Every Hearthstone year is marked by one of the zodiac constellations in Azeroth’s night sky. The last year, Year of the Mammoth, finally comes to a close as another constellation becomes visible – the Raven! The celestial clock is ticking away, with little time left for the official transition to the Year of the Raven – another exciting year of adventures and escapades for Hearthstone players.
With the new year, two sets and one adventure are rotating out from the Standard format. These include – Whispers of the Old Gods, Mean Streets of Gadgetzan, and One Night in Karazhan. All other sets, including Journey to Un’Goro, Knights of the Frozen Throne, Kobolds and Catacombs besides the Basic and Classic sets will be available for deckbuilding. A new Hearthstone year means three new expansions, which have been teased briefly in a picture.
With every year, Blizzard makes certain cards from the Classic Set rotate out into the Wild format, which means they are no longer available for deckbuilding in the Standard format. This year the Classic cards rotating out include :
Ice Block : Needless to say, one of the more frustrating Mage cards you might have faced when you drop her health to zero, yet she somehow secures herself and wins next turn because of the secret. Considering the wide variety of board clears as well as stall options any Mage has, Ice Block just renders them impossible to defeat, which is made worse since they can have two of them in their deck when they run out of stalls, or simply get it from random card effects. The overwhelming power of the card means that Mage became so dependent on the card, Blizzard decided to step in and remove it from standard play altogether to allow more variations in Mage decks in the future.
Coldlight Oracle : Remember the time, when Rogue could play this tiny little guy by duplicating him over and over again through other cards, and force you to overdraw and lose your cards? Which meant that you couldn’t effectively answer the decks, since most of them would be removed, thanks to the limit of cards one can hold in their hand. Blizzard’s main objective, while restricting cards to only the Wild format is that Standard remains a fun place to play, and a place where beginner and veteran can compete together. Since Coldlight Oracle was an extremely frustrating card to play against, limiting deck building possibilities and possible counters to the card,Blizzard decided to step in and remove it from the Standard format altogether.
Molten Giant : One of the more peculiar options for moving to the Hall of Fame, or the place where cards removed from the Classic set every year are kept is Molten Giant. Previously, the card used to cost 20 mana, and not 25, which meant that several combo decks could make use of them to put up a huge board presence. Mage could duplicate it and play a whole lot of free giants to fill up her board and make a strong comeback. Paladin could use it in combos to deal monumental damage and finish off the enemy in one turn. Warlock could use it as some severe board pressure by chaining up his special ability to draw more cards (and deal damage to himself). What’s more, Blizzard is also changing the mana cost of Molten Giant back to 20 mana, which mean that it can be summoned much earlier. Maybe this is Blizzard’s plan to spice up the Wild format and make it a place for fond remembrance of all the decks that have been played in Hearthstone since its inception? Only time will tell.
Players having the above three cards will be granted full dust refunds (dust is an ingame currency used to craft cards) and they get to keep the card, without dusting it.
In order to ease down the grind, Hearthstone’s quests will become much easier, and will reward more gold from now on. All 40 gold quests will now award 50 gold, with reduced requirements for completing it, while all quests awarding 50 gold or above now award the same amount of gold, but their requirements have been heavily toned down. More quest changes are expected to be on the way.
An in-game tournament mode, which was much craved for by the players since time immemorial, will actually materialize in the Year of the Raven. To start with, it will have basic features like matchmaking and deck checking, with more features scheduled to be introduced later. Scheduled to launch in the middle of this year (likely with the second expansion scheduled for release this year), Blizzard looks forward to feedback from the players on it in order to improve the experience with it.
With the launch of the first expansion in the Year of the Raven, a new Druid hero, Lunara, the eldest daughter of the demi-god Cenarius. Despite being a dryad, she has inherited her father’s protective attitude of Nature, and looks forward to protect it as part of her duty to uphold the family name. 10 victories in Standard mode in ranked or casual mode will allow the players to select her as an alternative Druid hero.
All questions about the Year of the Raven will be addressed by Game Director Ben Brode and Lead Producer Yong Woo in a live QnA session on Twitch on March 2 at 11:00 AM PST. Be sure to join in!