Hold Up The Hype Train: New Hearthstone Hero Is A Reskin

Yesterday, Blizzard posted a teaser story on the Hearthstone website that hinted at the arrival of a new hero in the game. Maybe it was a case of the Internet taking a vague (though intentionally so) message and running with it, but the predominant theory was that we'd get a new warrior hero with a different hero power than Garrosh.

Fast-forward to today and the true reveal is, to a lot of people, less than satisfying. The new hero is Magni Bronzebeard, who offers new emotes, visual effects on his hero power, and a new card back, but no gameplay that's any different from Garrosh. He's the first in what will probably be a number of alternate hero skins, and will sell for $9.99 each in the Hearthstone store.

I don't think most people have an issue with Blizzard selling alternate, non-gameplay-affecting skins for heroes, especially so soon after releasing a decent chunk of content in Blackrock Mountain. But I think this is a case where they tried to get a little too "cute" with their marketing. If the Magni reveal came out of the blue today, without the lead-in story from yesterday, it would have been fine. Instead, even though it was only one day, Blizzard allowed player expectations to be whipped up into a frenzy over something that wasn't nearly as interesting as what players dreamed up. Goes to show that even the big boys can slip up from time to time.