Last week, we’ve learned about the so-called “Blizzard Showcase” – a series of announcement/reveal events for a few different games, including Hearthstone. The Hearthstone portion of the showcase is scheduled for February 9, and Blizzard just posted another teaser for it.
The teaser image shows three locations from previous Hearthstone expansions Badlands (Showdown in the Badlands), Elwynn Forest (United in Stormwind) and Zin-Azshari (Voyage to the Sunken City). There’s also the top part with sky and some spires/obelisks, but I can’t quite place it just from this image. (Edit: Some people suggested that it looks like Uldum, so maybe we can throw in Saviors of Uldum to the mix!)
The teaser reads “Peace Reigns Eternal”. The social media post itself also includes “… but does the timeline agree?” line, which suggests that we’re not done with the time shenanigans from Across the Timeways.
Now, this is quite different from the usual expansion teasers. Generally they show NEW location that the next expansion will take place in or at least somewhat connected to it, but here we see older expansions instead. It might mean that we will go back to those locations (like we did go back to Un’Goro in Lost City), or maybe some of the mechanics/Legendary cards from those expansions are going to be brought back. If we go wilder, maybe they are even bringing whole expansions back to Standard (or at least parts of them). Although I’m not sure if they would pick Stormwind for that, given that it’s not very fondly remembered by players because of Questlines.
Or maybe it’s something else entirely – who knows! Luckily, we won’t have to wait long to find out, because the reveals happen in just a week – February 9 at 9:30 AM PT (18:30 CET).
Here’s a full teaser image:
I had to look at the card art again, but the first thing I thought of seeing the darkened obelisks was Solitude – turns out the broken buildings that Broxigar is looking at don’t remotely look like the first image. Whoops!
Let’s say for the sake of speculative argument that we are looking at returns to older Hearthstone settings from the early 2020s, with more timeline shenanigans thrown in. We at least know that the unidentified “Shatter” keyword has to feature in the 2026 year somewhere, so more timeline shattering is thematically possible. It’d be VERY brave if that’s what they go with for the whole year, but if nothing else, I can respect Team 5 for playing the long game.
A return to the Badlands could look into what happened after Dive Into Deepholm. We already got a new version of Elise, albeit far into the future after Un’goro (whether the Fins Beyond Time counts as a new Finley is separately up for debate). Could we have new Reno and new Brann? I remember a conversation between Rarran and Eddy on whether Showdown in the Badlands and Festival of Legends should have swapped places in 2023, so we closed the year on the new keyword “Finale”. Personally, it’s a cool idea, until I realised that Lone Ranger Reno decks would have been with us at the start of 2023, and that just feels horrifying. Any new Brann they come up with for 2026 almost certainly has to have some insanely broken buildaround like Deepminer Brann did, just because Brann is always going to be a popular Hearthstone mainstay – so perhaps it’s best if this is NOT the direction they go with. Same for Reno, really.
A return to United in Stormwind is incredibly brave of the team, given how poorly remembered that set was – but then with how The Lost City of Un’goro was received, maybe they could get away with it this time? A return to Quests could signal a return to Questlines again, for better or worse. Maybe much, much worse. Thematically I wouldn’t mind seeing how our Mercenary friends are doing, like Kurtrus cameoed in Badlands.
Going back to Zin’Ashari might be possible – we’ve already seen a version of the city through Druid’s themes in Across the Timeways. Naga/Mech/Pirate synergies, Dredge, Voyage to the Sunken City was a good time, even though I wasn’t particularly horrified by the 2021 metagame. All I think I can say is… I really hope Team 5 doesn’t botch this one.
Instead of new sets, they are just gonna re release the old ones for 2026…
That’s slightly sarcastic, but still I’d give blizzard a 50/50 chance that that is their plan unfortunately