Potential new tribes

Submitted 4 years, 9 months ago by

We got no new tribes since Un'goro and I think it would be nice to have new ones. Lets speculate what tribes should be added to Hearthstone and what we may see in the future

I can see three potential tribes

1) Plants. We have tons of plants in druid as well as several neutral plants.
2) Oozes (there are quite a fey slimes\oozes in wild, including stuff that generates slimes\oozes. Standard currently has 4 (acdic\underbelly ooze, floop, 1\1 token generated by the 2/4 rogue mech) 
3) Ghosts (There are enough ghosts\spirits\phantoms\shades\wisp to make them a tribe. Cards like cursed castaway and arfus are a problem)

 

  • strongpoint's Avatar
    30 32 Posts Joined 03/15/2019
    Posted 4 years, 9 months ago

    We got no new tribes since Un'goro and I think it would be nice to have new ones. Lets speculate what tribes should be added to Hearthstone and what we may see in the future

    I can see three potential tribes

    1) Plants. We have tons of plants in druid as well as several neutral plants.
    2) Oozes (there are quite a fey slimes\oozes in wild, including stuff that generates slimes\oozes. Standard currently has 4 (acdic\underbelly ooze, floop, 1\1 token generated by the 2/4 rogue mech) 
    3) Ghosts (There are enough ghosts\spirits\phantoms\shades\wisp to make them a tribe. Cards like cursed castaway and arfus are a problem)

     

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  • OmarComing's Avatar
    790 530 Posts Joined 05/28/2019
    Posted 4 years, 9 months ago

    I wonder if they would update Nightmare Amalgam if new tribes were added. Interestingly, the way that Hench-Clan Hag is worded makes it more future-proof, but the tokens still read like Nightmare Amalgam.

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  • strongpoint's Avatar
    30 32 Posts Joined 03/15/2019
    Posted 4 years, 9 months ago
    Quote From OmarComing

    I wonder if they would update Nightmare Amalgam if new tribes were added. Interestingly, the way that Hench-Clan Hag is worded makes it more future-proof, but the tokens still read like Nightmare Amalgam.

    I think they have to, all tribes is all tribes. It will be confusing otherwise. Another thing they can do is to replace all with "multiple" and leave the same description. Multiple can also stuff dragon/spirit but it is clunky.

     

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  • Lightspoon's Avatar
    Merfolk 495 405 Posts Joined 04/01/2019
    Posted 4 years, 9 months ago

    The reason behind making a Tribe is to give that kind of minions a signature synergy. They actually aren't making any new ones because there is not such an iconic new mechanic to be tied to it.

    It's always nice to have some more flavor around, but it not always needed to put a tag on everything.

    "For what profit is it to a man if he gains the world, and loses his own soul?"

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  • ShadowsOfSense's Avatar
    1500 1111 Posts Joined 10/23/2018
    Posted 4 years, 9 months ago

    I'd expect one of the existing but unused tribes to become real first, before any of those.

    Most of them are just playable races, and wouldn't offer anything special mechanically, which is probably why they're unused. I could see them coming up with gimmicks for Undead, Ogre or Worgen enough to justify adding the tribe to the game though.

    Welcome to the site!

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  • Synesthesy's Avatar
    240 142 Posts Joined 05/28/2019
    Posted 4 years, 9 months ago

    If they'll add a new tribe, I expect it will be something that won't change too much old cards. So, no undead for example...

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  • Trillmatic's Avatar
    Tauren Chieftain Addict 390 75 Posts Joined 03/14/2019
    Posted 4 years, 9 months ago

    Definitely Undead! Also Aberration (faceless ones, old gods, tentacles, oozes etc) and maybe Plant (razorpetals, ancients, treants, bog creatures etc)

    Undead should have been implemented a long time ago. Now it's just harder to change and balance them, because they are too many (currently there are around 150 collectible Undead minions in the game) and some of them already have other tags (see Cutthroat Buccaneer or Sindragosa for instance).

    I'd like to see dual tribes one day as well, that would be interesting; but the question is: Would they actually do it? Probably not...

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  • RavenSunHS's Avatar
    Refreshment Vendor 880 1487 Posts Joined 03/27/2019
    Posted 4 years, 9 months ago

    Personally, i'd love Double Tribe. Like Patches the Pirate should be both Pirate, Demon.

    Ogre and Undead make sense. They just need a new mechanic, or even just a board synergy (eg Murloc).

    The new signature mechanic does not need to be implemented on ALL the rebranded cards, but just on a bunch of them, in the same way as it happens with current Tribes.

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  • strongpoint's Avatar
    30 32 Posts Joined 03/15/2019
    Posted 4 years, 9 months ago

    I think racial tribes like undead (yes in WoW universe it is a race), ogre, kobold, etc. are very unlikely to happen. I know that there are murlocs but they are fine as exception. But let's say they do ogres and kobolds, then question rises why there are no goblins or orcs? And they simply can't create meaningful and distinct mechanics for all of WoW races.

    Tribe needs either a signature mechanic that makes it distinct and gives reason to exist or class that works with them

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  • Woodcaster's Avatar
    Uther 100 9 Posts Joined 06/06/2019
    Posted 4 years, 9 months ago

    At least they should put Kobold tribe in the game, there are a lot of Kobolds since their expansión, btw, there are other posible tribes in my mind like:

    - as strongpoint said, ogre, kobold, orc and goblin.

    - Troll.

    - Elf ( it's better without making the difference between blood elfs, Wood's elfs etc).

    - Plants (including the Treants).

    - It'll be interesting to make a Dinosaur tribe, but making them Beasts was a nice idea.

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  • strongpoint's Avatar
    30 32 Posts Joined 03/15/2019
    Posted 4 years, 9 months ago
    Quote From Woodcaster

    At least they should put Kobold tribe in the game, there are a lot of Kobolds since their expansión, btw, there are other posible tribes in my mind like:

    - as strongpoint said, ogre, kobold, orc and goblin.

    - Troll.

    - Elf ( it's better without making the difference between blood elfs, Wood's elfs etc).

    - Plants (including the Treants).

    - It'll be interesting to make a Dinosaur tribe, but making them Beasts was a nice idea.

    I still think that racial tribes are extremely unlikely. What distinct mechanics for each race you want to do? Let's look at existing tribes and what they do:

    Mechs: Magnetic theme, warrior\hunter\priest identities. Note how irrelevant mech tag was in standard for years.
    Murlocs: board flood synergies
    Beasts: Hunters and druid can do interesting things with them. Other than that this tribe is too vague to have theme\mechanic
    Elementals: Mage and shaman playthings. Played last turn mechanic
    Demons: Warlock thing. Note how neutral demons have no relevance for anyone else
    Pirates: Weapon synergies and burgling\drawing cards. Rogue's plaything
    Dragons: Dragon in hand mechanic
    Totems: Shaman thing.

     

    Now imagine elves or goblins... What themes, ties to class, unique mechanics they may have? What can make them distinct and important?

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  • TimonRaven's Avatar
    200 23 Posts Joined 05/30/2019
    Posted 4 years, 9 months ago

    What about not the new tribe but two-tribe minions? Not the "all" tribe, something more like "pirate/beast". And we still have no tribe to be played around spells as tribe synergy.

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  • strongpoint's Avatar
    30 32 Posts Joined 03/15/2019
    Posted 4 years, 9 months ago
    Quote From TimonRaven

    What about not the new tribe but two-tribe minions? Not the "all" tribe, something more like "pirate/beast". And we still have no tribe to be played around spells as tribe synergy.

    Two-tribe minions is something I'd like but any solution I can think of seems clunky for the interface.

     

    As for spell synergy tribe - IMO, Ethereals are the most logical choice. Its their theme already.

    BTW, Rafaam is an ethereal, this year story is centered around him, so I wouldn't be that much surprised to see ethereal focused expansion... I can easily see something like him calling for help of other evil ethereals

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  • Anarka's Avatar
    30 1 Posts Joined 06/09/2019
    Posted 4 years, 9 months ago

    They thought about spell tribes (elemental at a point was a spell -only tribe). I think would be could to have tribal spells and cards that search for specific tribes and combines them in cool ways.

    Also dual tribes might be a good adition but hard to balance.

     Plants, as a tribe, they said it would never be a tribe because is so druid-ish

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  • griffior's Avatar
    925 330 Posts Joined 05/31/2019
    Posted 4 years, 9 months ago

    They could possibly just make "Amalgam" a tribe on its own to future proff the cards from confusion.

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  • strongpoint's Avatar
    30 32 Posts Joined 03/15/2019
    Posted 4 years, 9 months ago
    Quote From Anarka

     Plants, as a tribe, they said it would never be a tribe because is so druid-ish

    Are you sure? That seems to be a strange reason. It is like saying that Demons are so warloc-ish

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  • Hydralisk's Avatar
    Mountain 540 356 Posts Joined 05/28/2019
  • DoubleSummon's Avatar
    Ancestral Recall 1585 2271 Posts Joined 03/25/2019
    Posted 4 years, 9 months ago

    Don't think any new tribe will add anything to the game at this point I prefer revising existing tribes like dragon or pirate with new mechanics just like mechs were revisited.

    I could see elementals having other type of synergies apart from played last turn..

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  • AliRadicali's Avatar
    465 713 Posts Joined 06/06/2019
    Posted 4 years, 9 months ago

    As others have pointed out, the primary reason to make something a tribe at this point is mechanics-driven. Hearthstone is an intentionally simple card game, so despite the fact that it would make a ton of sense lore-wise to implement tribes such as human, orc, elf, undead, etc. these tribes are ignored on the cards.

     

    While it's not impossible to invent a new tribal mechanic and retroactively apply the tag to older cards like they did with Elemental, I think it unlikely that they'd do something like that with a race that is extremely common, like undead, or a race that would pretty much require the implementation of other races, EG Human and Orc.

    Another issue is the problem of dual races, and the fact that Pirate isn't a race inasmuch as it's an occupation. Do we implement other professions? I'm pretty sure there's a lot of seers and smiths in HS already....

     

    All in all I think the Keep It Simple, Stupid principle is the prevailing one unless there is a very strong reason otherwise. They probably could've gotten away with adding a Troll tribe for Rhastakhan, I think, but they did just fine without it.

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  • strongpoint's Avatar
    30 32 Posts Joined 03/15/2019
    Posted 4 years, 9 months ago
    Quote From AliRadicali

    As others have pointed out, the primary reason to make something a tribe at this point is mechanics-driven. Hearthstone is an intentionally simple card game, so despite the fact that it would make a ton of sense lore-wise to implement tribes such as human, orc, elf, undead, etc. these tribes are ignored on the cards.

    Sure. There are no point adding a tribe for "flavor" reasons. Adding a tribe and give it some lame synergies like give +1\+1 isn't that great either.

    But I do think that there are many mechanics left to explore. Start of game effects that influence all minions of a tribe. Tribe that interacts with the number of type X cards in your hand. Handbuff tribe.

    We have no tribes since Un'goro and that is a long period of time...

    Adding a tribe shakes wild by indirectly buffing a bunch of cards, adding a tribe may give new life to some basic\classic cards, adding a tribe creates fun archetypes when you try to make tribe work in classes they weren't intended for.

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  • Werewoolf0's Avatar
    90 17 Posts Joined 06/10/2019
    Posted 4 years, 9 months ago

    Yay more Tribes is good: both for synergy and flavour!

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  • Giacca93's Avatar
    100 5 Posts Joined 05/30/2019
    Posted 4 years, 9 months ago

    Also Pandaren could be a new tribe, we have almost 10 card in Standard and Wild from this tribe, and in future could be interesting to see a new expansion with these figures as main characters

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  • AnAngryBadger's Avatar
    645 216 Posts Joined 05/29/2019
    Posted 4 years, 9 months ago

    I would say undead is most likely as the new tribe, and one possible mechanic is if a minion (or undead or specific tribe) died this turn, do (x), e.g. if a minion died this turn, this minion costs 2 less

    Another could be an effect if another minion dies while it's on the board, and this even fits into a few undead cards already in the game (cult master and flesheating ghoul)

     

    Plus, like with dragons or elementals, not all cards in the tribe need this mechanic

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  • Synesthesy's Avatar
    240 142 Posts Joined 05/28/2019
    Posted 4 years, 9 months ago

    The fact that in Hearthstone not every minion has a tribe means that a tribe should be very meaningfull -either for flavor or for mechanic- to exist.

    A tribe that is really important lore-wise can exist without a mechanic: dragon didn't have one for the firsts sets. But I don't think there is anything like that for now... And we have really powerfull and interesting series of cards, like the Old Gods, or Giants, or Titans.

    For example, Giant is a thing that can be a tribe: they all have a mechanic in common (discount self) and are very similar. But do we need it? No.

    Keyword and tribes exist because you can support them with other cards: draw a murloc or draw a card with overload are the reason they exist. So for a tribe to be printed, a common mechanic isn't enough: we need some kind of reference. I think that right now Hearthstone have enough of them already. And while things like undead would be cool, Blizzard can do the same thing without the need of giving them a tribe. For example, AngryBadger above proposed undead with a mechanic based on "another minion died this turn": this can exist without the tribe.

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  • FilsonTheRat's Avatar
    165 18 Posts Joined 06/03/2019
    Posted 4 years, 9 months ago

    My speculation: Undead.

    Special effect: Cannibalize ("Battlecry: if a minion dies this turn gain something." or "At the end of your turn gain something if a minion dies this turn.").

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  • FortyDust's Avatar
    Pumpkin 1190 1897 Posts Joined 05/29/2019
    Posted 4 years, 9 months ago

    I think it's kind of weird to say, "More tribes please!" as if that's some kind of added value to the game.

    It's actually an extremely complicated ask, and Team 5 should absolutely not do it just for the sake of doing it.

    It's especially tricky when the tribe is already represented in a large number of existing cards. For that reason, Undead is one of the least likely, along with every other player race in WoW.

    Plants are definitely over-represented in a small number of classes (Druid and Rogue), so that's a problem.

    Ooze, maybe. Certain spells or battlecries could copy an Ooze, and maybe they could have one that dissolves armor or something. (I have been hoping for an armor-hate mechanic for a long time!) Not necessarily ALL the armor at once, but cutting it in half might be cool.

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  • strongpoint's Avatar
    30 32 Posts Joined 03/15/2019
    Posted 4 years, 9 months ago
    Quote From FortyDust

    I think it's kind of weird to say, "More tribes please!" as if that's some kind of added value to the game.

    It's actually an extremely complicated ask, and Team 5 should absolutely not do it just for the sake of doing it.

    It's especially tricky when the tribe is already represented in a large number of existing cards. For that reason, Undead is one of the least likely, along with every other player race in WoW.

    Plants are definitely over-represented in a small number of classes (Druid and Rogue), so that's a problem.

    Ooze, maybe. Certain spells or battlecries could copy an Ooze, and maybe they could have one that dissolves armor or something. (I have been hoping for an armor-hate mechanic for a long time!) Not necessarily ALL the armor at once, but cutting it in half might be cool.

    I disagree on over representation of plants. There are no more plants than there were elemental in pre Un'Goro card pool. Also, don't you find suspicious that rogues got so many plants in Un'goro and that one of adapt options was create plants? Is it a coincidence or they had plans for plant synergies but abandoned\denied them for some reason.

    And yes more tribes add value to the game. A lot of value and fun in new deckbuilding options.  Of course if tribes have cards\mechanics caring for them. Mech tag was completely irrelevant in standard for two years and that was lame...

     

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  • uhuglue's Avatar
    35 13 Posts Joined 06/13/2019
    Posted 4 years, 9 months ago

    I'm down for Ogre, mostly because of how many of them have the '50% chance to hit wrong enemy' line. Could expand on that, like maybe make a spell along the lines of 'All of your Ogres hit the right bloody target for once this turn'?

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