How the Hearthstone Location cards work in Murder at Castle Nathria

The next Hearthstone expansion is Murder at Castle Nathria, and it brings with it the new Location card type and the new Infuse keyword. Here’s a guide on how these Hearthstone Location cards work in the upcoming expansion.

Location card type

The new Hearthstone Location cards play with the theme of exploring Castle Nathria. The expansion, centered around the murder mystery of Sire Denathrius, features 10 characters at a dinner party and detective Murloc Holmes plus Watfin solving the case.

These 10 characters are suspects, and each one of them represents a Hearthstone class. This also means each class gets their own Location card that indicates where a character was at the time of Sire Denathrius’ demise.

Muck Pools and Sanguine Depths are a couple of Location cards, and each have different effects. Muck Pools, for example, transforms a friendly minion into one that costs one more. Meanwhile, Sanguine Depths deals one damage to a minion and gives it +1 attack.

When a Location card is played on the board, its ability can be activated for free on the player’s turn. An activation has a one-turn cooldown and costs one durability.

Hearthstone Location cards gameplay

Hearthstone Associate Game Designer Leo Robles Gonzalez elaborated on the Location mechanic in an official gameplay video. He said that Locations add a level of security to the plans that one may have further on in a game.

“When you play a Location, you can use the ability on the Location immediately, but you can choose not to,” Gonzalez said. “You can just hold off for a turn because they do have a cooldown. Once you use it, next turn, they’re turned off. And then they’re back on next turn.

“But if you play a Location and then don’t touch it, next turn, you can then play a minion or do whatever combo, ability, big play you want to do with the Location’s ability in mind as this kind of, again, a security to ensure that you’re getting the sweetest play possible next turn.”

As a demonstration, the Nightcloak Sanctum card was played on the board. After clicking and dragging it to aim, it froze a minion and summoned a 2/2 Volatile Skeleton. Next, it lost one durability and went on cooldown.