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Demon Hunter - Hearthstone’s 10th Class!

With Hearthstone’s new expansion, Ashes of Outland, we will also see the introduction of the game’s 10th class, the Demon Hunter which will come to Hearthstone, for FREE, through a 4 game introduction experience starting April 2nd 2020.

But what is a Demon Hunter?

They are not Hunters, equipped with Bow and Arrows, the masters of Beasts, nor are they Demons, the foul spawn usually allied with Sargeras and the Burning Legion.

Demon Hunters are Elves that made a vow to fight the forces of the Burning Legion and to use their own terrible powers against them.

They blind themselves in a special ritual to gain spectral sight, to enhance their awareness, and fight with agile ferocity and magic fueled by fel energies and souls. The weapon of choice for a Demon Hunter is the Warglaive, most usually displayed as a double blade with a grip in the middle. They also have the ability to transform, bringing out their inner Demon, and attack with their claws and increased demonic energies.

Demon Hunters do not always fight alone, they have help from others, including Demons that switched allegiance!

Quick Summary:

• Demon Hunter will be FREE.
• Prologue: April 2nd.
• Release: April 7th
• Get 30 cards and a Standard deck for free after completing intro, that you can play with directly.
• 1 Mana Hero Power, “Add +1 Attack” regardless of Weapon equipped.
• Demon Hunter specific Keyword: Outcast. Which gives you a bonus if the card is played as the left or right most in your hand.
• 3 envisioned archetypes:
• Weapons and Furious attacks.
• Minion swarms with empowerment on death.
• Control archetype with BIG demons.
• Read the full article for more details!

How Do I Get The Demon Hunter Class?

First of all the Demon Hunter class will be totally FREE!

They are unlocked by playing through a prologue of four missions you play as Illidan Stormrage, leading you through his history. At the end of it you will unlock 30 Demon Hunter cards and a Year of the Dragon Demon Hunter deck. Again, totally for free. For information specifically about the Prologue check out our news post!

You will be able to start playing the Demon Hunter class when the Ashes of Outland expansion launches on Tuesday, April 7th.

Quote from HearthPwn"s interview w/ Dean "IksarHS" Ayala -- Check back Wednesday for the full Interview!

HearthPwn: Why did you go with Demon Hunters? What made them the right choice?

Dean: Demon Hunters is the one we fully explored first and we felt if we did this we needed to make this class meaningfully different than others. And Demon Hunter felt, with it’s furious attacks and quick playstyle, maybe a little similar to Rogue, but a more aggressive nature and with Demons. We felt that was something that differentiated itself from other classes enough that that was the one we felt the most excited about.

The Demon Hunter in Hearthstone

The Hero Power

One of the things that set the Demon Hunter class apart from the original 9 classes is their Hero Power: Demon Claws. Using it gives the Demon Hunter +1 Attack, regardless of having a weapon equipped, much like the Druid Hero Power. The really special thing however is that it only costs 1 mana, opening up a world of possibilities and making it easier to weave into your turns.

Quote from HearthPwn"s interview w/ Dean "IksarHS" Ayala -- Check back Wednesday for the full Interview!

HearthPwn: Demon Hunter Hero Power costs only 1 mana. How will they interact with Genn Greymane and Baku the Mooneater?

Dean: *laughs* Well, not very well.

How Many Cards And Expansions Will Demon Hunter Have?

As you might expect, Blizzard did not go back and create Demon Hunter cards for every expansion and adventure from the past. As mentioned above, you will get 30 Demon Hunter cards just for unlocking the class. Every expansion in Year of the Phoenix will add 15 more cards to that, instead of the 10 cards classes usually get. This will help Demon Hunters be on the same level as other classes in terms of depth.

Quote from HearthPwn"s interview w/ Dean "IksarHS" Ayala -- Check back Wednesday for the full Interview!

HearthPwn: So are there plans to introduce more cards for DH as time goes on, or are they just always going to have this problem of a smaller card pool to play with?

Dean: After the first year we are going to retroactively give Demon Hunter a “Classic Set”. That might be from new cards that we create when we see there’s cards that they need or cards that would have rotated that we decide aren’t going to rotate after all.

Outcast: A Demon Hunter Specific Keyword

Much like Shaman with Overload and Rogue with Combo, Demon Hunters will have a class specific keyword: Outcast.

So what does it do? It gives you a bonus if the card is played as the left or right most in your hand.

This creates a unique type of gameplay, where you always have to pay attention to where cards are in your hand, and think of the play order of your cards to maximize their potential. It makes you think about ALL your cards and how to play them, not just the Outcast ones.

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Quote from HearthPwn"s interview w/ Dean "IksarHS" Ayala -- Check back Wednesday for the full Interview!

HearthPwn: What was the inspiration behind the new Outcast keyword?

Dean: Illidan and his Demon Hunters are outcasts themselves and it’s a little funky how you get there, but if you look at your hand as a group of friends, the left and right most are kind of the outcasts. Mechanically it was just really interesting and causes you to play Hearthstone very differently than you had done before.

Demon Hunter Card Sets

The Basic Set

The Basic set of cards that every class has. They will be FREE. You will get golden versions of these by leveling up your Demon Hunter!

10 of the 10 Basic cards have been revealed.

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Initiate Set

The set you receive for completing the 4 Demon Hunter introduction game missions. They will be FREE.

20 of the 20 Initiate cards have been revealed.

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Ashes of Outland Set

The cards in this set are part of the Ashes of Outland expansion and as such will come from card packs you will need to buy with gold or money.

15 of the 15 Ashes of Outland cards have been revealed.

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Demon Hunter Deck Archetypes

At the Summit where the Demon Hunter was first introduced, Blizzard proposed 3 different and unique archetypes for the Demon Hunter class. We will present you with decks here that fit each archetype as well as an "Other" category where you will find decks that may not adhere to what Blizzard envisioned, as well as things like Combo decks and Highlander decks (should those appear!).

Fel & Fury

Represents the Demon Hunter class as furious attackers, with their Hero Power or weapons or cards that grant temporary attack. There will be synergies with the Demon Hunter attacking, both from abilities and minions.

Decks coming soon!

Empowered By Souls

Demon Hunters have a special affinity for using Soul Magic, using the souls of the fallen to boost their own proficiencies.

The way they use this is by employing swarms of small minions. Other classes that use minion swarms typically buff their minions, but that’s not typical for Demon Hunters. They let their minions die and gain power that way through trigger effects.

Decks coming soon!

Demon Crushers

Demon Hunters instill fear into their Demonic adversaries and many of them choose to switch allegiance to them and this is fine with the Demon Hunters, because to them it's all a means to an end.

With Demons, it’s typically “the bigger, the better” and this archetype tries to control the board and push out the biggest, baddest demons it can.

Decks coming soon!

Conclusion

We hope you learned what you wanted to know from this article. Since there was so much info, allow us to recap:

• Demon Hunter will be FREE.
• Unlocks April 2nd.
• Get 30 cards and a Standard deck for free after completing intro, that you can play with directly.
• 1 Mana Hero Power, “Add +1 Attack” regardless of Weapon equipped.
• Demon Hunter specific Keyword: Outcast. Which gives you a bonus when you play the card as the left or right most card in your hand.
• 3 envisioned archetypes:
• Weapons and Furious attacks.
• Minion swarms with empowerment on death.
• Control archetype with BIG demons.

We leave you with one final quote from Dean “IksarHS” Ayala.

Quote from HearthPwn"s interview w/ Dean "IksarHS" Ayala -- Check back Wednesday for the full Interview!

Dean: It’s a completely new Class and I think we would be doing it incorrectly if we are not open to a little more change than players are used to.

We have been playtesting it for a long time, so hopefully we will have got a lot right and we won’t have to step in and make too many sweeping changes. But of course it’s a difficult task to get all of this exactly right, so I’m sure there will be things we didn’t think of or missed on a little bit but our technology makes it easy for us to step in and make a change.

Ashes of Outland Card List & Expansion Details

Learn more and see all the cards in our dedicated Card List.