The latest Hearthstone’s expansion, Into the Emerald Dream delivers 145 new cards to be added into your decks and collections and introduces new keywords “Imbue” and “Dark Gifts” with the expanded keyword “Choose One”.
It’s also a change of season/year so you’ll find that some of your cards are no longer available to play on the Standard mode. The cards that are now in Wild are from these expansions: Festival of Legends, Titans, and Showdown in the Badlands. Depending on your decks, you may or may not need to overhaul them with newer cards if you still want to use them in Standard.
New Keyword: Imbue
Cards that have Imbue keyword in them will transform your hero powers and upgrade them as you keep playing Imbue cards. Note that not all hero classes are supported (there might be updates in the future but we’ll see).
The new hero powers will be unique to their class. Here are the first, upgraded hero power list and they will be upgraded each time so for example, a Druid’s upgraded hero power is to summon a 1/1 Plant Golem. On each upgrade, the Plant Golem stats are increased so 2/2, 3/3, 4/4, and so fort.
Here are the upgraded hero list for each hero class:
- Druid: Summon a 1/1 Plant Golem
- Hunter: Give a random Beast in your hand +1 attack. It costs (1) less.
- Paladin: Shuffle two Emerald Portals into your deck (Your Portals summon 1-Cost Dragons)
- Priest: Choose a Priest minion or Priest spell to add to your hand. It costs (1) less, but is Temporary
- Mage: Summon 1 Wisp. Deal 1 damage randomly split among all enemies
- Shaman: Transform a friendly minion into a random one that costs (1) more
Imbue is definitely not aimed for Rush decks as it shines more late game. If you are fighting against Imbued decks, try to finish the enemy’s hero as quickly as possible before they get stronger and stronger.
New Keyword: Dark Gifts
Dark Gifts are minion power-ups that pair with certain Discover options in Death Knight, Demon Hunter, Rogue, Warlock, and Warrior. When discovering for a minion with Dark Gifts, you’ll see the Dark Gifts power-up at the bottom of each card. This gives more great combinations such as a Lifesteal on minions that normally don’t have it, or just a simple extra buff of stats which can be useful on low cost minions.
Expanded Keyword: Choose One
Normally, only Druids can have these Choose One cards but in this expansion, each hero class gets a Choose One cards with two modes that you can choose from when you play these cards. So for example, as a Mage, there is a Choose One card that allows you to discover either a Mage or Druid spell. Nifty.
You can purchase the new expansion cards through the shop with in-game coins or using real money. There is also a Mega Bundle which includes 80 Into the Emerald Dream packs, 10 Golden Into the Emerald Dream packs, 1 Signature Malorne the Waywatcher Legendary minion, 1 random Golden Into the Emerald Dream Legendary card, 4 Tavern Tickets, and the Ysera Card Back and Druid Hero Skin.
These are the Legendary cards I get from opening the Mega Bundle (note that you get totally random cards when opening the packs):
- Ursol (Paladin): This is an awesome card if you have a really good high cost, spell in your hand. Plus, it only costs 8 mana to play (which I think will be nerfed soon). I just wish this is for the Mage hero class!
- Malorne the Waywatcher: Great for those Imbued-focused decks
- Ursoc (Death Knight): Not sure about this one since the enemy will get their minions back once Ursoc dies
- Aessina (Mage): Unusable for spells-focused decks (unless you summon a lot of minions), but awesome for others
- Goldrinn (Hunter): An instant surprise that can totally eliminate your enemy as soon as it comes out
- Hamuul Runetotem (Druid): A must for imbued-deck Druid
- Ysondre (Warrior): Can be a never-ending one if you resurrect Ysondre through any means frequently (like using the Succumb to Madness card)
- Shaladrassil: A super-amped up version of the dream cards!
- Nightmare Lord Xavius: Cheap card to play, really good value
Other impressions on the new expansion cards
Now your hero can easily get spells from the other Hero classes with cards like Daydreaming Pixie (Nature spells) or Spark of Life (Mage class can get Druid spells).
More powerful dragons! Briarspawn Drake for late game, Petal Peddler for buffs, Tormented Dreadwing, Darkrider (Warrior), Illusory Greenwing for stallers with free Taunt minions, and Ysondre Legendary mentioned above. I’ve ditched my spells-only Mage deck with Ysondre-focused. It’s quite a powerful deck, annoying, but you need to be able to survive early game.
Spells-focused Mage deck (used to be my primary deck) gets great, powerful additions with Stellar Balance, Forbidden Shrine (good if you don’t have a high cost spell in your hand during the late game) . But you can also build a new deck focusing on Wisps in this expansion with the Imbue heo power. I haven’t figured out how strong this is so we’ll have to find out if anyone I encounter is using this deck.
Imbued-focused decks should have minions like Bitterbloom Knight, Goldpetal Drake (Paladin), Flutterwing Guardian, Resplendent Dreamweaver, Wisprider (Mage), Exotic Houndmaster (Hunter), Aegis of Light (Paladin), or Umbraclaw (Hunter).
Some minions worth a mention: Hungering Ancient (quite valuable since you get the minions back and into your hand), Treacherous Tormentor, and Ferocious Felbat (Demon Hunter) for a great board control.
If you haven’t played for a while, log on now and check these new cards out. You can earn them quite easily in game.
