It’s that time of year again fellow card slingers, when the nights get longer, the weather gets colder, and three factions of organised criminals kick their turf war over a fictional goblin city into high gear. That’s right Hearthstone’s latest expansion ‘Mean Street of Gadgetzan’ finally has a release date and is due to hit us on the first of December, just in time for the new Ranked Play Season.

The first thing that catches the attention when looking at the card list is the introduction of ‘Tri-Class’ cards, here representing membership in one of three crime families, the 20s gangster style Grimy Goons (Hunter, Paladin or Warrior), the Eastern flavoured Jade Lotus (Druid, Rogue or Shaman), or the criminally magical Kabal (Mage, Priest or Warlock).

In terms of actual deck building,at least for me personally these seem more to be there to help thematically define the factions in this expansion rather than cross the lines between the classes, there is no giving overload to druid or ‘choose one’ style cards to rogue within the Jade Lotus faction for example outside of -maybe- getting something useful from another class via each factions ‘Discover’ minion which can reach into the whole clans card pool, but that does not seem reliable enough to build a deck around. At first I was a little let down by this (especially since there are only three card per group), but now that the whole card list has been released the unique ‘themes’ of these factions as supported by the both the Tri-Class cards and cards within each pure class itself become clear and seem to be what will really define this expansion rather than what seems at the moment to be a slightly gimmicky deck building constraint.

The ‘theme’ for the Grimy Goons is buffing cards that are in your hand rather than in play, Jade Lotus are all about the ‘Jade Golem’ mechanic which I will go into more detail on later, and the Kabal have a number of legendaries that require no duplicates in your deck (like Reno Jackson) plus ‘potion’ spells. Think of these more like restricted neutral cards to support specific class strategies rather than expanded class cards in other words.

The above might seem somewhat sacrilicious, and, as with all reviews of a card list not in actual play yet it is quite possible I will be proved wrong by the meta but below are five cards (not in any particular order) that I think exemplify the kind of decks we may be seeing after the expansion hits.

-Note- I’m not going to be talking about how these cards may potentially affect future metas when a new set of expansions gets rolled out  into Wild next year as A) That’s an article all by itself B) We don’t have all the information for yet. C) I’m ill at the moment and can’t quite kick my brain into gear to think that widely at the moment. Anyway, onwards!

It’s probably no surprise that this is the first card that really grabbed my attention during the reveals. I am a fan of Dragon Priest but despite some recent gains it has been hurting for mass removal since the loss of Lightbomb, and I am sure this new card being costed the same is not an accident. Combine this with the new Drakonid Operator, which has good stats, a discover mechanic to get a card from the opponent’s deck, and slots perfectly in at the 5 mana slot and you get the Dragons coming home to Priest after their recent forays into other classes. It’s probably also worth mention the other raft of goodies that Priest has got this expansion too. Potion of madness does the same thing as shadow madness but to minions of one strength lower but at 3 mana less. Combine this with a pint size potion that reduces all enemy minion – 3 attack for a turn to allow for a turn of very favourable trades at a bargain cost and you have the kind of combo I like where each individual component is also strong by itself. I still need to run the numbers but I am also looking forward to trying out Wrathion (who draws cards until you -don’t draw a dragon) and Kabal Talonpriest who  rounds out the theme of ‘value’ here, again with strong stats at 3 mana at 3 and giving another minion + 3 health isn’t a dragon but is just -strong- and is a reminder that in Hearthstone you can have all the flashy combos you like but one of the most consistent ways to win matches is to build around ensuring you play a better ‘value’ card than your opponent at every point along the mana curve, a hallmark of Dragon Priest in particular but perhaps on the Mean Streets there is a new contender for that crown…

I was undecided about whether to put this here or Smuggler’s run which is a spell that does the same thing but for 1 mana but ended up going with the Outfitter due to the potential for bouncing him back to hand with Brewmasters and to actually get a body on the board. Both cards are paladin and for a drop in early tempo with either of these cards (probably both if you are building a deck around this concept) every single other minion in your hand just gets -better-. Often the way of determining the value of a card is to compare cost to stats, the baseline acceptability without tradeoff is generally considered to be that either attack or health should be equal to the mana cost and the other should be one higher (3 mana for a 3 / 4 for example hence why I rated Priest cards with these stat lines -plus- a strong additional ability so highly in the previous section), but with the Outfitter,  the coin, and a deck focused on minions for example you could be looking at 5 / 5 worth of stats for 2 mana as your first play with no major downside. That’s incredible value. At the start of a new season and when a new expansion comes out so do the minion focused ‘face’ decks. While everyone else is still getting used to their new cards and strategies these singularly focused decks know exactly what they are doing and can navigate the maelstrom of uncertainty with ease (until they get to the choppy waters of high up the ranked ladder but the metaphor is getting away from us at this point). It happened with Shaman when Karazahn was coming out and I would be surprised if Paladin rush decks were not somewhat of a thorn in people’s side when the new expansion hits too. Lots of small minions offset with card draw like Coldlight oracle, the new Meanstreet Marshal and potentially space for the new Small Time Recruits (3 mana to draw 3 1 cost minions) spell to help offset the usual issues Paladin and you could just power through opponents before they get a chance to get going. What can possibly help stop a deck of undercosted minions though, well I’m glad you asked…

Perhaps a left field pick as it reactive rather than proactive, but in my opinion this card just straight up takes certain deck archetypes round the back of Fizzgrimble’s Inn and shivs them in the kidneys until Gold comes out. The Paladin decks mentioned above lose all their advantage since the in initial cost doesn’t change and therefore the devolved minions are tiny, not to mention it is a reliable way of stopping those annoying one hit combo murloc decks as it removes the key component minions from the game rather than killing them to be returned by Anyfin Can Happen later. Against other shaman decks it negates the advantage you get from overload minions, and any other deck that relies on specific minions to work (Flamewalker for mage, deathrattle minions for N’zoth) just get massively disrupted. Admittedly you still have to deal with the minions that are left and you -could- end up with some nasty but Shaman is generally fine with board clear on smaller minions. It doesn’t really help with larger creatures with standard costs that are brought in by other means though which may be somewhat pertinent as we will now see…

What is a ‘Jade Golem’? Well the first time you summon one it’s a 1 /1 creature with a nominal cost of 1 mana. So far so unimpressive, but the next time a Jade Golem is summoned it will be a 2 / 2 for 2 mana, the next time it’s a 3 /3 for 3, and so on building on subsequent played cards not unlike the C’thun mechanic. Soon, once you have gotten over a bit of an initial tempo hit to get the first one out every time you summon one you are getting great value for your mana. There are a lot of cards that summon a golem as a battlecry particularly the Tri-Class Cards but I’ve picked this spell as the secondary effect makes it the real workhorse of this kind of deck, to clone itself and shuffle 3 copies back into the decks is just bananas even before you get to the idea of doing both with Fandral Staghelm! Adding back into the deck like this more or less makes it impossible for a fatigue loss which makes certain Control Warrior decks very sad indeed and potentially sets up a similar Druid version of this kind of control deck backed up with healing spells. Jade blossom seems a good spell to get the Golem train rolling as for 3 mana it drops a golem ramps you with an empty mana crystal and there are plenty of other cards along the mana curve to keep it rolling. Unless I have missed something major it is difficult to see how this card will not be one of, if not -the- stand out player of the expansion. Speaking of stand out players we haven’t actually touched on any ‘big legendaries’ yet…

You may have been expecting Kazakus (the Kabal legendary who creates a unique and powerful potion at a specified mana level based on some discover mechanic style choices if you have no duplicates) in this slot but my gut feeling is that he is more of a supporting player to be included once you have already made the decision to make a deck that supports the ‘no duplicate’ mechanic since the unique potion, while potentially powerful does not seem powerful enough to build an entire deck around by itself due to the randomness involved. Neither do the other two class legendaries who have a similar deck building constraint, strong as they are but Krul? Krul seems a lot more like an Old God from the previous expansion, you can build a deck around making sure you have demons in hand, and then getting them all in play on turn 9 in a similar manner to N’Zoth, particularly comboing a Doomguard or two with Mal’ganis, plus with Reno and Kazakus to help you get to endgame (plus it’s not like Warlock has a hard time filling it’s hand up) this could be an interesting deck to keep an eye on. In general it’s worth noting that it seems that this time around the designers have moved away slightly from having big high costs legendaries, Hobart Grapplehammer for Warrior (who buffs all weapons in the deck and hand for 2 mana) and Wickerflame Burnbristle for paladin who has a huge amount of abilities for 3 are good examples of more ‘utility’ legendaries like Bloodmage Thalnos from the base set which is a nice direction to be going in that adds flavour to the classes rather than just raw game ending power.

I think that’s my main takeaway from this card list, there’s a lot of flavour here between the Tri-Class factions and inexplicably motorcycle riding pigmen and it seems there are a -lot- of new mechanics here to be tried out and experimented with that I am sure will be expanded on in future. Apologies if I did not touch on your favourite class here or missed an ‘obvious’ card but these were the ones that jumped out at me like a cutpurse to a humble tourist, on the Mean Streets of Gadgetzan.

So, as predicted today brought the announcement of Means Streets of Gadgetzan’s release date, and it’s soon – December 1st.

Gadgetzan was one of many reveals at BlizzCon this year, with a lot of teasers placing the expansion in the outpost – but no one really predicting the angle it was going to take. Mean Streets of Gadgetzan focuses on the three main crime families who run Gadgetzan’s seedy underbelly – the Grimy Goons; the Kabal and the Jade Lotus. Each family represents three classes (Grimy Goons: Hunter, Paladin, Warrior; Kabal: Warlock, Mage, Priest; Jade Lotus: Shaman, Druid, Rogue) and so we will also see the introduction of tri-class cards that can be used in the decks of three different classes.

And of course, with the release so soon the rest of the cards have also been revealed. Here they are!

Hunter

—

Druid

—

Mage

—

Priest

—

Rogue

—

Warrior

—

Shaman

—

Warlock

—

Neutral

And of course, The Storm Guardian token has also been revealed too:

Now, we wait for release. And a mass of chaos as the meta shifts to accommodate the new cards. Can’t wait.

It’s time for your weekly look into some of the interesting new campaigns that have appeared on Kickstarter in the Gaming section.

As always we start off with some updates on previously covered campaigns. We’ll start off with the bad news. Death Witch: Bloodlines, Cloud Runner, and Alone in the Woods have all completed their campaign times without meeting their goals. Death Witch and Cloud Runner have no updates available on their campaign pages, and while Alone in the Woods does have 2 updates, the last one was over a month ago. Whether we see any of these projects again is anyone’s guess. Also in the ‘bad news’ column are two campaign cancellations – PURRKINS and Space Wars: Interstellar Empires. Both were presumably cancelled due to having too little time to make up their goals, but Space Wars at least is going to continue on to its release date. They’re offering rewards in-game to those who did pledge certain amounts, as they made $32,000 of their $40,000 goal in the end. Not bad for a cancellation.

However, where there is a lot of bad news, there is a little good news to balance it out. The Station has made its target and still have 11 more days to go, which means this atmospheric game is going to be made. Even more surprising is that Drawing Dead, which last week I said would have to push hard to make its goal has finished having reached it. Well played that campaign runner! And grouped in with ‘good news’, Dragon Skies VR, which was crowdfunding only to get more funds for development and were offering a copy of the game to everyone who donated at least $1 has made $799 with just over 2 days to go. That’s a decently sized community for the game from the offset!

Monkeys on Your Back

Let’s start off with the card game this week, and a game about… addictions in the shape of monkeys?

The game starts off with every players being dealt five cards. There are three types – the addiction monkeys which are what you want to avoid holding onto, action cards which let you pass the monkeys onto other players or into the deck and the figure cards which combine together into powerful combos. Each player has three lives and a life is lost each turn that is ended with a monkey still in your hand. Last one with lives wins. Simple.

Monkeys on Your Back has a €15,000 goal and has made €442 with 28 days to go.

Overstep

Next up we have a first person shooter, with emphasis on choosing how you upgrade.

Overstep is a game that the developers want to be like the old-school fast-paced shooters, and its free-to-play as well. You dispatch opponents and then have the choice of how to proceed with your upgrades, even selling on tools or keeping them as your spoils of war. There will be built in capabilities for fast-paced stunts or just entering and blasting everything to pieces. It’s up to you how you play.

Overstep has 16 days to go, and it has made €10,247 of its €100,000 goal

Plague Road

Next up, we have a game that’s planned for release onto consoles and PC.

Plague Road is a rogue-like game with some turn-based strategy elements thrown into it. You follow the tale of the plague doctor who once left his home and is now venturing back after a virilent disease, seeking survivors and possibly finding out the story of where this sickness came from in the first place. You will fight dangerous foes and have the chance to rescue survivors you find and return them to the safety of your farm home.

Plague Road has made $4,281 of its $30,000 target. It has 29 more days to go.

DämmerLicht

Finally we have an interesting game based on the many worlds theory.

The game is at its base, a 2D pixel RPG set in a fantasy medieval world. However, going off the multiverse theory of each action creating a different split off universe of what happens when each solution is chosen, each action you take in this game creates an alternative universe – in other words each action will effect which way the story develops.

DämmerLicht has 22 days remaining to make its CA$450 goal, of which it has so far managed to earn CA$75.00 of.

We’re getting close now to the release time for Hearthstone’s next big expansion, and it seems the time has finally come to focus on the remaining crime family – the Jade Lotus!

This means that we’ve had a lot of reveals in their three classes of Druid, Shaman and Rogue this week (particularly Shaman!) – as well as finding out just what’s up with the Jade Golems and why so many of the Jade Lotus cards want to summon them for you!

Druid

—

Priest

—

Rogue

—

Shaman

—

Tri-Class

—

Neutral

And as you can see from a great many of the Jade Lotus cards, they summon Jade Golems. Having expressed curiosity last week about what they look like, we finally find out. The more Jade Golems summoned, the more powerful the subsequent Jade Golems are!

Shaman got a lot of cards this week, about time given how long they went without any new cards revealed. The most interesting one for me has to be Devolve, the antithesis of the popular Evolve card among Shaman players who love a little bit of chance. Of course, Devolve also has that same RNG taste to it, but usually you count on 1 Mana less Minions being weaker. At the very least it is another one that upsets the plans your opponent might be plotting at that moment.

Not that many Neutral reveals this week, but Hozen Healer could be a good one if it appears at the right time. Sure, 2 attack isn’t great for 4 Mana, but 6 Health AND a full Minion heal? Pretty good value to me, although we shall obviously have to wait and see what kind of use it receives after Gadgetzan gets a release.

There’s going to be a big livestream tomorrow over on the Hearthstone Twitch channel, so you can bet that we’ll see more cards and probably a release date announcement happening during that stream. Tune in if you want to see how each family plays, because they’ve certainly said they’ll be doing that too!

After a surprise awakening two days ago, Hello Games have posted up the patch notes for the Foundation Update they’re adding the No Man’s Sky.

The patch notes are hosted over on their site, taking up an entire page with big sections devoted to each new ‘big’ addition coming in. For those who heard about the Update and thought it’d be a small, token thing… well, by the looks of it Hello Games really have been hard at work for the last few months. If you look at the patch notes that is. Certainly impressive.

So, to start we know that the Foundation Update is setting up the groundwork for a bigger and better base building mechanic. You should now be able to claim unoccupied bases you come across, and will be able to hire alien researchers to help you develop new technologies for your living arrangements. Or, if you later find a much nicer place to have a base, break it down and reclaim the materials to rebuild it there.

Farming is also going to come to the game, with some new crops being the result of the aforementioned research in that area at least. You will also be able to build automatic resource harvesters to cut out the need for you to constantly go searching for that last thing you need across many planet surfaces.

If you could have lived our lives over the last months, you’d know how meaningful this is.

Here’s update 1.1https://t.co/4TelmFIgsK

— Sean Murray (@NoMansSky) November 27, 2016

Off the planet, you can now hire massive freighters to transport big loads of cargo for you. They can also be sent to certain systems to accumulate resources as well.

Other changes include UI tweaks, and the addition of both a Creative Mode for unrestrained building, and a Survival Mode for anyone who wants a challenge.

Hello Games say that this is “the first of many free updates.” So hopefully there might be a chance NMS will become the game it was supposed to be.

That is, if the gaming community can forgive past mistakes…