It’s been a few weeks already, but one of the latest additions to Hearthstone has been Battle-Ready Decks. These are full decks (one for each class) you can buy straight from the Battle.net store for $20, and include 2-4 Legendary cards, a half-dozen Epics, and some smattering of Rares and commons.

Given that Hearthstone is a CCG, it is refreshing not to have to consider the Pay-2-Win angle. Of course it is P2W, like every CCG. So the addition of what Magic: the Gathering players would call “Preconstructed decks” into Hearthstone is not entirely shocking for the genre. That said, the manner in which Blizzard has rolled it out is a bit interesting.

To start, Blizzard included an FAQ regarding these decks:

• Why can’t I buy a Battle-Ready Deck when the expansion launches?
  • We want to make sure we preserve the exploration phase of each expansion when everyone is trying out new and interesting things. We won’t be offering Battle-Ready Decks right after an expansion launches because the meta always needs time to settle at first, and we need time to analyze the resulting data to determine which decks we should offer.
• Why can I only buy one? Will more Battle-Ready Decks become available for the next expansion?
  • We’re trying this limited run now to gauge community interest before we decide how expansive this should be.

There is a lot to unpack here.

The simplest “real” answer as to why these decks aren’t available to purchase right away is because it would cut into pack sales. Most Hearthstone decks these days heavily lean on their Legendaries to either close out games or flip bad situations on their heads. Thus, what you’re looking for in packs is cracking open the necessary Legendary cards to make a deck function. Getting all the ones you need straight away pretty much eliminates the need for you to open additional packs and then dust the unwanted cards and try to craft the missing pieces that way. Disenchanting a Legendary gives you 400 Dust, but crafting one costs 1600 Dust. Huge savings being able to get the right one straight away. Less need for packs means more Gold accumulation which you can use to purchase either cosmetics (which otherwise cost cash) or the mini-sets (same).

But let’s take it on face value that Blizzard really is more concerned with “preserving the exploration phase.” That’s good… and really good for Blizzard. By being able to analyze “hundreds of thousands of play sessions” prior to offering anything on the shop, they ensure that A) people early in the expansion buy packs/craft Legendaries, B) they identify what the most popular meta decks are for each class, C) they save themselves the embarrassment/costs of offering a poor-value or easily-countered deck for sale. That is technically a win-win-win.

Unless you are trying to not spend money, of course.

I do find it very fascinating though about Blizzard limiting the purchase to just one deck. I suppose there would be a mini-PR disaster if it seemed Blizzard was just straight-up saying “playing Hearthstone costs $200.” It does cost that much (technically more) for what I would say is a good time, unless you are willing to be considerably patient and underpowered for a few years. No one “needs” every Legendary from every expansion, but the tricky part is identifying the Legendaries – and class! Just ask Shamans – that will last 3 expansion cycles.

In any case, I ended up buying the Rush Warrior deck for $20. Why? To make the $5 offer more valuable.

Blizzard lately has gotten on a tear with limited time offers that are random Legendaries + X amount of packs. The offer that has recently come up is $5 for 5 packs and a random Legendary. Objectively, this is a real good deal, considering two packs are $2.99 in the store. What makes this deal a bit sweeter is the fact that Blizzard has enabled duplication protection for a while now, which means if you have Legendary X, you are guaranteed to not receive another copy of X until you have collected all other Legendaries.

Have you read this blog long enough to see where my mind started going?

All I was particularly interested in was the $5 deal. But if I took it and opened, say, Rokara, I would be sad if I later decided to purchase the Warrior Battle-Ready deck because Rokara was already in it. You do technically end up with two copies in that scenario, so you can disenchant the other for 400 Dust, which ain’t nothing. But it’s certainly not the equivalent of getting 1600 Dust (cost of crafting a specific Legendary) by changing the order of operations a bit.

My random Legendary ended up being Zixor, by the way. I had not realized that the random Legendary pool included all of Standard cards, and thus something from three expansions ago. It will still be Standard legal until 2022, but my internal calculous was based on the erroneous notion of it coming from the current expansion (good until 2023). Oh well.

Ultimately, did/will I get my money’s worth? Probably not. I do find myself playing Hearthstone more these days than, say, in the last few months. On the other hand, $25 is 2.5 months of Game Pass. Or any one of the dozens of games that I have on my wishlist but never buy even when they’re on sale because of the minute possibility they end up on the Game Pass. Gamepassgamepassgamepass. Sometimes it really fucks me up, you know?

What I do know is that Hearthstone is still somehow in the small rotation of games I actually do play for whatever reason, so perhaps this was a better deal than I think. For the average player who just wants to be able to play a competitive deck in Hearthstone, it is also a good deal for them. So even though I believe Blizzard is coming out ahead in a secretly nefarious way, maybe you just grudgingly pay for the $5 bottle of water at the theme park and then get back on the rides.