Who’s kidding whom? No one ever reads these articles before first jumping to the card previews. I’ve come to accept this, and I’ve extended the courtesy of saving you precious seconds of scrolling. Now that you’ve read the cards, welcome to the third expansion of the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game, Fires of Outland. I can only hope that the above cards have inspired reactions ranging from ZOMG to ROFLOL to WTB FoO!

As I mentioned in my last preview article, Fires of Outland has 246 new cards, including 18 heroes and 3 Loot cards. Fires will not have starter decks, but oversize versions of the hero cards will be available through the UDE Points Store. With Fires of Outland, we’ve continued to build upon cards and designs found in the first two sets.

Take Latro’s Shifting Sword, for example. In Through the Dark Portal, we introduced the card Dual Wield, which allows melee classes to swing two Melee weapons per combat. We’ve continued this design direction in Fires of Outland by grafting the power directly onto a weapon. Latro’s Shifting Sword is one of a cycle of weapons in Fires of Outland that has the dual wield power built in. If that wasn’t enough, it also reduces the strike cost of your other Swords by 2. If you have two Shifting Swords, they each have a strike cost of 0 and an ATK of 3. And yes, the Sword is named after the Heroes of Azeroth ally Latro Abiectus. (No, I don’t know why Latro is using maces instead of swords on his card image. I can only assume he re-spec’d.)