Hearthstone's next expansion has a hell of a twist.

Kobolds & Catacombs will add a total of 135 new cards to the game, including brand-new legendary weapons for all nine classes, an adventurer named Marin the Fox, and a bunch of crazy cards like Tolin's Goblet, which lets you draw a card and then fill your hand with copies of it.

There's also a new keyword, "recruit", which summons a random minion from your deck.

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Q: Hearthstone was officially released just over two years ago. Can you tell me how the game and the team has evolved over that time?

Ben Thompson: Oh, it’s so different in so many ways. I mean, Hearthstone still feels like Hearthstone, and I think we've worked very, very tirelessly to make sure that it continues to evolve, but at a pace where it never seems to out-distance itself from what it once was and what we want to be in the future. The team that's making it has gone from what we were when it initially released with roughly 17 people… we're up to 70 now. So, that's a lot of people and a lot of content that's promised to come through over that time. We're still looking at roughly three expansions a year. There's a rotation that will take place at the beginning of every year, roughly first couple months. That helps us keep the game evolving as much as possible – keep it new and as fresh and as interesting as we know it can be. And an expansion like Mean Streets of Gadgetzan in is no exception to that. You know it's going to offer a lot of new things for players in terms of deck and new strategies.

Q: Was the team prepared for the success of Hearthstone?

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You’re invited to attend the party of the millennium! As Medivh’s guest you’ll experience everything his delightful domicile has to offer, rub shoulders with Azeroth’s most fascinating beings, and dance the night away in Hearthstone’s next Adventure: One Night in Karazhan!

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The Old Gods have completed their world tour! Did you see any of these and, if so, did you succumb to the corruption...?

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There’ll be no more apologising in Hearthstone, because Blizzard has removed the game’s “sorry” button.

Actually, given that most players use the button to deploy sarcastic apologies, I should have put “apologising” in quotes in that sentence. My deepest, sincerest apologies for the mix-up. I’m really very sorry.

In place of “Sorry” is a “Wow” button. Pressing this has your character say “astonishing!”, “incredible!”, and other things I was too lazy to research (sorry). The wow emotes do sound sincere, though.

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The pro Hearthstone scene in China is rife with cheats who traffic in win-trading and pay-to-legend schemes to boost themselves up the rankings, a new report claims.

Gosu Gamers writer Radoslav Kolev put together the piece, wherein he suspects that the size of the competitive field in China, alongside the struggle that is earning money as a pro gamer, has seen a group of at least 14 pros form a cartel of sorts that offers cheat schemes to others in exchange for cash.

Kolev bolsters his claims with some damning screenshots, although some of the captured conversations are coded.

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Wield the power of the Light as Paladin Lady Liadrin in Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft!

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Ancient evils have awoken in Hearthstone’s third expansion: Whispers of the Old Gods!

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Hearthstone's next expansion is titled Whispers of the Old Gods and brings a touch of Lovecraftian lore to the Warcraft card-gaming spinoff.

According to developer Blizzard, the expansion centres around the awakening of "nameless tentacled terrors" that dwell beneath Azeroth.

It introduces 134 "disgustingly potent" new cards, including new eldritch horrors as well as corrupted versions of existing cards.

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Activision Blizzard's Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft will receive a major update this coming season, changing deck management and adding a new gameplay mode.

The biggest change is the addition of a "Standard" gameplay mode, which restricts usable cards to only those released in the past two calendar years.

It is intended to give regular variation to the card pool, and to keep Hearthstone balanced and accessible for new players.

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Q: One of the main new mechanics introduced in The League of Explorers expansion pack for Hearthstone is “Discover”. Can you please explain how the mechanic works?

Eric Dodds: The skill side of it is that when you are presented with three random cards, picking the right card for the right moment for where you are in your mana curve, for what opponent you're playing, and for what you think the meta says that they're likely to have in their deck. You know – do I think they're going to have weapons or not? Are they likely to have counter secrets? Or are they likely to be light secrets? Should I choose one of those counters as they pop up?

If I'm at three mana when I discover something and there's a kinda-mediocre four-mana minion and Ragnaros there, which one should I go for? I don't know – maybe I need to survive to turn eight! Where the skill comes in is making the right choice, so it's a lot like picking the right card when you're playing Arena. It's randomness modified by the skill of the user to make the right choice.

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The next Hearthstone Adventure is The League of Explorers, and its first wing releases this week.

As Blizzard Entertainment revealed at BlizzCon over the weekend, The League of Explorers sends brave duelists far and wide on harrowing expeditions to recover a mysterious lost relic. It will pit them against dastardly villains in fierce encounters that will require unique strategies to conquer. And yes, there might be serpents.

It introduces four intrepid adventurers – Elise Starseeker, Reno Jackson, Sir Finley Mrrgglton, and Brann Bronzebeard – who will navigate through the Temple of Orsis, Uldaman, the Ruined City, and the Hall of Explorers in hopes of discovering lost artifacts that will lead them closer to the relic. A fourth wing will take place at Hall of Explorers in the Ironforge.

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A full match from the upcoming League of Explorers adventure.

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Adventure awaits! Join the League of Explorers and set off on an expedition with your new friends to reclaim an ancient artifact of immense power! Discover powerful new cards for your Hearthstone decks!

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Q: What was Blizzard’s view of the meta game prior to work on The Grand Tournament, and where did you want to take it with this new expansion?

Ben Thompson: We’ve been really excited in all of the expansions and adventures to celebrate some new facet of the game – or even one that shipped with the game in the case of DeathRattle for Curse of Naxxramas – but do so in a way that introduces players to new ways to play with that mechanic.

Mechs with Goblins vs Gnomes introduced a whole new character type and different combinations therein, and now The Grand Tournament with its Inspire keyword and entirely new sets of decks built around your hero are going to really change up current decks, but also allow them to continue to be built in new and interesting ways. We’re really looking forward to The Grand Tournament allowing the hero to take front and centre action on the board instead of kind of feeling like a little bit of punching bag at times if you consider the non-warrior non active classes that can deal damage themselves. This gives them a place in the fight and really gives them an ability to make a palpable difference on the board.

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Mount up and make your way to the most fun festival in all of Hearthstone. Champions, noble steeds, pirates, and more await you in Hearthstone’s second expansion: The Grand Tournament.

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A second expansion hits popular Blizzard CCG Hearthstone next month.

Like Goblins vs Gnomes before it, The Grand Tournament is a large card expansion that will bring in 132 new cards, along with a new Inspire mechanic.

Minions with the Inspire ability will activate whenever you use your hero power, and there are more cards that interact with your hero power overall.

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Blizzard's immensely popular collectible card game Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is available now on Android and iOS for mobile phones.

The mobile edition features a new interface designed specifically for these smaller devices. It features all the content previously released for Hearthstone, including the brand new Blackrock Mountain adventure.

Blizzard has also announced that, win or lose, anyone who completes a game in any mode on mobile will be gifted a free Classic card pack from the original Hearthstone set.

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Blackrock Mountain: A Hearthstone Adventure is coming soon! Face fearsome foes in Blackrock Mountain, Hearthstone’s next single player Adventure. Log in and test your wits against five fiery wings, each packed with iconic bosses. Earn powerful new cards for your Hearthstone decks!

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If data-miners parsing the next Hearthstone patch are to be believed, the next expansion to the digital collectible card game will be themed around Blackrock Mountain.

Data-miners exploring the next patch for Hearthstone claim to have found information regarding to three new card backs: Ragnaros, Molten Core and Golden Celebration.

The requirement for the Molten Core card back is "purchase brm presale", claim the miners. In the World of Warcraft community, "BRM" is shorthand for Blackrock Mountain. The Ragnaros card back is awarded through ranked play.

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Professional Hearthstone player Raphael 'Hosty’ Tsantili has been released from Team Archon following allegations of cheating.

The alleged cheating was in a match against Lifecoach in the Pinnacle 2 tournament. An image posted to Reddit showed Hosty watching his opponent's stream, a form of cheating known as stream sniping.

Team Archon announced Hosty's release over Twitter.

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Blizzard's wildly popular digital card game, Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is now also available on Android tablets.

Players in Australia, New Zealand and Canada are the first in the world to get access to Hearthstone for Android tablets, and can now download the game for free on Google Play. Other territories will be able to download the game on Anrdoid tablets in the weeks ahead.

Last week, Blizzard released Goblins vs Gnomes, the first full expansion to Hearthstone, on all platforms. It dives into the deep engineering rivalry between the two races, and adds a new minion type called mechs.

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Goblins vs Gnomes, the first full expansion to Hearthstone, will be released next week on December 9, Blizzard has announced.

Goblins vs Gnomes will dive into the deep engineering rivalry between the two races, and will add a new minion type, mechs.

The expansion set is coming to Windows, Mac, and iPad simultaneously.

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Q: When you began to think about creating the first expansion to Hearthstone, what was the internal view at Blizzard of the meta game, and where did you want to take it?

Rachelle Davis: Goblins vs Gnomes is very different to the adventure we put out in July, which was The Curse of Naxxramas, and that’s one of the reasons we’re really excited about it. It’s got a lot of different flavour to it, it’s a lot more lighthearted in a lot of ways. Naxxramas is darker and gloomier. It’s a single point in the world. Of course we took some liberties with it, we made it our own, we made it a bit more lighthearted, but Goblins vs Gnomes is lighthearted by nature. That makes it different and exciting because it gives us more to play with. By adding 120 cards there are also a lot more options, whereas Naxxramas was a 30 card set.

Q: How do you decide how many cards is the right number of cards to introduce in an expansion?

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Get in on all the explosive action with Hearthstone's first expansion: Goblins vs Gnomes. Mechanical contraptions are ready to be installed into your Hearthstone collection. Perfect your decks ... by adding more mechs!

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Blizzard has announced Hearthstone: Goblins vs. Gnomes, the first full expansion for its popular digital collectible card game.

Goblins vs. Gnomes will dive into the deep engineering rivalry between the two races. It will introduce more than 120 goblin- and gnome-themed cards.

“Though wildly brilliant, these pint-size tinkerers don’t always have the upper hand on the mechanical contraptions they create, and the results can be wonderfully unpredictable,” said Blizzard. “The new cards coming in the expansion are filled with wild and wacky inventions as well as some faces that will be familiar to World of Warcraft and Hearthstone players.”

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Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft will be available for Android tablets before the end of the year, Blizzard has announced.

"We're taking things one step at a time and we've got our sights set on a release for Android tablets, our next new platform, before the end of the year," wrote Blizzard. "We've just got a few more mana crystals to polish and some Angry Chickens to chase down."

In the same update, Blizzard announced that the long-awaited iPhone and Android phone editions were still some way from completion.

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The first full expansion to Blizzard's digital collectible card game Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft will add a huge number of new cards.

Speaking with Polygon, production director Jason Chayes said Blizzard will "mix it up" in the first expansion.

"It will have a lot more cards. We’re talking about more than 100. We are going to have a central theme for how that will all fit together. That’ll be the next thing coming up."

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More than 20 million people have played Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, Blizzard has announced.

The publisher made the announcement over Twitter. "Thank you all for joining us in Hearthstone," said Blizzard. "We're going to need a bigger tavern!"

Hearthstone came out of beta on PC and Mac in March. The free-to-play collectible card game is also currently available on iPad.

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Brave the haunted halls of Naxxramas, Hearthstone's first-ever single player Adventure. Log in and begin battling your way through five deadly wings of the Naxxramas dungeon, each filled with iconic bosses and hordes of sweet loot (read "new cards") for your Hearthstone decks.

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The Curse of Naxxramas, the first singleplayer adventure for Hearthstone, will be released next week.

Starting July 23, all Hearthstone players will be able to access the first wing of the five-part adventure, the Arachnid Quarter. The first hit is free; subsequent wings will need to be purchased with in-game gold or real currency.

The full expansion adds 30 new cards to the game that are earned by defeating bosses, with completion of each wing guaranteeing the player a new Legendary class card.

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Q: Could you provide us with a quick overview of the Curse of Naxxramas, which you revealed at PAX East over the weekend?

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A singleplayer campaign called Curse of Naxxramas is coming to Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, Blizzard has announced.

The inspiration for the adventure is Naxxramas, a dungeon in World of Warcraft that is the floating necropolis for the powerful archlich Kel’Thuzad. It has five wings, each with bosses that have unique cards and hero abilities.

The expansion adds 30 new cards to the game that are earned by defeating these bosses, with completion of each wing guaranteeing the player a new Legendary class card.

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It doesn't matter what you're playing it on: [i]Hearthstone[/i] is a fantastic CCG that gets the balance just right and needn't cost players a cent.

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is Blizzard’s entry in the suddenly-ascendant collectible card game genre, over which Magic: The Gathering rules with an iron deck. However, while rule complexity and the intimidating number of alternate decks that have accumulated over Magic’s two-decade history make it the choice for the hardcore, those same attributes mean there is room in the genre for a faster, more accessible game to flourish. Despite fierce competition, in all likelihood Hearthstone will be that game for the foreseeable future.

A head-to-head fight against an AI or human opponent, Hearthstone has players choose a class of hero, construct a deck from a pool of cards, and attempt to use them smartly to whittle the enemy’s health down to zero. A hero’s class influences its play style as all 10 have access to a number of unique cards that allow for abilities or creatures to be unleashed. In general, attacks may be directed at an opponent’s played cards or their hero, the utility of which hinges on the cards in play, and how far through their deck each player is.

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Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is now available for the iPad in Australia and New Zealand, Blizzard has announced.

In addition to Canada, Australia and New Zealand are the first territories in the world to be able to play the iPad edition of Hearthstone.

The free-to-play collectible card game is compatible with iPad 2, iPad (3rd generation), iPad (4th generation), iPad Air, iPad mini, and iPad mini with Retina devices.

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Blizzard has moved its digital collectible card game Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft out of beta this morning.

The developer has added four new features to coincide with the release. World of Warcraft players who win three Hearthsone games in Play Mode will automatically receive the World of Warcraft Hearthsteed mount. Players who win 500 matches with a single hero in Ranked Play will receive a Golden Hero portrait that includes unique animations. Blizzard will also add new card backs to the game that can be acquired in different ways. These can be seen on the game's Facebook page.

Finally, players who disconnect during a match now have 60 seconds to reconnect and continue their match from where they left off.

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Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft has taken PC gaming by storm. It's almost inescapable.

At the time of writing, it's one of the most popular games on Twitch TV, pulling in crowds larger than those for entertainment blockbuster Call of Duty: Ghosts, indie darling Minecraft, or digital zombie phenomenon DayZ. According to Twitch at least, Hearthstone is the most popular game Blizzard currently has on the market.

That's no meagre feat for a game created in large part by just 15 developers in the long shadows of World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, and Diablo III.

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Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is now in open beta in Australia and New Zealand.

Anyone who wants to can pull up a chair and try Blizzard’s new free-to-play card game can dive in by visiting the game’s official site.

During the closed beta, Blizzard added a Ranked Play Mode, a Players Near Me feature, and a Recently Played Opponent feature.

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A new survey released by Blizzard hints at a series of new features the developer is considering for its popular digital collectible card game Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, currently in closed beta.

Among the features mentioned are cooperative raids, match replays, and new art for each hero class.

Eurogamer scanned the survey and identified the two most interesting questions:

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The beta for Blizzard’s digital collectible card game underwent a planned reset today as a part of a patch that brings with it a raft of changes.

Today’s wipe should be the only one, Blizzard said. Major changes include more gold, players, and rewards.

Gold accrued in Play Mode has changed from five gold per five wins to 10 gold per three wins. A single booster pack still costs 100 gold.

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It's almost surprising that it took the games industry this long, but the spring of the digital collectible card game is finally upon us. For years, the industry has been converting board games, translating movies, and toying with adaptations of tabletop wargaming, and yet the humble collectible card game, seemingly ready-made for digitisation, has remained tethered to the physical world.

The arrival of the microstransaction payment model has certainly helped the shift. There have been numerous Kickstarters for digital collectible card games, and even Mojang, the studio behind indie behemoth Minecraft is trying its hand at the genre. Then there are also the annual Magic: The Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers games, and even if these are intended as introduction into the physical version of the game, they remain a formidable entry.

But none currently have the talkability or the hype of Hearthstone, Blizzard's in-beta digital collectible card game based on the Warcraft universe. Hearthstone has taken over a huge number of Twitch feeds. We recently ran a give-away of 10 beta keys, and were blown away by the number of responses, which was in excess of some competitions with prize packs valued in the thousands.

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Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, the collectible card game from Blizzard Entertainment, is almost here and Gameplanet has 10 beta invitations to give away!

To win one, correctly answer the following question and you'll automatically be added to the draw!

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The year is 1993. Bullfrog has released the fantastic original version of the strategy game Syndicate. Not to be outdone, id Software releases Doom, and first-person shooters will never be the same again. Away from the screen, geeks everywhere are putting aside their dice and Dungeons & Dragons player manuals to do battle with, of all things, packs of cards.

Magic: The Gathering was a new craze that was just picking up steam when I found myself swept up in it. The premise is simple enough, purchase or swap cards with others and use those cards to make a powerful deck to defeat opponents. It was nerdtastic fun.

But it was also expensive. I recall my mother thinking that the “five-dollar” starter decks were an appalling waste of money - they actually cost twenty dollars. My first foray into gainful employment was solely to sustain my Magic habit. Soon after, I also discovered girls, and subsequently I haven't thought much about Magic for twenty years.

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Building The Fire takes viewers for a behind the scenes look at the creation of Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft.

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Apparently the games industry is no less prone to synchronicity than any other creative pursuit. All at once, everyone has come to the same conclusion that the time is finally right for digital collectible card games. Where once we were limited to the walled gardens of the annual Magic: The Gathering videogames, now, amongst numerous Kickstarters, we also have Scrolls, the next game by Minecraft studio Mojang, and Hearthstone, a collectible card game by Blizzard.

Hearthstone is a free-to-play card game based on the immensely popular Warcraft universe. The conceit is built around the idea of heroes coming together in one of the world of Warcraft’s many inns to rest their battle-weary limbs and engage in friendlier competition. The game shares World of Warcraft’s more vibrant colour palette and slightly cartoonish aesthetic. Players choose from nine different heroes, or decks, each based on the classes in World of Warcraft, and each with a corresponding kind of gameplay.

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Hearthstone is a digital collectible card game set in the Warcraft universe. This video features a duel between a Paladin and a Warrior.

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Blizzard's Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is a free-to-play strategy card game for Windows, Macintosh, and iPad. Designed to be simple and engaging for players of all backgrounds, Hearthstone features quick and lively duels that hope to evoke the spirit of a friendly match played beside a crackling tavern fire.

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Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is a free-to-play strategy card game for Windows, Mac, and iPad," writes Blizzard. "Designed to be deceptively simple and epically engaging for players of all backgrounds, Hearthstone features quick and lively duels that evoke the spirit of a friendly match played beside a crackling tavern fire."

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