Hearthstone Year of the Raven details revealed

This morning Blizzard revealed full details – or teasers, you might call them – for the next big Hearthstone season. This is the third year in a row that the company will name the year-long season for the game, the first being Kraken, the next having been Mammoth. This newest season has another animal at its helm, the smallest animal in a row, the Raven. What'll be here next year, a Beetle? Actually I wouldn't be surprised by that.

This Hearthstone Year users will find several old sets moving to Wild Format. That means they're retired from standard play and will only be able to be used in Wild. Whispers of the Old Gods, One Night in

Karazhan, and Mean Streets of Gadgetzan will transition when the first expansion of 2018 launches.

The year of the Raven will include three new expansions. Each of these expansions will bring on 130 or more cards "and single-player content." The image you see here with three orbs is the closest we've got to a teaser for these new sets thus far.

Three cards will be moved to the "Hall of Fame" soon – that'll be just like when a set moves to Wild, these cards will no longer be able to be played in Standard. These cards are Ice Block, Coldlight Oracle, and Molten Giant. The Molten Giant will be turned back into its original self, before it was nerfed, for its transition into Wild format.

A new hero will be included in this year's release schedule. That'll be a Druid hero by the name of Lunara. Players who win 10 games in the updated Standard format will earn Lunara – so it's not as if she's particularly difficult to earn, but she'll be super neat to use.

This update will also bring In-Game Tournaments. Users will be able to launch their own tournaments inside the game – similar to Fireside Gatherings, but not quite so difficult to prepare. Users will be able to invite friends and launch a tournament without leaving the app – and it'll be rather simple to initiate and run, hopefully. This system will launch as a beta "around the middle of the year." Cross your fingers the first Year of the Raven expansion will launch sometime before then!