Name theories for next expansions.

With the release of forged in the barrens coming soon I thought it would be a fun idea to try to guess what the name of the next two would be assuming the community is correct and it's an alliance themed expansion after and then something with both after that.

So first off is forged in the barrens. And for the alliance expansion, I am a main horde player since vanilla so I might be completely out of left field but maybe something with STV, hillsbrad, or even westfall? 

So we would have forged in the barrens, (maybe) Warriors of Westfall. And for the two combined, I hear a lot of people would guess it's the war between the two,but I think it would be the burning legion expansion. Where both groups would have to work together. That sounds more interesting to me at least.

And it would give demon hunter something to do in the expansion theme as well.

So maybe "Allied against the Legion" or something like that

Or it could be the panda expansion where the set mechanic is bouncing cards back to your hand

Elwynn Forest, if only for the Goldshire Inn memes

I’m pretty sure the next set will have something to do with Ironforge. Going purely off the cardback given to us last year.

Most predictions have it as Lordaeron. I think this could be right. If we go with the Lordaeron hints how does this apply to the Alliance? This was once a major city now fallen and used as the Undercity by the Forsaken. Seems weird but in the past (warcraft 3) this was a major plot point. Arthas killed his father in that throne room with those petals falling as we see in the preview picture. This is why I think we'll time travel to that point (or some mix of past and present) and reimagine that moment in Hearthstone. Kurtus Ashfallen's flavor text says he is chasing Anetheron, the dreadlord. We see him in World of Warcraft in the Caverns of Time Hyjal raid. A Raid reliving the battle at the end of Warcraft 3 with Archimonde. So in chasing him maybe our Mercenaries end up at the wrong destination?

But before that, we have the mini set. With Darkmoon Faire we got a peek at their races. For Barrens, two things we didn't touch on. One of the big dungeons of the area, Wailing Caverns. This cavernous maze is known for housing a sleeping druid,  Naralax, and his students now twisted by the Emerald Nightmare all becoming the Druid of the Fang.

We also have Ratchet, a goblin port "city" missing from mention in the cards. It's only mention is Ratchet Privateer. Could be expanded more much like Mean Streets of Gadgetzan did. With Kazakus, Golem Shaper back and some handbuff support maybe we'll see the return of the other gangs.

Just my 2 cents.

Quote From Synnr7

This cavernous maze is known for housing a sleeping druid,  Naralax, and his students now twisted by the Emerald Nightmare all becoming the Druid of the Fang.

It was only a maze your first time through and if you didn't jump at the one cliff lol

Also i think it was pretty much confirmed through art that wailing was going to be the theme for the miniset and i don't have a link to it, but i saw it on the front page here if i remember correctly. I have heard people say ironforge would be the theme of the alliance part of the expansion, but it just doesn't really ring with me if you compare it to the barrens. That's why i said redridge or westfall. Westfall in particular, is very similar to the barrens for alliance, and it houses the deadmines, just like the barrens has WC. It seems to click for me at least. But then again how many alliance character skins are there compared to horde skins? We only got a tauren this year. Maybe alliance will get the longer end of the stick again.

Given that they said on stream that we'll see the Mercs go through the levels throughout the year and the next step was the lv 40s, that is a good indicator of maybe *what* leveling areas we could go through. As others have speculated, it'd be Lordaeron. Maybe the Plaguelands, since they still fall under the Lordaeron kingdom? I remember there was some PvP towers, iirc. But I haven't played WoW in years, so I forget what levels they were, I know that Western was a lot lower than Eastern.

I think it will look like classic Warcraft like how Forged in the Barrens shaped.

I mean, All Horde vs Alliance stuff starts and continues with Orcs vs Humans. I'm not an expert on WoW but I don't think they will change this theme. Like how watch post cards(almost all of Horde's general architecture) shaped around Orc Structures that we had in Warcraft I-II-III, They would choose most iconic place for Alliance as well in my opinion. It won't be any other species than Humans.

In classic Warcraft, There was elves, dwarves etc. yes but Dwarves had been spawning from Human buildings for example and the theme was always Humans for Alliance. So I can't think of anything but Lordaeron or Stormwind but likely Lordaeron I would call because when Alliance is founded at the first place it was Alliance of Lordaeron and it also suits with the theory of Mercenaries level stuff as @Careidina mentioned. 

I don't think that All vs Burning Legion happens in near future tho. That is quite late theme for Warcraft Classic and almost all developers speaks about they want to return the cores of Warcraft which sounds like Warcraft Classic that I mentioned above.

We don't even have Anduin Lothar in Hearthstone for example who is in the middle of Horde vs Alliance thing and one of the most iconic character of Warcraft Lore.

Lastly, "Forged in the Barrens" name mentions how Mercenaries experienced in battlefields like "we are forged in the barrens" so the name of the expansion would be similar for its Alliance counterpart in my opinion.

but if you ask what I want to see in Hearthstone instead of what we will get likely is, Queen Azshara and more Nagas added to the game.

Might & Magic: Lordaeron.

I'm not so convinced about a Lordaeron connection as some people are. I get the link between petals and Arthas' return there, but as @Synnr7 points out, it is Horde territory in (Classic) WoW and I highly doubt the Alliance themed expansion would put so strong a focus on the Horde and undead. Plus I don't think Lordaeron can claim exclusive rights to petals...

Time travel to force Lordaeron into place just seems so unnecessary when we've never been to Stormwind either. Similarly, the fact the Alliance began in Lordaeron doesn't trump the fact the Alliance has been led by Stormwind's king for the entirety of WoW.

In the end though, the Barrens isn't Orgrimmar, and I don't expect the next expansion to be set in Stormwind itself either. It is more likely centred in Alliance land (primarily in the southern part of the Eastern Kingdoms), with some cards almost certainly referencing Stormwind and perhaps Lordaeron too.