Hearthstone's new mode Mercenaries launched on October 12. Mercenaries is quite different from the original Hearthstone mode. It's more like a Hearthstone 2.0, and there is a lot of new information players have to learn.

Mercenaries can be divided into two different parts — farming and leveling your mercenaries (PvE) and taking on battles with other players (PvP). This guide will teach you all you need to know to get your mercenaries ready for a battle.

1. Leveling

When you first enter Mercenaries, you will see level 1 mercenaries with many slots locked. To unlock all slots, you need to level each mercenary to the maximum level (30). Leveling is relatively simple — winning a game against a bot or a real player will give every mercenary in your party a certain amount of experience.

▲ Travel Point (left) is for PvE and Fighting Pit (right) is for PvP

Playing against other players at the Fighting Pit will give you the most amount of experience points. If you do not care about farming and start with leveling your mercenaries, head right to the Fighting Pit. The good news is that the matchmaking system will match you against a player with about equal power of mercenaries.

If there isn't any good opponent available, you will get matched into a bot with a party of mercenaries with an equal level of yours. Don't worry about not getting matched into a real player because you will get the same reward — both experience points and rating.

As of October, you will likely get matched into bot opponents because Mercenaries has just launched, and everyone is at different progress. Don't be afraid of losing to other real players.

2. Equipment and Tasks

Everything should be open when a mercenary reaches level 30, right? The screenshot above shows that Sylvanas Windrunner is at level 30, but two pieces of equipment are locked. They are asking for you to complete some tasks, but what are these "tasks"?

If you click Campfire, you will see there are these "Tasks" for each specific mercenaries. Tasks are unique questlines for each mercenary. Every mercenary starts at Task 1. The next one is Task 2, then 3, and so on.

Each mercenary has three unique pieces of equipment, and they all share exact unlock requirements — Reach Level 30, Complete Task 2, and Complete Task 7. Reaching level 30 is simple, but how do we get these tasks?

There are two ways of getting a new task. The first one is waiting for a new day. "New Visitor Tomorrow" in the Campfire means that new tasks will be added at the same time as Hearthstone's daily quests reset. But how do we wait for so long? We need a way to find more tasks!

The second way is to these Mystery slots in the Bounty Hunts and encounters a Mysterious Stranger. There is one Mystery slot in every Bounty Hunt (except the first few ones at the Barrens). You will not know what this slot will become until you reach the Mystery slot. There are four different possible options — Mysterious Stranger, Spud M.E., Blue Portal, and Sabotage. The latter three options are helpful for your current Bounty Hunt run. However, Mysterious Stranger will let you find a new task without waiting for a new day to come.

If you encounter Mysterious Stranger, three mercenaries from your party will be displayed. Once you choose a mercenary, a new task for that mercenary will be added instantly. This is the only way to get more tasks, so always look for the path that passes by the Mystery slot.

Every mercenary shares a similar task questline. Take note of the chart above to know what you have to do to unlock new types of equipment. There are more tasks afterward for more coin rewards, but every weapon will be unlocked by Task 7.

2-1. Turbo farming new tasks

So, you want to search for Mysterious Stranger now. What is the fastest way to find more tasks?

Go to the Heroic mode for the Barrens. Choose the second Bounty, Air Elemental. The recommened level for this Bounty Hunt is Level 8, completing it should be easy if you have a level 30 mercenary.

This Bounty Hunt will always have five stages and a Mystery slot at the third stage. The first stage is always an encounter against enemies. The second stage could be a Boon or a Spirit Healer for a skip. After one or two encounters, you will get to open the Mystery slot to see what's in it.

If you encounter a Mysterious Stranger here, accept the Task. If not, press the "View Party" button at the bottom and retire to go for a new Bounty Hunt run. Repeating this Air Elemental run is the fastest way to farm tasks. If you want to unlock equipments quickly, grind Air Elementals!

3. Coins

Once you are done with task grinding, you will finally unlock all options for a mercenary, but this is not the end. You will have to spend coins on abilities and equipments to unlock the full potential of your mercenary.

There are multiple ways to farm coins. The first is to go for Pay2Win, spend money to open packs. The second is to keep grinding tasks after Task 7. The third is to repeat a bounty run that gives you the specific Mercenary coin you want.