How to create a Fireside and open Festival of Legends Hearthstone packs ahead of the expansion

The Festival of Legends expansion is coming, and Hearthstone players are eager to open their packs. While some directly hate pack opening and would rather have an “open all button”, it's undeniable that we all want to see how many legendaries we get. Festival of Legends launches on April 11, but starting on April 7, players will be able to run Hearthstone Fireside Gatherings to open packs and test the new cards.

Starting on Friday, April 7 at 10 a.m. PDT and until Monday 8 at 10 a.m. PDT, anxious Hearthstone players will be able to open packs and discover which cards they got from their Festival of Legends pre-orders. On top of opening packs, it is possible that Hearthstone allows players to test the new deck recipes for Festival of Legends for free, regardless if they own the cards.

To be part of this Festival of Legends pre-release celebrations, you will need to set up a private Fireside Gathering at Hearthstone’s official site. The information you input on the site will be private, and no one will see the Fireside Gathering you create. While it will ask you for the time and date, the event will run for the whole day you selected.

In Festival of Legends Pre-release Firesides Gatherings, you can:

To enhance the Festival of Legends pre-release experience, Hearthstone fans can head to one of the Meltdown events organized in Paris, London, Madrid or Cologne. The Festival of Legends will rock all over Europe to inaugurate the Pre-Release weekend.

Meltdown bars are a chain of gaming and esports bars that have already hosted some Hearthstone expansion pre-release parties in the past. The events promise to be full of Hearthstone challenges and rewards. That is an invitation hard to refuse!

Even if your sole plan is to open packs, this information might come in handy. First of all, the only packs Hearthstone Fireside Gathering attendants can open are the ones from Pre-Orders. Purchasing packs with gold will only become available after April 11.

While is not confirmed if they will be available, if you want to test deck recipes and Fireside Brawls, you will need someone to play against. The other player must be on the same wifi network as you. Fireside Gathering creators can join from a non-mobile device. However, all other participants will only be able to be a part if they have a wireless device.

Remember that Blizzard implemented a new kind of duplicate protection. Under the Improved Redundant Card Handling feature, if you open a legendary card that will be then given for free in the Rewards Track or other events, you will not lose that dust.

Whenever you receive a free card that you have already owned a copy in your collection (regardless of its cosmetic type), you will get a pop-up to allow you to re-roll your existing card for another of the same rarity and set. This is especially important when you open Hearthstone packs in Pre-Release Fireside Gatherings since it guarantees you won't lose any value. If you want to read more about the Improved Redundant Card Handling feature and other Hearthstone quality-of-life improvements, check out our article with all the details.

That is all for now, but stay tuned to esports.gg for more Hearthstone news and updates. See you next time at the Festival of Legends.