Blizzard have revealed that the next expansion for their wildly popular online card game Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft will be called The Grand Tournament. Packing over 100 brand new cards, the expansion is set to release in August.
Rumours regarding a possible new expansion had been swirling for some time and it would seem they were pretty on the money. The expansion is based on World of Warcraft‘s Argent Tournament update, hence all the jousting and mounts you can see in the key art.
Blizzard made it clear that the Hearthstone version of the Argent Tournament will be rather less heavy-going than its MMO counterpart, inkeeping with Hearthstone‘s humourous tone.
The event will come with a new board full of interactivity and new cards like Skycap’n Kragg, which is a legendary change card that will cost you one less for every friendly pirate minion you have on the board. Maiden of the Lake is another new minion that makes hero powers just one mana crystal. Coldarra Drake on the other hand will let players crank their hero power however many times they want in a single turn, provided they can afford it.
There’s also the Frost Giant, who will run you 10 mana just getting him on the board but he will cost you less for every hero power used during the game.
Minion cards can now hold a new keyword called “inspire”. Inspiration cards will have an ability activated by using a hero power (eg: if you were to give it to your Lowly Squire (a single attack minion) their attack will increase by one each time you get your hero power off while they are in play.
Hunters are getting a new spell called Lock and Load that will drop a random hunter card into your hand every time you use a spell in a turn alongside it.
According to Blizzard, fans can expect 130 brand new cards to arrive with the expanion. They will be making it available for pre order next week which will give players to opportunity to pick up 50 card packs for AU$64.99 and get themselves a new card back in the bargain. The Grand Tournament arrives next month.
Hearthstone was released after an extensive beta period last year and has seen a number of high profile updates since, even moving from the PC to mobile devices. For more on Hearthstone, check out our guide on building a killer deck.
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