It’d already been speculated that Hearthstone’s next expansion would be taking us to Un’Goro, and today that was confirmed along with the title which is Journey to Un’Goro, not Lost Secrets of Un’Goro as had been previously though (although there’s every chance that Lost Secrets had been its work-in-progress title).

Like every expansion so far, a whole load of new cards will be coming into the game – 135 this time. It will also add some new mechanics to the game, as well as a new ‘family’ of Minion.

The first of the new mechanics are a new type of Legendary card – Quest cards. Previously all Legendaries were Minions, but Quest cards are like spells you can play to start a ‘quest’. Each ‘quest’ has an objective you need to complete along with a reward that comes from it, and the quest is visible to both players so it’s perfectly possible for your opponent to take measures to try and thwart you in it. So far the only one that’s been revealed is Awaken the Makers, with special Legendary Minion Amara, Warden of Hope as the reward for completing it. As you can see below, a 5-cost 8/8 with Taunt and a Battlecry that sets your Hero to 40 hitpoints? Quite the powerful card.

Another new mechanic being introduced with this expansion, and in a way fitting for the theme, is a new keyword: Adapt. When an Adapt card is played, you are given a choice of 3 randomly chosen buff options for the card from the pool of ten different buffs, and you can choose one to apply. This could lead to Minions and Spells that could be used in any number of different ways in the same deck, although some might be put of with the RNG nature of it.

Finally, the new ‘family’ of Minion is the Elemental. Obviously we’ve had some Elementals introduced in previous expansions (and I guess they’ll be updated when Un’Goro goes live), but now we have our first designed-as Elemental Minion – Pyros, who keeps coming back stronger and stronger each time they are killed for up to 3 different versions.

Like with previous expansions you can purchase a 50-pack-bundle of Un’Goro packs before the release for $49.99/£34.99 and get a unique card back too. The expansion will be coming out some time in April, and we can expect to see more card reveals in March.