Descent of Dragons launches in less than 24 hours, and we've put together all the information you might want about the release.
Descent of Dragons Fast Facts
- Descent of Dragons launches with 140 new cards - 135 of these can be opened in packs, while the other 5 are freebies!
- Pre-orders for the expansion will end when the expansion launches, so if you want to take advantage of the deal or just get that Deathwing portrait, make sure to do so soon!
- With the launch of the expansion the in-game shop will be receiving an update. Details below.
- As is customary now, Arena will have a new rotation of cards available. Details below.
- The single-player content, Galakrond's Awakening, will be launching in January and will introduce an additional 35 cards to the game! We currently don't know what the price of it will be; a reasonable guess would be ~$20 or 2800 gold, so keep that in mind while purchasing, especially if you're F2P.
- Speaking of purchasing, we have a guide on Amazon Coins if you're interested in saving some money on card packs.
Descent of Dragons Freebies
As mentioned before, we're getting quite a few freebies this time around!
- Log in anytime in the first 90 days to receive 3 free Descent of Dragons packs, along with two copies of Shield of Galakrond.
- Upon opening your first Descent of Dragons pack, you'll be rewarded with the five Legendary Galakrond Hero Cards, for free!
- Additionally, there's a 6 Quest chain for a total of 5 Descent of Dragons packs, 2 Saviours of Uldum packs, 2 Rise of Shadows packs, and 200 Gold. Make sure you leave a Quest slot open for these - it's likely a new one will unlock each day after the expansion launches.
Quote From Out of Cards Quest Chain: Dragons Descend! (1)
- Desc: Play 30 cards in Play mode.
- Reward: 1x Descent of Dragons Pack
Quest Chain: Dragons Descend! (2)
- Desc: Draw 30 cards in any mode.
- Reward: 1x Descent of Dragons Pack & 1x Rise of Shadows Pack
Quest Chain: Dragons Descend! (3)
- Desc: Win 3 games in any mode.
- Reward: 1x Descent of Dragons Pack & 1x Saviors of Uldum Pack
Quest Chain: Dragons Descend! (4)
- Desc: Play 20 Spells in any mode.
- Reward: 1x Descent of Dragons Pack & 1x Rise of Shadows Pack
Quest Chain: Dragons Descend! (5)
- Desc: Take 50 turns.
- Reward: 1x Descent of Dragons Pack & 1x Saviors of Uldum Pack
Quest Chain: Dragons Descend! (6)
- Desc: Play 100 cards.
- Reward: 200 Gold
Descent of Dragons Launch Day Goals
- Log in and claim your freebies (see above).
- Craft any golden legendaries you want; with duplicate protection on packs, you won't open a second normal copy of them until you own all the legendaries.
- Open up your card packs! You're guaranteed a Legendary in the first 10.
- Share your deck ideas with us! You can use our deckbuilder to show them off. Don't forget to write a guide!
Descent of Dragons Mechanics
- Galakrond and Invoke - Your five free Galakronds come with their own buildaround keyword, as seen on the also free Shield of Galakronds. Invoking powers up Galakrond and activates his Hero Power. There are 12 Invokers, 5 cards which benefit from Invocation, and the 5 Galakronds.
- Sidequests - The anti-EVIL classes all have access to these. They function like Quests, but don't start in your opening hand, and multiple can be played at once (even alongside Quests themselves).There are 8 in total, 2 each for the four classes.
- Explorers - Each of these Dragons Discover a Dragon themselves. The anti-EVIL classes get one each.
- Breaths - Spells which gain additional power when holding a Dragon. Each class gets one.
Standard Card Pool and Arena Rotation
The Standard card pool gains a new expansion, retaining all those it had before - rotation doesn't happen until the first expansion each year.
Your new Standard card pool is:
- Basic & Classic
- The Witchwood
- The Boomsday Project
- Rastakhan's Rumble
- Rise of Shadows
- Saviors of Uldum
- Descent of Dragons
As we've come to expect, Arena will be receiving a new rotation of cards with the launch of Descent of Dragons.
Your new Arena rotation is:
- Basic & Classic
- Blackrock Mountain
- The Grand Tournament
- One Night in Karazhan
- Knights of the Frozen Throne
- Rastakhan's Rumble
- Descent of Dragons
The five Galakronds, along with Invoke cards, will not be available to draft in Arena.
New and Improved Shop
Also now live is an overhaul of the in-game shop.
- Adventures and Wild card packs return, with the option to purchase card packs with gold.
- Alleria, Magni and Medivh have left the shop for an undetermined amount of time.
- The Priest hero, Tyrande, will be available to all players for free from the shop with the expansion launch.
- The new Hunter hero, Sylvanas, will be available for purchase for an undetermined (but limited) amount of time. Price: $9.99
- The Winter Veil Bundle will be available for purchase starting from December 19th through to January 7th. Contains 30 card packs (6 each from non-Descent of Dragons Standard expansions) and the new Druid Hero, Dame Hazelbark. Price: $24.99
Theorycraft Decks
The community has been hard at work thinking up deck ideas - here are some of them!
Regis Killbin
Dekkster
Funki Monki
Comments
Collectible like in old adventures, but more details are yet unknown.
isn't it 7?
5 Galakronds plus Sathrovarr and Shield of Galakrond
Just cause you are getting Sathrovarr and Shield of Galakrond for free does not mean you cant open them in packs. I suppose technically you wont open Sathrovarr, since you will own him already, but you can open a golden one, once you have all DOD legendaries (or normal one, if you DE him).
You actually wont find Sathrovarr in packs due to the golden version being exclusive to people who went to blizzcon or got the virtual ticket. Not sure about Sheild of Galakrond though, got 0 in packs when doing the pre-release so I would expect them also not to show up in packs, including the golden version as they have done in the past
Hm, you might be right. I was thinking about Archmage Vargoth, but Sathrovarr is more of a Marin the Fox kind of thing.
still no info about whether those free Galakrond hero cards disenchantable or not.....
They won't be - no legendaries given for free usually are.
uh, that is false.
when Rise of Shadows release, they gave us Vargoth, and it's Disenchantable.
the same goes for Uldum when they gave us free random quest, and it's disenchantable too.
the ones you mentioned are normal collectible cards that you open from packs, the Galakronds are not collectible from card packs thus they will not be disenchantable
they will be collectible in packs once the 90 day galakrond collectable is over
no, once you open your first DoD pack you will get all five heros for free, regardless of whether the set rotated or not. The same is currently true about C'thun.
Dear Pack Opening Algorithm
How are you? You may recall I wrote to you shortly before the Saviours of Uldum expansion release, prevailing on your benevolence for favorable pack openings results for myself, and my fellow forum members.
As you are no doubt aware, Descent of Dragons will shortly be unleashed, and many many packs will be opened. Though I appreciate you will have your algorithmic hands full, I would again politely request good results all round if at all possible. The Innkeeper does like to exclaim legendary! (and golden legendary causes him to have a "special moment"), and given the festive season is almost upon us, I wonder if your golden light could shine upon us.
As always any opportunity for an advantageous card distribution synergyzing with my card collection would also be much appreciated.
If you could extend a similar courtesy to my fellow Out of Cards site members I expect it would be well received.
Rather like Santa, I know you will be busy on the big day and simply ask you to keep us in your good book of RNG.
Best Regards
outgoingzero
Dude... I feel like a kid before Christmas : I've not been that excited for a new set for a long time!! 13 more hours...
So much free Stuff...
Alright, who are these Guys and what have they done to Blizzard?!
But seriously, that's a lot of freebies for f2p players! These Quests aren't hard to complete so everyone should have a good start.
I'm also excited for the new shop. Wild support is always welcome!
pretty sure normal legendaries are protected too.
HYPE!!!
In the meantime, get your fix of dragons and watch the new episode of Rick and Morty. You won't ever look at a dragon the same way again...
Dear Blizz,
All I want for Christmas is to get a Golden Dragonqueen Alex or a golden Kronx in my pack opening.
Please and thank you
Great article thanks. Hey I wish there was a vote / thumbs up for these 😃👍.
Great we can buy wild packs with gold now - already did on my NA account (which hadn't even opened GVG or TGT).
Though wish adventure wings were still gold purchasable again - maybe one day :)
Good luck to all with those DoD packs!
Nice! Which software are you using for tracking pack openings? Also, do wild packs cost 100 gold or a little bit less? Thanks!