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.
Unchanged wording, can still attack face when summoned
Charged Devilsaur will be keeping it's current wording so that it will still be able to attack face when summoned (such as by Carnivorous Cube or some other summon effect).
Edit: Source
Baku the Mooneater seems to be based on Voltron S2E2.
I hope they keep dungeon run as playable for forever just like naxxramas still is. It would be lame to lose it once it rotates.
I like option 2 as it is just like what they did with naxx and a great way to let incentivize people to get wild packs. I also hope they let you one day use gold for wild packs. Final random thought: what if there was a mystery pack of wild you could buy and get 5 packs at once each a random set... for 500 gold of course.
If we were to do the mystery packs than it would likely cost 400-450 because for 500 you could get 5 packs of choice but here it is 5 packs of a random set, so it is less reliable, and should therefore cost less.
But because we both know blizzard would never do this let's not waste our time thinking about the cost. ( but it is also likely it would cost real money...)
But Bakunawa is a dragon according to Philippine mythology. Eastern dragons in some countries like China are mystical, divine, holy being and are mostly serpent-type. They don't have wings and some don't have leg. They are still worshipped and classified as dragons. There are some bad dragons too and they are all serpent-type like that. I know there are differences in Western and Eastern culture but as an Asian, I don't really like seeing our "dragons" become "beasts" because they don't have wings and legs like they are in the West. This may change nothing since the card decision is set but I hope the devs keep this in mind a little.
However, Beast tag is properly one of the best tag at the moment.
I may be a little too sensitive. Baku is inspired by Bakunawa not the real one so it doesn't need to be a "dragon".
Would you rather see future Asian dragon-inspired minions redesigned to look like European dragons? 'Cause I doubt Blizzard would give them a Dragon tag otherwise.
I can definitely understand the sentiment here, and I actually also personally would prefer Eastern dragons to be tagged as dragons, but I suppose it's hard to get around the fact that Warcraft is primarily based around Western archetypes and often, when other mythologies are used, they are interpreted as stereotypes through a Western lens. Cause I mean their place in Warcraft is alongside some kind of ninja panda. I kinda wish the Warcraft lore team developed the whole Asian culture aspect a lot more when they incorporated it, but at this point it's hard for Hearthstone to change that mold without losing thematic consistency.
Deathstalker Rexxar will finally be updated, about damn time!
Same
Does anyone know whether they are Revealing cards theirselves from now on or whether we have to Go through another 2 weeks of Hard Times Til the community/press Reveal starts ?
hard times, but the first reveal will be a stream by the devs
shaman hero 10 mana
Battlecry freeze all opponent characters and summon the 4 basic totems.
Hero power discover an elemental and reduce its cost by 2.
wild guess
The top half of the card was shown in the reveal video and it costs 8 mana.
What is the justification to have again two legendaries for class? I'll guess that I'll have to be satisfied with being able to play decks from one or two classes another year.