News

Caverns Below has been adjusted – now requires 5 minions to be played, instead of 4.

Offline status functionality might be coming in the near future.  In the latest patch, there are some new updates that refer to offline mode.  Additionally, Jeff Kaplan with the Overwatch team has discussed this recently saying that they want to offer this feature but they have to coordinate with the other teams to make it happen. Maybe this is Team 5’s integration portion.

More data mining discoveries:

Frost Festival coming up that will last 3 weeks

Each week during the festival you will get a free arena run

Each week you will be able to earn a Frozen Throne card pack if you play 3 arena games

Everyone will start with a free win

Preorder is available now – $49.99 – 50 packs and a card back

The Lich King promotions

The Lich King interviews with Ben Brode

The Lich King takes over Tempo Storm and rebrands as The Frozen Pwn

The Lich King opens a new business : Ice Cream Citadel

Attendees to San Diego Comic Con on July 20-July 23rd will be able to get ice cream/gelato at the Ice Cream Citadel

Ben Brode does a Reddit AMA (source)   https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/6nc1zz/well_met_im_ben_brode_the_game_director_on/

No card spoilers until July 24th

No plans for console support at this time.

More details on making more stats available to players will hopefully come later this year.

Average game time is 7.5 minutes.

The nice part about all the heroes becoming Death Knights, is that they were able to make awesome hero powers and not just one.

No plans for content from other Blizzard titles in the game outside of Tavern Brawls or Card Backs

Alt Heroes

Druid and Warlock hero skins will happen, but no spoilers yet.

Still working on getting Tyrande out to all the regions.

Bringing Tyrande back to regions where she’s already been, isn’t something they feel they need to do right now.

Cards

Ice Block matches some red flags for card that maybe shouldn’t be in Standard forever.

No Legendary Totem is an oversight.  Will consider this.

Stonetusk Boar, in Ben’s opinion, is the most guilty card when it comes to limiting future mechanics.  Mike Donais says that Preparation, Innervate and Malygos are also mechanic limiters.

Expansions

The reason for delay between announcement and card reveals is due to feedback that they were seeing that said hype was dying towards the release of the expansion due to the spoiler period being too long.

Currently finalizing design for this year’s third expansion, working on the first set for next year and brainstorming ideas for the second 2018 set.

Free to Play

Players are still able to compete at a high level without spending money. But they are listening to feedback.

Lots of opportunities to earn packs for the new set in upcoming events.

Game Modes

They have a design that they are excited to try out for the new ranked experience. An announcement will come once they know how it changes through the actual implementation.

Spectator mode is a place where they can make improvements.

Card rotations won’t happen outside of the Hearthstone new year.

Wild cards won’t get a reduction in dust cost. Bringing these cards back for sale should make it more accessible.

Details to come about changes to arena rewards.

Nothing to say about tournament mode right now.

Experimentation

They have considered making a free set of cards ...