[Update #2]: Hearthstone's Voyage to the Sunken City expansion is bringing in some truly gigantic creatures.

[Update]: Hearthstone is launching a balance update next week (April 12 in the earliest) to nerf Paladins, Mages and Rogues.

As a part of the recent Forged in the Barrens expansion Hearthstone has added 135 new cards to mess around with, many of which come with interesting new effects and fun twists on old ones. However, if you're in the mood for a bit of a nostalgia trip, Forged in the Barrens has also brought in something far more exciting - the Classic Mode!

Much like the name would imply, the Classic Mode allows you to craft and play exclusively with Hearthstone's 240 original cards. All of the changes that happened since then, including things like reworks and bans, have been reverted and as such the Classic Mode will represent Hearthstone exactly as it was in June 2014!

Naturally, freezing a format like this brings with it some advantages and disadvantages. The good news is that thanks to years and years of addition experience it's entirely possible that brand new deck archetypes will show up to challenge the meta decks of old, which is always an exciting thing to behold. As for the bad news, well, given that the format is frozen it's also inevitable that a brand new meta will form, and once it does, it won't exactly change very easily.

So if you do decide to dive into Classic Mode, make sure to treat it as a sort of fun diversion rather than a format you'd want get super-duper serious about. After all, some of the cards and deck archetypes have since been nerfed, heavily reworked or simply banned outright for a good reason.

Whatever your goals may be, you can learn more about Classic Mode and the brand new Forged in Barrens expansion over at the Hearthstone website. Enjoy, and I'll leave you with the sadly non-musical trailer: