On October 22nd, the third and final 2023 expansion for Hearthstone was announced. As the developers have hinted, its theme is the Darkmoon Fair, a monthly event that comes straight from World of Warcraft. However, in terms of lore, there are not many intersections with WoW, because the famous Old Gods – C’Thun, N’Zoth, Yogg-Saron and Y’Sharaj became the guests of the holiday in Hearthstone. Cybersport.ru says that the Madness Fair addon will bring to the game.
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Lore additions
The Old Gods first appeared in Hearthstone in 2016 with the Old Gods Awakening expansion. It was then that some of the most powerful and fearsome creatures from the Warcraft universe were first introduced to the CCG. As the old people remember, the legendary cards of the gods were backbone in the decks. Now everything should be repeated.
Did you miss this handsome man?
Before the announcement of the add-on, we were lucky enough to talk with the developers. Team 5 said that they have long wanted to revisit one of Hearthstone’s most landmark updates. The Old Gods in the 2023 version are an homage to the original design, but technically, of course, they will be different.
As the developers have already said more than once, the upcoming updates will not be linked by a single timeline, so there is no point in looking for parallels with the 2016 add-on. All of this is a loose interpretation of World of Warcraft lore. In short, for the holiday that Silas New Moon regularly organizes, everyone’s favorite creatures, created by the Lords of the Abyss, suddenly arrived.
New mechanics
Team 5 does not betray itself: in the “Fair of Madness” new unusual mechanics await players again. The main one is cards with a new keyword “Corruption”… They will get stronger (if in hand) as you play more expensive cards.
For example, let’s take the shaman’s card “Chan with water”. It costs four mana, and its effect is to deal four damage. If you can inflict “Corruption” on it, then in addition the card will inflict two units of damage to all enemy heroes. In short, it is a combination of the effects of “Starfall”, but stronger. “Corruption” will be applied to the card only once – the effect will not stack.
Creatures will also have the Corruption effect. Let’s say the Pearl Elekk has 4/4 characteristics and the Onslaught property for five mana units. If you manage to activate “Corruption”, then the minion will additionally receive +4 to attack and +4 to health. It looks very strong on paper.
Source: Blizzard
For the Old Gods, the effects will be somewhat similar to those in the original expansion. For example, K’Tun at the beginning of the match will split into six parts – if you collect them, then with a battle cry the creature will inflict as much as 30 points of damage, randomly distributed among opponents.
Likewise, Yogg-Saron will apparently cast random spells if you used 13 spells before casting a creature. Y’Shaarj will put copies of all Corrupted cards in his hand, and they will cost zero mana this turn – while this is the first card in three 2023 expansions that allows cheating with mana in this way.
N’Zoth also has an interesting effect. This time, he will not resurrect minions with death rattles, but one deceased creature of each type – that is, one demon, one beast, one elemental, etc.
But the most interesting of the announced cards so far looks like Silas New Moon – in fact, the one who organized the holiday. This is a 4/4 creature that costs seven mana and … moves ALL minions in the chosen direction. This means that you can steal enemy creatures and give him unnecessary minions. Whether this will work effectively is a big question, but the mechanics at least look unusual.
Source: Blizzard
And these are just the first of the announced cards. The developers are keeping a lot of things so far, but in a conversation with journalists, they urged to wait for new surprises. It looks like we will be introduced to even heavier strong cards.
Where will the meta move with the update?
The pressing question for those conquering the legend is where will the meta move with the new expansion? Team 5 is also very excited about this topic. And although “broken” ultra-strong cards like Zephris the Great and Queen Alexstrasza are unlikely to be expected, new cards should shift the meta towards more late archetypes. At least that’s what the developers hope for.
The strongest decks in the meta right now are agro hunters (normal and demon). Rexxar has a lot of cheap creatures, secrets and ways to go in the face, and Illidan has healed on soul fragments and cards for face damage. Blizzard wants to release these archetypes a bit.
As the developers admitted in a conversation with reporters, their task is to make the games a little longer. This is why they are bringing in a lot of powerful tempo cards (and effective sweeps) in the third expansion of the year. There is a possibility that the demon hunter and the classic hunter will now fade into the background.
Source: Blizzard
What archetypes will play is a huge question. The developers themselves do not know who will become the main imba. But the representatives of Team 5 admitted that they see potential in the warlock with I’Shaarj, the warrior with N’Zoth, and also accurately named the paladin with N’Zot as a potential dark horse of the meta.
In “Madness Fair” Team 5 tries to make new archetypes, unusual for ladder lovers, playable. Whether it will work out is a big question, but so far even the first of the announced cards look many times stronger than many of those that were added to Hearthstone with Ruins of Outland and Scholomance. So there are chances.
