Hearthpwn

Hearthstone's newest expansion Showdown in the Badlands launches today, November 14th. We brought all the information and useful links together in this news post for you.

• The Showdown in the Badlands expansion is now LIVE.
• Yet another 145 new cards have been added to the game.
• Another 38 cards for all classes combined will follow in a Mini-Set midway through the expansion. There's not been any official details revealed yet!
• You can view all the new cards in our Showdown in the Badlands Card List.
• PvE content for the Showdown in the Badlands expansion has not been announced (yet).

Included for free in the Expansion

• Login now to receive Thunderbringer for free!
• All players opening up the first Reward in the new Free Reward Track will get a card for free, Sheriff Barrelbrim, usable in Constructed and Duels!
• All players will have access to the free Core set, a replacement for the Classic and Basic set, see the Year of the Wolf set here.
• There will be an Event for this Expansion, Wanted: Dead or Alive!, with Quests and a mini Reward Track just for this Event with special rewards, including a Hero portrait! Wanted: Dead or Alive! starts on Monday, November 20th!

Pack Opening Tip

With how many different packs there are these days, it can get a little confusing in what order you should open your packs. Fortunately Blizzard Dev Celestalon made a tweet with just the info you need.

Quote from Blizzard

• Always open Catch-Up Packs first, since their card count is based on collection size.
• If you want the most total cards (fewest duplicates), open Expansion Packs, then Class Packs, then Standard Packs.
• If you want more latest-expansion cards, at the cost of more duplicates overall, open Standard Packs, then Class Packs, then Expansion Packs.

New Mechanics

• New Keyword: Excavate
• Cards with the Excavate keyword give you a Treasure when played. Each time you Excavate, you get a Treasure from the tier you’re on, and then you progress to the next tier.
• The classes specializing in Excavation are: Death Knight, Mage, Rogue, Warlock and Warrior
• New Keyword: Quickdraw
• Cards with the Quickdraw keyword get a special bonus if they’re played the turn they enter your hand.
• Highlander or Singleton Cards
• One of the most popular deck archetypes returns! In Highlander or Singleton decks you can only have a single copy of every card, which then activates powerful effects on some cards in your deck.
• The classes specializing in Highlander are: Demon Hunter, Druid, Hunter, Paladin, Priest and Shaman.
• Returning tribe: Elementals
• In Showdown in the Badlands the environment plays a big role, both in the name of the expansion as in the themes coming forth from it. One of them is a return in force of the Elemental tribe on many cards.

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Other Mechanics

Some mechanics that were seen in previous card sets were brought back on new cards, as well as some truly new mechanics were added:

• Wanted: Dead or Alive has Death Knights coming and going.
• Demon Hunters are rolling the dice.
• Will the Druid domination of the ladder Dragon?
• You can tell the quality of the Hunter by the size of their hat.
• Mages love the open skies of the Badlands and the glorious views.
• Paladins are waiting for high noon to dispense some justice.
• Sometimes big effects come in small packages. Like Priest Lightbugs. Or TNT.
• Rogues live by the mantra that everyone has their price. Theirs is 1 coin.
• Shamans are really in their element this expansion.
• Mining is an ugly business with a ton of toxic waste. And Warlocks are here to clean up!
• Warriors are having an absolute blast in the Badlands.
• You can view all the new cards in our Showdown in the Badlands Cards List.

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New Feature: Mass Pack Opening

You may have noticed there was no Early Pack Opening Event this reveal season. The reason for this was introduced some months ago: a brand new Mass Pack Opening feature! Read below for the details!

Quote from Blizzard

A Happy Hello to Mass Pack Opening!

For many years, we’ve noticed that the most common Fireside Gathering functionality was creating private events to open packs early during Pre-Release Weekend. Players primarily wanted to get their pack opening done early so they could jump right in and start playing the new expansion as soon as it unlocked. We’re happy to share we’ll be adding a new feature that will let everyone get into the action faster and with less friction than ever before: Mass Pack Opening!

If you have 5 or more of the same type of pack, you’ll be able to open up to 40 of them at once! That means it’ll take just a few clicks to crack open all the packs you get from pre-purchase or any other large bundles.

To access Mass Pack Opening, grab a pack from your stack and hold the pack over the stack. It will charge up with energy and start adding packs to your opening. Once you’ve gathered all the packs you want, move over to the pack-opening area and release your stack of packs.

Voila! The interface will then show you some highlights from your packs, which you can reveal one by one or all at the same time, and then it will give you a full summary of all the cards opened in that pack stack. All the cards will be in your Collection, like normal, for browsing and deckbuilding once your packs are all open.

Mass Pack Opening has been a much-requested feature for a while now, and we’re happy we’ll be able to deliver it to our players before the next expansion. Players who just want to open all their Pre-Purchase packs right away will be able to do so in a fraction of the time! And players who like opening each pack individually and savoring their loot can still do that, too.

New Feature: Catch Up Packs

With Showdown in the Badlands a new type of pack is being introduced: Catch Up Packs. Information about them was made available with BlizzCon, but you can read a succinct summary below!

Quote from Blizzard

What Are Catch-Up Packs?
 

Catch-Up Packs are a new type of Hearthstone Pack that include a variable number of cards in them—between 5 and 50 cards per pack—based on the percentage of prior Standard expansion cards you’ve already received.

These first Catch-Up Packs are specifically Badlands Catch-Up Packs. They’re designed to catch you up to our upcoming expansion by including cards from the five prior Standard card expansions: Voyage to the Sunken City, Murder at Castle Nathria, March of the Lich King, Festival of Legends, and TITANS.

These Badlands Catch-Up Packs will always include cards from those five sets, and only those five sets, regardless of when you open them. If we do Catch-Up Packs for a different set in the future, we’ll make a new type of Catch-Up Pack at that time.

Badlands Catch-Up Packs will be able to be opened with the launch of Showdown in the Badlands, on November 14!

Arena Changes

The Arena changes actually went live with the Patch this time and this meant the new cards of Showdown in the Badlands have largely been playable for a couple of days already in that game mode. For completion's sake however; the following sets will make up the Arena card pool:

• Core
• Showdown in the Badlands
• Caverns of Time
• TITANS
• Path of Arthas
• Descent of Dragons
• Saviors of Uldum

Theorycrafted Decks

We created a special Decks post yesterday, with a lot of new archetypes and a lot of new deck ideas. You can find the links to that Decks post below.

Alternatively, create your own deck with the Deckbuilder, add a good guide on how to pilot the deck and help create the post-launch meta!

• Big Deck Preview for Showdown in the Badlands

That should get you started! Thanks for being with us throughout this exciting Showdown in the Badlands reveal period. Shoutout to everyone who helped in one way or another during this time, the other moderators and staff and the devs and all the users who gave us useful suggestions and feedback, and to everyone who enjoyed and supported our coverage. You rock!

If you are looking for some company while opening packs or playing, come chat with us on our Discord.

Showdown in the Badlands Card List & Expansion Guide

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