I'll be real, walking into Blizzard's campus for the first time, I was as nervous as all hell. While I've interviewed people like Rod Fergusson and some of the Diablo 4 developers before, it's never been on their home turf and in the presence of all the weight of Blizzard's empire.

The campus itself left me awestruck (and yes, I took a photo of the Lilith statue). But what I was really there for, during a month's worth of celebrations for Blizzard's 35th Anniversary, was to sit down with Johanna Faries.

This year marks 2 years at Blizzard with Johanna at the helm, and it's a big year to be steering the ship. We've already seen huge announcements for flagship titles like World of Warcraft, Hearthstone and Overwatch (which has ceremoniously dropped the 2) with more to come later today from the franchise closest to my heart, Diablo.

This is, of course, just the beginning, with I'm sure some big news yet to come later this year at the return of Blizzcon.

I chatted to Johanna about how the studio is balancing its legendary past with a "bold" new future under the Microsoft umbrella.

"Meeting players where they are"

This is Windows Central, of course, so I had to lead my questions with the Xbox of it all. With Xbox pushing the Play Anywhere initiative harder than ever, I asked Faries about smoothing the seams between Battle.net and the wider Xbox ecosystem.

With Xbox pushing harder into the PC space, and their own work on the Xbox Full Screen Experience for handhelds, where does Battle.net fit in with these plans?

Faries was clear that Battle.net remains a "shining star" and a "premium" platform, but she emphasized that Blizzard’s strategy is becoming more nimble.

"Battlenet, as you probably already know, is a shining star of our Blizzard portfolio. It's something that we have deep passion for, and it's as much a community platform as it is a game platform in many ways. So I think what we want to make sure we do is continue to position Battle.net to be best in class.

We want it to be delivering PC experiences at the most premium level and making sure that we're meeting players where they are.

So, to the extent that we [Blizzard and Xbox] want to make sure we're dot-connecting, I think collaboration is always incredibly high across the Xbox team. And we're going to continue to share notes. We'll continue to share best practices and learnings. But, you know, I think in many ways, we want to stay focused on making sure that when Blizzard players come to Battlenet, they're getting the type of experience that they expect. That is, you know, exceeding their expectations and continuing to improve in that way."

She added that there is no '"one size fits all" approach anymore. "What might be right for one game or one game launch might be different than what we do from a distribution perspective or platform strategy for other parts of our portfolio. So we want to remain nimble and make sure that if players are expecting a type of experience from Blizzard, that it's world-class and that we're going to meet that moment appropriately."

Following this part of our chat, I prompted Faries more about potentially bringing more Blizzard games to Steam. Overwatch (formally known as Overwatch 2 is currently doing well on the platform, and Diablo 4 is a great Steam Deck game.

"It goes back to the focus on finding ways to meet players in the destinations of their choice, right? And so there's always going to be an active conversation across every one of our game launches.

Where do we want to show up? How do we make sure we show up in the right way? Right? So again, Steam has played a great role, as have so many other distribution partners for us. And so we're going to continue to just kind of be learners with respect to making sure that when we show up, we show up in the best way possible."

Surprise, since this interview. Diablo 2: Resurrected is now on Steam!

2026 is the comeback year for Blizzcon

While many developers have moved toward purely digital showcases, even Xbox itself has not put on a fan fest in quite some time.

Blizzard, in contrast, is leaning back into the physical world of fandom. BlizzCon is returning in 2026, and I told Johanna it felt like they were going all-in this year, particularly with all the hyped-up messaging. For Faries, the event is more than just a trailer showcase.

"Blizzcon is all about the community, and we think about that in a very intentional way. We want to make sure that we continue to bring forward what has been such a singular part of what makes Blizzard special. And Blizzcon is this gathering... it's this place for people to have those in-person experiences, whether it's because they're reuniting with their people or they're finding their new friends and forging new bonds that often are lifelong."

Given that Blizzard has had 2 years off from running Blizzcon, I asked what had been done in that time to make sure 2026 was a success? What would make Blizzcon an event that absolutely had to take place each year?

She noted that the downtime over the last few years was spent being very intentional about how the event returns.

"I think we've been taking a lot of time over the last couple of years to say when we come back, how do we make sure we come back in a way that celebrates the spirit of what Blizzcon has always represented for our community? While also making sure that it sets a tone for the future we're writing for ourselves here? And so I feel there's a sense of excitement about being able to shape this type of experience for so many people. And I do believe that we have a real passion for gathering in person and being able to lock arms as people who all just love Blizzard and want to continue to forge those bonds."

You'll notice that many of the announcements this month from Blizzard tease Blizzcon and more to come, so from a fan perspective, I'm confident this year will be one for the books.

This year also marks Xbox's 25th anniversary, I wondered if there was any coordination between the two going on behind the scenes to plan their celebrations and marketing?

"There's always this constant back-and-forth about how we calendar together. How do we think big about the big celebrations going on across all of the Xbox portfolio, right? And so it's awesome because we have a year chock full of special anniversaries. It's an honor to be a part of things that have stood the test of time in that way.

When we think about 35 years for Blizzard, it certainly encapsulates so much passion, so much creativity, so much boldness over decades, and it's something that we take really seriously. And at the same time, we've talked a lot about this moment being both a celebration of that legacy and a launching pad for a very bold future ahead. And so those are the conversations we have. How do we make sure that when we're celebrating together, it ladders up into something bigger?"

Bridging the generational gap

One of the most interesting parts of our conversation was how Blizzard handles it's intergenerational nature. Blizzard games inherently have a very millenial and older-skewed audience, many of which have been playing its games for 20 years or more.

There's a nostalgia embedded that keeps people coming back, but it also means a shaky balancing act between the expectations of old veteran players, and trying to bring in a new audience.

The Gen X/Alpha gang has very different expectations around monetization, progression, and the like. How, then, does Blizzard balance this?

"We have learned over and over again, how do you keep winning hearts and minds with bold new experiences? ... It's going to be predicated on making sure that we're delivering for the fans who have been with us and the players who've been in our games and created these communities with us for decades now, while also shaping the fans of the future, the players and the communities of the future."

"It requires this interdisciplinary way of working right? Be ahead of trends, set new trends, tell new stories, think out of the box in certain ways. But also... don't reinvent the wheel. So much of what I think our secret sauce has become is that we believe deeply that our IP, in many ways, is singular to all of entertainment. And when we continue to invest in these worlds and continue to deepen the content experiences in these universes, we find, more often than not, that players new and players long-lasting continue to want to come back and enjoy that right?

We're very excited about what's to come. This is just the beginning. In many ways, even the past couple of weeks of announcements are just the start of something we believe is quite bold and sets a tone for the future that we're shaping."

A perfect example of this is the studio's commitment to not just Diablo 4, but continuing the patch Diablo 2 and Diablo 3. New games don't mean the old audience are left behind. They also manage to serve the WoW Classic and retail crowds. Faries pointed out that continuing to update these games "will also bring in players who may have never experienced it before. This might be their first time... and it reshapes the dynamics within that community."

The relationship with Xbox is "highly empowered"

Since the acquistion of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft, there's been plenty of talk about Blizzard's identity and how the two companies work together side by side, with Blizzard still retaining its autonomy.

How does that look on a meaningful day-to-day basis? Faries described the day-to-day collaboration with Xbox as one defined by "agency" rather than oversight.

"It's highly empowered. I feel a lot of agency and support from our Xbox partners and collaborators, and more often than not, the questions are, 'How can we help? How can we support?' There's also this focus on communication. Let's just share. What are we learning together? What are we seeing? Are there places where we should connect dots? Are there places where we should be independent? But let's make sure that we're great communicators and collaborators, so that we're all kind of rowing in the same direction. But by and large, I feel a phenomenal amount of agency to be able to write our future for Blizzard and to operate as we need to."

Looking beyond the existing catalog, is there room for new IP?

While the current focus is clearly on deep-diving into the worlds of Diablo, Warcraft, Overwatch and Hearthstone this week, I asked Johanna if there was room in the next 35 years for something entirely new. A new IP for Blizzard.

"We're always going to think about, you know, what does it look like to win both with our existing IP and maybe into the future? ...we have this amazing portfolio, and we have really said we want to focus in the near term on making sure we continue to invest in these worlds. There's still so much territory we have to cover together. And yet, where do we want to be? 5, 10, 20, 35 years from now? And what are those bets need to look like so that we continue to, you know, stand tall within the industry."

When I asked if there was pressure for a new IP to "fit" the existing Blizzard art style or theme, she pointed directly to the caliber of the team.

"Great creatives offer up ideas maybe we never even thought of before, right? And so I find our role is to create the space for people to be able to think big and think about where do we want to go next... I'm not worried about how anything might fit together. It's really about making sure we're creating the spaces to feel empowered in doing so."

Beyond the games and lessons from Fallout

The success of the Fallout TV show has everyone asking when their favorite game is going to make it to the silver screen. It's clearly had a halo effect on the games too. I had to ask about Blizzard's ambitions for this. And yes, I’m still holding out for that Diablo Netflix show.

Faries confirmed that "exciting conversations" are happening, but the "Blizzard bar" remains incredibly high.

"We just want to be responsible with the IP, right? We want to make sure that if we bring anything forward, whether it's gameplay or whether it's beyond that, that it represents what we want it to signify. On behalf of Blizzard, it's got to be best in class... we have set the bar in many ways, in terms of creative excellence, and so that's really what we're going to focus in on."

Two years at the helm

As we wrapped up, I asked Johanna about her own journey. She has been with Blizzard for two years now, and I wanted to know what about her experiences has stood out during that time.

"It's gonna sound so corny and it is so honest. I mean it. I just every day I'm — I get to pinch myself and say, this is just a total blessing of a job and an opportunity. I get to work alongside the most special, talented, creative people across every discipline in entertainment that you can imagine. And so it's more about... it's very humbling to be a part of what we're trying to continue to shape."

She was candid about the fact that the industry isn't always easy, noting that there is "no one specific day" that stands above the rest because of the natural volatility of the business.

"There are highs, there's lows. That's gaming for you, right? But I think it's a real sense of pride and fulfillment to be able to do it with the types of people that I get to work with and learn from. There's a way that our teams show up in the world that I think is just very unique and special and inspiring to me, both as a player and as a professional. And so I — I can't think of one example. I'm just always reminding myself of that every day."

Of course, you can't lead Blizzard without being a fan yourself. When I asked if she had a particular affinity for one franchise, she admitted that her "diplomatic" answer is actually the truth: she plays virtually every Blizzard game out there.

"It really depends on my mood. It certainly depends on if we're in a big launch... but I'm deep in Diablo right now. But then you asked me next week I'll be deep in Overwatch. It just kind of depends... you have so many different sandboxes to play in."

I did give her one piece of advice: be careful with that Diablo obsession; you might find yourself walking out of a party with a new tattoo.

35 years of Blizzard... and counting

As Blizzard enters its 35th year and Diablo hits its 30th, the atmosphere on campus was electrifying to experience firsthand. "This moment is both a celebration of that legacy and a launching pad for a very bold future ahead," Johanna told me.

For those of us who have spent decades in Sanctuary or Azeroth, it’s clear that while the technology and the platforms might change, the "secret sauce" that Blizzard has isn't going anywhere. I meant it when I said Blizzard is going hard this year, and I can't wait to see what the next 35 years have in store for us.

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I've spent thousands of hours in Blizzard games, but Hearthstone isn't one of them. I was recently invited to Blizzard's 35th Anniversary celebrations, and somehow found myself part of the Hearthstone showcase despite having a total blindspot when it comes to it. I thought the worst as I sat down to my first game against another journalist, but luckily for me there were a few others there just as clueless as me (while some were impressively experienced and could reel off card stats like their phone numbers).

Regardless of experience level, we all had a great time. Hearthstone has a surprisingly addictive gameplay loop, and I took my time with my first game very, very seriously (Lewis from The Mirror, if you are reading this, we are due a rematch).

Today marks the first announcement of Hearthstone's next expansion, Cataclysm, which arrives on March 17, 2026.

Yep, "Cataclysm," the expansion that shattered World of Warcraft as we know it, is also now coming to Hearthstone but with its own twist.

Sliding Doors but make it nerdy

Hearthstone has spent over 12 years following the World of Warcraft lore. During the showcase, Lead Designer Cora Georgiou explained that Hearthstone: Cataclysm is exploring a timeline Blizzard never let happen in the MMO. What if Deathwing had actually succeeded in his plans during the Cataclysm?

"As his final act, Murozond pulled this alternate Deathwing into our universe, and now it falls to us to defeat the most powerful Deathwing of all time.

Time-traveling Chromie and the Dragonflights need your help to hold off Deathwing’s forces while she rallies Heroes of Time from across Hearthstone’s history to stop the chaos. Players will battle to save our reality through a new story, powerful cards, and limited-time events."

"Alternate versions of beloved characters feel like a very Hearthstone thing to do," Georgiou explained. This Time Travel-esque narrative allows the team to play with different versions of characters, like they have in the past with a Ranger General Sylvanas.

The Dragon's Hoard is a new players dream

If you've been initimidated by other players building up a decades worth of card history, Blizzard just removed that barrier with this update. Under the "Dragon's Hoard" event which starts on March 10, two full expansions worth of cards, Into the Emerald Dream and The Lost City, will be completely free for all players during the Cataclysm cycle.

The team has built deck recipes using only these free cards, so you can jump into ranked play straight away without spending a cent (though I do recommend getting some practice against the AI first).

There's also a skill-based matchmaking involved, call it newbie protection, where you enter a dedicated track and will only face other beginners, so no worries about being stomped by 10-year veterans day one.

Mechanics that really shake up the game

For the veterans however, Cataclysm will be bringing back the Colossal keyword, so minions so massive they will take up multiple slots on the board. These were originally features in the Voyage to the Sunken City DLC in 2022.

• Class Lieutenants: Classes like Warlock get ChoGall, whill Rogue gets Sinestra.
• The Worldbreaker: Deathwing, Worldbreaker arrives as a Neutral Hero card available to six classes, and will have world-ending abilities like Raze, Topple and Enthrall.

There'll be new keywords, in particular "Herald" used by classes aligned with Deathwing's Lieutenants. The more you use this, the stronger your lieutenants become.

Also being added is "Shatter" for those who ally with the Dragonflights against Deathwing. A “Shatter” card splits into two halves when drawn, on opposite sides of your hand. You can cast them separately, or combine them back together for twice the power and value.

Finally, Triumphs and Last Stands are class specific spell cards that feature each class’s Hero of Time, showing them either claiming victory or making a final heroic stand in the fight to save Azeroth from Deathwing.

All the new cards being added with Cataclysm

• Warmaster Blackhorn (Neutral)
• Supply Run (Hunter)
• Flight Maneuvers (Paladin)
• Battlefield Blaster (Neutral)
• Chamber of Aspects (Paladin)
• Chromatus (Paladin)
• Green Head of Chromatus (Paladin)
• Red Head of Chromatus (Paladin)
• Blue Head of Chromatus (Paladin)
• Bronze Head of Chromatus (Paladin)
• Ebyssian (Hunter)
• Envoy of the End (Neutral)
• Ragnaros, the Great Fire (Warrior)
• Hand of Ragnaros (Warrior)
• Hand of Ragnaros (Warrior)
• Soldier of Ragnaros (Warrior)
• Deathwing, Worldbreaker (Neutral)
• Ruthless
• Dragon's Reign
• Progeny of Deathwing
• Topple
• Raze
• Enthrall
• Dark Iron Harbinger
• Disciple of Demise
• Sands of Time

Year of The Scarab and Blizzcon tease

The Core Set rotation is about to change, and with it, the game meta.The Year of the Raptor is ending, and so begins the Year of the Scarab. The Core Set rotation is about to change and with it the game meta.

Some cards, like Brawl and Shadowstep, are rotating out to be replaced with Decimation and Shadow of Demise.

Players who hit Legend in the 2026 Hearthstone competitive season will get a new cardback. Those hitting it for the first time this year get both the class and new cardback. The Spotlight also had a sneaky joke about something coming at Blizzcon (a theme of most of the spotlights we have seen so far!)

Will you jump into Hearthstone?

It's hard not to get caught up in the celebrations as we get announcement after announcment of all this new content coming to Blizzard games.

Overwatch has already seen a resurgence in players since it's own anniversary spotlight, with Diablo coming later this week. I hope Hearthstone will welcome a bunch of new and returning players, too. Whether you're like me, a totally clueless novice clicking around the board and hoping you'll "get it eventually," or a devotee looking for deeper class identity, Cataclysm looks to be a turning point for the franchise.

Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.

Blizzard has just dropped a blogpost and nostalgic boost of a video covering its franchises that announced a new multi-part showcase event to kick off 2026. This is an announcement, of an announcement if you will, that some announcements are coming. And yes, this looks like it connects directly to the Diablo 4 tease we got that something was happening in February.

Blizzard will be rolling out a bunch of developer-led presentations focused on its biggest franchises, including World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Hearthstone, and Diablo. The showcases also double as part of Blizzard’s thirty-five-year anniversary celebration and will set the stage for what’s coming next this year, including the long-awaited return of BlizzCon in September.

Blizzard president Johanna Faries says the company’s teams have a strong lineup of announcements planned and that this showcase is "only the beginning" of what Blizzard intends to reveal throughout the year.

Where you can watch the Blizzard presentations

Each presentation will stream on Blizzard’s official YouTube and Twitch channels, with the following schedule:

• World of Warcraft State of Azeroth
  29 January at 9am Pacific, 12pm Eastern, 5pm UK - Youtube link
• Overwatch Spotlight
  4 February at 10am Pacific, 1pm Eastern, 6pm UK - Youtube link
• Hearthstone Spotlight
  9 February at 9.30am Pacific, 12.30pm Eastern, 5.30pm UK - Youtube link
• Diablo 30th Anniversary Spotlight
  11 February at 2pm Pacific, 5pm Eastern, 10pm UK - Youtube link

For Diablo fans, that 11 February slot immediately stands out. Blizzard has already been teasing that something Diablo-related would be revealed in February, and this anniversary spotlight lines up perfectly with that timing.

Whether we see something more for the Lord of Hatred expansion, a reveal of what the second new class is, or something even bigger, I have no idea, but this is the date I'm most eager to tune in.

Alongside the showcase announcement, Blizzard also released a new video titled “Blizzard: The Next Chapter,” which looks back at the company’s history using roughly 400 physical artifacts from its archives.

The video is sure to give you chills if you are a fan of any of Blizzard's beloved franchises, and I've already watched it 10 times this morning thinking wistfully of simpler times!

More details on the showcase can be found on Blizzard’s official website.

Fans of Diablo Immortal are not happy about the use of generative AI in the game's latest marketing materials. The official Diablo Immortal account shared a new image on social media announcing the mobile game's crossover with Hearthstone for a limited-time event.

Activision Blizzard clearly misjudged how closely the communities of those games would scrutinize the marketing imagery. Reports from Eurogamer and PC Gamer both drew attention to a Reddit post from user Ipyreable, who pointed out the trademark tells of generative AI in the image on the Hearthstone subreddit.

The player had marked up the marketing image with red text to highlight the issues: a weirdly shaped ear on the male character featured to the left of the image, his hand fading strangely into the background behind it, and a warped moon charm on the character featured to the right.

There was more, though. Candles were lit but not with flames, while the wax featured an unusual melting pattern, and bread lay haphazardly on the game table with no plate.

The strangest of all was a card that seemingly featured the Hearthstone board across its face, as opposed to an actual playable card front.

Additional marketing materials for the event, also posted on Blizzard social media platforms, feature images with giveaway signs that they could be the products of generative AI, as well.

Activision Blizzard King is no stranger to using generative AI. Blizzard caught heat previously for releasing an in-game skin that featured work from an artist known to use generative AI. The skin itself was suspected to have been created via prompt, but Blizzard never confirmed it. It did, however, remove the skin from the game.

Activision has also taken hits from the Call of Duty community over the use of generative AI in marketing materials. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 doled out AI-generated images as rewards for seasonal events and as part of paid bundle items.

Steam's disclosure policy ultimately pushed the publisher into declaring that the developers had used generative AI at some point in the development process.

But admitting AI's usage isn't admitting defeat, as far as Activision Blizzard King is concerned. The publisher is under the Microsoft umbrella, and Microsoft has unapologetically pushed all of its chips into the AI pot.

Microsoft has gone so far as to lay off large numbers of employees to bolster its investment in generative AI, and Activision has proudly posted job listings seeking artists willing to incorporate generative AI into their work.

Corporations are hellbent on generative AI, even as problems with the practice mount

With as much money as Microsoft has thrown at generative AI, it would be insane for the company not to require its underlings to utilize the technology to its fullest. However, continuing to lean into the use of generative AI comes with the risk of alienating a game's player base.

While AI may seem useful for generating random textures or other minuscule details that may be missed by a large part of the player base, it still runs into other potential issues.

Generative AI tech does little more than gobble up existing creations and regurgitate them back out in a new arrangement. It's not truly capable of creating anything new. Copyright infringement because of generative AI is not just limited to affecting the artist whose creations are initially fed into the machine, either.

There are no measures in place to protect the original artists, nor is there anything to ensure that companies like Activision Blizzard King can keep its own copyrights in play when generative AI has been used to craft images of trademarked IPs.

Despite the legal gray area, companies like Microsoft and OpenAI continue to insist on the takeover of generative AI, even highlighting the jobs that could disappear because of the advances of artificial intelligence.

Video games are an art form that tell human stories with human emotions based on human experiences — something generative AI simply cannot replicate.

World of Warcraft fans take their allegiances to the Horde or the Alliance so seriously that they've been known to accuse Blizzard developers of showing favoritism to one of the two perpetually warring factions. So when Hearthstone's next expansion Forged in the Barrens was announced at BlizzConline, the developers were quick to promise that the Alliance would also get a set focused on them.

"The Barrens just seemed like a great place to start," said associate game designer Cora Georgiou. "It's not that we have any bias towards the Horde or the Alliance. The Barrens is such a really great place to level early on as a new character in the Horde. It was really important to us that this year really start at the basics."

Leveling up is a major theme for the Year of the Gryphon, which will bring some of the biggest shakeups to Hearthstone since the game's launch in 2014. All of this year's releases will follow the story of 10 mercenaries, five Horde and five Alliance, who will each be represented as legendary minion cards. The first of those, the troll shaman Bru'kan, was revealed during the Hearthstone BlizzConline presentation and card art indicates that one of the others will be an undead warlock.

Those stories will be revealed in part through Hearthstone's Book of Heroes single-player game mode but also in the card art. Forged in the Barrens introduces a new mechanic called Ranked Spells that has three different progressively more powerful effects based on the amount of mana you have when you play them.

The idea was in part inspired by the Spellstones of the 2017 expansion Kobolds & Catacombs — which were powered up if you met certain criteria like playing a weapon — and the Omega cards from the 2018 expansion The Boomsday Project, which had powerful bonus effects if they were played when you had 10 permanent mana crystals.

"We thought, generally with the way the gameplay goes, cards are going to be weaker in the early turns and stronger in the late game," Georgiou said. "Wouldn't it be cool if a card could be both at the same time? That was kind of the mentality with it. They're cards that improve as the game goes on and become more useful as you need them."

The art for every Ranked Spell features one of the 10 mercenaries and are meant to indicate the characters leveling up.

"In Chain Lighting you see Bru'kan and you see Bru'kan growing in power as the spell ranks up," Georgiou explained. "It was really important to us that all three versions of the same spell are very cohesive. They're all very coherent. You can follow the progression of the story over the course of the spell ranking up. You see Bru'kan getting more powerful as chain lighting itself gets more powerful."

The other new mechanic introduced in Forged in the Barrens is Frenzy, which gives minion cards a one-time effect the first time they survive damage.

"it's really important to us that our mechanics feel thematically relevant and thematically linked," Georgiou said. "In this case, frenzy really tells the story of the resilience of the Horde. They're getting knocked down, but they're always getting back up again and they're even more ferocious than before because now they're injured and now they're mad. We got a taste of one-time triggers with Spellburst in Scholomance and we really liked them. They allow us to do some really cool effects that maybe wouldn't be possible if it was a repeatable effect."

The same progressing art style on Ranked Spells is found in Hearthstone Mercenaries, an entirely new play mode introduced during the BlizzConline presentation. While the developers are still keeping many of the details on how Mercenaries works under wraps, such as what form battles will take or how you'll acquire heroes, it's been described as more of a tactical RPG experience with roguelike elements.

"You'll be collecting some of those famous World of Warcraft characters and they'll have different abilities and go through combat phases," said senior game designer Alec Dawson. "The big thing that separates it from normal Hearthstone is there is a big focus on progression — collecting those heroes, leveling them up with equipment, and giving them some new abilities and then the roguelike stuff. Each run is going to be pretty different."

Each character has three modes, each with its own art, and they grow in power as they level up. While the mechanics will be very different, playing Hearthstone Mercenaries will still earn players XP for the game's Rewards Track system.

"It's very important to us that every aspect of Hearthstone that you play sync with our Rewards track and earn you progress," Georgiou said. "We're just consistently trying to improve upon ourselves and make our game better. We think that one way that we can really do that and to give our players the best experience is to give them different ways to play Hearthstone."

The release of Forged in the Barrens will coincide with the first rotation of Hearthstone's core set, something that Dawson said has been under consideration for years as the team and the game has grown. Going forward, the core set will rotate annually, with about 30% of the cards changing based on the archetypes they want to push and plans for the next year's expansions. The refreshes also provide the developers the chance to bring back fan favorite cards. Players who want to use the old core cards can check out the new Classic format, which will launch the same day as the rotation.

"Hearthstone has changed a lot over time, but at its heart Hearthstone is still the same," Georgiou said. "We owe a lot to the way Hearthstone was in 2014. We're excited for people to get to experience that again."

Much like its parent game did by releasing World of Warcraft: Classic while continuing to progress the story with Shadowlands, Hearthstone hopes to provide the mix of nostalgia and constant updates to satisfy its wide range of players as one of the best multiplayer games.

"I think right now the game is as healthy as it ever has been," Dawson said. "There's millions and millions of players playing Hearthstone every day. That says so much about what we're doing. We think we're giving a lot of great content out there. Our main mission is just to continue to be the best place for card games and create different modes within the card games as well. We think the core set and Forged in the Barrens is another great step in that direction."

What you need to know

• Hearthstone is going to introduce a new core set to the game.
• Existing Basic and Classic cards will no longer be playable in competitive matches.
• Expect more information to be released at BlizzConline on February 19.

Hearthstone is getting a big refresh with the next set rotation, which will feature both a new expansion and a new core set. The set of 235 cards will replace all of the game's Basic and Classic cards and includes 29 entirely new cards plus the return of some cards from previous sets and updated versions of past favorites.

Players will be able to earn Core Set cards by leveling up each of the game's classes and completing class-specific achievements. The rewards will also be retroactive based on a player's current class level. The Core Set will be refreshed each year going forward.

The current Basic and Classic sets will be phased out of competitive play and be marked as Legacy cards in the Wild format, which can be used in Adventure mode and casual Tavern Brawl matches. However, players looking for an old school experience can try the new Classic format, where they'll be able to make decks using the 240 cards available when the game launched in 2014. To make that easier, the number of decks players can have at one time will expand from 18 to 27.

A date for the next set rotation has not yet been announced, but expect more news to come out of BlizzConline on February 19. The new core set should provide a great time to get back into Hearthstone. If you're looking for something to do until then, check out our guide to all the World of Warcraft novels so you can learn about the lore and characters also featured in Hearthstone.

What you need to know

• Hearthstone is releasing a mini-set of 35 cards on January 21.
• The cards can be found in Madness at the Darkmoon Faire packs.
• A new solo experience focused on Prince Anduin will release on February 2.

Blizzard is expanding on the collection of cards in its digital CCG Hearthstone by releasing a new Darkmoon Races mini-set on January 21. All 35 cards will be available within packs of the Madness at the Darkmoon Faire expansion, which released in November.

Darkmoon Races will mark the return of mechanics first introduced in Ashes of Outland and Scholomance Academy such as dual-class cards and Spellburst, which triggers a powerful effect the next time the player casts a card. Players who want to get all of them can pick up a bundle through May 11 for $15 or 2,000 Gold which includes one of each of the set's four legendaries and two of all the other cards.

January 21 will also bring updates to the Battlegrounds system, introducing two new heroes and minions. Darkmoon Races will be added to Duels games the same day and players will have access to a new hero power and three new treasures.

On February 2, Hearthstone will launch a new single-player campaign focused on Prince Anduin of Stormwind. The fifth chapter in the game's Book of Heroes series is free to play and will show how Anduin learned to wield both holy magic and a sword as he traveled throughout Azeroth. Players who complete the campaign will receive a pack of cards for the Priest class.

What you need to know

• The next Hearthstone expansion is releasing on Nov. 17.
• Madness at the Darkmoon Faire is inspired by the 2016 expansion Whispers of the Old Gods.
• A new Hearthstone Duels game mode will create a hybrid of Arena and Solo Adventures.

Blizzard Entertainment is promising a whole bunch of updates to its free-to-play deckbuilding game Hearthstone next month.

The Madness at the Darkmoon Faire expansion will release on Nov. 17, bringing 135 new cards to the game as cosmic horrors invade the zany carnival. The set will include new versions of legendary minions including C'Thun and Yogg-Saron, who were previously released in the 2016 expansion Whispers of the Old Gods, and will also feature powerful spells inspired by that set called Old God Artifacts. The expansion introduces a new Corrupt keyword that lets players cast more powerful versions of a card after playing a higher-cast card.

Players who prepurchase a Madness of the Darkmoon Faire bundle will get the chance to try out the new Hearthstone Duels play mode before it goes live for all players on Nov. 12. Combining aspects of the PvP Arena mode with the Solo Adventures story mode, Duels will have players start with constructed decks from their own collections that they can update between matches by drafting additional cards and earning treasures.

The first season of Hearthstone Duels launches on Nov. 17 and will feature heroes from the Scholomance Academy expansion. Duels Mode games are free, though a Duels Heroic Mode rewarding card packs, in-game gold, cards, and Arcane Dust will cost $2 or 150 gold.

On Nov. 12, Blizzard will also release its biggest update ever to Hearthstone's progression system. A new achievements system will track in-game accomplishments, with the list expanding with every expansion. Players will also progress through a new Reward Track every expansion, accumulating experience points from playing that will give them gold, card packs, and cosmetic benefits.

Another new feature is Weekly Quest, which will appear alongside the game's Daily Quests and event-driven Legendary Quests. A new profile page will let players track all of their progress through these systems and other lifetime stats.

What you need to know

• Scholomance Academy, the next Hearthstone expansion, will launch in early August.
• The set will include 135 cards, including 40 Dual-Class cards.
• Players who log in before Oct. 20 will receive two free copies of a new epic neutral minion.

Blizzard Entertainment is releasing its next Hearthstone expansion in early August. Scholomance Academy will include 135 cards based around the magical college.

The set will introduce several new mechanics including Dual-Class cards, which are useable by two classes and embody mechanics and strategies they both share. The 40 Dual-Class cards include 10 Legendary professor minions, one for each pairing.

A Spellburst keyword found on many of the set's minions and weapons triggers a powerful effect the next time their controller casts a spell, while Studies cards will allow players to choose one of three cards to add to their hand and give them a mana cost reduction on the next card of that type they play.

"We love introducing new twists and mechanics to Hearthstone, and Scholomance Academy is one of our most inventive expansions to date," Blizzard president J. Allen Brack said in a press release. "This is Hearthstone at its best, and we can't wait to see what players do with the new Dual-Class cards and all the other tools and tricks we're adding."

A Scholomance Academy Mega Bundle available for $80 at Battle.net includes 80 regular packs from the set, five packs containing all Golden cards, one random Golden Legendary card, the Mage Hero Kel'Thuzad, a Kel'Thuzad card back and a Tavern Pass that provides four Arena tickets and perks for Hearthstone Battlegrounds. A $50 bundle includes 55 packs, the random Golden Legendary, and the card back.

Players who log in before Oct. 20 will also receive two free copies of the card Transfer Student, a new epic neutral minion. If you're looking to get back in the game, check out our guide.

Hearthstone is a continually evolving game, regularly releasing new content while phasing out old cards to keep the game fresh and competitive. If you haven't played in years, or at all, it might seem intimidating to jump in now. But the start of a new competitive season in April and an event going on through July means that now is a great time to give the digital collectible card game a try.

Blizzard makes it easy for new or returning players to join in, providing tutorials, notes in your interface about what's new, and starter cards so you can quickly build a competitive deck without investing any money. The game is free and playable on your phone, tablet, or computer, making it easy to get into. This guide should help make the process even more stress-free and let you just focus on having fun.

What is Hearthstone?

Hearthstone is a digital collectible card game set in the same universe as the Warcraft series. If you've played Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh!, or the Pokémon Trading Card Game, you'll be familiar with the basic mechanics. Players build decks of cards, including spells, minions, and weapons, which each have their own abilities. Then they tactically manage their resources and decide what cards to play when in order to defeat the opposing player.

Blizzard Entertainment first launched the free-to-play game in 2014 and has supported it with regular expansions, which contain between 100-200 new cards, and adventures, which introduce about 30 new cards that are unlocked by playing through the game's story mode. The latest expansion, Ashes of Outland, was released in April.

It took Wizards of the Coast four years to catch up with what Blizzard Entertainment by launching Magic: The Gathering Arena, but Hearthstone still has a host of advantages because it was designed to be digital rather than converting an existing game into an electronic format. Magic is more interactive, requiring players to wait on their opponents to see if they want to respond to spells being cast. Hearthstone instead uses secret spells that trigger automatically when certain conditions are met. This makes the game faster paced while still requiring players to consider the cards their opponents have or haven't played to try to anticipate their moves.

How can I play Hearthstone?

While Hearthstone was initially released only for Windows and macOS, the game has since become available on all iOS and Android devices. You'll have to use a Blizzard account when you play, but that means your collection will be shared across all platforms. You'll also be able to chat with your BattleTag and Real ID friends.

New cards and classes

Unlike most CCGs, players in Hearthstone don't just design a deck but pick a class. Classes are represented by signature characters from the Warcraft games, each with their own special abilities. Your class will also determine what cards can be in your deck. Inspired by aspects of the Burning Crusade and Legion World of Warcraft expansions, Ashes of Outland introduces the game's first new class, the Demon Hunter.

You'll receive 20 cards to use in your Demon Hunter deck if you complete a three-part prologue adventure featuring the signature Demon Hunter Illidan Stormrage. The deck you use for the prologue is built for you, and the fights aren't that hard, making it a perfect way to remind yourself of the rules.

The Ashes of Outland expansion contains 135 cards. More of the Common and Rare cards are devoted to Demon Hunters than any other class to help them build the options that will let them be competitive.

Competitive play

Like in Magic, competitive play is typically limited to cards from the most recent sets. In the case of Hearthstone, you can only use cards from the Basic and Classic sets and ones from the last two years. Standard rotations are referred to in zodiac-styled years, and the latest one, the Year of the Phoenix, also began in April.

If you haven't logged in since the Standard rotation changed, you'll be notified of the cards that can't be used in Standard and have the opportunity to automatically convert your decks to ones that only use Standard cards. Some of your Basic and Classic cards may have also been phased out to help game balance. If that happened, you'll be given a dust refund. Dust can be spent to craft new cards for your collection. Old cards are still valid in the Wild format, which can be used in Adventure mode and Hearthstone's more casual Tavern Brawl mode.

New mechanics

Ashes of Outland introduces two new types of cards: imprisoned demons and primes. Primes are minions that are unique to each class, with the exception of Demon Hunter. When removed from the board for any reason, they cause you to shuffle a much more powerful Prime version of the card back into your deck. Imprisoned demons are powerful minions that come into play dormant, which means they can't attack, defend, or be targeted by any effects. Once they become active, they're a force to be reckoned with.

You can find out what any card ability in Hearthstone does by hovering your mouse over it, so it shouldn't be too hard to pick things up. However, if you want to gain confidence, you might want to try some Casual games first. You'll still be able to earn gold and experience and complete quests while doing this without having to stress about affecting your player rank.

Pay to win?

You can play Hearthstone entirely for free, and you won't be at a significant disadvantage if you're willing to spend the time grinding for gold, the game's free currency, by completing quests and playing games. However, if you want to accelerate your progress, you have plenty of options.

A $10 Tavern Pass (https://us.shop.battle.net/en-us/product/hearthstone-tavern-pass) will get you four tickets to use in the Arena, where players draft decks and compete for substantial rewards. Competing there usually costs $2 or 150 gold. Tavern Pass holders also get some extra perks in Battlegrounds, an eight-player competitive mode that launched in November. If you want those benefits but don't want to pay real money, you can also buy a Tavern Pass for 1,250 gold.

Packs of cards cost 100 gold, but you can also pay for them in real money, starting at $3 for two packs. As of this expansion, once you have the maximum playable number of a given card, you'll never get an additional copy. This helps remove frustration and let you grow your collection faster. As an added incentive, Blizzard is giving a free deck from a class of their choice to players who haven't played the game in the past four months as soon as they make their way out of the New Player competitive league.

What's next?

Hearthstone is currently running a Felfire Festival event that will be releasing new content weekly through July 7. Upcoming additions include a new adventure and hero releasing on June 17, a challenge mode where you'll fight powerful World of Warcraft bosses starting June 24, and new versions of Tavern Brawl on June 24 and July 1. With plenty of new content to explore, it's a perfect time to get back into the game.

What you need to know

• Hearthstone is getting a new expansion called Ashes of Outland.
• This expansion is set in the realm of World of Warcraft's first expansion, the Burning Crusade.
• The Demon Hunter class is another major addition.
• All this content is part of the Year of the Phoenix, which begins on April 7.

Hearthstone players have a lot to look forward to, as Blizzard Entertainment reveals the slate of content coming with the Year of the Phoenix. To start off, this new wave kicks off with the Ashes of Outland, the first expansion in Year of the Phoenix. You can see the announcement trailer for Ashes of Outland below.

Ashes of Outland is set in the same space as the Burning Crusade expansion from World of Warcraft, with 135 new cards. Ashes of Outland adds an entirely new class, the Demon Hunter. This class accesses the Outcast cards, which are far more powerful when played from the left-most or right-most positions. You can take a look at the Demon Hunter class trailer below.

This class is entirely free for all players, who just need to complete the Demon Hunter Prologue campaign, which opens on April 2. This will grant 30 Demon Hunter cards, while future expansions during Year of the Phoenix (including Ashes of Outland) will each add 15 Demon Hunter cards.

The Year of the Phoenix is set to begin on April 7, bringing improvements to Ranked mode, Battlegrounds and more. Hearthstone is available on Windows PC, MacOS, iOS and Android devices.

What you need to know

• The annual "Free Your Mind" event gives Blizzard developers the freedom to develop their own modifications and enhancements for popular games.
• One notable result from the recent event showcases a virtual reality Hearthstone experience that pits players against each other in a tavern.
• While this is just an experiment and has no release date, other experiments from this annual event have been brought to the consumer version of the game via updates.

If you're a CCG (collectible card game) player, you'll know there's nothing quite like sitting at a table with a group of friends when you're playing cards. When Blizzard moved its World of Warcraft Trading Card Game from a physical medium to a digital one in 2014, it gained the popularity that was missing from the physical decks but lost something valuable in the process. VR is the perfect medium to use to introduce a more personal touch to the Hearthstone experience, as it can create the one-of-a-kind feeling of sitting in a tavern and playing cards with the gnarliest of beasts.

Hearthstone, like most Blizzard games, has been a commercial success. As such, Blizzard is always looking for ways to keep players interested and coming back to its games, and the annual "Free Your Mind" event that Blizzard holds has given developers the perfect opportunity to explore something new and reintroduce what was once removed. In an interview with PowerUp!, Hearthstone Lead Effects Artist Hadidjah Chamberlain talked briefly about the possibility of enhancing the world of Hearthstone with a virtual reality component:

This event is only for Blizzard developers and isn't publicly held, so while it's a ton of fun for developers to experiment with anything they'd like, the public doesn't typically get to see all the ideas presented. But there is a precedent for some of these ideas making their way to the final game, like last June's patch, which included two features that were previously invented during this "Free Your Mind" event. Like those features, it's entirely possible that we could see a version of Hearthstone in virtual reality at some point in the future.

Since Hearthstone's launch on the PC and Mac in 2014, it has since expanded to tablets and smartphones. Touch gameplay made a ton of sense, given the game's relatively simple visual design of cards on a table. Virtual reality gameplay makes even more sense, again given the physical presence that VR can offer CCG players. Hearthstone wouldn't be the first VR game to offer tabletop gaming, but it would likely be the most popular one by a long shot given the series popularity and the Blizzard name behind the experience.

The Ultimate Hearthstone beginners guide

The Chinese government is a totalitarian regime that actively censors any form of dissent. It is also a huge market that multinational corporations view as extremely lucrative, despite the ethical issues therein.

Civil unrest in Hong Kong is on-going, as the largely autonomous region protests its government who are being actively accused of attempting to forge closer alignment with the dictatorial Chinese system of governance. The political turmoil spilled over into esports this week, as Hearthstone grandmaster blitzchung was not only banned for an entire year, but also had his prize winnings stripped. Blizzard cited violation of its terms of service for the ruling, specifically the section where it states competitors must not bring "Blizzard's image into disrepute," along with offending the public.

The violation they're referring to is a post-match interview blitzchung gave, where he voiced support of democracy for Hong Kong.

Blizzard since offered this statement, fired both commentators who conducted the interview (despite the fact they said nothing on the topic), and closed down any commentary on its own blog post. Unfortunately for Activision Blizzard, it cannot control the massive backlash on Hearthstone's popular community subreddit.

from r/hearthstone

Several posts with tens of thousands of upvotes from veteran players are voicing their support for blitzchung, while noting that they plan to quit the game. Even U.S. lawmakers like Sen. Ron Wyden and Sen. Marco Rubio weighed in on the issue.

"Blizzard shows it is willing to humiliate itself to please the Chinese Communist Party. No American company should censor calls for freedom to make a quick buck," Wyden, a Senator from Oregon, tweeted.

It's not a good look for Blizzard, who has been reeling from a bad couple of years in terms of PR, despite previously being one of the most community-oriented publishers out there.

China is a vast market for Blizzard Entertainment and its parent, Activision, who are well-documented for putting profits and greed before basic morality. However, this very public appeasement of a dictatorial regime that is widely believed to be operating concentration camps for those who dissent against the government is quite truly a new low. As a huge fan of Blizzard, I cannot begin to express my disappointment.

Update: Angry Blizzard employees are protesting the decision too, covering up the "every voice matters" plaque outside the studio. As usual, this whole thing reeks of Activision.

Update #2: U.S. lawmakers have weighed in on the decision.

What you need to know

• Hearthstone is a free-to-play card game from Blizzard.
• In the game, different cards represent different factions or characters across many different Blizzard games.
• A new expansion called Saviors of Uldum is available today, bringing new quests and cards.
• Hearthstone's Saviors of Uldum card packs start at $3 for two card packs.

Today, Blizzard released a new expansion for Hearthstone players. Saviors of Uldum brings in a new questline, as the Arch-Villain Rafaam and his gang are up to no good. Within the shifting sands and plagues that scatter across the land of Uldum, this expansion is bringing new Plagues, Spells and gameplay mechanics for players to master. There's even the "death-defying" Reborn Minions, which come back to life after being destroyed.

There's other rewards as well. Starting today, if you log in you'll get a random Legendary Quest card. Starting the new Saviors of Uldum Legendary Quest will reward you with three Saviors of Uldum card packs! After you complete this quest, you'll get a new Hero power.

The new card packs added with Saviors of Uldum start at $3 for two packs, going all the way up to 60 packs for $70. Remember that if you're not inclined to pay money for them, you can also purchase card packs in-game using Gold currency. You can get Gold by winning games or completing quests and a wide variety of other challenges.

Affordable accessories that'll pair perfectly with your PC

Every one of these awesome PC accessories will enhance your everyday experience — and none cost more than $30.

KLIM Aim RGB gaming mouse ($30 at Amazon)

Whether you're a gamer or not, this is an absurdly good mouse for the price. It's ambidextrous, has a responsive sensor, a braided cable, tank-like build quality, and, yes, it has RGB lighting, though you can turn it off if that's not your thing.

AmazonBasics USB speakers ($16 at Amazon)

These neat little speakers may only pack 2.4W of total power, but don't let that fool you. For something so small you get a well-rounded sound and a stylish design. And they only cost $16.

Razer mouse bungee ($20 at Amazon)

Use a wired mouse? You need a mouse bungee to keep your cable tidy and free of snags. You get no drag on the cable, and this one has subtle styling, a rust-resistant spring and a weighted base, all for $20.

Hearthstone is set to receive its first of three big expansions in 2019. You'll come to know it as Rise of Shadows, an expansion themed around the uprising of a band of villains known as the League of E.V.I.L. Their wish is to take over Dalaran by any means necessary, and they don't care who gets in their way.

The big theme is that the class legendaries of this set are all souped-up versions of some of Hearthstone's most iconic cards. They'll act similarly to their earlier counterparts, but with added stipulations and twist, and potentially bigger rewards.

See Hearthstone Rise of Shadows at Blizzard

Hearthstone Rise of Shadows What's new?

Each expansion of Hearthstone tends to introduce new mechanics or rethink old ones. In Rise of Shadows, we'll see several new card keywords and gameplay mechanics that'll shake up the meta.

• Lackeys: These are 1-mana 1/1 minions that can be gained as rewards from playing other cards. The minions have some minor effects that can help you achieve victory.
• Schemes: The unique style of spells for Rise of Shadows, Schemes are cards that get more powerful effects the longer they stay in your hand.
• Callbacks: The featured legendary minions of this expansion are based on popular characters and mechanics from earlier sets, each coming with an exciting new twist.
• Twinspell: This is the keyword for a new card mechanic that, when played, allows you to add a second copy of it to your hand. The second card does not have the keyword.

A big part of Hearthstone is figuring out how to find key synergies and combos, and these new mechanics will certainly bring some fresh changes to the meta as people explore how they interact with existing cards.

Hearthstone Rise of Shadows New Cards

Blizzard usually aims for 130+ new cards for these expansions, and Rise of Shadows is no different. There will be 135, in fact, and some of them have already been revealed. Take a look at the gallery ahead to see everything coming in the new expansion.

Beyond those you can find in packs, there will be a number of other cards that you can only use during routine gameplay, such as Lackey minions.

A whole new adventure

Hearthstone's single-player component known as Adventures is coming back in traditional form. These adventures task you with beating a stream of bosses, often using pre-made decks.

With Rise of Shadows, you'll start with a single deck from a single class and use it to embark on a quest to defeat as many as 75 bosses and villains. You'll unlock new decks and hero powers as you go along, and battles take place on one of three difficulties.

Players can earn cards from completing each part of the adventure. The wings will cost 700 in-game gold, giving free-to-play players a viable way to earn a ton of new cards. You can earn 15 packs throughout, and those who are OK with spending a bit of money and want to experience the adventure can drop a cool $20 to play through it.

Your old cards are rotating out

Don't forget that with the launch of Rise of Shadows comes the Year of the Dragon rotation. Hearthstone is cycling cards out thanks to its yearly rotation model, which makes cards from the previous three sets only playable in the game's Wild format.

This means your massive collection of expansion cards will no longer work on the standard ladder. New decks and strategies will be formed as the constraints force people to try new things. And if you're missing your old stuff, you can always head back to Wild and play them as much as you want.

Hearthstone Rise of Shadows Pre-order your packs today

You can pre-purchase your Hearthstone: Rise of Shadows packs today. There's a built-in $10 discount compared to buying the packs normally, and you get a couple of benefits for putting your dollars in early.

There's a 50-pack bundle available for $50. It gets you a special card back and guarantees one legendary from the new set. An 80-pack option predictably goes for $80, but you also get that random legendary in golden, as well as immediate access to the new priest hero Madame Lazul.

See Hearthstone Rise of Shadows at Blizzard

You have until April 9, 2019, to pre-order Rise of Shadows, which likely means the expansion will launch shortly thereafter.

Well met! If you've been eyeballing Hearthstone, but you're not quite sure where to start, we've put together a beginner's guide that should get you settled into the game. It can be daunting at first, but don't worry - we're only going to be covering basic strategies here.

What is Hearthstone?

Hearthstone is a free-to-play card game for PC, Android and iOS based on the Warcraft fantasy universe. You pick a hero from one of nine classes and are pitted against another player online to defeat with spells and minions. You win when you reduce your opponent's health to zero.

Every turn, players draw a card and earn a mana crystal. Those mana crystals are expended to cast spells or summon minions from a player's hand; the more powerful the card, the more mana needed to play the card. At the beginning of a new turn, mana reserves are replenished to be able to play more cards, and an additional mana crystal is added (up to a maximum of 10). Spells can target opponents directly, their minions on the board, or the player's own minions. Minions have attack and health scores which indicate how much damage they do when battling enemies, as well as how much punishment they can take in return.

Players build 30-card decks with cards they earn through gameplay or in-app purchases. Some cards are specific to classes, while others are available to all classes. Each deck can have up to two of the same card (or one, if it's a powerful Legendary card). If your collection has more than two of a card (or more than one of a given Legendary) you can disenchant the duplicates into Arcane Dust, which can in turn be used to craft other cards.

Every couple of months a new Hearthstone expansion is released, which introduces new game mechanics and cards for every class to collect.

That covers the broad strokes. One of the first things you'll be doing after installing the game will be the tutorial which runs through the specifics of playing cards and attacking with minions. You'll want to get through that before reading on here.

Take care of minions first

Most of the time you'll want to prioritize having more minions in play than your opponent. This is referred to as board control. While zapping your opponent in the face with a lightning bolt may be tempting (taking them out is the point, after all), removing one of their minions from play is often the smarter move for a few reasons.

Spells will do their damage once and be done, but minions can attack turn after turn if left unopposed. Cumulatively, that minion will do more damage than a single spell.

Secondly, using spells to remove enemy minions means your own minions don't take damage from them in combat. That means they can last longer on the board and do more damage turn-over-turn. Your own healing effects and spells can also help ensure your minions get good mileage before they're destroyed, so don't be shy about healing them instead of yourself.

Trade efficiently

You won't always be able to take care of opponent's minions with spells. Inevitably, you're going to have to decide which of your opponent's minions to attack. When you attack a minion with one of your own, both sides are dealing and receiving damage at the same time. Ideally, you want to be taking out bigger creatures with smaller creatures. For example, if you have a 2/1 creature as above, and your opponent has a 5/2, you're in a good spot to trade. The damage potential of your opponent's minion is higher than yours (5 attack versus your 2) as is its survivability (2 health versus 1). Even though you both lose your respective minions when you attack it, your opponent is losing a more valuable minion. Victories are built on successive efficient trades like these.

Conversely, if you're the one with the 5/2 minion, trading into your opponent's 2/1 is highly inefficient. You only need 1 damage to kill their minion, so the extra damage from your minion's attack would be going to waste. If you're unable to remove the smaller minions via spells, other small minions, or a combination of the two, it may make sense to simply attack your opponent directly to take advantage of the full attack before your opponent trades on their turn.

Use your mana

Every mana crystal ultimately represents a unit of power you can apply to the board. At the end of your turn, you get nothing for unused mana, so make sure to use as much of it as possible every turn. For example, if you have six mana crystals to play with, you're likely better off playing two three-cost cards rather than a single five-cost card and leave a one mana crystal unspent.

The one tradeoff here is to consider keeping cards in your hand for future turns. If you have enough mana to use every card in your hand, it leaves you little to follow up with on your next turn. Worse still, if you're primarily playing minions, having a full board gives your opponent big value out of spells like Flamestrike, which deal damage to all of your minions.

Play unranked, play standard

There are multiple game modes to enjoy, but they can get competitive pretty quickly. To keep your sanity intact, try playing Casual Standard matches. Casual matches are less competitive, and you'll bump into players who are simply experimenting, or bots that play predictable decks. Standard mode means you'll only encounter cards that have been released in the last two years. Playing Wild would expose you to challenges that a limited collection will have a hard time dealing with. Meanwhile you're more likely to close the gap with only two years of cards to be considering.

If you ever feel the fatigue settling in, play some Solo Adventures. They have unique cards not available in multiplayer matches, producing some high-power, high-fun outcomes. You'll also get a chance to play around with some Standard cards that might not be in your permanent collection.

Complete Quests and Tavern Brawls

You need gold in order to buy packs and expand your card collection. While you get 10 gold for every three wins, you'll get much more from completing quests. You can only have three quests active at once. A new one is given every day, so make sure you've always got room for it by at least completing one quest every day. This consistent flow of gold will help you grow your collection. It may feel awkward at first playing classes you're not familiar with to complete your quests, but it's worth expanding your comfort zone, if only to get familiar with the cards opponents will play against you.

Tavern Brawl is a weekly event that puts a fun spin on the rules and awards a free Classic pack after you win a match. As a beginning player, these Classic cards are very valuable and will form the core of your collection. They don't phase out year-over-year like expansions do.

Arena is a particularly challenging game mode. It can be fun, especially as a beginner, since you're drafting a deck from a random assortment of cards which may or may not already be in your permanent collection. However, entering the Arena takes gold, and unless you can count on getting a certain number of wins before hitting three losses, you're likely better off investing your gold directly in card packs.

Seasonal events can be great opportunities to win promotional quests with bigger rewards, so keep an eye out!

Get all of your heroes to level 10

The quickest path to getting a strong collection of cards is levelling up every class to 10. Every time you play a game, the class you play gets experience points, which eventually leads to a level up. Up until level 10, you get a new Basic card every time you level up. These are like Classic cards in that they don't rotate out of Standard play like expansions do. These Basic cards are absolutely vital to unlock when first starting Hearthstone. If you're completing your daily quests and playing the full breadth of classes, it shouldn't take too long to get your heroes up to level 10.

Craft Whizbang

As mentioned earlier, you're going to eventually start collecting Arcane Dust. This is gathered by disenchanting cards beyond the two copies you have in your collection. When you have cards to disenchant, you'll see a little blue vial shaking beside the Crafting button in the bottom-right of the My Collection screen. The highest-value cards will cost 1600 Arcane Dust. While it may be tempting to craft cheaper cards to flesh out your collection, there's one card that's absolutely worth saving up for as a new player.

When you go to build a new deck, Hearthstone offers three deck recipes to get you started. One of the recipes stays constant year-round and uses Classic/Basic cards, while the other two shift with the expansions available. When you pick a recipe, it will automatically fill your deck list with all of the cards in your collection that are in the recipe, while giving you the opportunity to substitute any cards you don't have.

This is where Whizbang the Wonderful upends the entire process. When you put Whizbang into your deck, the deck is finished - no other cards. That's because when you play a Whizbang deck, you're randomly assigned one of the 18 expansion recipes currently available across all classes. On the one hand, you lose the ability to pick and choose which class to play, but on the other, you're getting the opportunity to play with cards that aren't in your collection (including rare and exciting Legendary cards). Additionally, these decks are well-balanced, minimizing your need to research and test your own custom decks.

At the end of the day, with Whizbang the Wonderful, you get to enjoy cards not in your collection, try out a variety of classes you might not otherwise play, and rest assured that the deck is constructed responsibly.

Hopefully that provides everything you need to know about getting ahead with Hearthstone. Sing out in the comments if you have anything else to add, or if you're having trouble with something specific.

There's no doubt that Blizzard's Hearthstone has been a runaway success since its launch in 2014, and nothing proves that more than the game's latest milestone: 70 million players. Blizzard marked the occasion in a new post on its blog alongside a special treat for players.

From Blizzard:

If you count yourself among that insanely large number of players, Blizzard is also handing out some free cards to celebrate the occasion. The next time you log in to the game, you'll receive 3 free card packs from the Journey to Un'Goro expansion. Thankfully, that bonus is available to everyone, including new players.

Now, how long before we're celebrating 100 million?

Download Hearthstone from Blizzard

Blizzard has announced the next single-player expansion for its collectible RPG card game Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft. One Night in Karazhan, where players get invited to a big party, will be released on August 11.

Here's how Blizzard describes the plot of the expansion:

The new content and features of One Night in Karazhan include:

• New Cards: Make your way through four wings chock-full of challenging bosses, unexpected twists, and mystical mayhem. Beat the bosses and earn their brand-new cards for your collection!
• Legendary: Get ready for truly dazzling legendary cards such as Moroes and many more.
• Class Challenges: As the evening progresses, you will unlock nine all-new class challenges that test your skills in surprising new ways. Succeed, and unlock their rewards!
• New Game Board: When an archmage throws a party, nothing but the best will do. Prepare to be spellbound by the magic of Karazhan!
• Never a dull moment: Your host may be a Guardian of Tirisfal, a vastly powerful magic user, and a fantastic dancer, but nobody's perfect. Some matters may transpire over the course of the evening that might require your… special attention. Come prepared!
• Portals Everywhere: This party is so intense, it's warping the very fabric of space and time to bring in more guests! Use the new portal spell cards to unleash the magic and summon random minions to the field.

Hearthstone players will be able to access the first prologue mission in the One Night in Karazhan expansion for free when it is released.

Download Hearthstone from Blizzard

The latest expansion to the Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft digital card game, Whispers of the Old Gods, is now available for players. This expansion adds a new, Lovecraftian horror dimension to the game, with new creatures and new spins on old cards.

Whispers of the Old Gods brings 134 new cards to the game. These includes Old God cards, C'Thun, Yogg-Saron, Y'Shaarj, and N'Zoth, which offer new and powerful abilities. There are also "corrupted" versions of old cards, which have different skills from their standard version. You can also be able to play Forbidden Cards, which consume all of your available mana for a turn to power its effect, increasing its potency with each mana point used.

When you open your first Whispers of the Old Gods pack, you'll get as part of it C'Thun, the god of madness, along with two Beckoner of Evil cards.

You can start playing Whispers of the Old Gods in Hearthstone right now. Note that, as of this writing, Blizzard is experiencing some authentication issues, and you may find yourself unable to login. The company is working to address the issue.

Fans of Blizzard's hit collectible card game Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft will be able to get their hands on its latest expansion pack soon. 'Whispers of the Old Gods' has a firm release date of April 26 in the U.S., followed by a release in Europe and Asia on April 27.

Blizzard says

There's still time to pre-order a 50 card pack for 'Whispers of the Old Gods' for $49.99. Pre-orders also can get an exclusive card back as a bonus.

Blizzard's hit collectible card game Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is getting its third major expansion pack soon. It's called Whispers of the Old Gods and it will be released sometime in late April or early May.

The expansion centers on the Lovecraft-themed creatures in the Warcraft universe. It will add 134 new cards to the game. Blizzard says:

Players can pre-order a 50 card pack for Whispers of the Old Gods starting March 14 for $49.99. Those folks will also get access to an exclusive card back as a bonus.

Blizzard has announced a brand new expansion for its popular digital battle card game, Hearthstone. Hearthstone: The League of Explorers adds a number of new elements and cards to the Hearthstone experience, all of which will help you find new relics, explore tombs, and fight evil.

League of Explorers will feature 45 new cards. The single-player expansion features four new wings full of danger, including traps, bosses and more, which will allow you to earn new cards. Clearing all of a wing's challenges for the first time will see you rewarded with that wing's legendary card, such as Elise Starseeker.

League of Explorers will also feature class challenges. The nine challenges, each focused on a different class, will give you a pre-built deck meant to help you prove your skill with a particular class. There will also be new game boards, and the new Discover keyword helps you find the cards in your collection that will help you the most. Finally, Heroic Mode will put a Heroic modifier on any challenge you've cleared, increasing its difficulty.

League of Explorers will arrive for all Hearthstone players on Thursday, November 12.

Source: Blizzard

The Grand Tournament, the latest expansion for Blizzard's popular Hearthstone card game, is now available. The Tournament adds 132 new cards for players to collect or purchase. The new cards include an assortment of knights, spells, and more, offering new strategies in your card brawls.

Also new to Hearthstone with The Grand Tournament is the Inspire keyword. Minions with this keyword attached will have special abilities that can be activated when you use your Hero Power.

As you continue to climb the Ranked Player boards, you'll receive rewards for your accomplishments. When you progress beyond rank 20, a chest will appear, filled with rewards. Some players will also receive the season's Ranked Play card back, extra Arcane Dust, and one or more golden cards.

In order to play The Grand Tournament, you'll need the latest version of Hearthstone, which can be downloaded directly from Blizzard.

Blizzard has now confirmed that The Grand Tournament, the second expansion pack for its hit free-to-play collectible card RPG Hearthstone, will officially be released on August 24 in the US and Europe, and in Asia on August 25.

As previously announced, The Grand Tournament expansion will add a total of 132 new cards for Hearthstone players to purchase and collect. Blizzard is throwing in a new keyword, "Inspire" into the game as well.

There's still time to pre-purchase a 50-card pack from The Grand Tournament expansion, which will have a special card pack, for $50.

Source: Blizzard

It looks like Hearthstone, Blizzard Entertainment's insanely popular card battler, is chugging right along with the game's next expansion: The Grand Tournament. Blizzard announced the expansion at an event in San Francisco today, revealing all new cards and more.

The story of The Grand Tournament takes players to the tournament grounds of Northrend, which were once used to weed out Azeroth's best fighters to take on the Lich King. Now that that threat has been dealt with, the tournament grounds are being used for sport, with invitations to compete being sent out to knights and champions all across Azeroth.

In all, The Grand Tournament adds 132 new cards to Hearthstone's roster, along with a new tournament-themed playing board. In addition, the expansion adds a new keyword for minions, called "Inspire," that activates whenever a player uses his or her hero power — bringing more depth and strategy to the gameplay.

The Grand Tournament will officially launch in August, but players will be able to pre-order a special bundle of packs from the expansion starting next week. The pre-order bundle will offer up 50 packs for a price of $50, with a special card back thrown in as a bonus. If you'd like to keep up with new cards as they're revealed leading up to the expansion's release, you can follow along at The Grand Tournament's official website.

Blizzard Entertainment's popular card-battling game based around the Warcraft universe, Hearthstone, has a new game mode ready for the playing. Tavern Brawl was announced last week, and presents users with a repeating, temporary event that spices up the action with a new set of rules each week.

In addition to the new Tavern Brawl mode, players also now have access to some new heroes to add a bit more flavor to their decks. Unfortunately, they're only available as separate purchases. However, if you're willing to shell out $9.99 for each hero, you'll have your choice of picking up the warrior, Magni Bronzebeard; the hunter, Alleria Windrunner; or the mage, Medivh.

If you're interested in checking out all of this new content, you can download Hearthstone's latest update to get started.

If you're a big fan of Blizzard's digital card game, Hearthstone, you'll be happy to know some big changes are coming. Perhaps the most notable of these changes is the addition of a new game mode called "Tavern Brawl," which is a repeating, temporary event that adds some unique flavor to matches. Here's how Blizzard describes it:

Tavern Brawls will be available to players that have at least one level 20 hero, and will run as temporary in-game events with different rule sets each time a new one starts.

Aside from the new game mode, Hearthstone is also set to pick up some new customization options that should be welcome from players. In an upcoming update, Blizzard is adding the first new hero since the game launched, the Dwarven warrior king, Magni Bronzebeard. Blizzard is quick to note that new heroes are for flavor only; meaning that it's a visual change only and hero powers will stay the same for each class. In addition, the company teased some upcoming heroes with silhouetted portraits for both the Hunter (Sylvanas? Alleria?) and Mage classes.

Finally, in the upcoming update, players will be able to assign custom card backs to specific decks, taking deck customization a bit further.

Blizzard says that these changes will come in patch 2.7, but the company didn't give a timeline for release. However, all things said, this looks to be a pretty awesome patch for us Hearthstone fans.

Source: Blizzard

The first expansion for Blizzard's free-to-play digital trading card game Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, called Goblins vs Gnomes, is now available to players. Focusing on the rivalry between Warcraft's two inventor races, the Goblins of Undermine and the Gnomes of Gnomeregan, the update comes with 120 new cards, new Mech minion types and more.

Here's a look at all that's on offer in Goblins vs Gnomes:

• Over 120 new cards, including new mech subtype
• Packs cost the same as existing expert packs (100 in game gold or $2.99 for two packs)
• Cards are also craftable
• Free arena pass over the weekend gave players chance to sample the selection

Players in the Americas have access to the expansion starting today, December 8, with those in Europe, Korea, Taiwan, and China able to enjoy the update from December 9. Available for Windows, the game can be downloaded from here. Let us know what you guys think of Hearthstone in the comments.

Source: Blizzard

Blizzard has started talking about plans for the next expansion to it's free-to-play digital trading card game Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft. The game's first add-on, Curse of Naxxramas, arrived earlier this year with a new single-player campaign, but the upcoming new content would be a full expansion, with over 100 new cards for everyone to play with. While Naxxramus was designed with a single-player focus, Hearthstone's first expansion will have something for new and veteran players, according to Polygon:

No release date for the expansion has been announced, but it's likely that we'll get our first look at the new content next month during Blizzard's annual BlizzCon event, which begins November 7.

Source: Polygon

The highly popular free-to-play online collectible card game Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, from developer Blizzard, just added a welcome new feature that will please a ton of fans playing the game on Windows 8-based tablets and touchscreen-enabled notebooks. The new 1.1.0.6187 patch, released today, has added support for playing the game on touchscreen devices running on Microsoft's latest PC OS.

Yes, that means that devices such as the Surface Pro 3 can simply touch the screen to interact with Hearthstone, rather than using a keyboard and mouse. This should be a huge help to the many Windows 8 players of the game who have had touchscreens but have not been able to take advantage of them until now.

Hearthstone, as you might guess from the title, takes its content from the fictional Warcraft universe that Blizzard created many years ago as one of the first real time strategy games and later as the hugely popular massively multiplayer game World of Warcraft. Hearthstone is a turn-based game where players compete online with their virtual cards to fight each other with weapons, spells and minions. The game entered open beta testing in January and officially launched in March and currently has 10 million players for the PC, Mac and iPad.

What do you think about Hearthstone adding support for playing the game via touchscreens on Windows 8 products?

Source: Hearthstone on Facebook