THE EXPANSION IS LIVE!
Today's the day! Set your clocks because later today, Hearthstone's first expansion of the Year of the Hydra, Voyage to the Sunken City, is releasing and we're ready for a wave of innovation. With so many things happening, it's no surprise you may be feeling overwhelmed so here we are with our usual expansion survival guide.
Below you will find everything you need to know about Voyage to the Sunken City and the Year of the Hydra Core Set. We'll be keeping things brief here and linking to other resources on the site if you'd like further explanation. With that out of the way, let's dive in!
When Does Voyage to the Sunken City Launch?
Voyage to the Sunken City should launch at 10 AM Pacific (1 PM Eastern, 19:00 CEST). Refer to the countdown below - make sure your computer's clock is correct.
Voyage to the Sunken City Fast Facts
- 135 new cards have been added to the game - Visit our Voyage to the Sunken City guide to see them all.
- New Keyword: Colossal!
- The ocean depths are home to many massive monsters unlike anything you’ve seen before. These giant creatures are too big to fit on one card! Minions with the Colossal keyword come with extra appendages that synergize with their main body in powerful ways. These appendages are summoned with the main body, even if the Colossal wasn’t played from hand.
- New Keyword: Dredge!
- Don’t you hate it when the one card you need is at the very bottom of your deck? Not any more! Dredge is a new keyword that lets you look at the bottom three cards of your deck and pick one to bubble up to the top. You can combine these Dredge cards with new Azsharan cards that send a powerful “Sunken” card to the bottom of your deck. Whether it’s sunken treasures, your cool new Legendary, or a well-timed burn spell, Dredge can help you get just what you need.
- New Tribe: Naga!
- The cursed Naga join Hearthstone in this underwater adventure. Naga are a spell-focused minion type that often give you bonuses for playing one or more spells while the Naga are in your hand.
Year of the Hydra's New Core Set Fast Facts
- New year, new core set and set rotation! (How Set Rotations Work)
- Ashes of Outland, Scholomance Academy, and Madness at the Darkmoon Faire cards are no longer playable in Standard.
- No new cards have been created this year for the Core Set, but 72 old cards are making a return.
- With old cards returning to Standard comes other cards leaving. 57 cards have left the Core Set.
- The League of Explorers have returned to Standard!
Voyage to the Sunken City Freebies
- Login to obtain a free copy of Blademaster Okani.
- This has been available since the patch that introduced the pre-order bundles so you may already have this.
- New and returning players can get a free deck if they haven't logged-in for the past 120 days.
- Ambassador Faelin is free at level 1 on the Rewards Track - just click on the track and claim him!
- Prime Gaming members can receive a free random legendary card! Not guaranteed to be from the new expansion.
Voyage to the Sunken City Achievements
Blizzard has added a fresh batch of achievements to the game for Voyage to the Sunken City. If you're looking to farm experience, these have some great potential in helping you complete the rewards track earlier than by just playing games alone.
Look forward to our achievement guide series in the coming days to help you navigate the farm.
Voyage to the Sunken City Diamond Cards
Two cards are once again getting the Diamond treatment with Voyage to the Sunken City.
- Sir Finley, Sea Guide - Purchase the Sunken City Tavern Pass.
- Commander Sivara - Obtain 25 Sunken City Legendary Cards.
Additionally, Diamond Commander Sivara will get easier to earn once the 35-Card Mini-set drops in the coming months.
Voyage to the Sunken City New Coins
We're getting two new Sunken City coins with the expansion.
- Sunken Coin - Earned by completing 90 levels of the Rewards Track. (Requires paid Tavern Pass)
- Zin-Azshari Coin - Earned by collecting 135 unique Voyage to the Sunken City cards.
Additionally, the Zin-Azshari coin will get easier to earn once the 35-Card Mini-set drops in the coming months.
Voyage to the Sunken City Day 1 Theorycraft Budget Decks
Our own Sule has put together a list of eleven budget decks you may want to give a shot if you're playing Hearthstone on a budget or you just want something easy you can dive into and upgrade.
Voyage to the Sunken City Day 1 Community Theorycraft Wild Decks
It wouldn't be an expansion launch without Frosty taking care of the wild side of the community in our roundup that features some great community lists (40!) that make use of the new cards.
You can look forward to some more dedicated wild content concerning new decks in the coming days from Swizard.
Voyage to the Sunken City Theorycraft Standard Decks
We've had our team put together some theorycraft decks for the Standard environment through all our Voyage to the Sunken City reviews. You can check out all the decks down below - copy codes on the deck pages!
More Out of Cards Year of the Hydra Reviews
We've got more to talk about for Hearthstone's Year of the Hydra that officially begins on April 12. Check out all of our Standard class reviews!
More Wild Reviews for Voyage to the Sunken City
We've been hard at work preparing additional insights into the new Voyage to the Sunken City cards with a Wild spin. Check out all the classes released so far down below.
Voyage to the Sunken City Community Compendium
I voted, you voted, we all voted; And then the math gods did some calculations and the scores are in! Our Voyage to the Sunken City Community Compendium is now live and showcases the best and worst cards before we got a chance to play with them. How well will we do? We'll have to check back in a few weeks!
Voyage to the Sunken City Cinematic
While you wait for the expansion to release, listen to this banger!
Comments
Anyone else see those small 20 bucks bundles in the shop?
Tried to buy one, but apparently my money isn't good enough for blizz. I suspect its something that was intended for later, but showed up in the shop too early.
Why were all my Classic decks converted to wild today?
Small indie company did it again. I can't buy packs on mobile.
Just FYI. Only the new packs are entirely missing in shop. I have an android phone.
Patch broken? It loads "The new expansion is now live" and I can't click out of window
Had the same issue on android over amazon store. Works on pc though,
Ok, who else can't buy new packs?
Bad standard list. (if you agree downvote.)
Might do better by explaining your opinion on the deck lists posted than slagging them off like that.
Its just theorycrafting after all. Even good decks would take time to refine.
Maybe add some info about the Amazon Prime free Legendary? Should be a freebie with Trial Amazon Prime (?).
Yes it is free with a trail.....you may be able to get one more item free with the 30 day but this event run until September so with the trial you will no be able to claim all the items
May your pack opening RNG be forever in your flavor
If I get bad RNG I always have 30K+ dust.
They said epic had a 20% chances and legendary a 5%, but the average players know it was a lie. You can get no epics as far as the 9th packs of regular 40 duster, and then you get your epic. Worse for legendary.
I still rather buy the whole expansion with gold like miniset, even if it takes 15.000 gold. (7.5 times the price), than face a disappointment results every 4 months.
All you proved with your post is that you don't understand how probabilities work. The odds to open something are calculated in aggregate - they in no way guarantee a particular distribution over a small sample size.
I know what you mean. Every pack has a 20% epic, and stays 20% and not increased until you hit a pity timer.
I just want to point out the bad feeling you get when the odds are not exactly 20% (by simple math a fifth).
That doesn't mean their stated odds are wrong, and I really wouldn't trust the average person to correctly calculate the statistics from anecdotal evidence, especially when human psychology is determined to remember the bad times over the good.
I doubt they'd ever change their averages, but they could modify the distribution to reduce the variance to cut out the 'feels bad' gaps of 30-40 packs between legendaries. It would come alongside a reduction in the number of highroll pack openings, but I expect it would be a net improvement to how people feel on average without them losing any profit.
I'd be amazed if they ever let us buy entire expansions straight up, especially with gold. How would that even work for them? If we get enough gold from the rewards track frequent players wouldn't ever have to spend money, and if we don't get enough gold then it doesn't really help anyway. You could say profit comes primarily from cosmetics in this case, but they've told us cosmetics are a small fraction of their profits, so that's not a realistic option.
I guess if we want to go down this rabbit hole, I'd say card packs and RNG for a CCG is completely fine. That's how the very first card games were distributed, through sheer randomness in booster packs. Compared to HS now where there's duplicate protection, HS is MUCH more merciful compared to the card games of old.
And to show you some of the memorable moments from Wow TCG, click here.
Hope all of us don't find the normal version of the epic in the end of the reward track