In Hearthstone, a plague is causing a stir that raged 14 years ago in the MMORPG World of Warcraft . An eSports match at Grandmaster level ultimately came down to a game of “Russian Roulette.”
What kind of plague is this? In 2005, “Hakkar” wreaked havoc in WoW. He was the final boss of the Zul’Gurub raid. The fiend was capable of afflicting players with a blood plague that spread to other players. This was originally intended only for the raid.
However, in WoW, players were able to smuggle this plague out of the raid with hunter pets for a while and spread it to cities like Stormwind and Orgrimmar, where countless innocent players died, as there was no cure for the virus.
That was a “legendary” story from the early days of the MMORPG, and Blizzard decided to bring this plague to Hearthstone.
This is how the plague works in Hearthstone: The card “Hakkar the Soulbinder” costs 10 mana and has 9/6 stats. It shuffles the card “Corrupted Blood” into both players’ decks as a Deathrattle. This causes 3 damage when drawn and shuffles two more cards into the deck.
Normally, Hakkar the Soulbinder is only played in very specific decks, but through random effects, the card can find its way into play. Then it suffices for it to die, so that suddenly the Corrupted Blood is in circulation.
In the duel between Jang “Dawn” Hyunjae and Tyler “Tyler” Hoang Nguyen, Hakkar indeed made an appearance.
Intense Moment in Hearthstone eSports
That was “Russian Roulette”: In a recent match of the Grandmasters, the 48 top players in Hearthstone eSports, Grandmaster Dawn played a Mage deck. There is a spell that destroys a minion and summons 2 minions with the same mana cost.
As reported by RockPaperShotgun, thanks to the “Call of the Swarm,” Hakkar and the dragon Emeriss appeared from a sea giant (10 mana).
Both were quickly destroyed by a Warrior Brawl – but now the plague was in both players’ decks. This happened relatively early in the match, and the two continued to play against each other for almost 20 minutes, while health points dwindled, the deck piles became smaller, and the plague became more central.
Quickly, the commentators started calculating the chances of the plague killing one of the two with each turn: “Now the chance is 2:9,” it was said.
At the end of the match, both Grandmasters faced each other with only 3 health points left and the plague cards in the deck. Every draw from the deck became a game of “Russian Roulette”: if the blood plague was drawn, it would be over for that player.
In the final turn, it came down to a showdown, and everything depended on whether DawN would hit the blood plague with the last draw or not.
Tyler and Dawn both clasped their hands together, seemingly praying to the Hearthstone gods for luck.
You can see the moment here:
An incredibly intense moment in Hearthstone that would never have happened if WoW players had stayed germ-free in 2005.
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