It’s been two months since the Ashes of Outlands update hit Hearthstone’s live servers and Blizzard is still going strong. The Hearthstone team recently released the Trials of Felfire update bring new a solo adventure story and new quality of life updates in Battlegrounds mode.
Say hello to Aranna Starseeker, the newest Demon Hunter
One of the biggest updates is the arrival of the newest solo adventure story, Trials of Felfire. The new solo adventure story features Aranna Starseeker, the sister of Elise Starseeker member of the Explorers League and one of the protagonists of last year’s Year of the Dragon storyline.
Trials of Felfire tells the tale of how Aranna becomes the newest Demon Hunter after trying to step out of her sister’s shadow and exploring Outlands. Like Prologue for Illidan, Trials of Felfire provides a great story for fans since it features a brand-new character and delves deeper into the lore of the Outland.
As someone who enjoys the solo adventures a bit more than the normal modes, the five-chapter story mode was great. The story and the unique ability of each opponent made it challenging but still fun. Aranna uses a mixture of Rogue and Hunter cards making for a fun and unique playstyle of board clear and smorcing
One of the best things about the new solo adventure is that it is completely free, unlike previous expansions. Despite being free the new solo adventure also rewards players with card packs and the Rusted Legion card back when they finish all five chapters.
Pirates raiding the Battlegrounds
Another big update for Trials of Felfire is the arrival of a new minion type for Battlegrounds, the Pirates.
Based on Blizzards patch notes the Pirate type minions are meant to overwhelm your opponents with tier one pirate cards offering instant attacking minions and tavern discounts, while higher tier pirates provide good attack power and constant buff and scaling.
Playing the new minion type was a hit or miss for me. I found myself struggling in the mid-game due to the lack of firepower and barely holding on when I reach level five or six and just starting to buff my team. Yet there are times when I get a great opener (thanks RNG) that I find myself with a decently scaling team that I could easily reach top four.
Aside from the new minion type, the new update has also brought minion type rotation for Battlegrounds. Each game will now only be played with five of the six minion types (Beasts, Demons, Dragons, Mechs, Murlocs, and Pirates) with a type randomly removed from the pool. The playable minion types will be displayed during the hero pick phase so players have time to decided what team they’ll produce.
The new update has also brought new heroes to Battlegrounds including the new Demon Hunter, Aranna. Since the new minions are pirates, most of the new heroes are pirates as well.
Playing as Aranna in Battlegrounds rewards players by refreshing the minions in the tavern as much as possible. Her ability upgrades the tavern’s minion capacity to seven after refreshing seven times. This gives players more minion options to buy and makes getting a gold card a little bit faster.
As a returning player for Ashes of Outland, the game rewarded me for coming back with new packs and a free meta deck. For Trials of Felfire, Hearthstone is giving players a deeper look in the lore and the rewarding them for playing more and more games. With the Trial by Felfire challenges launching on June 24, players can get more and more packs by simply playing and completing the legendary quests to mark the occasion.