The nine most interesting cards in Hearthstone’s Whizbang’s Workshop expansion

The newest Hearthstone expansion, Whizbang’s Workshop, is now live, paying homage to the ten years of history of Blizzard’s card game. Many of this expansion’s cards reference or recreate iconic cards of the past in new, inventive ways, and the developers really outdid themselves with how fun some of those cards ended up being.

We’ve curated nine of the most unique, cool, or powerful of those cards so that you’ll familiarize yourself with them — and perhaps start planning what to craft. These cards are incredibly flavorful, and most of them seem powerful enough that they’ll find themselves in winning decks once the expansion comes out.

Ci’Cigi (Demon Hunter)

Ci’Cigi. Pronounced “CCG” — the acronym for “Collectible Card Game,” which is what Hearthstone is. And the card is designed around paying homage to that: its Deathrattle adds three random “first-edition” Demon Hunter cards to your hand, “in mint condition.” While it’s true that Hearthstone is a digital game — and thus, cards have no real “editions” and by definition can’t be (or are always) in “mint condition” — what this means is that the cards you get have the same stats, costs, and effects as they had when they were first introduced to the game.

And the Demon Hunter class was quite overpowered when it first hit the game. Skull of Gul’dan, which is no longer in Standard, used to cost five mana rather than six. Battlefiend used to be a 1-mana 2/2 with the same attack-scaling effect. There are 11 cards in total that Ci’Cigi can give you which are reverted back to their stronger original iterations — and it’s absolutely genius design. It takes advantage of the fact that the game has a history of buffs and nerfs and plays around with it in a way that would be pretty much impossible for a physical game.

Dr. Stitchensew (Death Knight)

This is a six mana 6/4 Undead that prompts you to Discover three minions: one that costs five mana, another that costs three, and another that costs one. It has a Deathrattle that reads “summon the 5-Cost minion.” What the card text doesn’t make immediately obvious (but can perhaps be inferred) is that the 5-Cost minion will also come with a Deathrattle that summons the 3-Cost minion; and finally, the 3-Cost minion will have a Deathrattle that summons the 1-Cost minion.

It’s a matryoshka monstrosity that we’d rather not think about too hard! But it’s also likely to be a really powerful card.

Puzzlemaster Khadgar (Mage)

This is the textbook definition of a fun card — but one that, besides being fun, is also likely to be very useful. Keeping with the theme of Khadgar giving you “helpful advice” — usually from a conjured image of his head inside a floating orb — this card will cast spells like Blizzard, Arcane Intellect, and Polymorph, among others (from a total of ten spells), picking the one that best fits your current situation in the game.

Which means that, at worst, the game gives you a helping hand when you don’t know what to do, using its expertise to analyze the board state and play a fitting card for the situation; whereas at best, an expert player could predict what Khadgar would cast in a given situation and play him at the perfect moment to get their expected outcome. Fun for all kinds of players!

Raza the Resealed (Priest)

A nod to a famous combo from a few years ago, where Raza the Chained was played alongside the Shadowreaper Anduin hero card to turn Priests into machine guns. Players would keep using their hero power to deal two damage, and then playing cheap cards to refresh it, repeating those actions for as long as possible. This new version of Raza resurrects the ability to refresh your hero power by playing cards — but it’s lacking the damage part. However, cards such as Reno, Lone Ranger are still in the game, which means that the class will have access to damage-dealing hero powers that can take advantage of the constant resets.

All that’s missing for this formula to become a winning one is the ability for Priest to generate many cheap (or free) cards — so the viability of this card will hinge on smart players being able to come up with solutions to that problem. But as it is, Raza the Resealed stands as a potential card to build an entire archetype around. Time will tell how effective it’ll be.

The Headless Horseman (Death Knight)

At last, the Death Knight class has a Hero card! This is the very first card of its type for the newest Hearthstone class, and it’s absolutely overflowing with flavor. Even the card text is full of rhymes, and this extends to the hero power and to the extra card it adds to your deck. That card, when drawn, makes your hero power stronger, meaning that your hero will eventually get stronger (as long as you survive).

And that hero power, which deals three damage for two mana, is already pretty strong at base level. But once it’s upgraded, it also allows you to Discover an Undead, giving you a lot of value each turn. This is all without mentioning that the hero card itself also has a Battlecry that destroys the enemy minion with the highest Attack, giving it multiple uses. Definitely a card to watch out for — the debut for Death Knight Hero cards couldn’t have been more exciting.

Shudderblock (Shaman)

In yet another nod to the past — this celebratory expansion is filled with them — Shudderblock stands to be the new Shudderwock. While it won’t repeat every Battlecry you played in the current game like the original did, it’ll allow players to repeat a single Battlecry three times — and to then repeat that effect for only one mana, due to having the Miniaturize keyword.

This card comes with a restriction that the Battlecry that gets tripled can’t hit the enemy hero — clearly a safety measure to prevent easy one-hit kill combos. But the game has other powerful Battlecry effects: we’ve already seen this card being used to great success with Chaotic Tendril during the recent theorycrafting event. It’s very, very likely that this card will find a deck in which it’ll shine — not to mention that its effect is super fun.

Timewinder Zarimi (Priest)

I’m sure most people who read this card will think something along the lines of “this card is insane.” Getting to take an extra turn is an extremely powerful effect. And the requirement for that extra turn to happen is merely summoning five other Dragons — not even playing (from your hand), just summoning, which means that cards that conjure Dragons out of thin air (like Clay Matriarch) will make those extra Dragons count towards this effect.

Honestly, this is one of this expansion’s biggest nerf candidates at this point. But whether it turns out to be overpowered or not, the effect is definitely worth paying attention to.

Wheel of DEATH!!! (Warlock)

Disclaimer: this card is unlikely to be any good. But its effect is so incredibly out there that we have to include it. It’s an 8-mana Shadow spell that immediately destroys your deck — but, if after taking such an extreme measure you still manage to survive for five more turns, the enemy hero is destroyed.

So the question becomes: will it be possible to build a Warlock deck that can stall the game for five turns with no deck — and all the implications that come from that, such as taking fatigue damage? It seems like a hard ask, but there’s always the possibility that someone will succeed. We don’t expect such a deck to become reliable enough that everyone would want to play it, but it’s definitely a crazy enough effect to warrant some fun games if it ever works.

Zilliax Deluxe 3000 (Neutral)

This new, upgraded version of Zilliax is easily among the most unique cards ever made for Hearthstone. When you add it to your deck, you get to pick two from eight modules that will be integrated into the base minion — meaning that you can customize it to fit your own strategy. Those modules add to the minion’s cost, stats, and effects, allowing it to become bigger (but more costly), to summon a copy of itself, to gain a plethora of keywords like Divine Shield, Lifesteal, and Rush, or a Deathrattle that shuffles it back into your deck, among other things.

The sheer amount of possibilities — and the fact that it’s a Neutral card — means that this card is likely to become a staple on many decks, from multiple classes and archetypes. And it also means that your opponent never really knows what to expect from you when you play it.

Whizbang’s Workshop is looking like it’ll be a really fun expansion if these cards are any indication. We hope you have fun with those crazy Legendaries and more.