Blizzard Reveal Hearthstone’s The Boomsday Project Expansion

After several teases and a leak, Blizzard has officially unveiled a new Hearthstone expansion – The Boomsday Project.

Releasing on August 7, The Boomsday Project harks back to Hearthstone’s first expansion Goblins vs Gnomes. Mechs look set to be a key feature in The Boomsday Project, and familiar faces from the GvG set could be returning too. One shot from the expansion’s trailer hints at a new Warrior hero based on the infamous Dr. Boom, a legendary minion from the GvG expansion which dominated the game for some time.

In addition to these fleeting details, five new cards have been revealed. Excitingly, it looks like legendary spells are finally going to be a thing, although the only one revealed so far is Myra’s Unstable Element for Rogue. Costing 5 mana, it has a pretty simple effect: Draw the rest of your deck. Yep, the whole thing, assuming you have room in your hand.

Is that good? Hard to tell without a full reveal, but on first impressions, it seems a bit gimmicky. Still, you’ll be cursing it on release day when a Rogue manages to burn their entire deck but still draw Leeroy and 2x Cold Blood for a Turn 6 lethal.

A new legendary minion for Shaman was also revealed: Electra Stormsurge. It’s a 3 mana 3/3 with the Battlecry: Your next spell this turn casts twice. A few potential combos spring to mind (two Lava Bursts to the opponent’s face seems pretty nasty), but as always, it’s best to see if Shaman acquires any new spells in The Boomsday Project before getting too excited/dismayed about this one.

With every new expansion comes a new keyword (usually), and The Boomsday Project does not disappoint. Magnetic appears to be a Mech-exclusive keyword, and according to the site, Magnetic cards can be played on their own or fused onto other Mechs, combining their stats and creating a freakish amalgamation of the two. Think Deathstalker Rexxar’s Zombeasts, but with Mechs.

So far, only one minion with Magnetic has been revealed – Spider Bomb for Hunter. It’s a 3 mana 2/2 with Deathrattle: Destroy a random enemy minion. Sounds like a pretty powerful effect, and when fused onto another Mech via the powers of Magnetic, the reduced stats shouldn’t matter so much. Is this the meta where Spider Tank returns to rule them all?

Rounding off the initial card reveals, we have Biology Project and Omega Defender. The former is a 1 mana Druid spell which gives both players two mana crystals (could be fun), while the latter is a neutral 4 mana 2/6 Mech with Taunt and a pretty crazy Battlecry: If you have 10 mana crystals, gain +10 attack. That would make it a 4 mana 12/6 with Taunt (assuming you have 10 mana) which is uh… a thing.

Excited for more reveals? Well, that’s probably going to be your lot for a couple of weeks. According to the site, the “first” card reveal stream is scheduled for July 23, but keep checking Twitter, as Blizzard likes to reveal cards at random through various channels.