Hearthstone: Lich King’s Advance, let’s explore a preview of the new expansion

Blizzard introduces the eleventh grade Death Knight as part of Hearthstone’s latest expansion, The Lich King’s Advance. In fact, starting December 6, fans will be able to experience Arthas Menethil’s journey that led to World of Warcraft’s iconic villain, the Lich King, thanks to the introduction that introduces the Death Knight’s mechanics.

There will be many new decks to build in the digital card game, with 203 new cards, the Death Knight class (with the rune system), the new Undead Servant, and the new Mana Thirst ability. snowstorm. The developers have focused heavily on the nostalgia factor for all World of Warcraft fans, especially from an artistic point of view: there’s no shortage of references and quotes for what one of the MMO’s greatest moments of excellence was.

To do so Hearthstone preview: Advance of the Lich King We spoke with Chief Mod and Narrative Designer Matthew London and Hearthstone Chief Game Designer Chadd Nervig to explain the new mechanics and creative process that led to the creation of the new class. The first thing they wanted to say was, “We learned our mistakes with the Demon Slayer, don’t be afraid, the Death Knight is unbreakable on takeoff”.

Death Knight

this Death Knight It will have 68 new class cards, 32 of which will be part of the Main set and will be free. Hero power is Ghoul Charge, where she can summon a 1/1 Charged Ghoul that dies at the end of the turn. Thanks to the new source of corpses, all your servants will be useful even when they die, to fulfill a higher purpose: the destruction of your opponents. Just like in World of Warcraft, the Death Knight class manages their powers through a rune system. Blood has those that control the game by manipulating Health, dealing direct damage with those of Frost, Spells and Impiety, summoning hordes of undead minions on the playground. There will be three slots in each deck, you can choose to invest everything in one type or, for example, put one of two ices and one godless: in total there are 10 combinations, each with its own unique characteristics.

“In World of Warcraft, runes are the primary resource for managing a Death Knight’s skills, and we wanted to recreate the same dynamic or something similar in Hearthstone,” said Chadd Nervig. mana with runes, just like in WoW, but something was wrong. The effect of the system on deck building was huge in terms of variety, but mana suddenly became unnecessary while playing. Adding runes to this was an unnecessary limitation. In the final version, runes are now used only in deck building, giving mana their usual relevance and leaving the management of runes to the deck building phase. “

New minions and new skills

The Lich King’s progress is also a new kind of maid, immortals and a new ability, the thirst for mana. Adding a new minion type was a complex task for the dev team and required reworking hundreds of other minions from previous sets to include the undead. “Zombies are the primary weapon of every Death Knight – said Nervig – so it is very important to have a large number of such well-identified servants”. Additionally, the Rebirth ability is also about to return: “There weren’t many cards that had good synergies with this mechanic – said Matthew London – they’ll be there now, but we don’t think they’ll have a devastating effect on the meta”.

New ability inspired by the blood elves’ insatiable addiction to Sunwell’s magical energies Thirst for mana will put the planning of each movement in a different perspective. Cards with this ability will actually be able to activate additional effects when you have enough Mana Crystals, all without consuming Mana. “We can’t wait to see what players do with the new rune system, new minion and Mana Thirst ability – said Nervig – There are so many possible combinations and Death Knight is designed to be fully modular”.

How not to instantiate a new class

Carefully chaos As with why the release of Demon Hunter, the developers wanted to share the lessons learned since then and how they applied them to the release of Death Knight. “The first time we add a new class to the game (Demon Hunter) ed) was a tough moment because we did it in January when the cards came back. Because of the way the meta is structured, the start of the year is the most unstable and unrepresented moment in the gaming ecosystem as everything changes. Now at the opposite time, we will add Night Knight at the end of the year when we have a very good understanding of what the meta is like and how the new cards will affect the game.”

So adding a complex system like that of runes was a choice that surprised us; We know this mechanic won’t translate for other classes, but we’re still wondering how it will be supported. Chief Game Designer Chadd Nervig explained his team’s philosophy regarding the launch and future of the class. “Runes is a mechanic that can be complex at first glance, but our goal is to add complexity to Hearthstone to improve gameplay. We don’t want to complicate the game just for fun. We want to add depth to the game. expand and enrich it.. For what concern support for the runes system, we plan to release new cards dedicated to each of the 3 runes (Blood, Frost, Unholy) in the future. What will change over time will be playstyles, not all expansions will have cards for all runes, sometimes your hero will have frost, sometimes blood and sometimes irreligion or combinations of these”.

Novices and veterans

Another big news (already present in the game), the return to the Standard format of cards from the Knights of the Frozen Throne expansion goes back to the last time the Blizzard card game was all about Liches. “We are very happy to be back” Knights of the Frozen Throne – said Matthew London – Will other expansions return in the future? Maybe we are working on it and waiting for the reaction of the players. All the old expansion has been added for free and players can fully relive it. We have many fans and veterans who are proud of their collections. It is important for us to develop these collections by bringing old expansions back to the standard. This will also allow new players to rediscover old cards for the benefit of all our players.”

At the launch of The Advance of the Lich King, you can get 32 ​​cards dedicated to the Death Knight simply by completing its new entry. set of 26 cards Arthas’ WayIt is also included in the Mega Pack of this expansion, and can also be purchased with both gold and Runestones, and all included cards will be craftable.

10 more Death Knight cards will be available in Lich King’s Advance booster packs. “If you’ve never played Hearthstone – said London – and if you want to start after December 6, the first thing to do after training is to play the Death Knight entry, so try the 3 types of runes and become familiar with the mechanics. Then take all the Unholy cards, put them in a deck , fill your opponent with zombies and enjoy the victory. I am a simple player, I like to fill my opponent with zombies. The same type is the most accessible, start like this and then try “.