Echoes of Thunder Spoiler: New Challengers Approaching!
/Deckbuilding is the deepest part of any TCG, and the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game is no exception. As you likely know, your hero card determines the cards you can play in your deck, and until Tomb of the Forgotten was released in 2012 with five unique dual-class heroes, players were usually forced to choose one single class. At the drawback of losing access to the usual Alliance and Horde cards and powerful talent cards, these heroes turn deckbuilding on its head in the best way, creating powerful new card combinations, allowing a wider breadth of potential combination and often counteracting individual class weaknesses. In Echoes of Thunder, we've taken the opportunity to revisit this idea - with eight new dual-class heroes. Introducing: Dinomancer Akolik!
Druid and Warlock is an interesting combination that raises a lot of new ideas. Accelerating resources with No Mere Dream to increase the destruction of Boundless Hellfire, then healing it all off with Tree of Eternity Form & Hammer of Atonement with Bottled Void. Combining Ancient Moonkin Form with warlock’s plethora of powerful ongoing abilities such as Legacy of Betrayal, and various Everlasting Curse. The possibilities truly are endless. The most obvious advantage of this hero seems to be supplementing the powerful proactive druid cards like The Natural Order and Hibernate with a suite of powerful control cards such as Eye of Kilrogg and Banish to the Nether.
Another card that could fit nicely in an Akolik deck is on its way in Echoes of Thunder: Flaming Cat Form. This form’s power is likely to be magnified when it is especially easy to damage opposing heroes and allies with warlock spells such as Demonic Torrent and Steal Essence.
Next, we have the first ever Monk dual-class hero! Introducing Mojo Stormbrewer!
So far Monk has seen some success in the Core format, but has had trouble competing with the vast card catalogues other classes enjoy. These Dual-class heroes change that! Shaman’s attack power, healing, totems, and utility cards bolster the card pool while newer cards such as Monk’s Mana Tea and Statues such as Imposing Black Ox Statue from Into the Mists. Mojo Stormbrewer may be one of Monk’s best chances at succeeding in Contemporary or Classic. Another way to protect your totems is with a new card introduced in Echoes of Thunder, Stance of the Sturdy Ox. Effectively giving your hero a powered-down version of Sentinel, this ability gives Monks a new tool that properly captures the Brewmaster fantasy – using unpredictability to protect one’s allies.
Mojo is not the only new Monk dual class hero in Echoes of Thunder – introducing Longtooth!
Historically Rogue has been a class known for its strong interactive removal and discard spells. Although it also has a lot of powerful cards to utilise weapons and attacking with your hero, these have often fallen short competitively. Now, with Longtooth, cards such as Stance of the Fierce Tiger from the Siege of Orgrimmar Treasure set can be used to build a powerful deck that attacks on (and/or with) multiple axes. Additionally, a few Monk cards from Into the Mists such as Zen Pilgrimage interact favorably with quests. How does using Diffusing Mists to Rediscover Junkboxes Needed sound? Pretty disgusting, I think you’ll agree. Another card that synergizes well with quests, in the Rogue class, is coming in Echoes of Thunder – Introducing Subterfuge. This card is simple but effective, giving Rogue another tool to interact with their opponents and disable cards allowing them to play abilities without opposing response, and get around protectors and armor.
Five heroes left – next is Remi the Magnificent.
Mage and Shaman have a lot of things in common, so this is a different hero to some of the others. Instead of supplementing the weaknesses of the two classes, Remi allows for a lot of already existing synergies to be strengthened between the two classes. As shown in Hot Streak from Into the Mists, the Fire damage type has a lot of sources and synergies in both Mage and Shaman – but what about Frost? Now Freezing Rain Totem can be used to trigger Nexus Link – and many other synergies. And what of Elementals? Introducing Manafiend from Echoes of Thunder! Both Mage and Shaman have a large quantity of powerful Instant Abilities and Allies; Manafiend is another addition to that list that can be reused and protected with ease, thanks to its own abilities.
Four down, four to go – Introducing Warbringer Lo’Jah!
Lo’jah follows in the footsteps of Kjaran the Callous, but without restrictions on the types of Hunter and Paladin cards that can be combined together. Paladin’s strong Blessing attachments can pump up already powerful pets like Ichabod from Into the Mists, combined with Paladin’s graveyard revives like Redemption. We are very excited to see the combinations you come up with! Speaking of Pets, there’s a new one in Echoes of Thunder we’re really excited about – introducing Anansi! There’s only been one ally with Trap in the game’s history – Hissy – and this card is reminiscent of it, but a lot cheaper when you’re not using the Trap ability. Additionally, Anansi doesn’t care about the size of the opposing ally – she’ll eat them up all the same so long as they are snared in her web.
Three more heroes – the next one being one that will make fans of Equipment decks very excited! Introducing Siltress the Sharpener!
As mentioned earlier in this article, Rogue can have trouble with poison-based and weapon-based decks – but Warrior famously doesn’t! Some of the greatest decks in the game’s history have been armor-centric decks such as Death Wish, and a lot of those decks didn’t use horde or alliance cards anyway! Warrior’s many equipment-tutoring cards such as Keys to the Armory now have a lot of new targets, but looking more recently, Fen-Yu, Fury of Xuen from Into the Mists now greatly increases the power of your warrior weapons, too!
Speaking of Equipment, a new Rogue-exclusive weapon in Echoes of Thunder is on its way – introducing Megaera’s Poisoned Fang! If poison-based decks are going to work, they need a cheap and efficient weapon like this. This one just happens to make your poison cards (such as Flesh Eating Poison from Wrathgate) even cheaper!
With Longtooth and Siltress the Sharpener, the similarities between Rogue, Warrior and Monk – especially centered around hero-based combat – are particularly apparent. It’ll come to no surprise that we’ve closed that triangle of combinations with a Monk/Warrior hero – introducing Zhi-Zhi, the Dextrous.
Think of all the Stances! Similar to Siltress, Zhi-Zhi opens up new exploration of equipment decks – and even is another way of using the aforementioned Fen-Yu in a warrior deck! There’s also the opportunity to utilise Monk’s healing cards to remove damage taken from combat, and a card like Imposing Black Ox Statue from Into the Mists could result in a Protector-heavy deck. What kind of card would be good in a deck like that? Perhaps the new Qian-Ying, Fortitude of Niuzao from Echoes of Thunder.
Remember – this counts your hero. So if you can increase the DEF of this armor with cards such as Polished Breastplate of Valor, Augment Steel, or notably Tusks of Mannoroth, then your hero will grow in power with it. Not bad for a piece of cloth, huh?
One hero remaining. The most eagle-eyed of you will have noticed that the previous seven heroes spoiled today cover nine of the eleven classes in the game – but which two are remaining? Death Knight and Priest, of course. Introducing Dreadweaver Zalratha.
Two classes with a lot of graveyard-mattering cards, and a lot of power. There’s a lot of interesting ways to go about this, but when it comes to recent cards, Death Knight’s Control Undead and Priest’s Confession synergize quite nicely, both from Into the Mists. But what about further afield? Priest has more powerful discard effects throughout the game’s history, and Death Knight similarly has more powerful ways to utilise cards in the graveyards. Imagine discarding a powerful ally from your opponent’s hand only to get your own 5/6 version of it with Skullchewer!
Speaking of utilising allies in the graveyard, our final spoiler card for today is one that is a nice starting point for Dreadweaver Zalratha decks. Introducing Mass Resurrection. Though this can’t bring back Ghoul tokens made by Death Knight cards, it pairs nicely with the previously-spoiled William the Bloody from Echoes of Thunder, and similarly with cards like Daedak the Graveborne from Tomb of the Forgotten.
That’s all for now, but stay tuned for Bálint’s deep dive into the new Monk cards and Monk dual-class heroes. —Keira
