The Witchwood - Hearthstone's Eighth Expansion
Hearthstone's Eighth Expansion is The Witchwood! It launched on April 12th 2018.
Expansion Information
- 135 new cards were added to the game.
- A new Shaman Hero Card, "Hagatha", is seen briefly at the end of the reveal video. Ben Brode confirmed this is the only Hero Card in the expansion. (Source)
- Every class will be getting 2 Legendary cards this expansion. (Source)
- A new mechanic called Echo is being added to the game.
- A new mechanic called Rush is being added to the game. It's like Charge but less OP.
- The pre-order comes with 70 packs instead of the usual 50. You also get a card back. You can pre-order here or in-game.
Freebies
- A card back for completing Monster Hunt.
- A legendary class card for logging in on release.
- Three card packs for logging in on release.
- Up to four card packs for completing daily quests in the lead-up to the expansion. (Source)
Monster Hunt
- Works like Dungeon Run in that you play a hero against bosses and build a deck as you progress.
- Does not use normal Hearthstone heroes, this has four unique characters.
- The final boss at the end of Monster Hunt is different for each of the four classes.
Below are pictures of the Cannoneer, Houndmaster, Time Tinkerer, and Tracker heroes from Monster Hunt.
New Keyword: Echo
Echo cards can be played multiple times on the turn you play them. Each time, it’ll add a ghostly copy of the card back to your hand that disappears at the end of your turn.
New Keyword: Rush
Minions with the Rush keyword can attack other minions immediately after they hit the board, either by being played or summoned. They cannot attack heroes until the turn after they enter play, however.
Hagatha the Witch
The only new playable hero card being added to the game, Hagatha has unique emotes and a special passive Hero Power.
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- Greetings: "Welcome to my domain."
- Well Played: "Well played."
- Thanks: "Thank you."
- Wow: "By the night!"
- Oops: "Unwise."
- Threaten: "The curse take you!"
New Cards
So far, 135 cards have been revealed out of 135.
Druid
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Hunter
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Mage
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Paladin
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Priest
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Rogue
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Shaman
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Warlock
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Warrior
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Neutral
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Card Backs
There are two new card backs. The first is available with the expansion pre-order and the second is a reward from Monster Hunt.
New Gameboard
As always, Hearthstone is getting a new game board with the expansion.
Will it release at the same time in EU as in US like the Kobolds expansion? Is the technology finally here to stay?
Probably - they want to test their servers for the influx of players
One thing that I can appreciate about this set is that there are no completely garbage cards, like just vanilla cards that are so useless. AKA Worgen Greaser
Going off of the MTG 'player characters' (here's a link if you want more info on it), I'm going to assume your a spike player, which there is nothing wrong with it. However when designing an expansion, Blizzard (or even just card game companies in general) need to make sure they make enough cards to appeal to all different types of players. Since I'd say Team 5 still hasn't really found a nice balance in terms of designing new cards, they aren't really able to do this very well and so while as a Johnny player, I like a lot of the cards Mage has. Sure they aren't the best, but I'd rather build a deck that is fun to play for some stupid combo than play a competitive deck. Unless some deck pops up that completely annihilates cubelock out of the meta (which I'm 97% sure won't happen) there won't be a lot of competitive mage decks.
Ben Brode mentioned that they are closely monitoring Cubelock and so if it stays consistently powerful through the next expansion, they are going to nerf it or something. I'm not sure how close 'closely monitoring' is, but hopefully they are doing a good job. For that reason, I guess you can either try to make a mage deck that, while not top tier, is still strong, or just wait for the inevitable nerf.
"One good secrets card is counterbalanced by a neutral that destroys secrets."
From what I remember, Tempo-Secret Mage still saw play despite Eater of Secrets existing. I'm sure that the deck could still survive.
Congrats Heartpwn staff for great coverage. Again you did a wonderful job. Thank you!
Did you really just call TGT a good expansion?
Barely any of the cards from TGT saw play since they were pretty much all bad. If you were to release the expansion again instead of Witchwood, barely any of the cards would see play since the expansion as a whole was an unpowered mess. Even strong cards like Mysterious Challenger wouldn't see play since the support of it isn't here anymore.
I went back and took a quick look at TGT cards that could be see some play of any kind and there was a total of 11 cards in the entire 135 card expansion. Saying that TGT has stronger cards than Witchwood just isn't true.
Also, going back to your original comment, you mention "new generation of hearthstone players" at the end, and you do realize that plenty of them do still try doing stuff in wild right? Just because they started in Year of the Mammoth doesn't mean they've used cards from wild sets and are thus not used to stronger cards.
You realize that Tuskarr Totemic was nerfed to the point where it's shit, right? And if you want a card thats stronger than those cards, Houndmaster Shaw is without a doubt one of the strongest cards they've printed in the last 2-3 expansions. With plenty of early game dominant cards rotating out, and Hunter still keeping Crackling Razormaw and cheap beasts, it's rather easy to play a 4 drop on curve without having your opponent be able to clear it. From there it literally just lets your minions act as removal the turn they are played.
Totem Golem was mostly strong due to Tunnel Trogg making it a larger threat, Living Roots is good because it gives druids a thing to do in the early game, which given the meta now, they either just spam the board with cards like Living Roots or they wouldn't run it due to being low impact, Justicar Trueheart I can't really make an arguement for since that card was the sole reason both Midrange Paladin and Control Warrior worked in TGT/LoE. Finally, Twilight Guardian wasn't good for most of the time it was in standard. It saw a little bit of play when Karazahn rolled out, but only saw major play in Dragon Priest in MSOG. Out of all 5 cards you listed, only 2 are strong on their own in terms of 'raw strength', 3 if you include Tuskarr Totemic, which was only strong because it had highroll potential that would raise the chance of you winning by a solid 10-15%.
Whenever I'm responding to a comment like this, I try not to insult the person directly because it's uncalled for, but why do you feel the need to sound pretentious? Sure you've played the game longer than a bunch of other people, but that doesn't put you on some untouchable throne,
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I'm glad you've had success with them, and I have also played a bunch of those types of cards too, but I haven't really played a bunch of wild with lots of TGT cards, nor have they popped up in a tier 1-2 deck, which was what I was going off of. I'm not saying the expansion wasn't fun, because I had a good time playing it, but during it's time in standard, not a lot of cards had an actual impact.
If I were to include how the cards have done in wild, then yeah a lot of the inspire cards would be better just due to better hero powers being around now. Cards like Spawn of Shadows saw a ton of play in Reno Priest, adding a ton of burst to it and cards like Totem Golem still see play in aggro/midrange shaman. I'm glad you've been able to find success with them, but that doesn't change the fact that most of the cards were bad/suboptimal while they were in standard.
Hope from pre-order we will get around 4 legendaries)
i will buy the new expansion only if in the update its will finaly suppert iphone x..
The Art in this expansion has been fucking amazing! Except for Deadly Arsenal tho.
Yeah, it looks more suitable for a real life TCG rather a digital TCG. I like the art though, it's just not for Hearthstone imo.