How Soloist minions work in Hearthstone Festival of Legends

Hearthstone's Festival of Legends is the next expansion, and a bunch of minions have already been revealed! Among them is a minion that loves the spotlight. Read on for our guide, an interview, and what to expect for Soloist minions in Festival of Legends!

An example of a Soloist minion in Hearthstone is the Opera Soloist for the Warlock class. It's a common card with the Demon minion type. It can also be useful for board clear. This is because if a player controls no other minions, then Opera Soloist's Battlecry deals three damage to all enemy minions.

In an interview with esports.gg, expansion lead and game designer Leo Robles Gonzalez talked about the idea behind this, noting that the Soloist mechanic started out as a thematic idea. The Hearthstone team wanted to translate that excitement of a solo performance into the game.

"One of the dreamiest parts about musical performance is having your own solo," he said. "If you're a drummer, if you're a guitarist, if you're whatever ⁠— the idea of all eyes are on you, spotlight shining, this is your moment to shine ⁠— boom! Solo! I think it's something that just kind of sounds really exciting to a lot of people."

Gonzalez also recalled the Lone Champion minion that originated from the Kobolds & Catacombs expansion. Much like the new Soloist minions in Festival of Legends, if a player controls no other minions, then Lone Champion gains Taunt and Divine Shield.

"And that was a pretty beloved card among a lot of people," Gonzalez said. "It's just simple, strong, but not overly strong. And a lot of that hook was just a lot of fun to kind of build out a little bit more. It's so open-ended. You just need that one input and the output could be whatever we want."

Hearthstone game designer Aleco Pors agreed, adding that Soloist minions have a very clean and natural design. He also mentioned the Lone Champion and how Soloists fit right with the music theme in Festival of Legends.

"We're always like, 'Yeah! That makes sense. It works!' And, as Leo mentioned, since the input is so clear, we get to do more and more exciting things for the outputs as the cost goes up, especially — because it becomes more and more difficult to have no minions in play as the game goes on. So it was really fun to come up with a variety of outputs for these cards across different costs."

Pors added that he has a favorite Soloist that hasn't been announced yet, but he's very excited for people to see it.

That's all for now. Stay tuned on esports.gg for more Hearthstone interviews, news, and updates!