There's been several Hearthstone developer posts over the past couple of days that we'd like to highlight, here's our Blue Recap.


The Random Card Back

It turns out this unlocks once you've earned 5 card backs!

Quote From hadidjahb

I was going to try and answer your question, but apparently I don't have the Random Cardback!

Yeah, iirc it becomes available once you have 5 cardbacks. (Source)

Thanks for the reply! Can confirm:

After being marked by Hakkar, the Random cardback was unlocked.


What does it show when opening packs?

It’ll roll a different cardback for you each time you enter the pack opening screen. (Source)


Schemes

Quote From Hadidjahb

Are the individual scheme upgrades their own card? If I cast hagathas scheme for 5 damage and then play zuljin later on Will it cast the upgraded scheme?

Zul’jin/Yogg/etc. cast base versions of spells, so they’ll all cast the Scheme at 1 damage (or whatever that one’s mechanic is). The Schemes are single cards with dynamic text, not a series of three stepped cards like the Spellstones, so it’s all pretty much as you, /u/Watermelon86 , and /u/coderanger described. (Source)

Is there a limit to how high the Schemes can go? Could Togwaggle's Scheme shuffle 60 cards into your deck if the game is long enough?

He could, yeah.^^ None of them will break game rules for you (no 61-card decks, for example), but they don’t cap outside that. (Source)


Swampqueen Hagatha

The new legendary minion revealed earlier today, Swampqueen Hagatha, has some clarifications.

Quote From Peter Whalen

Swampqueen Hagatha appears to have two separate pools. The first spell pool is for spells that need a target and the second is for spells that do not need a target. Can you confirm?

Not exactly, but you won’t get 2 targeted spells. Might get two with no targets though.

So, the first "discover" of cards will be all shaman spells in that gamemode, and if you choose a targeted one, the second "discover" is limited to only non-target spells? Or is it two separate pools of spells (target / no-target) and the "discover" picks a pool and then the 3?

Yes - the first of those.


if I play Murmuring Elemental into Swamp Queen - will I get 2 Horrors where I choose spells for each?

Yes. Same for Brann (Source)


So in regards to the new Hagatha… if you pick Haunting Visions twice for your Horror does that mean it will discount your next spell by 6, or does it count the second half of the Battlecry as using the initial 3 mana discount?

Discount by 6 (Source)


Would shudderwock’s copying the Horror’s battlecry copy the same spells being cast or 2 random ones?

Same ones (Source)

Same ones but with random targets^

Yep (Source)

when shudder replay's the swampqueen's battlecry, do you get a 3/3 minion with a random set of spells attached to it or do you get teh same minion that was previously generated? ty

You get a new random 5/5 Hexfiend (Source)


Wouldn´t be better to name Hagatha - "Swamp Queen Hagatha?" It looks so much better and also fit the context with Swamp Kind Dred. Just asking becase I´m a little bit perfectionalist about "card texts consistency". :-D

Hagatha's is a formal E.V.I.L. title, so it's 1 word. Dred's is more "Oh god, it's the King of the Swamp, run!" That was too long for card text though, so we shortened it to Swamp King. (Source)


Themes in Rise of Shadows

Quote From Peter Whalen

Could you comment on how involved the stories/themes of previous expansions are in RoS? For example would the Old Gods be for flavour/art or might they have even greater role where their set is focused at (I presume that's mostly if not entirely Priest)? Thanks!

The stories of previous sets inform the characters that come from them. So Madame Lazul was influenced by Whispers of the Old Gods, same for Dr. Boom and Boomsday (and you can see that in the art/a bit in the mechanics in their classes), but it's critical to this story.

Thank you for the response! One more thing: Would each theme be confined to a specific class or could we expect some mixing up since the villains are working together? For example would Forbidden spells be present in any other class or do they fit Madam Lazul and Priests best?

In Rise of Shadows, they're mostly sticking to their own class, though you will see a bit of them working together For the callback cards (like Forbidden), there's just one of each. So just the one Forbidden card and it's in Priest.


Deck Autocomplete Not Always The Same?

Quote From Dave Kosak

There’s a cool down feature on the autocomplete, if you give it the same input (say, a blank deck) and hit the button again it’ll make some adjustments to ensure you get a different (but still valid) result.

I’m not an engineer so that’s probably a really bad way of explaining it, but they wanted to make sure if you just wanted to see some different decks you could push the button a couple of times to play around.