Everything you need to know about Hearthstone’s Descent of Dragons expansion, now live!

Hearthstone’s latest expansion, Descent of Dragons, is now live, so get ready as the greatest aerial battle in the history of Azeroth unfolds. The heroic League of Explorers (featuring the dashing Brann Bronzebeard) takes on the dastardly League of E.V.I.L. with both sides flying in on the backs of majestic dragons.

Such a catchy tune! Here at Blizzard Watch, we’re celebrating with a live stream on Tuesday night, starting at 8:30 p.m. CST on the official Blizzard Watch Twitch channel. Between my pre-order and the gold I’ve saved, I have over 120 packs to open, and then I’ll build some decks and venture forth into the new expansion.

When can you start playing?

The time to pre-order is over, but starting at 10:00 a.m. PDT you’ve been able to start opening all the Descent of Dragons packs you’ve already ordered. You can also start buying the packs with the in-game gold you’ve been saving. Take it nice and slow. While Saviors of Uldum released smoothly, the servers usually get slammed and there have been hiccups in the past, like packs opening without the animations. You got the cards, but you didn’t see them until they were in your collection.

What’s new?

A whole lot! Descent of Dragons will have all of the following new features:

• 130 new cards to collect, some of which look quite interesting.
• Galakrond! (More on this below.)
• New Keyword: Invoke — Cards with this keyword will cause Galakrond to evolve to his more powerful second and third forms. Each Invoke card you play will also trigger Galakrond’s upgraded Hero Power effect.
• Side Quests
• Legendary Dragons
• New Lackey: Draconic Lackey (Battlecry: Discover a Dragon)
• 3 new Battleground heroes: Sylvanas Windrunner, Edwin Van Cleef, and Arch-Villain Rafaam

Card freebies!

With past expansions, Hearthstone gave players free packs and cards and it looks like they are using the same model in Descent of Dragons. If you’ve played Tavern Brawl over the last few weeks, you already have a few Descent of Dragons packs. If you log in within the next 90 days, you’ll receive all five Galakrond Hero cards for free. But that’s not all. You’ll get 3 Descent of Dragons card packs, plus 2 copies of the Shield of Galakrond card (5 mana 4/5 with Taunt and Battlecy: Invoke Galakrond). You’ll also start a Legendary Quest chain which will earn more Descent of Dragon packs and gold to spend however you’d like — you might want to save it for the Solo Adventure.

But wait, there’s even more!

As an incentive to check out the redesigned in-game shop, everyone will receive the Tyrande Priestess Hero Portrait and Card back just for stopping by and checking it out. When you’re there, you’ll see a new Hunter Hero Portrait for sale. It’s none other than Sylvanas Windrunner, available for $9.99 US. Hearthstone guarantees a Legendary card in your first 10 card packs of a new expansion which means each player should have a Legendary card from the new set soon in addition to the Galakronds.

What about single-player mode?

However, not everything for Descent of Dragons is launching Tuesday. All of the single-player content, which we still don’t have many details for, will likely release after the holidays. I expect it will follow a similar Dungeon Run style as the Dalaran Heist and Tombs of Terror, but with some twists in store. We should have more information coming in the future.

I would expect the costs to remain the same. Each wing or chapter should cost 700 gold or $5, so you’ll need to decide how much gold to save — but we have a helpful guide for that! It will probably award card packs as Dalaran Heist and Tombs of Terror did, but we don’t know yet.

What should I play?

Stay tuned, because while the meta is still shaking out, we’ll have a post on a few theorycraft decks (possible link to deck post) that have potential soon. You can also search Hearthstone Top Decks for decks that match your current card collection.

Best of luck in Descent of Dragons.  May you get all the cards you want from your packs, and may you top deck lethal. This is the way.