'Hearthstone' News: Blizzard to Release Three Expansions in 2017

By Edward Leano, Christian Post Contributor Sunday, February 19, 2017

"Hearthstone," the online collectible card game by Blizzard, will be making sweeping changes with the coming of its first expansion in 2017. Gone will be the smaller 30 to 45 card Adventure sets — Blizzard has instead opted to fold them into three 130-plus card Expansion sets this year.

Instead of the previous releases with the occasional small Adventure packs, this year will see all updates come in the form of 130 odd card Expansions. Those who enjoyed the single-player missions and achievements of the Adventure packs do not need to worry. The new Expansions will also include single-player story content and challenges with the usual multiplayer content.

With the coming of "Hearthstone's" Year of the Mammoth, only the cards from the core sets and the those from the Expansion sets from last year — with a few noteworthy exceptions — will remain viable for the game's Standard mode. The rest will be phased out, to be usable only in the Wild mode.

A year ago, Blizzard has made the decision to divide the main play into the Standard mode and the Wild mode. Playing in the Wild mode lets a player use every card ever released, while the Standard mode restricts the selection to just the cards from the core set and the current plus previous year's expansions. This rotation has been designed with the intent of keeping the card selection and game balance fresh without having to resort to nerfing.

This year, Expansion cards released in 2015 will be phased out to become Wild-exclusive. Say goodbye to cards from "Blackrock Mountain," "The Grand Tournament" and "League of Explorers" — but that's not all.

Remember the noteworthy exceptions part? Six cards from the original Classic set will also be retired from Standard mode play, to be laid to rest in the "Hall of Fame." These cards are deemed too powerful for their cost, or are otherwise too useful to ever leave out of a deck. Unfortunate news for Ragnaros and Sylvanas fans, but this is all in the name of promoting deck variety.

Watch the introduction video for "Hearthstone" Year of the Mammoth below.