With all 135 cards now revealed for the upcoming Hearthstone expansion Saviors of Uldum, we now have a complete picture of what to expect in the coming weeks. This will be a rather unique expansion with only one new mechanic added to the game, and a number of previously seen mechanics recycled into the game.

Quests

Quests are back in Hearthstone in this second iteration of the game mechanic. So far, we wonder if Blizzard will have learned from their first attempt at using Quest cards, whereby some were completely useless all throughout the Standard rotation that they were present and still today in Wild, evident in the Warlock and Paladin classes. Others were so overpowered that they went through more than one nerf, and were considered interactive and frustrating to play against through no fault of one’s own, observable in the Rogue Quest.

Some of the Quests, at first glance, seem ludicrously overpowered, such as for the Priest class.

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When first shown, some thought it was merely adequate, but after the reveal of the various tools that Priests will have to heal multiple characters on the board at once, it seems like completing the Quest and gaining its powerful boon are going to be no problem at all.

Reborn

The Reborn mechanic is one of the few new additions to the game and is an adaptation of Deathrattle in that once a minion with the keyword died, it is resumed with one health. Keywords that provide stickiness to the board will always be welcome as a dependable way to fight for control of the board without the reliance on RNG.

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Leaning Hard Into That RNG

As expected, some of the incoming cards that are perceived to be the most powerful are also heavily reliant upon RNG, which can either be a good or a bad thing depending on how one views that design choice. Zephrys The Great, a neutral 2-mana legendary with a 3/2 body reads “Battlecry: If your deck has no duplicates, wish for the perfect card.”

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Value-generating cards are always going to be one of the most important parts of building a deck in Hearthstone, and this card offers it in spades, assuming of course that the AI does indeed offer cards that are appropriate to a current board state. Players who dislike RNG will not enjoy seeing this card in play, for it can be frustrating to have a well-made plan fall apart because the opponent has suddenly been given an optimal card that they did not themselves strategize to include in their deck.

Highlander Decks Return, Reno Decks May Gain Popularity In Wild

The condition for Zephrys The Great’s activation is another recycled mechanic from The League of Explorers adventure which introduced to us the four explorers seen in this expansion. At that point the decks were often referred to as Reno decks, and choosing to construct a deck with only one copy of each card allowed for powerful Battlecries to activate.

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Now that Reno Jackson has rotated to Wild, we call the decks Highlander decks based on the old films of the same name, as “There can only be one”, but in reference to copies of a card in one’s deck. Time will tell if these new cards can fit into a Highlander deck that is competitive enough for tournaments. At the very least, these cards will be a welcome addition to those who play Wild, where there are now going to be more tools to make that Reno/Highlander concept work. Yet this is only a theory, since Genn Greymane and Baku the Mooneater are still prevalent in the Wild format, leaving little room for experimentation with the oppression of Even and Odd decks.

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Speaking Of Wild

Generally speaking, Blizzard often receives substantial and well-deserved criticism for creating the Wild format and then all but abandoning it in favor of Standard. This expansion seems to be offering a significant number of tools that will be well-received in Wild, not only in the cards mentioned above, but also for old deck types, such as Murloc Paladin with the release of Tip The Scales, which is a tool that can work wonders when paired with Anyfin Can Happen.

Via: shacknews.com

Of course, the new tools here for Wild seem to be an incidental occurrence, and not an explicit design decision. Blizzard is recycling its old mechanics for use in this expansion because it is running out of innovative design ideas, and we cannot fault them for that, as it is difficult to create meaningful mechanics every four months. Still, this return to old mechanics does help players who enjoy the Wild format.

Will This Be Enough For Hearthstone To Bounce Back?

Recently at TheGamer we discussed the various challenges facing Hearthstone right now, and chief among them was the inevitable staleness that can come to any video game after years of trying to remain relevant. Right now, there is an established meta, and while each expansion brings the promise of exciting change with its 135 new cards, the reality is that only a handful of those cards often make any impact on the game.

As decks are optimized right now, only a few cards are swapped out, if any. For entirely new decks to be made, there often needs to be some massive shift in how the game is played. The last time we said this was with the first iteration of Quests, due to imbalance, caused by overpowered Death Knights.

These cards may look great, but they may only offer a brief window of time for players to be interested again before moving onto new, more exciting games. Hopefully this is not the case, and Saviors of Uldum can deliver on its promise to shift the current meta in such a way that the game feels fresh and exciting again.

The Saviors of Uldum expansion launches August 6.

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