This was done before (not the history, but the whole two sides thing). A few years back (too lazy to look up specific year) we had a bunch of classes getting galakrond, while the others got league of explorer legendaries.
IIRC the galakronds saw more play than the league. This time I think they’re closer.
But this sounds like praising Bliz, and we know that sort of take ain’t welcomed around here.
And now you see Schyla, Evil always triumphs, because Good is dumb.
And before that Meme Streets had tri-class cards. Admittedly they could only be used by the relevant classes, but its by no means a new thing to have “gangs” in HS.
Same reason some classes got hero cards and others didnt back in the day? Flavor and “fun” and a bit of pushing archetypes
QQ more. You want to talk about balance?
Warlock - Excavate / No non duplicate card
Warrior - Excavate / No non duplicate card
Mage - Excavate / No non duplicate card
Rogue - Excavate / No non duplicate card
Deathknight - Excavate / No non duplicate card
Shaman - The only exception sadly, but easy enough to counter the Staff of Nine Frogs with a rustrot viper
No duplicate card classes (exception of above with shaman)
Demon Hunter - Gunslinger Kurtrus (no duplicate card)
Druid - Rheastrasza
Hunter - Theldurin the Lost
Paladin - Spirit of the Badlands
Priest - Elise
So… with the exception of the Shaman, those with Excavate dont have a non duplicate card and vise versa.
Warlock, Warrior, Mage, Rogue and Death Knight. Shaman does NOT have excavate cards, and does NOT have a legendary excavate treasure.
Each class has EITHER an uncollectible legendary Azerite beast, OR a collectible “highlander” card.
This was explained before Badlands was released: The “bad guys” are the townspeople who mine azerite, and the “good guys” are the “outlaws” who don’t. The townspeople get excavate cards and the outlaws get highlander support instead.
Each class has 2 collectible legendaries, but the “townspeople” classes also get an uncollectible legendary. However, the six “outlaw” classes get to use Reno.
Of course, the townspeople can use Reno as well, but for obvious reasons, you can’t use him in an excavate deck. So, each class effectively gets EITHER a legendary azerite beast, OR Reno, in addition to its 2 class leggos.
Staff of Nine Frogs is NOT an exception. It is created by Doctor Holli’dae, which is a collectible card with the highlander requirement. Shaman does NOT get excavate cards.
A “requirement” ???
Its obviously heavily influenced by US “wild west” history, in the same way “western” movies werre/are, but that’s just backstory. You don’t need to know anything about history (real or hollywood) to play the cards.
There’s a very easy answer for this. They most likely intended the entire expansion to be a Highlander themed expansion. Then they went and tested (that horrible idea) and discovered the entire meta would devolve into a Highlander meta and probably make the game 50/50(at best) highlander until rotation. Deciding that they didn’t want another Genn/Baku disaster they came up with excavate for half the classes so only a few highlander classes would ever be viable.
If you look at the legendary rewards for excavate you can tell there was very little thought put into them. Seriously, one of them literally gives you a power card from the previous expansion. That one right there screams last minute addition.