Hearthstone: Naxxramas - overview, bosses, new cards, pricing, class challenges, rewards

From the new cards available for your collection, to all of the bosses you'll face in each wing being released over the next month, we've rounded up all of the currently known information about Hearthstone's first Adventure expansion.

New cards

The Naxxramas expansion will introduce thirty new cards to those already available in the overall Hearthstone pool. 21 of these new cards will be designated as Neutral, and will therefore be available to players of every Hero in the game, while the remaining nine will be used to grant a single new and exclusive card to each Hero.

The majority of the cards are focused around Hearthstone's existing Deathrattle mechanic, where the death of a minion on the board triggers a certain effect. The Deathrattle might cause damage to other creatures, for example, or grant health to a player. As a young game with a limited pool of cards, Hearthstone's constructed play has quickly become dominated by a handful of optimised decks for each Hero class. A focus on the Deathrattle mechanic should prove disruptive to the established, and often rather predictable strategies that currently dominate in competitive play.

The regular versions of all of these cards can only be collected by playing the Naxxramas expansion, and by beating certain bosses. Golden versions of the cards can only be created through the game's crafting system, however. They cannot be unlocked by playing the expansion.

Every boss in Naxxramas has a card associated with it, and players will earn that card by beating the boss. Players will also receive a Legendary card for each wing they complete. To unlock the Hero-specific card, players will have to complete a special class challenge.

Naxxramas' wings

The Naxxramas expansion has been split into five different wings. The first wing will be released on the 22nd July, followed by a new wing each week until all five are available to play.

For the first month following the game's release, that initial wing will be free for all players to enjoy, while the remaining wings will cost a certain amount of in-game gold or real money to unlock. After the first month has passed, players will also have to purchase the first wing along with the others. Once unlocked, you're free to play through the encounters as often as you wish.

Each wing of Naxxramas contains between two and four bosses, and we've detailed who you'll be facing each week in the table below. Once we've published our strategies for beating them, we'll also add a link to the individual fight so you can see what's what.

Bosses

Each one of the bosses you face in Naxxramas will have its own unique Hero ability, as well as its own unique cards - one of which you'll claim as your reward for beating that particular boss. The developers are promising that these encounters will offer a stiff challenge, and force players to adopt new strategies to stay alive and finish the fight. Bosses will also have access to special, overpowered cards that can't be collected, but will give the creature a significant advantage in combat.

Difficulty settings

You'll be able to play Naxxramas in one of two modes - Normal and Heroic. Heroic mode ups the difficulty considerably, and is only available after you've beaten each encounter on Normal. If you manage to beat every boss at the Heroic difficulty setting, you'll unlock a special new cosmetic card back for your collection.

Naxxramas pricing

Each wing of Naxxramas can be purchased using in-game gold or by spending real money. Various bundle options are available if you want to save a little bit of cash. Here's a complete breakdown of Blizzard's pricing plans:

Be aware that if you've been saving gold for the Naxxramas expansion, but are still purchasing card packs with real money, it is more cost effective to spend real money on the expansion and use your gold to get new cards instead. You will receive more packs overall by doing so.

Class challenges

To unlock the new, class-specific cards you'll need to complete a special challenge using that Hero. Each encounter will be a particularly challenging version of one of the Naxxramas fights, and you'll be required to use a pre-made deck during the fight. There are no Heroic versions of these special challenges.

There's much more to our Hearthstone strategy guide via the first page of this article.