At Blizzcon 2016, Blizzard announced a brand new expansion for Hearthstone – the Mean Streets of Gadgetzan.
The fourth Hearthstone expansion is set in the town of Gadgetzan, a port city from the Warcraft universe. It will see new storylines and cards added, and is set to arrive this year. Read on to find out all about it.
Hearthstone: Mean Streets of Gadgetzan release date
Unfortunately, we don’t have a specific release date for the Mean Streets of Gadgetzan. At Blizzcon 2016, Blizzard said they “expected” that it would land in early December, so that tidbit have to satisfy you for the moment.
Blizzard has confirmed that the expansion will be available on PC; Windows, iOS, and Android tablets; and mobile phones.
Hearthstone: Mean Streets of Gadgetzan storyline
World of Warcraft players who have visited the Tanaris zone will be familiar with the goblin town of Gadgetzan. Originally, the town was situated in the middle of a desert, but following WoW’s Cataclysm expansion, flooding turned Gadgetzan into a port town. The new Hearthstone expansion will examine how the town changed as a result.
“Opportunity awaits in the dark corners of Gadgetzan, and those with the spunk and street smarts to befriend the local crime families,” writes Blizzard. “Mean Streets of Gadgetzan thrusts players into a lawless land where criminals from all over Azeroth have found a haven, free of scrutiny from the Horde and the Alliance.”
“Behind it all are three notorious crime families, and they run everything,” said Hamilton Chu, Executive Product of Hearthstone. These families are the Grimy Goons, the Jade Lotus, and finally the Kabal, which Hamilton describes as such: “They hide away in secret, brewing their potions and lending magical aid to those in need."
Hearthstone: Mean Streets of Gadgetzan gameplay and cards
The Mean Streets of Gadgetzan expansion introduces 132 new cards into the game, which will be split across the three family functions of Gadgetzan. Blizzard showed off a few of the new cards during the Blizzcon 2016 opening ceremony.
There’s a card in the Goon set called ‘Piranha Launcher’ that, as you’d expect, launches piranhas. It costs five mana to use, causes two damage, and has five health.
The Jade Lotus are getting a new five-mana card that summons a minion who pops a stealth whenever it kills an enemy.
And finally, there’s a new Kabal card called the Kabal Talonpriest, which costs three mana. It has a battlecry that gives a friendly minion an additional three health points, and has three attack and four health.
But the real shake-up comes with the addition of a new card type: the tri-class card. These cards span multiple classes, in a first for the game. For instance, the Kabal have access to trifocals cards that work across mage, priest, and warlock decks. One example is the Kabal Courier, which costs three mana to use, and has a battlecry that lets you discover a mage, priest, or warlock card.
