So, far, Witchwood has been interesting. It has shaken up the meta a lot more than I think Kobold and Catacombs did and possibly more than Knights of the Frozen Throne. In doing that, it seems to be sending Hearthstone down what I consider a dangerous path.
Let’s start with the dungeon run mode though. I enjoyed this a lot. I’ve heard some people complaining about how less content came with it than there was with K&C, but I enjoyed the quality of the monster hunters and figuring out how each of them worked. It could be challenging, but rarely frustrating, and the fights were very stimulating once you decoded them. It also solved the problem of runs in K&C where you had no idea what the final boss might be, so you just had to kind of make the cheesiest deck you could, rather than know that if you picked out the right emblems, you would at least do well against that monster hunter's final boss. Hearthstone has created some surprisingly cool characters in its time and the ones introduced in this expansion rank with the best of them (I am a particular fan of Toki's final boss, who had me in stitches when I realized what she was). And the fight with Hagatha was suitably epic for all the buildup.
Let’s start with the dungeon run mode though. I enjoyed this a lot. I’ve heard some people complaining about how less content came with it than there was with K&C, but I enjoyed the quality of the monster hunters and figuring out how each of them worked. It could be challenging, but rarely frustrating, and the fights were very stimulating once you decoded them. It also solved the problem of runs in K&C where you had no idea what the final boss might be, so you just had to kind of make the cheesiest deck you could, rather than know that if you picked out the right emblems, you would at least do well against that monster hunter's final boss. Hearthstone has created some surprisingly cool characters in its time and the ones introduced in this expansion rank with the best of them (I am a particular fan of Toki's final boss, who had me in stitches when I realized what she was). And the fight with Hagatha was suitably epic for all the buildup.
I'm glad that they ran with this character with the Taverns of Time event. It feels like cool characters they invent for these expansions rarely reach their full potential.
Next onto the keywords. Rush is the obvious solution to the problem that Hearthstone has been having, where it wants to have charge characters, but it doesn’t want charge characters that could deal 18 damage to the face in one turn. We’ve sort of passed that boundary considering what you can now pull off in Wild, but the devs don’t seem very concerned about anything in that format so it doesn't really matter. I find it funny that the devs are fine with you summoning a board full of 6/6s or 3/9 taunts in one turn by playing one card, but when it comes to dealing a ton of damage in one turn by playing four or five cards, that crosses some invisible line.
Still, I think Rush is a nice gift to players who prefer control and know that their low-cost taunt will inevitably be destroyed by a spell while the 3/2s hit you again, without any option for real recourse. Mixing the Rush mechanic with the shifting-stats mechanic was also interesting, although I feel it made them the Rush cards worse for the most part. Rush also works nicely with Recruit. I hope that Rush becomes permanent to the game like Discover is. More Rush minions might mean a more control based meta, which I am more than okay with.
Echo, on the other hand, seems like Inspire. I expect that the team had fun designing cards with that mechanic this expansion, but they will never use it ever again. I think that’s a shame since it’s an interesting alternative to the “spend all your mana to get an effect roughly equivalent” cards from Whispers of the Old Gods. I like the versatility that comes from it, as it essentially lets you put high-cost and low-cost cards with simple effects into your deck but save on deck space at the same time.
Now, the deck staples. This is where I am worried because I enjoy the more control-y decks. I like combos and I like gimmicky decks. That means I should enjoy that the current archetypes are so defined by unique, powerful cards. But I just think they are too dependent on a single, powerful card. Taunt Druid is okay at best without Hadrinox, Shudderwock Shaman is bad without Shudderwock. I remember liking the decks based around Nzoth (I played some of them), but those had powerful deathrattle minions and you could win without drawing Nzoth, whereas all of these remind me of the Cthun decks. If you go up against them, unless you can deal 30 damage (often times more) before turn 10, you are just crushed because the entire deck is based around buffing the effect of one card and you are screwed the second that card comes out.
I don’t think these decks are as oppressive as Cthun was, but I do think that I prefer it when a deck is based around a single idea, but still has multiple win conditions. For instance, I run a deathrattle based hunter deck that I really like, because it has rush potential, but it also allows me to go into the midrange and late game because I can clone powerful deathrattle minions and trigger their deathrattles. If my deck was based around only say, Savannah Highmane, I don’t think it would be very enjoyable. But I also have the Abominable Bowman and Cairne in there, so I can pull off these combos and the result is different effects. That’s a lot more satisfying for me, and I dislike it when I’m faced with a deck that just must basically stall until a certain turn. It makes the game feel inactive and it feels like power creep that every game must involve more insane combos or rush abilities, just to win some games. I don’t really care about Hearthstone feeling competitive (I don’t think it ever was), but I do care about it being fun, and I don’t think these well-defined archetypes are as fun, because of how restrictive they are.
But I’m sure lots of people are enjoying the madness and I’m sure there’s lots of experimentation to be done, where those archetypes don’t have to revolve around a card or a couple of cards working together. I just hope that next expansion doesn’t involve as many decks revolving around a single legendary or a couple epic minions and spells.
Thanks for reading and have a nice day!
Next onto the keywords. Rush is the obvious solution to the problem that Hearthstone has been having, where it wants to have charge characters, but it doesn’t want charge characters that could deal 18 damage to the face in one turn. We’ve sort of passed that boundary considering what you can now pull off in Wild, but the devs don’t seem very concerned about anything in that format so it doesn't really matter. I find it funny that the devs are fine with you summoning a board full of 6/6s or 3/9 taunts in one turn by playing one card, but when it comes to dealing a ton of damage in one turn by playing four or five cards, that crosses some invisible line.
Still, I think Rush is a nice gift to players who prefer control and know that their low-cost taunt will inevitably be destroyed by a spell while the 3/2s hit you again, without any option for real recourse. Mixing the Rush mechanic with the shifting-stats mechanic was also interesting, although I feel it made them the Rush cards worse for the most part. Rush also works nicely with Recruit. I hope that Rush becomes permanent to the game like Discover is. More Rush minions might mean a more control based meta, which I am more than okay with.
Echo, on the other hand, seems like Inspire. I expect that the team had fun designing cards with that mechanic this expansion, but they will never use it ever again. I think that’s a shame since it’s an interesting alternative to the “spend all your mana to get an effect roughly equivalent” cards from Whispers of the Old Gods. I like the versatility that comes from it, as it essentially lets you put high-cost and low-cost cards with simple effects into your deck but save on deck space at the same time.
Now, the deck staples. This is where I am worried because I enjoy the more control-y decks. I like combos and I like gimmicky decks. That means I should enjoy that the current archetypes are so defined by unique, powerful cards. But I just think they are too dependent on a single, powerful card. Taunt Druid is okay at best without Hadrinox, Shudderwock Shaman is bad without Shudderwock. I remember liking the decks based around Nzoth (I played some of them), but those had powerful deathrattle minions and you could win without drawing Nzoth, whereas all of these remind me of the Cthun decks. If you go up against them, unless you can deal 30 damage (often times more) before turn 10, you are just crushed because the entire deck is based around buffing the effect of one card and you are screwed the second that card comes out.
I don’t think these decks are as oppressive as Cthun was, but I do think that I prefer it when a deck is based around a single idea, but still has multiple win conditions. For instance, I run a deathrattle based hunter deck that I really like, because it has rush potential, but it also allows me to go into the midrange and late game because I can clone powerful deathrattle minions and trigger their deathrattles. If my deck was based around only say, Savannah Highmane, I don’t think it would be very enjoyable. But I also have the Abominable Bowman and Cairne in there, so I can pull off these combos and the result is different effects. That’s a lot more satisfying for me, and I dislike it when I’m faced with a deck that just must basically stall until a certain turn. It makes the game feel inactive and it feels like power creep that every game must involve more insane combos or rush abilities, just to win some games. I don’t really care about Hearthstone feeling competitive (I don’t think it ever was), but I do care about it being fun, and I don’t think these well-defined archetypes are as fun, because of how restrictive they are.
But I’m sure lots of people are enjoying the madness and I’m sure there’s lots of experimentation to be done, where those archetypes don’t have to revolve around a card or a couple of cards working together. I just hope that next expansion doesn’t involve as many decks revolving around a single legendary or a couple epic minions and spells.
Thanks for reading and have a nice day!
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