Only a few hours separate us from the Hearthstone's next expansion's reveal, which is currently planned for 10 AM PT/19:00 CET. However, it appears that (as usual) someone spilled the beans ahead of time, and this time we're talking about www.buffed.de.
The German gaming site just released an article containing information about the new expansion that indicates it will take place in Alterac Valley - here are some of the most relevant pieces of information:
- The next expansion's name is Divided in Alterac Valley (pending official English translation) and will go live on December 7th.
- The expansion revolves around Alliance versus Horde rivalry.
- Based on which side you'll pick, you can choose between two free golden legendaries - that is happening today!
- The Shaman Elder Drek'Thar of the Frostwolf Clan for the Horde.
- The Mountain King Vanndar Stormpike for the Alliance.
- A brand new Quest system will be introduced: gain Honor Points by playing and winning games!
- The faction that earned the most honor at the end of the event will be declared the winner in the next mini-set, and all players will receive a diamond version of the victorious faction's leader card.
- New Keyword: Honorable Victory - grants unique bonuses for dealing the exact amount of damage needed to kill an enemy, opposite to Overkill.
- Examples are reducing the cost of all spells or gaining stats.
- Hero Cards are back, and they will bring some game-changing effects!
- Hero Cards are going to be some of the Mercenary characters we have seen during this year.
- Example of "game-changing effect" is increasing player's maximum Mana to 20.
Elder Drek'Thar and Vanndar Stormpike (source: wowpedia)
Quote From Buffed A fight for honor. The time has come to take up arms! Starting today, players in Divided in Alterac Valley can choose a faction by choosing one of two free golden legendary cards: the Shaman Elder Drek'Thar of the Frostwolf Clan for the Horde or the Mountain King Vanndar Stormpike for the Alliance.From December 7th to January 11th, each faction will receive unique quests where players will earn Honor Points by playing and winning games. The faction that earned the most honor at the end of the event will be declared the winner in the next mini-set, and all players will receive a diamond version of the victorious faction's leader card.
New Keyword: Honorable Victory. It has never felt better to give a servant the fatal blow. The Honorable Victory keyword grants unique bonuses for dealing the exact amount of damage needed to an enemy, such as reducing the cost of all spells or + 1 / + 1 for each honorable victory.
Mercenary heroes. After a year of battles, the mercenary heroes on both sides are hardened for battle. They are now hero cards with game changing effects - such as increasing a player's maximum mana crystals to 20! With their powerful new battle cries and hero skills, these heroes can decide the outcome of the battle between the Horde and the Alliance.
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Are you excited about these news? Which side are you going to choose? Horde or Alliance? Tell us in the comments below!
Comments
FOR THE HORDE!
What good are hero cards if you are dead on Turn 7? Most hero cards are 7+ mana and if their battlecry didn't have a very powerful effect you couldn't play them anyway. Bloodreaver Guldan filled your board with taunts and Malfurion let you continue to put up your unending scarab wall to stop aggro but the game is way too fast now, maybe even for those cards to have an impact. 20 mana is cool and all, but you have to be alive to use it. Hopefully, I'm wrong and they don't make the hero cards super OP and we have a period like after KoTF and KaC, followed by super weak expansions for the next year.
Feel like this expansion is a perfect time to add a little “faction” icon on all minions that would have a faction. Then you could have “Give all your Alliance minions X” as an effect. Then add those icons to Mercs too so people can stop wondering what faction each character is in, if any.
It might not seem like a big deal, but the physical TCG had these factions as well and either buffs, auras, or other effects that had synergies with certain factions. It would open up some design space and push the AvH fantasy more if implemented. Maybe they’ll surprise us with something like this when reveals start in 30 mins
Spoilers! Cards will be overly aggro, more damage from hand, solitaire, brainless paint by numbers. Because that's all these devs can do.
one player can have 20 mana, so i agree, you hit the mark!
That's not a good way to approach a new expansion, you know...
Face reality. This game might as well have a new name now.
I've been waiting for this since I started playing HS. For Da Horde!
"The faction that earned the most honor at the end of the event will be declared the winner in the next mini-set, and all players will receive a diamond version of the victorious faction's leader card."
well then one should pick the losing side to get both legendaries then??
Hahahahahaha what? Read it again
You receive both heroes normal and the winning later in diamond
Thats meaning everybody will receive the winning faction hero (only one hero for everyone). So you fight for the hero you want to receive but if you fail you will receive the other one, not both.
How do you pick losing side, when you picking a side then helps that side? Are you not going to play the game for 2 months ?:)
yea thats the confusing part..
my aim is to get both cards and if the winner will be given as diamond for free to everyone, you should pick the losing one somehow, right?
You get both goldens for free, but you pick one to support for the contest. So you should pick the card you want to see as a diamond.
Nope, never mind. It actually works the stupid way. I should have known better than to hope it would be sensible.
I really hope they have this figured out, because if this ends up being a thing, then they failed on the delivery and "having to" pick the loosing side to get more stuff would be very silly.
The horde and alliance thing is certainly very interesting but you'd think this kind of faction fights should have been introduced at the first not the third expansion of the year. That way we get a whole year at thumbing our noses at our filthy neighbors.
I somewhat admire team5's decision to let us choose between two legendaries. A risky proposal given that they've shied away from this approach with the understandable reason that people will feel bad having chose poorly, or the fact that 90% of the players will just choose the stronger or more viable legendary and so that's all we'll be seeing for the first 2 weeks.
I would assume that no matter the choice, you can ultimately play whatever you like, so you can paradoxically play and win using alliance decks whilst having chose for the horde.
Bring on the hero cards team5. I'd like to know how they balance these ones, or will this be yet another repeat of stormwind, only now everyone's playing going to be playing like druid - literally draw this card and win or die.
Still better having hero cards than not having hero cards eh?
One last comment. That honorable fight keyword will likely end up like overkill. Unless of course, they ramp up the powerlevel on this one.
Honor points come from quests, and they count toward the faction you chose, period. There's no such thing as an alliance deck or a horde deck.
One way to keep people from picking the "best" leader would be to make them so similar that it really doesn't matter. Then it's purely a matter of personal preference.
Yeah, the keyword itself is like a more efficient but also more awkward overkill, so is probably pretty similar in power level. But as we've seen before with inspire, the strength of a keyword and the strength of the cards using it are very different things, to the point where I'm not sure it's even worth judging keywords themselves most of the time. Very few are generally good on their own, with only tradeable coming to mind because it doesn't care what the card actually does.
I dont think so, you are more likely to do exact dmg than to Overkill in most situations, because you dont want to waste damage. This will only play into that scenario. If i were a betting man, i would say that this keyword, regardless of its actual effects, might become one of the more popular ones.