Ask any gamer what they dread in the game they love and most of them would have the same answer: lack of change. That’s right, even though change is not appreciated by many in the real world, in the virtual world, it’s exactly what keeps the community on the edge of their seats.
The Hearthstone community is no different and Blizzard has come up with a superb way of keeping the 40 million Hearthstoners happy – release two new expansions every year!
Hearthstone is a card based game in which most of the characters are derived from Blizzard’s popular game, World of Warcraft.
The last expansion that was released in April was based on the Old Gods. The new expansion shifts its focus to a city in the game called Gagetzan and is rather appropriately called ‘Mean Streets of Gagetzan.’
In order to understand the impacts of the new expansion, a certain understanding of the game’s strategy is required. Hearthstone is a card game where players use creatures and spells to try to kill their opponent. There are a couple different general approaches to doing this, and they depend on the way the deck is built.
If a player has an aggressive deck, usually called aggro, they expect to finish the game in six to seven turns by dealing damage directly to their opponent, often using cheap and high-powered minions.
A control deck is one which has a lot of spells designed to slow an opponent down and let a player build to victory over a longer period.
A tempo deck is somewhere in the middle. It has minions that can be played as well as removal against opponent minions.
These days aggro and midrange decks have been dominating, leaving control decks out in the cold. There has been a lot of uproar in the community regarding this very thing, and now it seems Blizzard has taken notice.
Not all cards of the new cards have been released, but the ones that have suggest there’s a strong anti-aggro conspiracy brewing on the streets of Gagetzan!
Blizzard has attempted something unique in this expansion and that is multi-class cards. Usually, a card adheres to either one of the nine characters or is a neutral card that can be used by all characters. The expansion’s new tri-class cards, however, can be used by three specific classes. It’s going to be a whole new ball game!
The two most neglected characters in the past six months were Priest and Paladin. Their arsenal of cards just could not cope with the aggressive meta. With the gifts bestowed upon them in the upcoming expansions, there are strong indications that they might be the ones having the last laugh.
The only question on everyone’s mind now is how Shaman will be affected. Shaman is a character with the perfect cards for the current state of the game and is so strong that many have started referring to Hearthstone as Shamanstone. With no Shaman cards being released till now, everyone is anxious as what curve ball the card designers plan to throw at the community.
The expansion goes live sometime in December. I’m just hoping it doesn’t coincide with finals week at Michigan Tech or my grades are in serious trouble!
