Hearthstone: United in Stormwind expansion launches today

Hearthstone’s United in Stormwind expansion launches today, featuring 135 cards, a new keyword and more.

Tradeable keyword

Tradeable is a new keyword featured in the United in Stormwind expansion. For one mana, cards with the keyword can be dragged back into a player’s deck to draw a new card. Heavy Plate is an example of this, letting Hearthstone players either gain Armor or swap the card for another one.

Legendary Questlines

United in Stormwind includes Questlines, which are Legendary spells that have three levels of progression. Whenever a tier is complete, the player receives a reward. An example of a Questline card is Seek Guidance for the Priest class.

The final reward for completing the series of quests for Seek Guidance is Xyrella, the Sanctified. This card shuffles a Purified Shard into a player’s deck. When played, Purified Shard destroys the enemy hero.

Profession tools and mounts

Players of the new Hearthstone expansion can also encounter profession tools and mounts. While profession tools are weapons with special effects, as opposed to attack values, mounts can help players in battle by summoning another minion after the token gets taken down.

Runed Mithril Rod is a profession tool for the Warlock class that can reduce the cost of cards in a player’s hand. Meanwhile, the Elekk Mount buffs a minion and gives it Taunt. When it dies, it summons an Elekk for the player.

Ahead of the United in Stormwind launch, Hearthstone content creators also participated in card reveals and a theorycrafting event. All 135 of the new cards can now be viewed on Hearthstone’s website.

United in Stormwind forges ahead

There are no plans to delay the launch and push back developments, according to a reddit post by Hearthstone Lead Designer IksarHS. The post was created in context of what has been happening with Activision Blizzard.

“Our focus has been on supporting each other and planning action for how we can make our work a better place for everyone,” IksarHS said. “Something we’ve clearly failed at in the past. Having any celebration is a hard sell right now. I can assure you the only hesitation we have with moving forward with things like streams or card reveals is out of the respect for our co-workers.”

The post noted that it’s an important time to reflect and ensure that the best path forward could be found. IksarHS addressed that there is no “gag order” or legal team telling the Hearthstone team what they can or cannot say. “Our focus is simply on each other right now,” IksarHS added.

IksarHS shared that the team cares about their work and that they’re still passionate about delivering a great game because it’s the reason most of them are there in the first place.

“We don’t have plans to delay our launch or push back further developments,” IksarHS said. “We are just taking time to make sure we get this moment right.”