As the dust settles from an eventful World of Warcraft TCG World Championship, I just wanted to make sure everyone had a clear look at the Scourgewar cards I was previewing while gunslinging there. By the way, there were a lot of bombs that went off! I’d like to give a special shout-out to Janos, all the way from Hungary, who pulled a “sweet” EA but then went on to win the Legendary Draft.

Without further ado, we start off with the card that was easily the most talked about . . .

I maxed out at seven Ghouls (peasants make good servants in life and death).

Next up, a sweet Wand for the clothies . . .

Assault is a new keyword you should expect to see a lot of in Scourgewar. It means (on this card) “This card has +1 ATK on your turn.” If it was Assault 50 Million, it would have +50 million ATK on your turn. Got it? Good.

Is this an enforceable trigger? Yes. Did we define Zombie noise? No.

Do you remember the show Pinky and the Brain? There was a side character on that show called Katie Ka-boom. She would blow up at the end of each episode. Man, I loved Pinky and the Brain.

My deck had In Defense of Halaa, Akama’s Sash, and Blue Suede Shoes to protect my Bomb. I also threw in a [Staff of Twin Worlds] for spice. Sometimes you gotta spice it up, you know? Some people (you know who you are) took a lot of fire damage.

Hey Diane Cannings, what is a mild-mannered Leatherworking Master like you doing in a place like this?

There is a Master for each of the three armor-crafting types in Scourgewar, and there is a location that refers to each of them and their respective armor types as well. Also, look! More Assault!

The sharp-eyed among you may have may have also noticed some template changes. “Diane” became “this ally” (this change is across all card types except hero), and we have started using the DEF icon instead of “DEF”. All referents (Leather, Mail) are also now capitalized. We made several other template changes starting in Scourgewar in an effort to make our cards easier to parse (and to read), especially for newer players.

The next card asks the age-old question “What’s better, 2 + 2 + 2 or 3 + 2 + 1?”

The answer, it turns out, is that they are both good.

As a special bonus for people who clicked on this article, here are a couple of cards I brought and showed to a few people but weren’t in decks . . .

What’s this? Interesting . . .

In the past, we printed Viper Sting and Serpent Sting. In Scourgewar, there appears a third: Scorpid Sting!

When I saw an equipment with a name like this, I asked myself, what have we traited to Dragons?

Well, Onyxia destroys heroes, so it seemed logical. Please notice this is not a “may” effect, so be careful out there, especially against Paladins.

Well, I hope this has been a good appetizer before the main course of previews starts in a few weeks. We are very excited about Scourgewar and can’t wait for you guys to see it!

Ben Cichoski