Ashes of Outland Launch Day - Everything You Need To Know!
Hearthstone's newest expansion Ashes of Outland launches today, April 7th. We brought all the information and useful links together in this news post for you.
- The Ashes of Outland Expansion is out right now!
- Yet another 135 new cards have been added to the game, 15 of which are Demon Hunter cards.
- You can view all the new cards in our Ashes of Outland Cards List.
- There will be a new Adventure coming with Ashes of Outland and it will be FREE, but there's no specific release date or other details revealed yet.
Included for free in the Expansion
- All players logging in before June 29th will get the Ashes of Outland Legendary card Kael'thas Sunstrider for free!
- There is a chain of Event Quests to celebrate the release: 1 new quest every day, for 3 days with a total of 3 Ashes of Outland packs, 1 DoD pack, 1 SoU packs and 1 RoS packs!
- April 7, 10am PT/ 19:00 CEST: Play 25 Cards in Play Mode to earn an Ashes of Outland and Descent of Dragons card pack.
- April 8, 10am PT/ 19:00 CEST: Play 3 Games in Play Mode as Demon Hunter to earn an Ashes of Outland and Saviors of Uldum card pack.
- April 9, 10am PT/ 19:00 CEST: Play 20 Spells in any mode to earn an Ashes of Outland and Rise of Shadows card pack.
Launch Day Goals
- Login to get your free Event Quest mentioned above.
- Craft any golden Legendaries you really want. This is important due to the no duplicate legendaries rule.
- Open up your packs! (if you have not already) You get a guaranteed Legendary within your first 10 packs.
- Share your awesome decks with everyone on HearthPwn via our Deckbuilder. Remember, including a good guide means more upvotes!
New Mechanics
- New Class - A new class is coming to Hearthstone -- Demon Hunter.
- New Keyword: Outcast - Demon Hunter only. Cards gain a bonus effect when they're played as the left or right most card in your hand.
- Primes - These minions have a Deathrattle effect that shuffles them back into your deck. Their "Prime" version has a more powerful effect.
- Imprisoned Demons - When played these minions will be dormant. After a predetermined number of turns they'll unleash a powerful effect.
- 135 New Cards -- including 15 Demon Hunter Cards.
Demon Hunter
Read everything you want to know about the new class, including how to unlock it, in our dedicated Demon Hunter Card List and Guide.
Other New Mechanics
There were more new mechanics introduced with Ashes of Outland, specific to certain classes:
- Druid saw the introduction of the "If you have at least 7 Mana Crystals" card text.
- Hunter saw the return of Hand Buff mechanics.
- Mage saw the introduction of "If your deck has no minions" card text.
- Paladins saw the introduction of Libram cards and synergy.
- Rogues saw the return of Secrets and now have some synergy cards for Stealth.
- You can view all the new cards in our Ashes of Outland Cards List.
Arena Changes
The Arena rotation is changing again. This time it is the same card sets you can find in the Standard game mode, which means the following sets:
- Basic
- Classic
- Rise of Shadows
- Saviors of Uldum
- Descent of Dragons
- Galakrond's Awakening
- Ashes of Outland
- Demon Hunter Initiate
Year of the Phoenix
With the start of the Ashes of Outland expansion also comes the start of a new rotation year: The Year of the Phoenix. This means the following sets will no longer be usable in Standard, but only in Wild:
This is the only time this year we will see a rotation like this! The rest of your Standard cards are safe until next year.
For information about the other changes to the game with the Year of the Phoenix we direct you to our coverage on the subjects you want to know more about:
Theorycrafted Decks
We spent the days since the introduction of the Demon Hunter last week posting about decks for Demon Hunter and all the other classes. You can find the links to those Decks posts 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!
- Aggro and Tempo Demon Hunter Decks
- Control and Highlander Demon Hunter Decks
- Combo and Other Demon Hunter Decks
- Big Deck Preview for Other Classes
That should get you started! Thanks for being with us throughout this exciting Ashes of Outland 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.
Ashes of Outland Card List & Expansion Details
Learn more and see all the cards in our dedicated Card List.
yep, day one of the expansion and ppl are playing galakrond rogue with 0 new cards. what a time to be alive
everything you need to know ^^ hmmm let's see: open your packs, play with what you just opened, wait 2 weeks that DH gets nerfed before you craft anything ... then you can really start playing
oh.. so we can play Illidan now.. great.. and where is adventure ?? :D
Nevermind
Cya buddy!
What is the meta? I don't wanna craft bad cards and feel miserable losing all matches
Now I got it, it's facetard aggro. Happy that I didn't preorder.
Meta will take a while so we have to be patient
That's not a free legendary. It's 75% better than the minimum, 50% better than the average, but it's not free.
I dunno why you got downvoted for the truth.
It's guaranteed, not free.
Thank you! Got it!
I thought it was a tip for some smart dust-saving shenanigans.
Now that the no-duplicates rule applies to all rarities, are people also crafting the golden epics that they want before opening packs?
So when can we play the story mode?
20$ for BG perks? WOW, thats pretty ridiculous. Its a side play mode that doesn't reward anything. No incentive to play, and ontop now we have a charge to try and play competitively and see pointless stats? Guess ill just tank my rating and keep quitting games to play now, till I get a decent hero.
While we're not getting rid of as much cancer as we did last year (READ:DEATHKNIGHTS), we can still say some farewells.
Bye Shudderwock
Bye Tess Greymane
Bye Shirvallah, the Tiger
Bye Elemental Evocation
Bye Dire Frenzy Vicious Scalehide combo
Bye Master's Call
Bye Lifedrinker
Bye Firetree Witchdoctor
Bye Luna's Pocket Galaxy
Bye Zilliax
Bye Crowd Roaster
What do you have against Tess? :(
I can't enter. :'(
First Boss of The Ashes of Outland Expansion: The Log In Boss
Is Naxx out?
As a F2P, is it safe to spend all my gold on packs today? I mean, there's no content coming later that I could pay for with my gold?
If you don't play arena, go ahead. You are safe for the next couple of months.