A cold wind blows from the peaks of Northrend, carrying with it the stench of death, despair, and sweet new collectible cards. Yes, Hearthstone is finally doing the whole Lich King thing. The Knights of the Frozen Throne expansion is due out sometime this August (inappropriately summery, if you ask me) and will add 135 cards, foremost of which are the new Hero Cards. These are legendary rarity cards which transform your hero into a Death Knight with a new hero power. The switch will work in much the same way as Lord Jarraxus currently does for Warlocks, and you can bet Blizzard's designers have come up with powerful (or meme-worthy) abilities for each of the nine classes.
Elsewhere there's the new Lifesteal mechanic, which serves to boost your health for the same amount of damage that it deals that turn, and a host of new Deathrattle effects. Do be sure to use the comments to let us know which of the cards are garbage filler and which is obviously overpowered and should be pre-nerfed. If nothing else all the crafting regret a month after launch is delicious.
Every card from the set has now been revealed, so all that remains is to theorycraft the deck you'll be playing when the expansion launches on Thursday 10 August (at midnight in your local timezone). By the ever-loving mercy of Yogg, please just don't jam that new fetch weapons spell into Pirate Warrior. As ever, we'll update our legendary power ranking once the meta settles in a few weeks.