A new card in Hearthstone pushes the boundaries of what’s possible. Because those who want to play it have to be quite tricky.
A few days ago, the new expansion “The Great Dark Expanse” launched in Hearthstone. As the name suggests, it is about the cosmos, spaceships, and all the possible horrors that hide in the depths of space. One of the highlights is a card that is more expensive than any other in the game. Because anyone who wants to play it must raise a whopping 100 mana – at least if they don’t reduce the cost beforehand.
What kind of card is this? The neutral, legendary card is named “The Infinite Expanse.” It costs a whopping 100 mana crystals to play and comes with the battle cry: “Destroy all other minions.” It is therefore a “board clear” and cleans up quite thoroughly.
However, there are multiple mechanics to reduce the card’s costs before playing it, as the card text reveals further:
“Costs (1) less for each card drawn, played, or destroyed.”
This effect counts for both your own and your opponent’s cards. So, if you destroy 7 enemy minions, the cost of “The Infinite Expanse” decreases by 7 mana.
Thus, the card’s costs can be reduced multiple times each turn, making it eventually playable after a few turns. If you can also reduce the costs of cards in your deck or in your hand in other ways, the benefit increases further.
Why is this special? Usually, both opponents in Hearthstone can only have a maximum of 10 mana. While there are some cards that can increase this limit – to 11, 13, or even 20, it usually ends there. Playing a card that costs 100 mana is therefore practically impossible. This is only possible if the costs of the card are massively reduced beforehand.
If you manage to do that, then “The Infinite Expanse” is quite devastating. Not only does it completely clear the battlefield, but its powerful body of 15 / 15 also ensures that the minion can win the game within two turns – at least if it is not removed or weakened in some way.
What else is in the expansion? Besides a lot of “crazier” cards, there are also some innovations in “The Great Dark Expanse.” For example, Draenei are now their own type of minion (“Tribe”) and can therefore benefit from synergy effects. Additionally, the expansion allows characters to build a spaceship from several individual parts and then launch it – thus creating an extremely powerful minion according to their wishes.
Although there are regularly new contents, Hearthstone has been under criticism for quite some time. Recently, the developers have started to offer cosmetic items at horrendous prices – sometimes even with fewer features than the standard cosmetics.
