The release of Hearthstone's Forged in the Barrens expansion is an important one for the game's future. It's the first set to follow some sweeping changes to the way the design team at Blizzard is approaching Hearthstone formats, and that makes it an important demonstration for how new pools of cards will integrate with the Core Set mechanic. The integration of Core Set and the alterations made to many of the game's most iconic classic cards has so far gone pretty well, but that was with well-established decks in the meta and plenty of modifications having already been made to powerful cards.
While one preview session isn't enough to have the answers, it is helpful in determining the direction of the game heading into Forged in the Barrens - and it's a positive one, at first glance. During a hands-on theorycrafting preview session with all of the new Forged in the Barrens cards available, the set's design was able to shine in conjunction with the still-fresh Core Set changes and existing card pool.
The most important mechanic in Hearthstone: Forged in the Barrens appears to be Frenzy, which gives a one-time benefit to players who have a minion with the keyword survive damage. Plenty of early decks were built around the cards, and some of them felt quite powerful - but requiring the right shell. Efficient Octo-Bot shone in decks that accrued plenty of cards in hand, which other Rogue additions, like Silverleaf Poison, help facilitate. Another standout was Frenzy Raptor, which felt like a Hunter card that could be played in both aggressive and more mid-range strategies - the hallmark of a powerful card, but not one that felt overwhelming on its own.
A lot of what makes Hearthstone an appealing game is also present in Forged in the Barrens, including the random elements of the game. Mankrik is an excellent callback to a World of Warcraft legend, incorporating the flavor of his quest into the game flawlessly while providing something for players to draw towards and hope to pick up early. Kazakus, Golem-Shaper is a wonderful twist on a card that absolutely defined the Standard meta it was present in with its earlier iteration, and somehow preserves the feeling of playing that legendary former card in a new, more balanced shell.
It's in the way that Hearthstone's new Forged in the Barrens cards also mitigate some of the variance of the game that will appeal to long-time veterans, however. The Rank spells, which get more powerful effects the more mana crystals a player has, are essentially built to be slightly under-powered at all points in the game - but with the trade-off that they're viable at pretty much all points, too. That kind of flexibility has been beloved by players with the Discover mechanic, which remains one of Hearthstone's best even years after it first debuted, and Rank spells are another concession to the constant struggle to balance a game that wants to have high variance excitement but maintain a dedicated playerbase that wants its skill rewarded.
There are a few concerns, of course. The Legendary Mercenaries don't feel like they're as impactful as they could have been, despite early promise in several of them. There's a possibility they're simply harder to build around and won't shine until the set releases properly, when players have much more time to discover how certain cards slot into strategies or give birth to entirely new ones. A bigger concern, however, is how much currently established strategies seem to benefit from these additions. It's good that decks like Rogue still have an identity, but given the fatigue some players have expressed with the decks that have been enjoying high win-rates over the last year, it would have been nice to walk away from Forged in the Barrens thinking that the metagame was totally wide open moving forward.
Again, though, in a preview event, it's natural that currently established strategies thrive - and it was markedly different from the Madness at the Darkmoon Faire preview event, which felt like it was almost entirely pre-existing decks slotting in a few new cards. In the Forged in the Barrens preview event, new decks already began emerging, and they were promising, competing with some of the strategies that ported over from the past set.
If nothing else, Forged in the Barrens is another indicator that Blizzard knows what it's doing with Hearthstone. The set is immediately interesting, and it's many ties into World of Warcraft lore are fun shout-outs to the game that served as the entry point for many veteran Hearthstone players. The set art pops as gorgeous representations of an iconic Warcraft location, while each of the new mechanics or concepts blend seamlessly into the general feeling that this is a Warcraft game first and foremost. That identity has always been beneficial to Hearthstone, and Forged in the Barrens embraces it even more than recent releases to great effect.
Coming off so many major changes, it's tempting to call Forged in the Barrens a less impactful expansion than some in the game's past, but that might not be the right way of looking at it. The fact many of its changes are subtle after the sledgehammer that was Core Set is something to be appreciated, and many of its cards feel less like they're build-arounds - though some of those exist - and more like they open up more options for deckbuilding in general. That's an exciting feeling, and maintains the electricity that the Year of the Gryphon has introduced to the game thus far. It's too early to tell where Hearthstone is heading in 2021, but Forged in the Barrens - at least for its first several hours of play - is another sign that it's the right direction.
Hearthstone: Forged in the Barrens releases on March 30, 2021. Screen Rant was provided with a temporary Battle.net account for the purpose of playing the theorycrafting event.
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