A huge update is coming for Hearthstone's June season of the Twist format bringing in plenty of new heroes, hero powers, and pre-constructed decks to the format.
The most interesting part of this is the monetization aspect of the format. In order to play with a specific hero in Twist, you'll need to unlock it by owning the corresponding legendary card. Luckily, 4 of these heroes are available in the core set so they will be free to play, and another 2 were free in the past (C'Thun and Kael'thas Sunstrider) or easily available by purchasing a single Old Gods or Outland pack. For the remaining 13 though, you'll need to find them in packs or craft them with dust if you want to make use of them.
Blizzard has not yet revealed all the details on the heroes and what their hero powers will be, or how their decks are constructed, but we'll see more on that closer to the launch. Read on for Blizzard's post taken from the Patch 29.4.0 notes.
Quote From Blizzard Twist is back with a huge, all-new season in June: Whizbang’s Heroes! In Whizbang’s Heroes, choose from exciting new Heroes, each with their own pre-constructed deck, Hero Power, and unique passive effect.
Each Hero is unlocked if you have their corresponding Legendary card (the first-appearance card with the same name as the Hero—except Illidan, who is unlocked by Metamorphosis in Core).
Whizbang’s Heroes will launch with 19 Hero options:
- Illidan Stormrage*
- Al’Akir the Windlord*
- Arch-Villain Rafaam*
- Leeroy Jenkins*
- Kael’Thas Sunstrider**
- C’Thun**
- Nozdormu
- The Lich King
- Xyrella
- Patches the Pirate
- Sir Finley Mrrgglton
- King Krush
- Forest Warden Omu
- Dr. Boom
- Zul’jin
- N’Zoth, the Corruptor
- Brann Bronzebeard
- Guff Runetotem
- Arfus
Keep an eye out for more details closer to the start of the June Twist season!
*These heroes are unlocked by cards in Core, so they will be automatically unlocked for all players at the start of the season.
**These two cards were free login rewards for older expansions. If not already unlocked, C’Thun is automatically unlocked by having a Whispers of the Old Gods pack and going to the pack opening screen and Kael’thas is automatically unlocked by having an Ashes of Outland pack and going to the pack opening screen.
Comments
Not the best choice in my opinion. Of course you can go low maintenance mode because there won't be any surprises that need the dev's attention with prebult decks, but there are quite a few downsides as well. Some people just like deck building, they're left out. Some people like figuring out the meta bit by bit, trying out different archetypes, responding to trends with tech cards and the like. That will be done in like 2 days max. I have a really hard time to see how they think player engagement will last longer than a week for this one. At some point the viscious circle of less players - longer queue times - less players will get going as well. Weird, weird decision for me, but maybe I'm missing something crucial.
19 is a big number, however I don't think the mode will be interesting enough throughout the whole 30 days due to the lack of deck customization options. But hey, at least I can use the awesome C'thun skin for free. I would have probably bought it, if it wasn't for my least favorite class in the game.
Yeah, this definitely feels like more of a month long Tavern Brawl. On one hand, having the decks be pre-built might bring in more people because they aren't limited by their collection. Except of course they still are somewhat limited if they tend to dust their Wild cards and don't own 13 of the 19 options. So unless one of the free options is the most busted deck in the format, the majority of players may still avoid the mode.
This month could also be compared to a Duels Lite, where you get a passive, some crazy cards (probably) but the decks are always predictable based on the hero you choose.