New Mechanics Overview of Hearthstone's Newest Expansion, Fractured in Alterac Valley

Fractured in Alterac Valley, Hearthstone's next expansion, has recently been announced and arrives on December 7. Even though we still don't have the full picture, we're currently in the middle of the reveal season and Team 5 so far has spoiled us with quite a few interesting tools. In the this article, we'll express our ideas about said mechanics, discussing the new cards and the implications for the future of the game.

To be thorough, here are all the game mechanics we'll find in Fractured in Alterac Valley:

• New Keyword: Honorable Kill - Bonus effect if the card deals exact lethal to an enemy minion on your turn.
• Hero Cards Return - Our mercenary friends are the focus of these beloved cards. They feature powerful Battlecries and Hero Powers.
• Objective Spells - They last for three turns and provide you with a benefit for their duration. 

New Keyword: Honorable Kill

The easiest way to analyze Honorable Kill is to compare it with Rastakhan's Rumble's Overkill. In a certain way, they are opposite to one another as Overkill demands excess damage, while Honorable Kill asks you to deal exact damage.

While at first sight the requirement for Honorable Kill may appear to be more difficult to achieve than Overkill's one, we respectfully disagree: most of the time, you want to optimize your damage output as much as possible, and that's exactly one flaw of Rastakhan's Rumble's keyword. In fact, Overkill asked you to inefficiently 'waste' damage you would've rather allocated somewhere else, and usually for not that great of an effect either.

And this is exactly the second issue: power level. If you want to be forced to do a certain thing, you need to get a remarkable upside in return. Therefore, not only does Honorable Kill seems better to us on paper,  but Team 5 now has previous experience on the same field that can be put to use in order to make Alterac's currently exclusive keyword something you'll want to exploit.

View All Alterac Valley Honorable Kill Cards

For what regards actual Honorable Kill cards, they're not just spells like Siphon Mana (which, by the way, looks nutty and can also go face): they can also be weapons (Bloodseeker) and minions. In particular, the latter represents the card type where we expect Team 5 to explore this keyword the most. In fact, there are many different ways in which a unit can deal damage, and we hope the developers won't miss out on this chance.

While Gnome Private's Honorable Kill is strictly locked behind a favorable trade, Knight-Captain can received its upside through burst damage too. We think there are rather high chances that we'll also received a minion with both Rush and Honorable Kill, just like Oondasta for Overkill back in the day.

One last thing that you should keep in mind is that, spells apart, Honorable Kill cards have the potential to trigger their effect more than once per game: kill multiple minions at the same time, make trades over different turns or even in the same one. For example, you can trigger Knight-Captain's Honorable Kill: +3/+3 by sniping a 3-health unit, then use Animated Broomstick to run your now 6/6 body into another 6-health minion and gain another +3/+3.

Hero Cards Return!

After two whole years of waiting, we're finally getting new Hero cards! In fact, the last time we got them was in 2019 with Descent of Dragons' Galakronds, but we have to go back to the memorable Knights of the Frozen Throne, where it all started, if we want to talk about the first time all classes received a Hero card.

It is easy to imagine why Hero cards strike so hard in each player's fantasy. Whether or not you enjoy their implications within the metagame, it's undeniable that they represent the most exciting type of card to be ever introduced in Hearthstone!

A few Hero Cards have already been revealed, and here's all we know about them so far:

• Every class will receive a Hero Card.
• Each Hero will be based on the class' Mercenary introduced in Forged in the Barrens
  • This is the first Hero Card for Demon Hunter.
• Each Mercenary wears its respective class' tier 0 armor in World of Warcraft (thanks to u/Vedney for pointing it out!), and some of them are even named after said armor set.
  • For example Wildheart Guff wears Druid's Wildheart armor, and Lightforged Cariel wears Paladin's Lightforged Armor.
  • Kurtrus Ashfallen doesn't have a tier 0 armor set, so we're excited to see what Team 5 will use instead.

From left to right: Druid, Hunter, Mage, Paladin, Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock, and Warrior.

Let's now go over a few of the hero cards that have been revealed so far. As we're going to see in a moment, Team 5 definitely didn't hold back on creativity (and power level), as always!

View All Alterac Valley's Hero Cards

Wildheart Guff - Finally, after a long, long time, we'll be able to have 11 mana plays! Wildheart Guff breaks one of Hearthstone's fundamental rules: the 10 mana cap. In the end, you do not need mana cheat if you can just have as much mana as you want. Being Druid, the mana crystal manipulator class par excellence, we find this Hero card pretty flavorful, and we expect to see even more payoff cards than the new Ivus, the Forest Lord, which is non-less than an absurdly more powerful version of the old Forbidden Ancient. Note that both Wildheart Guff and Nurture's Mana Crystals are full, so you'll be able to use them just after you gained them!

Lightforged Cariel - What. A. Card. Wow. Lightforged Cariel is obviously intended to be the pinnacle of most Paladin strategies from now on. Every aspect of this Hero Card makes us wanna play it on day 1:

• It enters the field with a fully-fledged Consecration to help you reset the board.
• Not only you can use The Immovable Object to kill off one of those units that may have survived your one-sided AoE, but it will also halve the damage you'll receive for the rest of the game. All of this without losing any Durability hits - Bulwark of Azzinoth cries in a corner.
• Blessing of Queens is a 2 mana Blessing of Kings that perfectly fits into the handbuff game plan Paladin has been following in the last few months. In particular, the new Paladin Legendary Saidan the Scarlet has gross synergy with it.

One thing is sure: Aggro players are going to hate Lightforged Cariel so much.

Moreover, note the "Lightforged" attribute in the Hero Card's name is shared by other rather peculiar minions. We are talking about Descent of Dragons' Lightforged Zealot and Lightforged Crusader. While we know why Cariel is named that way, we wonder if there's a chance that we'll receive some Pure Paladin support, given that High Exarch Yrel is still in Standard, even though not for a long time. It would be so flavorful with Lightforged Uther as starting skin.

On a final note, in World of Warcraft there's a weapon called The Unstoppable Force, which is obviously meant to be The Immovable Object's counterpart.

Shadowcrafter Scabbs - Remember Vanish? Now it also comes with 5 Armor, two Jungle Panthers and a Preparation as Hero Power in Sleight of Hand, ready to capitalize on your opponent's empty board. What an impactful Battlecry! While Sleight of Hand doesn't seem to fit very well in the current fast-paced Rogue decks, we think that slowing down the meta will allow every single part of Shadowcrafter Scabbs to shine at its best.

Bru'kan of the Elements - Think of it as an hybrid between Journey to Un'Goro's Kalimos, Primal Lord and The Boomsday Project's Dr. Boom, Mad Genius. In fact, you have your Hero Power randomly swapping at the end of your turn between 4 Elements (Earth, Fire, Lightning and Water). Here's how the card works:

• When Bru'kan of the Elements is played, you choose 1 of his 4 Hero Power options to immediately activate.
• You then get to choose a second option, of the remaining 3 Hero Power options you haven't activated.
• Each turn the Hero Power randomly rotates, even if it isn't used.

This is definitely a powerful and fun card, that will give Shaman a very strong control tool.

Dreadlich Tamsin - Tamsin is back from the world of the dead and achieves the rather difficult goal of giving Warlock something playable without supporting Tickatus or The Demon Seed. Chains of Dread's Dread Imps give Warlock a lot more power when it comes to contesting and taking control of the board, even if it's soft-locked behind a Cast When Drawn, which is not always going to be a downside, given that support may be on the way.

Objective Spells

Objectives are spells with an effect that last for 3 friendly turns and give you all sorts of upsides. It doesn't matter how many times you trigger them: their effects won't run out!

Some of them, like Field of Strife and Dun Baldar Bridge, give your friendly minions more stats in order for them to trade more efficiently or to push more damage to the opponent's face. However, Team 5 has shown some additional applications of the new mechanic.

Dun Baldar Bunker is a 2 mana draw 3 tool for Hunter, which is famed to historically be one of the worst classes when it comes to card draw. This objective spell obviously wants to increase Secret Hunter's consistency, in order to be able to ensure payoffs like Ram Tamer's one with the high frequency possible.

View All Alterac Valley Objective Spells

There's also board presence: Frostwolf Kennels gives Druid something to fight the board with while Malfurion ramps or sets up other powerful plays. The fact that the summoned Cubs (how cute!) have Stealth is not marginal by any means, and they'll also help Frostsaber Matriarch to come down sooner.

Snowfall Graveyard represents a three-turns-long Baron Rivendare with no chances for your opponents to interfere with it outside of Counterspell shenanigans, which is quite the effect for just three mana. However, the problem is that Rogue seems to have decent Deathrattle support but very few actual Deathrattles to play. However, the rest of the reveal season may give us the answers we're looking for.

We can reasonable expect to see even more applications of these prolonged effects, like a recurring healing effect for Priest or a card generation tool for Warlock.

Frost Spells

Sure, it's not a Fractured in Alterac Valley exclusive mechanic, but we still felt like it deserved a spot in this article. The snowy scenario this expansion is set in seems to have brought us a heavy focus on the Frost Spell School.

It's been quite a while since Bearon Gla'shear was leaked (and later revealed) and we came to know that Frost Shaman is going to be a thing. In the meantime, we also received the first Frost spell in support of the archetype in Snowball Fight!, and we expect at least a couple more to come.

What's more interesting is that we just recently got to see the first two Warrior cards of this reveal season, and they're both Frost spells! Maybe it's just a coincidence and maybe we're just tripping, but... is there a chance that Team 5 is hiding from us something like Frost Warrior? Nah, it can't be... Unless...

What are your early impressions of the new Fractured in Alterac Valley mechanics? What cards do you like the most? Let us know in the comments below!