Hearthstone Descent of Dragons Review – Heartstone’s newest Descent of Dragons expansion went live last Wednesday and it’s changing the meta with slower, control decks powered by powerful dragons, other new cards that synchronise nicely with the mythical creatures, and also new game mechanics.
Blizzard was surely hard at work, releasing around 135 new cards in total for the new expansion with a full single player campaign coming soon in January 2020. So, save your coins, boys and girls!
The expansion revolves around dragons with Galakrond at the center. The Galakrond Hero Cards will only be available to Rogue, Warrior, Warlock, Shaman, and Priest (and you’ll get these cards automatically when you log in). While it may sound like a shame that they don’t include Galakrond on other classes like the Mage (my favourite class every season), the other classes do get a more powerful dragon in exchange.
I’ve assembled my decks to include Galakrond as much as possible, which revolves around cards to Invoke his power and further strengthen his battlecry, plus adding different effects in the battlefields.
When you invoke Galakron as a Shaman, for example, you will be given a 2/1 Rush minion on the board. Or if you are playing as a Warlock, a two 1/1 Imp which can be sacrificed for a greater good, I mean, evil.
What I like about using these new cards in the expansion is that it changes some of the game flow quite considerably. With the Decent of Dragons cards (assuming you utilise them in your deck), it require a considerable amount of time and game rounds for these cards to flourish.
I’m not a fan of the current Lackeys meta as I’m always prefer a slower pace where you need to think hard to win – compared to having never-ending minions on the board and rush the game to win. I’ve had a few great games where the enemy and I had very low health remaining towards the end of the game (below 10) and tried to outwit one another. Winning felt sweet and rewarding!
My new Mage deck that takes advantage of the new cards (thankfully I got a few good Legendary ones from opening the boxes) has taken me to Rank 15 but I might still have to tweak a few things as I’m struggling to keep up.
What I love about my new Mage deck with these Decent of Dragons expansion is the amount of card reshuffling, thanks to these new “Discover” cards e.g: I can let out a spell which also gives me option to Discover a new, random dragon. This new mechanic means I’ll never run out of cards as there are always new, fresh, random replacement cards.
At one point in the game, I could play two Dragonqueen Alexstrasza – which of course, gave me a considerable advantage in board control. Theoretically if you are extremely lucky with the pull, you can do this repeatedly.
The expansion also adds a new Sidequest mechanic, which offers more immediate benefits compared to the standard quests we’ve had so far.
Rather than having the standard quest and build your deck around it to fulfill the quest, these sidequests give you option to use your own custom deck and squeeze this in the deck.
If you are already trying to build your new deck with Decent of Dragon expansion cards, there are sites that can help you out like progameguides.com, but you can also create your own custom deck for a more personal, fun way to play.
After the Knights of the Frozen Throne expansion, this is definitely my next, most favourite Hearthsone expansion so far.
Here is my Hearthstone main deck at the moment. It has enough cards to clear boards (perfect to clear those pesky Lackeys), some life steal for survivability (needed as this deck shines better in late game), and a Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron which will cast 10 random spells (for the emergency when all hope is lost).
But as I mentioned, I’m still tweaking my deck as it’s a great late boomer, but sometimes can struggle to keep board controls at the start.
