New minion types incoming? (Spoiler or internal testing?)

TLDR: Nightmare Amalgam might spoil some minion types incoming!

When searching for "egg" for a DR hunter I noticed that Nightmare Amalgam showed up on the list - which surprised me!

I doublechecked the spelling and the flavour text but couldn't find any hits for "egg" in the card or its description. I assumed that the only way the card would show up would've been that the "ALL" minion type includes more types than are currently present in the game...

And lo and behold, Nightmare Amalgam also shows up when searching some very interesting keywords:

• Elf
• Undead
• Human
• Orc
• Egg
• Troll
• tbc ...

Interestingly enough it does NOT show up for these keyword:

• Treant
• Tauren

Interesting to be sure, although I expect it is just a legacy of the unused tribes from early HS development, which definitely included orcs and humans. So I'd bet the 'all' tribe is literally every tribe HS has in its code, including those they only used in pre-alpha builds of the game.

I'm a bit surprised 'egg' is in there. Maybe it was added to make an egg-themed, Noblegarden Tavern Brawl work?

In any case, I doubt they would have add any future tribes to the game until the patch where they are needed. 

Ok, I didn't check for Orcs or Humans back then (don't know when the first amalgam 'hatched'), but I most definitely searched for 'eggs' and I'm almost 100% sure the amalgam(s) didn't show.

That's not proving anything, sure. But it's interesting nonetheless!

I presume that these tribes are internal ideas/concepts and won't see the light of day within a few years, but the inclusion of trolls - but not treants - is more than interesting given the support of these two 'tribes'.

Just another thought concerning the keyword "egg":

Noblegarden is a possible explanation as it warrants an egg-type - but why wouldn't they implement treant then? Treants are a quasi-tribe with actual support (Goru the Mightree, Mulchmuncher) so this seems odd.

Very interesting - would be kinda cool to see more Minion Tribes that you also could build around. 

Quote From Nuagoo

Just another thought concerning the keyword "egg":

Noblegarden is a possible explanation as it warrants an egg-type - but why wouldn't they implement treant then? Treants are a quasi-tribe with actual support (Goru the Mightree, Mulchmuncher) so this seems odd.

Treants don't really need a true tribe because they are always 2 mana 2/2s with 'treant' in their name. Adding a tag doesn't make them any easier to identify or affect the existing synergies. Plus them being a pseudo-tribe allows 'dual tribes' to exist like the Treant Totem summoned by Runic Carvings, without needing to modify the game to allow pairs of normal tribes. (I know a lot of people would like that to happen, but it's clear Blizz isn't keen on it.)

It's the same story with all the pseudo-tribes: they are all limited series of cards or tokens that specify their tribe in their name. Poisons in rogue are perhaps the most compelling case I can think of. They are all nature spells, and hence 'dual tribe' spells, but not all of rogue's nature spells are poisons. Apothecary Helbrim would only need to specify 'rogue nature spells' to work the same in Standard, but in Wild it makes a huge difference because a weapon rogue wouldn't want to get Hallucination, Razorpetal Volley or Mimic Pod of of him.

So I guess my conclusion is that pseudo-tribes are a useful extra degree of freedom that have benefits that outweigh the cost of maintaining two distinct ways of doing more or less the same thing. Its quite rare they actually capitalise on those benefits, but it's also rare [edit: there are any problems either].

I don't think they will add core races like undead, human, elf etc. to the game as tribes. It brings a lot of problems about Pirate tribe for example. Tribes like Moonkin might find its place in the game at future tho. We saw that for Quillboar's for example.

For playable WoW races, it is better to keep them off from game as tribes in my opinion. It opens a lot of opportunities for tribes such as Pirate again. It makes possible to make for example a Merchant or Artisan tribe. That sounds better than simple Night Elf, Undead, Goblin etc.

For diversity of undeads, it would be better to add tribes as specific as Ghoul, Abomination etc.

Quote From Almaniarra

I don't think they will add core races like undead, human, elf etc. to the game as tribes. It brings a lot of problems about Pirate tribe for example. Tribes like Moonkin might find its place in the game at future tho. We saw that for Quillboar's for example.

For playable WoW races, it is better to keep them off from game as tribes in my opinion. It opens a lot of opportunities for tribes such as Pirate again. It makes possible to make for example a Merchant or Artisan tribe. That sounds better than simple Night Elf, Undead, Goblin etc.

For diversity of undeads, it would be better to add tribes as specific as Ghoul, Abomination etc.

I agree that it doesn't make sense to add the playable races as tribes because of the presence of "profession" tribes like Pirate. (They'd have to be more like MTG and have a type and subtype to make those work together). But with respect to undead, Dean Ayala has already said it makes sense as a tribe. I think the way you square that with playable races is by calling the playable undead "Forsaken" rather than "Undead." The former is the official WoW name for the race, while the latter is something of a holdover from Warcraft 3 race names.

That would probably lead to some confusion around which cards get an Undead tag, but it would suit the idea that playable WoW races aren't tribes.

Quote From meisterz39

Quote From Almaniarra

I don't think they will add core races like undead, human, elf etc. to the game as tribes. It brings a lot of problems about Pirate tribe for example. Tribes like Moonkin might find its place in the game at future tho. We saw that for Quillboar's for example.

For playable WoW races, it is better to keep them off from game as tribes in my opinion. It opens a lot of opportunities for tribes such as Pirate again. It makes possible to make for example a Merchant or Artisan tribe. That sounds better than simple Night Elf, Undead, Goblin etc.

For diversity of undeads, it would be better to add tribes as specific as Ghoul, Abomination etc.

I agree that it doesn't make sense to add the playable races as tribes because of the presence of "profession" tribes like Pirate. (They'd have to be more like MTG and have a type and subtype to make those work together). But with respect to undead, Dean Ayala has already said it makes sense as a tribe. I think the way you square that with playable races is by calling the playable undead "Forsaken" rather than "Undead." The former is the official WoW name for the race, while the latter is something of a holdover from Warcraft 3 race names.

That would probably lead to some confusion around which cards get an Undead tag, but it would suit the idea that playable WoW races aren't tribes.

Yeah i've read about Iksar's mention and you are probably right too. If "Undead" word would be used for a tribe, it would be probably for a general tribe that contains lesser undeads but not the Forsaken. I mean, while Flesheating Ghoul or Skeleton tokens from Grim Necromancer for example gets the Undead Tribe , Sylvanas Windrunner or Crazed Alchemist wont have any tribes and this is reasonable decision and what it should be in my opinion.

Quote From Nuagoo

TLDR: Nightmare Amalgam might spoil some minion types incoming!

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When searching for "egg" for a DR hunter I noticed that Nightmare Amalgam showed up on the list - which surprised me!

I doublechecked the spelling and the flavour text but couldn't find any hits for "egg" in the card or its description. I assumed that the only way the card would show up would've been that the "ALL" minion type includes more types than are currently present in the game...

And lo and behold, Nightmare Amalgam also shows up when searching some very interesting keywords:

• Elf
• Undead
• Human
• Orc
• Egg
• Troll
• tbc ...

Interestingly enough it does NOT show up for these keyword:

• Treant
• Tauren

These are left overs from very very early in the games devlopment

arent hints to new tribes or internal testing at all, theyve been in the game since before launch, basicly just leftover code.