Hearthstone’s Rise Of Shadows Expansion Is Now Live

Blizzard has officially launched Rise of Shadows, the latest expansion for Hearthstone. The release of the expansion marks the end of the Year of the Mammoth and the start of the Year of the Dragon.

The official launch time for all regions, Americas, Europe, Asia, and China, was 1:00 p.m. EDT

Rise of Shadows focuses on Arch-Villain Rafaam as he forms the League of E.V.I.L. This latest expansion introduces three new features to the game:

New Minions: Lackeys – Generated by EVIL cards that add Lackeys to your hand, Lackeys are 1/1 minions that, while lacking in terms of raw stats, have powerful Battlecry effects.

New Spells: Schemes – Schemes are powerful spells that become even more powerful the longer they stay in your hand.

New Keyword: Twinspell - Twinspells are spells that, once cast, create a copy of themselves in your hand to be used whenever you like.

Legendary Launch Quests are also available to players who log in every during the launch of Rise of Shadows:

Day 1 - Play 25 Cards in Play mode

Rewards: 1 Rise of Shadows card pack & 1 The Witchwood card pack

Day 2 - Play 5 Games in Play mode

Rewards: 1 Rise of Shadows card pack & 1 The Boomsday Project card pack

Day 3 - Draw 20 Cards in any mode

Rewards: 1 Rise of Shadows card pack & 1 Rastakhan’s Rumble card pack

Day 4 - Win 1 Game in Play Mode

Rewards: 1 Rise of Shadows card pack & 1 The Witchwood card pack

Day 5 - Play 100 Cards

Rewards: 1 Rise of Shadows card pack, 1 The Boomsday Project card pack, 1 The Witchwood card pack, and 1 Rastakhan’s Rumble card pack

Other changes in the expansion include updating Poisonous, Lifesteal, and Overkill. In the past when a card loses its Poisonous, Lifesteal, or Overkill keyword between dealing damage and applying the keyword effect, said effect is not applied. With the update, if a card has these keywords, the effect is immediately applied the moment the card deals damage.

Additional game improvements include:

- Fixed an issue where playing The Golden Monkey with Augmented Elekk on the board would cause extra legendary minions to be shuffled into your deck.

- Updated the text of Masked Contender from "play" to "cast."

- Fixed an issue where Shadow Reflection could show incorrect card art after multiple cards are played quickly before the animation sequence of Valeera the Hollow finished.

- Fixed the history panel so that it correctly displays the enemy Hero with a red banner if that player is using a golden Hero.

- Fixed an issue with Brawl that could cause it to choose a minion that died before the Brawl effect resolved.

- Fixed an issue where secrets stolen by Treasure from Below could display the card art of the stolen card in the history panel.

- Fixed an issue that caused a minion to be unable to attack for a turn if stolen after attacking it with the Supercollider weapon.

- Fixed an issue where playing Krag'wa the Frog the turn after playing a Spellstone would give you a copy of the Spellstone that kept the original's progress towards the next upgrade.

- Fixed an issue where clicking on a Charge/Rush minion as it comes into play could make it unclickable for the rest of the game.

- Fixed an issue where Stargazer Luna would not trigger if the right-most card in hand was a minion and changed controllers after coming into play.

- Fixed a number of display issues with golden card animations on some older cards.

- Master of Disguise will no longer play the stealth animation on the opposing Hero if there are no valid targets on the board.

- [Mobile] Fixed an issue that could cause some phones to display the UI intended for tablet devices.

- [Mobile] Centered Lady Liadrin's face in the deck tile.

- [Mobile] Fixed an issue that caused broken plant textures on the Rastakhan Rumble board when viewed on some devices.

The full patch notes for Rise of Shadows can be viewed here. A Card Gallery for Rise of Shadows is available here.