Hearthstone’s Second Expansion - The Grand Tournament Arrives August

**Smitten** · 07-22-2015

Coming in just eight months after Hearthstone’s first expansion, Goblins vs Gnomes, and four months after its second Adventure, Blackrock Mountain, The Grand Tournament was announced today.

Kicking off with a live event in San Francisco hosted by Seltzer earlier today, it also featured well-known Hearthstone commentator Frodan, streamer Kripparrian and Hearthstone's Game Director - Eric Dodds.

As with all previous Hearthstone Adventures and Expansions being based around Warcraft lore, characters and locations, The Grand Tournament is no exception. As the name suggests, it is set around the Grand Tournament, known as the location of World of Warcraft’s Patch 3.2 Trial of the Crusader raid and Argent Tournament daily quests.

Players of the new expansion will have access to an additional 132 cards, featuring familiar characters and monsters from all across Northrend, such as the Coldarra Drake, Frost Giant and the Maiden of the Lake.

The new Inspire keyword will be present on minions as well. Inspire abilities activate after you use your Hero Power. Providing anything from an increase in attack power for that specific minion, to adding a random spell card to your hand and beyond, it is sure to bring some new life into the often neglected Hero Powers of some classes.

Blizzard is also allowing anyone interested to pre-purchase 50 Grand Tournament card packs and receive a new card back for $49.99 USD, €44.99 EUR or £34.99 GBP on PC, Mac and Android devices. Prices for the iOS version of the game is country-dependant, and will be available in the iTunes store. As expected, the cards will not be available to open until the expansion is officially released.

Other features of The Grand Tournament include an all-new gameboard, featuring props from the World of Warcraft tournament location and an update to Arena, allowing the chance to receive a Grand Tournament, Goblins vs Gnomes or a Classic/Vanilla card pack instead of Goblins vs Gnomes alone.

Hearthstone has proven to be a massive success for Blizzard since its official release in March last year, and the reaction on Social Media for The Grand Tournament appears to be no exception to the rule. Sporting an impressive 30+ million active players since their last quarterly report, releasing new content every 4-6 months and generally holding one of the top spots for Twitch views, do you think this expansion will be another massive success for Hearthstone, or is the game starting to lose appeal with contenders such as Hex picking up more momentum from the more traditional TCG crowd?