Explore Questlines And Wheel And Deal In United In Stormwind, Hearthstone's Next Expansion

Today brought a new patch update to Hearthstone, as well as the reveal of the upcoming expansion that was teased earlier this week.

United in Stormwind will add 135 new cards to the game when it arrives on August 3. It adds a new keyword, Tradeable, which allows you to send a card from your hand into your deck to gain one mana and draw a new card. You can see all the card reveals past and future here.

Other new elements in the expansion include profession tools, zero-attack "weapons" that have wide-ranging effects, and mount spells that buff a minion and produce another minion when the original is killed. Each class also gets a questline, which are similar to quests but have three steps to full completion, which grants your class's leveled-up mercenary.

In non-expansion-but-still-coming-soon news, Battlegrounds players will soon have cosmetic options to deck out their heroes in new skins and even a replacement for Bartender Bob: Ragnaros, the Tiki Lord. (His deals are likely to be hot, hot, hot!) The Fire Festival also returns next week with the usual bonus packs for completing quests and a new skin for Malfurion. The next Book of Mercenaries entry, for the demon hunter Kurtrus Ashfallen, arrives on July 13, with Gul'dan's entry just a week later, on July 20.

Meanwhile, today's patch offers pre-purchase options for United in Stormwind, while making several changes to Battlegrounds heroes and minions. Darkmoon prizes also make their return and will appear in 1/4 of matches. You can read the full patch notes on the Hearthstone site.