New Hearthstone Expansion: The Grand Tournament

Update: View list of cards released so far in this dedicated post.

Summary

• Released next month (August 2015).
• 132 new cards.
• Card Pack expansion like Goblin versus Gnomes.
• Next week players are going to be able to pre-purchase 50 Packs at discounted rate with an unique Card Back as a reward.
• New keyword / mechanic – Inspire. Activates whenever you use Hero Power.
• The general theme of expansion is Hero Power – a lot of new cards interact with them.
• New game board.

Card Reviews

Camezee’s The Grand Tournament Review Part 1

Introduction

The new expansion was first hinted around the start of the month with “Argent Tournament” scrolls being sent by Blizzard around the world. The official announcement took place on July 22 with Blizzard’s lead designer Eric Dodds teasing new expansion – The Grand Tournament.

First, he hinted at few other possible ideas, some of them not entirely serious:

Pirates vs Ninjas

Taurens vs Worgens

Lich King vs Battle Pets

After those hints, he announced the name of the new expansion and followed it with a trailer. You can watch the trailer here. Next, Dodds has shown couple of new cards and new mechanic – Inspire. Later, matches (casted by Kripparrian and Frodan) between Trump, Amaz and Firebat were played, showcasing some of the new Mage, Shaman and Hunter cards.

Game Board

The Argent Tournament is going to feature a new game board. You can see how it’s going to look below:

Inspire

Blizzard introduced a new keyword (like Battlecry or Deathrattle) for the first time ever. It’s called Inspire and it activates whenever you use your Hero Power.

The first example Blizzard has given is Lowly Squire – a 1/2 minion for 1 mana with Inspire: Gain +1 Attack. It means that whenever you use Hero Power, the Lowly Squire gets one point of attack. The effect is permanent and can stack.

Official explanation of the mechanic: “Minions with the inspire keyword possess a special ability that may only be activated by using your Hero Power. Deploy them in force to gain tremendous value, or drop them at just the right time to give your play the perfect boost. Can you really inspire an ogre? Absolutely! It just takes finesse (or a ham).”

Cards

Out of the 132 cards the expansion will contain, 15 of them were shown today. The expansion is confirmed to be similar to Goblins versus Gnomes – the cards will come from the new type of Card Packs. Next week, players will be able to pre-purchase the bundle of 50 Card Packs at discounted price that are gonna come with an unique Card Back.

Those are the cards we currently know about:

Players can vote for the cards they want to see next on the official Grand Tournament’s site.

Showmatches

There were two Bo3 showmatches going on. First between Trump (Mage) and Amaz (Shaman), where the winner (Trump) was going to face Firebat (Hunter). Pros were playing premade decks that featured some of the new cards – especially those centered around interactions with Hero Powers. Both of those matches were casted by Kripparrian and Frodan. If you want to watch them, you can check out the VODs here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. The stream had technical difficulties, so the VoD is cut in three and some parts are missing.

Closing

Hearthstone Players is gonna supply you with all the news, card evaluations and everything related to The Grand Tournament, so stay tuned!

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