Blizzard has announced that the upcoming Hearthstone expansion, Knights of the Frozen Throne, will release August 10. This time around Hearthstone players will be venturing into the frozen north to take on the Lich King and his minions at Icecrown Citadel.

The new expansion will introduce 135 new cards into the game, including 9 legendary hero cards that transform the game's heroes into Death Knights. This change affords them new, devastating powers.

Knights of the Frozen Throne features a new power called Lifesteal. Every class will have access to minions with lifesteal, which restores health to players' heroes for the amount of damage they dole out.

The expansion will also include 8 free missions that will pit players against some tough new bosses, all leading up to a final confrontation with the infamous Lich King. He's noted as having unorthodox strategies, which is a fancy way of saying he's a cheater. Players will receive a free Death Knight card for beating the prologue mission, and additional card packs for every boss they defeat.

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Players can also pre-purchase 50 card packs for $49.99, which comes with a Frostmourne card back. The offer is limited to one per account, and card packs will be available to open once the expansion launches.

The upcoming sixth expansion will likely give a boost to the Hearthstone player base, which was recently reported to have reached 70 million players worldwide. On the flip side, the game has also been reported to be losing revenue. The new expansion might be the shot in the arm Blizzard is hoping for.

The game's last expansion, Journey to Un'Goro, was surrounded by a fair amount of controversy. First, it launched with an exploit that was ruining online matches. Additionally, players began to suspect card packs were purposefully giving them an increased number of duplicates. This issue was compounded by a recent price hike to international players, which was estimated to cost players $400 USD to obtain every card in the expansion.

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is available now for PC, Mac, and iOS and Android mobile devices. The Knights of the Frozen Throne expansion will launch August 10, 2017.