This Public Service Announcement is brought to you by Hearthstone Players so you don’t miss out – potentially forever – on some pretty nice Hearthstone content.
Here is what you need to be aware about on the next few days:
By April 24th 2016:
This day marks the end of Apple’s “Apps For Earth” promotion, where 100% of the profits from certain sales go towards the World Wildlife Foundation.
Especially for this event, Blizzard has made available a new Mage alternate hero: Medivh’s apprentice Khadgar, one of Warcraft’s most storied characters and also one of the most powerful Archmages alive in present-day Azeroth.
Khadgar was one of the stars of the latest World of Warcraft storyline, in the Warlords of Draenor expansion, and looks set to feature prominently in the next “Legion” expansion. It is also quite likely that he will play a role in the upcoming Warcraft movie.
Khadgar comes with his own portrait, emotes, and hero tray art, as well as featuring a special animation when using his hero power.
While there is the possibility that Blizzard will eventually put him back on sale (they have once backtracked with the limited availability window for the Digital Collector’s items of World of Warcraft’s Warlords of Draenor expansion), it is unlikely that the company will do so.
So if you fancy yourself a digital collector (or a huge Mage fan) you would do well to act before the promotion ends – odds are that Khadgar will be gone for good after that.
Sadly, since it is tied to an Apple promotion, you can only buy it via Hearthstone’s iPad or iPhone versions. So people without access to Apple’s hardware are out of luck.
(note: after buying it on the iOS versions, you can use Khadgar on every other version)
By April 26th 2016:
Alright, this is a big one. April 26th marks the launch of the new “Whispers of the Old Gods” expansion, and with it, the first cycling out of cards in Hearthstone’s main competitive format, “Standard”.
In order to prevent confusion and potential wasting of money, Blizzard is retiring the ability to buy the non-standard cards, electing to let players who want to complete their collection craft them instead.
However, this means that they will also remove from the shop – again, potentially forever – the ability to purchase Hearthstone’s first single-player adventure, “The Curse of Naxxramas”, which was part single-player game, part delivery mechanism for that particular set of cards.
Naxxramas remains to this day a very enjoyable short adventure, with some truly interesting puzzles and funny emotes from the computer controlled opponents.
Its Heroic mode, in the meantime, is a true test of a player’s deck building skills. The cards that the player wins from completing the Adventure are also still quite viable in Hearthstone’s non-standard modes.
So if a fun romp through some puzzle-based encounters against funny CPU opponents seems like the kind of thing you’d find enjoyable, make sure to go grab “Curse of Naxxramas” before the 26th.
If the 22€ / 25$ cost seems like a pretty steep price, Blizzard has stated that if you only buy the first “wing” / section of the adventure ( 6€ / 7$) you will still be able to purchase the remaining ones later on. Do keep in mind that you will spend more money long-term if you choose this route.
Finally, the 26th “likely” marks the deadline of the “Whispers of the Old Gods” pre-order promotion, where you can buy (though not yet open!) a bulk 50 card packs from the new expansion at a decent discount, plus be awarded an exclusive card back.
I write “likely” because in previous expansions the promotion was actually retired shortly before launch, so if you have any interest in purchasing card packs at a discount, the sooner you do it, the safer you’ll be.
