First Legendary in 40 Packs is Duplicate Tyrael

Got his base frim the shop for free back during the event. Have two portraits for him on top of that. Already a bit let down from going 39 packs without even the “large coin pile” of a bad roll legendary. And then this bug as the cherry on top. I’m not sure what else to include here. Screenshot perhaps, but how does one prove prior unlocking of the base portrait?

Ugh… Got wrong mercenary opening packs - #3 by SparkyElf-2852

You can do that if you want to. I’ll tell you whether there’s a problem with duplicate protection in your particular case, although you could figure it out yourself after reading what I’ve suggested.

PS

I was about to say that we’ll take your word for it here (it didn’t make it into the final edition of the post), but actually, if you claimed the free Tyrael mercenary from the shop, you can find it in the purchase history in your profile [1] .

[1] https://account.battle.net/transactions

PPS Have you got one of Tyrael’s portraits from the achievement by completing the heroic Secret Cow bounty? It can be frustrating to get a portrait from packs that could otherwise be claimed from an achievement, especially if it’s an epic or a legendary one, so if you haven’t, I would recommend it.

Thank you for the detailed response. I have previously, and again just now, read the documents and still believe this case to be an actual error. I should add that I have memories of using the base portrait to complete his task chain before I completed the Secret Cow achievement. (I wish I had done the Tess achievement before getting all of her portraits, as I had anticipated at the time that specific achievements portraits would all ran like the Elise one, but it will still be fun to chase the achievement even without needing the specific reward.)

Here are those two relevant screen shots. Please let me know of any other information I can provide to help clarify the situation:

  1. Transaction Receipt 06/01/2022: https://drive.google.com/file/d/14OSJ8Rs4r_KsKLm_sCzfk3mgYW4HILyP/view?usp=sharing
  2. Unpacking him on 10/12/2022: https://drive.google.com/file/d/132HnYpNdD2rBDZUPeLxwtC4FLXZxYg0T/view?usp=sharing

I’ve actually got all of her portraits from packs immediately when I was opening them while looking for new mercenaries. It’s not a big deal, however, since rare portraits are generally not that uncommon, and in the long run this reward is worth just 50 coins anyway.

Have you actually got any information that Elise’s portrait cannot be dropped from packs? Back in the day, just to be safe, I did that achievement a.s.a.p. for its own sake, even though subsequently I played with Elise competitively and fulfilled the requirement naturally, in order to avoid possible ‘whoopsies’. While opening the last batch of packs, when the new mercenaries were released, the game gave me a lot of Elise’s portraits — I’ve got all of them now, but it could have been bad otherwise.

Truly? I’ve not been in the fighting pit for a while, despite regularly reaching top ranks there previosuly… It’s been time for PvE and grinding tasks for the new mercs, besides, PvP has not been that fun lately, and I would prefer to have new mercs in a competitive shape first anyway. Besides, some of them are bugged at the moment…

But I digress, let’s get back to actually important matters.

This looks problematic. The exact amount of Trigore coins is not visible, but it appears to be in the range of fourties, meaning that this whole thing in general is not right. Even if you got Tyrael’s golden portrait from the shop instead of the base one due to a known bug (is it actually the case?), the screenshot indicates that duplicate protection has not worked.

I believe you should try contacting the customer support, the proof provided being enough to indicate a problem.

As for a possible cause, I could theorise that you got Tyrael’s golden portrait instead of his base version due to a bug, and that has somehow messed with duplicate protection, but it’s hard to tell for sure.

Is possible is the Tyrael portait bug like SparkyElf said

https://hearthstone.fandom.com/wiki/Mercenaries/Tyrael
the auto detect source for acquiring are
|Type|Source|Variations|
| — | — | — | — |
|Custom|Claim for free in the [Shop] from 05:00:00 June 1, 2022 until 07:00:00 June 1, 2022.|Random 311|
|Custom|Claim for free in the [Shop] from 07:00:00 June 1, 2022 until Patch 24.0.|Regular 559|

like listed above there is a 2h period where

Blizz said they resolved , but it can be like they changed for new players acquiring it instead of backfix for people hit by the bug.

A quote from someone on reddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/HSMercenaries/comments/vlo2uz/so_i_opened_a_pack_and_got_vanndar_whom_i_already/

If I recall correctly from ZombiesGoNomNom’s stream where he explained how this works after getting the rundown from a dev. Essentially if you somehow obtain a non-base portrait for a merc before the base portrait, then when opening packs the game treats the base portrait as a portrait skin. So your pack rolled a Vanndar skin in that slot and it happened to roll the base version portrait rather than one of the other gold or diamond portraits.
The same is also possible for Tyrael right now for anyone who claimed him from the shop when it was bugged and it was granting the gold/diamond portraits rather than the base portrait.

That make sense and explain why no duplicate protection ( >50 coins ) when it happens.

Essentially repeating what have been said in different topics on the matter, if I’m not mistaken…

I don’t know what I was thinking when replying to the topic — maybe with so many people asking similar questions, I got confused — somehow I was under the impression that there were still legendary mercenaries to be opened from packs, however, it isn’t actually statetd anywhere in this topic. There is, however, a possible scenario when a pack like the one on the screenshot would be legitimate without any bugs:

  • All legendary mercs are owned.
  • The item with duplicate protection gets Legendary rarity assigned to it.
  • Since all legendary mercs are owned, it rolls for a random unowned portrait, which turns out to be Tyrael’s base portrait.

My question to the author: do you own all legendary mercs or not?

PS Another thing is that I personally stop opening packs once I’ve got all mercenaries and start saving them for future mercenary releases (not counting one pack, if memory serves, which I opened by mistake when trying the new feature allowing to do it with the spacebar key), and it’s likely not an uncommon practice, which might also have driven me to assume that there were other legendary mercs yet to collect.

Why you expect this can only happen with all mercs owned ?

I mean you can have 5 missing mercs and this can happen , whats wrong ? it’s like your are opening a portait before having all mercenaries , and this portait turn into base merc.

Because a golden portrait for a merc should count for the purposes of duplicate protection even if the base one is unowned, therefore it should be a new merc in that particular slot. The fact that the item in question must have duplicate protection is indicated by the amount of coins in other slots.

from my interpret? / understand of reddit quote this is what happens.

In a scenario where OP have 2 Gold Tyrael portaits but no Base Tyrael and a missing merc named ABC.

If the pack contains a base legendary merc on reserved slot the duplicate protection strikes and gives you an unowned legendary merc , in this case it dont gives base Tyrael becouse is considered owned , so it correctly gives you the missing merc named ABC.

BUT

If the pack contains a legendary Portait on reserved slot , example pack want to give a Tyrael portait what remains are Diamond Tyrael , 3rd Gold Tyrael , Base Tyrael and is forced to give one of this 3.
If the result is Base Tyrael , the HS engine is not coded to show a Base Tyrael oval portait so what happens is that it shows the Base Tyrael rectangula portait.

That’s not how duplicate protection works. If not all mercs of a chosen rarity are owned, then the ‘reserved slot’ cannot give portraits for that rarity — see the support article for details.

oh yeah true i was wrong i forgot about flowchart , it rolls rarity first so legendary on reserved slot must give a unowned merc.
But if this happens on a not guarantee slot , the guarantee slot must give at least 50 for someone.

Im back to my loop , to go outside of this flow chart , i should consider Tyrael not owned and so i end selecting from giving Tyrael or ABC.

Or yeah the he owns all mercs scenario.
We need the OP ( Input ) answer , mb he was opening packs just for coins.

50, 75 and 100 respectively, as per the support article. Numbers of coins, if turns out to be them, in other slots are in the range of 35-45 (again, documented), and thus, if one is looking for a simple mnemonic rule here, always below 50.

Of course, in some of those other slots there can be an extra portrait that gets ‘disenchanted’ into coins or something else, e.g. two portraits in a pack, so sometimes you can’t really tell which slot is which, but this is not the case now.

Or for portraits, perhaps, although in this case quite many would be needed to get what you want or to collect all of them… Getting those coins from packs is a frustrating experience, in my opinion. I’m just trying to consider good reasons why one would want to open more packs.