Hearthstone's Next Adventure Revealed - The League of Explorers

[Steven Bogos]

Hearthstone's Next Adventure Revealed - The League of Explorers

The League of the Explorers's first wing will launch next week, on November 12.

Blizzard's BlizzCon [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/hearthstone] has spilled the beans on pretty much all the details of it's new upcoming singleplayer adventure: The League of Explorers, and what's more... it comes out next Friday! Yep, the adventure's first wing will open on November 20, and will cost you the standard Hearthstone adventure price of 700 gold or $6.99 per wing, or $20 for the whole thing.

But you wanna know some really good news? Rather than slow-rolling us with a gradual reveal of cards like it did with Facebook page [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/140032-Hearthstone-Getting-New-Blackrock-Mountain-Adventure-Mode-and-Phone-Game-Support#&gid=gallery_3891&pid=1], and we've got them all here for you to check out:

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Additionally, The League of Explorers introduces a new keyword to the game: Discover! Discover works similarly to the hunter card "Tracking", but the cards it picks are random cards that are not in your deck.

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[The Wykydtron]

That Cursed Blade... What the absolute fuck? Is that a Rogue card? It's not Poisoned Blade level of awful but christ... and these 10 mana spells, adding these is not going to slow the meta down so they're playable. 10 mana spell for Murloc Pally proves that they probably don't even understand their own game.

Also entirely new broken tier of RNG. Fuck Hearthstone, i'm done. Goin' back to Duelyst for my digital CCG fix. Pretty much Fire Emblem meets Hearthstone but with very little RNG and no RNG that wins you games outright.

 

[Matt K]

I still play Tavern Brawl but otherwise I'm been out for a while now. The game got stale and I don't see anything here that'll counter the super fast Aggro game.

 

[DoPo]

-snip-

Gotta love that Roaring Torch card: "Fireball but 1 mana cheaper". And because that's not really that good there is the Forgotten Torch: "Frost Bolt that doesn't freeze, gives you a cheaper Fireball".

OK, after looking at them again, it seems that you can't just get Roaring Torch by itself in your deck (no crystal on it) - I guess that means that you can only get it by playing Forgotten Torch. Not that it really matters that much, to be honest - seems like there is very little reason NOT to pick the card.

 

[Politrukk]

this is godawful there are like what 3 cards that I would potentially be interested in and those have big if's (I think they are Shaman cards?)

I think they locked their meta with the Grand Tournament and this is not going to do anything different.

 

[flying_whimsy]

I have a sneaky suspicion we'll see another major nerf once someone figures out a deck with these that's as bad as that 'everyone, get in here' guy: having looked at the cards I can see some of that potential in there.

Honestly, this strikes me more as just a bunch of fun cards for the adventure and then some specially themed tavern brawls: I doubt the ladder'll be affected by this all that much unless some new meta comes out of it.

 

[ecoho]

to all those who ***** about the RNG, ahmm ITS A FUCKING ONLINE CARD GAME! hearthstone shouldn't be competitive and blizzard knows it hence why they are releasing fun cards with large RNG.

 

[RedDeadFred]

to all those who ***** about the RNG, ahmm ITS A FUCKING ONLINE CARD GAME! hearthstone shouldn't be competitive and blizzard knows it hence why they are releasing fun cards with large RNG.

Honestly, because it being a solely online card game, it should allow them to design the game with LESS rng. IMO, when you have bots reaching legend, it's too much. Luckily, I don't think many of these discover cards will see play since a lot of them are overcosted and are only really beneficial if you are playing a value game over a tempo game. The game's meta is extremely tempo based and nothing shown so far has given any indication that Secret Paladin and Combo Druid won't still be running over most slower decks.

Edit: Blizzard seems to disagree with you on the whole not competitive thing since the World Championship is currently going on with almost 100K viewers.

 

[ArkhamJester]

Thoughts on this set
Discover is going to be mandatory in every god damn, deck from now on, more specifically Raven Idol. Dang it I left yugioh for hearth because it isn't so dependent of deck searches.
There will be decks built around Brann Bronzebeard the same way people build decks around Baron Rivendare

Mounted Raptor gonna do for 3 drops what piloted shredder did for 4's

Holy Shit gorilla bot is going to be in sooooo many decks, Tomb spider too

Great to see murlocs getting support, even if some of it is for Shaman Actually its great to see Shaman get some sweet support in general.
It is truly sad that it took this long for Warrior's to get 3/4 for a reasonable cost.

Overall, Shaman, seemed to get the largest boost followed by murlocs, than beasts

Who gets shafted? Everyone of course because Discover will accelerate the game into stuffing your deck with searches. In other words hearthstone is warping into Yugioh, May god have mercy on us all!

P.S. Murloc Tinyfin is too adorable.

P.P.S. Oh thank god, Raven Idol is a Druid card, it will only be played in every Druid deck as opposed to every deck ever made.

 

[Cartographer]

Discover is random, not from your deck.

 

[loa]

Oh look, it's a blatant tauntbear monkey upgrade that we gave +0+1 because rather than upgrading the bear and make it usable outside of beast hunter decks, we'd sell more pay 2 win bullshit.
Howunexpectednotreally.

I'll be looking forward to not being able to backstab+knife this 3 mana 3/4 taunt minion that will now be in every fucking hunter deck ever until the end of time.
At least every hunter that paid the 20$ admission fee.
Thanks.

 

[NPC009]

Oh look, it's a blatant tauntbear monkey upgrade that we gave +0+1 because rather than upgrading the bear and make it usable outside of beast hunter decks, we'd sell more pay 2 win bullshit.
Howunexpectednotreally.

I'll be looking forward to not being able to backstab+knife this 3 mana 3/4 taunt minion that will now be in every fucking hunter deck ever until the end of time.
At least every hunter that paid the 20$ admission fee.
Thanks.

'Taunt Monkey' is a warrior card

 

[ArkhamJester]

Discover is random, not from your deck.

Yeah, i found that out later, ain't there egg on my face. Sorry bout, that yugioh flash backs.

 

[Cartographer]

Discover is random, not from your deck.

Yeah, i found that out later, ain't there egg on my face. Sorry bout, that yugioh flash backs.

Meh, it happens. And the way it was talked about "like tracking" would make you think that it took cards from your own deck too, so it's an easy assumption.

I've been trying to find cards that'll slow the meta (seriously, the only games that seem to go beyond turn 5 now are against cancer, and they're pretty much over turn 6-7.) and none jump out at me as game changing.

 

[rcs619]

-snip-

Gotta love that Roaring Torch card: "Fireball but 1 mana cheaper". And because that's not really that good there is the Forgotten Torch: "Frost Bolt that doesn't freeze, gives you a cheaper Fireball".

OK, after looking at them again, it seems that you can't just get Roaring Torch by itself in your deck (no crystal on it) - I guess that means that you can only get it by playing Forgotten Torch. Not that it really matters that much, to be honest - seems like there is very little reason NOT to pick the card.

I think the Forgotten Torch is super interesting. Honestly, most mages don't actually *need* the freezing effect of frostbolt. It's mostly just used for early removal on knife jugglers and stuff. So a spell like forgotten torch, you kind of have to weigh whether you even want the potential freeze, or would you rather just have your removal with more potential burn later. Tempo mage doesn't have a ton of draw, so the back end of the torch isn't super guaranteed for them.

And with freeze mage, I don't think it'll be very suitable, since they depend on the frostbolt + ice lance interaction for a ton of cheap damage and/or antonidas synergy.

Thoughts on this set
Discover is going to be mandatory in every god damn, deck from now on, more specifically Raven Idol. Dang it I left yugioh for hearth because it isn't so dependent of deck searches.
There will be decks built around Brann Bronzebeard the same way people build decks around Baron Rivendare

I think there's going to be some evil things you can do with Brann. But, whether it will go beyond gimmicky and fun to actually competitive, we'll just have to see.

Mounted Raptor gonna do for 3 drops what piloted shredder did for 4's

On the bright side, at least it's just for druid. Which is fine, druid still kind of has a sucky class-card early game. Darnassus Aspirant and living roots helped a ton, but a solid class 3-drop would be very cool. I could definitely see a place for mounted raptor in aggro druid. Although, you'd most likely cut your shades of naxx for it... which I could see as a personal preference. Raptor is sticky and annoying, shades are guaranteed impact down the road.

Holy Shit gorilla bot is going to be in sooooo many decks, Tomb spider too

Gorilla bot is completely insane. It's going to make mech mage *so* much more powerful. Which would be nice, considering how freeze mage and tempo mage get all the attention at the moment.

Overall, Shaman, seemed to get the largest boost followed by murlocs, than beasts

Tunnel Trogg is going to be super good. They've needed an early drop that energized with overload for ages.

Who gets shafted? Everyone of course because Discover will accelerate the game into stuffing your deck with searches. In other words hearthstone is warping into Yugioh, May god have mercy on us all

Keep in mind, Discover pulls from cards outside your deck. You get a selection of 3 cards, made up of neutrals or class cards. You may get something amazing, you may get total shit. The fact that you get to choose from 3 random selections means that you have a shot at getting something at least decent. On top of that, Discover seems to be attached to minions with low stat pools... so if you don't get something useful, the other guy can just pound you into the ground with better minions.

P.P.S. Oh thank god, Raven Idol is a Druid card, it will only be played in every Druid deck as opposed to every deck ever made.

I really don't think Raven idol will see a ton of play. The two main druid decks (combo and aggro) are already super-optimized. They've got a lot of very specific pieces, and I just don't know if cutting any of them to stick in a random effect like raven idol is worth it.

 

[PunkRex]

That Tunnel Trog seems a little OP for a 1 drop, with 3 health it's gonna really hurt.

 

[Cartographer]

That Tunnel Trog seems a little OP for a 1 drop, with 3 health it's gonna really hurt.

It's no worse than Mana Worm in that regards.
What's really going to hurt is if it actually buffs itself repeatedly (as the text implies), ie. you play an overload1) card (locking 1 crystal), it gets +1 attack, you then immediately play another overload1) card (locking a total of 2 crystals) and it gets +2 attack leaving it a 4/3.
So, you either get your opponent to use removal before it spirals, or you end up with lots of added value from overload.
I'm actually looking forward to trying this in a Murloc deck specifically as early removal bait.

 

[rcs619]

That Tunnel Trog seems a little OP for a 1 drop, with 3 health it's gonna really hurt.

It's no worse than Mana Worm in that regards.
What's really going to hurt is if it actually buffs itself repeatedly (as the text implies), ie. you play an overload1) card (locking 1 crystal), it gets +1 attack, you then immediately play another overload1) card (locking a total of 2 crystals) and it gets +2 attack leaving it a 4/3.
So, you either get your opponent to use removal before it spirals, or you end up with lots of added value from overload.
I'm actually looking forward to trying this in a Murloc deck specifically as early removal bait.

I feel like it'll kind of even out. There's a lot less overload cards for the tunnel trogg than there are spells for the mana wurm, and with such a low health-pool and no access to charge, it's not going to do much outside of the early game.

I think it'll be a mean little early-drop though. Tunnel Trogg into Totem Golem is going to be a super strong opening (and the trogg helps mitigate some of the drawback from the golem too) and I know some people are saying that the trogg may make lightning bolt competitively viable again.

On the bright side, it'll still be less annoying than Secret Keeper. I'm a bit torn about that one. A part of me thinks it should get the Undertaker treatment and lose the HP bonus per secret, but on the other hand, there's a lot less secrets than deathrattle minions too. So I dunno.