Hearthstone’s Plans for 2025: Starcraft and More

As it was announced during the Warcraft 30th Anniversary Direct, early January 2025 will bring a new a mini-set called Heroes of Starcraft. Along with that, we’ve got a roadmap with a clear overview of Blizzard’s plans for 2025. And it’s all more transparent than ever, honestly.

So, with this clear view of what’s ahead, we’ve put together an article with all the essential info on what’s coming for Hearthstone in 2025 — and oh boy, there’s a lot to get excited about. Like, a lot.

Heroes of Starcraft Mini-Set: Hearthstone Goes Beyond Warcraft

Let’s start with the Hearthstone x Starcraft collaboration, which will result in the first-ever set that will contain cards from another game’s universe. And even though Heroes of Starcraft will be a “mini-set,” it’s branded as the biggest expansion of its kind, meaning it will have more than 38 new cards.

The exact number of cards and pricing for the set are still unknown, but since it’s a mini-set (just a larger one), we can surely make some educated guesses. From experience, we can likely expect:

• the set to include no more than 50 cards
• the price to be above $15 / 2000 gold

Heroes of Starcraft Mini-Set: All Hero Cards & Factions Explained

The Heroes of Starcraft set will come with multi-class cards (also known as “factions”) that will promote different playstyles, namely:

• Zerg
• Protos
• Terran

You should expect something similar to what we’ve got in the Mean Streets of Gadgetzan expansion with Goons, Jades, and Kabal. 

However, for Heroes of Starcraft, each faction will come with a hero card that, well, if good, might turn out to be a must-have to include in playstyle-specific meta decks.

Here’s the full overview of what we know so far: 

In a nutshell, we have good and bad news. The good news is that it seems like there is potential for old-school archetypes (such as Zoo Warlock, Aggro Face Hunter, and Control Warrior) to come back. 

As for the “meh” news, well, it’s clearly another attempt on a “rock-paper-scissors” meta.

Allow me to explain why the factions from the Heroes of Starcraft mini-set might be quite problematic for the game’s balance, especially for competitive play:

• Aggro swarms will always consistently beat mana ramp strategies, unless they have a consistent healing option.
• Ramp or “big” decks can usually establish a formidable board presence before control decks can draw a big-minion removal.
• Control decks have too many options to counter small-minion strategy in the current format to have a lower win-rate than a consistent 60% against any swarm deck.

That said, the “rock-paper-scissors” theme would apply in the following way:

However, that’s all assuming the factions won’t differ in terms of power level, which may not necessarily be the case. 

So yeah, even though Hearthstone changed its name from “Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft” to just “Hearthstone” 7 years ago, it never really mixed with any universes. Yeah, we’ve got the Diablo-themed Tavern Brawls and stuff… but that’s different. And it’s exciting to see how (and if) the Heroes of Starcraft mini-set will change the game as we know it.

Hearthstone 2025 Expansion Roadmap

Okay, this is not a new thing — expansion roadmaps have been in Hearthstone since, well, basically forever. More or less detailed, but we’ve always had them.

However, the 2025 roadmap is different; it’s detailed enough that we can estimate when each stage of next year’s plan will launch in the game:

At this point, the theme of upcoming Hearthstone expansions remains unclear, but here are some of the community’s most intriguing speculations so far:

• Into the Emerald Dream will be a sequel set for the Blackrock Mountain and Descent of Dragons sets.
• The Shrouded City expansion and the Festival of the Devilsaur mini-set will be a sequel to the Journey to Un’Goro expansion.
• The Heroes of Time expansion will have something to do with Murozond, a famous dragon from the Warcraft universe.
• We will finally see Pandaria in Hearthstone until the release of The End of Time mini-set.
• Even though Hearthstone is releasing a new cross-universe set, it will remain loyal to Warcraft’s universe, and this mini-set might just be a one-time thing.

But hey, all of these are just speculations, so chill. Still, make sure to also let us know what are your predictions are for Hearthstone’s 2025 on CardGamer’s Twitter profile and join the discussion! Maybe we can even come up with a bingo together?

Arena Overhaul: Normal & Underground Modes

Lastly, we have some news about Hearthstone’s Arena. Yup, this mode still exists.

Basically, in 2025, we will have two modes for Arena:

• Normal – a typical Arena run as we know it, but probably with shorter runs.
• Underground – a more competitive take on the mode with longer runs and the option to edit your deck after a single loss.

Moreover, Arena Ratings and Leaderboard will remain — only with separate rankings for Normal and Underground.

Arena has long been one of the best ways to farm gold in Hearthstone, and with the upcoming option for shorter runs, it could become even more efficient. After all, one of the main purposes of Arena is to help players expand their collections without needing to spend additional resources.

If you’re as excited about all these changes as we are, get started playing Hearthstone by downloading it here. And if you are not as enthusiastic and Starcraft isn’t really your thing, well, maybe Star Wars is — if that’s the case, check out Jason’s piece on the 10 Most Wanted Cards in Star Wars Unlimited: Twilight of the Republic.