March of the Lich King - New Hearthstone Expansion - Cards, Reveals, Release Date, New Mechanics, and More!
By Stonekeep -
Click here to skip the guide and quickly jump to revealed cards!
The Lich King returns to Hearthstone, leading his Undead army and the new Death Knight class in an all-out assault on the elven city of Silvermoon! The Blood Elves won’t go down easily; they are as thirsty for combat as they are for the magic of the Sunwell that they draw power from. As the Corpses pile up, the Death Knights’ army swells, and so begins the March of the Lich King.
General Information
- Release Date - December 6, 2022
- 145 New Expansion Cards + 32 Core Cards + 26 Path of Arthas Cards
- New Class - Death Knight
- New Minion Type - Undead
- Dual-Type Minions
- Returning Keyword - Reborn
- New Keyword - Manathirst
- Two Pre-Purchase Tiers - $49.99 and $79.99
Cinematic Trailer
Announcement Video
New Class - Death Knight
Death Knight is the 11th Hearthstone Hero, joining the roster with the March of the Lich King expansion. The new class is unique in a multitude of ways, having its own mechanics and deck building rules.
Let's start with deck building. Death Knight has access to three different runes - Blood, Frost and Unholy. Each deck has 3 Rune slots and you can use any combination of those (e.g. 2x Blood + 1x Frost, 3x Unholy, or maybe 1 of each). However, many of Death Knight cards have Rune requirements. For example, if you want to add Frostwyrm's Fury to your deck, you need 3x Frost Rune. Which means that you're locked out of any cards requiring Blood or Unholy Runes. This will create an interesting deck building challenge - you can go all in on one Rune type, use 2+1 to still have access to some powerful cards, but a bigger pool, or maybe go for all 3 for maximum flexibility.
Another new Death Knight mechanic are Corpses. Each time a friendly minion dies, DK gets +1 on a Corpse counter. Some cards use those corpses to trigger extra effects, making them much more powerful. On the other hand, if you try to put too many Corpse cards, you might run out of, well, Corpses to use. Do keep in mind, though, that minions summoned from Corpses don't leave Corpses anymore - that would be cheating!
Death Knight will start with whooping 68 cards - 32 added to the Core Set (available for free after finishing DK Prologue), 26 from the new Path of Arthas "set" (which you have to buy for 2000 Gold or 1500 Runestones), and 10 from the new expansion.
If you want to learn more about the class, check out Death Knight deep dive.
New Minion Type - Undead & Dual-Type Minions
Thematically, March of the Lich King adds a completely new minion type called "undead". Players have been asking about it for ages, but there was always one problem - a lot of the cards that are Undead already have other tags (like Pirate or Beast), so it would be really awkward. It was solved by making it possible for cards to have two minion types! For example, Patches the Pirate will now be both a Demon and a Pirate, or Plaguemaw the Rotting will be both Quilboar and Undead.
But back to the Undead - just like many other minion types, they have their own synergy. This time it's "If a friendly undead died after your last turn". It means that in order for it to trigger, a friendly Undead minion had to die during your opponent's turn OR during your current turn. It's not hard to trigger later into the game, but it might be a bit tricky early, where most of the synergies seem to be focused so far (but I'm sure that will change).
New & Returning Keywords/Mechanics - Manathirst & Reborn
Reborn mechanic was originally introduced back in the Saviors of Uldum expansion (August 2019). After that, it only appeared once in Galakrond's Awakening (which utilized mechanics from previous expansions). However, since it fits the new expansion's theme and the new class so well, Blizzard decided to turn it evergreen. From now on, Reborn will appear on cards in (probably) every expansion.
But that's not all, as the expansion gets a brand new keyword - Manathirst. Card with Manathirst (X) will only activate its extra effect if you have X Mana Crystals. It doesn't mean that you have to spend them - you only need to have that much. The mechanic is mostly used on cheap cards that are meant to be useful in early game, while also getting a nice power boost later in the game.
Pre-Purchase
Once again, we'll have two different pre-order bundles. You can get the bundles here. Here's what they include and how much they cost:
March of the Lich King Pre-Purchase Bundle ($49.99)
- 60 March of the Lich King Card Packs
- Two Random Legendary cards from March of the Lich King
- Lor'themar Card Back
March of the Lich King Mega Bundle ($79.99)
- 80 March of the Lich King Card Packs
- 5 Signature Golden March of the Lich King Card Packs
- Two Random Signature Legendaries from March of the Lich King
- Path of Arthas Set
- Lor'themar Hunter Cosmetic Hero
- Lor'themar Card Back
Pre-purchase will be available until a week AFTER expansion's launch (this is the first set doing it, previously they were only available until release).
Most Recently Revealed Cards from March of the Lich King
March of the Lich King Revealed Card List
If you're looking for cards from a specific class, click on it below:
Death Knight - DemonHunter - Druid - Hunter - Mage - Paladin - Priest - Rogue - Shaman - Warlock - Warrior - Neutral
Death knight
Death Knight will launch with 68 new cards! Only 10 of those cards will be a part of the March of the Lich King expansion, but I will still post ALL of the cards here since they will be released at the same time as the new set and it will be easier to see synergies etc. if they are in one place. Sadly I don't know the rarity spread of Core & Path of Arthas cards, so I won't post them in the usual template. I'll just keep adding more as they are revealed.
Core Set Cards
Path of Arthas Cards
March of the Lich King Cards
Demon Hunter
Druid
Hunter
Mage
Paladin
Priest
Rogue
Shaman
Warlock
Warrior
Neutral
Legendaries
Epics
Rares
Commons
Key Art
Game Board
11 Comments
JoyDivision
Do I not understand the Rune System or is it like we're getting three new classes instead of just one... I can never play double or triple Blood Rune cards with with double or triple Unholy Rune Cards, right?
And no golden Legendaries in the Mega Bundle. I wonder if it's because of the DK Set they included.
All in all, lots of new stuff (almost too much for a old guy like me :) ). Seems cool!
JoyDivision
Never mind, 'Signature' seems to be something special ...
SwHorizon
It gives me the feeling that some choices a few cards gave us over the years (e.g. highlander decks, pure paladin, no minion mage) and created special archetypes, have been differently approached for the Death Knight class. In theory we will see a lot of archetypes right from the start (e.g. full frost, 2-1 combinations, 1-1-1), but a few would be viable per expansion.
It was about time Undead tribe would be introduced. I guess this will be the next tribe in the Battlegrounds, as well.
JoyDivision
I find it funny that they're creating 'subclasses' right from the start. But tbh I'm not so optimistic about archetype variety; what will happen most of the time is that only a fraction of the DK cards will be playable, because there always will be THE best DK archetype (which then auto-excludes all bombs from the other rune fractions).
Undead next in Battlegrounds: For sure!
Veno
Aren't manathirst cards just slightly worse versions of upgrade cards?
The point is for the card to have more value in the late game while being average or decent as soon as you have enough mana to play. Aren't they filling the same niche? Unless I'm not seeing something they will be pretty much used the same way which is a shame because I was hoping for new card mechanics
SwHorizon
You are totally right. The only difference I see is that you can see the upgraded effect written on the card right away. Maybe there will be also cards associated with the mechanic somehow (e.g. costs one less for any Manathirst card played this game). But these are insignificant remarks. The mechanic feels exactly the same to me as well
Stonekeep
I think it's a bit better version of "Ranked cards", since you can pick exactly the point at which it gets stronger. Ranked cards always upgraded at 5 and 10, which wasn't perfect for balancing and making cool effects.
With Manathirst, you can make a 1-drop that upgrades on Turn 3, or a 1-drop that upgrades on Turn 8. It can lead to some really interesting design choices.
But overall yes, I think that those two mechanics are pretty similar and maybe a bit too close to each other given that ranked cards are still in Standard. But then again, the new expansion will have so much stuff around DK that introducing some crazy new mechanic might have been too much.
Vincent
I like the new DK class, I think the rune system looks good, it seems well thought out.
I have my doubts about Patchwerk, another disruption card, especially at 7 mana (combo with Brann). This will be another reason to include Theotar. And all those undead minions will be feeding Denathrius. 2 weeks ago Old Guardian talked about Renethal, Theotar, Denathrius and Brann dominating the Standard ladder. With the new DK class those cards will be played even more.
Drfury
Are we now in full competition mode to build the best ANTI LK deck ASAP, since we know everyone and their cat will be playing LK?
KonuTech
These DK cards are ridiculous. Please, make it stop!
LuKeAA
Odd DK looking beyond solid already.
Comments are closed.