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!
What is this grudge that Blizzard against Rogue? Why are they being so rude to her like this?
Fairly disappointed in rogue quest legendary. Compared to the others, it seems a bit weaker. Only really useful if you can pull it off early in the game as late game 5/5s still get beaten by any average jade. If you could complete this by turn four and start summoning tons of minions (Doppelgangster- but that's still fairly late whether it's to complete the quest or receive the buff). Pantry Spider, Moroes, Defias Ringleader, Razorfen Hunter, etc. (everything that used to be in a bloodlust zoo non-hyped deck).
I also wondered if the other rogue legendary would proc this (however it'd take a while- like 3- 4 card turns to proc the summon of 4 times...).
This is what happens when Team 5 doesn't want to accept their failures. People said Gadgetzan Ferryman was bad, the team built an archetype around it. ;)
Would be much more viable if it will work with spells, like The Coin. Now it's just 400 dust, perhaps good for some brawls
Can we trigger quests like this on the Arena?
They said quest cards wont appear in arena drafts or in any other ways like gaining a random class card!
Birthing pod is legit
I mean correct me if I'm wrong, but being able to turn things like Southsea Deckhand into a 5/5 is a pretty big deal. Generally speaking, the only reason you're gonna be given this reward is because you're running garbage like Youthful Brewmaster, Gagdgetzan Ferryman, Shadowstep (Not garbage but you get my drift) To complete this as EARLY as possible.
Once having done so, you're just dropping 1-3 mana 5/5's on the board every turn. PLUS the dormant Rogue Legendary that never dies unless transformed, is gonna gain some more health from having this done. The synergy and applicability is totally there with this quest and the cards we've seen so far. Aggro Rogue just got a lot more hyper aggressive.
weird how gang up is removed at the same time as this card comes into the game...
Patches would be to broken.
Not quite true. The quest needs you to play the minion, while for most of the time, Patches is summoned. Mill rogue gonna be OP. Imagine 55 oracle, doomsayer etc.
1- patches is already broken
2- it says "play" a minion not "summon"
Seeing how the quest says PLAY (Not SUMMON) 4 minions with the same name, Patches would have no effect on the power level of this quest in combination with Gang Up. Always tomorrow for ya, though!
Love the fact that even Blizzard didn't bothered to put gadzetan ferryman next to brewmaster :-p
Rogue players ̿̿ ̿̿ ̿̿ ̿'̿'\̵͇̿̿\
Hopefully there will be more bounce cards introduced in this expansion to make the Rogue quest more feasible.
Questing Rogue gets a new meaning
I'm not sure, but I think he will just be a 5/5.
They are purposefully making it so you don't want to play Vancleef in this deck.
Edwin will clearly start as 5/5 and get +2/+2.