In a report released over a week ago, it was predicted that Blizzard would be announcing the next adventure for popular digital trading card game Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft at the ChinaJoy gaming convention in China.
It was also predicted that the next adventure would involve Karazhan, the magical tower formerly inhabited by Medivh, who can be purchased as a Mage hero avatar in Hearthstone.
The predictions turned out to be true, as Blizzard unveiled the next adventure for Hearthstone entitled One Night in Karazhan.
In the dedicated page on the Battle.net website for the upcoming Hearthstone adventure, it is said that Karazhan, which has been a nexus of magical energy, will become the focal point of a different kind of force. Medivh used his magic to the extremes to conjure up nothing less than the most extravagant and lavish party of all time!
Yes, you read that right. One Night in Karazhan will be a massive party, and all Hearthstone players are invited!
To access the adventure, the first requirement would be to have unlocked all the nine heroes of Hearthstone, which any self-respecting Hearthstone player would have already done. One Night in Karazhan will add 45 new cards to the game, which is a high number compared to about 30 to 40 cards added by previous adventures.
Unlike Whispers of the Old Gods, which is an expansion that added 134 cards to Hearthstone, One Night in Karazhan will be a single-player mode similar to the previous three adventures Curse of Naxxramas, Blackrock Mountain and League of Explorers. The adventure will be divided into five wings, with each wing typically consisting of three to four missions and ending with a boss fight. Completing missions and boss fights will give new cards to players as their rewards.
The first wing for One Night in Karazhan will be the prologue, and it will be playable for free. The boss of the wing has been revealed to be a character named Prince Malchezaar, who has a hero power that can summon a 6/6 Abyssal for only 2 mana. Players who complete the wing will be rewarded with Enchanted Raven, a 1-cost 2/2 Beast, and Firelands Portal, a 7-cost Mage spell that deals 5 damage to a target and summons a random 5-cost minion.
The succeeding wings, named The Parlor, The Opera, The Menagerie and The Spire, will be released weekly, with each wing able to be purchased for $7 each or 700 gold. Players can also choose to purchase the entire adventure for $20.
The adventure will also come with the usual Class Challenges, which will have the nine classes of Hearthstone face off against opponents taken from the missions. Beating these challenges will also unlock new cards as rewards.
Other cards that have been spoiled for the adventure include Ivory Knight, a 6-cost 4/4 minion for Paladins with a Battlecry ability to Discover a spell and restore health to the hero equal to the spell's cost; Kindly Grandmother, a 2-cost 1/1 Beast minion for Hunters with a Deathrattle ability that puts a 3/2 Big Bad Wolf minion into play; Barnes, a 4-cost legendary 3/4 minion with a Battlecry ability that summons a 1/1 copy of a random minion in the player's deck; The Curator, a 7-cost legendary 4/6 Mech minion with Taunt and a Battlecry ability that draws a Beast, Dagon and Murloc from the player's deck to their hand; and Ethereal Peddler, a 5-cost 5/6 minion for Rogues with a Battlecry ability that reduces the cost of the cards in the player's hand from another class by 2.
The adventure's page hints at there being portals everywhere and, if Firelands Portal is to be taken as an example, it seems that these portals will translate into spells with powerful effects attached to the random summoning of minions similar to Unstable Portal.
The party of One Night in Karazhan will launch on Aug. 11. The past adventure, League of Explorers, introduced format-warping staples such as Reno Jackson, Tunnel Trogg, Keeper of Uldaman and Entomb, and it remains to be seen what powerful cards the new adventure has in store for Hearthstone players.
