Hearthstone Arena in Scholomance Academy - Our Thoughts on the Rotation and New Cards

Hearthstone's upcoming expansion, Scholomance Academy, will be launching soon and with that, we'll have it added to the list of available expansions in the Arena. You already had the pleasure to play with Transfer Student for a bit, now you will be able to play with all the cards.

The following sets will be included in the drafting pool:

• Basic
• Classic
• Rise of Shadows
• Saviors of Uldum
• Descent of Dragons
• Galakrond's Awakening
• Ashes of Outland
• Demon Hunter Initiate
• Scholomance Academy

New Arena Impact

We have a brand new Arena Portal which you can find in the top navigation menu, get all the latest from Arena on Out of Cards!

With that in mind, we have moved our Arena card reviews, or Arena Impact as we call it, to a new place as well. We now have a fully dedicated system to make it cooler! Check out the Scholomance Academy: Arena Impact, where we rate and discuss all the cards in regards to Arena. You can join us in the discussion in the comments under each class' section.

Our Thoughts on Scholomance Academy's Arena

Sinti

I am super stoked for the new set to arrive in Arena. Spellburst seems like an amazing mechanic and while you generally don't draft a spell heavy deck, Scholomance brings plenty of those alone. I am interested to see, if Spellburst can boost winrate of players going 2nd simply by having that extra activator.

There is just so much stuff I want to try out! Dual-Class cards, Studies cards, Spell Damage synergy, Soul Fragments synergy and more! I am particularly interested to see how consistent can Soul Fragment Synergy get. Remember, you can get more than 2 copies of cards in Arena, so it is possible to end up with a lot more Fragment generators than in constructed and all of them are amazing cards on their own, so you do want to pick them during drafting. And any card that has a direct Soul Fragment synergy (Shadowlight Scholar, Void Drinker and Soulciologist Malicia), if it can proc, has a very powerful ability that will provide huge tempo boost in Arena.

AbusingKel

I have to be honest, my excitement for Scholomance Academy in the Arena is entirely selfish. Shaman is my favorite class but his arena history is that of a cellar-dweller found in the bottom third of the 9 classes. In comes the 10th class and Shaman gets a great boost, jumping to the top third of the classes. Now he gets class cards from the Academy that look incredible across the board so he should get even better. That's incredible! The only card I don't love is the Trick Totem, but that got a much more positive review from our resident arena master, Boozor, so even that will likely be decent. I can't wait to see how strong Shaman feels at launch! Which class has you most excited?

Boozor

There are a number of high health minions in this meta that will not be able to be removed very easily. Previous minions that were great at removing minions like Ruststeed Raider and Evasive Wyrm become much less effective in a meta where more minions (especially neutral ones) have 6+ hp. There are also no neutral heals and limited neutral taunts in this meta - What does this all mean? While there are many greedy cards and aspects to the upcoming meta, I would caution that being too greedy is not necessary to win games. The lack of taunts and healing, in combination with minions that are hard to remove (and high priority) like Lake Thresher and Onyx Magescribe make trading very inefficient, so going face and abandoning board might be the best play more often. In conclusion, take as much value as you need to close out games, but don't go overboard since games will not likely last as long as you think.

Check out Boozor's Twitch Stream when the expansion hits for some fresh Arena action!

Free Arena Ticket

Even though there is no actual rotation, Scholomance Academy only joins the current Standard pool of cards, Arena reset should still happen. Thought as no in-game pop-up appeared so far heralding this, there is a chance it will not. You will have to decide for yourself, if you want to "risk" it.

Players who have an active Arena run when the reset happens would have their current run retired and would receive an Arena Ticket as compensation (plus any reward for current number of wins for that run).

• Play out your run to x-2 (x wins and max. 2 losses) if you want more rewards from your run, or just leave it at 0-0 if you don't want to bother playing.

That's it! Are you excited for the new expansion to hit Arena as much as we are? What classes or cards are you looking forward to experiment with first? Tell us in the comments.