Hearthstone turns ten, with free cards and WoW rewards now live!

Hearthstone is now ten years old, and the game has kicked off a massive celebration with many gifts and two questlines for players — including World of Warcraft players — and all of the Hearthstone anniversary rewards now live!

But it isn’t all about gifts. This is also our first look Year of the Pegasus, which will likely launch in late March or early April, with an update to the Core Set. Plus we have updates for Twist and Battlegrounds. It’s a lot of news, so let’s get right to it!

Hearthstone login rewards and Legendary questlines

The gifts are already being distributed. Just log into the game right now to get a total of 24 free cards. These are:

• 1x Harth Stonebrew (neutral Legendary minion)
• 1x Colifero the Artist (neutral Legendary minion)
• 2x Anduin’s Gift (Rare Priest spell)
• 2x Arthas’s Gift (Rare Death Knight spell)
• 2x Garrosh’s Gift (Rare Warrior spell)
• 2x Gul’dan’s Gift (Rare Warlock spell)
• 2x Illidan’s Gift (Rare Demon Hunter spell)
• 2x Jaina’s Gift (Rare Mage spell)
• 2x Malfurion’s Gift (Rare Druid spell)
• 2x Rexxar’s Gift (Rare Hunter spell)
• 2x Thrall’s Gift (Rare Shaman spell)
• 2x Uther’s Gift (Rare Paladin spell)
• 2x Valeera’s Gift (Rare Rogue spell)

In addition, there are two Legendary Questlines — which are now live.

• The first of these offers uncraftable Golden Versions of all of those Gift cards (two copies of each), plus an exclusive Birthday Coin at the end of the track. Just complete the Event Quests and Daily Quests to collect enough points for all of those rewards — you have until March 19 to earn everything.
• The second, which was added March 11, rewards you with an exclusive 10 Year Anniversary card back. This one is offered as an old-school extra quest on your quest log, rather than in the event pane.

Hearthstone’s 10th anniversary rewards for World of Warcraft

It’s Hearthstone’s anniversary but there’s a lot going on for the WoW players: starting on March 11, logging into Hearthstone will net players a new Fiery Hearthsteed mount! This reward is now live!

Also, from March 11 to March 18, every hour, you’ll be able to engage in “Hearthstone” matches in WoW’s capital cities — in Stormwind Harbor, Durotar (outside of Orgrimmar), and Valdrakken — culminating in a special encounter against Whizbang. The event happens in a rotation, with portals spawning only in Stormwind and Orgrimmar, then only in Valdrakken the next time, and then repeating that cycle.

When the portals spawn, you can defeat Whizbang’s iconic minions and add them to your deck in order to earn these Hearthstone-themed rewards:

• a mount, Compass Rose
• a battle pet, Sarge
• a toy, Hearthstone Game Table
• a 36-Slot Bag, Collector’s Carryall
• a tabard, The Tavern’s Tabard
• a Hearthstone toy, Stone of the Hearth
• a cosmetic headpiece, Reno’s Lucky Hat
• a cosmetic belt, Taverner’s Belt

The Sarge pet, in particular, is very cute — but these are all great rewards, so this event is definitely worth checking out.

Year of the Pegasus Core Set rotation brings back fan-favorite cards

The tenth anniversary of the game also ushers in the Year of the Pegasus. The Core Set update for the Year of the Pegasus is “bringing back several iconic cards from Hearthstone’s history” — and there are some very interesting changes.

Returning (and leaving) cards

Aside from the return of Leeroy Jenkins, other old favorites are coming back — sometimes in much-improved forms. Here are a few of the most interesting returning cards:

• Twisting Nether for Warlocks now destroys Locations in addition to minions.
• Big Game Hunter now has the Tradeable keyword, meaning that he’s much easier to just slap onto a deck.
• Mind Control Tech now costs 5 mana, but now you get to pick which minion you want to steal!

But some cards are leaving the pool as well… including my beloved Darkbishop Benedictus (which means that I’m basically never playing Priest again). You can check out all the changes to existing cards as well as returning cards at the official Core Set blog.

New Elusive keyword

There’s also a keyword update: cards that used to read “can’t be targeted by spells or hero powers” will now have the new Elusive keyword instead to denote that same effect. This is something that the community had been clamoring for for years, and they finally made it real.

Year of the Pegasus expansions and more game updates

We only have a teaser picture to speculate from, but that’s enough to start. We already know the first expansion, Whizbang’s Workshop. As for the other two, if I had to guess:

• For the second expansion, perhaps we’ll travel to a place such as Booty Bay, or even a location that hasn’t been seen in WoW yet, such as Tel’Abim Island. The treasure map makes me think Booty Bay, though, since it has pirates.
• The third expansion is the hardest one to guess. Something about that starry sky seems very wistful and dream-like… perhaps it’ll be an expansion about dreams, in some manner. Or perhaps we’ll meet the Constellar.

New Twist Season: The new Twist Season adds more cards each day! On March 1, only Legacy cards will be legal; whereas on March 2, Curse of Naxxramas cards will be added to the mix, and on March 3, Goblins vs Gnomes cards will also be allowed.

Battlegrounds Duos: The new game mode that we heard about back on BlizzCon 2023 will be released at some point during the Year of the Pegasus as well.

With all of that, all that’s left for us to say is… happy tenth Anniversary, Hearthstone! And don’t forget to login right now to get your free cards, and partake in the questlines for the other rewards!

Originally posted February 12, 2024. Updated March 11, 2024.