BlizzCon 2015: HearthStone League of Explorers Panel

Published: November 6, 2015 8:46 PM /

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Blizzcon logo

Ben Brode in typical loud fashion kicks off the panel with the trailer for The League of Explorers, the new HearthStone Adventure beginning next week with 45 new cards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmu0XXpUYog

The Adventure centres around the search for the Staff of Origination with the 4 members of The League of Explorers seeking the help of the player. The League of Explorers are Brann Bronzebeard, dashing treasure hunter extraordinaire Reno Jackson, brilliant night elf scholar Elise Starseeker, and murloc adventurer Sir Finley Mrrgglton.

The first wing is the Temple of Orsis, and the first boss Zinaar will reward the player with the Jeweled Scarab card, the first card with the Discover keyword.Scarab

Discover presents players with three cards and allows them to choose one. These cards are random cards that your class can play, but are not taken from your deck.

The Boss of this wing gives the player two new cards. The Anubisath Sentinel; a 5 mana 4/4 with the Deathrattle: give a friendly minion +3/+3, one of the most powerful Deathrattles in the game thus far. The other new card is the summoning stone, a 5 mana 0/6 that summons a random minion of the same cost whenever you cast a spell.

After the boss, the next mission doesn't have an opponent, but takes the form of an "escape" from the temple. Rewarding the player with even more cards, including the Legendary Reno Jackson, a strange card that could find a place in fatigue decks.

Reno

The next wing in the League of Explorers is Uldaman, familiar to any WoW veteran. The first new card from Uldaman seeks to buoy the currently weak Shaman class by taking advantage of Overload. 

Trogg

The Legendary from this wing is Brann Bronzebeard himself, a 3 mana 2/4 who makes your Battlecries trigger twice, in a sort of "reverse Baron Rivendare" effect. Excellent for Battlecries like Fire Elemental or Dr. Boom or even Mistcaller.

Towards the end of the Uldaman Wing is another "escape" mission. While not likely to become an important part of constructed HearthStone, these escape encounters look interesting as they are played with a pre-constructed deck, counter to how a typical game is played.

HearthStone Escape

The next wing is Stranglethorn Jungle, with Sir Finley Mrrgglton assisting the player. One of the new cards coming in this wing is Gorillabot A-3, who allows players to Discover a mech if they control a mech. Unimpressive by stats, but could provide an RNG swing piece for current mech decks.

GorillaBot

In the next bunch of cards, hands down the silliest one yet was revealed. Anyfin Can Happen is a 10 mana Paladin spell which summons 7 murlocs that have died this game. Great for a murloc deck that has run out of steam, but I have trouble believing a murloc deck can reach turn 10 (9 with the coin).

Anyfin

The legendary from this wing is Sir Finley himself. A 1 mana 1/3 he lets you Discover a new random hero power from the 9 basic hero powers in the game. It could be an excellent pick or terrible depending on the power options you're given.

Finley

Ben Brode, horrible person that he is, refuses to share what the fourth wing of the Adventure consists of, but hints of a nefarious figure and reveals a new board specifically for that wing. While we don't learn about the encounters, we do get a bunch of new cards revealed!

Elise Starseeker, as revealed earlier, is one (foreshadowing!) Legendary from this wing. She sets off the series of draws that can lead to your entire deck becoming LEGENDARY.

Starseeker

Another neat new card for priest is the Museum Curator. He allows you Discover a Deathrattle minion, displaying the versatility of the Discover keyword.

Curator

Rogues are getting some love in the form of Tomb Pillager, a well statted 4-drop that gives you the Coin on Deathrattle, enabling some more Combos in Rogue.

Tomb Pillager

The final card shown and the last Legendary for this adventure is Arch-Theif Rafaam, a 9 mana 7/8 who lets you discover one Artifact card. The Artifacts are 10 mana spells with incredibly powerful effects. 

Rafaam

Artifacts
Rafaam's Artifacts

The 4 wings will release one per week starting this Thursday, November 12th 2015, with a break in the release schedule the week of Thanksgiving. Blizzard has posted every card over on the HearthStone facebook page, so take a look if you want to see what the Explorer's League has in store for us.

TechRaptor will be there for the launch of The League of Explorers to highlight how this archeological journey shakes up the meta.

Have a tip, or want to point out something we missed? Leave a Comment or e-mail us at tips@techraptor.net


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| Former Staff Writer

Wyatt Hnatiw is a lifelong gamer with a borderline inappropriate love of BioWare RPGs and Bioshock. Maybe he just loves the prefix Bio...