Questline

Questline
Starts in your hand. Complete for a reward, up to 3 times!

Questline is a spell ability introduced in United in Stormwind expansion. Similar to Quests, it grants a conditional reward, but it requires three conditions (steps, or tiers) instead of one. Right after the player completes a condition, the Questline immediately puts the next step into play. This process repeats until it reaches the final step, which rewards an uncollectible elite card.

Like a Quest, Questlines are automatically included in the player's mulligan as the left-most card(s) and can be replaced. When played, Questlines are displayed in the hero zone above the controlling hero's portrait, take a Secret slot, its progress can be seen by both players, and only the controlling player can progress the Questline. Only one Questline can be in play.

Notes

Similar to Quests:

• Questlines cannot be offered in Arena.
• Questlines cannot be randomly generated.
• Unlike Secrets, Questlines can be progressed during both players' turns.
• Viewing a Questline in the Collection manager will display its final reward beside it.
• If the condition for a Questline which gives a card as its reward is met when the owner's hand is full, the Quest completes but the reward is lost.
• Only one Questline can be in play per hero at a time. Any Questline currently in play must be completed before a second Questline can be played.

There are also some notes unique to Questline:

• Over-achieved progressions are not carried to the next questline's steps.
  • For example, The Demon Seed has its progress 7/8. When you Life Tap, it progresses 1 more point, completing the first step with the reward activated, then immediately casts Establish the Link, which is the next step of The Demon Seed, initializing the progress as 0/8 instead of 1/8.
• If you try to use a Quest card while a Questline card is active, you will get a "You already have a quest active!" error, and vice versa.
• If you have both a Quest and Questline in your deck, the Quest card will always be your left most card in the mulligan, while the Questline will always be the second card.
• Questlines activate Quest-related cards like Questing Explorer.

First questlines

These cards are collectible legendary spells that start in your hand.

Swipe left or right to see the cards.

Second questlines

The following cards are generated by first questlines.

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Final questlines

The following cards are generated by second questlines.

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Rewards

The following cards are generated by final questlines.

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Sources of Questlines

Questline-generating cards

This section lists cards which generate Questlines.

Swipe left or right to see the cards.

Related cards

Swipe left or right to see the cards.

Strategy

Questlines are massive undertakings that should not be included in your deck if you are not sure if you can fulfill them. You should only add them to decks dedicated to finishing them.

You should look at not only what the final reward provides, but also how the middle rewards benefit you. For example, the Warrior Questline Raid the Docks not only negates the card disadvantage of Questlines that effectively make you start with one less card in hand, due to it drawing a weapon after the first Questline. The second reward also gives you extra damage, which may be a crucial swing turn against another aggressive deck.

It's also important to consider what you'll want to do after you've finished the Questline. Some Questlines, such as Raid the Docks, Defend the Dwarven District, or The Demon Seed are win conditions by themselves, and don't need much extra support to help you win after you've completed the Questline. But for Questlines such as Command the Elements, you need to think about what spells do you want to double up, or in the case of Final Showdown, what cards do you want to discount to win.

Design

Hearthstone Senior Game Designer Alec Dawson and Lead Initial Designer Liv Breeden discuss the design process behind Questlines:

Alec Dawson: I think some of the things we wanted to explore with Questlines was this “staging” of the elements. That doesn’t only come through with the mechanics but the thematics as well. We want to be able to tell a story here, about how these Mercenaries level up throughout their adventure. During the midpoint of this expansion, this is when they start honing all of their skills and witness a bit of conflict unfold.  We had the opportunity to play this out with the three Questline cards that had incremental rewards.

We wanted a different approach to Questline cards mechanically where things don’t feel like a continuation: players are actually on this kind of adventure getting, doing this until they eventually get a payout much like how Questlines work in World of Warcraft.

Liv Breeden: Mechanically, I think it’s really exciting too because if you look at Quests from Saviors of Uldum if you don’t complete the Quest it’s such a big investment that you didn’t get any payout for. When players complete the Quests, they get the reward immediately and have their “slam down legendary minion moment.”

With Questlines we’re trying to go for the best of both worlds where you get payout along the way, but you still have the moment where you go, “Alright, now we’re entering the second phase of the game, this is where things get real, my gameplan’s gone online, I’m going to destroy you now.”

Trivia

• The card art for each United in Stormwind Questline depicts a mercenary character associated with the class.

Patch changes

• Patch 21.0.0.88998 (2021-07-27): Added.