(OUT NOW!) Fractured in Alterac Valley Launch Guide – Release Time, Freebies, New Mechanics, New Decks, Honor Event

The expansion is live now! Enjoy! Be sure to check out our compilation of early meta decks.

Fractured in Alterac Valley is the third expansion of Year of the Gryphon (2021). The temperature is low, but the tensions are high on this storied battlefield, where the Horde and the Alliance fight for honor and shards of a fallen naaru. The two factions are locked in eternal battle, and have put out a call for new Heroes to help turn the tide. Take key Objectives and secure Honorable Kills to help your faction claim victory! The conflict is inevitable, and you must pick a side. So come, claim your place as a champion among those who are Fractured in Alterac Valley!

The expansion will add 135 new cards (with mini-set adding 35 more at a later date), as well as a variety of new mechanics and synergies.

Check out our Fractured in Alterac Valley expansion guide, which contains tons of information including a full list of cards.

Release Time

Let’s start with the most important – when does the new expansion launch? For years now, Hearthstone sets have had a simultaneous launch across the globe, so it should be out on every server at the same time. However, the time it launches for you depends on where you live – some countries from the Eastern Hemisphere will have it out on December 8 instead of the “official” December 7 release date because of time zone differences. Here are some examples:

• 10 AM Pacific Time on Tuesday (December 7)
• 1 PM Eastern Time on Tuesday (December 7)
• 7 PM Central European Time on Tuesday (December 7)
• 3 AM Korean Standard Time on Wednesday (December 8)
• 5 AM Australian Eastern Time on Wednesday (December 8)

Since the expansion was already pre-loaded nearly 2 weeks ago, you will NOT need to download a big patch when it launches. It also means that mobile release should happen exactly at the same time as PC. Just make sure that your game client is up to date.

Freebies

When new expansion launches, players are usually greeted with some free stuff, like packs, free Legendaries etc. Here’s what we know so far about Fractured in Alterac Valley:

• Players can get a Golden copy of either Drek'Thar or Vanndar Stormpike Legendaries for logging in. They have been available for a while (since Patch 21.8), but if you just came back after a longer break, be sure to claim one of them! Golden copy of the opposite faction leader will wait for you at the end of Legendary Quest chain (learn more about the Honor event here).
• While we’re on the topic of Honor event – Golden versions of two faction leaders aren’t the only rewards. Players will also get a bunch of Golden Rare cards for grinding Honor – Frostwolf Kennels, Iceblood Tower, Iceblood Garrison, Dun Baldar Bridge, Dun Baldar Bunker, and Stormpike Aid Station. However, those are mostly “vanity” cards, as you can’t disenchant them and you will most likely open the regular versions of them anyway in packs before you get them this way.
• Lokholar the Ice Lord is unlocked on Level 1 of the new Rewards Track, which means that you can get it as soon as expansion releases (but as I’ve mentioned above, you should open your packs first BEFORE claiming him).
• Not exactly “free”, but if you plan to buy a Tavern Pass, you can get a Diamond version of Korrak the Bloodrager on Level 1. While Tavern Pass is mostly about XP boosts and Cosmetics, you get an extra Legendary at the start, which is always nice.
• The first few levels of rewards track require almost no XP, so you will earn them after just a couple of matches and Quests. You will unlock three extra Fractured in Alterac Valley packs over the first 9 levels, which you should easily be able to achieve on Day 1 (only 1550 XP is required to get there).

New Keyword – Honorable Kill

This expansion’s new keyword is Honorable Kill. It’s a bit similar to the Overkill mechanic introduced a while ago in Rastakhan’s Rumble. However, instead of having to deal more than enough damage to kill something, Honorable Kill will trigger when you deal the exact necessary amount of damage. For example, if a minion has 3 health left and you deal 3 damage to it, that’s when the Honorable Kill will trigger.

Honorable Kill will give you a variety of effects, such as buffing your minions, reducing the cost of cards in your hand, and so on. Strategically, you will need to know what kind of damage thresholds there are for popular Honorable Kill cards and try to set up opponent’s minions at that health (if you play them) or try to not leave your own minions at that health (if you play around them).

Hero Cards Are Coming Back!

Say what you want about Knights of the Frozen Throne expansion, but most of the players remember it fondly, often because of a completely new type of cards – Hero cards. They created interesting shifts in strategy and power spikes, and were honestly just fun to play with. While some more of them were released over the years (including five versions of Galakrond in Descent of Dragons), Fractured in Alterac Valley will feature the biggest line-up of Heroes in history (even compared to the original because of one extra class – Demon Hunter).

Hero cards work like permanent upgrades to your Heroes. You first get a Battlecry effect and 5 extra Armor, which isn’t always worth the asking mana price, but the long-term benefit is a new Hero Power. It can range from “the same, but stronger” to completely changing the way you play a given class. You can find a full list of new Hero cards here (click on any of them to bring up all the details, including Hero Power).

Alliance vs Horde Event – Honor Points

When logging in for the first time since Patch 21.8, players will swear their allegiance to one of the two factions – Alliance or Horde. The choice will come with a different Golden Legendary you get for free – it will be either Drek’Thar (for Horde) or Vanndar Stormpike (for Alliance).

The event was initially meant to launch after expansion’s release, but it went live faster, with Patch 20.0. Ever since, two factions compete for even more free rewards by playing Hearthstone matches (Constructed, Arena or Duels). Here’s how many Honor points you can get for activities:

• 10 Honor for every game played
• 10 more Honor for every game won (20 total)
• 20 more Honor for every game won versus an opponent from the enemy faction (40 total)

As you gain Honor, you climb the ranks and progress through a Legendary Quest Chain. Everyone who completes the Legendary Quest Chain will get the same amount of rewards INCLUDING the opposing faction’s leader (the final reward requires a grand total of 7200 Honor points). On January 11, every player will get a Diamond copy of the leader from the faction that got more Honor points in total. However, the event itself will last throughout an entire expansion, so you have a lot of time to grind Honor.

If you’re still a bit confused about the event, we’ve prepared a guide explaining everything in detail!

New Rewards Track

The rewards track, first introduced in Darkmoon Faire, is getting another refresh. When Fractured in Alterac Valley launches, all players will get reset to Level 1 and will work their way up through the track again. The base part of rewards track is almost the same as it was last time. The only extra addition is Vanessa VanCleef Mercenary card you’re getting for free on Level 1. However, what is changing is the amount of cosmetics players are getting for Tavern Pass (paid part of the rewards track). On top of all the previous rewards, for the first time ever we’re getting some Battlegrounds and Mercenaries loot. We detailed all the changes to the Tavern Pass here.

Your daily & weekly Quests will NOT reset when new expansion launches. It might be a good idea to save them for after the launch to give you a nice boost through the early levels of the rewards track. The only situations in which I’d recommend finishing all your Quests under the old rewards track is if you have Tavern Pass right now, but you don’t plan to buy a new one after launch, or you haven’t finished the previous rewards track and you’re close to leveling for some good rewards. In second case, if you want to min-max, try to hit a new level on your current rewards track and stop there because any “excess” XP won’t carry over.

Additionally, I would advise everyone to open their packs BEFORE visiting rewards track and claiming their level 1 rewards. This is because Blizzard has issued a full Dust refund for Golden Lokholar the Ice Lord as well as regular & golden Korrak the Bloodrager. The reason for dust refund is that you will be able to get those cards from the rewards track, and it would feel bad to get duplicates. However, now that you can disenchant them for their full crafting cost, it’s actually beneficial to try to open them before getting copies of them from track & triggering duplicate protection. 1600 Dust is always better than a Legendary, because when you have 1600 Dust you can craft whatever you want.

Arena Rotation

Dual-Class Arena event is (finally?) over, and we’re back to the regular rotation. Here’s a full list of sets that will be available in Arena once expansion launches:

• Core Set
• Fractured in Alterac Valley
• Scholomance Academy
• Saviors of Uldum
• The Boomsday Project
• Kobolds and Catacombs
• League of Explorers

If you have an active run, DO NOT FINISH IT! Preferably play until two loses and stay there. When rotation happens, your run will get forcefully retired, but you will get a free Arena Ticket as compensation. If Arena entries are still enabled at the time you’re reading this, it should also be worth it to create a new run and play until 2 loses for some extra free rewards.

New Fractured in Alterac Valley Decks

Don’t know what decks to try out when the expansion launches? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Once expansion launches, we’ll spend the first few days mostly adding new decks from streamers & pro players. We always give them some time (30-60 minutes) to open packs and prepare decks and then go crazy, adding dozens of new builds over the first 24 hours. Check them out here.

However, if you don’t want to wait and want to get into action as soon as expansion launches, we have a solution. We’ve prepared almost 40 different deck theorycrafts for all classes – click here to see them!