In a lengthy blog post Blizzard Entertainment introduced their plans for their popular digital card game Hearthstone in 2017. This year marks the end of last year’s Year of the Kraken. Each new year creates a new Standard format to help keep the game fresh and newcomer-friendly. Once Year of the Mammoth begins, last year’s expansions (Blackrock Mountain, Grand Tournament, League of Explorers) will be shifted to the Wild format, which includes all released cards.
With the upcoming Year of the Mammoth, Blizzard has acknowledged that a few cards in the Classic Set will also be shifted from Standard to Wild. Blizzard states they’re too common and useful for their respective power levels. The Classic cards going from Standard to Wild are:
- Azure Drake
- Sylvana Windrunner
- Ragnaros the Firelord
- Power Overwhelming
- Ice Lance
- Conceal
Due to the change, Blizzard is offering free dust (the resource you use to craft new cards) for the maximum value of those cards that you have – and you get to keep the cards to use in the Wild format.
Year of the Mammoth will change Hearthstone’s expansion release schedule. Previously expansions alternated between Expansions and Adventures. For Year of the Mammoth, Hearthstone will see three 130 card expansions, spaced out throughout the year. Blizzard states that they want to “take the storytelling and cool missions of Adventures, and combine them with the card pools of expansions.”
Each expansion release will include single-player missions, and new cards will be acquired via packs. This new format won’t arrive until the second expansion of 2017. The three upcoming expansions are as yet unnamed.
