Hearthstone announces Year of the Raven
New hero, in-game tournaments, three classic cards retired.
Blizzard has announced details of Hearthstone's next yearly cycle, named The Year of the Raven.
As usual, this will see card sets older than two years cycled out of the game's Standard format and into the anything-goes Wild play mode. Retiring sets include Whispers of the Old Gods, One Night in Karazhan and Mean Streets of Gadgetzan.
Three cards from Hearthstone's base sets are also getting pulled out of Standard: the powerful mage spell Ice Block, card-drawing murloc Coldlight Oracle and the beefy Molten Giant.
Three new sets will follow this year, each including some form of single-player content and 130+ cards apiece. These sets have not been detailed, but there are three teasers in the image to the right...
This year will bring in-game tournaments - a highly requested feature - to Hearthstone, launching in beta around summertime. This option will let you set up a custom tourney, invite friends, matchmake participants and inspect decks - with more features to come later.
And finally, Hearthstone will release a new druid hero, Lunara, for everyone. Cenarius' daughter will become available after your first 10 wins in Standard play when the Year of the Raven goes live.
There's no release date yet for the Year - or its first set of cards - but we're likely to learn more later this week in a Twitch livestream with developers, set for 7pm UK time on Friday, 2nd March.