So about a year ago I did a "Pessimist's Guide to WoG," and I figured it was time to take another critical look at the upcoming set. I tried to rank the cards somewhat realistically, but I'm currently up for debate and am not opposed to moving cards around. As I found out last time too, the hardest part can just be trying to figure out what decks actually make it into the meta (I put a lot of Zoo cards in Tier 1, for example).
NOTE: Tier 1 cards aren't necessarily better than tier 2 cards, they just go in better decks. Tier 1 can be very "meh", they just happen to be cards I think will see play. Tier 1 is good cards in good decks, tier 2 is good cards in bad decks.
Tier 1. Will See Play Cards that will appear at least semi-regularly in decks that either are in the meta and have a decent chance or remaining, or decks that have a very good chance of entering the meta.
Tier 2.5. Will See Play if Elemental Decks See Play Cards that will appear regularly in Elemental decks. Currently I am guessing that Elemental decks will not be in the meta, but honestly too few have been released to really say, and even just 1 really good card can change things.
I feel like you're underestimating some of the cards. For starters if Awaken the Makers sees play - Tortollan Shellraiser will almost certainly be included in it and Shadow Visions has some strong potential in a control priest build - especially one with Elise the Trailblazer (think about just tutoring up those extra packs!).
The murloc cards, discard-lock cards, and secret mage cards could be good, but we'll need to see if there's any more support for those archetypes in the set and how the rotations affect the meta.
And while I agree with the tier it's in, you bet your butt I'm going to try my hardest to make The Caverns Below work.
I think you are wildly optimistic about Volcano. The card costs 5 mana!
Also, I think there's no way Mimic Pod doesn't see play. I have no idea if the Rogue quest gets into the meta at all, but this card seems like it would be good in almost any Rogue deck. It's essentially an Arcane Intellect, but better for combo decks. (Worse in other decks, of course.)
Tier 2.5. Will See Play if Elemental Decks See Play Cards that will appear regularly in Elemental decks. Currently I am guessing that Elemental decks will not be in the meta (they remind me C'Thun decks; a good strong curve but without that extra brokenness), but even a single card can change that. Either way I figured they warrant their own tier.
Since when did C'thun decks have a strong curve? Sure, you had the ability to pop out a minion on each turn, but most if not all of the minions were just trash Vanilla minions that have no chance of actually competing with what your opponent puts up. This is why C'Thun failed, because your board state would be so far behind by the time you actually played him that the entire strategy wouldn't matter. If we see Elementals being a bit more dynamic than that (ie: Not just Vanilla stats with a Divine Shield or Taunt added), then there is no comparison of the two.
While Elementals, I have a hard time seeing them actually being run in Elemental decks (especially Glacial Shard). I don't think Fire Fly gives enough value to warrant its ability to activate your Elementals twice (a 1/2 is just terrible). Flame Geyser suffers the same problem, but it did occur to me you can at least play it into Tol'vir Stoneshaper, so I'll move it up.
As soon as I saw Clutmother Zavas and Tar Creeper in tier 3 I gave up on this tier list.
Both of them I was seriously on the fence about.
The problem with Clutchmother Zavas is I have a really hard time seeing discard lock succeeding. It suffers from the Grimy Goons problem of horrible inconsistency, and forces Warlocks to tap way earlier then they'd like. They also tend to be rather Zoo-like, and even Zoo is doing pretty poorly these days. Clutchmother also takes up hand space if you draw her early (since playing her as a 2/2 is horrible), is bad if you draw her late, and even if you do player her late game after discarding cards by then a big minion is easier to deal with and there's a higher chance your wasting mana, reducing her "big stats for cheap cost" effect. I do 100% agree she will be run in discard lock decks, though. I just don't think they'll come close to meta.
Tar Creeper suffers just from being really bad in non-aggro match-ups. Second-Rate Bruiser for example is at least good in more mid-range control match-ups, since you can use him to trade or at least threaten a little bit of damage. But Creeper can't do either, and the enemy can very easily just let it sit. Sen'jin Shieldmasta too is a very similar, and he isn't run at all.
Not only are you under-valuing some cards... you have definitely over-rated volcano and elise trailblazer. Elise is probably a pretty good greedy card, sure, but is that something you need? And volcano is a pretty strong board clear, but you also have to be playing a deck that doesn't really plan on having board.
I would say that about half of your "won't see play" tier could very easily be good. But glacial shard in particular is definitely far from trash tier. It is most likely the best neutral 1-drop in the game, it has great combos in warlock/mage, and it can pretty easily fit into a lot of aggressive decks.
Tier 2.5. Will See Play if Elemental Decks See Play Cards that will appear regularly in Elemental decks. Currently I am guessing that Elemental decks will not be in the meta (they remind me C'Thun decks; a good strong curve but without that extra brokenness), but even a single card can change that. Either way I figured they warrant their own tier.
Since when did C'thun decks have a strong curve? Sure, you had the ability to pop out a minion on each turn, but most if not all of the minions were just trash Vanilla minions that have no chance of actually competing with what your opponent puts up. This is why C'Thun failed, because your board state would be so far behind by the time you actually played him that the entire strategy wouldn't matter. If we see Elementals being a bit more dynamic than that (ie: Not just Vanilla stats with a Divine Shield or Taunt added), then there is no comparison of the two.
Talk about not knowing how the game works^.
C'thun decks certainly had a strong curve. The only reason C'thun failed was because C'thun wouldn't kill your opponent in one go most of the time. You had to play cards with the promise of a big payoff, that in the end didn't result in a big enough payoff. The only reason C'thun warrior was the only viable C'thun deck was thanks to the fact that warrior has the best overall control shell, and could reliably cast 2-3 C'thun's. If C'thun had been of epic rarity I would have no doubts that C'thun druid would have been tier 1, simply due the the boost in consistency.
Elementals seem to be shaping out the same. You play largely vanilla minions with a few that gain synergy bonuses (Sound familiar?) and then attempt to follow through with a large end payoff that doesn't win you the game.
In conclusion: I don't see this deck rivaling jade shaman or druid whatsoever. Comparing all these elemental cards to jade just makes them look like trash.
Bonus for the people crying over the warlock legendary: The chances of you drawing and reliably discarding her are about the same as you consistently playing a turn 4 decent vancleef consistently. The difference is vancleef is almost always a good draw for rogue, where as the new warlock legendary is only good when you have it in your first 3 draws or so.
Your crazy if you don't think Shadow Visions will see use in every Priest deck.
It has the same issue a lot of "draw 1" cards have, which is you might as well just run that card instead. Yes, you can't have 2 Shadow Word: Pain or 2 Shadow Word: Death, but you can say include a Smite, and you don't have to pay to draw it.
On further consideration, actually, I do think you're right, and that it will be run in Control/Reno Priest. Especially with the loss of a lot of good destruction from LoE. The problem is I don't think Control/Reno Priest will be able succeed, in part because of that loss, and partly because of strong tempo and aggro decks, and Jade decks.
I feel like you're underestimating some of the cards. For starters if Awaken the Makers sees play - Tortollan Shellraiser will almost certainly be included in it and Shadow Visions has some strong potential in a control priest build - especially one with Elise the Trailblazer (think about just tutoring up those extra packs!).
The murloc cards, discard-lock cards, and secret mage cards could be good, but we'll need to see if there's any more support for those archetypes in the set and how the rotations affect the meta.
And while I agree with the tier it's in, you bet your butt I'm going to try my hardest to make The Caverns Below work.
Tortollan Shellraiser's biggest advantage I think, is making sure you don't die the turn you play N'Zoth, the Corruptor! But I'll admit, I'm cheating the list and hedging my bets with some of these decks by listing only the best cards in Tier 2. Like if Murloc decks see play Primalfin Lookout probably and if they don't Gentle Megasaur won't. It's really hard to say with some of them.
Secret Mage just suffers from being like a late-game tempo deck. Like all the secrets give you amazing tempo, but horrible value unless it's already late game.
I think you are wildly optimistic about Volcano. The card costs 5 mana!
Also, I think there's no way Mimic Pod doesn't see play. I have no idea if the Rogue quest gets into the meta at all, but this card seems like it would be good in almost any Rogue deck. It's essentially an Arcane Intellect, but better for combo decks. (Worse in other decks, of course.)
Volcano strikes me as a good replacement for Elemental Destruction which reliably sees play, and the fact it can distribute itself evenly means it can handle lots of board "shapes".
I think you're actually right about Mimic Pod. I instantly snubbed it just because of how horrible Thistle Tea was, but it probably will work well in Miracle.
I actually think most of those cards are better in a faster meta, not a slower one (none really have good value, but they're good at stopping faster decks - with the exception of Arcanologist). Elise the Trailblazer is more because even in the current meta Reno decks have been able to play cards like Trailblazer, but granted they're going away and you're probably right that Control decks aren't going to start popping up.
(Though even in a faster meta I feel like those cards just don't do enough.)
Tier 2.5. Will See Play if Elemental Decks See Play Cards that will appear regularly in Elemental decks. Currently I am guessing that Elemental decks will not be in the meta (they remind me C'Thun decks; a good strong curve but without that extra brokenness), but even a single card can change that. Either way I figured they warrant their own tier.
Since when did C'thun decks have a strong curve? Sure, you had the ability to pop out a minion on each turn, but most if not all of the minions were just trash Vanilla minions that have no chance of actually competing with what your opponent puts up. This is why C'Thun failed, because your board state would be so far behind by the time you actually played him that the entire strategy wouldn't matter. If we see Elementals being a bit more dynamic than that (ie: Not just Vanilla stats with a Divine Shield or Taunt added), then there is no comparison of the two.
Okay, that is a fair point. I still might argue how "dynamic" they really are, but you certainly do get the extra value with them when you play them and not when you play one specific card. It's hard to say right now since so few have been released, but I'll withhold judgement.
How come you value volcano as tier 1 (5 mana + 2 overload)
I mentioned it earlier in this post, but it's a good replacement for Elemental Destruction which has showed up in decks like Jade Shaman to catch back up. 15 damage is enough to wipe a hefty board (if you have nothing) and at that point they might not have much left.
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So about a year ago I did a "Pessimist's Guide to WoG," and I figured it was time to take another critical look at the upcoming set. I tried to rank the cards somewhat realistically, but I'm currently up for debate and am not opposed to moving cards around. As I found out last time too, the hardest part can just be trying to figure out what decks actually make it into the meta (I put a lot of Zoo cards in Tier 1, for example).
NOTE: Tier 1 cards aren't necessarily better than tier 2 cards, they just go in better decks. Tier 1 can be very "meh", they just happen to be cards I think will see play. Tier 1 is good cards in good decks, tier 2 is good cards in bad decks.
Tier 1. Will See Play
Cards that will appear at least semi-regularly in decks that either are in the meta and have a decent chance or remaining, or decks that have a very good chance of entering the meta.
Tier 2. Might See Play
Cards that will appear regularly in decks that are not currently in the meta, and may or may not enter the meta.
Tier 2.5. Will See Play if Elemental Decks See Play
Cards that will appear regularly in Elemental decks. Currently I am guessing that Elemental decks will not be in the meta, but honestly too few have been released to really say, and even just 1 really good card can change things.
Tier 3. Will Not See Play
Cards that might be experimented but will not appear in the long term meta.
I'm not even going to debate your tiers just because it's just probably the laziest tier guide I've ever seen.
Put Geyser, Fly, and Shard in Elemental section
As soon as I saw Clutmother Zavas and Tar Creeper in tier 3 I gave up on this tier list.
Your crazy if you don't think Shadow Visions will see use in every Priest deck.
Currently working on the Tinker! K&C and WW / JUG and KotFT / Classic / Basic / Introduction
My Previous Classes: Apothecary (unfinished) / Chronomancer / Death Knight (old)
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I feel like you're underestimating some of the cards. For starters if Awaken the Makers sees play - Tortollan Shellraiser will almost certainly be included in it and Shadow Visions has some strong potential in a control priest build - especially one with Elise the Trailblazer (think about just tutoring up those extra packs!).
The murloc cards, discard-lock cards, and secret mage cards could be good, but we'll need to see if there's any more support for those archetypes in the set and how the rotations affect the meta.
And while I agree with the tier it's in, you bet your butt I'm going to try my hardest to make The Caverns Below work.
I think you are wildly optimistic about Volcano. The card costs 5 mana!
Also, I think there's no way Mimic Pod doesn't see play. I have no idea if the Rogue quest gets into the meta at all, but this card seems like it would be good in almost any Rogue deck. It's essentially an Arcane Intellect, but better for combo decks. (Worse in other decks, of course.)
Leave this list exactly as it is, please.
I want to come back in a few weeks for a good hard laugh.
Seriously, worst ever.
"Why, you never expected justice from a company, did you? They have neither a soul to lose nor a body to kick." -- Lady Saba Holland
Tar Creeper, Tortollan Shellraiser, Arcanologist and Lakkari Felhound should be in Tier 2. If you think the meta is going to slow down enough for Elise the Trailblazer then its definitely going to be slow enough for these.
This feels more like a shitpost than anything else.
How come you value volcano as tier 1 (5 mana + 2 overload)
This is what happens when a rank 15 player tries to evaluate cards.
S39 Legend - Quest Rogue, S38 Legend - Murloc Paladin, S37 Legend - Miracle Rogue, S36 Top 200 Legend - Aggro Shaman, S35 - Finished Rank 51 Legend - Aggro Shaman, S34 Legend - Aggro Shaman
Arcanalogist don't will be played?
I can't wait to see footage of you getting destroyed by Lakkari Sacrifice. If you do please post the video on reddit and tag everyone here. xD
Not only are you under-valuing some cards... you have definitely over-rated volcano and elise trailblazer. Elise is probably a pretty good greedy card, sure, but is that something you need? And volcano is a pretty strong board clear, but you also have to be playing a deck that doesn't really plan on having board.
I would say that about half of your "won't see play" tier could very easily be good. But glacial shard in particular is definitely far from trash tier. It is most likely the best neutral 1-drop in the game, it has great combos in warlock/mage, and it can pretty easily fit into a lot of aggressive decks.
Wimmy wam wam wazzle!
Just for fun, you should also link your previous guide from WOG so we can compare. See how pessimistic we should actually be.