Hearthstone Ogres, Ranked

Goblins vs Gnomes introduced a handful of minor themes, including spare parts, piloted mechs and ogres. This whole set has been tremendously fun to play, with randomness woven into the gameplay in ways that are only practical in a digital environment. For instance, I've already shown you how fun Recombobulator is. Today, we're talkin' about ogres.

NERDS!

Fantastic Cards from Goblins vs Gnomes - Recombobulator

Part 1 of an undeteremined length series - Recombobulator

"You might feel a little tingle"

I love this card. I love everything about this card.

The name is great. Say it out loud. "Re-com-bob-u-la-tor!"

The art is fantastic. Look at this moustache! (and those eyebrows!)

I bet Stache is so jelly

And... it is a great card to play. I think it is so much better than it looks on the surface. The stats are fine if you need to run it out early just to get a Bloodfen Raptor. But don't do that if you can afford to wait.

If you draft a lot of minions with big battlecry values (and I do), he's amazing. Use the battlecry effect. Attack the next turn, even it it is just the Villain's face, then transform your dude into something new. If you can kill an enemy minion and leave your dude clinging to one or two health, then recombobulate him, it is even better. Check out the example below.

"I am sorry"

In this game, the mage Villain got an early start with Mana Wyrm then some mechs you can see. I played two Aldor Peacekeepers to slow things down, traded one off and killed the 2/3 Wyrm with the other. This left me with a 3/1 body, which got recombobulated into Injured Blademaster, but since he doesn't injure himself with his battlecry, I get the full 4/7 stats!

For another memorable example, I was playing mage and Unstable Portal-ed into a Silver Hand Knight. I get the 4/4 and the 2/2 at a discount, then next turn trade up for the Villain's 4/3 with the Squire and a ping, then kill a 2/4 with the Knight, leaving a 4/2 body remaining. This is where the Recombobulator does his magic, taking the 5-cost Knight and turning him into any number of real sweet bodies. In this case, I get Doomguard, but without the discard two clause! And by virtue of his charge, I get to attack face for five that turn as well. Such Value! (yeah, I won that one)

I think of Recombobulator like as Earthen Ring Farseer that only works on my guys, but can sometimes have much better (and sometimes worse, to be fair) results. Pick him in the Arena. You won't regret it.

I am loving many of the random effects in the new expansion. They are super-fun and if you can manipulate them to your advantage, they can also be super-powerful.

Play Arena for Free with Unreleased Goblins vs Gnomes Cards

To celebrate (hype) the upcoming release of the new Goblins vs Gnomes Hearthstone expansion, Blizzard has generously gifted all players one free Arena run. And there's the bonus: until the expansion goes live on Monday, December 8th, it will be the only place you can play with the new cards. It's basically a prerelease event, but for Hearthstone! Just log in before the 8th to get your free Arena ticket (value: $.199 or 150 in game gold)

HYPE!

If you haven't played Hearthstone for a while, this is a great time to get back in there and see all the new hotness on the house. The community's understanding is that Arena runs won't pay off in GvG packs until Tuesday, so if you want to wait until then to play your free Arena, that is understandable. Or, you could start the run now, play up to two losses or 11 wins, then wait and finish the run after the official launch next week.

Our Blizzard overlords have also changed a couple existing cards, so dust Gadgetzan Auctioneer and Flare now for full value, especially if you don't think you'll play them for a while.

Not so Magical Results

Your hero moved to Saint Louis earlier this year, so this marks his first limited PTQ season in a new geo-political region. It turns out that there is one (1) PTQ within a 4-hour drive, so today was my only shot this season.