Update 1:24 PM EDT: Added PlayHearthstone's German tweet, which is different.
More Cryptic News - Champions
The @PlayHearthstone twitter account has tweeted out a new photo and line of text which is in line with yesterday's article.
Quote from @PlayHearthstoneChampions are individuals who courageously answer the call of those who require their aid! (@PlayHearthstone)Ein Champion ist jemand, der all seine Mitstreiter in einem Wettbewerb übertroffen hat.
A champion is someone who has outdone all his comrades-in-arms in a competition (@Hearthstone_DE)
What will we see July 22?
We've seen a few different pieces of information now leading up to the July 22 announcement.
- July 2 - PCGamer received a scroll in their mailbox mentioning a gathering of champions.
- July 8 - The Hearthstone team posted a blog post talking about happiness in the air, shining armor, and people getting impaled.
- July 9 - A tweet with the picture of a Blood Elf stating champions answer the call of those who need aid.
This information seems to also link up to the recent Hearthstone Commercials that Blizzard have been putting out, which are all staged in a jousting pit - A gathering of armored folk where people get impaled. This however, is pure speculation.
I'm glad to still feel the hype.
It's definitely the Argent Tournament. I can't forget how annoying that patch was, always having to mount up and impale enemies with that stupid jousting spear.
If it is the Argent Tournament, then these new 'champions' are purely rep - based heroes. We win games to level up that champion's faction, then unlock new cards.
Screw you. I liked the WoW mounted combat. What I didn't like was how some enemy champions had better ai than others.
as for me, i liked this patch. Mounted combat was awesome, and man, i LOVED music that played there.
I assume you select a champion before the match starts. Champions have special abilities, which are not overpowered but might be useful (or fun). They are like a field card which you use before the match. For example the unicorn with the carrot could reduce your opponents turn time by 5 seconds or speed up your own turn time by 5 seconds. they can have special one time abilities as well. Kind of like this. well lets see, well learn by 22 :)
Still I do not expect to see a major expansion. It could be a bigger adventure though, with ~60 cards. That would be fine.
What if champions are like another hero power you can activate to gain an additional help or bonus in a fight?
Can we have some Horde alternate champions please? That aren't blood elves preferably.
Probably will for the base heroes that are alliance. Medivh was a special case since pretty much every major mage character in Warcraft is a human. Also, Medivh was kind of on both sides and neither side at the same time. The paladin hero could very well be Lady Liadrin, so don't get your hopes up for no belfs.
To be fair, Valeera is on both sides too, so we don`t have any blood elves from horde in this game. And to match her, they should make Garona to be alternate hero portrait.
Yeah Plainswalkers would totaly crush the current Meta +1 for MTG Plainswalkers!! ;)
can't wait for the 22nd.
At least, we can look at that blood elf :)
Edit Haha, why was this comment downvoted? No idea...
Based on these two comments, I think I got it: we're going to have Champions jousting on unicorns! (Against knights on giant marshmallow Peeps™!)
We'll get the Argent Tournament soon and then Icecrown in the Winter Time with the new Death Knight class.
Don't hold your breath... they've already stated that there will not be any new classes for a long time...
Indeed
Imo, it's 100% likely to be an expansion. They'd have to be INSANE to hype up more Hero Skins this much (and I don't put it past them), and we just had an adventure. iirc, the only other time they released cryptic articles and art was pre-GvG, when they were teasing new cards like Unstable Portal and Mechs.
So here's what I think: It's going to be a new expansion/card set that's based around Argent Tournament and WoTLK. The new tribe they're going to release will be "Champions" as others had thought up, and I have NO idea what they could be. I also think they might give every class a weapon, like "Staff of the Mage" 1/3, +1 spell damage, and classes with weapons may get "Armors", which are like weapons that function as armor that have cool effects built in (eg., shield of the paladin: 0/4 weapon, When you hero is attacked, negate 2 damage from the attack and heal 2, remove 1 durability).
Lastly, I think around December they're going to use the cards they've released with the expansion they're teasing now to make an Icecrown themed adventure, which starts at maybe Wrathgate, and eventually you progress to Icecrown Citadel where you can defeat Arthas, unlocking the Death Knight class. (I guess it would have to be a free adventure if they did that..?)
It's really likely that this won't happen, but I can dream!
I liked pretty much everything you said. Sounds legit.
Argent Tournament may have been a disappointment to most in WoW but it's got a lot of potential material for Hearthstone. It's a good opportunity to add some Valkyr, Magnataur, Nerubian's, Murlocs, Jormungar and pretty much any of the faction races. I'm excited for what could possibly come from a Tourney themed expansion.
Thematically, the Argent Tournament is an excellent fit for Hearthstone (music, tone, setting, characters), even if in WoW it was more of a filler patch between two major raid tiers.