Hearthstone: Dragons Dragons Dragons (also some new game mode I guess)

We've got a new expansion on the horizon! And... and I admit, I haven't really been playing Hearthstone a whole ton in the past couple of months, because real life's caused me to be super-busy. Which is why I'm probably not going to try and discuss about meta implications or the like too much this time around, and just mostly talk about the flavour and fun factor of these cards. I'll probably not do a 'let's look back at the scores' segment for Saviors of Uldum either, since I'm pretty off the game as far as how the meta looks.

In any case, though, after a couple of... controversial stances that Blizzard did in recent times (which I won't be discussing too much here), at least their new expansion looks pretty great, y'know? I'm a huge fan of the actual expansion itself, which is all about dragons above the Dragonblight, and the conclusion to the League of EVIL vs. League of Explorers storyline we've had throughout the year. It's got dragons! I like dragons! Flavour-wise, it's pretty great, and I've been pretty invested with the fun, lighthearted story mode for the Year of the Dragon expansions, so I'm definitely happy to see that we're nearing the conclusion.

Quickly going through the cards revealed, which we have a surprisingly large number of for an initial announcement:


The star of the expansion is the mighty ancient proto-dragon Galakrond, a hero card for the five League of EVIL classes (rogue, shaman, warlock, priest, warrior) that's essentially the C'Thun mechanic on steroids. One of the biggest complaints about the C'Thun mechanic and why it's essentially disappeared in Wild is that the C'Thun-buffing minions don't do anything other than buff C'Thun, and... well, this sort of tries to fix that. "Invoke" is a specific keyword, and when a minion with Invoke is played, they will activate the class's Galakrond's hero power, while also adding into the stack of buffs that will upgrade the Galakrond hero card and amplify their battlecry if/when you get to playing Galakrond. All Galakronds can be upgraded twice, and in their final forms, they all come with a 5/2 weapon in addition to a seriously buffed-up battlecry. And those Standard-playing people thought the age of powerful hero cards is over!

And... while I'm still holding my breath on just how powerful Galakrond's going to be, the three Galakrond hero cards we've seen are certainly powerful! The Rogue version, Galakrond the Nightmare, has the hero power of adding a Lackey to your hand, which we know is powerful in Rogue, and the Galakrond hero card's battlecry basically draws cards and sets their cost to zero, which is pretty powerful -- fully upgraded, the rogue Galakrond is essentially a Sprint that sets the four cards you draw to zero.

Warlock's Galakrond the Wretched has the hero power of summoning two 1/1 Imps, which leans a bit towards a zoo-style gameplay particularly when you play the invoke cards, and I'm not quite as impressed with the random demon summoning battlecry. It's no Bloodreaver Gul'dan, but not all cards can be Bloodreaver Gul'dan, I suppose -- in Standard, it's still probably pretty powerful. Priest's Galakrond the Unspeakable has a invoke/hero power of adding a random priest card to your hand, which is interesting value, and perhaps significantly less reliable compared to the invoke effects of the Rogue and Warlock Galakronds. Its battlecry is pretty damn powerful, though, reminding me of Shadowreaper Anduin's board-destroying battlecry.

Ultimately, these hero cards do look pretty powerful when fully upgraded, and the Invoke mechanic is certainly interesting, but I do think that we should probably temper our expectations a bit until we see the full set -- it looks interesting, but I wouldn't say they're quite game breaking just yet -- especially in Wild.


That said, though, depending on your class, the Invoke cards are pretty interesting, since they end up with such different effects depending on the class you play them in. Devoted Maniac is a 4-mana 2/2 Rush that activates the Invoke effect, and... it's kinda interesting that this will have completely different effects depending on the class you are in. Apparently the Invoke effect whiffs if you don't have a Galakrond hero card in your deck, hand or battlefield, but  you get an effect that's supposedly tailor-made to your class. Warlocks get two 1/1 imps (which isn't terrible), while rogues and priest get a card in their hand. Which... still isn't the best value, I feel, even accounting for the Invoke? I mean, Rabid Worgen doesn't see a lot of play, and that's both cheaper and has more stats than the Devoted Manic. I might be underestimating the Rush, though I really do feel like Devoted Maniac might not do enough and will get cut out for more powerful Invoke cards.

Shield of Galakrond, on the other hand, is a 4/5 Taunt for 5 mana with an upside, which is a body that's a lot more solid, and still does the whole Invoke thing. And a 5-mana 4/5 Taunt is pretty solid, if probably overpriced by one mana. Pretty solid stuff for the Invoke mechanic, if admittedly a wee bit boring.


We'll go through all the Invoke-specific cards first, then, starting with Priest. Time Rip is a 5-mana spell that destroys a minion and invokes, which in Priest's case adds a random Priest minion to your hand... and I dunno. It's basically assassinate plus a card generation effect, but Priest has a lot more efficient removal, and I don't think that even with the invoke effect you're going to want to play Time Rip when Shadow Word: Death will do, y'know? Solid card, but probably will only see play if the rest of the invoke package is solid enough and you just need that one more boost or two to make sure you invoked Galakrond properly before turn 7.

Fate Weaver is an invoke-synergy card, where it's a vanilla body (4-mana 3/6 is decent) and it's a dragon, and if you've invoked twice, you can reduce your entire hand by 1. So far, all the invoke cards we've seen cost at least 4 mana, and how powerful Fate Weaver is going to be will depend on the amount of lower-costed Invoke cards we're getting. Fate Weaver's ability's pretty powerful, though, and as we've seen, Emperor Thaurissan's effect is never something you should underestimate. It does admittedly work well with the Priest invoke mechanic, though, which adds cards to your hand, giving Fate Weaver more cards to target.


Warlocks have a pretty solid idea of what they want to do with the Invoke mechanic (summon two 1/1 imps), which is basically zoo zoo zoo. We've gotten a fair amount of zoo support in Saviors of Uldum, and while lackey Warlock didn't go the way I thought it would, there's still enough power for zoo Warlock that I think that those cards would work together pretty well in conjunction with the Warlock invoke mechanic. Fiendish Rites is a 3-mana spell that invokes Galakrond and gives all your minions +1 attack, and it's... sorta-kinda comparable to something like Grim Rally or Impferno? 3 mana might be a bit too unwieldy, but you do always get two 2/1's with it in addition to whatever board you have at the time. A respectable zoo card, and I do feel that it's a lot better for the zoo game-plan than the similarly-costed Impferno.

Dragonblight Cultist is also pretty zoo-synergistic, gaining buffs the more minions you have on the field... and presuming that it works the way I think it does (invoke first, then gain buffs) he's going to be at minimum a 3/1 that summons two 1/1 demons. But this does mean that however high the Dragonblight Cultist gets, he's always going to have 1 health, meaning that this is ultimately kind of a Magma Rager, right? Which isn't terribly impressive, even if it does come with the 1/1 imps.

Veiled Worshiper is pretty damn powerful -- a 4-mana 5/4 passes the vanilla test, and she draws 3 cards (!!!) if you've invoked twice. The problem, of course, is if the invoke mechanic's going to be that great in Warlock, and if she's enough of an incentive for you to run a card like Dragonblight Cultist that's not the most impressive. Again, hard to say if Warlock's invoke mechanic is going to be particularly powerful, but if it works, Veiled Worshiper's going to be one of the better cards in that deck.


Y'know, I would actually underrate a lot of these cards if I haven't seen how powerful Lackey generation in rogue is thanks to EVIL Recruiter. Lackeys in Rogues are very respectable, because in addition to the powerful tempo that lackeys inherently have, they also help to activate combos. Praise Galakrond isn't the most exciting card, and buffing a single minion by 1 attack isn't super-powerful, but it's still a cheap 1-mana spell and it gives you a Lackey in addition to upgrading your Galakrond. Pretty nifty in Rogue! Seal Fate is a bit of a weaker version of Shadow Strike from way back in the day, and while Shadow strike ended up being a bit too expensive to play, maybe the addition of a Lackey to your hand might convince you otherwise? Probably not going to see as much play, though -- I feel like you'd still run Walk the Plank and other removal-style cards instead of this.

Umbral Skulker is sort of like Veiled Worshiper, a 4-mana 3/3 that gives you one hell of a huge advantage -- 3 coins, in this case -- if you've invoked twice. Pretty powerful card, although, again, how much this sees play depends on the rest of the rogue invoke deck. Pretty respectable card, otherwise -- I feel like we're probably going to get a bunch of Galakrond and Invoke synergy cards, and it's going to be hard to say just how powerful the resulting deck's going to be. Regardless, though, it's a mighty cool mechanic from a gameplay and flavour standpoint, and I for one am very much excited about that!


Rogue's got a couple more cards -- we're getting a cycle of legendary dragon minions and a cycle of 'breath' spell cards, which is neat. Rogue gets Waxadred, which... is pretty neat, but I don't see him being playable in ladder. He's a 5-mana 7/5 with a deathrattle of shuffling a spell that resummons him when drawn. Comparable to Malorne, who also didn't see play. Sure, Rogue has a lot more mechanics to double up on the whole 'shuffle cards into your deck' mechanic, but it's more of a card that's fun to run into in solo adventures or if you get it randomly generated. Very cool card, but it really needs like taunt or rush or some other keyword to actually be good.

Candle Breath is a 6-mana card that draws 3 cards. Very expensive! But it's a 3-mana draw 3 cards if you're holding a dragon, and we've got a lot of cards that play off the 'hold a dragon' mechanic. Basically a neat replacement for Sprint in dragon-centric decks! Not too flashy, but very neat for sure. Dragon's Hoard is basically a replacement for Pilfer for Burgle Rogue decks, and one that's a pretty powerful god-send. One thing that non-Wild versions of the Burgle Rogue lacks is a reliable cheap enabler for the 'another class card' cards, since they don't have Swashburglar and Pilfer kinda sucks, and Dragon's Hoard... it's still like Pilfer, but at least a legendary minion is far more likely to be good, y'know?


Druids now! Ysera, Unleashed is the legendary dragon for druids, and it seems the Explorers are palling up with the original dragon aspects. Neat! Ysera Unleashed is basically the same statline with old Ysera, but instead of generating cards every turn, she just shuffles 7 portals into your deck that summons a random dragon. The two portal demons from Rise of Shadows kinda suck, but new Ysera is more akin to Fal'dorei Strider in that her statline is respectable for her cost, plus a random dragon tends to be a lot more powerful than just a 2/2 rushing Felhound. Of course, a random dragon could be anywhere from the big 4/12's and 8/8's, or you could get... a non-buffed Twilight Drake. And with the huge influx of new dragons, the potential of there being a couple of smaller ones (think Twilight Whelp) also increases. But I am a lot more optimistic about Ysera Unleashed, and she looks to be a pretty powerful card!

Emerald Explorer is... pretty great, actually. 6-mana 4/8 Taunt is very respectable (it's basically the same statline as Primordial Drake), and it allows you to discover a dragon! Again, a very powerful card in non-ladder modes, and pretty damn great if you're playing a dragon druid deck. And why would you want to play a dragon druid deck? Because of Breath of Dreams. Remember old Wild Growth, which was so ubiquitous that it had to be nerfed? Well, Breath of Dreams is a 2-mana draw a card and cast Wild Growth if you're holding a dragon. Which is honestly pretty damn simple if you're only on turn 2 and playing a dragon-centric deck. Easily one of the most powerful cards we've seen so far, and while that might just be my Turn-1-coin-Wild-Growth PTSD talking, I forsee Breath of Dreams being pretty damn powerful.


Hunters get the most cards revealed in this announcement, and it's... sort of kind interesting? Primordial Explorer is part of the 'explorer' cycle of dragons given to the League of Explorers classes (hunter, mage, druid, paladin) and they all basically dragons that discover a dragon. Primordial Explorer has essentially the body of an Emperor Cobra -- 3-mana 2/3 with poisonous. It's certainly better than Carrion Drake, but I'm not sure if Hunters can fit this guy in their deck, even if it's dragon-oriented. The breath spell, Corrosive Breath, is a 2-mana deal 3 damage to a minion, but becomes a discounted Cobra Shot (usually costs 5 mana) if you're holding a dragon. Pretty powerful spell, actually, but probably not enough to get you to play dragon hunter without seeing the rest of the dragons hunters are getting.

Dwarven Sharpshooter is basically GvG's Steamwheedle Sniper, only costing 1 mana. Which... honestly, probably makes a lot of difference, since you get the same effect on a health-heavy minion. Probably still not enough to turn Hunter from a mainly aggro class into one that controls the board, though, and probably doesn't displace something like Springpaw as the premiere 1-mana hunter drop.


Hunters have a distinct 'hero power' themed set of cards, too. Phase Stalker is pretty powerful, a 2-mana 2/3 beast, which has the effect of continually casting secrets from your deck whenever you launch your hero power. Sort of a different kind of Secret Hunter gameplay from the standard one we're more familiar with, but definitely one that's interesting. It could actually be good enough to see competitive play! Dragonbane is a legendary mech, one with a 4-mana 3/5... and it's... interesting? Every time you cast your hero power, it lobs a 5-mana damage bomb at a random enemy, which is actually pretty huge. Again, like Phase Stalker, I'm just not sure if it's powerful enough to see play in a deck, especially since judging by its legendary status, Dragonsbane is probably the 'big' payoff for continually using your hero power. Still a pretty decently powerful card in its own right, though!

Toxic Reinforcements is the new mechanic presumably for the Explorers, which is "Sidequest", essentially a smaller, simpler version of quests. You can have two in your deck, but they don't always start in your hand. In this case, it's using your hero power three times, and then you get three Leper Gnomes as a result. It's essentially a delayed 1-mana deal 6 damage spell, but I'm not sure if it's going to be practical enough to utilize in a deck. My gut instinct says no, but maybe that dream hero-power-hunter deck is actually viable and you actually do want to spend a single mana to get a bunch of Leper Gnomes as a payoff later on. It's essentially 3 mana bundled into one, but I'm not sure if it's something that's going to work into the Hunter game plan necessarily.


Mage's side-quest is similarly interesting, although the 6/6 dragon is a bit more impressive than a trio of Leper Gnomes. Learn Draconic wants you to spend 8 mana on spells, which is something that most mages are willing to do anyway in the course of a game, and you basically get a 6/6 dragon out of it. I dunno.

Azure Explorer is the explorer dragon for Mages, and he's adowaableee. A 4-mana 2/3 with Spell Damage +2 is pretty powerful, basically a slightly weaker version of Cosmic Anomaly... and it comes with the battlecry of allowing you to discover a dragon, which is pretty dang sweet. Not the most exciting card in the set, but a very solid one. Malygos, Aspect of Magic has a pretty awesome artwork, and he's... a 5-mana 2/8? You downgraded your stats, Malygos. The battecry basically has you discover an upgraded mage spell if you're holding a dragon, which from what they showed us is basically any mage spell with the numbers doubled? It's kinda powerful. Not quite Malygos or Kalecgos levels of powerful, I feel, but as a card that comes in the mid-game much earlier than the other two 9-mana versions, New Malygos is probably sort of comparable to a card like Kazakus, y'know?


Paladins get new Nozdormu... which is a lot better than old Nozdormu, a card that's honestly essentially just a vanilla minion. Nozdormu the Timeless is a 4-mana 8/8, which is insane, but it also sets both players to 10 crystals.... and it's confirmed that it gives only empty mana crystals. Sort of like a reverse Mojomaster Zihi. Regardless, it's a pretty powerful play to just accelerate the game into turn ten, like Astral Communion -- but the drawback is that, of course, your opponent ends up enjoying turn 10 more than you do, at which point the 4-mana 8/8... just probably potentially doesn't cut it. I dunno. This feels better than something like Duskfallen Aviana or whatever, but not by much. Still neat, though!

Sand Breath is pretty neat, a 1-mana card that gives a minion +1/+2, plus a Divine Shield if you're holding a dragon. Sort of comparable with Seal of Champions with the numbers swapped around. Probably not strong enough to see play in Paladin decks, though -- a lot of the buff-Paladin synergy cards have sort of moved on to Wild, and they were never super-good. We'll see if this expansion brings enough combination for a dragon/spell-buff deck to work.


Shamans only have Lightning Breath, which is 3-mana deal damage to a minion, but deals it to two others next to it if you're holding a dragon. It's essentially a Lightning Strike that deals damage to 3 minions, but without overload! Definitely a pretty powerful spell, and one that's pretty devastating if allowed to go off. We'll have to see how good the shaman dragon deck is going to be, though, since we haven't seen any dragons.

Warriors get a new Deathwing in Deathwing, Mad Aspect, who is an 8-mana (!) 12/12 that attacks all other minions upon entry. Which does means that it's probably going to clear the board before dying, but shit, 12 damage onto the board that sometimes survives is pretty damn powerful for turn 8. It's just kind of a drawback that you never want to play Deathwing Mad Aspect if you have a board yourself. Ultimately, I feel like this is more impractical than anything, although it's certainly a neat (and far, far cooler) alternative to Brawl. Even if you don't use it as removal, he's an 8-mana 12/12, a very respectable body! Sort of like Swamp King Dred, but you control when Deathwing takes damage.

Molten Breath is the Warrior's Breath, which is... pretty respectable? It's 4-mana deal 5 damage to a minion, but it gives you 5 extra armour if you're holding a dragon. Bash saw play, and a far more mana-efficient version is pretty decent. Dragon Warrior has historically seen play, so if nothing else, I foresee this card seeing experimental play in wild.


A smattering of neutral cards, now, including a new and presumably our final Lackey -- the Draconic Lackey allows you to discover a dragon, basically making it equivalent to Ethereal Lackey! Not much to say here, it does bring some variation to the lackey pool, but unlike what some people are worried about, it's certainly not a nerf since the Draconic Lackey's a pretty powerful tempo tool in its own right.

Sathrovarr is a legendary that the e-ticket Blizzcon payers get for free or something? It's certainly interesting! Sathrovarr has a pretty crappy 9-mana 5/5 body, and the demon tag probably doesn't matter all that much, but it basically does what Zola the Gorgon does, but three times better. You shuffle a copy of a minion into your deck, get one in your hand, and summon an additional copy. Value and tempo! And if this is done to a powerful card like Ysera, or Ragnaros, or Mal'ganis, or Y'Shaarj, or Catrina Muerte, or any of the huge big dragons we're getting this expansion... only Sathrovarr's massive mana cost and his shitty stats sort of make me frown a little, but not by much. He's not going to be everywhere, but decks that can use him are going to really cause a lot of degenerate combos.

We also get two big neutral dragons, and they're... respectable? Evasive Drakonid is a 7-mana 7/7 taunt with the anti-spell ability, and I feel like the combination of taunt and anti-spell specifically makes Evasive Drakonid pretty damn powerful -- certainly a lot more useful than something like Sleepy Dragon! I'm still not sure if this makes her playable in a deck, but certainly a premier choice for dragon-discover cards! Twin Tyrant is an 8-mana 4/10 that deals 4 damage to two enemy minions. Not the most exciting card, and there are better dragons out there... but there are definitely also worse dragons out there.

Overall, pretty happy with the huge variety of cards we're seeing. Lots of interesting legendaries, lots of fun cards, and the Galakrond mechanic is certainly exciting. Ultimately, I'm very excited to see what we're going to get in the future.


And... I suppose we have to talk about Hearthstone Battlegrounds, which is essentially Hearthstone's take on the Auto-chess genre, and it's a mode that's kinda... eh? I've never been drawn with the Autochess games, and it just looks pretty cluttered and just not for me. A lot of the streamers out there are basically highlighting the new game mode to the exclusion of actually talking about the new cards, which I felt is odd, but I guess that's part of the promotion deal. There are some neat artwork being thrown around, but I dunno, this felt like the spinoff nobody asked for. The gameplay's neat, as much as "let's play Autochess with Hearthstone mechanics" could be neat. It's not my thing, but I'm sure that a lot of people rolled their eyes when they announced Dungeon Run a while back while I did a little dance instead. It's all right -- I've got a year's worth of solo adventures to last me a while, they can play their autochess clone. Something for everyone, right? I am genuinely unenthused, but yay if you like it!

And since there's a huge, huge sour taste in the fandom's mouth over the loss of Tournament Mode... yeah. I personally don't care about Tournament Mode, but it does feel kinda bad that they keep talking about how Tournament Mode is delayed indefinitely, and now they give us this weird little side-game? Eh. I am completely indifferent about this game mode, and the gameplay I've seen so far is just not my thing, y'know? I'll probably play it a couple of times, I'm sure, but I genuinely am 100% indifferent to this.