In the biggest change in Hearthstone's six years of service, the next expansion will introduce an entirely new tenth class. Many players have long resigned themselves to its realization due to the complexities of balance involved, but with the arrival of Ashes of Outland on April 7, the fearsome Demon Hunter class will be fully playable.

Demon Hunter's Hero Power is Demon Claws, which gives the hero +1 attack for one mana per turn. While this may sound a bit plain, its low cost compared to other Hero Powers makes it extremely flexible. The Demon Hunter class also has access to a limited new keyword called Outcast, which triggers an additional powerful effect when this card is played from the right or left end of the hand.

The Demon Hunter's hero is, of course, Illidan Stormrage, self-proclaimed Lord of the Outlands and the first of the Demon Hunters; Blizzard describes him thus: "He is an aggressive attacker, leading Fel-infested troops into battle, his weapons and claws He tears them apart. Whereas other heroes focus on buffing and healing their minions, Illidan is less concerned with keeping them alive.

An entirely new class requires a full analysis: Tim played Demon Hunter for a full day at Blizzard, so you can check out his deep dive here.

The Demon Hunter class will be available for free to all players who complete the Demon Hunter Prologue mission, a Hearthstone-inspired take on the Stormrage origin story. All 10 Demon Hunter Basic cards and 20 cards from the new Demon Hunter Initiate set will also be available for free. A total of 45 Demon Hunter cards will be rolled out during the three expansions scheduled for the Year of the Phoenix.

Take a look at the Demon Hunter cards in the Basic and Initiate sets.

And here are three more cards that are part of the "Ashes of Outland" expansion. The rest of the cards will be released in the coming weeks, including on this site on March 18.

Ashes of Outland will also add a new, more powerful breed of legendary minions called Primes. All classes except Demon Hunter have unique Primes, each with a powerful deathrattle effect: after being removed from the board, dramatically upgraded cards will be shuffled into the deck. For example, Kargath Bladefist, a warrior minion, starts as a 4 mana 4/4 with rushing, but when upgraded to Kargath Prime becomes an 8 mana 10/10 with rushing, granting 10 armor for each enemy minion killed.

Another new card introduced in this expansion is called Imprisoned Demon. This card lies dormant for two turns after being played (i.e., it cannot attack or harm), but when awakened, it has a powerful "tempo altering effect."

The Year of the Phoenix also brings some welcome and significant changes when opening card packs. Duplicate protection, which prevents you from receiving duplicate legendary cards from a pack, will apply to cards of all rarities. This means that you will no longer receive a third common, rare or epic card from any expansion pack until you have two or more cards of the same rarity.

Even better, the expanded dupe protection will apply to all previous expansion card packs, including those currently sitting unopened. This should help you get where you want to go faster and save you money.

The Year of the Phoenix will also update the Priest class, replacing the six basic Priest cards and the classic Priest cards. Witchwood, The Boomsday Project, and Rastakhan's Rumble cards will move to Wild at the beginning of the year, and nine cards from the Classic set and two from Basic will enter the Hall of Fame: a major update to Battlegrounds is A major update to Battlegrounds will take place. Hearthstone Ashes of Outland will be released on April 7. For more information, visit playhearthstone.com.