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First Impressions of Hearthstone Twist and Decks from the Preview Event – Familiar, Yet New and Different

By: Old Guardian - - Updated:

Twist is a new Hearthstone mode that will be added to the game next week. I had the opportunity to try out the new mode in the preview event yesterday, and it proved to be a lot of fun!

The ruleset of Twist will change on a regular basis, although Blizzard has not yet decided exactly how often it will change. Twist has a ladder identical to Standard and Wild, and until the end of July, the ruleset will be New Age. New Age includes the Core set and all Hearthstone expansions starting from Ashes of Outland (April 2020). The initial Twist season adds a twist that Neutral cards are not included in the card pool: you cannot add Neutral cards to your deck and you also cannot Discover or generate them randomly.

So, what is it like to play with this card pool? What new twists have been introduced to the game because of the limitations? Is it fun? And what does the future hold for Twist? Let’s dive deeper into these questions.

More Wild Than Standard

Hearthstone’s New Age resembles the Modern format of Magic: The Gathering, but is radically different upon closer inspection. While Modern removed some of the overpowered cards from the first set of Magic from the card pool, Hearthstone’s power history differs drastically from that of Magic. Hearthstone’s Legacy set does not include many overpowered cards at all. Ice Block is the closest to a super card that the set still has remaining. As a fully digital game, Hearthstone’s overpowered cards get nerfed and the outliers of the older sets have been reduced in power long ago.

There are still individual great cards here and there, but they are sprinkled across all of Hearthstone’s various expansions. There’s Loatheb from Naxxramas, there’s Reno Jackson from The League of Explorers, and so on. Power is spread much more evenly in Hearthstone, and it generally increases over time.

New Age includes more than twice the cards Standard does and because power levels are generally increasing, it includes many Wild staples. Yet, Wild decks need some adaptation for New Age. Quest Druid loses Claw, Flobbidinous Floop, Secure the Deck, and Arcane Giants, for example, so it is not quite the same deck as it is in Wild. It is still a formidable adversary with potentially a Pyroblast as a Hero Power thanks to Oracle of Elune, Groovy Cat, and Moonlit Guidance.

All in all, New Age Twist is closer to Wild than it is to Standard. Intriguingly, you can approach the mode from either direction, either by adapting a Wild deck to New Age or by coming in with a Standard deck that can be enhanced for it. The mode has surprising depth to it and will have its own unique meta as decks become more refined.

What Is It Like to Play Without Neutral Cards?

In the beta season of Twist, every deck just wants to be pure. We already have one such deck in constructed, Pure Paladin. Even though Paladin has specific support for only including class cards, it does not seem overpowered in Twist. Quite the contrary, Paladin needs to make good use of all of its resources to hang on when there is a considerably larger class card pool available to all contenders.

The lack of Neutral cards has several effects on the mode:

First, there is a clear lack of hand disruption in the format. Dirty Rat, Mutanus the Devourer, and Theotar, the Mad Duke are all gone. There are very few cards in the format that can affect the opponent’s hand. What’s in your hand is yours, for the most part. I did play some Control Warrior with disruption tools (not a good idea) and some Blood Death Knight with Patchwerk. Blood Death Knight was clearly the stronger of the two, by the way. If you can survive, you can pull off some combos.

Second, there is a lack of specific removal options. All of a sudden, weapon removal and silence are premium effects. Lightforged Cariel just will not lose her weapon in Twist. Rattlegore is as scary or even scarier than it was in its heyday. You want to end games before bad things can happen.

Third, Discover is a powerhouse – if you can find access to it. Most of the strongest Discover cards are Neutrals, so they are out of the picture, but the class Discover cards will Discover powerful class minions. As an example, Drakefire Amulet only has one Dragon that it can Discover for Mage, and that’s Haleh, Matron Protectorate. You are guaranteed to get two copies of Haleh every time you play Drakefire Amulet! While less extreme, cards like Primordial Studies also have extremely good Discover pools available.

Finding the edge cases of the ruleset will be an important part of coming up with decks that are brand-new to the format and not mere adaptations of Wild or Standard decks.

Twist New Age Decks from the Preview Event

The preview event showcased that there is still plenty of deck-building left in New Age. Here are some decks that impressed me in the event, but obviously I cannot guarantee that they will stand the test of time when the format really gets going.

NoHandsGamer was well-known for his love for Beast Druid back in the day, and it is no surprise that he built an Aggro Beast Druid for New Age as well. Oracle of Elune has plenty of great targets in this deck as it can be used to improve your Hero Power with Groovy Cat or just take over the board with Umbral Owl.

NoHandsGamer's Beast Aggro Druid – Twist New Age

Deck Import

Pure Libram Paladin may be one of the more obvious decks to build for New Age, but that does not make it any less strong. The deck has some excellent synergies and Lightforged Cariel is a scary card at the top with no weapon removal in the format. BabyBear’s version of Pure Libram Paladin looks like this:

BabyBear's Pure Libram Paladin – Twist New Age

Deck Import

New Age includes the entire golden age of Questlines, and many of them look playable in the format. Among other things, Command the Elements is back to blast people away with double spells. Here is Feno’s take on the archetype:

Feno's Quest Shaman – Twist New Age

Deck Import

Secret Mage is a strong contender in Wild, and it has also started to see play in Standard thanks to Costumed Singer, so it should be in a good position to succeed in New Age as well. This is the version Kibler played in the event with some success:

Kibler's Secret Mage – Twist New Age

Deck Import

The most success I had was with good old Face Hunter. Wolpertinger, Trampling Rhino, Kolkar Pack Runner. It is easy to reminisce of some happy face-hunting days with such cards available in the format. I think I should add some more one-drops to the list, but it was still a pleasure to play.

Old Guardian's Face Hunter – Twist New Age

Deck Import

The Future of Twist – Is It a Good Format?

I was impressed by Twist. There is quite a bit of depth to the initial New Age format, and it will take players some time to fully figure it out. However, it will be figured out, just like any other meta. That was the demise of Classic that Twist is now replacing: after everything had been figured out, player numbers started to decline rapidly. While some people enjoyed playing Classic – some people still enjoy playing Mercenaries too, you know – the big numbers just were not there. In a card game like Hearthstone, new content is needed to keep people entertained and playing.

I hope Blizzard will opt for more frequent changes to the Twist ruleset over less frequent changes. Twist has a ladder, and the rewards are synchronized with the other constructed formats, so one month is the shortest period of time that makes sense. It is also the optimal period of time. Even a brand-new format will be figured out in a month. It is good if the format then changes just as it is becoming stale. If something is easier to figure out and is solved in two weeks, that only leaves two weeks of a solved meta until it is replaced by something new again. Blizzard could even bring back Classic into Twist sometime. After a couple of years, people might be into playing Classic for a month again.

The main challenge Twist faces is the cost to enter it. Many players disenchant their old cards as they rotate out of Standard and may not have Wild collections that they need to enter Twist. With the format changing often, it will be hard for players to keep up unless they already have a good collection. The more often the format changes, the more difficult it is to keep up. On the other hand, Twist may also serve as a gateway for more players to spend time in Wild. Once you’re up and running, it is actually easier to keep up with Wild than it is to keep up with Standard.

Much will depend on the collection support Blizzard will give players for Twist. Bundles, decks, and things that can be purchased with Gold may all be needed to make the format a success. If Blizzard can find the right balance, Hearthstone may be entering a new era of more frequent exciting content – and to make things easier for Blizzard, it is not brand-new, just presented with a Twist.

Old Guardian

Ville "Old Guardian" Kilkku is a writer and video creator focused on analytic, educational Hearthstone, and building innovative Standard format decks. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/OldGuardian Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/old_guardian

Check out Old Guardian on Twitter or on their Website!

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