Hearthstone: You can open Rise of Shadows packs early through Fireside Gatherings

Hearthstone's first expansion of 2019, Rise of Shadows, is dropping on April 9. All cards have been revealed so far and many major streamers such as Kripparian, Trump, Disguised Toast, Alliestraza and others have gone to a Fireside Gathering by Blizzard to show off some of the new decks you can play from the expansion.

You can also get early access to Rise of Shadows. If you host a Fireside Gathering or participate in one, players will be eligible to open their pre-order packs. You can also participate in a couple of Fireside Brawls, which gives you a bunch of deck recipes from the Rise of Shadows pool of cards.

There are two types of Brawls in this Fireside Gathering. One features a Constructed Mode but removes the limitations of the maximum number of each card you can get. So if you want 5 Togwaggle's Scheme or 10 Rafaams, you can absolutely do so. The other features a pre-constructed bunch of cards and players can participate in this Brawl even if they have not ordered any Rise of Shadows Packs.

Rise of Shadows comes together with the yearly Standard Rotation in Hearthstone. The Year of the Dragon will have card pools from the expansions The Witchwood, The Boomsday Project, Rastakhan's Rumble, Rise of Shadows and the Classic packs. The 2017 expansions of Journey to Un'Goro, Knights of the Frozen Throne and Kobolds & Catacombs will be rotated out to the Wild Format.

Rise of Shadows has introduced some particularly busted cards among its pool. Blizzard seems ambitious this time but hopefully, there won't be decks which are just straight up busted. It will be interesting to see what the Wild meta will be like when the expansion drops, considering how many busted synergies some of the new cards have with the Rise of Shadows cards.