PAX East 2018: The Witchwood Capitalizes on Hearthstone’s Heroes, Dungeon Run, and So Much More

The Witchwood, Blizzard’s new Hearthstone expansion, is live right now.

Based in the cursed city of Gilneas (and the woods surrounding it), The Witchwood brings us 135 new cards, as well as some new keywords and mechanics. One of the biggest points of emphasis in The Witchwood, though,  is on the division of even and odd-cost cards. The Witchwood has a few characters specifically designed to reward players ballsy enough to build a deck using only even or odd-cost cards. One example of this is the great Genn Greymane neutral Legendary card – which reduces the cost of your Hero Power to (1) for the entire game if your deck has only even-cost cards.

Probably my favorite part of The Witchwood expansion is the new single-player mode. I know those of you who haven’t felt like you’ve gotten enough joy from getting the bag beaten out of you in Ranked or Casual play feel me on this one. Monster Hunt takes cues from the Dungeon Run mode last expansion where you’ll fight bosses and collect their bounties to continually build out your deck. That’s coming in about two weeks, so hang tight for that one.

The spooky vibes of the Witchwood set are amplified by the Echo keyword, which creates a copy of the card in your hand when it’s played. As long as you’ve got enough mana, you can repeatedly play that Echo card until your turn is over – at which point the phantom card in your hand vanishes. I’m a big fan of this mechanic in theory, but I have a feeling I’ll be on the recieving end of some BAD beats because of it. One card in particular, Cheap Shot, is a Rogue card that has the power to deal small, direct packets of damage that can be devastating in the late game due to Echo.

Something that might be scarier for some players than even the most frightening cards in the Witchwood, however, is that the Whispers of the Old Gods, One Night in Karazhan, and Mean Streets of Gadgetzan sets are all going wild today, in addition to a slew of old staples making their way to the Hall of Fame. Personally, I won’t miss Ice Block one fucking bit.

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