Signature cards are a new type of cosmetics available starting in March of the Lich King expansion. While initially announced during the reveal stream, they weren’t discussed in details, so Blizzard had to share more about them in a separate post.
In March of the Lich King, there will be 18 Signature cards, 15 of which are Legendary. 3 non-Legendaries will be free rewards from launch event. 2 Legendaries will be on the Tavern Pass, and 13 of them will be random drops from card packs. Each expansion will have a different “theme” of Signature cards, this time we’re getting those grey-blue-ish to fit the Death Knight aesthetic (but being honest with you, I’m not a big fan of that, I would prefer them to just be in full color).
But here’s where things get interesting – MotLK Signature Cards will be added to packs from that expansion, as well as Standard and class packs. However, they won’t be replacing Golden Legendaries, but rather drop alongside them, with the same drop rate. It means that your chance to open a Legendary card in those packs will be slightly higher – you will have double the chance to hit one of the “cosmetic” cards (Golden or Signature). It’s not a big difference in a couple of packs, but given that Signature cards will be a thing going forward, any Signature card you open in a long term can be treated as an “extra” Legendary. Sadly, unlike Golden cards, those can’t be disenchanted (I hope that Blizzard changes their mind and gives them the same disenchant rate as Golden Legends).
What’s even better is that Golden Packs are changing into Signature Packs and will now have much better value. Signature cards will drop at a rate triple of that of Golden Legendaries do in those packs right now, which means that you essentially have a 4x chance to get a Legendary from one of the packs.
Another interesting thing is that duplicate protection is handled differently for Signature cards. Since those are special cosmetic cards, players don’t necessarily want them for cards they don’t own, but rather for cards they do own and play (you would rather have a cool version of a card you commonly use). Because of that, you CAN get Signature versions of Legendaries you already own, but there’s a special reroll system. For example, when you open a Signature version of Invincible but you already own a regular version, the game will ask you whether you want to reroll that regular version into another random card from the same rarity and set. In this case, your Invincible would be re-rolled into another Legendary card from March of the Lich King and you would get to keep your Signature copy. Of course, it’s fully optional and you can decide not to reroll if you don’t want it. It’s a really interesting system and I actually like how it’s handled.
Here’s the source for all of that information:
Hello everyone,
After all of the new info we shared in yesterday’s Expansion Announcement Stream, there are a few clarifications we wanted to share regarding Signature Cards:
- There are 18 Signature cards launching with March of the Lich King (15 of which are Legendaries). The 3 non-legendaries are free, from a launch event. 2 are on the Tavern Pass. The remaining 13 are random drops from bundles/packs.
- With March of the Lich King packs, Standard packs, and Class packs, Signature cards drop at the same rate as Golden Legendary cards, and are purely in addition to all other drops (other than replacing a Normal Common). As a result, the total legendary drop rate in these packs is slightly higher.
- In March of the Lich King, Golden Packs have been upgraded to Signature Golden Packs. While these are essentially the same as Golden Packs, they’ll also drop Signatures at triple the Golden Legendary rate, in addition to all other drops (apart from replacing a Golden Common). This means the Legendary drop rate is effectively quadrupled in Signature Golden Packs, to a total (Golden+Signature) of 1 per 5 packs on average.
- We knew many players would want to get the Signature quality of a card that they already own, so we handle duplicate protection in reverse. They can drop, but when they do, you’ll get a popup that asks if you’d like to reroll your existing normal/golden copy for free. Say yes, and it rerolls to a different card of the same set, rarity, and quality.
Will we be able to craft these signature cards?
So yeah your right for a player who completes all of the weekly quests I get around 14k gold an expansion + 2k for mini expansion leaving around 120 for pack then an extra 20 odd packs for tavern brawls and another 5 or 10 from reward track? So I should get a signature almost every expansion.
I’d be a lot happier if they also offered an option to re-roll the signature card and keep the original. I dislike the gold and diamond cards, dusting everything up to and including the epics as soon as I have standard versions. I keep the golden legendaries because of their rarity, but I don’t play them if I have the standard. I hate the diamonds beyond measure. It might be a neurological thing – decks look messy when they aren’t all the same time of card and it’s just upsetting. The quality of life improvement I’d most like to see is a ‘de-bling’ button for deck recipes that ensures they always use standard cards if available, as it’s a pain going through and replacing the gold/diamond ones. If I can’t dust signature cards, I wouldn’t mind the option to re-roll them. But I wouldn’t want to lose my basic version and be stuck with this new gimmicky version.
Ah, now I see what they look like.
I’m not sure if I like the trend of multiple versions of a card, but if you look at the father of all card games, MtG, they flourished in this behavior for the past 3 years.
x4 from pretty little chance is not enough for me to buy overprices golden pack
Sure, I also won’t go out and buy them, but if I end up getting it somehow, I’ll take 4x the chance of opening a Legendary 🙂
For example, it’s a big deal if you get Mega Pre-Purchase Bundle. They have 5x Signature pack in there now if I remember correctly.
I’d rather say that the different handling for duplicates does compensate the fact you cannot disenchant them.
Signature packs aside, if drop rates for legendaries and signature versions do not overlap we basically have double chance for a legendary, on average one in 10 expansion packs instead of 20. If I understand correctly this is the real improvement/gain for us.
I think that’s incorrect signatures drop at same rate as golden legendaries not normal legendaries. As I understand it if you have enough packs to get all the rares you’ll probably find a golden legendary once every 2 expansions so this difference is negligible.
golden legendary is 1 in 181 packs, so now it’s like 1 in 91 packs.
still a golden disenchantable legend is better, since it gives you 1600 dust to craft any legend you like, while signature is not disenchantable.
Of course it depends on how many packs you open but it’s not really that negligible IMO. Let’s say that you end up opening 150 packs per expansion – after 10 expansions you would end up with ~8 Golden Legendaries on average, but now you will also get 8 Signature Legendaries. That’s almost an extra Legendary card per expansion. I would say that’s a nice change.
And 150 packs isn’t really a crazy number between packs you get from Gold, Tavern Brawls, events, ranked chest rewards and so on. If you buy any pre-orders or pack bundles you probably end up with more than that.
Sadly it’s double the chance of Golden Legendary, not regular Legendary.
Like the other commenter said, the chance of getting a “cosmetic” Legendary will go up from 1 in 181 packs on average to 1 in ~90 packs on average. That’s why I said “slightly” in the post.