Three new card backs have been announced for Blizzard’s free online card game Hearthstone. In addition to the heroic reward for Naxxramas, there is also the new “Icecrown” back for successfully completing the August season, and another, yet mysterious card back.
Last night, the Naxxramas patch was deployed to the US servers (don’t worry, it’s not active yet.) And as is typical for a Blizzard product, the colleagues from hearthpwn immediately started data mining it like crazy – after all, hearthpwn is a sister site of mmo-champion, and they have been doing this successfully with every World of Warcraft patch for years.
The data mining not only confirmed our “Are these the abilities of the Naxx” bosses article, but also revealed three new card backs.
- This will be awarded for successfully completing all 15 bosses in Naxxramas on heroic mode. So it will be quite challenging.
- This is the reward for successfully participating in the August season, the fifth one. You need to reach rank 20.
- The last card back is still somewhat mysterious.
Hearthpwn assumes that it is tied to TeSPA, an eSports organization at US colleges. TeSPA aims to establish as many branches as possible in universities and rewards the so-called “Chapters” depending on the number of members with various gifts. Chapters with 80 members receive a “Hearthstone in-game reward” that will be revealed in Fall 2014. Therefore, Hearthpwn believes that this card back is linked to membership in a suitably large TeSPA chapter, which will be unattainable for most of us.
The Naxxramas patch brings a flood of information after the data mining. While fans have eagerly pounced on every crumb of info about Naxxramas in the last month, Blizzard is now pouring out the bounty.
By now, all 31 cards that will be in Naxxramas are known. Worldwide, players will probably be able to get their first taste of the Hearthstone expansion on the night from Tuesday to Wednesday (our time). Between 1:00 and 8:00 AM, the Arachnid wing should open. The other 4 wings will then open at intervals of one week.
