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Something a bit different - First Top 10 Flavor and new mechanic cards of KoFT
Every time an expansion is close to coming out, people can’t wait to say whether a card is good or bad, streamers release 20 videos each, forums light up and Reddit almost crashes. Everyone jumps on the train even before knowing what the entire set looks like. Ever since I started playing Hearthstone, new power cards were never interesting to me, but instead new cards that actually add a mechanic never seen before. Therefore, we’re not going to focus on whether a card is good or bad, but we’re going to look at it from a different point of view, the flavor view and what novelty it adds to the game (discussing card flavour does actually make sense even when not all cards are released). Another goal of this article is to show some love to the card designers that are usually forgotten, especially when their cards don’t make the meta. Without further ado, welcome to my top 10 flavor cards released before the first of August!
*Disclaimer: No DKs will be mentioned in this article as they are obvious to bring flavor, instead we’re going to look at other cards. *
The List
Honorable mention: Gnomish Vampire - Definitely a unique effect, which lowers down the enemy’s card count and also is able to throw the enemy off guard and distract for the card loss briefly.
Bolvar is definitely the Lich King that the Paladin has been looking for. The new mechanic of destroying Divine Shields fits perfectly with the fall of a great Paladin that Bolvar once was, while now he feeds off of other Paladins losing their power, the Divine Shield. The Lore is strong with this one and is quite satisfying. Even though it’s a card that is looking for a condition to happen in order to get value (and we know how these cards usually go), his own Divine Shield counts as well.
Besides its amazing art (can’t wait to see the animation), the card’s “cast this again” wording seem to foretell a great wave of spells meant to stop flooding decks. Definitely a great design which relies on the amount of enemy minions on the board, and then simply creates for each minion a Taunt that’s pretty difficult to kill. If people had problems killing Stonehill Defender who is a 1/4 imagine how difficult a 1/5 can be.
Even though it does remind everyone of the Dirty Rat interaction, it’s more of a Millhouse Manastorm with a bit of a better effect. The mechanic of making your enemy’s hand cheaper in some way includes some very important decision making into the game with timing being a crucial factor. Just one card mechanic doing all of that earns a definite spot in the list.
Dead Man’s Hand is another one in the row of unique mechanics that are making their way into the game. It can allow for some pretty crazy plays with throwing another C’Thun back into your deck for example or going into infinite for some heavy fatigue decks. The card works in a similar principle as Gang Up and it would actually be a lot more useful in Wild with Elise being able to give some insane Legendary value. Being able to copy your hand and put it into your deck is also adding to the Fatigue Archetype of Warrior and the card text actively supports it.
While Mindbreaker doesn’t seem like a card that is going to see tons of play even though it has decent stats for a 3 mana card and there are a lot of DKs coming with each one of them relying on their Hero Power, it includes something that we haven’t ever seen in Hearthstone and that is disabling Hero Powers. Basically, while the minions is alive on the board, neither you or your opponent will be able to use Hero Powers. Now, this is not a mechanic that is going to cause such an incredible impact on the game right now, especially with the Inspire minions never being that popular and them being rotated out to Wild, but it could definitely be printed on some better minions that could actually see play in a meta that has a new kind of Justicar Truehart or two.
A card similar in a way to Spreading Plague, it’s Druid counterpart, as it repeats itself if a condition is fulfilled, and boy what a condition it is. Having a lot of minions on the same health, especially on a full board is practically non-existent. Of course, the moment the Whirlwind effect is actually executed, the chances are quite higher that there will be a new minion that is going to be on one health and close to dying. The great design of the card comes in that it’s not meant to deal with big minions, as the chances are pretty low that any of them will be on such low health to die from Defile, but just for the faster ones. The mechanic also includes the possibility of you triggering it multiple times with minions like Possessed Villager, which opens up even more deck building space.
I was originally thinking of this card as just a crazy way for Blizzard to simply meme the Priest community, it’s also very bold design by the Team 5. It’s definitely one of the “out of the box” ideas and because of that it deserves a high spot in this list. For you to be able to take your opponent’s entire deck that he has remaining can allow for some pretty long games, but the effect also depends on your opponent’s deck heavily as well. Would be a pretty great card to try out in adventures though, like against Razuvious. Oh my.
Graveyard! Finally! If there was ever going to be an expansion that’s going to be introducing some kind of a graveyard into the game, it was going to be this one. This is probably one of the main reasons why this card is this high in the list next to other juicy cards. If this card is the first of many cards that is going to be reviving dead minions (at least for Priest if nothing), we’re looking at a very interesting future for Hearthstone. Besides that, having some kind of a Graveyard where your cards are stored after they’ve died opens up a ton of design space for Team 5, and they really need all of it that they can get with all of these crazy new “out of the box” ideas.
Most likely a card that you imagined to be here, and even though it’s already washed out and overhyped by everyone like the Death Knights, it just had to be included in the list due to its effect. The deck building space this card enables is enormous. Whether you are going to be going for a Paladin deck for example that will be based on Divine Shields and Lifesteal or perhaps going for a Shaman deck that relies on Windfury and Taunt, or just a deck that has a single one of all and you simply hope to not draw them before drawing the Corpsetaker, the options are endless, and that’s what makes the flavor of this card so great.
As a guy that spent a lot of time looking at each card for the adventure runs and guides, and has seen a lot of different mechanics that the bosses themselves have, which are crazy on their own, this card blows me away. Mindgames and bluffing are some of the most valuable strategies in any card game in the world, and this mechanic nails it. Yes, it might be a little bit predictable what was chosen after the meta settles, but just having this effect live for a longer time and make it to some other cards really makes me feel excited about the game. The anticipation of handling this card is going to be highly rewarding for the player that played it and will at the same time be frightening to the player handling it, which is what makes this mechanic truly great. I have always felt that Secrets have been somewhat limited with their own bubble above the Hero’s portrait and that if some kind of secrets could be on the minions somehow, that they could really make the enemy lose himself easily if he is not focused enough. An absolute 10/10 Team 5, well done!
Conclusion
Hopefully you have enjoyed taking a look at a different kind of a card evaluation compared to the same old same old analysis we see before every expansion, which turns out to be wrong in 90% of times. Looking at the mechanics themselves can help us step back for a second, observe how awesome this game really is and imagine how amazing it can get with the dev team having crazy ideas like they have been since Un’Goro. Part 2 of this analysis coming out when all cards are revealed if there is enough interest! Also, it feels pretty good to actually post some content here on Reddit and not just slap you guys a link to another website where my article is!
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Mike Donais
I love to read about what designs people are excited about and why they like them. It helps us with future design. Some of these designs are weird enough in some way that we almost didn't ship them.
Thanks for the detailed write up.