I am including here the text of my support ticket, Ticket ID: US98704288, for community awareness of this issue. I suspect three hero portraits are currently unobtainable: one each for the heroes Tyrande, Millhouse Manastorm, and Xyrella. Explanation below the line break, in the copied ticket text.
I did not receive an item I purchased. Today in the Hearthstone shop, under Modes → Mercenaries, I purchased the Tyrande Portrait Pack, which offers one portrait for Tyrande plus 10 coin packs. Before the purchase, I was missing one portrait for Tyrande. After the purchase, I received the 10 coin packs, but did not receive the missing portrait. Instead it gave me 75 coins for Tyrande, as if I had already unlocked all of the portraits.
For a long time now, I have suspected that the left-most portraits for Tyrande, Millhouse Manastorm, and Xyrella are currently unobtainable by any means. My understanding is that when Hearthstone stopped offering new content for Mercenaries, all portraits were supposed to be unlockable via packs. This has otherwise been true, as I have collected all but 5 total portraits (one each for Tyrande, Millhouse, Xyrella, Uther, and Ragnaros); Uther and Ragnaros are legendary so I expect those to be hard to find, but the other three should be very easy.
I am requesting that you fix the system to make the three unobtainable portraits available to us, like all the others. Based on my understanding of company intent, this is an oversight. I am also requesting that you specifically credit my account for the portrait I just purchased but did not receive.
Those from special events or reward tracks were subsequently made available (or supposed to be — some bugs have been reported) via all ordinary means, but this was a special case:
This is a one-time award for accounts that have already completed the Mercenaries tutorial when Patch 23.6 launches. Those players will automatically have these portraits added to their Collection. These Portraits may become available to other players through other means at a later time.
About the last bit — or may not , apparently, since it has never been announced, as far as I know.
Clearly I missed the part about those three being in a special category. x-x
I read in a few places that all the special event portraits were now available in packs. Which from my experience with the packs, proved correct in every other case. I missed the part about those three being from a special unique promotion unlike all the others. I feel pretty stupid now.
With that said, you know, I wouldn’t mind if they released the three aforementioned special portraits or those ‘extra’ uncollectible portraits present in the game (see this… Oh, and while digging it up, I also found this post of mine), but this hasn’t happened yet, and realistically, it doesn’t look like Mercs are gonna get their attention. At least the mode is still playable (especially the PvE side), and that’s it.
, apparently, since it has never been announced, as far as I know.