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Hearthstone
Hearthhead 2015: Hearthstone Cards of the Year
The year of 2015 was filled to the brim with Hearthstone content. From the launch of the game on Android and iOS, to the revelation of Tavern Brawls, alternate heroes, and much more. Two adventures and one expansion released in Blackrock Mountain, League of Explorers, and The Grand Tournament, respectively, totaling more than 200 new cards. And with the dawn of Winter Veil the year is ready to come to a close. But looking back, only one card can stand out as the best. We spoke with a bunch of professional players, streamers, and personalities to select their top three out of our field of nominees. They are as follows:
Hearthstone
Revisiting Solo Adventures with Grand Tournament Cards
There's always something immensely enjoyable about taking newly released cards and bringing them back to a time to challenges that were created before they existed. We did exactly this for three of the more infamous encounters with a bunch of Grand Tournament cards and each time we ended up with the victory.
Heroic Naxxramas
You may remember the
Heroic Loatheb
challenge as the one with all the s. Dealing with early aggression and the consistent damage from his hero power is usually the biggest challenge. As such, we added TGT cards like , , and to keep you alive. Since all but two of his minions cost four or less mana, winning Jousts should really be no problem and they'll keep you alive in the Tempo game.
is a surprisingly good card in adventures so you'll probably see him in most future decks. In 's case, this forces him to decide between playing a bunch of cards or reducing his field presence for a hero power activation. is simply a way to get more of a board presence before you ping off his s.
We revisit a few Blackrock Mountain bosses after the jump.
Hearthstone
The Angry Chicken #83
On the latest episode of The Angry Chicken podcast, the TAC crew talked about the
new hybrid Hunter
deck that is seeing a lot of play on the ladder. Also discussed was the
new patch
that brought in the Heroes of the Storm card back (even if we can't get it yet), the HTC Invitational tournament that took place over the weekend, and plenty of community submissions.
Continue reading for more show details!
Hearthstone
Blizzard Developers on Blackrock Mountain's Encounters
IGN
recently got to interview Hearthstone developers Ben Brode and Mike Donais about the
Blackrock Mountain Adventure Mode
. The interview focuses on some of the encounters that players faced such as , and . We've highlighted some interesting points below.
Blackrock Mountain Goals
The team wanted to create a large number of fights that forced players to build a special deck for Heroic mode. Fights such as and accomplished this goal by creating interesting encounter mechanics and hero powers.
Normal modes were tuned slightly easier than Naxxramas since some casual players had a lot of difficulty defeating them.
Ben Brode mentions that the team is trying to make the adventures replayed more often and achievements are one possibility to make that happen.
Specific Encounter Ideas
The Mage Class Challenge deck, inspired by the Naxxramas Hunter Class challenge, was made using only Unstable Portals because it was simply fun.
The team experimented with different amounts of s in 's deck and also had a version where Majordomo Executus had more health so that Molten Giants would be played earlier.
didn't have any unique qualities in his Warcraft encounter so the team was able to come up with a unique mechanical identity for his character in Hearthstone.
In the encounter, the team had trouble with Moira's AI because she would just attack taunts and die. They tried to fix it but decided to write that exact mechanic on her card text instead.
The team wanted to have the fight give a powerful bonus to the player during the encounter, similar to the Warcraft encounter. They decided to give you an extra 2 cards a turn, so you would never have to worry about topdecking and had multiple options every turn.
In an early version of , the cards that buff your opponent's cards originally debuffed the player's cards instead. The team felt that not being able to play out your strategy was really unfun, so they changed to to help your opponent instead.
Mike Donais states that they learned about buffing and debuffing players from the cards but he is unsure if they will have these mechanics outside of Adventure mode.
In an early version of the Omnotron Defense System encounter, there would only be two Trons up at a time (summoning a third would destroy the first), similar to the Warcraft Encounter. However, they felt it wasn't interesting enough and too complicated so the team changed it.
In an early idea for the fight, Nefarian shot one fireball at your face every 5 seconds in the air phase.
The encounter went through many implementations as the team attempted to incorporate mind control. In the end, they removed the mind control aspect of the fight, and focused the encounter on the corrupted eggs.
Hearthstone
The Angry Chicken #82
On the newest episode of The Angry Chicken, the crew is blown away by Hearthstone's latest milestone of
hitting 30 million players
. Also discussed this week is the
Hearthstone card back mount coming to Heroes of the Storm
, the other cross-game items we will be seeing soon, the Challengestone tournament, Flamewaker Tempo Mage strategy, and listeners emails/crazy game stories. This week's episode has some stronger language than usual, so just be warned if you've grown accustomed to the usual PG-13 nature of the show.
Continue reading for more show details!
Hearthstone
The Angry Chicken #81
On the latest episode of The Angry Chicken, the crew talks Blackrock Mountain as a whole and how their experience has been with Hearthstone's second Adventure. There was also talk of the recent Ladder Marathon event, Team Archon's leaked $250,000 tournament, discussion of why Dragon Paladin seems to be struggling, and plenty of community input as well.
Continue reading for more show details!
Hearthstone
Blackrock Mountain - Hidden Laboratory Guide
Hidden Laboratory, the final wing of the Blackrock Mountain adventure mode was released today and players can now face
,
,
and
. The wing is available for 700 gold or $6.99 (5.99 EUR / 4.99 GBP). Below, we'll be giving a brief overview of the encounters and their deck lists. If you missed it, don't forget to check out our
Blackrock Depths guide
, our
Molten Core guide
, our
Blackrock Spire guide
and our
Blackwing Lair guide
.
If you're looking for a deck, you can
filter for a particular deck designed to defeat a particular boss
for any boss in Blackrock Mountain.
For defeating the Hidden Laboratory on normal mode, you will receive the following cards: , , , and . The Paladin class challenge has been released as well which will reward .
Hearthstone
The Angry Chicken #79
On the newest episode of The Angry Chicken, Dills is back and the whole crew is here to talk Blackrock Mountain's fourth wing,
Blackwing Lair
. Also discussed was Ben Brode's recent interview about designing boss fights, why some pro-players were banned from the World Championship, deck building, and many listener submissions
Continue reading for more show details!
Hearthstone
Blackrock Mountain - Hidden Laboratory Preview
This Thursday, the final wing of Blackrock Mountain will open! This week, players will fight four new bosses in Nefarian's Hidden Laboratory to take down Nefarian once and for all. Unlike the other wings which were modelled after raids that were released in Classic Warcraft, the Hidden Laboratory is modelled after the first raid in Warcraft's Cataclysm expansion,
Blackwing Descent
. The bosses for this week are
,
and
.
For clearing the Hidden Laboratory on normal mode, you will receive the following cards: , , , and . The Paladin class challenge will be released as well which will reward for defeating it.
Hearthhead will release our final Blackrock Mountain guide this Thursday with the Hidden Laboratory. If you missed our previous boss guides, you can check out our
Blackrock Depths guide
, our
Molten Core guide
, our
Blackrock Spire guide
or our
Blackwing Lair guide
.
Hearthstone
The Return of the Freeze Mage: The Emperor Strikes Back
Once upon a time the Hearthstone meta was dominated by Mages. Every archetype of Mage was top tier and that was because of the pre-nerf mana cost of some powerful spells as well as the lack of healing in Hearthstone. It seems crazy these days to think that not only did Mages have access to 8-mana but that all of the spells cost one mana less. This meant that Freeze Mage could start freezing your board on turn 2 and never let a single minion attack go through. Needless to say this was incredibly frustrating to play against and Blizzard decided to nerf all of the freeze spells by one mana in the name of fun. Freeze Mage was still viable but definitely became a much more balanced deck.
Enter the Black Rock Mountain adventure and a single Dark Iron Dwarf by the name of . His ability is one that was looked at as potentially game breaking before anyone had a chance to play with the card as he can essentially un-nerf certain cards. However, in practice, the card has not proven to be overpowered but does in certain decks provide a large amount of value. In my opinions Freeze Mage is the best equipped deck in the game to take advantage of the mana reduction that Thaurissan provides for a few reasons. Freeze Mage often has a very large hand since it features a high amount of drawing cards and also, the power of the Freeze Mage is in the ability to do large amounts of burst damage using a sequence of burn spells. Those spells costing less mana means that more of them can be fit into the same turn allowing for larger amounts of sudden damage.
Let's take a look at the deck and break down each card's place in the deck and then we'll discuss some important combos and possible replacements as well as general game strategy.
Hearthstone
Blackrock Mountain - Blackwing Lair Guide
Blackwing Lair, the fourth wing of the Blackrock Mountain adventure mode was released today and players can now face
,
,
and
. The wing is available for 700 gold or $6.99 (5.99 EUR / 4.99 GBP). Below, we'll be giving a brief overview of the encounters and their deck lists. If you missed it, don't forget to check out our
Blackrock Depths guide
, our
Molten Core guide
and our
Blackrock Spire guide
.
You can view next week's bosses and hero powers in our
full list of Blackrock Mountain bosses and hero powers.
If you're looking for a deck, you can
filter for a particular deck designed to defeat a particular boss
.
Don't forget to get your free classic card pack by
playing a game on an iPhone or Android device
.
For defeating Blackwing Lair on normal mode, you'll receive the following cards: , , , and . You will then unlock the Warlock and Rogue class challenges which will reward and upon defeat.
Hearthstone
Blackrock Mountain Fallout #2: Ranked Hearthstone after BRM Week 2 & 3
With Molten Core and Blackrock Spire released we are now past the halfway point with only two wings remaining. Blackrock Mountain has shaken things up like many of us had hoped. Many new decks have emerged, and some existing archetypes have received some new tweaks. Lets take a look at some of the most popular decks utilizing BRM cards.
New Zoolock
When I wrote about
last month
, Zoolock wasn’t on my mind because Demonlock was the new craze. But Zoolock is back after Warlocks were gifted with this 3-drop that instantly put out of a job. This beefy imp comes into play with one more Health upfront than the Golem and has the chance to outperform the Mech by filling the board with 1/1 tokens.
I like the
Zoolock deck Firebat used in the Gfinity Hearthstone Spring Masters tournament
. It still has an insane amount of low-drops (ten 1-drops and ten 2-drops), but there’s some inclusions that set it apart from other Zoolocks. Any deck that includes piques my interest, and the bring a lot of finishing power to this deck type.
Mulligans
Starting out is all about the low-drops, as has always been the case with Zoo. I would definitely keep Imp Gang Boss if you also draw a 1 and a 2 drop (so you can curve out nicely), or if you get the coin. Throw back if you don’t draw any activators, but if you see an keep that egg. should also be thrown back since it is a card you want later on in the game (except against Hunter).
Gameplay
There really isn’t anything new to say about playing regular Zoolock. This deck lives by it’s curve. With so many low-drops this deck will consistently have minions to play each and every turn.
Kolento has a Demon Zoolock
that is a hybrid of Zoo and Demonlock. This deck has a slightly less aggressive curve (though there are still 19 cards that are 3 Mana or under). and bring a beefy endgame to a rather aggressive deck. gives another way to activate Nerubian Egg (on top of Abusive Sergeant and ), and is just fun to play with. Imp Gang Boss’ tokens also give the Terror another way to pump itself up if you want. If you have Mal’Ganis I would highly recommend taking this deck for a spin.
Continue reading for more BRM decks!
Hearthstone
The Angry Chicken #77 & #78
On the newest episode of The Angry Chicken, the crew is joined by guest host Callum Leslie, from Daily Dot eSports, to talk about the recent Kinguin for Charity tournament that he casted. Also discussed was the Gfinity Spring Masters,
how non-collegiate players can get the TeSPA card back
, the new Patron Warrior decks, and many listener submissions.
Continue reading for more show details!
Hearthstone
Blackrock Mountain: Blackwing Lair Overview
This Thursday, the fourth wing of Blackrock Mountain will open! This week, players will fight four new bosses in Blackwing Lair with the final boss being Nefarian. The bosses for this week are
,
and
.
For clearing all the Blackrock Lair bosses on normal mode, you will receive the following cards: , , , and . This week's class challenges are Warlock and Rogue which will reward and for defeating them.
Hearthhead will continue our Blackrock Mountain boss guides this Thursday with Blackwing Lair. If you missed our previous boss guides, you can check out our
Blackrock Depths guide
, our
Molten Core guide
or our
Blackrock Spire guide
.
Hearthstone
Blackrock Mountain - Blackrock Spire Guide
Blackrock Spire, the third wing of the Blackrock Mountain adventure mode was released today and players can now face
,
and
. The wing is available for 700 gold or $6.99 (5.99 EUR / 4.99 GBP). Below, we'll be giving a brief overview of the encounters and their deck lists. If you missed it, don't forget to check out our
Blackrock Depths guide
and
Molten Core guide.
You can view upcoming bosses and hero powers in our
full list of Blackrock Mountain bosses and hero powers.
If you're looking for a deck, you can
filter for a particular deck designed to defeat a particular boss
.
If you missed it, don't forget to get your free classic card pack by
playing a game on an iPhone or Android device
.
For defeating Blackrock Spire on normal mode, you'll receive the following cards: , , and . You will then unlock the Priest and Druid class challenges which will reward and upon defeat.
Hearthstone
Blackrock Mountain: Blackrock Spire Overview
This Thursday, the third wing of Blackrock Mountain will open! This week, players will fight three new bosses as they push through the Blackrock Spire. The bosses for this week are
,
, and
.
For clearing all the Blackrock Spire bosses on normal mode, you will receive the following cards: , , and . This week's class challenges are priest and druid which will reward and for defeating them.
Hearthhead will have our Blackrock Spire guide this Thursday with encounter overviews and deck lists to help you defeat Rend Blackhand and his minions. If you missed the previous week's wings, you can check out our
Blackrock Depths guide
or our
Molten Core guide.
Hearthstone
Blackrock Mountain - Molten Core Guide
Molten Core, the second wing of the Blackrock Mountain adventure mode, was released today and players can now face
,
,
and
. The wing is available for 700 gold or $6.99 (5.99 EUR / 4.99 GBP). Below, we'll be giving a brief overview of the encounters and their deck lists. If you missed it, don't forget to check out last week's
Blackrock Depths guide
.
You can view upcoming bosses and hero powers in our
full list of Blackrock Mountain bosses and hero powers.
If you're looking for a deck, you can
filter for a particular deck designed to defeat a particular boss
.
For defeating Molten Core on normal mode, you'll receive the following cards: , , and . You will then unlock the Warrior and Shaman class challenges which will reward and upon defeat.
Hearthstone
The Angry Chicken #76: "Into the Depths"
On the newest episode of The Angry Chicken, the crew talks about their experiences with Blackrock Mountain's first wing, Blackrock Depths. Also discussed was how strong is, the prevalence of the new
Patron Warrior and Mill Rogue decks
, the and fix, and plenty of listener submissions.
Molten Core, the second wing of Blackrock Mountain, will be opening today. Check out our
Molten Core preview
to prepare for the next step in Hearthstone's new adventure!
Continue reading for more show details!
Hearthstone
Blackrock Mountain Fallout #1: Ranked Hearthstone after BRM Week 1
Dust off your Solo Adventures button, Blackrock Mountain is finally here! Well the first wing, Blackrock Depths, is anyway. With it came came six new cards: the (from defeating Coren Direbrew), the Rogue card (from defeating The Dark Iron Arena), Priest’s and our first BRM Legendary (from defeating.... well the Emperor himself), and the Mage’s and for Hunter (from the two class challenges).
Grim Patron, Gang Up, and Emperor Thaurissan are seeing heavy play in Ranked at the moment. Emperor Thaurissan is probably the most widely used across many different decks and classes. The Emperor’s ability is one of the strongest we have ever seen in Hearthstone. Even if Thaurissan is removed before getting a swing in, he still discounts your entire hand and soaks up a minion or removal spell in the process. The Grim Patron has turned Hearthstone into a scene from Road House even if he isn’t as dreamy as the late, great Swayze. Gang Up, while only available for Rogues, has had a profound effect on the class and the rest of us unlucky enough to come up against a Mill Rogue.
Read on to see some of the most popular post-Blackrock Depths deck lists!
Hearthstone
Blackrock Mountain: Molten Core Preview
This Thursday, the second wing of the Blackrock Mountain adventure mode will be released! This week, players will delve through the depths of Molten Core to face , , and .
For defeating this week's bosses you'll receive the following cards: , , and . This week's class challenges are warrior and shaman which will reward and upon defeat.
We'll also have our Molten Core guide this Thursday with encounter overviews and the bosses deck lists similar to last week's
Blackrock Depths guide
. You can also
find decks designed to defeat Blackrock Mountain bosses
by adding the appropriate boss encounter filter.
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