Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

Every Hearthstone expansion adds new effects which make the game a bit more complex. With each one, players get a slew of new options, and the idea of a decent AI to play against solo recedes a little further.

Trying to come up with code to help the computer make sensible decisions must be a nightmare for the poor developers at Blizzard.

So for League of Explorers, the third solitaire expansion for the game, they've taken a different tack. It's still mainly the one on one boss fights fans have come to know and be largely indifferent to. But there's a new kind of level which is a race against time.

These are fantastic fun. You're given a fixed deck and have ten turns to survive an onslaught of whatever the level throws at you.

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

They're imaginative, tense and exciting, if a bit too easy. Once you've played a challenge once you know what's coming and can plan accordingly. Once you've beaten it once, there's little replay value.

They're totally appropriate for an expansion loosely based on Indiana Jones. Given that they're the highlight, it's a shame there's only two of them across four wings.

Horrible bosses

The majority of the other boss fights are disappointing. Even novice players should be able to beat most of them with a simple aggro deck.

Things improve in the final wing with a couple of interesting encounters that need creative decks to beat. Yet most of it is a breeze.

Someone will no doubt shout out that really, the expansion is all about the cards. In which case you wonder why Blizzard bother wrapping them in an adventure framework in the first place. But let's take a look at what's on offer.

Hearthstone expansions traditionally feature a new mechanic. This time we get Discover. This gives you an extra draw, letting you choose between three random cards of a particular type. So the Tomb Spider lets you "discover a beast" while the Jewelled Scarab allows you to "discover a 3-cost card".

Discover smells a little of desperation. Each expansion up until now has had a new mechanic which made a fair stab at changing the way people play.

Discover doesn't, other than the fact it lets you draw cards outside your deck. In fact there's already a Hunter card, Tracking, that does something similar with the cards atop the deck.

Smells fishy

There's another Discover on offer, in the wet and fishy shape of Sir Finley Mrrgglton. He helps you discover a brand new hero power from a random choice of three. He also advertises that Murlocs are a big theme for this expansion.

Blizzard seem to be fond of encouraging players to build decks themed around certain archetypes. Last time it was Demons, before that it was Mechs.

It's always good to see more flavourful decks, and there are opportunities here to buff neglected classes like Shaman. Warrior has also gotten a boost from the class cards here, leading toward a better balanced game.

Beyond these welcome tweaks there doesn't, right now, seem to be any other real standout cards. Everyone was salivating over Kel-Thuzad in Naxxramas and Emperor Thaurissan in Blackrock but there's no equivalent here.

The final card you get, Arch-Thief Rafaam, should be good in greedy control decks, but that's pretty niche.

Small treasures

That isn't to say there's nothing of value. Unearthed Raptor should give Rogue decks a whole new archetype. And the new legendaries Elise Starseeker and Reno Jackson also have the potential for novel builds.

However, we're still looking at uncommon speciality decks here. There's nothing that's going to transform the game.

Perhaps that's what Hearthstone needs right now. After two expansions in three months, maybe a bit of stability is welcome. As are some unusual new cards and improved balance.

But as a long-term player, it's hard to shake the feeling that maybe the Blizzard design team are finally beginning to run out of card-fu.