All The Witchwood Expansion and Card Clarifications You May Have Missed
Yesterday was a busy and exciting day, so much so that our friendly neighbourhood Blizzard cast were out and about talking about the new expansion. Here's everything you may have missed that you absolutely need to know.
If you want to see the announcement, check out this post. We've also got our Witchwood guide up and if you want to see yesterday's patch, we've got a post on that too.
Important Details
- The expansion releases mid-April.
- The pre-order comes with 70 packs instead of the usual 50. You can pre-order here or in-game.
- Shaman is the only class getting a new playable hero card.
- Each class once again will be seeing two Legendary cards. (Source)
- There will be a stream to kickoff the card reveal season. (Source)
Baku, Genn, and Zero
- 0 is an even number. That's how it will work with Genn Greymane and Baku the Mooneater.
- Baku the Mooneater only upgrades basic Hero Powers - the exact same powers Justicar Trueheart does. (Source 1 | Source 2)
- New filters are going to be added that filter your collection to odd or even cost cards when you add Baku or Genn to a deck. (Source)
- Baku will still trigger if Prince Malchezaar adds even cost cards to your deck. (Source)
- Shifting Scroll counts as a 0-cost card. (Source)
Monster Hunt / PvE
- Dungeon Run will still be available for play. (Source)
- The four new heroes in the Monster Hunt mode have unique hero powers and even some special cards. (Source)
- They're not sure on what the plan is for Dungeon Run after Kobolds rotates out of Standard. (Source)
Game Mechanics
- Cards with the same effect as Echo which are already in the game will not be updated with the new keyword. (Source)
- Deathstalker Rexxar will be updated to work with both Kobolds and Witchwood Beasts when the set launches. (Source)
- If a Rush minion is played onto the board through a summon effect, the mechanic still works the same. (Source)
Why Greymane and Baku?
Quote from Mike DonaisThe two seem a bit like the opposites in terms of design. What made you pair the Worgen king with a "made up" lore monster? Is there any neat little lore about Baku that you guys came up with, which is why he seems to be paired with Genn?
Hagatha, the witch of the Witchwood awakened the trees and beasts of the woods making them stronger and angrier. Baku the Mooneater is the great worm that is basically her General.
Unrelated to WoW, Baku can also be found in Earth mythology too sometimes called Bakunawa.
Where is Witchwood?
Quote from Mike DonaisBefore Hagatha the Witch moved in it was called Blackwald and it is the forest outside Gilneas.
Correct - these woods are actually named "The Blackwald", but since Hagatha took up residence and twisted the woods around Gilneas, the Gilneans have started referring to it as "The Witchwood". It has become very dangerous.... (Source)
Will Each Class Get a New Hero?
Quote from Mike DonaisJust Shaman. Hagatha is the most impotant character in the set from a story standpoint. She brought The Witchwood to life and made it all dark and spooky. We wanted to signify that by making her a hero card.
Quests
Quote from Mike DonaisHow do quests work with the only even cost dude? Do you get the effect because the quest is guaranteed in your starting hand prior the check proir and you dont get it?
Quests are odd cost. You need all 30 even cost cards to run a Genn Greymane deck.
Class identity, they want to eliminate builds that utilize all neutral cards and ignore class cards.
Don't forget more $$$ through people buying more packs to get everything :)
That's a bit dramatic. In Kobolds, only about five of the 18 class legendaries were playable. And that includes Rin, basically a tech card, and Sonya Shadowdancer which is completely optional. Only Skull of Manari, Aluneth, and Kingsbane were central to any meta decks.
Yes, the thing is that having two legendary per class makes it more expensive to be able to play different decks. as an example, those three weapons only are useful in those decks, so unless I have them thanks to a pack, or I want to waste dust, is not smart for me to spend dust in the creation of them. by having only one per class, as it used to be right up to Gadgetzan (in a way at least), a legendary card is used in more than just one deck.
Blizzard, give us quests and hero cards! We want to have fun, and build around sfuff
If a Rush minion is played onto the board through a summon effect, the mechanic still works the same
So what is the difference with CHARGE? tks
Rush can only attack minions on the turn it's played, where charge can go face.
Rush = Charge but you can only attack minions that first turn.
Blizzard, give us quests and hero cards! We want to have fun, and build around sfuff
"0 is an even number" this one says a lot about the HS devs. They could have easily added an (or 0) mention in the card text.
Edit: In my country the the majority opinion in among the mathematicians is that 0 doesn't count as an even number, simply cause even numbers are used to count pairs and 0 is surely not a pair. I.E a pair of cards - 2 is even. That's what I've learned at school when I was young, that's what my friends that are math professors say, it haves a lot of sense of me for 0 to not represent an even number cause it represents a non-existence.
It looks like a lot of people never got to think what even really stands for. Or maybe they believe Wikipedia a little too much.
Zero is an even number though... no need to mention it on the card.
Even number = 2*N
Odd number = 2*N+1
Edit : N ∈ Z (Integers) :)
It says they understand basic math...? I don't know why anyone would think 0 is not even.
Because for some reasons, in some place, somewhere (over the rainbow) some people think may be 0 is not an integer.
For N >=1.
this doesn't work for 0.
why would 1 and 0 both be odd numbers? Common sense.
yeah bash the devs for not understanding math, 0 is considered even according to the even definition of "an even number can be represented by 2n while n is whole"
You can put a whole number in 2*0 and get 0, an even number.
also there was a challengestone brawl some month back which we got those rules.
In my country the the majority opinion in among the mathematicians is that 0 doesn't count as an even number, simply cause even numbers are used to count pairs and 0 is surely not a pair. I.E a pair of cards - 2 is even. That's what I've learned at school when I was young, that's what my friends that are math professors say, it haves a lot of sense of me for 0 to not represent an even number cause it represents a non-existence.