Year of the Dragon

Year of the Dragon is the Standard format year from April 9, 2019 to April 7, 2020.

Card sets

These card sets are released as a part of Year of the Dragon.

Expansion
April 9, 2019

Expansion
August 6, 2019

Expansion
December 10, 2019

Adventure
January 21, 2020

Demon Hunter Initiate

Card set
April 7, 2020

• Rise of Shadows
• Saviors of Uldum
• Descent of Dragons
• Galakrond's Awakening
• Demon Hunter Initiate

Patches

These patches were released during Year of the Dragon.

Version	Build	Release date	Highlights
16.6.0	43246	2020-03-17	Ashes of Outland pre-order, Card changes, Battlegrounds' card changes
16.4.0	42174	2020-02-26	Battlegrounds updates: Dragon, Arena rotation
16.2.3	40734	2020-02-06	Battlegrounds' card changes
16.2.0	39954	2020-01-21	Galakrond's Awakening release, Battlegrounds updates
16.0.8	39282	2020-01-09	Card changes, Battlegrounds' card changes
16.0.5	38377	2019-12-19	Card changes, Battlegrounds' card changes
16.0.3	38203	2019-12-12	Arena changes, Battlegrounds' card changes
16.0.0	37060	2019-12-05	Descent of Dragons release, Arena rotation, Winter Veil event, Battlegrounds updates, Echo and Transform changes, In-game Shop's New UI
15.6.2	36393	2019-11-11	Battlegrounds open beta, Battlegrounds' card changes
15.6.0	35747	2019-11-05	Descent of Dragons pre-order, Battlegrounds introduction, Daily quests changes, Smart Deck Builder introduction, Streamer mode introduction
15.4.0	34670	2019-10-08	Doom in the Tomb event, 1000-win alternate portraits introduction
15.2.0	33717	2019-09-10	Tombs of Terror release, Discover change
15.0.4	33402	2019-08-26	Card changes
15.0.0	32708	2019-08-01	Saviors of Uldum release, Arena rotation
14.6.0	31761	2019-07-01	Saviors of Uldum pre-order, Basic Hall of Fame rotation, New Basic and Classic cards, Card art changes, reduced Tavern Brawl downtime
14.4.0	31268	2019-06-03	Rise of the Mech, Card changes, Arena rotation
14.2.2	31022	2019-05-22	Card changes
14.2.0	30795	2019-05-14	The Dalaran Heist release
14.0.0	29933	2019-04-04	Year of the Dragon rotation, Rise of Shadows release, Regular Arena rotation introduction

Notable announcements

A sneak peek at the content released during the Year of the Dragon.

The fourth Standard year started with the release of the Rise of Shadows expansion. The beginning of 2019 saw the Journey to Un'Goro, Knights of the Frozen Throne and Kobolds & Catacombs sets moved to Wild format. Additionally, three cards from the Classic (Naturalize, Doomguard and Divine Favor) were moved to the Hall of Fame, and six cards from The Witchwood (Baku the Mooneater, Genn Greymane, Gloom Stag, Black Cat, Glitter Moth and Murkspark Eel) were moved to the Hall of Fame instead of waiting for their scheduled rotation to Wild in 2020, which is the first time cards from an expansion were moved to the Hall of Fame.

To celebrate the start of the Year of the Dragon, starting March 25, 2019 until April 2, 2019, logging in daily rewarded a random card pack from Journey to Un'Goro, Knights of the Frozen Throne, Kobolds & Catacombs, also a new Tavern Brawl, Brawl Block – Year of the Mammoth, was available.

Beginning with the Year of the Dragon, the Arena draft pool is updated by rotating out sets and adding new ones twice every expansion to keep things fresh. With the first rotation, the Arena draft pool contained the following sets: Basic, Classic, Curse of Naxxramas, Whispers of the Old Gods, Mean Streets of Gadgetzan, The Witchwood, and Rise of Shadows.

In the Year of the Dragon, Blizzard has made major changes to the Standard Card pool at other times besides the release of the expansions. On May 21, the Rise of the Mech event was announced, which brought Hearthstone's first-ever card buffs, and added the legendary mech SN1P-SN4P to The Boomsday Project card set. On October 8, the Doom in the Tomb event brought 23 Wild cards temporarily back into Standard play, and gave all players temporary copies of those cards. It also featured Galakrond's Awakening, which was both an entirely new set of 35 cards and a return to classic Adventure mode gameplay.

One consistent feature was the Lackey ability, which generated evil minions for the player. It saw support and new synergies added throughout the entire year, and even had two new Lackeys - Titanic Lackey and Draconic Lackey - added for Saviors of Uldum and Descent of Dragons.

Another recurring theme of the Year of the Dragon has been the return of elements from previous years:

• Rise of Shadows was centered around villains from various earlier expansions, while Saviors of Uldum brought back the four heroes from The League of Explorers.
• Several card mechanics from previous expansions returned, such as quests, cards with echo and evolve effects, and a new "forbidden" spell.
• Galakrond's Awakening saw the return of mechanics from within the year itself, with new Twinspell and Reborn cards as well as additional Quest and Lackey support.

Timeline

Main article: Hearthstone timeline

2019

March 5

• Blizzard releases a series of 4 teaser videos depicting the villains of Hearthstone, teasing an expansion reveal.

March 14 Rise of Shadows, Hearthstone's 11th expansion, is announced.

• The random Card back is introduced, allowing players to swap between card backs.
• The "Complete My Deck" feature gets a rework, pulling real data from well-performing decks, and creating one with the strongest cards you have available.

April 9

• Rise of Shadows is released.
• Arena moves away from being Standard-only, and starts a regular rotation of available cards from both new and older expansions.
• The third Standard year (the Year of the Raven) ends, and the fourth Standard year (the Year of the Dragon) begins.

April 25

• Win or Lose, Hearthstone's third animated short, is released.

May 16

• The Dalaran Heist, a new Dungeon Run-style mission, is released. This is the first paid Dungeon Run-style adventure that has more content than previous adventures and rewards.

June 3

• The Rise of the Mech event begins, containing the first-ever set of major buffs for cards instead of nerfs
• SN1P-SN4P is introduced into The Boomsday Project set, the first card to be added to a set far outside of its original release.
• Connection performance improvements are made. Areas like the collection manager can be accessed offline, and players can reconnect to games by reopening the app instead of being redirected to the launch screen.

July 1

• Saviors of Uldum, Hearthstone's 12th expansion is announced.
• In an attempt to reduce sexual and violent imagery in the game, several cards receive new names and/or art, such as Secretkeeper.
• Downtime for Tavern Brawls is reduced from ~2 days to 1 hour per week.

August 6

• Saviors of Uldum is released.

September 17

• Tombs of Terror, a new Dungeon Run-style mission is released, also containing the first appearance of Dual-class heroes.

October 8

• Doom in the Tomb, a new type of event is released. For the first time, Wild cards from across Hearthstone history are temporarily added to Standard for free.
• 1000-win hero skins are introduced for players who have reached 1000 ranked wins on a class.

November 1

• Descent of Dragons, Hearthstone's 13th expansion is announced at BlizzCon 2019.
• Battlegrounds, Hearthstone's first ever new multiplayer game mode is announced, starting with an early access for BlizzCon Virtual Ticket holders.

November 12

• Battlegrounds enters open "beta" (can be seen as the full release of the mode, as it didn't exit beta until ~2 years later).

December 10

• Descent of Dragons is released.
• The Shop is redesigned to improve navigation and accessibility. Additionally, Adventures and Wild Card Packs are being added, with the option to purchase Wild Card Packs using gold.

2020

January 9

• Galakrond's Awakening Hearthstone's fifth and final Adventure is announced. This time, the Adventure is tied to an expansion and being released in between two expansions, as opposed to being a standalone release.

January 21

• Galakrond's Awakening is released.

February 26

• Dragons are added to Battlegrounds, the first new minion type addition.