On Hearthstone’s Peculiar New Legendary

Blizzard Entertainment’s wildly-popular digital card game, Hearthstone, has just had yet another new expansion set of cards added to its already ridiculously large collection. This new expansion is entitled Saviors of Uldum, and it includes 135 new collectible cards. That number is difficult for me to envision because the game already contains so many playable cards in its “Wild” format, but that’s a discussion for another day.

These new cards herald the return of the beloved members of the League of Explorers, the addition of a new mechanic keyword, and one particular legendary minion that I personally found very interesting. The concept of that specific minion and the effect that its card text could potentially have on the game are the topics I’d like to discuss today.

If you follow the competitive Hearthstone scene to any degree, I suspect you may have guessed by now that the legendary minion I’m referring to is none other than Zephrys the Great. At first glance, a two-attack/three-health elemental for two mana may not seem very impressive.

Of course, it’s not really Zephrys’ stats that are important; rather, his carefully-worded effect text is why I find him so interesting. His effect text dictates that when you summon Zephrys from your hand, you’ll gain the ability to “wish for the perfect card” provided your deck doesn’t contain any duplicate cards.

This is done through the game’s “Discover” mechanic that was introduced several expansions ago; this mechanic allows you to choose one of three cards that Zephrys thinks you might need based on the current state of a given game. I’ll discuss exactly how that works shortly.

I was confused by this whole “perfect card” idea at first, so let me provide an example from my own understanding. Suppose you play Zephrys at a later point in a given game, when you have a fair amount of mana to spare and your opponent has a board full of minions that you’d rather they didn’t have.

Based on the state of the game, Zephrys’ effect might offer you a Twisting Nether to reset the board, or give you a direct damage spell to help you finish your opponent off if they’re low on health. Alternatively, if you play Zephrys earlier in a game, his effect might give you a cheaper card that will swing the game’s tempo in your favor.

When I first learned of Zephrys and his effect, I found myself quite curious as to how one specific minion could examine the state of any game of Hearthstone and manage to adequately determine the “perfect” card for his summoner’s situation.

According to Peter Whalen, who discussed that topic during a card reveal stream a few days ago, Zephrys the Great operates via AI mechanisms that dictate the three cards with which his Battlecry effect presents whomever summons him.

To quote Whalen’s explanation directly, Zephrys’ AI “looks at all the Basic and Classic cards, rates them all into categories, and gives you the best cards from the best categories. It tries to give you meaningful choices[.]”

How the AI behind Zephrys the Great can accomplish all of that within a matter of seconds after you summon him is beyond me, never mind how those AI mechanisms pull that off with any degree of accuracy. I can’t even begin to imagine how much time and effort developing that kind of AI must have required.

That brings me to something of a point of contention regarding Zephrys, however. As I mentioned a moment ago, Zephrys can only present players with a selection of cards from the Basic and Classic sets. Obviously, that means he can’t give you a random Death Knight hero card from the Knights of the Frozen Throne expansion to really swing a game in your favor.

Some players prefer it that way, while others may wish Zephrys could offer cards from any previous expansion, a la The Witchwood’s Mage legendary Toki the Time-Tinker. Personally, it seems to me that having to update Zephrys’ AI mechanisms with every new expansion so that he could consider all the new cards would be untenable. I don’t blame Blizzard for designing Zephrys as they did in light of that.

As fate would have it, I actually acquired a copy of Zephrys in one of the three free packs the game offered me after completing a special expansion-related daily quest.

I’m currently unable to discuss my experiences with his Battlecry effect because I’ve yet to build a deck that both meets Zephrys’ requirements and is actually relatively playable. Having said that, however, I’m eager to construct such a deck just to test how accurate this whole “perfect card at the perfect time” idea can be.