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Everything we know about Hearthstone’s Year of the Raven so far
With the release of The Witchwood later in April, Blizzard will officially launch the Year of the Raven in Hearthstone – here’s what to expect from the CCG in 2018.
Hearthstone’s Year of the Mammoth is stampeding off into the distance. Priests and Paladins have emerged from the dust clouds standing tall, as Jade Druids and Pirate Warriors skulk into the shadows – their time in power has come to an end. Collectively, they mourn the trail of battered and bruised Hunters left in their wake. It’s been an incredible twelve months for Blizzard’s CCG, but there’s a new creature tapping – gently rapping, you might say – upon Hearthstone’s chamber door.
2018 will be the Year of the Raven. No, sadly, that’s not a whole period dedicated to Hearthstone caster Alexander ‘Raven’ Baguley. Instead, Blizzard has given us some insight into what we can expect from the game over the next 365 days of card slinging action. What do we know so far? We’re getting three new expansions, three classic cards are rotating into the hall of fame, quests are being reworked, a new tournament mode is coming to the game and there’s still more to come.
Let’s begin with the one aspect that sends us most dizzy with glee: new expansions. Blizzard were fairly coy with details at first, releasing little more than a single teaser image to get us speculating about the theme each expansion might take. Still, there were some significant clues for expansion one in there.
The first was the artwork: greenery, roots and what looks like a mysterious portal at the center. Nature appears to be heavily involved, which immediately conjures so many iconic locations and factions from the Warcraft universe. Would the next expansion lead us on a new expedition to Mount Hyjal and the home of Nordrassil, the World Tree? Or perhaps we’d be entering the mythical and eerie Emerald Dream?
Any guesses on the themes of the other expansions?
© Blizzard
That seemed even more likely when you consider that Lunara will be added to the game as a new Druid hero alongside the launch of the first new expansion. Sure, it could all be one mighty coincidence, but Blizzard usually like to keep new releases relatively thematic and the dryad’s connection to the Dreamgrove is a clear reference point too.
Well, shove all that. Following on from game designer Dave Kosak ‘vanishing’ on a camping trip where he was ‘looking for the next expansion’ and Ben Brode heading into the wilderness in order to find him, Blizzard has announced the next Hearthstone expansion will be The Witchwood. Featuring scary monsters and not so nice sprites, The Witchwood draws on the spooky side of the Warcraft universe. Haunted creatures such as the Worgen will play a part, alongside the fantastic terrors of dark fairy tales and folklore.
Spooky scary skeletons
Away from the lore and into mechanics, glimpses at some of the early card spoilers show Blizzard are sticking with effects that come into play depending on your deck building choices – similar to Raza the Chained and Reno Jackson. The legendary Genn Greymane, for example, sets your hero power to one mana if your deck only includes even-cost cards. On the other hand, Baku the Mooneater awards you with an upgraded hero power if you only have odd-cost cards. A tease at the end of the Blair Witch-inspired reveal trailer below also suggests the return of hero cards similar to Death Knights from Knights of the Frozen Throne. An intriguing twist.
The Witchwood will also introduce two new keywords: Echo and Rush. The first plays into the expansion’s phantoms and spirits, allowing you to play multiple copies of the same card on a single turn. How it works is, when played onto the board, a minion with that keyword summons another ethereal copy into your hand that remains there until the end of the turn. One interesting feature of these cards is their potential as viable plays in the late game. No one likes to draw a two mana card into an empty hand on turn eight, but as Echo cards can be stacked multiple times you could end up with some hefty stats on the board.
The second new keyword, Rush, is a variation on the existing Charge mechanic, but minions with the Rush keyword can only attack your opponent’s creatures on the turn they’re summoned. Think of its function as similar to Icehowl, except the restriction is lifted after one round. This appears to be some very intelligent design from Team 5 as they’re not huge fans of one-turn-kill decks. This minion focus for Rush cards gives them room to experiment with a new form of Charge effect without the unsatisfying result of witnessing thirty plus damage being sent to a player’s face.
Examples with these new keywords we’ve seen so far include the Phantom Militia, a three mana 2/4 taunt minion with Echo, allowing you to set up a wall of impassable ghosts if you have the mana. Another is Militia Commander, a four mana 2/5 Warrior card with Rush and a Battlecry that increases her attack by three. Essentially, you’re getting a 5/5 Charge minion for one turn before it returns to her base statline.
A few of The Witchwood cards revealed so far
© Blizzard
As for the other two expansions coming later this year, for now we’re stuck with abstract guesswork. Some kind of magic or arcane theme fits the style of the second image, while the third could suggest the tribal artwork of Azeroth’s trolls. In any case, news on these two is still many months away and The Witchwood should keep us busy for a while when it’s released in April.
If you go down to the woods today
There’s also the challenge of new meta to solve as three classic cards rotate into the Hall of Fame. We actually picked six cards we’d like to see removed from Standard play at the end of 2017 and Blizzard only seems to have listened to one of our suggestions for the new cycle.
That card is Ice Block, one the majority of the game’s competitive community will be glad to see gone. It’s spent a long time as a defining piece of many Mage decks, and its move to the Hall of Fame should hopefully open up some room for new archetypes in the class that don’t rely so heavily on freeze or delay effects.
The second card, Coldlight Oracle, comes as more of a surprise. No one had really identified this card as problematic, as it had only fulfilled a role in a few niche decks, but it seems Blizzard have their own reasons for the move to the Hall of Fame. Namely, they want to discourage mill decks, while also removing a powerful card draw option on a neutral card. Rather than address a long-standing point of aggravation for players, then, this decision is more focused on opening up the design space for more card draw options and limiting the unsatisfying feeling of having your cards milled.
Lastly, Molten Giant is also moving to the Hall of Fame and being reverted to its original mana cost of 20. This seems like a sensible move from Team 5. The card had basically all but vanished after the nerf to a cost of 25 mana, and this swap means it can be experimented with in the Wild format instead. Cue endless matches against Echo of Medivh and Giants Mages.
Altogether, the announcements we’ve had so far suggest another exciting and diverse year for Hearthstone ahead. The Witchwood, while not set to introduce any new card mechanics as drastic as Death Knights in Knights of the Frozen Throne or Quests in Journey to Un’Goro, will encourage the competitive meta to branch out into new deck archetypes. Added to that, as new cards enter the Hall of Fame – while old sets including Whispers of the Old Gods, One Night in Karazhan and Mean Streets of Gadgetzan all rotate out – there are big changes ushered in with the Year of the Raven.
