The cat is out of the bag! Or should we say dragon? As per usual by the end of February, Team 5 announced the upcoming 2019 Standard year called Year of the Dragon.

It may have been the most packed announcement in the history of Hearthstone development, featuring the Hall of Fame rotation, massive single-player content and the introduction of Arena seasons. In this piece, however, we want to focus on what really matters: Epic storylines and exciting lore!

What will the Year of the Dragon be about, how could the announced cross-year narrative influence Hearthstone storytelling, and most importantly: will we be able to decipher the three-parted expansion teaser and other hidden clues?!

The Glory of a Cross-Year Narrative

It has been announced that the storylines of all three Year of the Dragon sets will be connected, and this decision comes off as a bit of a surprise.

During the last three years, storytelling in Hearthstone went through tremendous development. It all started with the Curse of Naxxramas adventure, a simple story taken from the “older lore brother” World of Warcraft, while the last expansion “Rastakhan’s Rumble” not only used Warcraft’s core fantasy of Troll culture but took it to a whole other unique and “hearthstoney” level.

To agree on such a thing, Team 5’s writers must have been very aware of the potential risks and rewards of a connected storyline.

While it is incredibly hard to tell a story through a card game, it may just be ten times as hard to tell that story throughout a whole year. You have to create a tale with ups and downs, depth, and polarizing characters. Hearthstone has been known to take itself not too serious, but taking a year-long approach to one of the most richest story arcs in all of Warcraft needs to be approached with upmost earnestness.

At the same time, this decision could spark a flame that Hearthstone fans have never seen before. If the main story arc connects with the playerbase, Hearthstone’s writer would not only be able to use dramatic timing or cliffhangers in the form of new expansion releases; a total over 400 cards compared to the 130 to 140 cards per expansion would set a much bigger stage for diving into said storyline.



The Expansion Teaser

But for now, let’s get back to expansion speculation! Yet another time we get presented with a marvelous expansion teasure picture for 2019 which looks even more detailed than ever before:

Looking at teasers of the past, we know that the art style of an expansion won’t be decided after the initial design, and that is why the first expansion teaser will most likely feature a lot of accurate art that fits the core fantasy of the upcoming April expansion.



Expansion 1: The Journey to Dalaran?

Looking at the first seal, we can see one thing and one thing only: Arcane magic. The inner part of the seal overflows with it, and thanks to that we can also see several shining runes.

While the form of those runes can be barely seen, they could represent the “Eight Schools of Arcane Magic”: Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Illusion, Transmutation, Necromancy and Evocation.

And who were the masters of these schools of arcane magic? The Kirin Tor, of course! Also known as the Wizard Council of Dalaran, this mage guild is in charge of the nation of Dalaran and served as a neutral player between the Horde and the Alliance in countless fights against Azeroth’s threats in the past.



In current Hearthstone, the Kirin Tor have several representantives: Both Mage Hero portraits Jaina Produmoore and Khadgar as well as important cards such as Antonidas, Rhonin and even Kel’Thuzad have been part of the Council of Six which lead the Kirin Tor. There are also unnamed cards like Violet Illusionist, Violet Teacher, Ancient Mage and – of course – Kirin Tor Mage who belong to the ranks of the infamous mage guild.

However, not everything on the teaser can be assigned to the Kirin Tor storyline: The rune at the bottom of the seal has never been seen before. As already said, the seal could feature the eight runes of arcane magic; but by the looks of it, there are only seven runes within the seal, and the eighth rune could be the one at the bottom.

Solo Adventure Content – Dalaran Sewers, Malto and Allied Races?

The Kirin Tor narrative fits the expansion teaser picture – but not only that. We were also given a pretty detailed view at the upcoming content package for the single player mode, and on that picture we have tons of other hints at the lore involved in future expansions:

Most importantly, we will fight though the new solo adventure as a “mysterious (yet familiar) new Mage character” – quoted from the official press release.

Mysterious yet familiar … Who could that be? Well, there is only one mage in the Hearthstone universe that isn’t a deep Warcraft lore character and still has a deep connection to the card game: Malto!

Who is Malto, you ask? Malto is the ancient mage that has been featured in the Hearthstone Animated Short; he helped us fighting through the Icecrown Citadel as well.

Looking at his attire featured on the Blizzcon 2017 key art piece, he is indeed a member of the Kirin Tor, wearing a girdle with their famous emblem, the Eye of the Kirin Tor. Besides that, his art shows a cute blue dragon – maybe a member of the Blue Dragonflight, the family of dragons that mastered arcane magic – that holds the Primordial Drake card in his mouth.

Could this be an extremely early hint at Malto’s connection to the Year of the Dragon?

But let us get back to the solo adventure teaser, shall we? Another big hint towards the Dalaran and Kirin Tor narrative lies in one of the visualizations inside the picture. It shows sewers, and with it a deep-purple banderole that lacks lettering.

And those don’t look like random sewers; in fact, they look like the infamous Dalaran Sewers, or as citizens call it, “The Underbelly”. Back in World of Warcraft, this place was for the Arena fighters and PvP lovers during the Wrath of the Lich King; in Legion, the Underbelly served as the Order Hall for the Rogue class. Needless to say that this could very well be another hint at the fact that the upcoming expansion partly sets stage in Dalaran.

Another clue towards the Kirin Tor could be Zayle, Shadow Cloak. The golden legendary card shown in the teaser will serve as a replacement for Whizbang the Wonderful. The card art sparkles with arcane magic, and we can yet again see deep-purple color schemes, typical for the Kirin Tor.

Now one thing on the teaser doesn’t really fit at first glance: On the far right we can see a “Choose your Hero” screen featuring a Pandarn and two other creatures who look like a Sethrak and a Vulpera. The Sethrak and Vulpera race were introduced with the latest WoW expansion Battle for Azeroth. They play a neutral but extremely important part in the BfA storyline and call the region of Vol’dun their home.

You could even go that far and identify those two characters: The shown Sethrak could very well be the Avatar of Sethraliss, the last boss of the 5-man dungeon Temple of Sethraliss. In this boss encounter you free the avatar of the snake loa Sethraliss. She is very fond of lightning energy, so there is a clear connection to the Shaman class fantasy, making her a prime candidate as a new Hero Portrait.

The Vulpera shown in the character selection is without a doubt Captain Eudora. She leads the Bilge Rats, a group of pirates located in Tiragarde Sound, and is part of the “Council o’ Captains”, a boss encounter in the 5-man dungeon Freehold.

Both Sethrak and Vulpera have been top contenders to become Allied Races in World of Warcraft, which could be an indication towards future development in Blizzard’s MMO, and a possible release of those two characters as Hero portraits in Hearthstone would be excellent cross-marketing.

Expansion 2 and 3: Sethrak and the Iron Horde?

But who said that these characters are all revealed with the first expansion? We know that the storyline between expansions will be connected, and looking at the second and third seal could give more insight about the whereabouts of these characters.

Surprisingly enough, the second seal shown on the expansion teaser is a match made in heaven for the mentioned Sethrak character. In fact, it is pretty clear that we can see Sethrak structures within and around the seal!

The blue seal itself could point towards lightning energy, worshipped by the Sethrak race. Around the seal we can see a teal outline in the form of snake boneshield similar to the ones Sethrak have. This characteristic is shown on their war banners all around the Temple of Sethraliss as well.

The same goes for this kind of stone ornaments that we can see around the seal, and together with the other stylistic choices, the Sethrak setting the stage for the second expansion suddenly makes a whole lot of sense.

Last but not least, the third of the three expansion teasers features a more sinister art style. We can see that the seal animation and pattern looks exactly like the Sethrak one, which might just be a lazy copy and paste because the third expansion is still in the initial design phase.

At first we got a Deathwing vibe from the last expansion teaser – the big tusk at the bottom, the fiery stripes at the top, and the golden seal that looks like one of the evil eyes of the Black Aspect. A story arc based on the most wicked of all dragons that is already featured by two different cards could make an exquisite finish to the Year of the Dragon.



Other voices in the community talk about a possible Iron Horde expansion. The tusk could be one from an average orc, and the flaming stripes between wooden planks do indeed look alot like the fire that would shine through from one of the infamous Iron Horde inventions like Blackhand’s war hammer.

However, we should not forget that Warlords of Draenor, the WoW expansion that put the Iron Horde in the antagonist seat, left quite the mark on the community’s soul, and not only through that very memorable art style. It would be more than interesting to see what Team 5 could make out of the storyline of what most community members call the worst WoW expansion of all time. But as already said, the third expansion should still be in the initial design phase at the moment.

The Year of the Dragon: A Lore Paradise

In the end we can say that the teasers already delivered a ton of vital information. Getting involved with Dalaran and the Kirin Tor looks to be incredibly probable, and the community should get excited about taking a deep dive into Warcraft history.

Another movement that seems to be continued is the close relationship between Hearthstone and current World of Warcraft lore. Rastakhan’s Rumble again set a new precedent for this relationship, and after looking at all the hints, the bilateral connection will only become stronger, which was and will never be a bad thing.

Other than that, it is in the hands of Team 5 to deliver more information as we get closer and closer to the start of the Year of the Dragon. But one thing is for certain already: The lore and storytelling side of Hearthstone development looks to become more important than ever before; and if we combine the ground-breaking gameplay changes with a connected storyline about the rich history of Warcraft, we could finally see what Hearthstone not only as a card game but as a Blizzard franchise is really capable of.



Which expansion themes would you like to see? What are your top predictions for the Year of the Dragon sets? Let us know in the comments!