Blizzard Reveals Hearthstone Pack Odds In China (UPDATED With Heroes and Overwatch Odds)

As you probably know by now, the Chinese law requiring game developers to disclose their odds for loot in their lock boxes went into effect this past week. We've already covered details of League of Legends' and Crossfire's lockbox odds; today we found out about Hearthstone's rarity scheme in China.

Thanks to its Chinese translator, Hearthhead is reporting that epic cards appear in one out of every five packs and legendary cards in one out of every 20. That's pretty much in line with what players have determined as the drop rate in other territories, but it's nice to see it spelled out. Though Blizzard didn't reveal the odds of golden cards appearing in packs, Hearthhead also has odds on those too, thanks to a community card frequency tracker.

It should be noted that physical card games have made their odds public pretty much since their inception, so why digital CCGs have never disclosed them is a little mystifying, especially when they're so easy to track by the community. I suppose it's just an extension of how loot drops work in video games in general, and the notion that if you aren't required to inform the public of their odds, then you don't. Vegas wouldn't do it if it didn't have to, either.

UPDATE: PCGamesN has discovered that odds for all three of Blizzard's major lootbox-driven games in China were actually revealed some time ago. Of course, you get a "rare" in every box; in HotS, there's an epic once every 4.5 boxes (22%) and a legendary in one in 17 boxes (5.7%). Those odds are one in 5.5 (18.2%) for an Overwatch epic and one in 13.5 (7.4%) for a legendary.

As with all these newly published odds, they apply only to the Chinese versions of the games, with no guarantee that the same drop rates have been implemented in the games in other regions of the world.