In case you missed it, the Death Knight Preview Showmatch took place earlier this week: it was a Twitch tournament featuring many Hearthstone personalities and aimed at showcasing Death Knight's Runes: a brand new deckbuilding system that will impact the game starting from December 6th.
Over the duration of this tournament, each participant was given a "super account" that's already been updated to the future expansion Patch 25.0 and had everything properly enabled for the card collection, so that the players could build actual Death Knight decks and try to win the final prize. That's why you might've also noticed Theotar, the Mad Duke showing up at a 6-mana cost - an already announced nerf that's yet to hit the current live servers.
However, March of the Lich King cards weren't the only novelty those accounts had to offer: in fact, each player's profile journal featured a brand new icon, consisting of a wax seal with an image of The Lich King's Helm of Domination on it.
"DEATH KNIGHT ME DOOD" - Feno, probably.
Based on the Patch 24.6's notes and our recent in-game experiences, we know that this is part of the revamp that Hearthstone's Event system went through at the beginning of November. The screenshot you see above tells us that, shortly after Patch 25.0 goes live, we'll receive a new in-game event to celebrate Death Knight's introduction to the game.
Obviously, we are yet to know any information regarding the exact day this event might appear, the entire duration, or its quests. However, we might already have a hint as to some of its rewards: as you may remember from one of our previous articles, Blizzard has clarified that out of the 18 Signature cards that belong to the March of the Lich King expansion, 3 are going to be of non-Legendary quality and will be obtainable for free, from a special launch event.
Quote From Blizzard There are a total of 18 Signature cards coming with the launch of March of the Lich King, including 15 Legendary cards. Two of the Legendary cards will be available on the Tavern Pass, and the three non-Legendary cards will be earnable for free as part of an event with expansion launch.
An example of a Signature card. As of now, we only know about three of them: Lord Marrowgar, Lor'themar Theron and Invincible.
Again, there is no way for us to be completely sure about everything noted above, but it is reasonable to believe that once March of the Lich King goes live, Team 5 will bless us with another limited-time event; which will then reward us with 3 Signature cards and possibly much more (packs, give us them packs)!
Other Useful Takeaways
On a side note, have you ever wondered how Death Knight decks will be showcased on the selection screen? Well, the Death Knight Showmatch tournament gave us this answer too.
It appears that each Death Knight deck's Runes will appear on the right of the respective deck box, as shown in the screenshot below. In this way, you'll be able to tell what Rune combination each of your Death Knight decks has without being forced to go to the Collection Manager or needing to come up with unique names every time - a quality of life feature we really appreciate!
(Source)
What do you think this upcoming in-game event might be about? Did you like the last one? Let us know in the comments below!
Comments
Will signature cards be animated?
Unfortunately, no way to know as of now: we're yet to be shown a live clip.
No mistake I'm sure...
I just really hope that full frost rune decks are not the best DK decks coz I really don't want to buy the Path or Arthas set and be down 20 packs for the expansion :( damn this game is getting expensive.
There's no way around buying it. Other than not playing the game or being content to never play DK.
Ever since The Boomsday Project, I've been saving 700 gold each expansion (hence giving up on 7 packs every 4 months) because I knew a moment like this would've come sooner or later, and I didn't want to gut my set savings by 2000.
As for the cost of the game getting higher, I suspect the next Reward track will be more rewarding than the past ones: just a speculation of mine, but I'd be surprised to not see an increase of free stuff.
Path of Arthas is an incredibly convenient deal for 2000 gold, but that doesn't make it any less of a difficult purchase for players on a budget.