In the latest Hearthstone expansion, the developers boldly take a card from another game – and this time in minute detail!
Hearthstone, Blizzard’s successful collectible card game, is on the verge of releasing its latest expansion. Tonight (12/07/2017), Kobolds and Catacombs will be unlocked, giving players the chance to explore dungeons and earn or purchase a total of 135 new cards.
However, at least one of the new cards is not as fresh as many players think. The “Violet Wurm” is a new minion for 8 mana, possessing stats of 7/7 and also has a deathrattle effect. Upon his death, he summons a total of 7 worms with stats of 1/1 – filling the entire board.
Players of the card game Magic: The Gathering might be rubbing their eyes at the Violet Wurm. Because MTS had a card that had the exact same stats with identical mana costs and even the same effect. As if that weren’t enough coincidence, the card in Magic is also a worm, namely the “Symbiotic Wurm”.
On Reddit, user cromatkastar drew attention to this blatant copy with the post “Can I copy your homework?” “Sure” and even received a response from Principal Designer Mike Donais.
Donais raised the question of whether it still counts as “copying” if he developed the Symbiotic Wurm 17 years ago for Magic and has now “re-developed” it as the Violet Wurm.
While this might not be exactly true, at least Donais has contributed to both expansions (for both Magic and Hearthstone). Indeed, Donais was previously also a Senior Game Designer at Magic: The Gathering.
What do you think of this “copy”? Should Blizzard be ashamed of it? Or is it so obvious that it was intentional and in a card game with limited possibilities, it was hardly avoidable?
Have you seen all 135 new cards from Kobolds and Catacombs yet?
