Strange stories surround Hearthstone. Here are the craziest cards that didn’t make it into the game.
The development of Hearthstone is full of funny anecdotes and unresolved mysteries. Some of these have now been clarified by the Game Director Ben Brode. He spoke about many details in the development, such as the craziest card ideas or why Jeff Kaplan from the Overwatch team is responsible for a very special mechanic of Hearthstone.
When asked about the craziest card ideas that simply couldn’t be implemented, Brode names several examples.
- World-Flipper: As long as it’s on the board, the game is upside down.
- Auto-Pecker: Whenever you hover over this minion with the mouse, it deals 1 damage to your hero – regardless of which player it is.
- A sludge that costs 3 mana and has 1/1 as stats. As a Battlecry, it gains +1/+1 for each match you’ve previously lost in a row. So it got stronger with each defeat.
The Hearthstone Year 2018 is already here – with the next 2 expansions
It’s also good to know how far in advance the Hearthstone team plans. Because according to this, the Hearthstone team is already in the last development phase of the upcoming set, shortly after the release of the Witchwood. The next set has also entered its final phase.
The subsequent set (early 2019) is in early development – the team always plans a year of content in advance.
Unexpected Combinations
When asked whether players sometimes discover card combinations that the developers didn’t expect, the answer is: Almost every time.
This is mainly because there are only a limited number of developers, but millions of players. If just one of them has a brilliant idea, the deck spreads like wildfire. Such examples are the classic Freeze Mage or Miracle Rogue.
A currently prominent, particularly annoying combination is the Grauselhurz.
Jeff Kaplan is responsible for Exhaustion
Also interesting is the anecdote around exhaustion damage. When a player has no cards left in the deck but needs to draw one, they take increasing damage.
This was not always the case. Jeff Kaplan, the Game Director of Overwatch, had started playing Hearthstone and had gotten very into the game. He was in an exciting match and about to win – when suddenly “Defeat” appeared on the screen. Kaplan was shocked by the sudden loss, and this shock was taken as a reason to revise the system.
In physical card games, you usually lose a match when the cards are exhausted. However, that felt too devastating in Hearthstone. Instead, they wanted to utilize the growing threat of “Exhaustion” – it felt fairer and no longer negated the decisions made during the match.
Did you learn something new from Ben Brode’s video?
Still looking for cool sets to have fun in the Witchwood? Here are 5 strong Standard decks for you!
