Shaking Off The Dust

Maybe we should try this again... 

From Azeroth With Love -- Part 3: Marzan, the Silent Blade (Boss 1, Wing 1)

Alright, enough background. Let's get to the Adventure, already! In this part we'll meet Marzan, the Silent Blade, then take a look at 3 cards.

If you want to catch up: Part 1 | Part 2

Meet Marzan, the Silent Blade!

Upon clicking on this boss:

Mathias Shaw:

• "We've lost contact with one of our spies in the Redridge Mountains." 
• "He was last seen at the Lakeshire Inne. Get me a report on our agent's status."

  

Dialogue:

• Intro: "The Defias shall succeed!"
• Banter: "No meek adventurer will stop us!"
• Death: <Death gurgle>

Marzon's Deck and Strategy:

Marzon uses many Rogue cards that rely on Combo (his Silent Knife ability allows him to constantly activate them). He employs a number of Secrets, mostly Hunter and Mage, along with the new Defias Renegade and Nosy Barkeep (shown below). In essence, Marzon plays as a tempo deck, with a good curve up to 6 mana. At the top of the curve he uses Gadgetzan Auctioneers.

Expert Mode:

Marzon's hero power becomes "Add a 'Shank' spell to your hand. The Shank spell does 2 damage to a minion, for 0 mana (it doesn't have to be an undamaged minion).

When Defeated:

When Marzan is defeated he lets out a lovely death gurgle. You then question the SI:7 Agent that Shaw sent you after. Partway through his conversation, a poison dart is shot by an assassin that then runs away, setting up the second "Boss" of Wing 1. Here's the specific dialogue:

Marzan:

• <Death gurgle>

SI:7 Agent:

• "Thank goodness you're here. It's the Twilight's Hammer."
• "They're looking for the Eye of Dalaran. They're building..."

Poisonous Dart:

• "Pew!"

SI:7 Agent:

• <Different death gurgle>

So there we have it. Even after defeating the bad guy, our friendly spy has been assassinated. In the next boss fight we must chase down the killer, dodging all manner of obstacles he puts in front of us.

Next Boss Preview:

Mathias Shaw:

• "Agent, the assassin is fleeing on foot. I want them brought in for questioning!"

The Cards

As you'll see, I'll be using the card layout structure from Hearthstone's most recent Adventure. Each wing players will receive two cards as a reward. 

Here's our first friend, the Defias Renegade. He's a 2 mana 3/1 Rare Rogue minion.

Renegade primarily acts as a tempo card, with a decent value for 2 mana. He can be played safely on turn 2 and very likely will be able to trade up against other minions. If you are facing a Secret-based class, he also acts as a practical tech choice, and can be kept into the late or mid-game to unravel your opponent's lies.

We can compare Defias Renegade to a few cards. Gilblin Stalker is a prime example. At 2 mana for a 2/3 with Stealth, the Stalker compares quite favourably to Renegade. Normally a 2/3 Body would be valued more than 3/2, but when the minion comes with Stealth, I'd argue that the 3/2 is probably marginally better, which for me is fine since Renegade is a class minion. 

Another Stealth minion that helps us orient is the Sabertooth Panther form of Druid of the Sabre. If anything, Renegade is a weaker card than Sabre, since Sabre offers two tempo choices, while Renegade has a tech option. I think it's possible that Defias Renegade could pass as a 3/2, instead of 3/1, but would want to test that.

In some interesting ways, Renegade compares to Acidic Swamp Ooze, in that's it's a decently-costed minion that just happens to be a tech option. DF gains Stealth, but loses a Health compared to ASO, and affects Secrets (and requires Combo for activation), which is probably less valuable than targeting Weapons (which tend to cost more mana than Secrets).

Lastly, we should look at the destroy Secret effect. Let's contrast Kezan Mystic to Defias Renegade, since we don't have any outright destroy effects for Secrets that don't also grant a benefit. Kezan spends 2 Health for her ability to take a Secret, it certainly doesn't feel unreasonable to have Renegade spend only 1 Health for a destroy. Normally I'd be concerned about a similar effect being on a lesser-costed minion, but in this case, I believe that's offset by the Combo requirement.

Relating to lore, the Defias Brotherhood are a rogue group of ne'erdowells, who, if you read the history started as artisans who defied the wishes of an unfair aristocracy. They created a revolutionary group to stand up against the man. Despite these probably noble origins, they have over time drifted in the domain of brigands and thieves. The Defias Renegade is an actual mob in World of Warcraft that is good at staging ambushes and detecting non-magical traps. That sentence illustrates exactly why the card has the ability that it has.

I think a gold version of the card could have a nice glint to the weapon, and there are some nice bits of thread that could be animated.

Next up, we have the Nosy Barkeep:

Nosy Barkeep is a 2 mana 1/2 neutral common minion, who exposes your opponent's hand with a pretty good chance of gaining a card advantage.

Like any card with a draw effect, it pays to look at Novice Engineer. Novice Engineer used to be a 1 mana 1/2, but in the Beta, Blizzard made the choice to change it to a 1/1. It went from being a very playable card, to one that only sees play in decks that rely on a lot of card draw. With Nosy Barkeep, we're kind of bringing back that original effect, but we're attaching a condition, which in itself is a bit of a benefit. A conditional draw effect that triggers 50% of the time is likely worth 0.75 mana, and we see that we've lost 2 stat points, compared to 3 stat points (from Novice Engineer). On paper, that feels worse than Novice Engineer, BUT, with Nosy Barkeep we also get to see one card in our opponent's hand. Put that all together, and Barkeep looks borderline playable. 

I should mention that this set will certainly include cards that encourage players to build decks around revealing opponent's cards, so there is likely a place for Nosy Barkeep, when cards with that kind of synergy are revealed (later).

Another interesting comparison is with Museum Curator, who sees play in some Priest value decks. The statlines are identical between the two, but with Museum Curator you have a guarantee of getting a Discovery, and with Barkeep you have a likely greater than 50% chance to draw a card from your deck, with the added benefit of getting to look at one of your opponent's cards. The guarantee of Curator is easily better, but it is a class card, where Nosy Barkeep is neutral.

I have no direct lore analogs to mention for this card, other than to say that there are Barkeepers in World of Warcraft, and well... this guy is just paying more attention to what's going on than some of the others. Ultimately I see this card being played in decks that use the Reveal mechanic, or decks that really want to cycle their decks.

Common Pitfalls for Hearthstone Designers

Hello everyone,

I'm back again this week with some thoughts about some of the cards I've posted myself, as well as I've seen posted by others that just don't work, or aren't good for the game. My intent here is to create a resource that can be referenced that explains some bad design patterns and why they are bad. The goal here, just like with my style guide, is to raise the quality of cards posted to /r/customhearthstone.

Let's get into it!

From Azeroth With Love -- Part 2: Setting the Stage

Hello everyone!

Welcome to part 2 of my From Azeroth With Love fan expansion for Hearthstone. In this part we'll talk about the quirky cast of characters, go over the introductory dialogue that sets the adventure up, and introduce two FREE cards that are awarded for purchasing any of the adventure's wings.

Obligatory part 1 link

Welcome to SI:7, Little Fish!

SI:7, aka Stormwind Intelligence is the premier spy agency in Azeroth, responsible for keeping the world safe for king and country. As a person of interest to the SI:7, you've been recruited to uncover a plot that threatens all of Azeroth with its maleficence. Along the way you'll be guided by a number of friends in low places as you perform all kinds of acts of daring do! Below are some brief bios and character notes about the major characters in the mission you've been assigned to:

From Azeroth With Love -- Part 1: Premise and Theme

Hello everyone!

In the past I did a video series on my Ahn'Qiraj Adventure, and while the video series was fun to put together, I found that the r/customhearthstone community didn't really take to the format. For my *New* adventure, tentatively titled "From Azeroth With Love: A Hearthstone Adventure", I thought I'd approach it more in a blog style.

As the first entry in the series this will cover the premise of the adventure, which is inspired by the League of Explorers adventure, as well as the themes and mechanics I will be exploring.