A huge Hearthstone expansion is coming, entitled March of the Lich King, which will introduce the brand-new Death Knight class to the game alongside a slew of other features. Although the game has been around since 2014, Hearthstone has only introduced a new class once before, with the Demon Hunter class coming to the game in 2020. The Hearthstone 25.0 update will add much more than a new class, however, also introducing new mechanics and minions to the game.
Although it can sometimes be difficult to incorporate the lore of World of Warcraft into Hearthstone, the new March of the Lich King expansion features it in spades, focusing on a very specific era in the Warcraft universe. Inspired by the conflict between the Scourge and Blood Elves at Silvermoon City, the expansion features a new prologue that follows Prince Arthas Menethil on his dark journey towards becoming the Lich King. Upon completion of the prologue, players will unlock the Death Knight class and 32 new Hearthstone cards to get them started on their Death Knight journey, which in total includes 68 class cards.
Hearthstone: March of the Lich King will introduce more ways than ever before for players to customize their decks via the new Rune system. Just as there are different types of Death Knights in World of Warcraft, players will choose between Blood, Unholy, or Frost – or a combination of them – when designing their Death Knight’s forte. Each player will be able to choose three runes from any of those three subclasses, with their choices determining which Death Knight cards they have access to. For example, a player with three Frost runes will be able to utilize the most powerful cards of that archetype, like the seven-Mana cost Frostwyrm’s Fury, while a player using only one Frost Rune will only be able to use the two-Mana cost Defrost.
Each of the Rune-based deck archetypes in Hearthstone‘s new expansion focus on different strengths, much of which rely on the new mechanic of Corpse generation. All Death Knight players will now have a Corpse counter which will rise whenever a friendly minion dies, and these in turn are used in conjunction with cards for powerful moves. This also ties into Death Knight’s Hero Power, Ghoul Charge, which summons a 1/1 Ghoul with Charge that will die at the end of the turn, giving players a consistent source of Corpse production if need be.
Blood Rune cards focus on health regeneration and powerful minions, frequently using mechanics like Lifesteal or utilizing Corpses with cards like Corpse Explosion to repeatedly deal damage to an opponent’s entire board. Frost-centric decks focus on dealing lots of direct damage via spell synergies and mana control, freezing enemy minions and quickly taking up real estate on the board. Lastly, the Unholy runes in Hearthstone‘s new expansion are all about Corpses and the Undead, controlling the board by raising their own Corpses and utilizing cards that give Undead minions properties like Reborn – a keyword that’s returning as an evergreen mechanic.
Of course, Hearthstone: March of the Lich King gives players many options to tweak which rune strengths they want to apply to their deck. While players can choose to have three of the same rune, it’s also encouraged to mix and match runes to create more specialized sets of cards. For example, a deck with two Blood runes and one Unholy rune can gain consistent Corpse generation through Unholy cards, and in turn use them to better fuel their strong Blood rune minions. Developers emphasized that this new expansion will ideally be an accessible entry point to Hearthstone for new players while also offering a new style of deck-building challenge for experienced players – those new to the game can choose from the game’s premade Death Knight decks to find a rune combination they like, while veterans can get deep into the meta of each rune type.
Undead minions aren’t just for Death Knights, either – hundreds of past minions have been updated as Undead, which has also introduced some new dual-type minions to the game. Alongside this new minion type, Hearthstone players will also now encounter the manathirst mechanic with the March of the Lich King expansion, a new keyword that activates special additional abilities once players have the prerequisite number of mana crystals. For example, the Frost card Arcane Bolt has a manathirst of eight, with the spell dealing an extra point of damage once players have eight crystals, while still only spending one mana.
A new event begins this week that harkens back to early days of Hearthstone, bringing back all the cards from the 2017 expansion Knights of the Frozen Throne into Standard until the release of March of the Lich King. The new event, called Knights of Hallow’s End, is part of an overall revamp of Hearthstone‘s event system. Events will now have a dedicated space in the game’s UI, and event rewards will have a special place in players’ journals while the event is active.
The new Hearthstone: March of the Lich King expansion has the potential to bring some of the most variety to the game yet eight years into its lifespan. The new rune mechanic that accompanies the Death Knight class will allow for an incredible amount of new strategies and metas, and its inventiveness may inspire some players who’ve stepped away from the game to make a return, as well as opening up the game to a new set of beginner Hearthstone players. Every class will benefit from the 25.0 update, with a total of 203 cards being added across all of them, as well as some existing minions receiving the new Undead classification. The addition of a new class to Hearthstone is a huge occasion, and the Hearthstone: March of the Lich King expansion delivers an incredible amount of new lore and mechanics that’s sure to satisfy any style of player.
The Hearthstone: March of the Lich King will release on December 6 for PC, Mac, and iOS and Android devices. Screen Rant attended a special hands-on event for the purpose of this preview.