I’ve stopped preordering as well. It’s just a poor return on the money. Honestly, I don’t feel like I’ve missed out on anything by not ordering the last couple expansions. 60-80 packs is generally enough.
1 Like
no need to move on.
i simply refuse to pay for what i think is a scam.
i get that other people are happy to pay hundreds for not even half a game, i choose to stick to play with what i can get for free and get enjoyment out of it.
as for thinking they will give 100% collection with one time fee? I absolutely don’t think it will ever happen. Like every mobile game, there will be whales/dolphins/prey/whatever to feed upon, so there is no reason for them (as a product provider) to not milk them.
1 Like
someone always makes an alt to for a thread like this one every single expansion
Let’s be in reality here. I can pull up the tracking data if you don’t believe me but in 150 packs (so pre-order + gold) I consistently, after some crafting, have 85-90% of an expansion (same in MtG:A at pre-order + packs throughout the expansion).
So you get a vast majority of the game spending $200 (Magic) or $240 (HS). When stuff goes Wild I only dust the absolute trash stuff as well so I could do it even cheaper if I didn’t play Wild.
1 Like
First, there is no excuse that someone paid $100+ and don’t have the full collection.
However, that is how free to play game works.
90% of people don’t pay.
Even I want to pay, I noticed that an extra $10 or $20 don’t buy anything.
I always regret after I spend a few extra dollars.
The best thing is either 100% F2P or become a whale if you are rich.
CCGs, the original ‘whale’ pit =p
4 Likes
After opening 126 DoD packs I only got 4 legendaries.
Four. Out of 22.
Seeing some people say they got 7+ legendaries from around the same number of packs leaves me feeling very disgruntled and cheated.
I got 4 in 126 and I am complaining.
I only got like 2 Legendaries from 80 Witchwood packs.
I didn’t bother pre-ordering Boomsday. (missed out on Jaraxxus, that sucks)
Preordered Rise of Shadows got a legendary every like 15-20 packs.
I don’t like the lottery ticket aspect. I like to focus on specific classes and would rather buy dust.
I already have what I want now, so there is no reason to buy more packs.
I have $50 of Useless Amazon coins, but am just waiting for Cosmetic Skins.
I think you’re missing the point. They’re not making a point about whether it’s fair, or value for money, or like a non-digital card game. I agree with you on all of that.
However the point is that if everyone got the full game like you suggest, it wouldn’t be good for the ‘gameplay’ aspect of the game. Everyone would be able to create every deck - I can’t see how that would be a positive development for the game.
So people could just play the game instead of grinding for fake currency to deserve the ability to play?
No it’s good for the game. Good for the consumer. It’s just not good for the investors.
2 Likes
Are you saying that you don’t see tier 1 decks until rank 5, because it is expensive?
That is not true.
You start to see tier 1 decks as early as rank 50 !
After rank 12, nearly all decks are tier 1.
No one is willing to waste time and play an unfair match.
This is why Blizzard adds these “play 12 beasts” or “play 3 crappy class” quests.
It makes the game a little bit less competitive.
I am 100% F2P, and played since beta.
I will uninstall without thinking twice if I realize any small disadvantage.
true f2p got it worse… over 50+ packs and the legendaries and epics this time around are very good to miss out… after your 40th pack you get nothing but dust and you’re left to this rng bs.
never pre order folks unless you don’t care about losing money.
100 bucks for a single card, not a full collection. That’s the nature of CCG’s.
I was actually talking to my friend last week about the power creep of MtG. Back when I was playing, you had Force of Nature. An 8/8 trampler for 6 mana, which needed an upkeep of four green mana or you received 8 damage. That faded out and got replaced by Terra Stomper, an 8/8 trampler for 6 mana which had no drawback, on the contrary, it couldn’t be countered. But that was fine because it was a mythic.
Which suddenly made me think. Why did Wizards bring in these OP mythics? After all, THEY don’t get any of the money these cards are worth. You can’t buy singles from Wizards, only from third party vendors. They gain just as much as they would from a common, yet here we are. Just be glad there aren’t any third party vendors in HS, or you’ll see how far your 100 bucks will take you.
I guess its this time of the year for these kind of posts 
like in every beggining of each expansion.
So let me write my ideas on the matter:
-
Would it be good if for x dollars you could buy the whole expansion?
No, i doubt so… why?
a) This would be a totally anti-f2p move (and f2p guys is what Hs is mostly made off). A guy who just gave 150$ (for ex) would be having all the cards while poor little guys with no pocket to pay that much would be struggling by opening 20-50 packs. And yeah whales will always have the advantage but this is a different lvl of unfairness here. And if you think that none cares about f2p guys well… trust without f2p this game s dead
b) Even mediocre paying players would be having a problem with that. If such deal existed a player would be forced to pay 150 (or maybe even more) every 3-4 months simply cause his 50 dollars—>50 packs would be nothing anymore. Also deals like 20$—>30 packs etc would stop to exist. That would basically mean that Blizz would lose a lot more money and playerbase than you can imagine.
c) Why take the fun of pack opening out of a ccge game? Its part of it. -
When players pre-order they have enough experience (after so many expansions) to know of what to expect.
Simply put since you dont like the economic system of something, dont support it with your money. But buying it and then yelling about it simply cause you didnt get the results you expected (yes gambling and luck plays important role in pack opening) is simply insane. The ‘‘results’’ of a certain card pack opening dont tell us if its fair or unfair. Statistics that tell us about the chances of hitting something certain or about how many legendaries we expect to hit in a certain number of cardpacks or how much money we must spend in order to get a good % of a certain expansions collection is what can explain Hs s economic model and is what can tell us if Hs s economic model is fair or unfair. And all these can be found before buying the card packs. So if you find it fair buy it, if you find it unfair dont buy it, simple as that. But dont buy first and then cry later cause you didnt get the results you asked for.
-
Is Hs expensive in general?
I would suggest that yes, it is expesive. Even pre-ordering at 1$/ pack is actually expensive, not to mention the non-deal prices the shop has. Is a 40 pack legendary pity-timer kinda unfair for a virtual ccg? Yes probably yes. Is it ok not to have a no epic duplicate rule ok? No probably no.
But at least we saw some positive things happening this year like a lot more better deals that what we were used to and the return of the adventure with cards in it (which trust me will make the game a looooooot cheaper).
Still the maid idea here is that the more money you give at Blizzard the more stable things will remain in the economy of Hs. The less money you give the more things will become better.
Sorry for long post.
I feel like playing the game with what you get and something of your own too makes for a more fun, rage-less and … less expensive experience.
Payments for me from now on will either be small donations for cool games with a “gacha-like” system or full costs for “100% assured I’m getting the content” games.
I also hit the pity timer once. I opened 200+ packs and got 1.5 lengendaries less than average. This is rare, as I usually get around average.
They should make it fixed: get 1 lengenary per 20 packs. Or something better.
P.S. Shroud’s reply is a good answer… very well analyzed!
Frankly, as a f2p I feel sorry for people who pre-order/buy bundles because they will just be dissapointed as you don’t get that much value out of your money as you would expect, especially knowing how much value you can get from other video games for the same price. But I guess it’s the nature of card games.
I suggest sticking to f2p as myself. You won’t be able to craft every single meme deck, but you will still be able to craft at least several competitive or fun decks each expansion over time.
Another option is ‘whaling’ and pumping several hundred $ every expansion to get full collection. Basically it’s either being f2p or a whale. I think middle ground will simply dissapoint you because it will feel like you got almost nothing for your hard earned money, especially if you got the short end of the stick - minimum amount of legies with all of them being close to pity timer.
Normally i am not one to say much about rarity and how frequent you get from packs but this expansion was kinda crazy. I opened 112 packs and only got 3 legendary and 7 epics total. I’m not even sure that is possible but wow that was WAY fewer than i have ever gotten. I had a ton of duplicates but the dust values are just terrible. Doesn’t matter to me though i was just spending the last of my in game currency before never coming back. Blizzard’s idea of a fun engaging game has turned into a “whale catchers” game. It’s very much like being in a casino when buying packs and playing the game now. 
Actually they are into the secondary market. They control the reprints, the proof of mythic edition booster box alone is a sign look how many ppl wanted to get the War of the Spark version just for Jace. If WoTC didn’t care about secondary vendor they would have already abolished the reserve list. No land should cost more than 100 dollars.
The fact that they have a new cheaper modern format (Pioneer) is also a sign.