Aspiring mages apply now: Hearthstone Scholomance Academy review

Magically inclined students or otherwise have long awaited to get back to school – and it’s no ordinary one, when Hearthstone‘s newest expansion, Scholomance Academy was announced and subsequently released worldwide on 6 August.

WHAT IS THE ACADEMY?

Within the lofty halls of the prestigious Scholomance Academy, the next generation of great fire flingers, axe swingers, and doom bringers study under the scrutinizing eye of Headmaster Kel’Thuzad. Whatever your martial or magical pursuit, the academy has the training grounds and study halls to transform you into the hero you’ve always known you could be. Just be sure you steer clear of what the Cult of the Damned may be meddling with beneath the campus grounds…

New with the expansion are dual class cards, not simply a Tavern Brawl gimmick. These cards are meant to play to the strengths of the corresponding classes and mechanics. The goth Warlock gets to work with the prim Priest with their set of cards, truly Hot Topic and Sanrio merged into dual class Hearthstone cards. There are the others of course, but I really wanted to make a stupid joke.

As is the case with the other expansions with Hearthstone, a whole dearth of new cards have been introduced to shake up the rotation meta. It’s still in its infancy all things considered, so we’ll have to see the tech once the meta settles.

CLASH OF THE CARDS

In the early weeks, the balance of the cards seems to hit just right, though as mentioned, we might need to wait to see how fast Blizzard might choose to tweak the power level of cards. It’s not the complete domination of Pirate Warrior or Jade Druid, so there’s that! For now, every class has gotten nice buffs and flexibility in the dual class cards, which makes this expansion a decent, if not good time, for players to come back and play. Imagine, a meta where more decks are actually viable! We should be seeing this reflected in competitive too, as the season goes on.

The tempo of the game has also been sped up: no more 30 minute games! Chop chop, get going, 10 minutes should be enough. This is aided by the new keyword: Spellburst, and new spells: Studies. Spellburst is a one-time effect that takes place after you cast a spell, which can be anything from returning said spell to your hand, a destroy effect or summon effect. The swings in board state or acquiring value means either side can wrench advantages anyway they can.

This can especially apply for the Studies spells, that reduce costs. Anything that cheats costs couldn’t possibly be be bad, if you’re the one playing it. It’s a Discover effect with a bonus, and that one card could help you win the game. It’s randomness in effect once again, but a more controlled one.

There are unique ideas to be had here, and more spicy dual class cards should be something Blizzard should experiment more in the future to have the ladder run wild.

VERDICT

Faster paced games are welcome to avoid any one side to win on overall sheer value, with the Studies spells capable of finding a cheated out tempo, and dual class cards taking a greater advantage of class mechanics. Some of these cards, like Rogue’s Secret Passage – “Replace your hand with 5 cards from your deck. Swap back next turn” – opening up more interesting strategies, and helps at least the Rogue to avoid bricking with this 1 Mana-cost card.

School’s a place to learn and see what you stick to, or what sticks to you best, and Scholomance Academy is no different. I’d be looking forward to see what synergies future expansions can bring to give more bursts of flavour with the foundations laid out here!

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Hearthstone

Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment

Developer: Blizzard Entertainment

Release Date: 2014-03-11

Android, iOS, Microsoft Windows

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