Spoiler season isn’t over for Hearthstone’s first 2019 expansion, ‘Rise of Shadows’, but that hasn’t stopped our inside source from revealing to us some juicy details about the final expansion of the year.

Following on from the first expansion’s theme of the EVIL league, the second expansion apparently focuses on a counterpart team of heroes banding together to fight them. Our source was unable to find out anything else, besides a tentative Light theming.

The third expansion features the two teams banding together to take on an even greater destructive power in the form of the return of the Old Gods. With the advance warning of Madame Lazul, the EVIL league reaches out to the heroes in an effort to protect the entire world from destruction.

Now, this already sounds like a fantastic expansion, but the unique gimmick of the card set itself will be sure to excite – or possibly enrage – fans: ‘War of the Dark’ is all about Hero Cards.

Hagatha the Witch Card ImageDr. Boom, Mad Genius Card ImageZul'jin Card Image

Hero Cards are being brought back to Hearthstone in a big way. Our source managed to confirm that there will be a total of 36 Hero Cards in the expansion; they believe that there will be four for each class, one of each rarity, but couldn’t completely confirm that, so ask Kripp for a grain of salt to take that with.

Hero Cards are a divisive mechanic among Hearthstone players – while initially beloved by many, they proved to be fairly format warping in their power. Luckily, we know that Blizzard will take a proactive approach to game balance and make sure any problems are nipped in the bud as soon as possible, if they do arise.

Most importantly, our source managed to provide us with several cards which will be making it into the set. We’ve recreated them for you here, as the original images weren’t of the highest quality.

An Explosive Entrance

Ava really captures the spirit of the Warrior in her card, gaining you a lot of Armor as we all know explosives are prone to do. This defensive card works incredibly well with her theming, although we can’t help but wonder where this character hales from – perhaps she is one of the members of the good league introduced in Expansion #2?

Out With The Old, In With The New

We’ve also gotten wind of a brand new keyword being introduced in the expansion – Callback. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to clarify what it does, but we’re sure fans are going to love these brand new card effects anyway. It seems like it might be a spells-only Keyword like Twinspell, but we can't confirm this to be the case.

A Hero For Every Occasion

These cards show off how Hero Cards will be working at different rarities. Such a variety of effects! We were unfortunately unable to obtain the Hero Powers associated with these cards, but one can only assume they’ll be fantastic for tying them together. And now you can play as a Dragon!

Praise Yogg

Obviously, the Old Gods aren’t happy to have an opposition, if these cards are anything to go by. Dedicated fans will appreciate the subtle references in these cards, while competitive players will be pleased by the careful approach to designing tech cards that Blizzard is known for. Old God's Embrace is especially interesting - could that be a new character in the art that we haven't seen before?

We’re so excited to be able to reveal this information to you today, all thanks to our anonymous source. We don’t know how he finds the time to bring us this information, hard at work on that new Marvel game as he is, but we thank him for his anonymous help all the same.

What do you think about this expansion? Will it live up to the expectation of a year-long story? Is Lilliana really going to die? Let us know in the comments below.