Hearthstone Game Director, Ben Lee, goes full Wrath of the Lich King cinematic in response to a comment on yesterday's Reddit AMA.
When asked if Hearthstone was planning on doing anything with Undead from World of Warcraft, Game Director Ben Lee pulled out the Wrath of the Lich King cinematic by quoting King Terenas Menethil II, Arthas' father. If you haven't seen one of the most incredibly nerd-chilling cinematics that Blizzard has put out, check it out below.
Now, either this is just Ben fooling around because we had Knights of the Frozen throne back in 2017, or this is a cryptic comment indicating something could be going on with Northrend, or at least the Undead that are chilling up there. Is it references to Shadowlands? Are we getting some new adventure with origins in Northrend? Is Ulduar going to be a thing finally in the near future? Undead update planned for Battlegrounds for Hallow's End? Tough call!
What do you think it all means?
Quote From Ben Lee are you planning anything that has to do with the undeads from world of warcraft
My son. The day you were born, the very forests of Lordaeron whispered the name, Arthas. My child. I watched you with pride, as you grew into a weapon. Of righteousness. Remember, our line has always ruled with wisdom, and strength. And I know that you will show restraint, when exercising your great power. But the truest victory, my son, is stirring the hearts of your people. I tell you this, for when my days have come to an end, you, shall be king.
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Comments
I said this in another thread a while ago... I would just like to see the Forsaken take up more on the Hero Skins.
I ain't opposed to having an undead tribal tag, but most of the tags usually have a class that they work really well with :
Demons are for Warlocks and Demon Hunters
Beasts are for Druids and Hunters
Dragons for Priests
Elementals for Mages and Shaman
Mechs for Warriors
Murlocs for Paladins
Pirates for Rogues and Warriors
Totems are for Shaman
So if we added the undead tribal tag, which class would they gravitate towards? Priests? Warlocks? they received the raise dead spell in scholomance which is the iconic necromancer spell from Warcraft 3
Death Knights. They said adding new classes in the future is not impossible 😏
That was my thought. If they are thinking of adding Undead as a tribe in the future it is likely to go hand in hand with the introduction of a new Death Knight class. If this happens I’d expect it no sooner than April with the start of the new HS year. But if not then, April 2022.
Would they just use Arthas as the Lich King for the hero?
Or would they use Ner'Zhul?
Arthas is a paladin both in WoW and HS already so probably either Ner’Zhul or Lich King.
I'd bet mostly on rogue and priest. Both classes currently have only 1 tribe associated with them, and both have a strong deathrattle focus (which I would expect to be quite prominent in an undead tribe).
Plus rogue just has a long history of getting undead characters (especially forsaken) outside of undead-heavy sets (e.g. Undercity Valiant, Undercity Huckster, Myra Rotspring, Plaguebringer, Kidnapper to name a few), mostly because of their affiliation with poisons and sticking to shadows.
Of course, if Death Knights get added a long way down the line, it would be heresy for them not to use the undead tribe if it existed.
I really hope we see another frozen throne expansion as I didn't start playing until after KotFT but have loved playing through the solo adventure!
If they finally decide to make Undead an actual tribe I hope they decide to actually figure out how to handle any potential multi tribe minions, cause Undead’s one of those that is most likely to have some crossover with other tribes.
Personally, I’m a fan of having abbreviations of both tribes on the card if that ever happens. Like Und/Mrlc for Undead Murloc.
Other than that, I’m still hoping for an eventual Plant tribe. Give a bit of new life to some of the cards in Un’Goro, while giving Druids an interesting new deck type (that hopefully won’t revolve around combos like always)
They already have multi-tribe, technically... with Amalgams. But those are technically “All”. The could do something similar where the tag reads “Undead Pirate” or “Undead Beast”, etc, and just program them to be Undead and Beast on the back end how they program All to mean Beast, Dragon, Pirate, Totem, Murloc, and Elemental.
Also, I may be one of a few who feel this way, but I’d love to see all cards have sone type of tribe tag. Even if it’s just “Human” or “Orc”. It just gives for some slight variation on design space. I’d even like to see some minions get Alliance or Horde emblems too. Maybe just for major characters. But then you could have cards with effects that depend on you controlling one of these “commander” units, or whatever. Bring back some of that Horde vs Alliance feeling from Warcraft.
The thing is, for some of the combinations of tribes, there outright might not be enough room on the bottom of the card to write it out. Murloc already takes up a lot of room on it, even having Mech there as well might be a bit too much
I mean, I doubt they’d ever do a combination tribe anyway. Just like they’ll probably never do the Alliance/Horde faction idea too. They want HS to be easy to pick up and multi-tribes or factions make it more complex. Even if just a little.
Still, they could maybe intro some of these things into a new game mode! BGs technically already has alt versions of existing cards. Could make a “Commander” mode where some Legendaries like Grom, Tirion, etc, all have faction tags to label them as commanders of that faction.
And then maybe they’ll throw in three boards so you have a middle and two side lanes! That simulates more of a WoW Battlegrounds type of mode! And your units in each lane randomly either attack an enemy unit or the enemy face each round. And you win by destroying two out of three towers, and OH WAIT this is just Artifact now... crap!
April 2021 the release of Death Knight maybe?
As much as I would love having a dedicated DK class and not just DK cards, it’s just not feasible in that time frame. Give it another 2-3 years and then MAYBE Team 5 will consider another class
True that. If they add a new class it might be monk first
But i really hope for some DK. i'm in love with the class
I don’t know. It may depend on if they already were workshopping some DK ideas prior to Outland. April 2021 could happen, but more likely to see that in 2022 or beyond, yeah
Here's my theory
The next expansion evidently looking like the Darkmoon Faire will be focused on the fun aspect of the faire but also (in WoW) if you're dead while there, it features a lot of ghosts.
I believe Blizz is gearing up to introduce an undead tribe type covering both undead/ghosts, either for that expansion or the one sometime after which I'll get into soon, but first, let's look at a pattern that is currently emerging.
Recently, we've slowly been introduced to a theme that is: token ghost cards.
Ur'zul Horror
Sneaky Delinquent
Smug Senior
Fishy Flyer
There is another card though.. that somewhat follows this theme.. and I believe it's the outlier and answer to what's coming.
Infiltrator Lilian
I think we'll be seeing a Scarlet Crusade expansion set around the time of King Terenas and the Culling of Stratholme - with the Undead tribe type either introduced or fully fleshed out - pun intended.
It's a theme that has been vaguely floating around in the hearthstone universe, all the way back in classic we had:
Scarlet Crusader
But then...
During the priest rework, we saw 2 new Scarlet Crusade themed cards with
Scarlet Subjugator
High Inquisitor Whitemane
It's clearly on the radar.
What do you think?
Most likely with the hint and undead types mentioned it would point at Strat since Arthas did burn it down. I hope that's where we end up at some point.
What would a Scarlet Crusade expansion encompass with the current lore we know of?
Undead ofc
Demons (malganis come back)?
Dragons / Time travel (mages)? - (WoW: Culling of Stratholme dungeon) / + Fire and purging (mage / shaman)
Huntsmasters + Cannoneers
A lot of priest and paladin shenanigans.
+ Resurrection playstyle (sorry)
Some Roguey Lilian'ess / Infiltration of the Crusade
If we want to take things one step further and really look into the future of hearthstone..
The Scarlet Crusade also features... M O N K S
A more fitting demon that a returned Mal'Ganis would be the dreadlord who killed the leader of the Scarlet Crusade and impersonated him to corrupt the order, Balnazzar.