You will soon hate rogues in Hearthstone even more. Because you won’t know when you are playing against them anymore.
The expansion “United in Stormwind” is just around the corner and launches on August 3rd – all 135 new cards are already known. There are some highlights, but especially one card that will cause confusion. Apparently, rogues have learned to camouflage themselves really well – so well that you won’t know against whom you will be playing soon.
Rogues can soon conceal their identity with a new card.
What kind of card is this? It’s about Maestra of Masked. This is a 3/2 minion for 2 mana – so in terms of stats, nothing spectacular. However, the card has a pretty interesting and previously unique effect. If Maestra is in the deck, the rogue starts the game as a random other class.
To the opponent, it looks like the rogue is a hunter, mage, priest, or one of the other classes. This also comes with a different hero power – as a disguised priest, you can heal, or as a disguised paladin, you can summon small minions.
This masquerade is only broken when the player plays a rogue card.
What benefit does this have? Basically, just one: confusion. The opponent does not know at the beginning of a match who they are actually facing and thinks they might have a different class as the opponent. Since the true identity is revealed at the earliest on turn 1 – but possibly later – it can lead to quite devastating mistakes. For example, the opponent might want completely different starting cards against a priest than against a rogue.
This directly influences what “mulligan” your opponent takes and which cards they send back into the deck.
Isn’t that totally OP? Probably not. While it may lead the opponent to make mistakes that turn out to be positive in some games, the actual damage will likely be quite low. Most decks pursue a “How do I achieve my goal?” strategy and only a few are designed to specifically counter enemy decks.
Furthermore, Maestra of Masked is itself a “dead” card that cannot be incorporated into any combo and has no real benefit within the match. Essentially, you never want to draw her, as the card is relatively weak on its own.
Maestra of Masked is once again an interesting example of card design that only works in a digital context and would be hard to imagine in a physical card game. She will probably cause a lot of confusion and lead to fun games, but only in exceptional cases will she decide matches.
What do you think of this card? More of a fun gimmick without much benefit? Or a really good card that will decide many matches?
