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Servants of the Betrayer Previews: Acts of Betrayal
By Mike Hummel
14/03/2008





Act 1—A Story in Three Parts



Welcome to the first preview article for the upcoming Servants of the Betrayer expansion. To quickly get everyone up to speed, Servants of the Betrayer is the second release of the Burning Crusade block, which started with March of the Legion and will conclude later this year with the Hunt for Illidan expansion and the Black Temple Raid Deck.



From a design viewpoint, these sets have been developed to maximize the playability of the Limited format and the viability of multiple different deck types in Constructed. From a storytelling perspective, these sets work together to tell the epic tale of the World of Warcraft MMO’s first expansion, The Burning Crusade.



In our initial brainstorming meetings with Blizzard about the year 2 TCG releases, deciding the story we wanted to tell was perhaps the easiest component of the design process. The first real challenge was determining how we wanted to break up the master story line across three booster releases and a Raid Deck. Figuring out the starting and ending points was fairly straightforward, but choosing a focus for the middle expansion required some careful consideration.



We looked at zone, level, and instance progression within the MMO in an attempt to find a natural midpoint for the story line. What should come after the demonic armies of the Legion and before The Betrayer himself? Once again, the MMO story line provided us with everything we needed. Before facing the ruler of Outland, the heroes of Azeroth first needed to defeat his trusted lieutenants: Lady Vashj, naga Queen of the Serpentshrine Cavern; and blood elf Prince Kael’thas Sunstrider, Lord of Tempest Keep. (Us lore nerds know that Akama plays an important role as well.)



Act 2—The Path to Betrayal



After determining the set themes, the year 2 design team had a series of follow-up meetings in which we discussed the new mechanics we wanted to introduce and how we wanted to incorporate them across three releases. For example, before any design work began on set two, we had already determined that we were going to continue the mechanical theme of Aldor and Scryer allies, as well as introducing the next design element, Aldor and Scryer quests.



The first challenge I faced as a set lead was how I planned on integrating the chosen story theme with the design of the new cards. One of the first questions I asked myself was, how should Kael’thas and Vashj, the focal antagonists of the story, be featured in the card pool? In the past, we featured characters on this scale as the central bosses of our Raid Decks. These characters were a perfect fit for that product design model; however, since we had already determined that the Black Temple Raid Deck would round out the year, I needed the characters to live within a booster expansion.



So, that ruled out Raid bosses. (Actually, it didn’t, but you’ll need to wait until my first Black Temple Raid Deck preview article to find out more.) So back I delved into past expansions—learn from the past, innovate into the future. Legendary protagonists such Warchief Thrall, Lady Jaina Proudmoore, and King Magni Bronzebeard already had a home within the game. That seemed like a good starting point: powerful, unique allies with game-changing powers. That’s when the weather starting getting rough and the tiny design ship was tossed.



So if Vashj and Kael’thas were going to be allies, which heroes should be able to work with them? Should Kael’thas fight for both the Horde and the Alliance? Should Lady Vashj be on the board firing arrows above King Magni’s head? Maybe. After all, the game already supports powerhouse neutral Demon allies that are willing to work for anyone—for a price. Such is the nature of being a Demon. Kael’thas’s and Vashj’s goals and loyalties seemed to follow a different path. Should existing heroes be able to play these traitorous allies? Maybe not.



Act 3—A Traitor among Us



What if the ally direction wasn’t correct? Perhaps we needed to pull the camera back and view the story elements through a wider lens. Instead of having Vashj and Kael’thas as playable heroes or allies in the game, what if we instead chose to capture their stories within the card names, art, and flavor text? We could choose the gear items they dropped and the feature quests that involved them, and we could highlight their zones and instances as backgrounds in the artwork.



Regardless of the ultimate design direction we took, I felt we needed to do all of the above to really sell the story, so maybe this direction was enough. All of the above elements helped sell the story of the set, but they put us back to square one in terms of new mechanics. Perhaps the ally direction was correct after all.



The problem was with the heroes as they currently existed in the game. The scope of the TCG heroes allowed for powerful NPCs to fight alongside them. Thrall really wouldn’t join your party to raid Karazhan, but he would be willing to lead the forces of the Horde to victory against the Alliance or the forces of the False Warchief.



So, what kind of hero would Lady Vashj fight for? Going straight to the top, let’s look at Illidan. Illidan was a night elf who was tempted by power and ultimately corrupted into a demon. That was a good starting point; however, making Illidan a hero with the Black Temple Raid Deck on the horizon presented its own problems. If Illidan was one example, did others exist within the game?



This is where my PvE talents really had the chance to shine (six 70s—just sayin’.). Because I play both Horde and Alliance, I was reminded of all the enemy factions that my characters had faced that were twisted versions of the standard ten races. From the corrupted druids of the Fang in the Wailing Caverns to the maddened Leper gnomes of Gnomeregan to the human zealots of the Scarlet Crusade, opposition factions could be found far and wide, encompassing all of the races.



Heroes from these factions, dedicated to the opposition or destruction of the free races, could, themselves, have champions, such as Lady Vashj or Kael’thas, to call upon to eliminate those who would oppose them. This was a way we could introduce playable allies to Servants of the Betrayer and give them a mechanical presence in the expansion.



Act 4—Through the Mirror Darkly



So the next question became how to introduce the new heroes. We first looked at using what already existed: our eighteen standard faction heroes. If Illidan could be corrupted, why couldn’t they? Hero cards have two sides, so there was definitely design potential there. We looked at putting the normal version of the hero on one side and the opposing faction hero on the back side. We looked at flip powers that had them being corrupted over the course of the game.



In the end, though, we kept coming back to the same problem: we were still introducing new hero race, class, profession, and talent combinations into the game. If we created a new mechanic for the heroes in this set that made them different from the previous heroes, it might be years before we’d get the chance to release future heroes with this set’s combinations of race, class, talent, etc.



So that locked us into a direction of having to create a separate cycle of opposition, or Traitor heroes, as we started to call them. That opened up a lot of potential design space. At that point, the question became, what is the link between the standard heroes and the Traitor heroes, and how were they different mechanically?



Even though we initially ran into long-term developmental issues with having the standard and Traitor hero versions on the same card, we really liked the story presentation of the Traitor heroes being dark reflections of the standard heroes. When they became two separate eighteen-card cycles, we looked to see if we could keep this storytelling link and if there was a way to link mechanics between them.



We researched the opposition factions within the MMO and started pairing up our standard heroes with appropriate Traitor versions. Our storytelling angle went something like this: What if, at a critical point in a hero’s past, he or she had chosen a darker path that forever changed his or her destiny? What if Commander Michael Goodchilde, noble Paladin of the Silver Hand, had chosen to become Crusader Goodchilde, zealot of the Scarlet Crusade? What if the Gnome Rogue Ressa Shadeshine had been trapped within the irradiated Gnomeregan and transformed into Ressa the Leper Queen?



This solved a lot of design problems, created an amazing storytelling direction, and allowed players to take on character roles that were previously confined to NPC status. But we weren’t done yet; we still needed to determine how these heroes would interact mechanically within the TCG. The big question became, what cards (both new and old) would the Traitor heroes have access to?



We knew that we wanted them to be able to play Traitor allies, like Vashj and Kael’thas. Did this mean we’d need to create a separate ally pool for them? That’s when long-term development kicked in again. We could create a separate ally pool for them, something similar to the Aldor and Scryer allies. We could even potentially dedicate a large portion of the expansion to Traitor allies. But what about the next set, and the set after that? Not only would the Traitors be denied all the allies that had come before, but they also wouldn’t be getting any new allies going forward. This might make them interesting in block Limited or Constructed, but it denied them long-term viability.



The best development answer was to allow them to have access to almost everything other heroes could play with. This brought up the next storytelling question, why were the Traitor heroes working side by side with Horde and Alliance allies? Yet again, the established lore provided the answers we were looking for. Many of the Traitor factions within the game have infiltrated the Horde and Alliance, either corrupting them or enslaving them. Each Traitor hero would have his or her own story as to how he or she managed to get allies to work for them. The Human Paladin of the Scarlet Crusade succeeded in rallying other members of the Alliance to his cause. The Gnome Leper Queen exposed her allies to the toxic gases of Gnomeregan.



We were almost there. We knew that if the Traitor heroes were to play with Traitor-restricted allies, and possibly other Traitor hero–required card types, as well as having access to most of the existing card pool, there needed to be a counterbalance. There needed to be something that standard heroes had access to that was denied to the Traitor heroes. There needed to be deckbuilding tension when a player chose to play a standard hero or a Traitor hero.



So if a Traitor hero Druid of the Fang had the power to shift into Serpent Form and a standard hero Druid couldn’t, maybe the Traitor Druid couldn’t access standard hero talents. Each faction would have a small card pool that the other couldn’t use. Standard heroes had access to talents and Traitor heroes had access to Traitor allies and abilities.



This let us lock down the only two mechanical rules a player had to learn when playing with Traitor heroes: Traitor heroes couldn’t play with talent cards, and standard heroes couldn’t play with Traitor hero–required cards. Everything else was the same. As a reflected twin, the Traitor hero would still be of the same faction and class as his or her mirrored standard hero. A Traitor Night Elf Druid could play any non-talent Druid class ability and could play with both Alliance allies and Traitor hero–required allies. The Traitor allies would be neutral and would come to the aid of Traitor heroes of either faction.



That was a lot of set up to get to a preview card!



Act 5—The Epic Conclusion



First, let’s look at something familiar.







All the standard bases are covered. As a Survival Hunter, his flip power is a one-shot variant of Readiness from Fires of Outland. As an additional perk, he’s Tauren, so he comes with an additional health. So what would a dark reflection of Morn look like? Well, what if Morn had rejected the teaching of Cairne Bloodhoof, abandoned the peaceful plains of Mulgore, and joined the Grimtotem clan? Maybe he’d look something like this:







Let’s look at what’s changed. His name is still Morn, it’s the same character, but his tribal name has changed to reflect his traitor clan. He’s still a Hunter and chooses to corrupt other Tauren and members of the Horde. He retains his professions but loses his talent line, which is replaced with the Traitor tag.



His flip power is a dark reflection of his other self. As more Traitor heroes and Traitor hero–required cards are revealed, you’ll be able to better see how the Traitors are taking the established mechanics of their races and classes and twisting them into something different but still familiar.



Traitor heroes have their own corrupted hero card frames, and their Traitor faction is listed immediately above their flavor text. This faction information is for us lore nerds and is secondary flavor text for the Traitor heroes.



So now that you know what the Traitor heroes look like, let’s examine some of the goodies that Traitors have access to. Similar to the standard hero flip powers, Traitor abilities and allies have their mechanical origins from their parent factions and classes, but they stand in stark opposition to what has come before.



Let’s look at the Warrior ability Execute.







A simple, straightforward effect that traits Warriors as “hating” on wounded allies. This design direction has been expanded on other Warrior cards including Killing Spree and Salt the Wounds. So what would a Traitor version of this card look like?







Starting to see a pattern? Let’s finish it off with a Traitor ally. The old . . .







And the new . . .







Better yet, an Alliance Traitor hero can play with both. Of course, this flexibility comes with a price. What does it mean to build a deck without Mortal Strike or Surprise Attacks or Dragon’s Breath? Ultimately, that will be up to you to figure out.



Thank you for reading the longest preview article I’ve written. Hopefully this article has given you some insight into the origins of Traitor heroes and mechanics, as well as set the stage for future preview articles. As an added bonus, for class previews, we plan on releasing two preview articles a day. One will feature a standard class ability preview and will be accompanied by an article showcasing a Traitor ability.



I hope you enjoy these bonus previews, and I’m looking forward to seeing some of you at the Servants of the Betrayer Sneak Preview on March 29!

Donc en fait traitre est un talent comme survie, amelioration, protection, ou armes.
Donc les heros traitres auront acces aux cartes qui requierent ce talent. Un heros guerrier traitre n aura ainsi donc pas le droit a frappe mortelle , ou cruauté.

A noter que Monsieur Morn possède la mention Grimtotem. Encore un acces restrictif?

En tout cas, son pouvoir me plait