Submitted by Sammy Snyder on
Each year Blizzard announces a new theme for its collectible card game Hearthstone and selects several cards to be moved into the Hall of Fame. This year has been dubbed "Year of the Dragon" and nine cards have received Hall of Fame honors. You can visit the official Hearthstone blog for the Year of the Dragon and Hall of Fame announcements.
This week, Blizzard also announced its first expansion for the Year of the Dragon. Launching worldwide on April 9th, the expansion called, Rise of Shadows, will include 135 new cards, Arena rotations, new mechanics and other game improvements. Taking a page from the Challenge of the Super Friends, the "notorious ne’er-do-wells from across Hearthstone’s history" have all banded together under the leadership of Arch-villain Rafaam to form the "League of EV.I.L.." Their target is the magical floating city of Dalaran. You can see Rafaam's evil, and musical, plan put into motion in the Rise of Shadows announcement trailer embedded below.
Rise of the Shadows will include 1/1 minion cards called "Lackeys," powerful spells called "Schemes," forbidden magics from previous eras, and replicating spells called Twinspells.
The launch of Rise of the Shadows on April 9th will officially kick off the Year of the Dragon. You can pre-purchase the Mega Bundle for $80 or the Standard for $50 now at Rise of the Shadows website. The Mega Bundle ncludes 80 Rise of Shadows card packs, the Madame Lazul Priest Hero, an exclusive card back, and a random Rise of Shadows Golden Legendary card. The Standard Bundle comes with 50 Rise of the Shadows expansion packs.