Returning Players Gifts – Up To 150 Packs To Get Players Back Into Hearthstone

Over the last few days, you might have noticed some posts on social media showing people getting up to 150 card packs (there are also 20 and 80 packs bundles, but the 150 ones are obviously the biggest deal). The goal is to get people back into the game after they quit a while ago. While it’s not the first campaign like that, between it and the updated new/returning players decks system in Patch 24.6 (loaner decks), it might be a good time to come back. Especially with all of the Death Knight hype.

Sadly, it’s not as simple as it might seem. The campaign is not available in all countries, and the number of packs you might see depends on a variety of factors, such as when you were last active in Ranked play, how long have you been playing before quitting and so on. We don’t exactly know how they affect whether you are eligible and how many packs you get.

I’ve also heard some disheartened voices that it might be a better idea to just quit the game and get those 150 packs instead of playing… which is an interesting idea, but not exactly a good one to be honest. Even if you just finish your Quests and play a few matches per day, between all the Gold, Tavern Brawls, events, ranked chests etc. you should be able to get about that many packs over the course of the expansion. Gold is also much more valuable than packs, because when new set launches you probably want to get packs from new expansions and not Standard packs that can contain cards that are just about to rotate. Not to mention that, you know, you’re actually playing the game and presumably having fun (at least I would hope so).

I feel like 150 packs might be a bit too much (that’s probably why they’re testing different tiers, to see whether 80 or even 20 would be enough to lure some players back), but I like the idea behind them overall. I don’t mind people getting something for free, because I benefit from it too – what Hearthstone needs in long term is a healthy playerbase, and getting new/returning players to play the game is quite important if we want the game to survive another ~9 years.

Here’s an official statement from Blizzard about those packs:

Hello everyone,

With the 24.6 update we launched a special test campaign to welcome players that are returning to Hearthstone, in the form of 20, 80, and 150 card pack bundles. It’s been great to see the excitement from players receiving those bundles, but we’ve also seen some common questions on the details.

Regarding eligibility, this campaign is limited to particular regions and types of players. For this iteration of returning player gifts, we’ve expanded the number of countries across Europe, North America, the Middle East, and Africa.

Various additional factors went into determining gift tiers across player groups, such as when they were last active in Ranked, or the number of expansions they’ve engaged with. Those eligible received their gift on November 2, and have until December 31 to claim it.

As we continue making major updates to the game, our goal is to make it easier for players who may have missed out for a while to come back in, catch up to what’s new, and re-experience the fun of playing Hearthstone. We’ll continue monitoring data along with your feedback, and hope to make these more widely available in the future as we refine and welcome more players back to the Tavern.

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