Hearthstone: New Archetypes in Rastakhan’s Rumble

As more cards are revealed by Blizzard, we begin to see new archetypes in Rastakhan’s Rumble. They add interesting and fun ways to manage a game, unique to anything we’ve seen in it before. They are trying to revive some old failed archetypes as well as increase their strength.

Mage

Mage is getting a lot of cards that suggest an archetype of Hero Power or “Ping” Mage. Older cards like Fallen Hero and Coldarra Drake attempted to make viability of a Mage centered around heavy use of the hero power, but there wasn’t enough there. Rastakhan’s Rumble gives a lot more support to the archetype.

Pyromaniac is a three mana 3/4 that draws a card whenever you kill a minion with your hero power. Daring Fire-Eater is a one mana 1/1 that increases your next hero power by two damage on the same turn. Combine this with Spirit of the Dragonhawk, a two mana 0/3 that lets your hero power target adjacent minions, and you are dishing out a lot of damage with your hero power.

This leads us to the reintroduction of Ragnaros the Firelord. Jan’alai, the Dragonhawk, is Mage’s Legendary Loa that will summon Ragnaros on the condition that you have dealt eight damage with your hero power in the current game. Jan’alai itself is a seven mana 4/4, but the condition to get Ragnaros seems relatively easy with all of the new tools that Mage will receive.

There are still some Mage cards yet to be revealed, but so far these cards definitely look like they will help the currently low tier Mage. If anything, it will be a lot more fun to play the Mage class.

Warlock

Most of Warlock’s cards have been revealed now. They point towards two archetypes, and maybe a fusion of both. Most of the cards are trying to capitalize on the discard mechanic. Some of the cards encourage hand buffs, which is not what you want when discarding cards.

The Loa and Spirit for Warlock want you to buff the minions in your hand. This does work well with the other Warlock Legendary, High Priestess Jeklik. When she is discarded, two copies of her get re-added to the hand. With the way that copies of cards work, she will retain any buffs on her new copies after being discarded.

The discard archetype definitely seems like a very minion-based strategy. This is where the card Shriek seems to cause minor confusion. For one mana, you can deal two damage to all minions at the cost of discarding two of your lowest cost cards. Typically, dealing damage to your own minions is not what you want to do.

Then, that brings us to the mechanic of discarding your lowest cost cards. This also greatly improves Warlock, because you can manipulate which cards you will discard, as opposed to completely random. Soulwarden, a six mana 6/6, also allows you to bring back three of those cards that you discarded.

Warrior

Very few cards have been revealed for Warrior so far, but we can get an idea from two of the cards revealed. Once one of the definite top archetypes of the past, Dragon Warrior is making a comeback.

There isn’t a lot of support for neutral dragons right now, which definitely suggests that Warrior will be getting some dragon minions for the class. Smolderhorn Lancer will destroy a damaged minion while you are holding a dragon. Dragon decks of the past were based around tempo, so killing a minion while developing a board is really good.

War Master Voone, one of the legendaries for Warrior, ensures that you will have some gas for the end game. For four mana, as a 4/3 he will add copies of all the dragons in your hand to your hand. It’ll be interesting to see what dragons Warrior does end up getting, as well as some possible neutral dragon minions.

See cards as they get revealed for Rastakhan’s Rumble here. 

Images courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment via their official website.

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