The Hearthstone community is on high alert for information regarding the next expansion since it should be rolling out in April.
The Hearthstone development team recently took to Reddit for an AMA and revealed that we’ll be getting a new free card a week before the next expansion.
Players who were around during the launch of Kobolds & Catacombs might remember Marin the Fox. This card was an eight-mana cost, six attack and six health minion with a very interesting Battlecry. Marin would summon a treasure chest for your opponent with zero attack and eight health. If you killed the treasure chest, you got an awesome loot card.
Marin was released the same week as Kobolds and was given to every player who logged in during that time period. So tons of people were testing out the new card on ladder and made existing decks feel even more exciting heading into the launch of that expansion.
Similar to how things worked with Marin the Fox, this new card will come to players a week before the expansion launches, more than likely sometime in April. Since the fresh free card isn’t something that happens with every expansion, the team shared some insight into why it has decided to do it this time around.
The team said players really seem to enjoy having a burst of flavor and change right before a new expansion hits. By giving players the card a week before the expansion, the team hopes to generate excitement and get people engaged with the game. Developers also said they wanted to make sure players had the opportunity to use the card during the expansion pre-release weekend.
Although we don’t have any details about what the actual card is at this point, we can expect it to be something fresh and meta changing. Something the developers focused on throughout the AMA is how dedicated they are to making the meta feel new. The team has already announced it plans on removing Genn and Baku from standard play a year early, so it seems like the goal really is to keep things fresh.
While we don’t have an exact release date for the new card or the expansion, most people in the community believe both will be coming in early or mid April.
