Hearthstone's newest patch has dropped some big news! Alterac Valley is the next Hearthstone expansion which is also the final expansion of the Year of the Gryphon.
Please remember that datamined content is subject to interpretation and may not be accurate. Nothing is final until Blizzard announces it.
Datamining the client reveals two new points of data that give us the Alterac Valley expansion. The first is a new card set that was added internally.
The second is a new type of booster pack that every expansion receives. This indicates this isn't going to just be a mini-set.
This isn't exactly surprising though. With the Horde and Alliance themes for the first two sets of this year, and the Year of the Gryphon roadmap we saw earlier this year showcasing a frosty land with red (Horde) and blue (Alliance) in conflict, we had a solid idea that we'd be visiting the same battleground that features a war between the two factions. Both the Frostwolf Clan, led by Drek'Thar, and the Stormpike Expedition, led by Vanndar Stormpike, claim the territory and have been fighting over it for quite some time.
What cards are you hoping to see in the next expansion?
![All The Great Dark Beyond Card Reveals for October 23 - Day 13 [Finished]](the-great-dark-beyond-day-13.webp)
Comments
Hope to see second Lick King! That will be AMAZING!
Frostwolf Grunt's time to shine!
Would you say that that's...
What you want?
I can’t even be excited for this information with how garbage the ladder is r
I remember burning Alterac to the ground for betrayal back in WC2. Don't remember it to be snowy though.
Finally Drek’Thar as a real card in HS! It was long overdue… (no, being a PvE boss in Thrall’s book of heroes doesn’t count). He’s one of the oldest Horde lore characters and serves as the Horde boss in AV. Could be a hero card that summons strong elementals (as in the abovementioned PvE adventure)
Alliance’s is a mountain king dwarf called Vanndar Stormpike. Not so famous NPC but cool anyway. His hero card could involve the classic MK moves such as Avatar (do we have it in HS? Don’t think so), storm bolt (ST dmg) and thunder clap (AoE dmg
Many people expect the 10 mercenary characters will make final appearances as hero cards, which would be the natural final stage of their evolution across the year. I'd doubt Drek'thar and Vanndar get hero cards because of that.
Heck, with Mathias Shaw nowhere to be found in Stormwind, I'm not even confident we can rely on obvious characters appearing in AV. Drek'thar probably will be there, but I wouldn't assume anything until we know for sure he won't be inexplicably replaced by some random HS-original character.
It'd be nice if they managed to work more Murlocs into the set, Murloc Shaman got a massive boost in Barrens, and they've released a few Murlocs since then, but it still doesn't feel nearly complete in standard, and it's falling off again in Wild
I think Murlocs will need to wait on next year if we're going be looking at thematics, though I suppose they could always pull another Brrrrrloc lol.
As expected, AV! Maybe Warriors can create matches that take 2 hours to complete to honour vanilla AV.
I am looking forward to the new keyword they will introduce. I dont think they split cards Alliance and Horde faction, but maybe they reintroduce Trade and Frenzy or more synergies with that? as seen in the mini-set, Trade has a lot more potential then when it was introduced.
Probably lots of dwarves, but sadly not the Flames of Ironforge. Well, a man can hope.
They might add more tradeable and frenzy cards in the last miniset, but Alterac will have a new keyword.
Horde/Alliance cards would require a lot to implement properly, but it'd be a lot of fun.
2 hours? if its orginal AV before any changes/stuff removed its like 2days
True, but I made it HS-proof. However, I remember the time we, as the player base, took on the Lich King. That took some days, maybe they could implement something again.
The mercenaries will be used to go head to head in group raids on objectives with multiple players. You heard it hear first. I’m glad I spent the money and have all the other mercs at 30 . Time to level the new ones and get ready for some juicy new items you can only get by winning matches. I hope they bring WoW to the mercs game which is the only way to do it
even if they dont do what you proposed, I wish you worked for the team to get that creativeness going.
What is the best guesstimate date for AV to arrive?
First week of December, most likely. That's going off of every third expansion aside from LoE and Darkmoon, which were released in November.
The expansion announcement is typically at Blizzcon, which would be a week from now normally. Since there's no Blizzcon this year, it's not clear when the announcement will be exactly, but it should be soon.
Pretty sure they said they'll still do announcements in place of an actual blizzcon.
I like how the internal tag for Classic mode cards is "Vanilla".
A free leggo is typically given out when an expac is announced so it would make sense for the set to be added internally, maybe it was intended to be revealed today but mercs and the miniset threw it off?