The release of Hearthstone's March of the Lich King expansion is only days away, and a recent theorycrafting event has shed more light on all that the upcoming release has to offer. While the obvious standout from the 25.0 update is the introduction of the brand-new Death Knight class, there have been card additions for every hero that add new depth to the title. The expansion is inspired by conflict between the Scourge and Blood Elves at Silvermoon City, with each of the game's existing classes choosing a side.
Since the game's launch, a new class has only been added to Hearthstone once before with the introduction of Demon Hunter, making the Death Knight's permanent addition a huge event for the card battler. The Death Knight class is further split by Rune specifications, which determine the cards players can use in their deck. Players will choose three Runes from categories Blood, Frost, or Unholy, each with their own specialty: Blood focuses on health manipulation and powerful late-game moves, Unholy is centered around Corpse generation, and Frost is all about freezing and destroying enemies with spells.
Undead minions are a new addition that will impact all classes, being added as a secondary descriptor to some existing minions alongside new ones. In Hearthstone 25.0, Undead minions will be one of several build-around decks players may be inspired to create due to their ability to be utilized by different spells and abilities of other minions. Priests in particular will be able to get a lot of mileage out of the minion type - some cards like Grave Digging, which draws 2 cards, cost less if a friendly Undead has died since the player's last turn, and the 3/5 card High Cultist Basaleph will resurrect all friendly Undead killed since the previous turn.
While each class has some noteworthy new cards, some have more build-around potential than others. Some recently revealed cards like Hearthstone's Deathbringer Saurfang have given a glimpse of Deathrattle's strong presence in March of the Lich King, fitting for a Death Knight-centric expansion. Players of many of the game's heroes, Death Knight and otherwise, will have more incentive than ever before to kill their own minions, whether it's for Corpse generation or to trigger beneficial Deathrattle synergies. The Shaman in particular leans into this, with the existing Battlecry build around for the class being joined by new Deathrattle deck potential. Players can dole them out with cards like Shadow Suffusion, which gives all friendly minions a three-damage-dealing Deathrattle, then expand their use further via minions like the 1/3 Scourge Troll, which receives all Deathrattles twice.
The Warlock's aggro and midrange deck archetypes that utilize discard to their advantage will be able to be expanded upon with March of the Lich King, with several new cards that play into this. Minions like the 2/5 Taunt Walking Dead is summoned at no cost if it's discarded, and the 7/7 Savage Ymirjar has a Battlecry which allows for two cards to be discarded. This helps both minions like Walking Dead and spells like Soul Barrage, a 5-cost card which is activated for free if discarded, dealing six damage among enemies.
A standout, entirely new mechanic comes to Hearthstone with March of the Lich King for Rogue heroes in the form of alchemy. Players will now be able to make Concoctions, which are essentially 3-cost spells that allow for different results, like dealing 3 damage to an enemy, summoning a random 3-cost minion, or destroying a random enemy minion. It's a good deck for new Hearthstone players, with one of the best parts of a Rogue Concoction build being that two Concoctions will be mixed together when a second enters a players hand. When this is combined with minions like 3/2 Ghoulish Alchemist - which makes a player's next Concoction free - it's easy for players to get a lot of use out of the new mechanic.
The new Manathirst mechanic, which activates once players have a certain amount of crystals, offers promising new strategies and sizable rewards for players who wait to use a card until its Manathirst can be activated. For example, the 3-cost, 3/2 Crystal Broker will summon a random 3-cost minion with Manathirst of 5, but a second Manathirst of 10 being fulfilled will summon a random 8-cost minion instead, a powerful bargain that rewards player patience. A WoW lore deep cut at its core, Manathirst is a reference to the Blood Elves' complicated relationship with mana and magic in the world's narrative, making the mechanic a fun tie-in to the expansion's inspiration from the Blood Elf and Scourge conflict.
Powerful new cards abound in March of the Lich King for all classes in different ways. Druids will have even more incentive to build up their armor with Hearthstone 25.0, with new cards like 7/7 Anub'Rekhan that allow for armor to be used to spend on minions that turn instead of mana. Mages are able to get a lot of mileage out of new minions like 5/7 Grand Magister Rommath, which will recast every spell cast that game which didn't start in a player's deck - a great synergy with Arcane Wyrm, which adds an Arcane Bolt spell to a hand.
In a recent interview with Hearthstone developers, they stated they want the new March of the Lich King expansion to both offer a myriad of new strategies and metas to seasoned players while also enticing new fans to the game with accessibility. With the decks that have already begun to emerge from the theorycrafting event, it's clear that they've succeeded, offering a wide range of new deck archetypes for players to pursue while also including pre-made decks with easy-to-grasp synergies for new players to enjoy. The event only offered a brief glimpse at the gameplay Hearthstone March of the Lich King has to offer, and fans of the deckbuilder no doubt have a lot to look forward to with the release of 25.0.
The Hearthstone: March of the Lich King expansion will release on December 6 for PC, Mac, and iOS and Android devices. Screen Rant was provided with a special Battle.Net account for the purpose of the theorycrafting event.