Editor’s note: Blizzard is owned by Microsoft — a company under BDS boycott.
I have played “Hearthstone” almost every single day since its closed beta in 2013. That’s 13 years of completing dailies, ripping open card packs, and netdecking codes from much smarter players. And having looked up my stats, I have almost 21,000 wins in total. 2500 of them are from the Warlock class, and barely over a thousand for Priest (my least played class).
All 11 of the classes in the game currently hand out a golden portrait border for reaching 1K wins with each class. And I thought I was out. Done. Finished. No pressure to grind out more wins. And then…
Son of a bitch. Blizzard, you roped me in again.
At BlizzCon 2026, Team 5 revealed the 12th class joining the game with the launch of the new expansion in March. It was the class everybody thought it would be, the one we all wanted, and the most obvious choice to be translated from “World of Warcraft” to “Hearthstone.” The pandarian led Monk, which I personally know nothing about, but I imagine it’ll be a mix of Priest’s healing, Druid’s spells, and some good ol’ fashioned kung fu combat with a bamboo bo staff.
Of course that will mean a few things: Monk has to come out of the gate busted to get people interested in playing it. This happens often with DLC characters in competitive games, like fighting games and MOBAs. Another certainty: I will be maining Monk until I get to that 1000 win benchmark. A new class doesn’t come around all that often in “HS,” so getting a new hero power, new cards, and a new meta will be an exhilarating change of pace to a game that’s been around for so long.
From my limited knowledge of Warcraft lore, and some preliminary research into “WoW” and the Monk class in there, I have some expectations/predictions for the class. First, Pandarians are a new minion type. They will be based around the brewmaster mechanic of bouncing things back to hand, often with buffs. I also expect some buff spells based around beer (think drinking an ale gives +1/+1 to a minion). Monks are a mix of tank/damage dealer/healer, so it’ll be a combination of the Priest class (every player’s least favorite), Paladin, Rogue, Druid, and Warrior. Bounce to hand, heal, stall, bulk up, get drunk, rinse and repeat.
I imagine Monk will be hard to kill, pack a punch, and can self-regulate the health pool back to 30 or above. A mid-range and control player’s dream (i.e. me). There’s also Chi, which could be a new way to ramp mana or at the very least regain it in a turn. Or that could be an entirely different thing that I can’t predict. Maybe it’s card draw, or a new thing. Monk should also get a bo staff as a weapon, but outside of all of these possible ways to design a Monk class I am just ready and eager to dive into a new way to play. It’ll be five years since the Death Knight class was released, and the fact that “Hearthstone” is still around and kicking is a good sign for such a small and resilient team of devs I love.
Image credit: “Hearthstone,” Blizzard Entertainment
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