CATACLYSM Guide – New Hearthstone Expansion – Card Reveals, Release Date, New Mechanics, and More!

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General Information

• Release Date – March 17, 2026
• 135 New Cards
• Returning Keyword – Colossal
• New Keyword – Herald (Upgrade your Colossals and Deathwing Hero card)
• New Keyword – Shatter (Cards split in two when drawn, and then combine for powerful effects)
• New Mechanic – Hand Targetting (Some cards will be able to target ANY card in your hand)
• Free Login Card Available Now – Warmaster Blackhorn
• Emerald Dream and Lost City of Un’Goro available to all players for free for the duration of the CATACLYSM expansion.

Cinematic Trailer

Note: It’s only the first part of the cinematic trailer – the second part is coming on the expansion’s launch (March 17)!

Announcement Video

CATACLYSM Key Art

CATACLYSM Game Board

Returning Keyword – Colossal

I usually start with new keywords/mechanics and only then proceed to the returning ones, but this time they’re closely tied to together so I had to start with this one! Colossal minions, first introduced in Voyage to the Sunken City expansion, are now back. If you don’t remember how they work (or you weren’t playing at the time), the concept is actually quite simple.

When you play OR summon the “main body”, you also get all of its “appendages”. For example, a card with “Colossal +4” comes with 4 extra minions you also summon. And those appendages usually have some sort of interaction with the main body. For example – the new Paladin Legendary Chromatus comes with four keywords, making it incredibly hard to get rid of, but killing one of its heads also gets rid of one of the keywords. It will still be a big challenge to get through it, but it will create some very interesting board interactions!

In CATACLYSM, every single class is getting a Colossal Legendary minion, but they will not be the same. 5 of them will be normal Colossals we already had before, while 6 will be the new versions utilizing the “Herald” mechanic.

New Keyword – Herald

In CATACLYSM, six classes will be aligned with Deathwing – Death Knight, Demon Hunter, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock, and Warrior. Those classes will utilize the new Herald keyword and can use the new Deathwing, Worldbreaker Hero card.

Using a card with Herald does two things. First – it improves your Colossal and Deathwing. They get their first upgrade after two Herald effects and then a second update after two more (so you need to Herald four times in total to unlock their full potential). It works a bit like the oldschool Galakrond if you remember that one.

But Heralding also has an immediate effect – it summons a “Soldier” of the Colossal from your class. The Soldier has the same affect as one of the Colossal appendages and also gets upgraded by Heralding. You can see it in an example below. Warrior’s Colossal is Ragnaros, the Great Fire. When you Herald 2 and 4 times, you will upgrade his appendages to deal 4 and then 8 damage each. And every time you Herald, you will also summon Soldier of Ragnaros that has the same effect as appendages (dealing 2/4/8 damage to a random enemy).

New Keyword – Shatter

The other 5 classes – Druid, Hunter, Mage, Paladin, and Priest – are aligned with the dragonflights (each of them will have a Legendary Dragon Aspect card) and oppose Deathwing, so they can’t Herald. However, they have their own new mechanic – Shatter. Yes, the one that was first teased in last expansion with Misplaced Pyromancer.

When you draw a card in Shatter, it splits into two weaker versions that are placed on the opposite sides of your hand. Once they are next to each other in your hand, they combine back into the original, full power version. Here’s an example:

When you draw Supply Run, it splits into two cards – one that draws 3 minions and another that gives minions in your hand +2/+2. One is placed on the left side of your hand and the other on the right side. If you play (or Discard etc.) all cards in between them, they combine once again into the original version that has both of the effects.

Of course, nothing stops you from playing individual pieces, but power level wise those should be weaker than average cards (which is compensated by the fact that the combined effect is incredibly powerful).

New Mechanic – Hand Targeting

The technology is finally here! Before this expansion, when you had to target a card in your hand, you usually only saw three options in a standard Discover screen and you had to pick one. If you had a lot of cards in your hand, it added a lot of randomness to the effect (to the point that Blizzard often didn’t even bother and just made the card random in the first place).

However, CATACLYSM introduces a new version of the mechanic that (finally) lets you pick any card in your hand you want. For now, only a few hand targeting cards got revealed, but there are a lot of ways to utilize this. It’s certainly gonna reduce the RNG and frustration of not hitting the card you want.

Keep in mind that this will NOT affect old cards with similar effects (unless they get updated with this version of the mechanic in the future), but Blizzard said that they will be using this version of hand targeting in the future expansions.

Pre-Purchase Info

Once again, we’ll have three different pre-order bundles. You can purchase them here or in-game. Here’s what they include and how much they cost:

CATACLYSM Mega Pre-Purchase Bundle ($79.99)

• 80 CATACLYSM Card Packs
• 10 Golden CATACLYSM Card Packs
• 1 Random Signature Legendary Colossal card from the expansion
• 1 Random Golden Legendary card from the expansion
• 4 Tavern Tickets
• Sinestra Rogue Hero Skin (It’s displayed as DH on the image above but it’s Rogue in game)
• Sinestra Card Back

CATACLYSM Pre-Purchase Bundle ($49.99)

• 60 CATACLYSM Card Packs
• Two Random Legendaries from the expansion
• Sinestra Card Back

Purchasing both the Regular and Mega bundles will give you two random Legendary cards from the expansion and allows you to purchase the Sequence bundle:

CATACLYSM Sequence Pre-Purchase Bundle ($59.99)

This bundle is only available if you have purchased both of the previous bundles.

• 20 Golden CATACLYSM Card Packs
• 1 Random Signature Legendary card from the expansion
• Diamond Victor Nefarius Death Knight Legendary card

Pre-purchase will only be available until the expansion’s launch, so be sure to get it at least a day before the set goes live just to be sure.

Most Recently Revealed Cards from CATACLYSM

CATACLYSM Revealed Card List

If you’re looking for cards from a specific class, click on it below:

Death Knight – Demon Hunter – Druid – Hunter – Mage – Paladin – Priest – Rogue – Shaman – Warlock – Warrior – Neutral

Arisen Onyxia’s Appendages & Soldier:

Azshara, Ocean Lord’s Appendages & Soldier:

Wickerfang’s Appendages:

Magmaw’s Appendages:

Vulcanos Appendages:

Chromatus Appendages:

The Black Blood Appendages:

Sinestra’s Appendages & Soldier:

Al’Akir’s Appendages & Soldier:

Ragnaros’ Appendages and Soldier:

Ragnaros’ Appendages and Soldier:

Legendaries

Epics

Rares

Commons

Note: Deathwing, Worldbreaker, Ultraxion and Envoy of the End are technically multi-class cards playable in 6 classes and not Neutral, but I’ve put them under Neutral for the sake of simplicity.