Hearthstone: What Makes Warlock: Current Status and Future Class

In Hearthstone, there are several elements that come together to make up a class: Hero Power, the mechanics that the class typically uses, card images, World of Warcraft character stories, and even Hero images.

All of the above make a class stand out. These features change frequently, and although the Basic and Classic sets form the basis of all classes, players experience classes in different ways during each expansion and each of the three older sets of the game. the same year was included in the Wild.

Recently, it seems that Blizzard has taken a new approach to the characteristics of classes. The gameplay of most decks is closely related to the class.

In the Year of the Phoenix, especially in Scholomance Academy, Hearthstone is seeing one of the most balanced metas ever. One of the key factors contributing to that success is that Blizzard has put much more emphasis on developing classes according to their traditional characteristics.

Warlock features are a prime example of this. We’ll take a look at Hearthstone Warlock’s past, present, and future on card design and analyze where the features of this class come from, how they function in the meta, and whether they can be improved upon. good in the future or not.

Warlock’s Past

We all know that Hearthstone used to have the full name of “Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft”, and therefore all of the game’s classes are tied to the Warcraft storyline.

In Warcraft, Warlock uses dark magic and is willing to do anything to gain more power. Most Warlocks become extremely cruel after exchanging their souls for the Burning Legion to use its Demons. Souls, Demons, sacrifices in exchange for more power – these are the highlights used to create the Warlock class in Hearthstone.

However, those who played Hearthstone Warlock in the early days will remember that there is no clear direction for the class to create a complete deck.

The lack of compatibility between self-damaging spells and the lack of healing is one of the reasons why building a Warlock deck is so difficult, but there’s also an even more important reason. Demons are too weak. Even now, an all-Demon deck has never been strong, even though a lot of Demons have been added over the years.

That’s why Warlock’s development took a different direction – the first Warlock deck to emerge, believed to be Reynad’s invention, was called Zoo Warlock. This is really a revolution for Warlock and even now Zoolock is still a good deck in almost any meta.

Zoolock is probably not a deck that Blizzard has included in the list of decks that can top the meta. The image of facing a very strong opponent from turn 1 is what many players think of when facing a Warlock. Currently, Zoolock is still a style to consider when designing new cards for Warlock and this is really a core idea in deck building in general. This deck still uses one of the strongest cards in Basic and Classic like Flame Imp nice Soulfirewhile having the ability to use cards in new expansions to adapt to the meta.

Another traditional Warlock deck that doesn’t really match the hallmarks of Warlock is Handlock. This deck relies heavily on two cards that are not Warlock-specific – Mountain Giant and Molten Giant. The two na2y cards are perhaps more suited to the Warcraft storyline of Shaman and the feeling that something is not right when played in Warlock.

Until the Giant set was changed, Handlock has always been a popular Warlock deck in every new meta. Over the years, many Control Warlock decks have become boggarts in the meta.

Many Warlock decks don’t even look like a Warlock deck at all, because their power comes from the Neutral cards, such as Reno Jackson, Kazakus, Prince Keleseth, Carnivorous Cube. In short, Warlock uses whatever tool is necessary, regardless of whether it fits Warlock’s ethos or not, to build decks that are strong in the meta, and to some extent reflect Warlock’s ethos in Warcraft. .

Current Warlock in Hearthstone

In Hearthstone, what has changed in Warlock from the past?

Let’s take a look at the current Zoo Warlock deck:

The first thing we can easily realize is that this deck has quite a few Neutral cards. Cards like Tour Guide and Cult Neophyte are sensible additions to fit the meta, not must-haves and change the mechanics of the deck. The fact that the deck has little Neutral makes the number of Warlock cards played in the deck is 22 to 24. This confirms that this is a deck with a lot of Warlock characteristics.

Yes, this deck still uses Zoolock’s long-standing resources like Flame Imp and Voidwalkerbut now the deck is filled with quality Demons from recent sets, for example Nightshade Matron nice Darkglare.

These Demons give Zoolock a minion-heavy fighting style and revolve around two common themes in Warlock: Hero taking damage and Discard. The ability to gain more mana and produce stat minions greater than the amount of mana spent at the expense of blood loss is the hallmark of Warlock. What about the Discard effect of Hand of Gul’dan Serving as an additional draw for Hero Power is really how the Discard mechanism should work.

In addition, the Soul Fragment mechanism introduced in Scholomance Academy also creates another feature for Warlock: Warlocks in Warlock collect and use souls to strengthen themselves.

And this is also a positive point for Warlock in particular and the Hearthstone meta in general. Active healing has always been a complicated design issue, as we saw in Cubelock with Bloodreaver Gul’dan and Dark Pact. The draw-dependent heal works well for Warlock: absorbing everything for more power, making drawing a thing Zoolock “must” do, rather than “can” do.

Soul Fragment plus other cards like Raise Dead nice Flesh Giant – a Giant with many characteristics of Warlock. Although they can also be played in Priest, it doesn’t matter that it’s a great fit as Warlock cards.

The future of Warlock

Unfortunately, all of the above points can only be applied to Warlock’s offensive style. What other types of Warlock decks will need to be able to successfully demonstrate the characteristics of this class?

Demon. The answer is that Warlock needs stronger Demons.

Hunter’s development and addition of quality Beasts in recent years is proof that not only minions belong to a certain tribe, but also such magic. Scavenger’s Ingenuity can play an important role in building a deck that has a lot of class characteristics. Having a class-specific minion is also something that the design team focused on when designing the 10th class Demon Hunter (although this class was a bit too strong at first because it needed a large warm-up set to make up for the shortfall). lesson compared to other classes).

There were many nerfs targeting Demon Hunter class Demons because they were too strong. Meanwhile, Warlock really needs similarly strong Demons, especially anti-Aggro cards like Wrathspike Brute nice Imprisoned Antaen.

The same can be applied to the Discard mechanism. Having said that, compared to the early Discards of Hearthstone, the Discard is no better now thanks to Hand of Gul’dan. However, losing a card in your hand is a huge loss, compared to Hero’s blood sacrifice, for example.

But the features of Warlock can bring a lot of interesting elements about the mechanics that have not been explored. One addition that can be thought of is taking damage for a long time. Hearthstone Warlock has never touched card design like that, except Curse of Rafaambut forcing your opponent to play a certain card on subsequent turns to avoid loss of health, cards, or mana reflects exactly what a Warlock might aim for.

Class Warlock has struggled to find decks that have truly embodied the characteristics of this class for the past few years. The strongest Warlock decks are often based on high-impact Neutral cards, and so playing these decks is very unlikely to offer the same experience as playing Warlock in Warcraft. Zoolock could be the first deck to solve this problem, and if the redesign is done successfully, Warlock could be brought back to its true nature in Warcraft.

According to hearthstonetopdecks.com

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