It’s about that time for Hearthstone to announce its next expansion. In fact, it’s about time for Blizzard’s card game to prepare for the next Standard year. However, it looks like the publisher is taking a major step forward. Hearthstone will do more than introduce a new year, it will also introduce a brand new class in the form of the Demon Hunter.

Hearthstone will be the card game’s take on World of Warcraft’s Burning Crusade storyline, focused on Illidan Stormrage. Illidan will stand alongside his brethren and face down the fearsome demons of Outland. Illidan will be the first character in the playable Demon Hunter class.

Demon Hunters are centered around aggression, trade-offs, Demons, Lifesteal effects, and card positioning. The latter quality will feed into Outcast, a keyword exclusive to the Demon Hunter class. Outcast will offer specific effects for cards played whenever they’re on the left or rightmost position in the player’s hand. We’ll have more details on how to play the Demon Hunter class later today, so stay tuned to Shacknews for that.

Players can look forward to a special series of Demon Hunter Prologue missions that tell Hearthstone’s version of Illidan Stormrage’s origins. Completing these missions will unlock the Demon Hunter class, along with 10 Demon Hunter class cards that will slot into the Basic set and 20 Demon Hunter class cards that will be slotted into the Year of the Dragon. The latter cards will be playable for a year before rotating out into Wild. In an effort to play catch-up with Hearthstone’s other nine classes, 15 new Demon Hunter cards will be introduced with each expansion for the new Standard year. The Demon Hunter Prologue missions will be made available on April 2, while the Demon Hunter class will officially arrive on April 7.

There’s much more coming this morning from Heathstone, so stay tuned. Shacknews will have more information as it comes in.