A look at some of Kobolds and Catacombs’ new Hearthstone cards

Hearthstone’s next expansion will be with us next month, and Blizzard has already given us a glimpse of some of the new cards it will deliver.

The most ridiculous offerings come from the free PvE Dungeon Run mode. Luckily these won’t feature in the main game, as their effects are quite extreme. The Rod of Roasting, for instance, allows a player to cast the Pyroblast spell “randomly until a hero dies”. It’s a 10-mana gamble, but with a 50/50 chance of instant success. Also in the Dungeon Run selection is Wish, which for 10-mana not only fully restores your hero but also fills your board with Legendary minions.

Kobolds and Catacombs proper, fortunately, is a more reasonable affair. All players who log into the game from next week will receive a free copy of Legendary card Marin the Fox. The 8-mana 6/6 card will place a 0/8 treasure chest on your opponent’s board. Break it and you’ll be rewarded with “awesome loot”. You’d better hope your opponent isn’t a Priest playing Inner Fire, however, or that loot becomes a potentially 8+ damaging enemy.

The awesome loot in question can be one of four cards – Golden Kobold (a 3-mana 6/6 with Taunt that replaces your hand with Legendaries), Tolin’s Goblet (3-mana, draws a card and fills your hand with copies of it – a potential burn problem if a high-value card is drawn), Wondrous Wand (3-mana, draws three cards and reduces their cost to zero – absolutely great value) and Zarog’s Crown (3-mana, discover a Legendary minion and summon two copies of it, with the discover mechanic giving the player some tactical say).

Other cards include the 10-mana Warlock card Azari the Devourer, which actually destroys an opponent’s deck, leaving them only with whatever’s in their hands at the time. This seems insanely powerful, although it requires a 41-mana Quest to unlock so is reasonably tricky to trigger.

Also revealed is the 5-mana 4/6 Carnivorous Cube, which destroys a friendly minion only to resummons two copies of it upon death.

The new mechanic being introduced this expansion is Recruit, which allows players to summon minions from their deck. Each hero will also be getting a Legendary weapon, the first of which is the 3-mana Dragon Soul for Priest. This will summon a 5/5 Dragon whenever three spells are cast in a single turn.