It’s that time of year again, Blizzard has begun announcing the changes that will be implemented in the coming season, Year of the Mammoth. Perhaps the most fitting with the year’s theme is Blizzard’s first expansion Journey to Un’Goro, a 135-card set focusing around DINOSAURS! Here’s what we know so far about new features and new cards coming with Un’Goro.

Quests

One of the biggest changes coming in Un’Goro is the addition of a new card type in the form of Quests. These are 1 mana legendaries that will always be in the player’s opening hand. Each quest will have a task that is difficult for a player to complete, but comes with an immense reward to turn the tide of battle. The first Quest revealed in yesterday’s announcement was Awaken the Makers. Players are tasked with summoning seven death rattle creatures, and in return are given one of Hearthstone’s most insane legendaries to date, Amara, Warden of Hope. This beast of a card is an 8/8 taunt that sets your hero’s health to 40 for 5 mana… I can’t even begin to imagine how broken this card will be, but it all depends on how epic the rest of the quest rewards are going to be. From the announcement video that Blizzard put out yesterday morning, it seems like all quests will be difficult, and contain equally insane rewards. With overpowered cards like Amara, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see Quest cards as necessary in most new standard decks.



Elementals

Next up is Hearthstone’s new tribe, Elementals. The last time Hearthstone introduced a new tribe (e.g. pirates, goblins, etc.) was in Goblins Vs Gnomes over a year ago. Some cards in Hearthstone already fall under the elemental banner (e.g. fire elemental…), and will be changed accordingly. The first card from this tribe revealed for Un’Goro is Pyros, a 2 mana 2/2, which alone would be unimpressive, but its deathrattle: return this to your hand as a 6/6 adds an interesting layer. This 6/6 when killed returns to your hand as a 10/10 for 10 mana in Pyros’s final form. Beyond the fact that you’re getting 3 cards for the price of one of your 30 slots and potential elemental synergy, Pyros doesn’t really seem as great as some of the other cards revealed.

Evolve

Also coming in the Un’Goro expansion is a new card mechanic called Evolve. Creatures with this property will generate 3 special traits (out of a pool of nine) that a player can pick from to enhance their base stats. So far Blizzard has revealed stats that give creatures divine shield, windfury, untargetable by hero powers, spawning 1/1 minions on death, +3 attack and taunt. This mechanic will work like discover, in that the player will see three power choices upon playing a card with evolve, and the creature will immediately take on those properties. Once more I’m interested to see what other card synergies this mechanic will have as other cards from the set are revealed.

Beware the Shaman

The final card that was revealed will benefit one of my favorite classes, Shaman. Volcano is a five mana, overload 2 that deals 15 damage randomly split among all enemies. For those who like praying to the RNG gods, this could be the card for them. Five mad bombers without the board presence, and a pump to overload synergies? This could be an interesting card to play in both aggro shaman and overload shaman decks.

Bonus Round

Overall, Hearthstone’s latest expansion is turning out to be an exciting one. Un’Goro launches early April, and that can’t come soon enough. I’ll continue to post updates as more cards are revealed, but until then, here are some that I would add.