One of the things that has made World of Warcraft so incredibly popular is the very challenging and often well-designed raid instances. This extension to the Upper Deck Entertainment card game in the digital equivalent of the Warcraft universe attempts to turn one of the most famous encounters from the original game into a different gaming experience in the corporate boardroom. Here the players fight together against the common enemy.

I called hollow
For those who have never set foot in the “hollow Wyrmburg” of Onyxia, or if the memory effect is hengemt in more or less alcohol-induced mists, we begin with a brief summary of the encounter with one of the famous dragons of Azeroth. Onyxias Lair was until the Burning Crusade expansion hit the streets in early 2007 unique in its design. There were no caves and endless corridors filled with all sorts of evil to be defeated while the same raid party moved from one boss fight to another. This was Onyxia’s hole, and she didn’t label herself with others, that’s fine, apart from various subjects to draw, but we return to those. It was straight and hard, but quite a long battle with three different relative phases. Let me make it clear right away that the developers have made that framework a virtue of the digital version’s mood, and it denies them the cold shoulder. If you’ve battled Onyxia at home on your PC, you’ll probably be sucked in by the items reflected in the deck, and you’ll no doubt be recounting tales of your online adventures throughout the game.

A brand among heroes
As mentioned, breaking this extension of the traditional way of playing World of Warcraft TCG. Where you normally play one-on-one, multi-vs-many or even free-for-all, all the heroes here together to take down Onyxia. This has several implications. First of all, it means that a player must take on the role of Onyxia, represented by three hero cards and also have many unique cards, even a completely new card type. There is only one final requirement for party composition, namely that all heroes must be on the same side in the conflict; that is, a pure horde or a direct alliance group, but the path to success depends on many factors. The rules included with the game had three to five players to be a suitable group. Now that it’s signed I may not be a genius at the game and the same can be said for the people I’ve played with this extension, but we all had a good following of the rules (which, by the way, don’t differ substantially from the rules basic). ) and with a group of five people, we repeatedly had trouble hiding. I suspect that our – anything but toptune decks – has had a big impact, but nevertheless, depending on the level, more than five heroes in the party without being found is arguably too easy. I can’t imagine how a group of heroes of just three players could survive the journey to Wyrmburg, unless they coordinate their own large-scale decks.

Onyxia takes off!
But let’s take a look at the battle against Onyxia. As the online game is the fight of three phases, each represented by an Onyxia card. Once a stage is defeated, the Onyxia card is replaced in a row. When the Onyxia from phase 3 is defeated, the players have won. As long as all heroes belong to the same fraction, there are no further restrictions on which cards can be included in players’ decks, and a player’s turn progresses exactly as in normal play. Onyxia itself works significantly differently on several points. Instead of just drawing a single card each round, the Onyxia player assigns the maps corresponding to the stage of the fight, which means that there is more and more pressure on the players the longer the fight lasts. The biggest difference is that there is a completely new phase, called the event phase. Each spin-Onyxia player takes a preconstructed event card from the deck and performs what the text says. For the most part, it’s something beneficial to Onyxia, like new dragons spawning or more cards, but occasionally it can be something beneficial to the heroes. When the text of the event card is complete, the card changes to the Onyxia resource row and can be used to play Onyxia abilities. Most abilities can be played in all battle phases, but each one can only be played in specific phases. The famous deep breath ability is one example, this should be played in phase two when Onyxia is airborne. As with any hero card, each Onyxia card also has a special ability that requires powering up the card and can therefore only be used once. These are a form of hours built into battle, as they depend on the number of cards in Onyxia’s resource pool, and thus correspond to the number of rounds the game has lasted. These special abilities are extremely strong, ranging from being able to take out a player outright in stage one, to eradicating the entire party in stage three, if the player achieves Onyxia-30’s resources.

Onyxia’s Lair is a different way to play the World of Warcraft trading card game, and it’s certainly a welcome distraction. It’s perfect for layered friendship nights, where the desire to play ultra-competitive is not present. Although the uncertainty in what events occur in the fight, and when, adds variation from one raid to another, this extension will likely be as long as a traditional extension to the main game. As in the desktop version, it gets tedious to fight the same enemy over and over again, so this extension is the kind that you pull off the shelf when the right situation is here and then enjoy it completely.