Peter Whalen Talks About Quests & Reveals 2 New Cards!
Two new rogue cards have been revealed in a blog post with Peter Whalen discussing Quests!
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Clarifications
- The effect happens to minions which are played and summoned. For example, Frogs and Sheep from Hex and Polymorph would become 5/5. (Source)
- Cards on the battlefield when Crystal Core is played will become a 5/5 regardless of active buffs on them. You can later on buff them with cards and they will retain those stats. (Source)
- Example: Edwin VanCleef's effect works as normal if he's in your hand after Crystal Core is played. It will just add the +2/+2 to the 5/5. (Source)
Blog
Quote from BlizzardThis Jungle Hides Many Secrets
As we figured out the initial story behind Journey to Un’Goro, we realized that the core fantasy had four pillars: dinosaurs, elementals, exploration, and the primal world itself. Dinosaurs and elementals had their own mechanics, so we needed one more that made players feel like they were on an expedition, exploring the awe-inspiring landscape of Un’Goro Crater itself.
The idea of creating quest cards had been floating around on our team for a very long time. Back when we were first working on Whispers of the Old Gods, one of the designers pitched a new type of secret: Quests. A Quest was only active on your turn, and when you completed its condition, something awesome happened!
When we needed a mechanic for exploring a forgotten world to find something truly amazing, these Quests seemed like a natural fit.
Give Me a Quest
Once we decided to give Quests a real shot in Journey to Un’Goro, we began heavily iterating on them. We started out with the idea that Quests would be Legendary and the rewards would be fantastic—the core fantasy of a Quest is that you work hard and are richly rewarded. As we’ve seen, that core idea carried through to the present with powerful Quest rewards like Amara, Nether Portal, and Megafin—cards we couldn’t make any other way.
Basically everything else about Quest cards changed.
When we started out, we wanted Quests to feel as much like normal cards as possible, which would make them fit into the rules naturally while being easier to understand. The first Priest Quest, for example, said “When this is the only card in your hand, transform it into an Un’Goro pack.” Other Quests looked very similar to the ones that are coming in Journey to Un’Goro, and they had requirements like “play a certain number of minions of a particular type.” We quickly realized that the most fun Quests were the ones that asked you to accomplish something over the course of a game—those paid off the core Quest fantasy the most.
One of the things we noticed with Quests that transformed in your hand was that they were hugely frustrating for your opponent. From an opponent’s perspective, you had just played an insanely powerful card seemingly out of nowhere. For example, this was the first version of the Priest Quest:
To fix that, we required Quests cards to be played, and allowed both players to see their progress. In Un’Goro, Quests will appear around your portrait just like Secrets do.
From there, we talked a lot about how Quests are played. We tried having them simply play themselves from your deck so they didn’t take up space in your opening hand, but that was a little too powerful. With no risk involved at all, every single deck would play Quests just in case they happened to satisfy the conditions, or simply to thin the deck by one card. On the other hand, having to draw a Quest felt really bad, because you couldn’t make progress on it until you drew it halfway through the game. That’s why we decided to have Quests start in your opening hand.
Finally, we needed to decide how much mana Quests would cost, either (0) or (1). When they cost (0), playtesting revealed that players would often hold their Quest and then forget to play it before playing the card that triggered it. Making them cost (1) helped to slow the game down a little—letting the moment you played the quest feel more impactful—and required extra strategy around when to play the Quest. We still liked the overall power level the Quests had at (0), so we made the rewards a little better and the requirements a little easier to meet to balance things out.
Seeing Double
Once we had the mechanic for Quests figured out, they did a lot of great things for the set. On the art side, they gave us an opportunity to show off all the fantastical regions in Un’Goro Crater, from roiling tar pits and seething hot springs to the gleaming crystal caverns below. We relished every chance to bring the world of Un’Goro to life.
On the design side, each class has a Quest to help anchor them in Un’Goro. We wanted the Quest decks to be fun and interesting, so we often provided additional support, like Tortollan Shellraiser and Crystalline Oracle in Priest. We think Quests are cool, but we also don’t expect every player to want to play with one in their deck, so we tried to make sure to provide other themes and individually interesting cards to explore, too.
Because Quest cards are such a central focus of decks that include one, we wanted to make sure there was room to experiment with how you build a deck with a Quest in it. For example, a Unite the Murlocs deck could be very aggressive and play upwards of fifteen murlocs, while a less aggressive deck might use it as a way to get some late game oomph using only a handful of murlocs along with Call In the Finishers.
Since we were making nine different Quests, one of our goals was that they feel different from each other. So far, we’ve shown several straightforward Quests: Summon seven minions with Deathrattle, summon ten murlocs, discard six cards, and so on.
Those Quests are intuitive and offer a clear path for deckbuilding. However, some of our classes are naturally trickier than others, so for Rogue we went in a slightly different direction:
Play four minions with the same name. How do you even do that? One option is to use cards that return minions to your hand like Shadowstep and Youthful Brewmaster. Another would be to use cards like Thistle Tea or Mimic Pod that give you multiple copies of a minion.
Wait, what’s Mimic Pod? That’s one of the cards in Journey to Un’Goro that supports the Rogue Quest while also being interesting on its own:
If you can create an army of pod-minions and successfully explore the Caverns Below, what do you find?
Because your deck has so many tricks to successfully complete the Quest, we wanted to provide you with the raw power you’d need to end the game.
The Quest mechanic has come a long way from its humble beginnings two years ago, but its core remains intact. In Journey to Un’Goro, you’ll explore a forgotten world, quest for amazing things, and unleash their primal power on the Hearthstone board.
Learn more about Journey to Un'Goro!
Visit our expansion guide to look at all the new cards that have been revealed so far, as well as anything else you want to know about the new expansion!
I'm the only one who is thinking in something like...
Bluegill Warrior (hit 2) + Shadowstep + Bluegill Warrior + Cold Blood (Hit 6) = Triggers the new legendary.
3 manas/3 cards = 8 damage and 2 creatures... Now let's imagine if you allready have summoned a Bluegill Warrior and had made the combo with another Shadowstep or youthful brewmaster/... Quest trigger...
Bluegill Warrior could be a Southsea Deckhand ....
It is something to think about it...
This seems to be the most challenging quest to complete so far. Not sure it outvalues the hunter quest though, even though its tougher to complete..
No matter what people say, I am gonna try to make it work! 1 mana 5/5 incoming!
This has a lot of potential with things like cheap charge minions. I feel like it's going to take a while to perfect but I'm sure it will see some play.
what a pile of dogshit
I appreciate the end game combos with this, but it is way too slow.
In comparison to Warlock's quest when you actually get tempo with discards and then at least a kind of infinite fuel with 3/2 summons.
This rogue variant of extra fueling up / or combo will cost too much of early game tempo to Rogue, as taking minions back to own hand is not something Rogues tend do for the win or board control. Unless you are going to run heavy control with Vanish.
And as the class that has difficulties playing against taunt rich midrange, for Rogue it seems to be quite out of upcoming meta - as at least considering currently released cards as future course of action, upcoming meta is going to be taunt rich meta requiring value trades and late game combos to success.
To support basing of my conclusion: removing of Power Overwhelming to remove a PO+charge+Faceless Manipulator deadly combo is a significant sign that meta is designed around late game board related combos. Even Pyros is the piece of the same picture along with many others (giving Mage the Legendary quality card not revolving around spells is a big deal). Nerfing Warrior's Charge was not only a first step to allow Reno decks to get good, it's gonna fit the upcoming meta.
I am definitely up for the idea of slower meta in oppose to current Aggro power.
Just TLDR: having feeling that rogue quest will not fit new meta.
Good
great, now we just need relentless rats in hearthstone.
It'll actually be pretty fun for bounce rogue to be viable, rogue has a lot of cards that return minions to their hand but often times it's too much of an anti - tempo play to bounce minions back into your hand since rogue is a tempo styled class. Bouncing cards such as Firefly or Swashbuckler could work since they have powerful battlecries for a cheap cost, especially firefly since you can flood to board with elementals to zoo your opponent down while completing the quest but rogue needs battlecry minions that immediately effects the board for tempo. Shadowcaster's also great for making use of powerful battlecries. Hopefully some cheap, high value battlecries are printed for rogue for this to work.
If bounce rogue takes off, stuff like prep vanish and ferryman would also be viable, which'll be pretty fun too :)
Funniest shit is that they mention the neutral version of Gadgetzan Ferryman instead of the class card, loooooooooool.
Moroes TIER 1! And so many people dusted him haha
What if somehow I play Smuggler's Run and then Crystal Core?
This is a case for Sherlock Toast
You would make whatever minions you buffed a 5/5. If you Crystal Core THEN Smuggler's Run, you get 6/6's (or better because Van Cleef)
At least this new quest makes me happy that I did not dust Moroes. Which is quite an achivement on Blizzard's part!
3 mana 5/5 stealth. The value!
how does this interact with jade golems thou
All 5/5