Hearthpwn

Odds and Evens - New Legendary Minions Encourage Creativity in Witchwood

Twelve cards from the looming Witchwood expansion have made clear Blizzard’s intention to offer a fundamentally new way to build decks and think about board interaction. 

New keyword mechanics like Rush and Echo promise an array of interaction possibilities, while two powerful legendary minions of those revealed boast the ability to alter the nature of a player’s hero power throughout the entire game.

Of course, a mere 12 cards tells us little about what Hearthstone will play like a month from now. The slow-drip of new cards always tantalizes, but not since the introduction of Quests have so few cards given us so much to think about. Even just Genn Greymane and Baku the Mooneater give us plenty to puzzle over.

The metagame has been prodded in various directions in the past — think Quests, Death Knights, and Old Gods — and Genn Graymane and Baku the Mooneater seem to be the focal cards in charge of steering the Witchwood metagame as the Old Gods retire to Wild.

Less like N'Zoth, the Corruptor and more like Reno Jackson — which introduced the concept of one-of decks and gave way to Renolock — Genn and Baku create a deck-building puzzle for the Hearthstone hivemind to solve. They reframe how collections are perceived. Through Baku and Genn, Blizzard asks players to think about decks in terms of even and odd-mana collections — rewarding you for an odd-cost deck with an upgraded hero power or with a 1-cost hero power for an even-cost deck. If the hero power change proves powerful enough in the Witchwood meta despite the sacrifices, even and odd cost parameter could be a dominant context in which we consider cards going forward. For a refresher, here are all the upgraded hero powers those who plan to build decks around Baku the Mooneater will be able to take advantage of:

• Druid's Dire Shapeshift - Gain 2 armor and 2 attack instead of 1 armor and 1 attack.
• Hunter's Ballista Shot - Deals 3 damage instead of 2.
• Mage's Fireblast Rank 2 - Deals 2 damage instead of 1.
• Paladin's The Silver Hand - Summons an additional Silver Hand Recruit.
• Priest's Heal - Heals 4 damage instead of the standard 2.
• Rogue's Poisoned Daggers - Equip a 2/2 dagger instead of 1/1 dagger.
• Shaman's Totemic Slam -Allows player to summon a totem of their choice rather than a random one.
• Warlock's Soul Tap -Draw a card without suffering 2 damage.
• Warrior's Tank Up! - Gain 4 armor instead of the standard 2.

The significance of their "Start of Game" keyword cannot be overstated. While Reno Jackson and Prince Keleseth had similar requirements to Genn Greymane and Baku the Mooneater, the effects of the latter don’t suffer from the draw RNG that plagued the former and made them two of the most polarizing cards in Hearthstone history.

Mastering Rush and Echo

In an interview with PC Gamer, we learned from designer Iksar that, beyond the cards in the reveal video, there are no others to be unveiled with Start of Game effects or even/odd parameters. So some measure of theorycrafting is possible, but you would do well to leave some wiggle room for forthcoming cards — especially if the new Rush and Echo keywords pique your interest. We also gleaned from the interview that, as expected, that there will be quite a few of these in the new set.

Rush and Echo will be important to the new metagame, but without knowing many cards with those keywords yet, an Odd Taunt Warrior archetype seems good. Many of the best taunt cards fit in that shell — Tar Creeper, Alley Armorsmith, Stonehill Defender — while maintaining access to Shield Slam, Shield Block, and Brawl, some of the best defensive warrior spells. The flexibility of the new Phantom Militia would likely be good here, too. But we all know everyone just wants to use Tank Up! Beyond that, Glitter Moth makes me eager to try an OTK Priest deck. I’ll leave the remainder of the speculation to you all, at least until the cards start trickling out on the 26th.

Blizzard certainly seems to have opened a lot of space for creativity with Witchwood; the metagame should resist stagnancy for a while as new even and odd decks surface, popularize, and I’m sure lead to counters of all sorts. The designers, meanwhile, are happy to move away from the historically problematic Charge mechanic — at least as we currently understand it. We’re looking at you, Leeroy Jenkins.

What are you eager to try when Witchwood drops? Are you Team Genn or Baku? Be sure to link to your theorycraft creations in the comments!