We've got the first card reveal for Hearthstone's upcoming Alterac Valley expansion and its a Shaman legendary! Name is not confirmed.
Blizzard hasn't officially started the card reveal season yet for Alterac Valley, nor have they confirmed the name of the expansion, but Eurogamer has taken it upon themselves to leak their card reveal ahead of time. It's quite fitting considering how messy things have been with not much news from Blizzard for their huge Global Inn-vitational taking place this weekend. The leak also gives us a look at the set's new icon!
The new icon.
Could the big expansion reveal be next week with sites that are taking part in card reveals already getting their cards? Given that we'll see a client patch for some card balance changes next week, it would make sense for a pre-order to also go live then. We'll certainly find out real soon and I'm sure all of our sleeping schedules are incredibly excited.
We've got a translated version of Eurogamer's article below and the original because we're expecting it to get deleted once Blizzard notices.
Quote From Eurogamer.it (Translated) Blizzard hasn't been talked about particularly well lately, given the huge scandal that hit it. We discussed it far and wide, following its evolution, up to the modification of the names and costumes of some characters in order to clean up the image a little. However, it seems that the World of Warcraf spin-off, Hearthstone , has so far escaped such changes.
The card game therefore continues to be updated, even with new cards and, exclusively , we can show you the one dedicated to Barorso Gla'cius :
The White Wolves and the Pickaxers have both claimed the Vale. Little did they know they were trampling on the frozen kingdom of Barorso Gla’cius. Whispered tales of His Majesty ran through the ranks. Most dismissed them as bad jokes. Those who listened could seek her out in the treacherous wilderness of Alterac.
Quote From Eurogamer.it Ultimamente di Blizzard non se n'è parlato particolarmente bene, visto l'enorme scandalo che l'ha colpita. Ne abbiamo discusso in lungo e in largo, seguendone l'evoluzione, sino alla modifica di nomi e costumi di alcuni personaggi al fine di ripulire un po' l'immagine. Sembra però che lo spin-off di World of Warcraf, Hearthstone, abbia per ora scampato tali modifiche.
Il gioco di carte continua dunque ad aggiornarsi, anche con nuove carte e, in esclusiva, possiamo mostrarvi quella dedicata a Barorso Gla'cius:
"I Lupi Bianchi e i Picconatori hanno entrambi rivendicato la Valle. Non sapevano che stavano calpestando il regno ghiacciato di Barorso Gla'cius. I racconti sussurrati su Sua Maestà correvano tra i ranghi. I più li liquidavano come brutti scherzi. Quelli che ascoltavano potevano cercarla nelle infide terre selvagge di Alterac."
Comments
I think the story will continue without tamsin, cariel and kurtrus. All three have reached the end of their storylines, and theres no reason why any of them will continue on barring the usual power of friendship bs. It'll be especially weird if kurtrus went along, seeing that both Anatheron is dealt with, and Cariel's arc is complete. What, are they going to introduce another demon for him to vent his vengeance on just so he can appear in the third expansion?
There's also the mini-set!
There's absolutely 0 chance the mercs don't get cards, and almost as little of a chance they're not Hero cards.
Drek'thar is either neutral, or part of the mini-set (unlikely because of Cookie in Deadmines). Or they're increasing the number of Legebdaries per class to 3.
And I had that confidence Shaw would appear last time, yet he never did, despite being among the most obvious characters to appear, and it even being a rogue set focused on the SI:7. There wasn't even a lore-based reason not to include him, since Scabbs' bio mentions him. Heck, Antonidas and Lothar came back from the grave to appear, and the mage doesn't even have anything to do with Stormwind!
So I guess I'm just expecting questionable character choices from Blizz now. Being an obvious inclusion doesn't seem sufficient, and being relevant doesn't seem necessary.
Isn't that set icon just the Classic card icon?
The new set symbol isn't available yet in the program we use to model the cards so we are just using the classic one for now. The actual set symbol will be on all the cards once the reveal season properly starts.
Ok, who had 'Freeze Shaman support' on their Apocalypse bingo?
@Demonxz95
"Grido di Battaglia" that sounds like a pasta recipe lol
*Laughs in spaghetti*
On a serious note, it's actually the exact translation of Battlecry, being "grido"="cry" and "battaglia"="battle".
I'm so glad we have someone who speaks spaghetti on staff. Now I'm hungry, thanks Avalon.
Have a good one!
They're actively bringing back an archetype that has not only been laughed at for years, but also the freeze mechanic, probably one of the most hated in the entire hearthstone world.
Something tells me that either freeze shaman will be the next most hated deck in the next expansion, or it'll be that nice quiet boy that no one gives a shit about.
The card itself is kinda meh. Even if you summon a board full of 3/4s, none of those have taunt or rush, so its basically a much weaker Soulciologist Malicia, with an arguably more difficult condition to meet. Or in other words, a 7 mana do nothing. Unless the next expansion is heavily board centric, Im not optimistic of this card's chances.
Frost spells don't necessarily have to Freeze. According to Dean Ayala, the reason Freeze Shaman was so laughable back in KotFT was the entire package was nerfed after the balance team realized that consistently freezing stuff was obnoxious to play against. I have a conspiracy theory that Thrall, Deathseer was a Freeze-based card at that point, given that card's theming and voicelines.
With Frost spells, they can just be regular spells with the Frost tag.
While I would be praying that none of them would, it would be strange if there wasn't at least one frost spell from shaman that doesn't freeze. There's only so many things you can design as a frost spell that would not freeze or combo with freezes.
I'll be eagerly waiting for the reveals. But if they can print bs like Ray of Frost and Flurry (Rank 1), I wouldn't put it past them to do something similar with a shaman spell.
And there's currently zero frost card in Standard Shaman. I don't know about next Standard year, but I think they need to at least print 3-5 frost spells this expansion for this card to be adequate/playable.
Keep in mind there's going to be a core set rotation next year; there's a decent chance Freeze Shaman synergy rotates back into standard from KotFT.
Before the release of United in Stormwind, Mage's only Fire spells were Wildfire, Combustion, Fireball (Core), Flamestrike (Core) and Grand Finale (way to expensive to see play in a Fire/spell deck).
Out of these 5, only Fireball sees play in Questline Mage, and United in Stormwind printed Hot Streak, First Flame (and Second Flame), Ignite and Fire Sale, which means 4.
Sure, unlike Shaman Mage has remarkable card generation, but you have to consider that it doesn't take many Frost spells to make the archetype viable: Doomhammer Shaman usually runs 4/6 Nature spells and we're more than fine with it.
My guess is that they'll release around 3 good Frost Shaman spells plus at least one more that will slightly diverse from the mid-game plan.
Finally, there's also the mini-set! Look back and see how much Kresh, Lord of Turtling helped Overlord Saurfang a few months ago: the latter passed from being an absolutely tier F card to a really good unit.
Here are my (very) hot takes.
Freeze Shaman had already been a huge meme, so if they decided to reintroduce it I highly doubt it will be as delusional as it was back in the day. Even Fel DH - levels of good may be a good start for an archetype that will come to life with the next expansion.
Secondly, yeah: Freeze is one of the worst (in the meaning of "hated") mechanics in the game, and an overabundance of Freeze effect can make you want to uninstall the game and throw the pc in a fountain. One thing to notice is that this card states "for each Frost spell" and not "for each minion frozen/you froze", so we may actually see some Frost spells that don't actually Freeze as their primary effect (Ice Barrier, Freezing Trap, Frozen Clone, Simulacrum, Ice Fishing).
Finally, I think you're not giving the card much justice, as you're comparing it to a card (Soulciologist Malicia) with a very similar effect, but with a totally different role!
Malicia (at least its Warlock half) is meant to be a "control" play to strangle your aggressive opponents and eventually stabilize the game. On the other hand, I see this leaked unit as a clear finisher, maybe in an Elemental Frost Shaman deck. Consider that, being an Elemental, it can gain advantage of the likes of Kindling Elemental and Granite Forgeborn.
3/4s that Freeze are slower than Malicia's Souls, but they are probably meant to be a game ending swing. Therefore, I advise you to think about this unit more as an Arbor Up on steroids which requires you to play Frost spells rather than having a pre-existent board.
On a final note, I wonder if Feral Spirit should've been a Frost spell to begin with - would it fit thematically?
The problem Im having with this card is simply that it fills the board, but does nothing else. Ironically if you fill the board completely, you cant even play Animated Broomstick to secure value trades or tempo. That's not to say that the card's trash, but its very meta dependent, and of course the support spells have to be really good too for this to work at all.
I hope the frost spells in shaman dont actually freeze, because I'd be seriously considering just playing freeze effects in doomhammer shaman and completely making everyone's life miserable. With Multicaster as a draw engine, this can actually be a sad reality.