Hearthstone: Knights of the Frozen Throne!

YES

Thank you, Blizzard.

(Here is the announcement trailer if you missed it)

TL;DR, Frozen Throne hype!

Just look at that artwork! Look at them Death Knights! Jaina with Frostmourne and that fancy staff and purple hair and decayed lips; screeching-wailing-shadow-demon Anduin; Gul'dan with demonic wings and a gigantic scythe; Valeera's Sylvannas cosplay; motherfuckin' Uther with his ice hammer and Death Knight armour; zombie Rexxar with glowing green stuff; Thrall with elemental lightning and ice swirling around him; icy-stag-horn Malfurion with that bad-ass ice Wolverine thing going on; Garrosh... gets an icified Gorehowl.

So yeah, a Frozen Throne themed expansion is something most people were excited for (especially when TGT didn't actually touch a lot on the whole undead Scourge deal and focused more on the tournament), and as a big Warcraft III fan I certainly count myself among them. Like, Dalaran or wherever's cool, but Arthas! Please and thank you. And one of the big questions is how are they going to incorporate the Death Knights -- a tenth class, or something else? Well, it appears 'something else' is right, because we're getting Hero Cards. It's going to represent our heroes being transformed into undead, somewhat similar to the likes of the effects of Lord Jaraxxus except you can't Dirty Rat these heroes. We get to see one, Deathstalker Rexxar. It costs 6 mana to cast and transform yourself into this zombie Rexxar, but you get 5 armour, and you have the battlecry of dealing 2 damage to all enemy minions... and Rexxar's hero power becomes 'Build a Beast', basically similar to Kazakus but you stitch two beasts together to literally combine them into a custom creature. It's pretty cool, that's for sure.

We don't have any confirmed Lich King cards just yet, but the game makers did hint at Arthas a lot, so I'm pretty sure if he's in the game in this new hero system, he'll be a neutral legendary hero. Maybe. Can't lie, I'm a little bummed we're not getting a proper Death Knight class, but this certainly looks like an awesome alternative.

Also people were begging for an undead tribe? Not yet, it seems, but eh, no big loss -- there are way, way more undead cards than elementals and trying to make the older cards balanced is definitely going to be tricky.

I'm also quite happy that they still treat the whole Lich King/Icecrown thing with a modicum of respect and not turn it into, say, disco Karazhan (which worked for that expansion, mind you, but not so much for Icecrown) and while it has its own spin on the whole Death Knight thing to make it uniquely Hearthstone-y, it's still stays relatively true to the original themes people were super-excited about.

Also, we're getting one of the heroes for free if you play through the single-mission content, basically an Adventure Mode that goes through WoW's Icecrown Citadel. Hopefully the bosses will show up on cards, too -- Sindragosa at least I hope gets turned into a card, but Brode did rattle off Blood Queen Lana'thel, Lord Marrowgar, Putricide and a bunch of others so I'm sure they'll show up in some form or other -- I'm pretty sure Marrowgar and Sindragosa showed up in the trailer too. And the fact that we have a story mode fills me with happiness!

We get four cards revealed, with more Deathrattle synergies promised (I'll do a proper card review post once we actually have more than five cards) with this Shallow Gravedigger fellow. Also, we get to see a neutral legendary, Prince Keleseth, a boss in WoW's Utgarde Keep who's got a weird deck-restriction effect -- at first glance he looks like a better-statted Mistcaller but I'm not sure if building a deck without 2-cost cards is worth putting him in.

We also get a new keyword! Everyone likes keywords, right? Lifesteal is our new keyword, and we kind of already have it in Wickerflame Burnbristle (when this minion deals damage, heal that much to your hero). Lifesteal also shows up in spells, which is similar to many other Priest cards (Holy Fire, etc) and Hallazeal the Ascended's effect (I reckon he's going to be rewritten into 'your spell cards have Lifesteal' or something). It's not that hard to tell how good this mechanic will be, I think -- the Priest spell Spirit Lash is cute but doesn't look to be super-good, while Chillblade Champion, a 4-mana 3/2 Lifesteal Charger, doesn't look to be amazing either -- though definitely a decent arena card. It's at first glance, mind you, so maybe I'm super wrong.

Regardless, Death Knights! Undead! Great artwork! I'm super excited ,that's for sure. Bring on the card reveals!

What else can we see in the ticker of cards at the beginning of the trailer? A Crypt Lord, maybe a new Anub'arak card? A golden-winged Val'kyr, a Blood Elf Death Knight (one of the three princes in Icecrown maybe) and the Dovahkiin using Fus Ro Dah a Death Knight with a horned helmet.... and a Furbolg with a shark's head strapped on as a mask. If any of you are too concerned that we're going to dark, there you go. Shark-headed Furbolg.

Also if you've been out from Hearthstone for a while, log in and do your quests. We're having a Ragnaros-themed double gold event thing going on.

I'm going back to my brand-new Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. If there's a decrease in the amoutn of articles in this month blame that thing.