One of the most iconic characters in Hearthstone history: the famed explorer and artifact collector, Reno Jackson , is returning to Hearthstone in the game’s next set of cards – Saviors of Uldum , and Blizzard has just revealed the card itself – Reno the Relicologist – during a panel at San Diego Comic Con.

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Reno’s Statline "If we can be consistent, we try to be, it’s nice to keep the little tidbits of characters from the top, so having Reno be a 4/6 – if the design can support it – is kind of just a nice nod. In terms of the timing that you want Reno to be showing up in a game with the effect that we ended up having, six mana was a pretty good timing for that effect. It’s the time that you want a board clear, it’s going to make a huge impact, but it’s not going to be so swinging, like in the super early game if you’re playing, say, an aggro deck or something like that. So we thought that six mana was around the right range and why not make it a 4/6, right? We’re able to keep up with a little bit of that consistency, it’s kind of the same character." - Dean Ayala





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Work in progress versions of the new Reno.

What a crew!

As expected, Reno the Relicologist continues the tradition of Reno being associated with “no duplicates” decks in which you restrict your deck to only one copy of each card in order to get a big pay-off.In this instance, that’s the potential of a board clear on turn six - sending TEN damage flying at enemy minions, with a 4/6 to boot - as well as the general utility of having an additional AOE effect in a deck where you can only run one copy of cards like Blizzard or Flamestrike “Having a board clear around turn six is very powerful,” Hearthstone's Lead Final Designer Dean Ayala tells me. “It doesn’t swing the game like crazy – like, ‘oh you’re definitely going to win now because you summoned a whole board full of minions’ or something. It brings you back into the game and gives you a reset point and gives that deck a chance to fight it out after that.”It’s certainly a powerful card, but what kind of deck might Reno the Relicologist go in? “It’s generally pretty value-oriented,” Dean explains. “One of the downsides of playing a no duplicates deck is that you have to reach a little bit wider, so your strategy isn’t really concentrated on any one specific thing. You just take a whole bunch of cards that are pretty good in their own right… cards that you wouldn’t normally take, with the advantage of being able to include cards like Reno and any other no duplicate cards that we might do.“Having that combination, it’s really hard to have a very concentrated deck [geared] towards a very particular strategy, so you end up with a lot of resource generation cards, [as well as] like, the best taunt card that you can find, in addition to whatever Mage cards are really powerful. You end up having stuff like Blizzard , because it’s pretty powerful, you’re adding stuff like Frost Nova and you end up with a control style deck with some resource generation, and sometimes that leads you towards a very interesting version of a deck that already exists.“There’s Conjurer Mage , right? There’s certainly going to be some version that’s like – what is half of Conjurer Mage, because you can only have one copy of each card? So what does that deck look like when I only include one copy of each of those cards, I include the Reno card and then on top of that I have to find 12 new cards to fit in? Is that version better than the current Conjurer Mage? I think any time you see a Mage archetype people will go through that same thought process of – what does it look like if I made this deck into a no duplicates deck?”Whether a more value-oriented strategy will be better than something like Conjurer Mage, which is capable of efficiently building several boards full of big minions, remains to be seen. If Bomb Warrior is prominent in the meta that's going to be a big issue too, as their bombs can switch off your "no duplicates" status. And while the pay-off of Reno the Relicologist is certainly good, it may not be enough to justify making the rest of your deck that much weaker. But maybe that’s not the point. “I think the no duplicates decks are just super fun,” comments Dean. “One of the big advantages you have when you have 30 different cards in your deck, is your experience game to game tends to be very different, because of the nature of how you draw your cards. Everything that happens is a lot less consistent. It’s one of the biggest downsides in terms of the power of the deck, but in terms of how much fun you’re having, game to game… not only playing it, but when you’re playing against a no duplicates deck, your experience from game to game is actually quite a bit different.”I’m hoping there may be one or two other explicit “no duplicates” cards to be revealed, but Team 5 wouldn’t be drawn on whether those cards are coming or not. That said, this set may be just the beginning for new school Reno Mage, as if the deck “didn’t reach the power level that we wanted it’s something we would probably support in the future just because we think it’s fun,” Dean tells me.And yes, Reno is a Mage now. Whereas the original cards starring the iconic League of Explorers characters were neutral – and could thus be used by any class – this time around each has been assigned one of the “good guy” classes as part of the year’s overarching narrative, following on from the “bad guy” classes established in Rise of Shadows . So how did Reno wind up in Mage; a class that isn’t necessarily a natural fit for him, wielding a “Gatling wand” no less?“Reno really matches up with the artifact he’s found,” says Game Designer Alec Dawson. “We think of Reno as a character who, whatever he’s doing, whatever artifact he has in his hand, that’s his identity in a sense. He’s picked up this Gatling wand so now of course he’s this fantastical mage.”“It’s funny because [when] you’re pitching this stuff to other designers and to other teams," Dean says, "...we don’t always have the art there, we don’t always have the flavour matched up, so I think when you pitch Reno, and you’re like – Reno is going to be in Mage - everyone raises their eyebrows and is like, well, what’s the deal with that?”“We had a story we were pretty excited about,” he continues. “Our creative director Ben Thompson explained to us the idea of this Gatling wand and how it fits, because Reno kind of steals artifacts, and he doesn’t really know what he’s doing with it, he just kind of picks it up and starts firing it, and that theme - even though maybe wands and magic don’t necessarily fit Reno’s kit - in terms of his character, that story really fits his kit… We found a story that we really liked and we thought that Mage was a cool place to tell that story.”Reno was in Mage from very early on in the set’s design, but his card changed a great deal. “He went through a few iterations,” says Alec. “We thought about the Gatling wand the whole time, but some of the earlier designs we had were ‘cast ten random Mage spells at enemies’… which ended up being the Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron in some light. Another one had ‘shoot three spells from Reno’s Gatling wand’ – these special spells we were thinking of. And for a bit we had ‘Discover three spells’ but I think what the deck really wanted was the ability that we ended up with.”All in all, it’s cool to see Reno back in the game, and for Team 5 to get another shot at doing some fun stuff with the character. The voice of Reno, T ravis Willingham – who you may know from Fullmetal Alchemist or Critical Role - was also jazzed to be back. He’s brings an infectious energy to the character, and has enjoyed seeing him evolve and be fleshed out more.“In his first version, Reno was very centered on himself,” he tells me. “He was almost like a solo operator and that worked A-OK for him. In this version of League of Explorers, the Saviors of Uldum, he's sort of working with a team. He's looking out for other people… any time you get to visit a character for a second time like this, you're also going to get to know them better and Blizzard is so amazing about rounding out their characters with fantastic writing and really finding a cool and unique way to piece together these unique personalities in a way that forms a team that you're looking forward to play with for hours and hours on end.”You can read the rest of my conversation with Travis here , but for now, I'll leave you with the other cards announced during the panel - the other League of Explorers members!Saviors of Uldum is out on August 6 (August 7 AEST/NZST).

Cam Shea is Editor in Chief for IGN's Australian content team and knows a thing or two about Conjurer Mage. He's on Twitter