Our coverage of BlizzConline continues with the Hearthstone Deep Dive panel which we're covering live down below.
Don't forget to follow us on Twitter @OutOfCardsHS to get notified of new card reveals! You can also follow along with us on Discord.
Live Recap
- There are 10 new characters being highlighted throughout the year.
- Spell Schools - Like minion types but for spells!
- Arcane, Fel, Fire, Frost, Nature, Holy, and Shadow are the schools.
- Ranked Spells - Gain power as a match progresses. They grow in power at 5 and 10 mana.
- Wrath of Air Totem replaced with Strength Totem. A 0/2 that at the end of the turn gives a random friendly minion +1 attack.
- New Keyword: Frenzy Effects triggered the first time a minion survives damage.
Core Set
- Basic & Classic get replaced by 235 cards in the new Core Set.
- Some previously rotated cards are coming back into the Core Set to provide modern gameplay.
- 29 of the cards in the Core Set are going to be completely new.
- Everything in the Core set is completely free by leveling your classes.
- Fireball and Tirion Fordring are sticking around for the Core Set.
- Annoy-o-Tron is in the Core Set.
- Tomb Pillager is in the new Core Set.
- Menagerie Warden is in the new Core Set.
- Assassinate is getting buffed and will be in the Core Set.
- Feral Spirit, Earth Elemental, and Lightning Storm are each getting buffed.
- Core Set card reveals are happening next week.
Battlegrounds
- Year of the Gryphon is going to bring even more changes to Battlegrounds to keep it fun and thriving.
- Some of the new mercenary heroes are going to be added to Battlegrounds.
- New minion types are coming!
- In Patch 20.2, Quilboar is a Battlegrounds-exclusive minion type that is being added.
- Quilboars will generate a resource and take advantage of it. They have not finalized all the details yet.
Duels
- More heroes are being added. You will not lose progress on your current heroes.
Book of Heroes
- Stories are still being told this year.
- Valeera is up next!
Book of Mercenaries
- Like the book of heroes, we'll be getting to learn more about the stories behind characters.
- This solo content will focus on the 10 mercenary heroes being added to Hearthstone.
Hearthstone Mercenaries
- A new game mode that takes lots of different elements of other games.
- They take elements of Roguelikes and Tactical RPGs.
- Your three chosen characters have different abilities and you want to use them to create power combos against your opponents.
- You'll progress through a map - combat and other interesting things to do.
- Progression in Mercenaries is permanent. You keep the stuff you've earned.
- If you fail to complete a level, you can come back and try it again.
- It does not use your collection at all, much like Battlegrounds.
- Hearthstone is becoming a platform for different types of card games. Mercenaries is just one type of game within Hearthstone.
- A lot of the content is single-player but there are multi-player parts. They are hoping for high-skill games against other players.
- The mode has less RNG than normal Hearthstone.
- Tirion Fordring is one of the new characters being added.
- The mode releases during Phase 1 of the Year of the Gryphon.
New Forged in the Barrens Cards
New Core Set Cards
Year of the Gryphon Roadmap
Year of the Gryphon Expansion Teasers
Watch Live
You can watch BlizzConlive on the official site or the stream below.
Learn more about Forged in the Barrens
Head on over to our dedicated guide for Forged in the Barrens to learn more about the new expansion and to see all the revealed cards!
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![All The Great Dark Beyond Card Reveals for October 12 - Day 2 [Finished]](dark-beyond-reveals-day-2-thumb.webp)
Comments
I don't understand why they changed the Shaman hero power. It was phrased as a buff in the announcement, but it isn't, right? If it were a buff, they'd replace Searing Totem, the option with the least utility (Shamans rarely hero power for stats).
Not only does the change cramp Shaman's flavor and class fantasy, Spell Damage Shaman has JUST become a thing. This seems to refute everything that Thrall is about currently.
Novice Zapper is nice to see, though. Dust Devil, take your rightful comeuppance! Go sit on the naughty step.
Honestly I'm mostly just miffed about them ruining the 4 elements theme of the totems...unless the new buffing totem is distinctly wind-flavored
Yeah they shouldve
I don't think anyone ever stated or implied that they were buffing it. They said they were reworking the class, including the hero power.
The spell damage totem was a LOT worse than Searing Totem if you weren't using damage spells. It's better to have every basic totem be somewhat useful in every deck style. (Even if you are somehow a no-minion Shaman, you will always have totems, so the new totem will theoretically always have something to buff.)
I see and somewhat agree with what you mean about lack of utility without spells, but they could have designed something far more interesting or powerful (while basic, of course) than a +1 attack buff. It's a disappointing change, flavorfully and powerfully.
Which hero has a power you'd actually consider "interesting," though? (Other than Warlock, which everyone agrees has always been too strong.)
Well, Shaman's was interesting. Heh.
I'd rather have more consistent spell damage cards than the RNG with the hero power if we really want SD Shaman to shine.
Just posting to thanks all OoC staff for doing an amazing job <3
Frenzy activates when the minion survives damage.
New stuff!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Fuck yeah!!!!!!!!!!
You could see Tidal Surge in the player's hand while they were showcasing Strength Totem. It also has Lifesteal now. I think it's safe to assume that's another Core card now.
Hadn't really paid attention, but on second look we get a few Easter Egg Core cards in the videos with the minions in play, or cards in hand. One clip had Lone Champion in play.
Now we need to memorize spell tribes as well? Only time can tell, but its going to be somewhat confusing at first since most spells don't really look all that different from the rest. Maybe team5 made it more obvious by their art, but we'll see.
Not so glad to see a nerf to shaman's totems. Its already bad enough to juggle between 4 totems randomly, now even the best one's no longer available.
The spell school is litterallly written under the card and in most cases it does not even matter from what we know so far.
There's always someone who's willing to complain about progress. It is not that complicated.
Most of all, the class and name of the spell will be a very obvious clue. (The classes listed above are the ones that most commonly use that spell school, but there may be exceptions.) Not all spells will have a school. For example, I would not expect to see schools assigned to most Warrior or Rogue spells. I can imagine certain Hunter spells being fire, frost or nature, but many would have no school.
I'm sure if you went through all the current spells, you would have no trouble whatsoever assigning a school to each one (with "no school" being an option).
Interesting note about the spell schools vs classes - I assume these come from WoW. I wonder if they ever do another grouping of classes like in MSoG, they’d use the number of spell schools to rank how ‘magical’ a class is. Mage, Shaman and Warlock with 3 each; Druid and Priest with 2; Paladin and Demon Hunter with 1; Warrior, Hunter and Rogue with none.
They destroyed the competitive viability of the archetype of odd shaman in wild with the Air Totem change.
Wild player here, FWIW this discussion has highlighted a deck that I wasn’t even aware of. I was 100% pleased that Air Totem was getting removed because the Shaman decks that I play don’t focus on burn and I couldn’t see how a regular burn deck would care to have only 25% chance of getting the desired totem. Now my sentiment is changed somewhat - Odd Shaman looks like an interesting deck which won’t work without the Air Totem and that’s a pity. It makes me want to try before it goes away.
I think that the community here has become a little trigger-happy with the downvote button. There is little room for nuance - if you are only 95% aligned in opinion, you get downvoted. It wasn’t always like that but I guess it is to be expected as OoC becomes more popular.