As has been expected since the announcement at last year's return to their annual Blizzcon event, Blizzard's free-to-play card game Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft has now gone into Open Beta, allowing anyone to join in on the action.

With the last big update that Blizzard expects to see now behind us, players joining in or those continuing their card-life adventures will find only small tweaks and changes during the Open Beta phase, essentially meaning that what we have now won't be changing for awhile. This also means that the team expect no more wipes to occur, so don't be afraid that your shiny Illidan will be disappearing in the next patch.

As open beta is still a beta phase, we will be closely monitoring many aspects of the game to ensure a positive play experience for everyone. Please be aware that if smoke starts curling out of our servers due to unexpectedly high demand to play Hearthstone, we may have to temporarily disable open beta account activations for a time until we’re ready to take on more players.

Currently the Open Beta is available just to North American folk (which includes us Oceanic players) however Blizzard has stated that they are rolling out access over the next few days so don't panic.

To jump into the game, simply head to the official site and download the Battle.net launcher, where you'll find access to Hearthstone automatically granted. See you in-game!