March 17th marked the first “official” day of card reveals for the newest set coming out, Journey to Un’Goro. Senior Designer Peter Whalen and Funny Streamer Guy “Day9” are the hosts of the stream and this article will be a quick recap of any new information that is released in the stream as well as my own added thoughts and commentary.
If you are not interested in spoilers for Journey to Un’Goro I would advise you to stop reading now.
Ok with that out of the way, let’s get into it!
Quick Recap of Stream
Stream started off with some sound issues and then introduced Day9 and Peter Whalen, Senior Game Designer for Hearthstone.
They go into detail about Peter Whalen’s job title and he mentions that he’s part of the “initial design” team that focuses on what cards are fun and interesting. Then there is a “final design” team that focuses on fairness and playability in the meta.
11 new cards are going to be revealed with 3 “token” cards being revealed as well and those don’t count towards the 135 cards in the set.
“Explore Un’Goro” card revealed. (See card reveal section below.)
“Tortollan Shellraiser” card revealed. (See card reveal section below.)
“Lakkari Sacrifice” card revealed. (See card reveal section below.)
“Lakkari Felhound” card revealed. (See card reveal section below.)
They comment on Quest cards and mention how they always start in your opening hand, are the left most card in your hand, and can be mulliganed if you want to.
“Arcanologist” card revealed. (See card reveal section below.)
“Elise the Trailblazer” card revealed. (See card reveal section below.)
They mention the set is 135 cards, not including token cards such as “Elise the Trailblazer” Un’Goro Pack card.
“Golakka Crawler” card revealed. (See card reveal section below.)
“Dinosize” card revealed. (See card reveal section below.)
“Sherazin, Corpse Flower” card revealed. (See card reveal section below.)
“Tar Creeper” card revealed. (See card reveal section below.)
Priest, Mage and Shaman are mostly elemental focused. Rogue focuses mostly on plants. Warrior, Paladin, Druid, Warlock and Hunter are mostly dinosaurs. That doesn’t mean they are restricted to those “tribes” like the Gangs of Gadgetzan are, like Druids are dinosaurs mixed with plants.
Each class has a Legendary minion AND a Legendary quest.
“Swamp King Dred “card revealed. (See card reveal section below.)
Those are the reveals for the stream, more Journey to Un’Goro cards will be revealed next week at the Hearthstone Championship Tour in the Bahamas.
Explore Un’Goro
2 mana, “Explore Un’Goro”
Warrior Epic
Replace your deck with copies of “Discover a card.”
Comments: Your entire deck is replaced with 1 mana spells that Peter Whalen described as “Choosing your path”. It’s supposed to simulate being an adventurer and choosing your adventure. They made this for players who like a different experience each time they play, kind of like with Renounce Darkness where each game is different because of the randomness. It also works well with things like Gadgetzan Auctioneer or Red Mana Wyrm because all of the cards are just 1 mana spells which can trigger spell triggers very easily.
Tortollan Shellraiser
4 mana, “Tortollan Shellraiser”
Priest Common
2/6 Taunt, Deathrattle: Give a random friendly minion +1/+1.
Comments: A big health Taunt minion which works well for Priest since they can keep it healed up. More importantly it works well with the new Priest quest called “Awaken the Makers” where you need to play 7 Deathrattle minions in order to activate it. The buff is also nice in Priest because it helps keep your minions at high health to heal.
Lakkari Sacrifice/Nether Portal
1 mana, “Lakkari Sacrifice”
Warlock Legendary Quest
Quest: Discard 6 cards, Reward: Nether Portal
5 mana, “Nether Portal”
Open a permanent portal that summons 3/2 Imps.
Comments: This quest is EASILY attainable using a basic Discard Zoolock deck. The portal you open up with the Nether Portal card is kind of like the portals during the Disco Tavern Brawl event, they are untargetable and Peter Whalen has said that in testing there is no way to get rid of them except to concede. It still takes up a spot on the board but at the end of every turn, it spawns two 3/2 Imps, one on each side of it. Truly a card that has “infinite” value.
Lakkari Felhound
4 mana, “Lakkari Felhound”
Warlock Common Demon
3/8 Taunt, Battlecry: Discard 2 random cards.
Comments: A card that fits with the new Warlock quest to discard cards. It’s a Demon, it has high health and Taunt, and is pretty cheap. Should be used in any Discard decks that show up since it provides good defense as well as multiple discards which works well with things like Malchezaar’s Imp and Silverware Golem.
Arcanologist
2 mana, “Arcanologist”
Mage Common
2/3 Battlecry: Draw a secret from your deck.
Comments: This is not like Mad Scientist that puts a Secret into play, you can choose when you want to cast it which makes it a little better. It works great with some of the secret synergy cards that came out in Mean Streets of Gadgetzan like Kabal Lackey or Kabal Crystal Runner. Although Peter Whalen says that Un’Goro isn’t introducing much more Secret synergy for Mages. Another interesting fact: Counterspell can stop Quests, like if you go kabal Lackey Turn 1 into Counterspell, you could actually stop your opponent from playing their Quest.
Elise the Trailblazer/Un’Goro Pack
5 mana, “Elise the Trailblazer”
Neutral Legendary
5/5 Battlecry: Shuffle a sealed Un’Goro pack into your deck.
2 mana, “Un’Goro Pack”
Add 5 Journey to Un’Goro cards to your hand.
Comments: This is super goofy. It literally opens a pack of Un’Goro cards and puts them into your hand. However, one thing that Peter Whalen specifically stated was that Elise is extra lucky. The packs almost always guarantee an epic and have a good chance of opening up a legendary. They played a video to show the animation for the pack and it opened up two new legendaries along with an epic, just to show you how different it will be from a “normal” pack.
Golakka Crawler
2 mana, “Golakka Crawler”
Neutral Rare Beast
2/3 Battlecry: Destroy a Pirate and gain +1/+1.
Comments: Basically a Hungry Crab that targets the current meta of overwhelming pirates. Pretty funny to see them print something that specifically targets the meta, but interesting nonetheless. It is the “Hungriest Crab”.
Dinosize
8 mana, “Dinosize”
Paladin Epic
Set a minion’s Attack and Health to 10.
Comments: This is basically a Pyroblast in Paladin. It allows you to make one of your minions in play into a 10/10 and then attack with it since it is already in play. This effect is much like Keeper of Uldaman except I predict it will be used mostly for offense and sometimes to create a wall since you can make something simple like a 2/2 Taunt into a 10/10 Taunt.
Sherazin, Corpse Flower/Sherazin, Seed
4 mana, “Sherazin, Corpse Flower”
Rogue Legendary
5/3 Deathrattle: Go dormant. Play 4 cards in a turn to revive this minion.
Sherazin, Seed
When you play 4 cards in a turn, revive this minion.
Comments: This is basically another way for Miracle Rogue decks to abuse their multiple spells. Right now the only way to effectively abuse Rogue’s many cheap spells is Edwin VanCleef, Questing Adventurer and Gadgetzan Auctioneer but now there’s a new way to continue to use that style of play effectively. I played a lot of Miracle Rogue so I am definitely impressed with how they added a new “Miracle” type of spin to a card. When Sherazin turns into the dormant seed, each card you play on your turn will make a leaf glow underneath the portrait until 4 leaves glow and then it flips back over into Sherazin, Corpse Flower.
Tar Creeper
3 mana, “Tar Creeper”
Neutral Common Elemental
1/5 Taunt, Has +2 attack during your opponent’s turn.
Comments: New elemental minion that has great defensive potential. This is a purely defensive card because of its effect which is interesting to see since most Taunt defensive minions also end up being big enough to attack with but end up costing more because of it. This allows you to get a cheap minion with decent health and attack, at the cost of not being able to do much damage on your turn with it. Very interesting new take on a defensive card.
Swamp King Dred
7 mana, “Swamp King Dred”
Hunter Legendary Beast
9/9 After your opponent plays a minion, attack it.
Comments: Very interesting new “giant” Hunter card that will eat up your opponent’s minions as they’re playing them. This means he’s really susceptible to things with the new Poisonous tag, which is what Emperor Cobra has and what new dinosaurs can Adapt into, which gives them the ability to kill anything they damage. He still eats it up though, regardless, so it’s an interesting card to toy around with.
Conclusion
Well that’s the quick recap of the stream! 11 new cards revealed, 3 “token” cards revealed, a new Quest card revealed which should provoke a lot of interesting new Discard Zoolock decks.
Hope this was helpful for those of you that missed the stream. Leave me some comments below, let me know which cards you think are amazing and which cards do you think could have been better. Me personally, loving the new Quest cards, and kind of disappointed with the new Hunter fatty.
I will be back streaming next week on my Twitch at Twitch.tv/ItsFireflyer and you can always follow my arena screenshots or random updates on Twitter at Twitter @HS_Fireflyer. Stay tuned for more Journey to Un’Goro card reveals in the next week and I should also be posting up a card review once there are enough revealed cards. Come back and check it out and I will see you then!
