A Few Notes on the Returning Player Experience – Who Qualifies For the Free Decks

Update: Hotfix is out and eligible players should now get their free decks!

Since players had so many questions about the free new / returning players decks, Blizzard has made a post with clarifications. Here’s a summary:

• Returning players are players who haven’t logged in between November 18, 2019 and March 17, 2020. If you haven’t logged in during that period, log into the game now and you should get a Legendary Quest line, starting with three, custom bosses you will need to beat. After you finish all three Quests, you will be able to select a free deck.
• If you’re a new player, you will need to complete the tutorial, your starter Quests AND get out of the “New Player Ranks” (Rank 50-26, those will get updated in the new system). After doing that, you will be able to select one of the free decks.

However, if you qualify for the new deck and still didn’t get it, don’t worry! Blizzard has identified an issue affecting some players and they’re looking for a fix.

If you want to see a full list of decks or you aren’t sure which one to pick, check out this post!

Here’s a full blue post:

As our new Returning Player Experience went live along with the 17.0 update, we’ve found a few places where we think we can clarify the process and what you can expect.

To expand upon the eligible time period, we’ve defined a returning player as one who had not logged into Hearthstone for four months as of March 17th, so your last login to Hearthstone needed to be before 11/18/2019 to qualify. If you logged in on or between 11/18/2019 to 3/17/2020, you would not qualify as a returning player and receive the Class Deck.

If you’re a returning player who has not logged in since before 11/18/2019, to earn your free deck

• Log into Hearthstone and be presented with a new Legendary Quest line, which is made up of three total quests. In the first quest, you will face three bosses made specifically for the quest line. In the final two quests, you will play 30 cards then deal 100 damage to an enemy hero.
• Upon completing the third and final quest, you will be able to select your free Class Deck once you return to the main menu.

If you’re a new player and have not completed the new player ranks,

• Log into Hearthstone and complete the tutorial and the Starter Quest line
• You will need to graduate from the New Player Ranks (Ranks 50-26)
• Upon completing these quests, you will be able to select your free Class Deck once you return to the main menu.

If you have played Hearthstone before, but either did not complete the tutorial or the New Player Ranks, you will need to do both before receiving the free Class Deck. Note that there’s also a chance you’ll see the Returning Player quests and need to complete those as well.

As a final note, it is possible that you may not see the deck in your deck list if you did not have an open deck slot when you chose your free Class Deck. If this happens, don’t worry! You will still receive all of the cards from that deck. If you would like to delete one of your existing decks, you can then navigate to this page and use our deck list. From here, copy the deck code, and you can then add the deck to your deck list from within Hearthstone.

We hope this helps to clarify the experience for everyone! In addition, we are going to keep investigating any potential issues with the returning player decks, and we will provide updates as we learn anything new.

EDIT 1: Quick update: the team has indeed identified an issue that we know is affecting some players. We’re currently investigating the steps needed to fix it. I may not have an update again until tomorrow, but I’ll let everyone know what to expect as soon as I know more.

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