The cat is finally out of the bag, friends–the entire Journey to Un’Goro set has been revealed. This, of course, includes the legendary Quests for each class. For those who don’t know, Quests are one mana cards that start in your opening hand. You can choose to mulligan them if you’d like. When you play them, the Quest begins, and you must meet its requirements to progress. If you’re able to complete the quest, you’re given an incredibly powerful card as a reward.
With the full Un’Goro set now public, we can finally check out the remaining three Quests: Druid, Mage, and Warrior. All three of these new cards are amazing in their own right, and could very well shape the post-Un’Goro metagame.
Druid Quest: Jungle Giants
Druid’s Quest is called Jungle Giants. In order to complete it, you must play five minions with five or more attack. If you are able to do so, you are awarded Barnabus the Stomper, a five mana 8/8 with a Battlecry that reduces the cost of minions in your deck to 0. While Barnabus might not be as game-winning as other Quest reward minions, it’s still a force to be reckoned with.
Druid’s Quest is arguably more viable than some of the Quests for other classes, which can be completed with perfect RNG by turns three or four. This one can’t, but Jungle Giants trades luck for reliability, and the Quest can easily be completed by around turn eight. The Quest also synergizes extremely well with several of the new cards–Tortollan Forager, for example, adds a random minion with five or more attack to your hand. Elder Longneck is a five attack minion that only costs three mana to play. Shellshifter can be a four mana 5/3 with Stealth. They all help a lot towards this quest, even if you don’t draw any ramp. If you’re only using the new cards, you can still complete Druid’s Quest by turn eight.
Unfortunately, Barnabus isn’t nearly as powerful as some of the other Quest rewards. His effect is extremely powerful, don’t get me wrong, but because it’s played so late it has a smaller impact. A zero mana 12/12 on turn one? Insane. A zero mana 12/12 on turn nine? Decent. The big problem is dealing with card draw. Druid already struggles with maintaining a respectable hand size at the best of times, and Jungle Giants only makes things harder. A string of zero mana minions is pretty useless if you float eight mana anyway. Barnabus does open up a variety of combo possibilities, however, and while I’m not sure if he’s playable in meta decks yet, the community should have some good fun with the card.
Mage Quest: Open the Waygate
Have you ever wanted to take more turns? Mage’s new Quest is called Open the Waygate, and in order to complete it, you must play six spells that weren’t in your deck at the start of the game. Your reward? Time Warp, a five mana spell that lets you take an extra turn. This is obviously insane. Game-breakingly insane. Nearly an instant win if you can play it efficiently. This is the trick, of course–finding the right time to play Time Warp.
Playing six spells that didn’t start in your deck won’t be easy. However, Mage does have a lot of tools for the job, and a bunch more are on the way. Currently there are quite a few cards that create spells, but most are rotating out, which leaves us with Babbling Book, and, to a lesser extent, Kabal Courier and Kazakus. This is where the new cards come in: Shimmering Tempest adds a random Mage spell to your hand when it dies. Mana Bind is a Secret that gives you a spell that your opponent played, and lowers the cost to 0. Primordial Glyph lets you Discover a spell and reduces the cost by 2. Steam Surger gives you a Flame Geyser if you played an Elemental during the previous turn.
There are also two neutral cards that could help. Elise the Trailblazer shuffles an Un’Goro pack into your deck that could be full of spells. Adding the pack also contributes to the Quest’s counter. Tortollan Primalist has a ridiculous mana cost, but it does specify that you ‘cast’ the spell it discovers, so it will most likely count towards this Quest. There are a ton of ways to activate the Quest, and it has enormous potential.
Warrior Quest: Fire Plume’s Heart
Out of all the Quests, I have to say that Warrior’s is my favorite. The Quest is called Fire Plume’s Heart–great name–and your goal is simple: play seven Taunt minions. When you complete the Quest, you get Sulfuras, a three mana 4/2 Weapon. (It’s worth noting that Sulfuras is the only Quest reward that doesn’t cost five mana.) But wait, there’s more–when you play Sulfuras, your hero power becomes ‘Deal 8 damage to a random enemy.’ Mind. Blown.
This is exactly what people wanted from Majordomo back in the day. If Control Warrior could play the card without sacrificing its armour, Majordomo would have been amazing. Thankfully, now you can, and you don’t lose your life total either. In fact, you get a great weapon instead. This is the kind of love Control Warrior desperately needed, since the deck had lost a lot of its end game potential, largely due to the strength of Reno and Jades. Now, Control Warrior decks can actually put your opponent on a clock, which is incredible for Control Warrior. It synergizes extremely well with other Warrior cards as well. Play Brawl, use your Hero Power, and you’ve got a 50/50 between clearing their board or hitting them for 8.
Seven Taunt minions is definitely a lot, but it’s extremely viable when you consider the card pool that Warrior can draw from. You’ve already got cards like Sparring Partner, Bloodhoof Brave, and Fierce Monkey. Alley Armousmith joined the crew last expansion as well. All four of the new Warrior minions have Taunt as well, which means there’s no shortage of useful Taunt minions for completing this quest. There are even quite a few of low cost Taunters, which means this Quest won’t take nearly as long as you might think. Control Warrior is back, baby!