Getting your first pet
43,960 players have hatched a pet; 59,578 own a mount. The pet is the harder of the two, and the Companion badge is the one to chase early.
Get the mount first, then the pet — the mount badge is 15,618 players ahead, so the mount path is the shorter one. Use the pet for its passive, not as your main damage.
43,960 players have hatched a pet (Companion). 59,578 own a mount (Saddled Up). The gap between those two numbers — 15,618 players — is the most useful thing anyone can tell you about Arcane 101's side systems: the pet is the harder one, and it is not the one to do first.
The two side systems, by the numbers
| Badge | What it takes | Players | Share of first-quest finishers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Saddled Up | Own a mount | 59,578 | 100.0% |
| First Lesson | Finish the first quest | 59,582 | 100% |
| Companion | Hatch a pet | 43,960 | 73.8% |
| Legendary Find | Own a legendary | 14,393 | 24.2% |
Saddled Up and First Lesson are four players apart. That is not a coincidence — it means mount ownership is effectively part of the opening experience. Pet ownership is 15,618 players behind it, which means a real number of players get a mount and never get a pet.
Why that ordering matters
If a system is finished by almost everyone who finishes the tutorial, it is cheap and it is probably on the critical path. If a system is finished by three quarters of them, it has a requirement that some people never meet — a cost, a location, or a mechanic they did not understand.
For you, the practical read is: do the mount, then the pet. Chasing the pet first because it sounds more interesting is how people end up with neither.
Getting the pet: what actually happens
The pet comes from hatching an egg. What the game does not publish is the egg's cost, its drop location, or the hatch odds — and we are not going to invent them. What we can give you is the sequence and the checks.
- Finish the tutorial and get your mount first. See mounts. The mount is the shorter path and it makes everything after it faster.
- Find the pet/companion screen. If your menu does not have a pet tab, you have not met the unlock condition yet — the game gates the system, it does not hide it in a submenu.
- Get the egg, then hatch it deliberately. Hatching is the action that fires the Companion badge. If you have an egg sitting unhatched in your inventory, that is the whole problem.
- Treat the pet as a passive, not a carry. The pet contributes traits and bonuses, not your main damage. Players who expect the pet to fix a weak deck are disappointed, then blame the pet.
- Do not reroll or replace it repeatedly early. You have limited resources and your card tiers matter far more — see card tiers.
Pets versus mounts: which do you actually need
Short answer: both, but in that order, and for different reasons.
- The mount is movement and the earliest unlock. Nearly universal, so the game assumes you have it. Skipping it makes every later step slower.
- The pet is a stat layer. Valuable, gated, and not load-bearing for the campaign. If you are stuck in Frostfang Pass, the pet is not your answer — card tiers and levels are.
A check for your own account
Before you spend anything on pets, answer these three:
| Question | If no |
|---|---|
| Have you finished the tutorial? | Nothing else unlocks — do that first |
| Do you own a mount? | Do the mount path first; it is 15,618 players shorter |
| Is your main damage card above Tier II? | Fix that before pets; see card tiers |
Three yeses means pets are a reasonable next spend. Anything less means you are buying a side system while the main one is unfinished.
Related
- Mounts — do this one first.
- Gear and legendaries — the other drop-based power source.
- The 27-badge funnel — where both of these sit in the full picture.
