Blizzard has announced a few major changes to Hearthstone with the release of the digital card game's next expansion. As part of the upcoming update, Hearthstone's Basic and Classic card sets will be moved to its Wild format, and a new Core Set will be introduced.
What's the Core Set?
The Core Set, replacing Basic and Classic card sets in the Standard format, will include 235 cards. The Core Set will pick and choose cards from throughout Hearthstone's history. Here's a full breakdown.
- 88 cards returning from Classic (54 class cards, 34 neutral cards).
- 54 cards returning from Basic (41 class cards, 13 neutral cards).
- 55 cards returning from Wild (36 class cards, 19 neutral cards).
- 4 cards returning from Ashes of Outland (4 Demon Hunter Class cards).
- 4 cards returning from Demon Hunter Initiate.
- 1 card returning from Hall of Fame (Shadowform).
- 29 new cards (20 Class cards, 9 Neutral cards).
The Core Set cards can be unlocked by leveling up each class. The class cards from the Core Set will be rewarded between levels 1 to 10 for each class, and neutral cards will be unlocked according to the combined levels of all the classes, up to a maximum of 60. Getting Achievements in the game will unlock the golden versions of these cards.
Classic Format
As part of their move to the Wild format, the Basic and Classic card sets will be named the Legacy set, alongside cards from Hearthstone's Hall of Fame. Of course, this excludes cards part of the new Core set like Genn Greymane, and Baku the Mooneater.
Alongside these changes, Hearthstone is also getting a new Classic format, which will only allow the game's original 240 cards as they were back in 2014, when Hearthstone was originally released. Classic will have its own matchmaking pool, and its reward system and its ranking system will work like Standard and Wild. Cards that were added to the Classic set after 2014 won't be available to use in the Classic format.
