BlizzCon 2023 Hearthstone Announcements Live Recap

BlizzCon is back after a few years of break and it’s starting today! The event is, of course, showcasing all of the Blizzard games, but it looks like there are some special surprises for Hearthstone players.

In this post, I will recap all of the news and announcements related to Hearthstone. I will skip other games (because it would be too difficult for me to do it solo), but if you’re interested, Wowhead will run a full recap for all of the Blizzard franchises.

When it comes to Hearthstone announcements, what interests us most is the Opening Ceremony (with the biggest announcement for all Blizzard franchises) and “Hearthstone: What’s Next?” panel. During the previous BlizzCons, the initial Hearthstone announcements always happened during the opening ceremony, and they were later expanded upon in a dedicated panel.

Opening Ceremony (and the whole event) starts at 11 AM PT (19:00 CET). The Hearthstone panel takes place a few hours later, at 4:30 PM PT (00:30 CET). You can watch them (and the rest of the event, of course) live on Blizzard’s official YouTube and Twitch channels.

Of course, if you’re at the BlizzCon in person, then you should also check out other attractions like “duel a dev” (where you can play against one of the Hearthstone developers) or content creators meet & greet (where you can hang out and chat with HS streamers and YouTubers). There will also be a playable Hearthstone demo – most certainly for something they are about to announce, but we still don’t know what that might be.

BlizzCon Opening Ceremony Recap

BlizzCon 2023 is now live! The opening ceremony is starting. I don’t know the order of announcements, but anything related to Hearthstone will get added here.

While it wasn’t announced at BlizzCon, it’s probably related to the event. A new Legendary Quest was added to the game – play 3 games to get a new Card Back!

• Hearthstone announcements are starting! Cora got on the stage. We’ll be soon celebrating Hearthstone’s 10th anniversary.
• They’re now showcasing Showdown in the Badlands Cinematic trailer. You can watch it here.
• Reno, Lone Ranger is the first Neutral Hearthstone Hero. We don’t know what “magic bullets” do just yet, more details will be shared at the Hearthstone panel. Update: It turns out that we already know what they do. There are 7 bullets and each deals 2 damage with a different extra effect. You can find them all here.
• Catch-up packs are a new type of card pack. They contain cards from the last 2 years. Instead of the regular 5 cards, they contain up to 50 cards. All players will get some of them to open soon. They will also be added to pre-purchase bundles etc.
• New Battlegrounds mode was announced – a cooperative way to play. It’s called Battlegrounds Duos. You team up with another player, share a health pool, can trade cards between the two of you etc. The mode will also contain some special Heroes and minions. It launches early next year. Demo is available at BlizzCon.
• More details about all of the things above will be shared at the “What’s Next” Panel.

Hearthstone: What’s Next? Panel

The panel is now starting. I’m not expecting any big news, just expanding upon what was already said.

Here’s how opening a bunch of Catch-Up Packs with the new Mass Pack Opening function might look like for a new/returning player:

Reno, Lone Ranger‘s Hero Power got revealed… except that we knew it already.

The plot behind Showdown in the Badlands is that Sheriff Barrelbrim hired Reno to fight against Outlaws. But it turns out that the Outlaws led by Elise, Badlands Savior were actually the good guys, and the townsfolk/miners were excavating Azerite (and continuing to do so would destroy Badlands).

New cards revealed:

Warrior’s Legendary Excavate Treasure revealed:

Signature version of Slagmaw the Slumbering will be given to all BlizzCon attendees and people who purchased BlizzCon Legendary Collection:

Mitchell and Jia will now talk about Battlegrounds Duos, the new cooperative BG mode.

• The mode is a new way to play BG. You can queue with a friend and face 3 other teams with some unique mechanics. You need to work together and win together.
• Duos mode is still in the early development and won’t be released until early next year, but you can playtest it at BlizzCon.
• The game starts like always – both players pick their Heros separately, they both have their own warband, tavern, gold etc. Only Health total gets shared.
• During your turn, you can click on a special portal to peek at what your partner is doing live.
• Players duel each other one by one. When one person in a duo gets defeated, the second takes their place (while still facing the same opponent). Together, you need to beat both enemies to win combat.
• Any damage taken counts, even if only one player loses and the second wins. Additionally, if a single player manages to win the combat by himself, the second player’s warband deals extra damage to the enemy.
• Players can pass minions from their hand between each other, through the portal. Passing a minion comes with a cost, though – you pay 1 gold each time you do it. At first, they used the “Tradeable” mechanic as a baseline for minion passing during their playtesting.
• Passing minions will help you find synergies/triples more easily. Teamwork is the goal.
• You preferably want to pick Heroes that have some synergy with each other. For example, playing Brann & Reno together means that you can get an early Brann Bronzebeard, pass him to Reno and them he will make it Golden, for some very powerful mid game plays.
• Cho’gall is a unique Hero only accessible in Duos. They have no extra Hero Powers, but when one of the players triples a minion, both get the reward. They have to be played together – you can’t pick one without the other.
• Other unique Duos heroes include Madam Goya (letting you pass a minion from the tavern to your teammate for only 2 gold), Flobbidinous Floop (letting you transform one of your minions into your teammate’s highest attack minion) and Nameless One (copying the Hero choice of your teammate).
• There are also some unique minions only available in BG Duos, including (you can find the images below) Passenger, Fortune-Hunter Flo, Orc-estra Conductor, Electron and Sandy. Each minion type will get its own Duos exclusive minion.
• While voice communication will always be superior, if you’re queuing with random people, you can “talk” to them through the emote system. You can ping the minions or other UI elements like Freeze or Hero Power. Minions will also get a special indicator if passing them would give your teammate a triple.
• And that’s it about Duos and the end of What’s Next panel in general. Mitchell and Jia wanted to thank everyone and invited people to playtest it, or – if you’re watching BlizzCon from home – check out your favorite streamers to see if they’re playtesting it live.