Hearthstone announced that once the Year of the Phoenix is done, it’s going to mark the start of the Year of the Gryphon. Players can expect some large-scale changes along with the introduction of new cards. There’s also going to be new ways to play arriving for everyone.
Three new expansions are to be released in the Year of the Gryphon. The first of these is Forged in the Barrens inspired by the location of the same name in World of Warcraft.
Get your Bundle Now
The upcoming expansion is set to bring 135 new cards to the game. A total of 10 Legendary Mercenary minions are coming too with each representing a different class of the game.
Two bundles are currently being offered for Forged in the Barrens. The basic bundle is priced at $49.99 that includes 60 packs from the expansion plus two random Legendary Cards and the Hamuul Runetotem card back. The Mega Bundle, on the other hand, is available at $79.99 and contains:
- 85 card packs from the expansion
- 5 of these are Golden Card Packs, which contain all Golden cards
- 2 random Golden Legendary cards
- Hamuul Runetotem card back and alternate Hero
- perks for Hearthstone Battlegrounds that last until the next expansion
Pre-purchase the bundles here.
Core Set & Classic Format
Arriving with the Year of the Gryphon is the Hearthstone Core Set. This one replaces the Basic and Classic cards and is free for everyone to unlock. You can read more about that here.
Hearthstone Mercenaries
Hearthstone is also introducing a new single-player and competitive game mode called Mercenaries. Here, players can collect different characters from the Warcraft universe and even get to level them up. More information about this new mode will be released near the launch date.
In a statement, Blizzard Entertainment President J. Allen Brack said players can expect another exciting time with Year of the Gryphon especially with the Forged in the Barrens expansion. The upcoming Core set meanwhile, he added, is sure to introduce new ways to play along with Mercenaries.
New Patch
Hearthstone has released Patch 19.6 that introduced the pre-purchase for the game’s Forged in the Barrens. Of course, there are the usual balancing changes in the update. One of these is High Abbess Alura, which has its mana cost increased from four to five. According to the Dev Team, the increase was done to push out the swing turns that Alura enables.
Read more about this new patch here.
