It’s time for the next phase in the ‘Battle for Silvermoon’ in Hearthstone’s newest ‘March of the Lich King’ mini-set, ‘Return to Naxxramas’. Reintroducing the levitating necropolis, Naxxramas from the first ever Hearthstone card set, the time has come to bolster your Undead army for a fight.

Silvermoon, the city of Blood Elves is set to face the looming threat of the Naxxramas and its inhabitants. The Undead and Dual-Type cards make a comeback featured in a whole new 38 cards with vibrant artworks that are somehow disturbing yet stunning as expected of Blizzard’s artists. The set includes 4 Legendary, 1 Epic, 17 Rare, and 16 Commons to build a military force
of Undead and hybrids to decimate foes.

The cards are nothing short of overpowered with fusions of types bringing huge tactical advantages to deck-building. The ultimate player in this set is the Colossal card, Frost Queen Sindragosa, and her conjoined wing cards. The first game I drew her card was an absolute bombardment of icy destruction, turning the tables when my enemy had me severely outnumbered. Between that card and various frosty undead minions, I was pretty easily able to counter most opponents with these other cards.

As per usual, cards are mostly allotted by class and for me most of my time is spent with the Priest purely for having a nicely balanced offensive and defensive deck. Notably, Cannibalize, which destroys a minion but grants its health to remaining minions, was a lifesaver. The Priest cards Mind Sear and Rotting Necromancer had perks specifically targeting the opposing hero and it was great to play an aggressive healer rather than relying on defense.

The Rogue was another favourite with what I consider one of the top cards, Stitched Creation, with combo, infuse, and manathirst bonuses. Every class had a pretty good spread of skills and most deck draws reaped pretty good results on the damage front.

Neutral cards were immensely powerful as well with the means to summon the Four Horsemen each with savage attacks. I rarely felt disappointed with my deck given the amount of Summon, Reborn, and Deathrattle cards. While suffering some agonizing defeats based on my poor choices I always put up a good fight. The deck seems way too powerful but somehow it all balances out enough to play fair with various conditions needing to be met to deal additional damage.

My time in-game was mostly a joy depending on what class I used as their cards were either insanely good or fairly lackluster. I found myself prioritizing builds that were a nice mix of skills but sometimes didn’t meet the criteria to use their effect, rendering them useless as their standard attack and health stats were weak.

Coinciding with the release came new patch updates including balances in Battlegrounds and a new hero, Tereon Gorefiend. On top of that a new Mercenaries PvE game mode “Mythic Boss Rush”, additional mercenaries, and the introduction of factions. All these changes in addition to the card set gave me plenty more to explore during this release.

Hearthstone’s Return to Naxxramas is another epic addition to a huge roster of cards and game modes making for some spicy build possibilities. Overall Hearthstone newcomers and long-term fans could have a good time testing the boundaries of these ridiculous cards, I definitely enjoyed the chaos.

Written by: Yasmin Noble