Hearthstone’s Dalaran Heist gives the game’s solo campaign a big boost

Blizzard has rolled out the Rise of Shadows add-on in Hearthstone, setting the expansion’s new cards free to weak havoc and unlock new combos in the game’s competitive modes. Now, the League of EVIL get more time in the spotlight thanks to the single-player campaign, The Dalaran Heist.

Hearthstone’s solo adventures are a distinct change from the game’s competitive modes, and they often reward patience, creativity, and puzzle-solving skills over building the best decks and mastering the competitive metagame. The Dalaran Heist is a hefty chunk of content, out-scaling the game’s previous adventures. The heist is five chapters, with the first one available for free. The next four chapters can be unlocked for 700 gold or $6.99 each, and an all-inclusive package contains all four chapters for $19.99. These missions are set to start on May 16.

The concept is simple: Rise of Shadows is about the bad guys teaming up to pull off a heist on Dalaran, which has served as a mix between a tactical operations platform and offensive fortress for World of Warcraft players for 10 years now, on top of a major residential center and magical academy. This campaign is about being the bad guy and pulling off the heist of the entire city.

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The Dalaran Heist will follow the format of previous expansions’ single-player campaigns, Monster Hunt and Dungeon Run, offering players the choice between nine underlings, each with a unique ability, and a deck that unlocks over time and can be upgraded via completing quests.

The roguelike system introduced in Monster Hunt and Dungeon Run will get some big changes with Dalaran Heist, including the ability to run non-combat tavern runs that are centered around deck building, rejecting rough cards, and upgrading other abilities for the current run. Players will also be able to pick new hero powers and alternate starting deck options as they advance, and easily swap loadouts between runs. In short, each individual run is now longer, and there’s more infrastructure for customizing, upgrading, and swapping cards for your hero — or villain, as the case may be.

All five chapters have a series of encounters with a themed mechanic, that culminates in a final boss fight.

Chapter one, the Dalaran Bank, will have vaults on the board that the player can bust open for coins. Chapter two, which is based off the infamous World of Warcraft dungeon the Violet Hold, will have imprisoned minions in the fray. The streets of Dalaran in chapter three will be narrow, allowing for less room for minions, as there’s a crowd watching. The players work into the Underbelly in chapter four, where health and attack on minions are swapped. Finally, the last chapter has extra encounters to work through, making the final stretch extra tough.

For replayability, an Anomaly Mode will also be available after unlocking all five chapters. Players will get to play the Dalaran Heist with random alterations to the rules, which range from minor shakeups to major, Tavern Brawl-esque overhauls.

Hearthstone’s solo content has been some of its best stuff yet, so it’s interesting to see the game go for a campaign as large as the Dalaran Heist. The campaign starts on May 16, so players have time to get into the game and check out some of the newest cards and mechanics before they plan their daring heist.

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