Hearthstone: FelFire Festival Week 1

Introduction

What is the Felfire Festival Week 1? Well, I’m glad you asked. I wasn’t planning on doing any Hearthstone content for the near future. That all changed when I noticed the trailer waiting on my Battlenet client. If you haven’t already, you can watch the trailer below.

I know I’m not usually in the know, but this took me completely by surprise.

If you still haven’t watched the video, what can you expect from Week 1? Well, it’s a pretty big Battlegrounds update. You may remember a couple of weeks ago that I did an article on Battlegrounds because I was semi-obsessed. Well, that semi-obsession went the way of so many of my other semi-obsessions and I haven’t played a single game of Battlegrounds in a couple of weeks. That all looks to change tomorrow. What’s in store for me? If you want to see for yourself, the patch notes are here.

New Heroes

Captain Eudora: I’m not entirely sure what “Dig for a Golden Minion” means. Okay, I just did some digging and after the fourth hero power, it adds a golden minion to the tavern. This is an interesting hero power that you can set up for over multiple turns and get the payoff when you’re at an appropriate tier for a good golden. It is also reusable, so you could conceivably get multiple minions per game. I like it. Goofy and potentially broken. Right in my wheelhouse.

Skycap’n Kragg: While I like the hero power because it basically gives you a free turn of rolls, I don’t feel like it fits the personality of the character. It’s a utilitarian power on a hero that, at least from Hearthstone, feels reckless. Even so, another fun addition.

Captain Hooktusk: Peter Pan reference aside, this one is tough to assess. Initially, I wanted to say that it is a strictly worse Malygos, which is pretty bad to begin with. And, that might prove to be true. However, the discover mechanic (which is again my favorite in all of Hearthstone), makes it less likely that you will whiff. I need to play more with the hero to see if it is any good.

Patches the Pirate: Patches used to be a hero in Battlegrounds. His hero power was terrible. Then, they might have buffed it to bring him back. But, it was still terrible. He’s back again with a completely reworked hero power and it might be slightly less terrible. With a revolving minion pool, at least you’ll be able to avoid it if pirates don’t show up at all in the pool.

New Minions

There are something like 16 or 17 new minions being added to the pool. I’m not going to go over all of them right. It is getting close to dinner and then we are going to go over to the lake after dinner. If I get around to it later, I will leave a placeholder for the other article. You can see my thoughts about the pirates here.

Other Changes

The Rat King‘s hero power will now hit random minions from the beginning instead of constantly starting on beasts. I’m not sure what this does for the hero power other than making it more random. I suppose, by default, that makes it weaker. Since there are now 6 tribes, you can whiff completely from the beginning much more regularly, it would seem. Putricide has been removed from the hero pool. No big loss there. Holy Mackerel is also out of the minion pool. While everyone agrees that Mack was, by far, the strongest minion in the pool, I will miss it. It’s a fun design that, if properly balanced, makes for cool interactions. I will miss you, little Fishman. In any case, I can’t wait to play around with the new stuff for Felfire Festival week 1 starting tomorrow!

Bye, little fish man. You will be missed.

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