New Hearthstone Year Announced! - Year of the Gryphon
It is that time of year again when a new Standard rotation comes to Hearthstone. Old expansions are rotating to Wild and the Year of the Phoenix gives way to the new rotation year - Year of the Gryphon!
Quote from BlizzardIt’s time for the great Hearthstone clock in the sky to shift forward yet again! Thank you for joining us for the Year of the Phoenix. Today’s announcement of Forged in the Barrens marks the start of the first phase of our new Hearthstone year—the Year of the Gryphon!
We’ve got expansions, seasonal events, Battlegrounds updates, a new game mode, and so much more planned. On the roadmap below, you can see the massive amount of content we have coming this year!
Click to enlarge.
Core Set, Set Rotation, and Shaman Updates
When Forged in the Barrens launches, card sets from Year of the Dragon (Rise of Shadows, Saviors of Uldum, Descent of Dragons, Demon Hunter Initiate) will rotate to Wild. When this occurs, Basic and Classic cards will move to Wild under the Legacy set and a free Core set of 235 curated cards will take their place! Check out our initial announcement for more details and be sure to visit the card library on February 25 after the full Core set has been revealed!
At BlizzConline we shared that fan favorites Annoy-O-Tron, Tomb Pillager, Tirion Fordring, and Fireball will be returning as part of the Core set! We also showcased some familiar cards that are returning with big updates: Menagerie Warden and Assassinate!
Speaking of cards returning with big updates, we’re revamping our Legendary Dragons in the Core set as well! Behold the awesome power of Ysera, Malygos, and Deathwing!
We also revealed four of the 29 completely new minions included in the Core set: Novice Zapper, Felsoul Jailer, Overlord Runthak, and Vanessa Vancleef! We also revealed a new Priest spell: Thrive in the Shadows!
Finally, we shared some big changes coming for Shaman as part of our 20.0 update. We’re buffing a few Shaman staples such as Feral Spirit, Lightning Storm, and Earth Elemental!
We’re also updating the Shaman Hero Power to replace the Wrath of Air (Spell Damage) Totem with a new totem, Strength Totem, which gives a friendly minion +1 Attack at the end of your turn!
The Classic Format
The Classic format will launch with the 20.0 patch, where you can play Hearthstone as it was shortly after the game launched in 2014! All 240 original cards will be playable in the Classic format, with all balance changes since then reverted. You can learn more about the Classic format here.
We’re celebrating the launch of the Classic format by rewarding all players with a Golden Classic Card Pack just for logging in after the 20.0 patch has gone live!*
*Limit one per account.
New Game Mode - Hearthstone Mercenaries
We’re excited to share some initial details on our next new game mode, Hearthstone Mercenaries! Hearthstone Mercenaries will feature strategic RPG gameplay and roguelike missions that provide a fresh set of challenges every time you play.
In Hearthstone Mercenaries, players will build of a collection of mercenaries from among dozens of fan-favorite Warcraft characters such as Sylvanas Windrunner and Ragnaros the Firelord (as well as some new faces).
Before a Mercenaries run begins, players will assemble a team of mercenaries from their collection. Each mercenary has a unique set of abilities, and they’ll acquire experience and loot by winning battles, eventually earning the ability to evolve into more powerful versions of themselves!
Mercenaries features a fast-paced combat system that rewards cunning and anticipation. Before each fight, players will select mercenaries from their team to participate in battle. Each turn, they’ll pick their team’s actions simultaneously with their opponents and watch the results of the fight play out.
Players will face a new selection of randomly generated encounters every time they start a Mercenaries run, earning in-game achievements and rewards to bolster their team as they battle their way to the final boss. And in PVP mode, players will be able to pit their mercenary teams against other players!
We’ll have more information to share on Hearthstone Mercenaries, including a launch date, later this year.
Book of Mercenaries
Forged in the Barrens will introduce 10 all-new Mercenary characters as Legendary minions! We’ll be telling the stories for these characters over the course of the year through our expansions, our website, the Hearthstone Mercenaries game mode, and through Book of Mercenaries!
Book of Mercenaries will tell an epic, serialized story featuring all 10 new Mercenary characters and will release on a semi-monthly basis like Book of Heroes. Book of Mercenaries Rokara, the first installment in the series, will release on April 6!
Updating New & Returning Player Experience
As part of the 20.0 update, we’re removing the fights against Malfurion, Tyrande, and Hakkar and overhauling the Legendary quest line for returning players to reward a total of 15 card packs from recent expansions!
For new players, we’re updating both starting Legendary quest lines so that several of the quests can also be completed in Battlegrounds and will offer pack rewards from recent expansions instead of Classic packs.
Additionally, we made a few changes around unlocking the Demon Hunter. Players will now be able to unlock the Demon Hunter just like every other class, by fighting against the class in constructed or beating the class in Practice mode. Completing the Demon Hunter prologue will still unlock the class but will now reward 1 Demon Hunter Class pack for players that have yet to complete it!
Finally, completing all Book of Heroes missions for a class will now unlock that class!
We announced a ton of updates coming to Hearthstone during BlizzConline! Read our other blogs to get all the news:
Forged in the Barrens Card List & Expansion Guide
Learn more and see all the cards in our dedicated Card List.
New Ysera is busted...
It is good that they develop new mode, cos otherwise I would really miss pve content for last year. I dont believe that people like book of heroes in order to do book of mercenaries. I dont understand at all why they keep this boring one time play format. Every other pve was either repeatable or hard/challenging. Even black temples challenges, boom puzzles and etc. but whats the points of 8 easy bosses. And honestly for warcraft fans to tell again the same stories is not even interesting. I miss the year of the dragon connected expansions as well. It was nice. But on other hand I am still happy that every new year somehow something new is coming ti hs. Hearthstone has really improve for past few years. New modes, new things coming except the expansion. Not like before just 3 expansion and nothing else for whole year. I really like that mini set continues. New bundles are amazing. Now 4 legendaries instead of 2. So I hope this would be great year as always.
Why replace Wrath of Air and not Searing Totem?
I recon because the spell damage was too tilting. Having that 25% of adding spell damage is pretty heavy RNG for a hero power
Love the new Lightning Storm.
Do we keep the new cards in the core set after rotation\ or can we play with them in Wild?? or we need to put dust only dust to make them :(
So: 20.0 patch--is that in April w/ the new expansion?
The new set will release 23rd March - In the battle.net shop, the pre-purchase of the new set is available until 22nd.
Wonder how long it will take Warlocks to find shenanigans with Felsoul Jailer, also wonder how long it will take for people to complain about it once their Mozaki gets burnt.
I'm thrilled about that card and I don't even play Warlock. I just think it's neat.
Heres my expansion guesses:
1. Obviously the Barrens (Horde)
2. Ashenvale or Night Elf related (Alliance)
3. Alterac Valley, the battle btw horde and Alliance.
3. one is Winterspring with Goblins and Gnomes, definitely
I think you just hit the nail in the head my friend. Usually I make guesses myself but this year I think it'll be exactly what you said.
Edit: I think the second expansion could be Stormwind because of the Bricks behind the flag.
RIP Wrath of Air Totem you will be missed T_T
May the class will get some spell damage minions, so there´s a reason for doing that? Otherwise it makes no sence to me to be honest and I´m usually not a great shaman fan. Depending on the situation it is most of time the best totem you can get imo.
I think that,now that they divided spells in types, they don't want shaman to have non-type Spell Damage. Looking at the +3 Nature SD minionShaman will get, I assume they want to give Nature SD + Nature spells + other kinds of spells that would be OP with SD but have no access to SD for Shaman. Easier to balance. The elimination of that totem suggests this strongly.
Priest getting a Shadow Visions-esque card in the core set is awesome.
I wonder if we will be able to use both of them in wild, because technically it's not a reprint. Both rarity and name differs.
Damn! That new dragon art looks amazing!
New Malygos feels... too fair, OTK Maly will be sorely missed. New Dragon Artworks look dreadful as well...like...REALLY bad T_T , new Shaman Totem is hella weak, the Spell Dmg one was probably the strongest and its being replaced for a really weak one.