The Witchwood expansion is releasing this week, and with that comes a lot of questions: What time is it launching? What about the Monster Hunt? How does this whole Standard rotation thing work? How does the Hall of Fame dust returns work? Well, we seek to answer these questions as well as give you all the information you need prior to the release of the new expansion.
What time of day is The Witchwood set to release/launch?
The release date for The Witchwood is April 12th, 2018. Here are the official release times as given by Blizzard:
- Americas: April 12 10:00 a.m. PDT
- Europe: April 12 7:00 p.m. CEST
- Asia: April 13 2:00 a.m. KST / 1:00 a.m. CST
- China: April 13 6:00 a.m. CST
When is the Monster Hunt set to release/launch?
While the Dungeon Run content of Kobolds and Catacombs came out side-by-side with the expansion it will be a bit different this time. Monster Hunter will be released TWO weeks after the release of the expansion (April 26th, 2018).
What am I Getting for Free?!
- You get three packs of The Witchwood for logging in once it releases.
- You get a random class legendary card from The Witchwood for logging in.
- If you win 10 games of Hearthstone in Standard Ranked or Casual Mode you get the new Druid Hero Lunara!
Remember that you will also get one guaranteed legendary in the first 10 packs you open for the expansion!
How does the Standard Rotation work?
Either once The Witchwood patch releases, or once the expansion itself hits the game, three sets will be rotated out of Standard. These sets are: Whispers of the Old Gods, One Night in Karazhan, and Mean Streets of Gadgetzan. Along with these sets, certain cards will be added to the Hall of Fame and will no longer be playable in the Standard format: Ice Block, Coldlight Oracle, and Molten Giant (nerf being reverted).
How do I maximize my Arcane Dust from the Hall of Fame?
If you didn’t know, when cards are moved to the Hall of Fame you receive arcane dust for the full crafting amount of a playable set (1x Legendary, 2x of everything else). This leads players to try to figure out how to maximize the amount of dust they’ll get once this happens. The quick answer is that if you own a full playset of all of the cards you don’t need to do anything. If you own none of the cards, you should craft them in gold if you can (otherwise craft them normally).
For a full look at this, check out our Hall of Fame Arcane Dust guide!
The Witchwood Expansion Launch Tips
I refer to most of these tips for every expansion and they continue to be useful to this day!
Tip: Don’t Purchase the Wrong Packs
In the past it’s been easy to absentmindedly purchase the wrong packs, so make sure you are paying attention when you hit the purchase button!
Tip: Save Money by Watching Twitch Streamers Open Packs
Streamers buy a TON of packs, and if you’re on a budget and want to get your fix then I’d advise watching them open packs. It’s not exactly the same, but it can help ease your lust for packs.
Tip: Don’t Craft or Disenchant Legendaries Right Away
It’s tough to not craft a bunch of cool looking Legendaries the day they come out, but if you’re on a budget you should just hang back and wait for the meta to settle a bit. The famous example of tons of people crafting Troggzor the Earthinator comes to mind, where it seemed like a great card but ended up never really seeing any play. This also goes for disenchanting cards! Finja, the Flying Star was not a popular Legendary when Mean Streets of Gadgetzan released, but ended up seeing quite a bit of play.
Pre-Purchase The Witchwood Expansion
This is your absolute last chance to pre-order the expansion! The pre-purchase is usually the best way to get packs if you plan on spending money on the game. Getting a free card back isn’t too bad either.
This is the best pre-purchase deal we’ve ever seen for Hearthstone, you get 70 packs instead of the usual 50 for $49.99 USD.
New Stuff Coming to The Witchwood
The first expansion of the Standard rotation is usually very influential on the meta, so be on the look out for things to look quite a bit different than you’ve been used to in the Year of the Mammoth.
Check out our The Witchwood card list to get up to speed on the new expansion!
Monster Hunt
If you love Dungeon Run in Kobolds and Catacombs you are probably going to enjoy Monster Hunt which seems very similar. This will not be released until two weeks after the expansion is launched.
If you missed out on Dungeon Run, Monster Hunt is a single-player game mode that allows you to build up a deck while defeating AI bosses on your way to a final showdown with a strong boss.
Odds and Evens
There’s two big deck build around cards in The Witchwood expansion: Baku the Mooneater & Genn Greymane! These cards require you to either have either only odd cards or even cards to gain a powerful effect. Which one will be stronger? That remains to be seen!
New Keyword: Echo
Echo cards can be cast multiple times in the same turn, just like Unstable Evolution.
New Keyword: Rush
Rush minions have Charge, but can only attack minions on the turn they’re summoned! This is very similar to Charged Devilsaur.
- Cursed Castaway
- Darius Crowley
- Druid of the Scythe
- Gilnean Royal Guard
- Hunting Mastiff
- Militia Commander
- Muck Hunter
- Redband Wasp
- Scaleworm
- Swift Messenger
- Town Crier
Deck to Try in The Witchwood
We’ll be posting a ton of decks on the site when the expansion hits, but be sure to check some of our theorycraft deck guides prior to the release to get some great ideas for decks.
So, shouldn’t the card ‘Charge’ change its name into ‘Rush’?
No, because charge can attack face on the turn it’s played. Rush can’t.
I meant the warrior card ‘Charge’ , which can only give minions ‘Charge, but can’t attack heroes this turn’.
Man i Skipper school some could start opening my packs at 10 AM april12. But! I read later the expansion release at 7 PM in Europe so i skippade school for nothing omg
Wow you are sooo reatrded omggggg. SAD!
Crafting with gold? Have you ever played Hearthstone?
Crafting them IN gold
Craft a golden card. With dust.
I thought today was the the 12th, I was very much wrong 🙁
We want to ensure our quest log is empty before the release correct? I thought I read somewhere that we should do that.
Doesn’t matter, if you reroll the quests they’ll be updated to the new ones.
Not necessarily empty – you just need one empty slot for the Lunara Quest 🙂 If you don’t have an empty slot, it will override one of your current Quests.
I hope they make icehowl in wild rush as it is he sucks
Have you ever seen them buff cards? Especially ones out of the rotation?
They did just do it with Molten Giant tho. Might have been a revert of earlier nerfs, but still a buff.
naga sea witch too
I hope they change the text on devilsaur to Rush. If not I’m not gonna take this game seriously anymore.
Why? Charged devilsaur has a battlecry
so when summed e.g. cube he can also Charge the face
Wow much issues you for just one card. I guess you should not have taken this game seriously already when KnC was released since Y’Shaarj was not changed to Recruit. lol
The fact that it’s a Battlecry makes it slightly different so it shouldn’t be changed.
they could make it: “battlecry: rush”
No, they couldn’t, because then he wouldn’t have Charge if you summoned/revived him…
Just leave him be guys.
Its not actually Rush. It is a Battlecry affect so if you Recruit him you will be able to go face with him.
they will not, because the devilsaur does not work that way, he has the battlecry to make it work with combos of revive him and go face, if he have “rush” he can’t do it.
rush minion cant attack if theyre recruitted
Getting rush on Charged Devilsaur is a nerf, and it doesn’t need a nerf, its a perfectly healthy card, which would suffer greatly from it
I have 1 regular copy and 1 golden copy of ice block. Will I get the dust for both or only the single golden?
I guess you’ll get the dust for both
You get dust for both!
I believe you’ll gain the dust for both as you only have 2 copies in total of the card. Only if you have more than 2 total copies of a card you wont gain the dust. For example if you have 1 golden and 2 regular, you’ll only gain dust for 1 golden and 1 regular.
If i had an EU account, could I buy the preorder on the 11?
If i have golden & regulär Versions of a classic card rotating out i will get both refunded, right?
Only the golden version
That ‘s not entirely true. If you had a gold and a classic legend then you would only get the dust for the golden. However, if it is a non-legend card you would get dust for both.
Basically you get the dust for the total number of cards you could have in a deck. And the highest value cards. So if you had 1 golden and 2 regular ice blocks you would get the dust for one golden and one regular.
Is it bad when I am crafting the gold versions of the molten giant and the ice block?
I have already 2 of the regular ones
Just dust the regular version and craft the gold version, you will get the refund for them later.
If you have both regular and golden versions, you will only get the refund for the golden cards.
If you already have the regular copies, crafting golden ones will be a 0 net gain. You won’t lose anything, but it’s basically pointless.
Actually there will be a gain I think if you craft the golden ones and you already have the regular ones, because you can dust the golden copies then and make a 800 dust benefit for Ice Block and Molten Giant !
There is really zero net gain, lots of people, including me, have calculated that. Believe me, I wouldn’t lie to people here, lol.
But just to show it quickly again.
Let’s look at the Ice Block. You have 2 regular Copies and no Golden copies at all. Now you take two routes. I’ll show your current total dust in parenthesis.
First – craft 2x Golden Copy (-3200 Dust). Then you get refunded for the Golden copies (0 Dust). Then you disenchant 2x Golden copy (800 Dust) and 2x regular copy (1000 Dust). You gain up to 1000 Dust (800 if you want to keep regular copies).
Now you don’t craft anything and you just have 2x regular copy. After it rotates out, you get the crafting cost refunded (800 Dust) and then disenchant them (1000 Dust). Exactly the same thing. 1000 Dust if you want to disenchant them, 800 if you want to keep them.
Crafting Golden cards is only worth it if you want to keep the Golden copies for the WIld. Then you can essentially craft them for free.
The situation is SLIGHTLY different with Commons, because you gain a little extra Dust by crafting Goldens (10 Dust per card if I remember correctly), but no Commons are rotating out to Hall of Fame right now.
Well, I made the same mistake. Since you get 1600 dust from the golden epic for free if you craft it it but you wont get the 400 for free from the molten giant. So let’s say you decide to craft the golden one. You wont get that 400 dust though you will get 1600 for the golden one. The problem is that you use 1600 dust to craft it so in the end you only gain 400 dust from crafting and then disenchanting it. Since you only gain 400 dust from it and loose 400 in value of the original molten giant it means it makes no difference for the dust you’ll gain. You won’t loose dust, you won’t gain dust.
If you own normal copy don’t craft anything…by the way from your name i can see you are from INDIA, i am from INDIA too and currently playing on Asia server. We have a dedicated whatsapp group for people from India, it started with 2-3 Guys but now it has grown, we have people playing on NA and Asia both let me know if you want ne to add you there.
Yo you have Darius Crowley under echo rather than under rush.
Fixed, thanks!
What happened with the quest for packs?
I believe everyone was sent an e-mail that won something a while ago.
If you mean the Year of the Raven promotional event that gave you a pack for completing every quest, it finished yesterday, just like announced.