Hearthstone debuts new Demon Hunter class

Hearthstone will do more than usher in a new Standard year, it will also introduce Hearthstone's 10th playable class: the Demon Hunter.

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It's about that time for Hearthstone to announce its next expansion. In fact, it's about time for Blizzard's card game to prepare for the next Standard year. However, it looks like the publisher is taking a major step forward. Hearthstone will do more than introduce a new year, it will also introduce a brand new class in the form of the Demon Hunter.

Hearthstone will be the card game's take on World of Warcraft's Burning Crusade storyline, focused on Illidan Stormrage. Illidan will stand alongside his brethren and face down the fearsome demons of Outland. Illidan will be the first character in the playable Demon Hunter class.

Demon Hunters are centered around aggression, trade-offs, Demons, Lifesteal effects, and card positioning. The latter quality will feed into Outcast, a keyword exclusive to the Demon Hunter class. Outcast will offer specific effects for cards played whenever they're on the left or rightmost position in the player's hand. We'll have more details on how to play the Demon Hunter class later today, so stay tuned to Shacknews for that.

Players can look forward to a special series of Demon Hunter Prologue missions that tell Hearthstone's version of Illidan Stormrage's origins. Completing these missions will unlock the Demon Hunter class, along with 10 Demon Hunter class cards that will slot into the Basic set and 20 Demon Hunter class cards that will be slotted into the Year of the Dragon. The latter cards will be playable for a year before rotating out into Wild. In an effort to play catch-up with Hearthstone's other nine classes, 15 new Demon Hunter cards will be introduced with each expansion for the new Standard year. The Demon Hunter Prologue missions will be made available on April 2, while the Demon Hunter class will officially arrive on April 7.

There's much more coming this morning from Heathstone, so stay tuned. Shacknews will have more information as it comes in.

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?

From The Chatty
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    March 17, 2020 9:06 AM

    Ozzie Mejia posted a new article, Hearthstone: Ashes of Outland debuts new Demon Hunter class

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      March 17, 2020 9:11 AM

      Nice. My WoW main's a DH!

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      March 17, 2020 9:33 AM

      YAY PRIEST CLASS FIXES

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      March 17, 2020 9:40 AM

      I haven't played in years. Seems like it'd be tough to get back into it. So many missed expansions, uncollected legendaries, etc.

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        March 17, 2020 11:28 AM

        Supposedly they’re giving a competitive deck to returning players. Also the best time to comeback is when a rotation happens.

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        March 17, 2020 11:35 AM

        They have implemented a system that in standard play, only the base cards , and cards from the last 4 to 6 expansions will be available to be used in play. Eg , when this Ashes set comes out, it, and the three previous expansions will only be allowed in addition to base. This helps to keep new players in the game and avoids power creep and worrying about weird combos from cards developed years apart.

        There is a Wild format that throws that out the door, but most modes don't use that.

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