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Ragnrok

Hello there World of Warcraft TCGers (sorry Ben, I’m not referring to them as Lil’ Bow-WoWs)! It’s that glorious time of year where we get to venture off into my neck of the woods. Since it would be inappropriate for me to ask you to venture off into the woods without at least knowing who I am, my name is Drew Walker. I’m the Creative Content Lead for WoW TCG and the Lead Designer for Assault on Icecrown Citadel… I’m also FSMs with our Head Designer Ben Cichoski, but that’s a story for another day. Today we are going to take a look at the newest addition to the WoW TCG family: Assault on Icecrown Citadel.

I know that there have been a number of questions swirling around over the last couple of months, so hopefully I can answer most of those questions for you. First and foremost, some of you may be wondering why we chose Icecrown Citadel as our raid to focus on when it was the final raid of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. The two big reasons for this are that we didn’t want people missing out on a raid while we tried to determine the best early raid to use from Cataclysm, and more importantly, we couldn’t skip the raid where you interact with one of the most influential characters in Warcraft history could we? That being said, here’s your first glimpse at all of the Icecrown Boss Heroes in all their glory:

No, there’s nothing wrong with your internet connection, you are seeing that correctly. There is only one Boss Hero in Assasult on Icecrown Citadel: The Lich King. That’s right ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to challenge the Lich King or play as him, he is your Hero for the entire experience. Some of you may be wondering where all the other bosses are, but fear not friends, Putricide, Lana’thell, Sindragosa, and even BONESTO… I mean, Marrowgar are all included, except rather than being Heroes as they have been in the past, they are now your supremely powerful allies that the Lich King will summon to his side. After all, if you were the Lich King, would you sit up on your throne all day and send bosses at trespassers one at a time, or would you just go all in and overwhelm them with all of your forces at once? Yah, I’d do the latter too.

Those are not misprints my friends, Marrowgar is indeed a 7/7 for 3 with a power, and Sindragosa is most certainly a 10/20 for 7. How can just anybody stand against such awesomeness? Assault on Icecrown Citadel doesn’t leave those of you who wish to be heroic out in the cold. Some of Azeroth’s mightiest heroes have come to face the Lich King and end his terrible campaign once and for all. Behold, Highlord Tirion Fordring, Dark Lady Sylvanas Windrunner, and Lady Jaina Proudmoore:

Each Assault on Icecrown Citadel not only comes with the Lich King and his deck, but it also comes with three 61-card tournament-legal decks for each of the above heroes. This means that if you want to experience the Lich King, but a few of your friends don’t have full decks, Assault on Icecrown Citadel provides them for you. On top of that, if those same friends didn’t have a full 60-card deck to use in a tournament… BAM… all you have to do is take out the one card with the gold boarder in the deck, and replace Tirion, Jaina, or Sylvanas with a tournament-legal Hero. Assault on Icecrown Citadel is a full game in a box!

Each of the three iconic heroes comes with their own weapon for their deck to bring the pain to the Lich King and his Scourge army. Not to be outdone in his own citadel, the Lich King came packing his own powerful equipment to counter the brash heroes that dare enter his domain:

Frostmourne certainly is hungry if I do say so myself, and if you notice back to the Lich King’s hero power, he can go search for Frostmourne or the Helm of Domination on his second turn or any turn thereafter if he so pleases. For those of you think you will just be able to get rid of the mighty Frostmourne by destroying it, think again, as its Death Rattle will just send it back to the Lich King’s hand!

Just in case there were any questions about how the raid actually runs, hopefully these will help clarify a bit. The Lich King deck comes packed with its own Events, which function the exact same way as Quests in a regular game of WoW TCG. There are no extra resource systems to manage; no runes, no trash, no secondary resource deck. Fighting against the Lich King goes exactly the same way as a regular game of WoW TCG does, so there are no outside or extra rules.

I think that’s about it from me, so stay tuned tomorrow Head Designer (and FSM) Ben Cichoski gives a sneak-peek at the treasure pack. Until then, I leave you with one final thought:

Stay frosty and you can discuss this article on our forums!