broodmother’s Rage 4
- Old: Passive: When another friendly Dragon is destroyed, deal 7 damage to all enemies.
- New: Passive: When another friendly Dragon is destroyed, deal 7 Fire damage to all enemies.
- Dev Comment: This Equipment was already dealing Fire damage, so this is just a wording update to clarify the effect.
- Old: 10/75 Maxed Stats
- New: 12/81 Maxed Stats
- Old: 10/75 Maxed Stats
- New: 13/83 Maxed Stats
- Backlash 5
- Old: Gain +5 Attack. Each time an enemy damages an adjacent ally this turn, deal this Merc’s Attack damage to them.
- New: Gain +5 Attack. After an enemy damage an adjacent ally this turn, deal this Merc’s Attack damage to them.
- Dev Comment: This is not a functional change to Trigore, just a wording update. We also fixed a bug so that Trigore no longer hits after Trigore is functionally dead and no longer hits enemies who are functionally dead.
- Old: 11/79 Maxed Stats
- New: 11/80 Maxed Stats
- Marching Murlocs (Summoned by the March of the Murlocs Equipment)
- Old: Speed 5
- New: Speed 4
Duels Updates
General Updates
- On July 26, the current Duels season will end, ratings will be reset, and ongoing runs will be concluded.
- The Witchwood and Murder at Castle Nathria expansions are coming to Duels!
- The Witchwood will be fully usable in Duels on July 26. Murder at Castle Nathria will be added to card buckets and Discover effects with Patch 24.0 on July 26, but those cards will not be able to be used in initial deckbuilding until they are released on August 2.
- The new hero (below) will be available with the patch launch on July 26.
- All hero powers and signature treasures are now available for all heroes, for all players, no matter what. No more unlock requirements!
New Hero
Darius Crowley
- Hero Powers
- Fire!
- [2 Mana] Fire your Cannons! If they kill any minions, refresh this.
- Fire Away!
- [2 Mana] Fire your Cannons! Give your minions +1 Attack.
- Fire at Thee!
- [3 Mana] Fire your Cannons twice!
- Signature Treasures
- Safe Harbor
- [2 Mana Spell] Choose a minion and put it into your hand. It costs (0).
- Grizzled Reinforcement
- [6 Mana Minion] 4 Attack, 3 Health. Battlecry: Summon an extra Cannon.
- Tuskarr Raider
- [4 Mana Minion-Pirate] 3 Attack, 9 Health. Rush. After this minion attacks, fire your Cannons.
- Seabreaker Goliath
- [10 Mana Minion-Pirate] 15 Attack, 15 Health. Costs (1) less for each time you’ve fired your Cannons.
- Deck Swabbie
- [3 Mana Minion] 1 Attack, 4 Health. At the end of your turn, fire your Cannons!
- Draconic Munition
- [1 Mana Spell] For the rest of the game, your cannons deal 1 extra damage.
New Passive Treasures
- Location, Location, Location! [Pool 1]
- Passive. Start the game with a Location of your class in play.
- Be Our Guest [Pool 1]
- Passive. At the start of the game, shuffle 3 Legendary Invitations into your deck.
- Brittle Bones [Pool 2]
- Passive. After you destroy a minion with a spell, summon a Volatile Skeleton.
- Ring of Haste [Pool 2 Ultra Rare]
- Passive. Every third minion you cast each turn costs (1).
Card Pool Changes
- The following cards have been banned from deck creation: Twig of the World Tree, Genn Greymane, Baku the Mooneater, Prince Renathal, Open the Waygate, Blackwald Pixie
- The following card is no longer banned from deck creation: Lightning Bloom.
- The following card has been removed from the passive treasure pool: Plaguebringer.
Balance Changes
- Bubble Blower [Hero Power]
- Old: 1 Mana
- New: 0 Mana
- Demon Blood [Hero Power]
- Old: Give a random Demon in your hand +2/+1.
- New: Give a random Demon in your hand +2/+2.
- Marvelous Mycelium
- Old: Discover two Choose One cards. They have both effects combined. Shuffle this card into your deck.
- New: Discover a Choose One card. It has both effects combined. Shuffle this card into your deck.
- Flames of the Kirin Tor
- Old: Passive After you cast your first Fire spell in a turn, add a Fireball to your hand.
- New: Passive After you cast your first Fire spell in a turn, add a random Fire spell to your hand.
- Sr. Excavator
- Old: 5 Mana
- New: 6 Mana
- Ol' Faithful
- Old: 4 Mana
- New: 5 Mana
- Titan-Forged Grapnel
- Old: 4 Mana
- New: 5 Mana
- Stalking Pride
- Old: 7 Mana
- New: 5 Mana
- Magister Unchained
- Old: 1 Mana
- New: 2 Mana
- Tempest's Fury
- Old: 3 Attack
- New: 2 Attack
Arena Updates
On August 2, when Murder at Castle Nathria launches, all current Arena runs will end and a new Arena season will begin. The eligible card sets will rotate so that the following sets will make up the Arena card pool:
Core
One Night in Karazhan
Saviors of Uldum
Rastakahn’s Rumble
Scholomance Academy
Madness at the Darkmoon Faire
Murder at Castle Nathria
New Feature: Multiple Favorite/Random Hero Skins
Players can now favorite multiple heroes from the same class in the Hearthstone Collection Manager. If a deck has no specific hero assigned to it, a random hero will be used each game. By default, the random hero is pulled from your pool of favorites, but you can also opt into total randomness by unchecking the “Favorites Only” toggle on a deck, expanding the pool to all eligible heroes you own, just like with card backs. The “Favorites Only” toggle starts checked, but if you decide to uncheck it, we leave it unchecked for future decks you create.
Updated Returning Player Experience
It is once again an amazing time to come back to Hearthstone! The quest rewards and free deck offered to Returning Players are no longer limited to once per account. Anyone who has been gone from the game for 120+ days will receive the Returning Player rewards, even if they've gotten them before! Let your friends know!
Bug Fixes and Game Improvements
- You can now hold down the Spacebar to continuously open packs.
- Uncraftable cards will no longer show up when searching “refund” in the Collection Manager.
- Fixed a visual bug where the filter in the Collection Manager would appear blank on some devices.
- Fixed a visual bug with the 1000 wins animation.
- Fixed a bug preventing Drakonid Operative’s effect from triggering.
- Fixed a bug where if you attack a minion and then play Multi-Strike, you are unable to then attack the enemy hero.
- Fixed a bug where Eureka! summoning a Colossal minion that had its cost reduced would result in the Colossal minion summoning double the appendages.
- Fixed a bug causing some players to get stuck in the Mercenaries tutorial.
- Fixed a bug sometimes causing error messages after getting a new Mercenary.
- Fixed a bug where players would sometimes upgrade a Mercenary’s Ability or Equipment and the upgrade wouldn’t take effect.
- Improved the appearance of tooltips, addressing issues such as lengthy tooltips getting cut off in Mercenaries.
- Weakened and slowed down the Doppelgangster encounter.
- Fixed bugs and wording issues with various Mercenaries Abilities, Equipment, and Treasures.
- Fixed a Duels bug preventing deck codes from working with Neutral heroes.
- Improved shop lag and performance issues.
- Fixed bugs preventing the “Harold Who” and the “Killamari” Achievements from tracking.
- Misc. other bug fixes and game improvements.
You can get a weekly quest for infuse, a mechanic you cant use until after this week is done.
Seek guidance ban is bullshit
Yes, it seems slow enough to not be a problem to me. Certainly not as fast as losing to boars.
But, I'll adapt. There are other win conditions.
I am a little miffed that I crafted twig and seek guidance for duels and now both are banned.
I still didn’t preorder, stay mad.
I've been seeing huge memory leaks when in the main menu and other menus when not in fullscreen mode since the last patch. Game crashes while idle after about 5 minutes or so when not in fullscreen. Anyone else see similar? Possibly fixed in this patch?
Awesome changes to duels. It's almost like they listen there. Love that Shudderwock is entering the arena. Love all the changes. Just great, great work!
Welp, now I take everything back. The press release above didn't mention that they banned Seek Guidance. That was my main strategy.
YOu'd think that would have been worth mentioning, no?
Just realised shudderwork is in duels, AND bubble blower got a huge buff. Gonna have some fun.
Great change. Not having your Bounty ended on the spot when you encounter one of these is a good QoL improvement.
There is a massive dh buff covered as bug fix! o.O
Twig ban completely changes the duels meta, druid has been broken beyond belief for a long while now, glad to see it happen. Mycelium needs changing differently, it's still an infinite value card and will have the same gameplay it does now - with Guff you can still play tons of them each turn since a lot of the choose one cards cycle themselves with draw.
Some things still need looking at, namely mummy magic should be a super rare (it's literally better than the super rare double deathrattle treasure and waaaaaay too broken with boar). Double damage to frozen targets is also extremely bullshit combined with downpour. It's a start at least.
oh and lol dragons, the worst tribe in BGs, actually got nerfed because chromawing was pretty good in its current state.
Yaaaawwwn, so much text
Omg baby c'thun
Nice to see that *everyone* finally gets emotes in Battlegrounds, but it's definitely time to hold a funeral for Evolving Chromawing because that thing's dead.
Big change to druids in Duels. Hopefully some of the oppression will subside now that Twig of the World Tree is gone from initial building and Marvelous Mycelium has been nerfed.
Good to see mercenaries get some love. I hope that big fix for Brann also addresses that his equipment that gives shadow resistances was giving frost resistances instead.
I would ask that you please consider reverting the 3rd piece of equipment for mercenaries that requires you to defeat a heroic boss to unlock it. The choice to allow multiple quests in a single sitting was one of the best ideas there has ever been for mercenaries. So it being locked behind quest 7 is not super hard to get but now, it's gated behind heroics. Thankfully I have all the ones I want and can defeat said heroics. However, for people who are just getting into mercenaries it can be a daunting task. It's also very risky in the sense that someone could get to the end and lose and have nothing to show for it. The heroic boards are challenging and, imo, a bit too lengthy. Getting to the boss and losing to RNG or a key merc having died feels awful. Consider reverting this or making it a quest 7 OR heroic kill. Which ever comes first. This way beginners can grind to it with quests and the rest of us with good teams can get it through heroic, win/win scenario.
People actually play that crap? Lol
You seem to be under the impression that this is an official Blizzard website. No one here has the power to grant your request.
Further, I'm not sure why you think new players should be able to gain all the equipment easily. If that were the case, why not just hand you all the equipment right off the bat? Mercenaries is primarily a PvE mode, and as such, it's important to have long-term aspirational goals.
As for feeling bad about losing, that is exactly what makes it possible to feel good about winning. If there were no challenge, the whole game would just be a trivial exercise in mindlessly shoving pieces around. And for the record, you do not "have nothing to show for it" when you lose a boss battle. You always get consolation coins, as well as knowledge that will help you do better next time. If you choose to ignore that because you are a sore loser, that's on you, and you don't really deserve to succeed.
so an open duels run will grand free pack and tavern ticket just like arena?
Yes paid duel runs should give rewards for your win count + ticket. This also applies to Arena runs btw