Multiple new heroes are coming to Heroes of the Storm this year — and snowstorms in the Nexus may be our first teaser

It’s been a quiet start to the year for Heroes of the Storm. 2019 ended strongly with the Toy Box 2 event and the release of Deathwing — but from there we haven’t really had much. There were a few different hero reworks — the long-awaited Tassadar rework finally got done, and both Tracer and Cassia got a surprise rework to go along with their new godly outfits. Now seven months after Deathwing landed in the Nexus we’ve got our first stirrings of a new hero close on the horizon.

Developer Kinabrew confirmed that not only are there multiple heroes planned for the Nexus this year, but the first also isn’t far off. We’re not about to get a double release right now, but the team has multiple heroes on the way for the back half of the year.

But it’ll take some time for them to arrive. In the meantime, things in the Nexus have gotten a little unseasonably chilly.

It’s snowing in the Nexus?!

Snow? At this time of year, at this time of day, localized entirely in the Nexus? Yes!

It won’t snow in every match you play, but every few games nice white fluffy flakes will fall from the sky for the whole game. The last time we saw something similar to this was prior to Deathwing being announced. His imminent arrival was causing earthquakes at the start of matches, and if you listened closely — not that closely — you could even hear a dragon roar as an ominous shadow passed overhead briefly.

But who or what is behind the snow? We’re not sure yet, but I have a few ideas.

Mei is the most obvious snow-themed hero

If there’s snow involved, it’s gotta be Mei. The first time I heard about the snow in the Nexus I instantly thought that Mei was making the journey from Overwatch. There hasn’t been a new Overwatch hero in the Nexus since Hanzo joined up alongside Alexstraza — which was all the way back in 2017, so it feels a little overdue.

Her Overwatch set of abilities translate into Heroes pretty well. You could toggle her attacks between the freezing spray and icicles similar to how Fenix can choose between a single target and AOE attacks. Her wall is similar to Tassadar’s, but maybe have it make an actual wall that stops projectiles, but has health and could be destroyed by incoming damage. Leaving room for a potential storm tier talent that makes your walls invincible. As for ultimate abilities, it’d be cool for her to get a single ultimate that’s available from level one like Tracer’s Pulse Bomb. But I’m sure there’s an argument to be made for Mei getting the ability to launch giant snowballs at her enemies.

I’m not entirely sold on the idea that we’re going to be getting her though. Looking at her kit shows a lot of overlap with other heroes.

Plus she’s a little too on the nose. The Heroes team has shown in the past how much they like to have their gotcha moments and have fun with their reveals. Remember when D.Va and Genji were added? Everyone was convinced that the claw marks and embers meant we were getting Deathwing.

Sindragosa would finally let us build out an all-dragon team

The Queen of the Frost Wyrms, Sindragosa has snow and ice as part of her very makeup. I know that Arthas already has the Summon Sindragosa ultimate ability, but that could easily be changed to Summon Frost Wyrm without too much trouble. Sindragosa would also be the second dragon to be added in a row, but dragons are super cool — so why not.

As the fifth proper dragon to join the Nexus she could even fill the last role left unfilled by the other dragons. Alexstraza and Brightwing are healers, Chromie is an assassin, and Deathwing is a Bruiser — make her a straight-up main tank. Send her into the middle of combat to utilize her mastery over frost to slow and freeze her enemies, or her fearsome control of magic to add feedback effects on enemy spells.

Let her cackle maniacally while the other team’s pathetic magic betrays them!

As long as she gets a tail attack as well. It’s almost criminal that none of the other dragons have a tail attack.

Still, as much as I’d love to have a full dragon squad for my matches, I don’t feel like Sindragosa is very likely. Imagine the nightmare of trying to walk through a team that had all those big dragon bodies on it. It’d be like a scene from the Three Stooges every time they tried to leave their base.

Baal would be a heck of a misdirect

The last of the Prime Evils not in the Nexus, Baal has been one of the most-requested characters to be added. He’d be a long shot, but using the snow as a misdirect for him traveling to Mount Arreat would be a clever move on Blizzard’s part. He did even have a single cold spell when you fought him in Diablo 2, so you could build out a cold-based kit from there. It worked for Mephisto and his spooky skull and lightning-based spells.

Baal definitely doesn’t feel like he’d be a tank like his brother Diablo though. Most likely he would be another short-ranged spell caster like Mephisto. Let him get nice and close into combat where he could use his power to clone himself to maximize his survivability through confusion and misdirection. Similar to Samuro, but with spells instead of a giant sword.

I’d assume it’s more likely for Baal to show up than Sindragosa, but only barely. He’s not that snowy, and even with Blizzard’s love of the misdirects — that’s one giant misdirect. I’m still not counting him out of the Nexus entirely. But I don’t think that he’ll be next.

Will snow overtake sun this summer?

With all this snow on the way who knows what the usual Sun’s Out, Guns Out summer even will even look like. Maybe it’ll be a chance for everyone to get nice big thick wooly parka skins. Maybe Ragnaros will finally get another skin. People have been suggesting a Frostlord Ragnaros skin for a long time, and nobody would expect him to get it during the middle of the summer months! A more snowy event would also let them release any other snowy skins that might’ve been backburnered during the last two Toys events that ran during winter.

Hopefully, if they do make this a snowy summer, we get the return of one of the best brawls — The Snow Brawl. It was your standard game on Cursed Hollow, but with additional snowballs! Also, Tributes spawned five seconds after each other until one team got cursed. It was a fast-paced take on the map, that wound up being a bunch of fun.

I just love the possibility that doing a snowy summer would be a whole new event. They’ve been playing their hits, so to speak, for the last few events. The Dark Nexus and Toybox are, rightfully, very popular — so it made sense to revisit them. But the new Greek God skins for Tracer and Cassia made me way more excited than the Dark Nexus Deathwing did.

I’m sure we’ll find out sooner than later who the new hero is. The one after that though could be anyone! There have been some rumors that a certain slithery archer might be coming soon. When Qhira got added there were a couple of voice lines that referenced Lady Vashj, so maybe we’ll finally get a Naga in the Nexus!

I can’t wait, as long as someone gets a joke about being tired of all the snakes in their games.