Hearthstone: Knights of the Frozen Throne now out
Ice ice baby
The latest Hearthstone [official site] expansion, Knights of the Frozen Throne, is now live. After hitting America yesterday, it launched in Europe in the wee hours today. Across 135 new cards and new singleplayer missions, the expansion sends players into Icecrown Citadel to duff up the Lich King. We don't play republicans or anything - if anything this regicide is to shore up other monarchies. Congratulations, heroes. Your actions will help secure several kingdoms ruled by petty, squabbling monarchs who'll continue trying to wipe each other out. You're like, uh, them fellas in Games of Throne. The one you liked who died. That one.
135 new cards arrive with the expansion, and you can see the whole lot here. You'll notice that some have the ability Lifesteal, which is a formalisation of the old 'you gain life when this deals damage' mechanic that appeared on several cards. Now every class can join in the vampiric fun.
The new cards also include deadly Death Knight variants of the game's heroes, a random one of which you can get free by completing the first of the new story missions.
The seven missions are available free to all players, sending players through the Icecrown bosses. Three are live right now, three will arrive next week, and the week after it'll culminate in a battle against the Lich King himself. He sounds a right nasty one, 'cheating' by changing the basic rules in different ways for each class. As this video developer diary explained, his tricks will include making Mages fight him with only one health point, and resurrecting Paladins' dead minions as his own.
If you do manage to kick him in, you'll unlock an alternate Paladin hero of Arthas before he turned frosty.
All players get three Knights of the Frozen Throne card packs simply for logging in (well, until October 31st - you've ages), and otherwise can be earned or bought in the usual ways.
