As you might have already noticed, on November 1st Team 5 will reveal Hearthstone's next expansion, as well as all the other novelties that will go live with patch 24.6 (here is the featured teaser).
Quote From Blizzard Patch 24.6 is nearly upon us, and it’s a big one! To cram it all in, we’re giving a sneak peek at some of the new features and more to look out for, coming soon.
Twitch Drop for Announcement Stream!
It all kicks off on November 1 at 10 a.m. Pacific Time on our Announcement Stream, where we’ll reveal Hearthstone’s next expansion and more! Tune in to Twitch.tv/playhearthstone for just 15 minutes of the roughly 30-minute Announcement to earn a free Murder at Castle Nathria pack, but make sure you show up on time because you’ll want to catch the whole show! If you haven’t done so already, be sure to link your Battle Net and Twitch account to be eligible for Drops.
Such announcement doesn't really catch us off guard, as the recent Twitch leak implying the existence of a "very special stream for Hearthstone's next expansion reveal and more" allowed to prepare in advance. Moreover, the timing doesn't surprise us either: Murder at Castle Nathria went live almost 3 months ago, on August 2nd, and the Maw and Disorder Mini-Set was released 1 month ago, on September 27th - the time is ripe, so is the meta, waiting for the next card release.
November is getting close, so it's time for predictions! In this article, we're going to collect all the hints we've received throughout the months years, trying to predict what Team 5 will unveil in a few days - have a good read!
Hearthstone's New Expansion's Location
Starting with the next expansion's location, we've got two pretty strong clues, which make us rather confident about our prediction being right. The first one is Voyage to the Sunken City's Tuskarrrr Trawler: if you take a look at this minion's flavor text, you'll notice something really catchy.
Let's try to break down Trawler's flavor text:
- "Fish scales" is clearly a reference to Voyage to the Sunken City.
- "A gravestone" is another blatant reference, this time to Murder at Castle Nathria.
- This leaves us with a "weird looking puzzle box".
If you've been playing Hearthstone for a while, we bet that the first thing that crossed your mind is Saviors of Uldum's Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron.
Winner of many games and generator of pounds of salt, this spell is obviously tied to the Old Gods; however, these characters have already been part of two Hearthstone expansions: Whispers of the Old Gods and Madness at the Darkmoon Faire, with the latter being released no more than two years ago.
For this reason, we think that Hearthstone's next set will have Y'Shaarj and his brothers play a secondary role, in favor of something else. But then, are there any places that are Old Gods related and that, perhaps, are full of their artifacts? Yes, there are, but there's one in particular that deserves our attention - and here we are with our second clue.
More than two years ago, former Hearthstone Dad Dean "Iksar" Ayala teased that the game will eventually visit Ulduar in the future.
Quote From Dean Ayala I really love the Arrakoa and the story/aesthetics from Warlords was one of my favorite to explore, I’d love to see something that was focused on them and the crazy stuff the built and understood. Though I’m also never going to stop asking for Ulduar. Ulduar is my favorite.
Ulduar has been on a whiteboard as a potential expansion for like 6 years. Someday we'll do it :).
Time has passed and all the expansions planned back then are already live, meaning that, if Team 5 decided to create a Ulduar set in the weeks following this tweet, December 2022 would be a perfect time!
For those who haven't played World of Warcraft and don't know what Ulduar is and where it's located, we're talking about a complex located in the Storm Peaks region in Northrend. Related to the titans, it serves as prison to restrain, guess who, Yogg-Saron! Anything clicking yet?
This map has some neat borders...
Quote From Noxious Throughout the eons, Yogg-Saron slowly, but steadily corrupted the Titan Keepers who resided in Ulduar (such as Mimiron, whose mech popped up in Goblins vs. Gnomes) as the chains binding him beneath the facility grew weaker. As the powers subduing him were reaching their breaking point, adventurers (players) stormed Ulduar, killing various crazed machinery and slapping the Titan Keepers back to their senses, culminating in a final battle with Yogg-Saron.
His final words: "Your fate is sealed. The end of days is finally upon you and ALL who inhabit this miserable little seeding. Uulwi ifis halahs gag erh'ongg w'ssh" which translates to: "The shadow of my corpse will choke this land for all eternity". Chilling.
You know what's more chilling, though? Those same adventurers wearing armor made of Saronite ore, which, as the name suggests, is the solidified blood of ol' Yogg himself!
Northrend has already been explored by Hearthstone in several instances: for example, Descent of Dragons took place in Dragonblight, the place where the League of E.V.I.L. was able to find Galakrond's corpse and resurrect it.
However, the continent of Northrend is famous for another reason: in particular, the Icecrown region is home to none less than The Lich King, the poster character of 2017's Knights of the Frozen Throne. Even though a lot of time has passed, many players deem Frozen Throne as the best Hearthstone expansion to be ever released: it not only introduced a new type of card in the Hero Cards, but it featured one of World of Warcraft's most iconic villains in the aforementioned Lich King!
Cool, cool, but what does The Lich King have to do with the new expansion? There's actually a connection in Yogg's encounter in the Ulduar dungeon: when you meet him, the Old God will send you to some 'scenes' from the past (Garona Halforcen assassinating Stormwind's king, the dragonflights talking bout the Dragon Soul and Deathwing); among these scenes, you'll also see The Lich King torturing Bolvar Fordragon (who will become the second Lich King after Arthas' fall).
Moreover, the Icecrown Citadel, The Lich King's palace, is entirely made out of, yup, Saronite! Since this ore is Yogg's solidified blood, it does possess some nasty 'mind corruption' capabilities. To be fair, Undead are immune to the Old Gods' corruption, so there's a little bit of confusion in World of Warcraft's lore: in fact, The Lich King is the king of the Undead Scourge, but at the same time Arthas never really died (until when he actually died, at the end of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion) - therefore, he could have been influenced by the whispers of his Saronite walls and his Saronite bed and his Saronite toilet, that plot thread was never addressed again...
Death Knight is Going to be Hearthstone's Eleventh Class
All the pieces of the puzzle lead us to the conclusion that, on November 1st, Team 5 will announce Death Knight as Hearthstone's eleventh playable class alongside with the new expansion, which is going to take place in Ulduar. This would explain why, unlike any other Hearthstone year, we didn't receive any expansion teaser during the Year of the Hydra's announcement - showing a rune-related art, just like with Knights of the Frozen Throne, would've given away too many informations too much in advance!
The Year of the Mammoth expansions' teasers.
If you're a fan of doomscrolling Reddit and Twitter, you must've already noticed multiple clues spread here and there throughout the years. Let's start from the very beginning.
Ben Lee and Iksar's Long-Time Hints
It's August 2020, Scholomance Academy just went live, we're witnessing one of the best expansions Team 5 was able to offer us in the last few years and Blizzard decided to hold a Reddit AMA. Among the questions asked, one stood out: a user asked former Hearthstone Designer Ben Lee about any plans regarding Undeads and Hearthstone. As we already mentioned, Prince Arthas (a.k.a. The Lich King) is the king of the Undead.
Ben Lee did not answered yes or no to that question, but instead replied by quoting King Terenas Menethil II's (Arthas' father) words from the Wrath of the Lich King cinematic - a wonderful cinematic: we suggest you to take a couple minutes of your time to watch it.
Quote From Ben Lee Are you planning anything that has to do with the undeads from world of warcraft
My son. The day you were born, the very forests of Lordaeron whispered the name, Arthas. My child. I watched you with pride, as you grew into a weapon. Of righteousness. Remember, our line has always ruled with wisdom, and strength. And I know that you will show restraint, when exercising your great power. But the truest victory, my son, is stirring the hearts of your people. I tell you this, for when my days have come to an end, you, shall be king.
Fast forward a couple months, Iksar is doing one of his many (and missed) Twitter Q&As: in that occasion, a player asks if we're ever going to see The Lich King in the game ever again, to which the game developer replies by saying that Arthas is "too big of a character in the Warcraft universe to be a one-expansion guy". Well, turning him into the playable Death Knight class would do him justice!
Quote From Dean Ayala Will the Lich King and the Death Knights ever return?
The Lich King is too big of a character in the Warcraft universe to be a one-expansion guy. The Death Knights? I don't think we'd bring back the same storyline as all the heroes have been corrupted but maybe in some other fashion. Will need to brainstorm what story is worth telling.
A New Card Border
We are not done! With Murder at Castle Nathria going live, the game saw the introduction of the new Location card type. We won't go in detail regarding how these cards work, but it's important to remember that they needed brand new card borders to be created and implemented. In patch 24.0's files, dataminers found... a Location sample with a rather peculiar color pattern.
Wanna guess how the file was called?
If their goal is baiting us, they're doing a pretty damn good job!
A Summertime Leak Coming from Microsoft
A couple days later, Jez Corden, famous leaker who works for Microsoft (the same company which acquired ABK not too long ago), tweeted some messages that do not leave any room to interpretation.
Quote From Jez Corden What if #Hearthstone had the Death Knight as a class? And what if it was launching this year?
I’d love a Death Knight class more than words can express. What makes you so confident?
I've seen it haha. (Source)
A new class or a just a different hero portrait?
A new class. (Source)
Oh mate that would be sick. Still love Hearthstone.
It WILL be sick. ;) (Source)
It has to be said that we struggle to understand why a Microsoft employee would leak his own company's stuff: it doesn't make much sense; however, this person has built a credibility over the years, so we tend to believe the source of this leak.
High on the Priority List
Another clue comes once again from Iksar. After Mercenaries' release, he was asked about the game's top priorities: as we all know, this game mode took up a lot of time and resources, so with it going live the team was finally able to focus on other projects. Iksar replied to this question by mentioning this year's last expansion; however, doesn't that seem strange?
Team 5 releases three expansions (and three mini-sets) each year: why is an expansion with more cards than usual so high on the priority list?
Quote From Iksar What will be the top priority for the dev team after Mercenaries is released?
Improving BG with more systems like progression, more cosmetic options, and potential gameplay system changes/improvements. A bigger than normal expansion slated for late next year. Keeping up with content for expansions, bg, mercs. Brainstorming the next big things.
What we're trying to say is that, in order for an expansion to be that high on the priority list, there has to be something else coming alongside it. A new class, for example.
Glad you Could Make it, Reader
Lastly, have you ever played a Paladin mirror with Uther and Arthas being the two heroes in play?
Well, in the past, the initial greeting was something among these lines:
Uther: "I will fight with honor."
Arthas: "I'll fight hard, just like you taught me!"
However, the voice lines seems to have been overwritten with new, and darker, ones, hinting at these characters' disagreements on certain decisions made by Arthas, like becoming the kind of the Undead and killing his own father - no biggie, right?
Gameplay implications
Finally, if we're right and if Death Knight is coming to Hearthstone, what would that mean for the game? To us, there are two main implications: the Undead tribe and a brand new keyword.
Considering the latter, before the Year of the Hydra's Core Set got revealed, Celestalon held a Twitter AMA in which he teased that this year Core would've have included a keyword from the past, which would've become evergreen.
Quote From Celestalon What is the best performing non-evergreen keyword from all the expansions ever? (Performing = popularity, winrate) And would you ever consider making it evergreen or reprinting it in some form in the future?
I will say that there is a non-evergreen keyword from the past that we're currently planning to bring back in the future, as evergreen. /tease ;)
However, if you take a look at this year's Core Set, you'll notice that such thing did not take place! There's no way a game developer was wrong on such a crucial information, so maybe the mistake is on us for believing that such introduction would've taken place in April. What if, instead, the non-evergreen keyword will be introduced... in December, together with the new expansion?
Speaking of non-evergreen keywords that may receive a second life, we initially thought that Recruit and Magnetic were the two most likely to come back; however, with Death Knight being a very hot topic, we expect Saviors of Uldum's Reborn to be the one returning to Standard!
If you think about it, Undeads are basically creatures that died once and came back as... not-so-lively beings, so Reborn would make a lot of sense thematically!
What do you think about this prediction? Do you think we missed something important? Do you agree with us? Let us know in the comments below!
Comments
Another clue, maybe https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/yi3wit/hearthstone_lich_king_preorder_statue_leaked_from/
It's all but foretold...
Really great article. Watching the Wrath of the Lich King cinematic again after so many years... I couldn't help but think it's so similar to GoT's the Night King and Sindragosa is basically the Viseron dragon wright.
Ofc Lich King trumps any GoT comparisons any day coz he's that awesome.
Loved the article, even though it was discussed over and over in the past few weeks, the read was quite enjoyable, with enough curiosity spikes to keep me reading all the way to the end, even if most of the things mentioned were already known.
Kudos!
Very interesting, you might be on to something here!
Despite never having played Warcraft 3 or WoW, Arthas' downfall and the Wrath of the Lich King are some of my all-time favourite story arcs. Additionally, I've been pretty bored of HS as of late. If DK is indeed coming with next expansion (and given all the evidence here it probably will), you'd best believe I'm gonna be playing again.
Please no new hero class! We don`t need another class. I allready disliked the addition of Demon Hunter. Also the addition of Demon Hunter was a huge balancing problem for the devs. I expect that the addition of a new hero class will have huge balancing problems again - and therefore there will be a lot of frustrations again.
Leaving the balance aside, the extra characters make it degrees more difficult for F2P to put together a viable deck.
I'll be happy if Evoker isn't introduced until Hearthstone is as old as WoW will be when that class is introduced to that game. I'm sure Monk will come someday, and twelve classes might be pushing it.
I broadly agree with you, though my concerns are more long-term than the inevitable balance catastrophe at the start. If DK is going to be worth adding, it needs to feel truly distinct from all existing classes. Obviously it will overlap mechanically with a few - that's fine - but it needs to combine these mechanics in ways that make it unique to play. It can't just throw together freeze effects and deathrattle minions, for instance, because Skeleton mage is already doing that.
To me, DH's biggest problem was always that it never really felt like it fused the different aspects of rogue, hunter and warlock very well. Rogue and hunter are already close together in many ways, so decks that just mix them don't actually add much new. Then it suffers from inheriting tools from warlock that don't make much sense in those decks, and rarely get used together. The end result being some decks that could easily have been put in either rogue or hunter with minimal changes, and some that could have been put in warlock. The small differences DH does bring to these decks is hardly worth the upkeep of an entire class imo.
I strongly disagree with this. Demon Hunter's core theme is one-turn hero attack buffs and benefiting off hero attacks, plus augmenting low-impact cards with incredible card draw. They have side-themes of Rush minions, symmetrical AoE, a lack of hard removal, cheating out demons, and token synergy. I would say that is a strong, clear, and distinct class identity. I would even argue that DH probably has the cleanest class identity in the game, without any weird old cards feeling out-of-place.
Their class identity was rough at the start, but I think they've carved a very distinct niche over the past three years. I have no doubt that DK or any other class could likewise be carefully molded.
Part of the issue is that those aspects don't all go together. At all. E.g., most DH decks don't run the symmetrical AoE, and those that do are remarkably close to warlock, which also has symmetrical AoE, lots of lifesteal for healing, and whose big demon synergies are near identical. And do we really think Il'gynoth and the surrounding OTK deck would have looked out of place in warlock? No. Sure, DH attacks with the hero even there, but when it's primarily being used as removal it's not functionally much different to using the removal spells like warlock does.
On the other side of things, DH's token synergies would be perfectly reasonable in hunter, where they could make virtually the same deck. Indeed, Swarm of Locusts existed before DH turned up, and token hunter is very much a thing currently. Meanwhile, a lot of the focus on attack buffs and synergies with hero attacks have long existed in rogue (though I appreciate there is a functional difference between 1-turn buffs and weapon buffs), as has combining "low-impact cards with incredible card draw".
As it stands, the only place DH genuinely combines the attack buffs alongside token cards is with Kurtrus, Demon-Render's hero power, but you could easily make a hunter card do functionally the same thing through direct face damage instead. Meanwhile, in RR rogue was encouraged to make an even-cost token pirate deck utilising hero attacks to spawn tokens with Sharkfin Fan and converting the wide board into damage with Cannon Barrage. The issue was, well, it was RR so it was really weak.
Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike DH like I did in 2020, I just feel like its selling points always end up being things that either already exist elsewhere, or only don't exist because the devs have always half-arsed it in the other classes. The Kurtrus hero power was the sort of thing the class needs to be doing more of, or truly unique things like sigils which would have worked well alongside a dormant for X turns theme. FWIW, I find outcast too limiting for slow decks to give it as much attention as a class keyword should get.
You don't put every theme from a class into every deck. I mean Christ, Druid's two themes are big-ass minions and small-ass minions. There's also tonnes of overlap between the themes original 9 classes already. My point was that Demon Hunter has a clear, identifiable, and consistent design philosophy, and that it's not a copy+paste of any one class at all.
And for the record, no, DH's attack buffs are extremely unique and don't feel at all like Warlock spells or Rogue weapon buffs when you cast them. The closest thing is Druid's awful removal spells, and those are much less numerous and deliberately weak.
Of course not every theme goes in every deck, and you are right that several other classes have 2 sides that barely overlap. Warlock is the one I normally think of for that. My point here with DH is that its separate sides each mirror other classes a bit too closely, meaning at a deck/archetype level DH's overall distinct design loses a lot of its distinctness. On paper it's great to have something like rogue/hunter with access to AoE - that's clearly different - but if that doesn't really apply to archetypes then it is debatable whether it counts.
There's definitely scope for this state to improve if DH gets more one-sided AoE like Glaiveshark so it doesn't mess up the small minion side of the class. Now I think about it, that card is another good example of where DH IS mixing identities in a unique way. So I'm not saying DH can't be worth its weight, just that still it needs more work to convince me. It doesn't help when the 'new' things in the class are like the Barrens' deathrattle package, which could easily have been copy + pasted into either hunter or rogue without being out of place. But that's on the set design team more than the overarching class design.
As for DH's attack buffs being closest to druid... yes, I should have remembered that. It's notable druid sits alongside rogue and hunter with AoE weaknesses and a focus on small minions, so on paper DH's hero attacks + minion aggro really sits in the space between pirate rogue and a hypothetical token druid with hero attack synergies, or even an aggro/token hunter with more weapon use than normal. The question is whether that space is wide enough to need an extra class to explore, especially while not really using the parts of DH that those three classes don't have? Perhaps if token DH leaned more heavily on the token sacrifice side then I'd be all for it, but for now those cards don't make up enough of the deck to really set it apart.
I think youre splitting hairs here to be honest. If playing dhunter is like sprinkles of hunter and rogue but not quite, is there really something wrong here? Rush warrior is like handbuff pally mixed with hunter rush cards, aggro druid is like zoolock with buffs, mech mage and mech pally might as well be the same thing with two different cards between them. Similar stuff but different playstyles.
Hunter has token rush cards like Swarm of Locusts and Springpaw but these are usually used defensively whereas dhunter's token cards are offensive in nature. Rogue has weapon buffs, dhunter has hero attack synergies. Yes, you can make an argument that its just the same thing with a different hat on, but if they play differently then fair enough I think.
I think team5 have made very good and successful attempts at making dhunter distinct. Quest dhunter, and the current vomit dhunter are distinct playstyles that has no other comparisons. Even its true weakness; freezing face, is something no other classes suffers quite as badly as dhunter does.
There's really only so much we can do before it start looking like a copy of something done before. If DK features self freezing synergies I wouldn't call it an infringement into mage's identity just because it also uses freeze effects. Its all about how team5 handles the playstyles to me.
Aside from the fact Quest DH could functionally have been in any class with tons of card draw (most notably supporting a miracle rogue variant), and vomit DH is arguably just the latest iteration of disco-lock... at a time when warlock also has discard synergies so it's not even taking up the mantle so warlock can branch out elsewhere. (I assume disco-lock will be supported in the next expansion, else the Core set choices were very weird.)
Anyway, the main reason for splitting hairs here is that each class entails a bunch of extra effort to maintain. It's another class to balance, and I don't recall anyone ever saying the first 9 classes weren't already diverse enough, especially as they picked up new archetypes over time. People just discuss(ed) getting new classes because it's flashy and an interesting design discussion. So in my mind, unless each additional class explores completely new areas of design space, they're just adding complications for relatively minor gains and aren't worth the trouble.
I'm not saying DH is a badly designed class, at least not these days. Taken in isolation it's perfectly fine. It's also difficult to say how well handled the game would have been without it, since we don't live in that universe. It could be it made all the same mistakes and DH was just a purely positive extra option, but I have my doubts.
Amazing article indeed! That's quite the compilation of evidence. Really excited for DK!
Nice article! Thank you for this summary