A big update on Hearthstone's in-game shop arrived earlier this week - the new currency Runestones. Alongside them a set of new anime-inspired magical cosmetics as well as some card pack bundles hit the shop so you could start testing the new purchase method right away. Let's go through all the new stuff in detail!
Runestones in a Nutshell
In order to understand the pricing of items we're going to be discussing, you'll need to have some level of understanding on what the Runestones are. This new currency will be the only method of paying for cosmetics going forward, and can be used to buy anything from the in-game shop whereas money and gold will have increasing limitations. You can find monetary conversions of the Runestones to selected currencies below:
| Runestones | USD/EUR | CAD | GBP | JPY |
| 500 | 4.99 | 6.25 | 3.99 | 610 |
| 1000 | 9.99 | 12.49 | 8.99 | 1220 |
| 1500 | 14.99 | 18.99 | 12.99 | 1840 |
| 2000 | 19.99 | 24.99 | 16.99 | 2440 |
| 5000 | 49.99 | 62.99 | 44.99 | 6100 |
| 8000 | 79.99 | 99.99 | 69.99 | 10000 |
As you may have noticed, the biggest bundles aren't actually the cheapest option to obtain Runestones. While the prices of USD/EUR bundles aren't radically different, in GBP you'd be losing a relatively high amount of money if you bought anything but the cheapest bundle. We've bolded the best deals in each currency in the table above for your convienience.
Pack Bundles
With that out of the way, we can dig into the actual deals we got. Three new card pack bundles were added this time, all purchasable only with Runestones:
- Golden Standard Bundle (2 Golden legendaries and 10 Golden Standard packs): 5000 Runestones ($49.99)
- Mini Golden Standard Bundle (1 Golden legendary and 5 Golden Standard packs): 2500 Runestones ($24.98)
- Standard Bundle (1 legendary and 10 Standard packs): 1000 Runestones ($9.99)
In case you're wondering, the pricing seems to be more or less in line with previous card bundles (at least in EUR/USD), so the new currency isn't there to scam you in that regard.
New Constructed Skin Bundle
Spoiled in the last section! In addition to packs, we also got a new constructed skin bundle with a magically-themed Elise Starseeker Druid skin, 5 Druid Class packs, and a special card back. The bundle is priced at 1500 Runestones ($14.99).
Additionally, four other constructed-aimed skins were added in the patch, and three of them are likely to feature in similar bundles soon. The fourth one, Wicked Prince Kael'thas, was added as both a constructed and Battlegrounds skin, and their obtaining method has not been specified yet.
New Battlegrounds Skins
If the new skins section of Constructed was a bit lacking, Battlegrounds got a lot and then some more. Battlegrounds' own shop got a total of seven new skins with Star Scout Scabbs being free for everyone. The six other skins are individually purchasable for 150 Runestones.
Additionally, the new Battlegrounds rewards system gives you a couple of new skins for free, similarly to the regular Rewards Track.
The paid Season Pass includes even more skins and a new alternative bartender, as seen below. This bundle can be bought with 1500 Runestones or the equivalent amount of real money ($14.99).
One more skin, Little Witch Jandice, was added with the patch but is currently unobtainable. Additionally, the Mystery Mayhem emote bundle and Anima Crypt strike, previously sold for $4.99, are now purchasable with 500 Runestones (the same price).
Have you already acquired Runestones? Are you planning of buying any of the new bundles? Let us know in the comments below!
Comments
I love Blizz said they're not going to make it so you have to buy more runes than you actually need but there is still a Mercenaries coin bundle only available for 1200 runes. So if you only wanted to buy that bundle you would have to buy 1500 runes and have 300 left over.
You can tell that people at Blizzard have been regretting their decision to make Battlegrounds free-to-play for a while now. They overcompensated wildly with Mercenaries, and outside of 2 or 3 bundles (such as the Welcome Bundle), all of their Mercenaries offers have been overpriced garbage.
Now with runestones, they can finally get some steady revenue from all these Battlegrounds players. Unfortunately, that means that many secondary modes and products like Arena and Battlegrounds skins have suffered "collateral damage" with awkward costs in terms of runestones.
The introduction of runestones makes me so glad I went F2P last year. This system just looks pointless and confusing. While the prices may be on par with previous ones, you can bet this will be a way for them to get more money from players eventually. Any layer between real money cost and actual product can easily serve to deceive the buyer.
I went F2P when the BattlePass was released and have been happy with the amount of decks I can craft along with the free stuff. Even made Legend the past two months. Now that I can't earn in-game gold from Battlegrounds, I'll probably phase it out of rotation, maybe just ladder on Wild.
The ammount of XP that you get for the Reward Track is unchanged for BG
Wait, is the new shop already open? It's been closed to me ever since the battlegrounds patch.
Bundles always cost cheaper than buying the packs directly. That's the whole point of bundles, the way blizz offers discounts for hearthstone. The runestones didn't change its price, it only makes the purchase more tedious and obscure its pricing, requiring its customers to translate the runestones to real cash.