A new card in Hearthstone will cause quite a stir. Behind it is an AI that is almost a little cheat.
Just recently, the last cards of the upcoming Hearthstone expansion “Saviors of Uldum” were introduced. Most actually thought that only the unimportant cards would be revealed in the final reveal stream, but the developers had some real surprises in store. Among them was the card that is probably the most complex so far. At least the developers had to spend many hours figuring out how to create this card.
The card in question is Zephrys the Great, this is the card here:
What can Zephrys the Great do? Zephrys is an Elemental and neutral minion that costs only 2 mana. For that, he has solid stats of 3/2, but also a pretty brilliant effect through his Battlecry: “Wish for the perfect card if your deck does not contain any duplicates.” The challenge is, then, to build a deck that contains no duplicates to utilize the effect.
How does the effect work? When played, Zephrys “scans” the board and evaluates all information that is accessible to the player. This includes the current state of the battlefield, the number of cards in both players’ hands, the remaining deck size, and the health points of both heroes.
The AI now offers you 3 different cards that are considered “suitable for the situation.” To better understand this, here are a few theoretical examples of what Zephrys might calculate and offer:
- The battlefield is full of enemy minions. It is likely that Zephrys will offer a strong area spell, such as Flamestrike.
- You have very low health points left. Zephrys is very likely to provide a large healing option.
- Your side is filled with minions and you are clearly ahead. Now Zephrys will offer you various buffs to make your minions even stronger.
According to the developers, there have been many moments when it was not immediately clear why Zephrys offered a particular card at that moment. But often Zephrys sees a way to defeat the opponent on the next turn, which is why cards like “Fireball” are offered that could be lethal.
For some players, Zephrys is already considered a kind of “small cheat”. Whether he will actually be as useful as the developers envisioned remains to be seen. And then there’s also the requirement to have no duplicate cards in the deck…
What do you think of Zephrys the Great? A cool and interesting card? Or is Hearthstone going too far here?
