Hearthstone's 'The Wailing Caverns' mini-set announced, arrives next week

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Initial concerns that adding mini-sets between Hearthstone's thrice-annual big card expansions would further inflate the game's already substantial cost to keep up with have so far proved unfounded. That's because Blizzard surprised players by allowing them to buy all the cards for in-game gold or a fixed price, with no random pack opening required.

So I would expect plenty of interest around the second iteration of the mini-set format, which has just been revealed by Blizzard. The Wailing Caverns is a 66-card set coming next Thursday that will include four Legendary cards, one Epic (x2), 14 Rares (x2), and 16 common cards.

If you're not a old-school WoW player, the Wailing Caverns was an iconic dungeon from the Barrens zone—thus tying in to the current Forged in the Barrens set—that was easily accessible to Horde players. The dungeon was one of the coolest of the early-game instances—a vast non-linear cave network full of mutated creatures as the result of a druidic spell gone very wrong.

Here's what acquiring the set will get you:

35 new collectible cards obtainable from Forged in the Barrens card packs
Minions featuring Spell Schools
Summon 2/2 tokens with bonus effects like Poisonous, Taunt, Divine Shield, etc.
Four new Legendary cards featuring iconic characters from the Wailing Caverns

Though you can acquire the Wailing Caverns from Forged in the Barrens packs, the much more attractive option will be to snag the whole thing in one fell swoop from the in-game shop for $15 or 2000 gold. The Wailing Caverns mini-set will be available on June 3, and card reveals will begin tomorrow.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.