If you’ve been following along with Tasos’s weekly Hearthstone roundups, you’re likely fully aware of just how excited we’ve been for the latest card set release- Both because new cards are always fun, and because this set officially kicks off the Year of the Mammoth card rotation. All the cards from Blackrock Mountain, The Grand Tournament, and League of explorers will be heading to Wild. Additionally, Blizzard is sending some classic cards off to Wild (which they’re calling the “Hall of Fame" now). Those cards include Azure Drake, Sylvanas Windrunner, Ragnaros the Firelord, Power Overwhelming, Ice Lance, and Conceal. That’s a lot of cards, but, as of right now there’s 130 new cards being injected into the card pool via Journey to Un’Goro packs. Those packs are now available for opening in the US, and Un’Goro should be available in other regions later in the day.
Another thing worth paying attention to is that along with the daily login rewards there has been leading up to the expansion, you can get a brand new Rogue hero just by playing ten games in ranked or casual mode, making it one of the easiest heroes to get since chances are you’re going to play ten games anyway.
Back at the Hearthstone Championship Tour in the Bahamas, I got a chance to sit down with Hearthstone’s Mike Donais and Matt Place, two of the guys responsible for design. Matt handles initial design while Mike manages the final design of the game. In the years I’ve been talking to the Hearthstone team, the messaging has not changed: They’re supremely focused on making sure the game is fun, and they’re incredibly excited for Un’Goro’s big mechanic, Quests!
Quest cards are special cards which cost one mana, and if you run one in your desk you start with it in your opening hand. For instance, completing this Druid quest rewards Barnabus the Stomper, which just seems like a game-ender:
When asked if quests were going to be a big part of Hearthstone in the future, or if this is just the gimmick of Un’Goro, it really sounds like they’re waiting to see how the players like them. Discover has been a hit, and I expect quests will be similar. Oddly enough, I’m actually looking forward to fiddling around with quests in Wild, as there’s just so many more ways to trigger quests with the wider card pool.
But, enough talk, I’ve got packs to open. Fingers crossed for everyone’s pack opening RNG, may the legendaries flow like water!
