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Hearthstone: Rastakhan's Rumble guide

A tribe called Trolls

John Bedford avatar
Guide by John Bedford Contributor
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The next Hearthstone expansion was announced at BlizzCon earlier this month. Titled Rastakhan's Rumble, it'll add another 135 new cards to the game, a new Shaman hero called King Rastakhan, and a new single-player mode called Rumble Run.

The theme this time around is on the Troll tribe - a long-awaited direction for the game, and one that also ties in quite neatly with events from WoW's Battle for Azeroth expansion. In the Hearthstone universe, Rastakhan's Rumble sees nine teams of champions - representing the game's nine heroes - coming together to do battle in Rastakhan's Arena.

In our guide to the new expansion, we've got an overview of all the new content you can expect to see when the new set goes live on 4th December.

New Decks

Our friends at Metabomb have been busy updating their existing deck guides, and creating new guides for the decks expected to make a big splash in the new meta. You can dip into it all using the links below:

Druid

Outliers

Hunter

Outliers

Mage

Outliers

Paladin

Outliers

Priest

Outliers

Rogue

Outliers

Shaman

Outliers

Warlock

Warrior

Current meta decks

New Cards

As we've already mentioned, Rastakhan's Rumble will add a total of 135 new cards to Hearthstone. It's the usual mix of neutral and class-specific cards, with each class receiving two new legendary cards apiece.

As for how cards are categorised, there's a little more fine detail around the expansion theming.

Loa cards

Loa cards are powerful minions that are designed to make a big impact during the latter stages of the game. Each class will get a Loa card, which represents one of their two legendary cards in Rastakhan's Rumble.

Spirit cards

Spirit cards are rare quality and compliment a class's given Loa.

These are low mana-cost cards with a zero attack, three health statline. They also possess the stealth mechanic for one turn, which will make them tricky for the opponent to deal with before their effects can be exploited.

The Rogue's Spirit of the Shark, for example, causes the battlecry and combo effects of all friendly minions to be triggered twice.

Whenever the Warlock's Spirit of the Bat is out in play, a minion in the player's hand will gain an extra point of attack and health whenever an active minion dies.

Troll Champions

Troll Champions provide each class with their second legendary card of the set.

In the case of the Mage, their Troll Champion is called Hex Lord Malacrass. This eight mana, 5 / 5 minion has a battlecry that adds a copy of your starting hand to your hand (minus Malacrass himself, if he showed up that early on in the game).

New Mechanic: Overkill

A new keyword is also being added with Rastakhan's Rumble.

Called Overkill, this mechanic rewards you for doing more damage to a minion than is necessary to remove it from the board.

The Warrior gains a new weapon which lets you attack again on the same turn if you inflict Overkill damage, for example.

The Hunter gains a direct damage Overkill spell which summons a friendly 5 / 5 minion if the condition is met.

New Single Player Content: Rumble Run

If August's Boomsday Project puzzles left you pining for the roguelike experiences introduced with Kobolds and Catacombs and The Witchwood expansions, there's good news for you.

The new single-player mode is called Rumble Run, and will play out in a similar fashion to Dungeon Run and Monster Hunt. Starting off with a small, primitive deck, you'll gain additional spells and minions as you work your way through a series of AI challenges.

At the beginning of each run through this new mode, you'll first have to choose a team to represent. Having done so, you'll gain the benefit of one of the three Shrines that belong to each team - a passive minion that appears on the board at the start of each match and provides a bonus effect.

If the Shrine is destroyed by the opponent, it'll become dormant for three turns and you won't regain the passive effect until it comes back to life. Protecting your own Shrine and destroying the opponent's at the right time will be a crucial part of the overall strategy.

As for those boss encounters, we've heard very little detail on what to expect when Rumble Run goes live a week or so after the main expansion launch.

Based on Hearthstone's previous roguelike modes though, it's very likely you'll have to face off against a series of bosses, randomly chosen from a pool of 40 or more, before tackling a tougher end-game challenge.

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