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Hearthstone: Blackrock Mountain: Release date, price & cards

We have the cost and a rough release date for the expansion plus the first batch of Hearthstone: Blackrock Mountain cards

Blizzard just finished its livestream from Pax East and we’ve seen the first five cards to be unveiled. As expected the new expansion will take the form of a second adventure, in the same manner of the first Naxxramas adventure that was released last year. Based around the Blackrock Mountain area in World of Warcraft, it will concentrate on Dark Iron Dwarves, Dragons and Fire Elementals. The wings will be released on a weekly basis, with the first wing being Blackrock Depths.

Here are all the details you need to know.

BLACKROCK RELEASE DATE

A liitle vague this at present, but it’s defintely coming sometime in April. You will be able to pre-order the expansion, starting on the 19th or 20th of March (depending on your region). Pre-orders will be for a one-off cash price for the whole expansion, which will consist of five wings and 31 cards. Those pre-ordering the whole expansion will get a special preorder card back with lots of lava on it.

BLACKROCK PRICE

Each of the five wings will cost 700 gold or $7 (regional pricing is yet to be announced), or you can buy all five wings together for $25, a saving of $10 on the individual pricing. The heavy discount and pre-order bonus card both look like efforts on Blizzard’s part to make you part with your cash, rather than save up for the expansion with gold. As we’ve still got a lot of the G&G cards to get, we’ll probably be paying upfront and spending that gold on more packs instead. 

BLACKROCK CARDS

There are going to be 31 new cards in total. Presumably there will be nine class cards in the expansion and (most likely) five Legendary boss cards (unless there’s any more pairs such as Feugen and Stalagg). That’s 14 in total, leaving 17 more cards to be spread across the five wings, with roughly 3 cards per wing, plus a couple of extra ones floating somewhere.

We’ve seen five cards to date:

DARK IRON SKULKER

The most interesting card out of the first bunch, as it’s the new Rogue class card. This adds a powerful, single card, board clear to Rogues, in addition the more combo-reliant Blade Flurry card. It looks very powerful, as most minions are either undamaged or dead in the early stages of the game, and this anti-aggro card should see a lot of play. With the ability worth at least 3 mana in our opinion the capable 4/3 body is a big plus on top. Only the preference for 3 health minions in the current meta and the resulting drop in basic board clears (consecration etc) might hold it back.

GRIM PATRON

Having said that, board clears could be right back in fashion when this guy gets unleashed. a five-mana 3/3 isn’t great, but run him into a 2/3 but a warrior could quickly expand this guy into a veritable army with Whirlwind and Death Bite. Making some favourable trades along the way, and then maybe comboing it with a Knife Juggler and you’ve got a very interesting card.

HUNGRY DRAGON

Dragons are going to be big in Blackrock, with Blizzard promising Dragon-themed decks – although its attempts to revitalise Murlocs and Pirates in G&G weren’t very successful, so we’ll wait and see. The Hungry Dragon is the first new dragon and works a bit like a reverse pilotedf mech, giving you a big 4-mana beast with great 5/6 stat distribution, but at the cost of a random 1-drop for your opponent.

REND BLACKHAND

Following up on the Dragon theme is this Legendary card. It’s a variant on the Big Game Hunter, but it can gun down any legendary card as long as you’re holding a dragon. Yes, that’s a new mechanic there, and one that alerts your opponent to what’s in your hand, though by turn 7 it should be pretty clear to them anyway if you’re playing a dragon deck.

BLACKWING TECHNICIAN

Taking some of what we’ve discussed above is this card, again its ability is based on your having a Dragon in your hand. A 2/4 3-drop isn’t bad, but a buffed 3/5 3-drop is pretty good, trading with other 3-drops and surviving easily. Will live or die based on how good other Dragon cards are.

BLACKROCK BOARD

And of course there’s a new board that apparently lets you play with weapons, lava and runes.

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