Hearthstone's Alterac Valley card reveal season has gotten off to a rocky start.

If you had of asked me last night at 3 AM Eastern what my take was on it when the scheduled still wasn't published, it was quite literally going to be "Fractured in Alterac Valley's Card Reveal Seasons is Off to a Fantastic Start With Superb Communication From Blizzard". As you can see after a little bit of sleep, I've decided to cut the sarcasm and get straight to the point. What the fuck.

If you don't read the whole article I do want to point out that as this was being finalized, links started to appear on the official website for the card reveal schedule which fixes the original problem of the first few reveals being impossible to find due to the poor communication. It's still important we bring up what's "new" at Activision Blizzard. You can follow the Alterac Valley reveal season via our Expansion Guide or our Card Reveal Countdowns.

Bobby Kotick is an Ass

The Hearthstone team got a rude awakening yesterday which was quite the bombshell. The Wall Street Journal, not to be confused with the Wall Street Bets reddit, released an article titled Activision CEO Bobby Kotick Knew for Years About Sexual-Misconduct Allegations at Videogame Giant. Understandably, Hearthstone team members were not happy about the reveal, with Cora and Celestalon tweeting the following shortly after the news broke yesterday. (Archive link, WSJ has a Paywall)

Quote From Cora

Activision Blizzard is trending on Twitter! Surely it's because we announced a new Hearthstone expansion today! Wait, I feel like I've said this before…

My coworkers and I will be in interviews with media outlets regarding Fractured in Alterac Valley this week. Please understand that we don't know what's going on. We're deeply deeply upset right now and we just want to talk about the cool stuff that we've worked on. (Source)

I love doing interviews and of course journalists want answers about things that frankly are much much more important than a new expansion, but we just won't have those answers. And it really blows. I'm fucking gutted. (Source)

If I had a nickel for every time horrible news about Activision Blizzard dropped on the same day we announced a new Hearthstone expansion, I would have 2 nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice. (Source)

Quote From Celestalon

Clarification: Today has been the planned announcement day for FiAV for months, and none of us HS devs knew the WSJ article was coming (or even existed) until it broke.

With the Wall Street Journal article coming out shortly after the cinematic reveal for Fractured in Alterac Valley, it was definitely too late to pull the announcement for today, not to mention the potential embargoes and NDAs that would have allowed organizations to report on Fractured in Alterac Valley at the announcement time, so we were left with the question, what's next?

Announcements & Patch Arrive

If you paid any attention to Out of Cards yesterday afternoon, you were bombarded with tons of information about the new expansion and patch that arrived at the same time. Our front page was all super fresh content and anything else risked pushing the cinematic and initial expansion coverage down to page 2. It's both a great and not so great thing when that happens because it means its an entertaining day but also we've got a small problem where folks might miss some of the content, which is unfortunate to say the least.

Business as usual is what general consensus was here at Out of Cards. Then the reveal countdowns went up and they were missing links to where we could find cards.

And that didn't change.

If you've been a part of a Hearthstone reveal season before and you've been a hard refresher of the official Hearthstone site, you may have come across changing countdowns for community card reveals. This has been something that has plagued us in the past with countdowns moving times, changing URLs, or even disappearing altogether! So I can't say we were very surprised to see no URLs attached to the countdowns initially, assuming they'd get added in later on in the day, closer to when reveals started.

Nope.

Here We Go Again

At 3 AM Eastern, we still didn't have any countdowns. In the afternoon on expansion reveal day, I had said to our staff that maybe this was intentional and the Hearthstone team was doing a different reveal season and not relying on external actors. It makes sense if you think about it for a moment. Last reveal season was plagued by the California law suit and caused the reveal season to effectively be cancelled with Blizzard pulling out of their remaining solo reveals and several community members that had card reveals, notably Alliestrasza, Lt. Eddy, and Trump all decided to not host their reveals.

This caused plenty of unrest in the community and although it was done in support of those at Blizzard, there was a chance someone in charge of reveal season or marketing wasn't happy about not getting the cards out there and seemingly being held hostage by revealers. By moving to a Blizzard-driven reveal season, there was no chance cards wouldn't be revealed. Well, I was wrong.

Reveal season started off at the stated time and no one knew where the card was going to be. Dun Baldar Bunker ended up being revealed by QiGe and the next card reveal, Templar Captain, went smoothly too if you knew DDaHyoNi was going to reveal it - or just opened up links to all the previous people who have done reveals and hoped it was one of them.


Reveal season started off looking like the Ferrari F1 pitwall.

The lack of communication is unacceptable.

Don't get me wrong, the position that Blizzard employees and the Hearthstone team is in is by no means positive. The leadership of the company needs to get their shit together and take a hike so new people can be put in charge that don't have years of ignoring problems at the company. I disagree with their idea of not telling us where card reveals are. This hurts the community, this hurts content creators, and this is going to hurt the way the expansion is perceived if everyone is tilted.

I don't know who is responsible, but I know that there are several individuals who are not happy things are being masked. There are people I've received messages from asking what I know about what is going on and I've legitimately never seen them angry before. We're off to a bad start to a reveal season for an expansion with a ton of potential. Who doesn't love that we're having a Horde vs Alliance Honor Points war?

Resign M***********

As reported by the Washington Post, a call for resignation has been made by Activision Blizzard shareholders.


Surprise, Bobby.

This isn't a massive deal in the grand scheme of things though as the call for resignation was made by the Strategic Organizing Center Investment Group which communicates for roughly 3.8 million of the 779 million Activision Blizzard shares. A drop in the bucket that is the shareholders of the company and so the weight they have on the situation is easily ignored.

Ultimately, Bobby Kotick has been at the helm of the company during all the sexual harassment, mistreatment, and rape that has taken place at Blizzard and yes, he should resign because he failed everyone there and it is disheartening to see the board of directors rally behind him, though it shouldn't come as a surprise when you consider just how much money he has helped make the company and its shareholders in his time there.

Quote From Activision Blizzard Investor Relations

“The Activision Blizzard Board remains committed to the goal of making Activision Blizzard the most welcoming and inclusive company in the industry. Under Bobby Kotick's leadership the Company is already implementing industry leading changes including a zero tolerance harassment policy, a dedication to achieving significant increases to the percentages of women and non-binary people in our workforce and significant internal and external investments to accelerate opportunities for diverse talent. The Board remains confident that Bobby Kotick appropriately addressed workplace issues brought to his attention.

The goals we have set for ourselves are both critical and ambitious. The Board remains confident in Bobby Kotick's leadership, commitment and ability to achieve these goals.”

If it smells like bullshit and it looks like bullshit, it's probably bullshit.

Hearthstone Wasn't the Only Major Announcement Yesterday

It feels like the Wall Street Journal article was timed to hit at one of the worst possible times for Blizzard, which is a massive slap in the face to the employees that are creating the great gaming experiences at the company. The current leadership doesn't care, they're psychopaths that will publish a shit press release and pretend like they're doing anything of value to anyone.

Blizzard also released their Season of Mastery World of Warcraft Classic branch on November 16.

The release was inevitable, and those that put it out there did choose the correct time to do it, I'd have done the same thing because it would be one hell of a way to interrupt the company as a whole, but that also doesn't mean it isn't a dick move.

Quote From Activision Blizzard Investor Relations

SANTA MONICA, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Nov. 16, 2021– The Activision Blizzard (Nasdaq: ATVI) Board of Directors released the following statement responding to recent media stories.

“The Activision Blizzard Board remains committed to the goal of making Activision Blizzard the most welcoming and inclusive company in the industry. Under Bobby Kotick's leadership the Company is already implementing industry leading changes including a zero tolerance harassment policy, a dedication to achieving significant increases to the percentages of women and non-binary people in our workforce and significant internal and external investments to accelerate opportunities for diverse talent. The Board remains confident that Bobby Kotick appropriately addressed workplace issues brought to his attention.

The goals we have set for ourselves are both critical and ambitious. The Board remains confident in Bobby Kotick's leadership, commitment and ability to achieve these goals.”

About Activision Blizzard

Our mission, to connect and engage the world through epic entertainment has never been more important. Through communities rooted in our video game franchises we enable hundreds of millions of people to experience joy, thrill and achievement. We enable social connections through the lens of fun, and we foster purpose and a sense of accomplishment through healthy competition. Like sport, but with greater accessibility, our players can find purpose and meaning through competitive gaming. Video games, unlike any other social or entertainment media, have the ability to break down the barriers that can inhibit tolerance and understanding. Celebrating differences is at the core of our culture and ensures we can create games for players of diverse backgrounds in the 190 countries our games are played.

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Our enduring franchises are some of the world’s most popular, including Call of Duty®, Crash Bandicoot™, World of Warcraft®, Overwatch®, Hearthstone®, Diablo®, StarCraft®, Candy Crush™, Bubble Witch™, Pet Rescue™ and Farm Heroes™. Our sustained success has enabled the company to support corporate social responsibility initiatives that are directly tied to our franchises. As an example, our Call of Duty Endowment has helped find employment for over 90,000 veterans.

It Gets Better, Sort Of

Ben Heathstone, or Ben Hearthstone if you've never read his Twitter username and been introduced to the "cannot unsee" club (sorry, not sorry), tweeted this morning about having a "Hearthstone thing" being cancelled. We aren't sure if that's a card reveal or some other kind of spotlight, but it looks like there is a chance the Hearthstone team may be limiting their expansion partnerships right now and only going with part of their originally scheduled plans. That's pure speculation and should definitely not be taken as truth, but Decktech did mention that he hoped they could find another chance to work together.

Quote From Ben Hearthstone

I try not to vague tweet much, but I was scheduled to do a really cool Hearthstone thing. Said Hearthstone thing got canceled. I’s a bit sad about it. Hopeful for different opportunities in the future!

Could there be other cancellations coming?

Where things do get slightly better though is while finalizing this article, links have finally started to go up on the official site for countdowns and we'll have them updated in our database for your easy access on our Fractured in Alterac Valley Countdown page. It isn't all the links though, we're still waiting for the bulk of them. You can stay up to date on everything the new expansion has to offer, including the card reveals, on our Fractured in Alterac Valley Card Spoilers & Expansion Guide.

Overall, I feel for the people of Blizzard but I believe this was a bad way to start the reveal season. It'll be sad when Cora ends up getting a third nickel when Bobby is still running the show in March or April of 2022 when the next Hearthstone expansion is announced and some other negative Blizzard headline comes out on the same day, because you know it is going to happen.

That's probably going to be labelled as a shitty take because "how dare I not sit behind Blizzard and give them my full support through their tough times", but that's not the reality. At the end of the day, I have a community to take care of that'll be my priority.

Activision Blizzard (ATVI) Stock was down just over $7, or around 10%, from Tuesday morning from their 5 Day peak of $71.96 USD, trading at $64.67 as of publishing.