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How to get Hearthstone’s controversial new hero portrait

You might think that a free hero portrait for a free to play game isn’t exactly newsworthy, but you would be wrong.

At Twitchcon this weekend Blizzard revealed a new hero portrait, Tyrande Whisperwind. The hero is an alternate skin for the Priest class and comes free when you sign up for Amazon Prime or the newly launched, Twitch Prime.

Local tavern regulars will know by now that neither of those services is available locally which prompted many folks to complain to Blizzard. It wasn’t just in South Africa mind you, there are more than 200 other territories that don’t offer Amazon or Twitch Prime.

Before we talk you through how to get Tyrande, a few things have happened in the wake of the portrait’s release.

The Tyrande black market

Tyrande is free when you sign up for Prime which is why the fact that you can buy the portrait on eBay raised an eyebrow.

A Greek seller going by the name, kiriosd, is clearly an entrepreneurial soul because he (or she) is selling the Tyrande hero portrait and card back for $69.90 (R961.21). If you think that’s terrible, 26 people disagree.

We're going to need a bigger wallet.
We’re going to need a bigger wallet.

That’s right, the seller has flogged 26 of these packages and currently has five left. This goes without saying but, please don’t buy this, we’ll show you how to get the hero in a moment.

Oldtown Beggar

Because Hearthstone is free to play, its stands to reason that many folks playing the game don’t have access to a credit card.

For this reason (and others most probably) there is a reddit thread of folks asking other kind-hearted Hearthstone players to send them a code for the hero.

This does warm the cockles of my heart to see the community helping each other out but it does beg the question: why Blizzard? Why did you make this hero portrait so exclusive?

To be fair, this isn’t the only time this has happened. Khadgar, the alternate Mage class hero portrait was only available for purchase via an iOS device between 14 April – 24th April this year.

How to get Tyrande

A huge amount of thanks goes out to reddit user tschlafer who compiled this information.

You are going to need the following before we begin:

  • A Twitch account (you can get this for free you just need to sign up)
  • A real credit card with at least R14 ($1) available (Amazon charges $1 to your credit card to verify it and then refunds you)
  • An address in the United States (tschlafer mentioned using the Blizzard address for a bit of fun)

First, you need to sign into your Twitch account and link it to your Battle.net account. To do that you need to click on your username after you log in and select Settings.

Select Connections and then select Blizzard Battle.net. Be sure to change your region to Europe if that’s the server you use so you’re linking to the correct server.

getting-tyrande1

You then need to go to Amazon and create an account. You shouldn’t be asked for an address just yet. Once you’ve created an account you will automatically be logged into Amazon. At the top of the page there should be a sub-menu Try Prime.

Before you input your credit card information make sure the page is using a secure connection by checking for a green lock icon or HTTPS in the URL.

Input your payment info. If you are asked for an address use the method we outline below to get one, don’t use your South African address. Once you’ve done that, select Start your 30-day free trial.

You should then be directed back to the Amazon page.

Now you need to click Your Account at the top of the page and navigate to Order History and click View Your Kindle Orders.

When that page loads click Settings at the top of the page and go to Country Settings. It should say Current country unknown but we’re about to change that so don’t worry if it doesn’t.

You can use any address here, we recommend using something like a fast food chain. You will also need to provide a contact number, use the phone number of that address if you can.

Now, you need to click on Your account again and this time go to the section under Amazon Wallet called Payment Options. Select Manage Payment Options and you’ll be directed to the Your Amazon Wallet Page.

Click the section marked Credit & Debit Cards and underneath the details select Update my account to use this card. You will be prompted to enter the card number again and if you haven’t entered an address for that card you’ll be asked which address you want to use. Pick the US address and you’re done, with Amazon.

Now go back to Twitch and at the top you should see a bar which reads, “Twitch Prime Free loot every month…” click Start 30-day Free Trial and you will be directed to a sub-site.

Underneath the video (which automatically plays on page load) click the box labelled, Start your 30-day free trial of Amazon Prime. You’ll then be asked if you want to link your Twitch and Amazon accounts, select Confirm.

Your account should link but if it doesn’t and you get the message “Oh no! We can’t enable Twitch Prime on your account” you will have to contact support and ask them to link Twitch and Amazon Prime.

UPDATE 03/10

We used this method and upon linking our accounts we were met with the error message. We contacted Amazon Prime support who sent us the email below:

[su_box title=”Amazon/Twitch Prime support” box_color=”#f37021″]

Hello Brendyn, This is [redacted] from Amazon Twitch Prime.

Thank you being a Prime member.

I’m so sorry about the issue you experienced with Twitch Prime.

I have researched your account and have found that your payment method is registered to ZA.

At this time Twitch-Prime is not available in this country, and is only available in the US, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy. If you are in one of the above countries please add a valid payment method registered within that same country.

Thank you for working hand in hand with us at Amazon, we really do appreciate your feedback. Should you require any additional information or assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us. Once again, thank you for your time and patience.

We look forward to hearing from you again soon.

We’d appreciate your feedback.

Please use the links below to tell us about your experience today.

Best regards, [redacted][/su_box]

We did not use a local address at all so our best guess is that Amazon is verifying credit cards on its side and seeing that it was registered in South Africa. We are trying to find a work around at the moment and will update you when we do.

Once the two are linked open any stream and select Free With Prime from the sidebar and redeem your code. Head to the Battle.net website, log in and go to the menu marked Games & Codes. Input the code you got from Twitch and presto, you have a new skin for your Priest in Hearthstone.

Only once you have Tyrande in your account should you unsubscribe from Amazon Prime. You can of course keep the subscription but as its not offered here its useless.

Log in to Amazon Prime, go to Your Account and select Manage Your Prime Membership. At the bottom left of the page you should see an option Do not continue my free trial, click it.

You’ll be asked a number of times to keep the membership but be persistent and select Continue to cancel and the service will eventually be deactivated.

After looking at all of that, I might just hit up that eBay seller and buy the skin.

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