The Year of the Raven is Coming to Hearthstone
Caw Caw! The Hearthstone Zodiac for the new year has been announced!
The Rundown
- Whispers of the Old Gods, One Night in Karazhan, and Mean Streets of Gadgetzan will rotate out with Year of the Raven.
- Ice Block, Coldlight Oracle, and Molten Giant are being added to the Hall of Fame set.
- Molten Giant is going back to 20 mana!
- You will receive free arcane dust for any cards you have that are moving to the Hall of Fame without needing to disenchant the cards.
- Some Daily Quests are becoming easier to complete with reduced requirements.
- Daily Quests that rewarded you with 40 gold will now reward 50 instead.
- In-game Tournaments are coming to Hearthstone. Beta for tournaments to begin around the middle of the year.
- Lunara is being added to the game as the first alternative Druid hero.
- Maiev will no longer be available to collect starting with the first new expansion of the year. If you already own her, she's yours forever.
- A stream will be taking place on March 2 with Ben Brode and Yong Woo for a new year Q&A.
Cards Moving From Classic to Wild
Just like last year, we're seeing some cards moving out of the Classic set and into the Hall of Fame. They will only be playable in the Wild format.
Discuss The Move
Discuss The Move
Discuss The Move
Year of the Raven Video
Announcement Post
Quote from BlizzardEach Hearthstone Year is symbolized by one of the zodiac constellations twinkling in Azeroth’s night sky. The moment when a new constellation comes into alignment heralds the start of the year and a time of jubilation and raucous revelry wherever Hearthstone is played!
This year, we wave farewell to the Year of the Mammoth, and prepare to greet the Year of the Raven!
Set Rotation is Coming
Two years ago, we introduced a New Way to Play, which brought the Standard and Wild game formats to Hearthstone.
In order to keep Hearthstone exciting and accessible as more cards are added, Standard allows players to use the most recently released cards, as well as a core of Basic and Classic cards. Our intention with Standard is to keep the game feeling fresh for all of our players, and to allow newer players to jump into Hearthstone quickly, without the need to collect lots of cards to build a competitive deck. Standard also gives our developers more freedom when designing new cards for the future.
When we release the first new expansion each year, every set that wasn’t released in the same year or the year prior will cycle out and no longer be part of the Standard format.
If you want cards for Wild play or just to fill out your collection, you’ll be able to craft them using Arcane Dust—even cards from Adventures (like One Night in Karazhan) that were previously un-craftable.
While no longer be available for purchase in-game, you can also purchase content that is exclusive to Wild from the online shop.
On Raven’s Wings
Hearthstone’s astrological clock is tick-tocking toward the new Hearthstone Year, and when the next expansion arrives, you’ll also be greeted with an Standard format!
You’ll be able to build Standard decks using the following sets:
- Basic
- Classic
- Journey to Un’Goro
- Knights of the Frozen Throne
- Kobolds & Catacombs
- The first 2018 expansion
Meanwhile, the following sets become exclusive to Wild, along with all previous sets:
- Whispers of the Old Gods
- One Night in Karazhan
- Mean Streets of Gadgetzan
A new Hearthstone Year also means three new expansions! Can you guess what the future holds in store?
Hall of Fame Inductees
To help meet the goal of keeping Hearthstone fresh, certain cards from the Classic set will become exclusive to the Wild format. These cards will be added to the Hall of Fame set. This year, the following cards will be promoted to the Hall of Fame:
Ice Block – This Mage secret is a powerful card, and has been the centerpiece of Standard decks for years. It’s time to make more room for new Mage decks in Standard.
Coldlight Oracle – Coldlight Oracle is becoming exclusive to Wild for several reasons. It offers unusually strong neutral card draw which can be detrimental to class identity. Its “downside” can destroy opponent's cards and prevent opponents from playing the deck they built—which in turn limits some designs related to Battlecry and effects that return a minion to hand.
Taken individually, any one of these reasons might have been enough to prompt a promotion to the Hall of Fame, but when viewed as a whole, we feel that it’s time for Coldlight Oracle to leave Standard play.
Molten Giant – Moving Molten Giant to the Hall of Fame allows us to revert it to its original mana cost, giving players a chance to experiment with decks featuring Molten Giants in the Wild format.
Just like last year, you can keep your copies of these card once they move to the Hall of Fame, and you’ll be granted Arcane Dust as if you had disenchanted them (up to the maximum number that can be used in a deck).
The dust will be automatically awarded once you log-in after the Year of the Raven begins.
Quicker Quests
With the arrival of Hearthstone’s next expansion, quests are about to get better! The requirements for almost every quest will be reduced to make them faster to complete, and all 40 gold quests will now award 50 gold instead. Quests that awarded more than 50 gold will still have the same rewards, but with reduced requirements. Quests that only required a single game to be played, such as Play a Friend, will remain the same.
Here are some examples:
Only the Mighty
OLD: Play 20 minions that cost 5 or more. Reward 40 gold
NEW: Play 12 minions that cost 5 or more. Reward: 50 goldClass Victory
OLD: Win 2 games with one of two Classes. Reward: 40 gold.
NEW: Win 1 game with one of two Classes. Reward: 50 goldClass Mastery
OLD: Play 50 Class cards. Reward: 60 gold
NEW: Play 30 Class cards. Reward: 60 goldWe’re not stopping here—we’ve got our eye on more quests improvements for the future!
In-game Tournaments
We’re working on a feature that will help you run a Hearthstone tournament from your own home or Fireside Gathering! You’ll be able to create a custom tournament and invite your friends--all from within the Hearthstone game client. To start, the feature will include matchmaking and checking decks, but we’ll continue to add new features and functionality over time.
We’re planning to launch in-game tournaments as a beta around the middle of this year, but that's just the beginning. There's a lot of potential to explore as we expand on this very early version of in-game tournaments, and your feedback will help us shape them over the course of the coming year and beyond.
New Druid Hero: Lunara
Lunara is the eldest daughter of the demi-god Cenarius. While her sisters, the dryads, embody peace and the serene beauty of nature, Lunara’s apple didn’t fall far from her father’s tree—she’s a relentless defender of the wilderness and immortal proof that nature is red in claw and thorn.
When your dad is a demi-god, and your grandparents are the goddess of the Moon and a god of the Wild, you’ve got a reputation to uphold. Lunara is more than up to the task.
Win 10 games of Hearthstone in Standard Ranked or Casual mode after the next expansion officially launches to add this ferocious champion of the wild to your Collection.
Last chance for Maiev! With the launch of the first new expansion of 2018, you will no longer be able to acquire the quest to obtain Maiev Shadowsong. If you’ve been away, be sure to obtain Maiev before the next expansion arrives so you don’t miss your chance!
Fireside Gathering Fun
If you’re not familiar with Fireside Gatherings, they’re a great way to get out and meet people just as passionate about Hearthstone as you are! Fireside Gatherings mean a lot to us, and we’re working on even more features to support them during the Year of the Raven!
Raven’s Watch
Want to know more about the Year of the Raven? Ask your questions in the comments, then tune into the official Hearthstone Twitch.tv stream on March 2 at 11:00 am PST to join Game Director Ben Brode and Lead Producer Yong Woo for a Q&A session about the new Hearthstone Year!
Thanks for joining us! We’re excited to share a new Hearthstone year with you, and we’ll see you in the Tavern!
Also Kabal Crystal Runner and Kabal Lackey. Secret mage probably won't be competitive for a while.
Yes that is correct. You can go wild or start svaing all gold you earn to bay as many new packs as possible.
This is if you are F2P whitch seems pretty obvious.
Both from Mean Steets of Gadgetzan.
Well, since you already have Aluneth, the almost exact same list of tempo mage is kicking ass right now in wild...
You'll need to craft 2x Mad Scientist and 2x Forgotten Torch and start running the Potion of Polymorph I mentioned earlier (the wild meta is transbording with naga warlocks, so you need to have answers for Nagas and Lackeys).
Basically you'll have to expend something around 500 dust to upgrade your deck to a tier 1 (currently) wild decklist. Not a bad deal, if you have no problems playing wild.
I, myself, migrated to playing almost 2/3 of my time in wild, since standard can get boring with 2-3 decks beeing almost 40-50% of the field.
Same here! It's still very powerful in wild, with Mad Scientist, Ice Lance and Forgotten Torch.
Tempo mage is an enduring archetype though, I'm sure new cards will be printed soon.
Probably I'm going to get much hate from my opinion but does everybody (or at least most of hs community) feel that Coldlight Oracle has a “downside” that can destroy opponent's cards and prevent opponents from playing the deck they built—which in turn limits some designs related to Battlecry and effects that return a minion to hand ?!?!?
I'm sorry but what about anticipating what your opponent can do? What about playing around something ? I understand that sometimes you have no say in this matter, but what about all decks that are combo related and once thay do something you have no way to stop them? The explanation that Blizzard provieded, especialy the part about preventing the opponent from playing thier deck sounded like "Hearthstone players construct thier decks and you are obliged to let them play everything they want. You are not allowed to try and stop them from playing any cards. Mill deck are no fun because of reasons."
I'm really dissapointed in Blizzards take on this. Some of the games that were most fun for me were played with or against mill deck.
Maybe there is something that I don't understand here why this is a good change, but still I think it is mostly about some whining from players that can't handle having some cards burned. (sorry for long post)
and in wild is Coldlight Oracle so lovely, who cares about Gang UP!
Well... they are not entirely wrong, but their reasoning is pretty inconsistent and dishonest.
Effects that destroy your opponents unplayed cards and disrupt their strategy that way, can feel too strong and oppressive. An early design of Illidan Stormrage had him discard 3 cards and draw 3 cards for both players. Effects that force you to play cards prematurely or not at all, have a different dynamic to them than the back and forth of anticipating and playing around your opponents strategy and answers. You don't know which cards will be destroyed, and you cannot always play around these effects. So, in theory, I can see their point.
However, at the same time they designed a couple cards with no other purpose than doing exactly that, like Gnomeferatu or Dirty Rat, and Howlfiend and Keening Banshee were released together with Treachery. No coincidence, I think. Ancestor's Call could also be mentioned here. And of course, Naturalize is still in the game.
So, they don't really mind that some effects allow you to disrupt your opponents strategy, they just want to design them differently. The actual reason they remove Coldlight Oracle is, that it was among the strongest of these effects that was also repeatable multiple times, and a neutral card on top of that. I think it's also quite possible they do this now instead of last year, because they have planned something that would make it too easy to abuse Coldlight's battlecry.
I can see why they consider Mill decks as "unfun", but then again, I wouldn't be surprised if we see another one coming up eventually.
This quest rework is a joke? No body cares about playing 20 minions or 12. Main problem is 30 wins for 100g.
Get a job and earn some cheese. then you buy packs. problem solved. Oh and you can also pay for youreself... whitch is nice.
Now I'm a little disappointed I've disenchanted Molten Giant back when the nerf came into effect...
Oh, well, +1,000 dust for free is still pretty nice, would sure help when the new expansion comes in.
Why are you disappointed? You've disenchanted them for full value. If you want molten giants you can craft them now basically for free, as you will recieve full refund for them once again.
I just crafted the golden ones. I sure hope this works, because while I had 8,000 dust lying around, losing 3,200 of it would sure be awful.
I dom't intend on keeping them either way, my Handlock days are long gone.
The first expansion will be Emerald Dream, because of the druid-theme and the portal is really obvious:
Druids will need some love after jades are rotating. Maybe more dragon/spell immune/satyr thingies?
The second expansion will be some ethereal theme. There is a spell in WoW that brings you to your home location but the animation is nearly identical to the portal of expansion 2:
And because I really liked this smuggler/dealer/blackmailing/artifact-trading theme I really hope for some cool stolen famous goods :>
For the third expansion I would guess Vash'ir or Azshara with an underwater theme. Maybe naga as new tribe? But the portal with its fleshy interior... I can't recall anything about it :/ Someone else?^^
On another note:
I really want an anti-meta game mode.
Blizzard knows which cards see the most play and are really good.
So there could be a game mode where all cards are banned that see the most play. This could change monthly, it is to some extend another meta of itself. The deckbuilding and the user interface for this mode would be very hard to accomplish but this mode would be awesome.
There could be a freeze-shaman, elemental-mage, taunt-warrior meta... Hard to make but awesome to play, I think :)
First expansion of the Raven year: Adventure to the Ragefire Chasm. Mark my words, so obvious when you look at the picture.
The thirth expansion may be Serpent Shrine Cavern?
It's a shame that Doomguard was not put into hall of fame. Can't wait to face cubelocks for the next ~18 months.
Anyone have any idea when the reveals will start up for the upcoming expansion? I know no one has an actual date but wondering if anyone has any idea of a general period.