As you might have heard by now, Death Knight is coming to Hearthstone as the eleventh playable class, starting from December 6 - and we already took the opportunity for an appropriate in-depth look at its mechanics. Besides all of the gameplay novelties that this introduction is bringing to the table, there is also the important cosmetic aspect to consider. As you might know, every playable Hearthstone class comes with a set of Hero portraits:

  • Basic Hero portrait - available to everyone for free.
  • Golden Hero portrait - the basic one, but with a lively animation, rewarded after winning 500 games with a class in Standard, Wild, Arena or Duels.
  • Prestige Hero portrait - a totally different piece of art, rewarded after winning 1000 games with the class in Standard, Wild, Arena or Duels.

In case you’re curious about what Death Knight is going to receive, do not fret, as we’ve got you covered. Alex Horley, the incredible artist known for many, many masterpieces (Hearthstone-themed and otherwise), created both of the portraits for the upcoming Death Knight class - and they were included in Blizzard's press kit.

Death Knight Hero Portraits

Death Knight’s Basic and 500 wins portrait art.

This one is going to be available for free to everyone, starting from December 6th; however, it will take 500 wins to make it golden and therefore add the associated visual effects.


Death Knight’s 1000 wins portrait’s art.

We wonder how much time will have to pass before someone will be able to show it off on ladder.

New Cosmetics Already On the Way - Not Only For Death Knight?

While these two masterpieces aren't in the game yet, we already know that Death Knight is going to receive even more attention in the cosmetic section: as we've already mentioned, it will be the first class to receive a Legendary Hero Skin.

  • Each skin is fully animated in 3D and responds to in-game actions with special animations. These can, for example, be triggered when attacking, playing minions, casting spells and emoting.
  • These skins come with unique hero trays, which are more gilded than ever before.
  • New voicelines will accompany every one of these fancy portrait frames.

This Arthas Legendary Skin will be available for pre-purchase as part of the Arthas Menethil Bundle, starting from November 8, but you'll still have time to grab it even after Patch 25.0 goes live.

Speaking of bundles, we wonder whether the Legendary skin you see above will be the only one purchasable. If you take a closer look at the aforementioned Blizzard's press kit for the upcoming March of the Lich King expansion, you'll notice that there's a file called:

"1025 25.0AnnounceBroll SylvanasPrologue ProRes GS 001"

It consists of a clip that almost certainly belongs to the Death Knight Prologue solo adventure (unlocking the class cards belonging to the Core Set) that we're going to be able to access for free with the launch of the March of the Lich King expansion.

As you can clearly see, the opponent is none other than Sylvanas Windrunner while she was still alive, before Arthas himself turned her into a Banshee. What's surprising is that Sylvanas' portrait has the same quality as Arthas'!

It's very difficult for us to believe that a skin which requires so much effort to create will exist only as part of the solo content. Of course, there's no say whether this cosmetic will appear together with Arthas or at a later time: the hope is that Blizzard will eventually give us an explanation!

What do you think about these Hero portraits? Are you going to attempt a Death Knight grind right off the bat? Let us know in the comments below!