Although March of the Lich King is less than a week away from going live, releasing on December 6th, there is already a way to play with the new cards and you don't even need to own them!
March of the Lich King's new cards, as well as those from Path of Arthas, have been added to Hearthstone Duels' mid-run buckets, so you'll be able to add them to your deck and experiment with them ahead of time. If you want to increase your odds of running into March of the Lich King cards, make to build your starting deck using The Sunwell plus cards belonging to only two other sets.
Concoction Rogue!
March of the Lich King and Path of Arthas cards will be usable in your starting decks once the expansion goes live next Tuesday and you open them from card packs (for Path of Arthas, there will be a dedicated bundle in the shop) or craft them using arcane dust.
Quote From Blizzard On December 6, March of the Lich King and Path of Arthas will be added to deckbuilding and the two new Death Knight heroes will be added to the hero pool.
But Wait, There's More!
A lot more, actually. In case you missed it, Patch 25.0 added the Knights of the Frozen Throne set to Duels' deckbuilding pool, meaning that you can already include cards from that expansion to your starting decks!
It has to be noted that Frozen Throne cards were eligible for Duels' deckbuilding phase since the very beginning of November: this was due to the fact that the set was temporarily added to the Year of the Hydra's Core Set to celebrate Death Knight's introduction. However, while Frozen Throne will "rotate" out of Standard on December 6th, The Lich King and his Death Knights won't leave Duels!
Quote From Blizzard On November 29 […] Knights of the Frozen Throne will also be added to deckbuilding.
Finally, Duels' Bucket System received a consistent revamp. Here's how it works now:
- The "Group Learning" bucket got removed entirely.
- All other buckets have been adjusted to give cards by expansion, instead of by grouped type of effect.
- Cards for buckets are generated based on cards from your deck, then a bucket will be generated based on the associated bucket pool.
Quote From Blizzard Card Bucket Revamp
With Patch 25.0, the Duels card bucket system will be getting a major update. The “Group Learning” bucket will be removed entirely. All other buckets will be adjusted to give cards by expansion, instead of by grouped type of effect. Cards for buckets will be generated based on cards from your deck, then a bucket will be generated based on the associated bucket pool.
Problems, Problems
However, there is no rose without a thorn. Following Patch 25.0's update, Modes Design Lead for Hearthstone Matt London confirmed that there seem to be some issues with the bucket update. Although we only have a suspicion regarding what's not working, there's no ETA on when a fix will go live, but at least we know that Team 5 is aware of things not working as intended.
Quote From Matt London We're monitoring a few issues related to our recent bucket update. Thank you everyone for your patience.
Finally, a Duels player on Reddit posted their rewards for a 12-win run in the Heroic mode; however, they were... quite below average! Team 5 is yet to address the situation, so it may be something you should keep in mind when starting your runs, at least in the foreseeable future.
Charge yer phone! (Source)
Have you had any luck playing with the new cards in Duels? Let us know your experiences with them in the comments below.
Comments
Duels got murdered in my opinion.
Giving out buckets per expansion means there's really no more insane strats, because at some point in the run you're basically playing arena. Sure, duels usually go out looking like everyone's playing a combo deck, but at least its a different taste compared to constructed or arena.
Oh well, at least you still get a nice first 3 games before getting bogged down by shit.
So the buckets only give cards from the expansions that you've used in your deck, now?
Correct.
Those 12-win rewards, ouch!
personally, I like the new buckets. They give you good cards that (sometimes) have a synergy.
I have gotten Prince Renthal tho at like 35 health, so I feel dirty lol.