Well, these cards keep coming back, and honestly, this card is a bit boring. It’s a really good card that has potential in the inevitable "Hand Buff Paladin" we’ll probably see a lot of, but we've already seen quite a bit of this gimmick in the set. I mean, it’s a "gang" so I suppose this makes sense, but still... It's simple, it allows very effective early game buffs to play larger minions earlier in the game which will be a huge strength in the deck. Paladin decks in general normally don’t play that many spells so this will normally hit quite a bit of targets.
On a side note, this card has quite possibly the best card art for any card in the game to date. Hopefully the golden animation lives up to that.
This card's name is a portmanteau of "doppelganger", a word for someone who looks exactly like another person, whether or not they are related, as well as the word "gangster", someone in a gang.
Here is the card Trump got to reveal, and yeah, it's pretty cool. It's yet another card that works with the "buffing in hand" mechanic, and this is one of the coolest ways to make a card that works with it. Ever since Echoing Ooze came out in Naxxramas, we haven't really seen anything like it. I suppose that does make the card unique, but at the same, the effect works so well if this mechanic that it feels natural to make a similar card for this set.
So, to start off, keep this in your hand, and it gets buffed. Simple. After being buffed one time, it's already better than Force of Nature. That may not sound like much, but a Neutral Force of Nature would actually be rather useful for some classes. But keep it in your hand long enough and it can suddenly become a way to summon 3 5/5's or 6/6's, which is huge! Combo it with Brann Bronzebeard, and oh my god, you're filling the board. Only effective way out of that is with a Twisting Nether.
But it’s not just the "buffing in hand" cards that work well with this, Evolve does as well. Definitely playable in an Evolve deck, to where 6 mana can get you three 6-drops. Yet it does take 2 cards to do, but I mean, you're getting 3 big minions with it, I think it’s justified (though someone is going to get 3 Big-Time Racketeers doing this).
And if you play it without any buffs, it's a Neutral Force of Nature, not that bad.
This is the first card in the game with an "adjacent" based effect since TGT (Powershot), and the first minion with this effect since GvG (Wee Spellstopper).
COMPARABLE CARDS:
Any card with a Divine Shield, or a Divine Shield related effect (such as Steward of Darkshire).
REVIEW:
This is… I don’t really know the right word, or set of words to describe this card. It's an interesting card to say the least. It makes the most sense in Paladin because this card does work with the Hero Power to effectively make Argent Squires. Paladin has also received the most (and arguably the best) “buff in hand” cards, and more stats on any minion (especially one with Divine Shield) is a plus. It also has Taunt so it provides even more protection for the Divine Shield minions, and for yourself. Overall, it sounds pretty nice so I’m going to say that it’s good.
This and Grimestreet Enforcer are the only two cards with a "buff in hand" mechanic that applies at the end of your turn. Out of both of those cards, this one targets one minion as opposed to all of them.
This and Shaky Zipgunner are the only two cards with the "buff in hand" mechanic that gives +2/+2. Almost all of the other give +1/+1 (except Stolen Goods and Don Han'Cho which give +3/+3 and +5/+5 respectively).
Well here is an interesting card here. With the "end of turn" effect, it's guaranteed that you will get an activation off (unless you play into Snipe), effectively making it a "Battlecry: Give a random minion in your hand +2/+2". A 4/3 for 4 is worse than a 3/3 for 3, so it seems a little bit worse than Shaky Zipgunner in that regard. Although this card will occasionally get multiple activations off, it won't happen extremely often. Your opponent will probably think of this as a Taunt and try to kill it as soon as he/she has the opportunity to. Although, Warrior will most likely get another card that buffs minions in your hand, which will make this card better in that regard. For the time being though, I'm going to rate this as Average.
This is the third weapon in the game that isn't a blade, axe, or ranged weapon, but simply a handpiece weapon. The other two handpiece weapons in the game are Spirit Claws and Tentacles for Arms.
Prior to this card's release, some people made custom cards with this exact card art.
The watermark of this set resembles a pair or brass knuckles. The watermark is called "Thorium Knuckles", which is what this card was originally called.
This is the first weapon in the game with the "buff in hand" effect, seen amongst the Grimy Goons.
53 cards into the set and we the inevitable Warrior weapon of the set, and surprise, surprise, surprise, it buffs minions in your hand. The card certainly looks cool, but unfortunately, it's slow. It's a 2 Attack weapon on turn 4 (or later) which means an additional swing to kill something is probably needed. It has 3 Durability, so after you attack, you will buff something in your hand 3 times (read my comment about Grimy Gadgeteer). Of course, as we've also seen in the set is one key card that might make this card see play. That card is Grimestreet Pawnbroker. You can play the Pawnbroker on turn 3, then play this on turn 4, and you have an Assassin's Blade that costs 1 mana less, and has an upside ability. Unfortunately, you may not too reliably get this effect off, and there is the possibility of Harrison Jones coming back into the meta, in which case this card won't be played regardless. We'll simply have to wait for the expansion before we can really see how good this weapon is. With how fast cards have been revealed, maybe the expansion gets released sooner than we thought.
In WoTOG, Forsen revealed Renounce Darkness, and here in MSoG, he revealed this badass Beast so he's revealed at least two really cool cards in a row. Good for him. I'm not even trying to hide the fact that this is a really awesome and good card. Infested Wolf is a card that a lot of Hunters are currently running, and this card is very similar to that. Essentially -1/-1 and -1 mana and is guaranteed to summon 2 Rat tokens. At worst, it's a 3 mana 2/2 with "Deathrattle: Summon 2 Rats" which by itself is already not too bad, it would probably see at least a little bit of play that way. Where this card really shines though is with the obvious synergies with the "buff in hand" cards. We've already seen that this (as well as Dispatch Kodo) will work well with Trogg Beastrager and Shaky Zipgunner, but that isn't all. It also works well with cards like Houndmaster, making this thing even more meaty and big, and it also works with temporary attack buffs like Abusive Sergeant or Dire Wolf Alpha.
Sure, dealing with 2 1/1 Rats may not be that difficult, but try dealing with 5 or 6 of them at once. Without a board clear, you have some forces to be reckoned with. Even with a board clear though, people won't want to waste a Flamestrike, Dragonfire Potion or Twisting Nether just to clear a bunch of 1/1 minions. The best part about that is if the Rats stay alive, they also benefit from the same Beast synergy as the Rat Pack does.
This is the second card in the game with the word "knuckle" in it. You can probably guess what the other one is.
"Knuckles" in the name of a character in the Sonic The Hedgehog series, who is an anthropomorphic red echidna. He made his debut in the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive game, Sonic The Hedgehog 3.
The effect is not exactly the same, but similar to Trample from Magic: The Gathering, in which you would attack a blocking creature, and if it killed it, you would be able to deal the remaining amounts of Attack points to another target. It's also similar to the combat system from Yu-Gi-Oh, in which when a "monster" kills another monster with less ATK points, it deals damage to your opponents Life Points equal to the difference between the two monster's ATK points.
This is the second 5-cost Hunter Legendary, preceded by Princess Huhuran from the previous expansion.
This is the second 5 mana 3/7 in the game, preceded by Shado-Pan Rider.
Hunter is the only class in the game, in which every Legendary has a tribal tag. All others have: (Druid: 1, Mage: 1, Paladin: 0, Priest: 0, Rogue: 0, Shaman: 0, Warlock: 2, Warrior: 1)
Just when you thought Hunter couldn't get any more exciting, here we have our Legendary revealed and it's a pretty exciting one. Not just because it's yet another card that benefits from "buffing in hand" cards, but also because it has a mechanic in which we haven't really seen before. The closest thing we have to this is Foe Reaper 4000, which was never a "bad card" per se, but it was just REALLY slow and expensive. This however may not be very fast, but it's not that expensive. It basically works as allowing you to get a free Cobra Shot each turn if you can keep this minion on board (and Cobra Shot obviously would've been broken if it was 0 mana). That's where 7 Health is a huge benefit because on turn 5, dealing 7 damage is not very easy (it's safe from Fireball). Your opponent will most likely have to waste hard removal or a Hex/Polymorph to get rid of this at that stage, and it being used on this means it won’t be used on Savannah Highmane.
For all of you SMorc'ers out there, this card allows you to go face and trade at the same time. It definitely pushes a more Control based Hunter which Blizzard has tried to do for a while now, allowing you to make some nice trades and just like Hunter has always done, go face, all at the same time. And of course, it benefits from being buffed in the hand, dealing more damage to minions, more damage to face, and giving higher Health to the minion. It also has some really nice synergy with Tundra Rhino, potentially giving you a turn 10 HUGE charger combo.
This is one of the few ogres in the game which have nothing to do with the theme of stupidity, and doesn't have the "forgetful" effect. The other three ogres like that are Boulderfist Ogre, Second-Rate Bruiser and Cho'gall.
Prior to the release of this card, effects like "create a custom weapon" and "destroy all minions with less Attack than this minion" were fan made ideas for this minion.
This is the only card with the "buff in hand" mechanic which gives +5/+5. The closest card to that is Stolen Goods, which gives +3/+3.
After a lot of waiting, going into Incognito browsers and clicking "Endorse Gang" several times, arguably one of the most hyped up cards for the set has finally been revealed. And, it’s admittedly quite disappointing. There has been some backlash from the Hearthstone community. After this, I don't think many people will want to vote for cards from this set again.
But on the card itself, and as disappointing as the card is, it's by no means a "bad card". Giving +5/+5 to a minion is huge, about 5 mana worth of value (compare to Blessing of Kings or Power Word: Tentacles), especially to a minion like Rat Pack or Dispatch Kodo, but even if you don’t hit one of those two, it’s still decent. I would absolutely like to play a 3 mana 8/8 or something along those lines. If you buff a Soggoth the Slitherer with this, you'll gain an even bigger amount of value. The dream with this would be to play it with Brann Bronzebeard to give +10/10 in your hand. Brann is definitely a consideration for a deck like this. Any "buff in hand" centered deck should consider running this if the player has it.
Good news for you if you're bored and/or annoyed with all the "buff in hand" cards we've seen (only counting the cards that buff others, we've covered 11), is that the Grimy Goons week is over, meaning we most likely won't see any other cards with these effects. Next week will be either Kabal or Jade Lotus.
This is the first female pandaren in the game. Like how most pandaren focus on manipulating your board and hand, this card focuses on manipulating your board and deck.
This is a very weird card, with a very unusual effect. You choose a friendly minion on the board and swap it with a random minion in your deck. Something that is very important to note is the use of the word "swap". When you choose a minion, it puts that minion back into the deck, and takes another minion out of your deck to replace it. It's not like Barnes where it summons a copy, it puts the actual card into the battlefield. This means that the effect could go either way. It could either help you tremendously, or backfire terribly, and as we've all seen in Hearthstone before, even bad outcomes with a 1/500 chance of happening will still occasionally happen.
When you string together an unreliable effect with a really unimpressive statline (4/3 for 6 is a pretty bad stats:cost ratio), you get a card that looks like a piece of garbage. Although, yes, this card is not particularly good, there are some synergies and interesting tricks you can do with this effect. If you have a critically damaged minion, you can shuffle it back into your deck (healing it to full Health), and summon a new minion to replace it. Ideally, Paladins also have the best use with this card as they can use the effect on a Silver Hand Recruit and replace it with a bigger minion (of course, the recruit however will be a bad topdeck). If you summon a Tirion Fordring or Ragnaros the Firelord (or even Lightlord) with that, that's really good. But it won't always be that.
The card requires you to really build your deck around it in a similar fashion to an Astral Communion deck. Ideally, you don't want a lot of Battlecries because they work poorly with this minion. Overall, it's a very weird and gimmicky card that probably won’t see any serious play but some people may try to play some gimmicky deck with it. It's also nice to see Blizzard design cards with very unique effects as that proves that they’re willing to experiment with new designs.
This is the first (and most likely the only) "buff in hand" card related to Murlocs. Trogg Beastrager is the only other "buff in hand" card that related to a tribal tag.
Paladin is the first class in the set to have every class card revealed.
Here it is, the last Paladin card revealed, and it's yet another "buff in hand" card. This is the fourth one for Paladins, and it follows the inevitable and very weird "Murloc Paladin" synergy which doesn't really make any sense, but it's whatever.
Now for this card, you'd have to play it in a Murloc deck to consistently get the buff, but you wouldn't play this is an Anyfin Paladin because you'll probably summon this when you don't really want to. This means that you'd to play this in a different type of Murloc Paladin, perhaps probably a really aggressive Murloc deck to swarm the board. Could that work? It possibly could, but would you play this card in that deck? That's kinda questionable. Would you play this over something like Grimscale Oracle or Murloc Tidecaller? That's when you actually might reasonably consider replacing them.
This is the third in the game which has an effect based on your opponent's hand, preceded by Goblin Sapper and Clockwork Giant. Tanaris Hogchopper is also in the same boat and was released about the same time as this card. This and Goblin Sapper however are the only two cards which have an effect based on if your opponent has a specific amount of cards in hand (6).
These three cards are the second, third, and fourth cards in the game which have an effect of "if X, gain Charge", preceded by Armored Warhorse.
Hog Wild! Amirite? Kudos to you if you get that reference. But on to the actual card, it and its two brethren cards (Spiked Hogrider and Tanaris Hogchopper) are three very interesting tech-ish cards. This can be a very good card against control, allowing a 6/6 for 6 with Charge, which is absolutely insane, however for your opponent to have 6 cards in hand is not a very reliable effect. Goblin Sapper, despite its potential, never really took off because it wasn't very reliable. Theoretically, you could play this is in a Mill deck (mostly Rogue with a little bit of Druid) and almost always get a 6/6 for 6 with Charge, but people never really played Goblin Sapper in Mill Rogue which could almost always be a 6/4 for 3, nor did they play Clockwork Giant which could almost always be a 2 mana 8/8. Not because they were bad cards for the deck but because neither card really helped them reach their win condition. Playing a 2 mana 8/8 in Mill Rogue is awesome, don't get me wrong, but it didn't help in fatiguing the opponent which is ideally how you would win in Mill Rogue.
So, because of that, I think it has potential, and I think some people will try it and who knows, it actually might end up working out, but I don't really see it.
We're continuing our theme of motorcycle hogs, with this card right here. It's very much like the Leatherclad Hogleader, but has -1/-1 for -1 mana, and it has a condition that is usually easier to activate. Your opponent doesn’t need to have 6 cards in hand, he/she just needs a Taunt minion, and then this gains Charge. This card is actually comparable to The Black Knight, which may not be popular right now, but if huge Taunt minions become popular, people that have it will easily tech it right in. So, if The Black Knight isn’t popular at any point, this card probably won't be either. The Black Knight also destroys the minion with any damage to worry about, this not so much. With a cost of 5, you can't play both cards in the same turn either (unless you save The Coin until turn 10, or have an Emperor Thaurissan tick).
There however are some upsides to this compared to its Legendary counterpart. For one, this has better stats (5/5 for 5 vs 4/5 for 6), meaning it'll be better than The Black Knight if you can't get the effects to activate. This card is also a Rare instead of a Legendary, meaning you can put 2 of these in your deck, and it will be easier for new players to acquire. If they get this, they can use it as a budget substitute for its Legendary counterpart. If you have The Black Knight, yeah, you'd run that instead of this card, but this works as a nice alternate option for any players, whether new or more experienced, who don't have The Black Knight.
A Horde symbol tattoo is present on the hog's arm.
Cards such as Quick Shot and Core Rager have effects based on if YOUR hand is empty, but this is the first card in the game with an effect based on if your OPPONENT'S hand is empty.
We've save the worst of the hog cards for last, isn't that wonderful? I'm not going to hide anything, this card sucks, it just sucks. The effect is unnecessarily difficult to activate and if it isn't activated, it’s just a 4/4 for 4. Maybe it has some place in a meta if just "rush deck vs rush deck", but even then, it's not that good.
Finally after 10 days, we receive Mage card number 2 after receiving Manic Soulcaster on November 4th, she was alone for 10 days. It’s a very interesting and weird card for Mages. It's a 1 mana cheaper Consecration that deals damage to every minion. It deals 2 damage, so it can kill smaller creatures, but it also kills friendly Sorcerer's Apprentices. It however doesn't kill Mana Wyrms or Flamewakers which is a good thing, but with a two sided AoE, you have to consider both sides getting damage. Hellfire was usually used if your opponent's board was a lot larger than yours, and Demonwrath was mainly used in Demon decks where your own stuff didn't get damaged. For that reason, I don’t see this being an absolutely game-breaking AoE spell, but when your board isn't very big, and your opponent's board is, this spell will be useful at effectively a 3 mana Consecration. Right now we need AoE to beat the "hand buffing" we received for a week, and I don't know if this will be it, but it's better than nothing.
It's now Kabal week at the time of this review. If you thought the Grimy Goons were boring with the repetitive "hand buff" mechanic, then we have good news for you. The Kabal is looking more promising with this "potion" theme. We've already seen Kazakus and his ability to create a custom spell, but here we have his… Followers? Cultists? Troops? Whatever you want to call them, they're here. This is essentially a Common version of Kazakus, rocking the exact same stats, cost and similar effect, giving you a random potion. At the time of this review, the potions that can be given are:
So we haven't seen all of the potions so far, but depending on how strong every potion is how good this card will be. Right now, I think it has potential and will see some play.
It took 64 cards, but we finally got our first Warlock card. Here's the card Kripp revealed, and he tends to get very interesting cards. In TGT, he got Astral Communion, and in WoTOG, he got Hallazeal the Ascended.
This card is just as interesting as those two. For one, it’s a Hellfire with a 6/6 Demon for 3 additional mana. The card simply looks insane, providing a fairly sized body on the board, as well as clearing the opponent’s board. To put it this way, it's simply awesome and will definitely see play in practically every non-Zoo Warlock deck.
It’s also a Common, meaning it’s an AMAZING Warlock card in Arena.
We've had Secret Paladin and Secret Hunter before, so having a Secret Mage is only fitting. It has some decent tools, but it does lack tools to make it a viable top tier meta deck, and this is a tool introduced to help that out. You simply play it, and then your next Secret costs 0, which is not only perfect synergy for cards like Mana Wyrm and Flamewaker, but also is a nice buff to Medivh's Valet, in which you can almost guarantee that 3 damage. If this card makes Secret Mage viable, perhaps Kirin Tor Mage also becomes viable. Could be the case. People will try out some Secret Mage and maybe it works. If it gets more tools as well as maybe another Secret, it does look rather promising.
Here is the card that Brian Kibler revealed, and it's not a Dragon, or a Priest card. It's the Mage Legendary for the expansion. If you've been living under a rock, Mage is known for getting really bad Legendaries in some expansions. We have Archmage Antonidas, a REALLY good Legendary that fits into almost every type of Mage, and they have Rhonin, a decent Legendary with some potential to be really good, but it's just slow… but then, we have Flame Leviathan which is too gimmicky and unreliable, and Anomalus, which is just too slow and expensive.
The reason I say that, is that this Legendary gives off a lot of promise to be really good in Reno Mage. The ability for Mages to cast a 0 cost spell is pretty big, especially a Flamestrike or even a Pyroblast, there is utmost potential for this card to really rock. Especially in combination with Kazakus, you can get a 10 cost spell, or even a 5 cost spell, and cast it for free and get enough value to justify playing this card in that deck. The ability to make a spell cost 0 is similar to the effect of Cho'gall, but you don’t pay any Health to do that. Imagine playing this, then casting Flamestrike. Yes, you lose 2/2, but you don’t nuke yourself in the face for 7.
Ironically, this card also has synergy with Duplicate, which you fortunately can play in the same turn (just remember to play Duplicate first), as well as Manic Soulcaster, which again, is playable in the same turn (and that doesn’t even waste your 0 cost spell either). The theme of having no duplicates in your deck is also one that the Kabal seems to take on, so there’s even more tools to come for making this deck work, but even then, this still fits in the current Reno Mage deck. It overall poses a lot of promise.
We've seen Kabal Lackey so it only makes sense that Mages would get a Secret, and we've seen Kabal Chemist, so it only makes sense that Mages would get a "potion" card. Lo and behold, we have both combined into one card. It’s not the best Mage Secret, but it is a potentially nice one. It's a lot like Mirror Entity, where you ideally want to hit a big minion and transform them into a Sheep. It's a better Repentance in that regard, as it also reduces the Attack and effectively Silences the minion. If you hit what you want to hit, it's a cheaper Polymorph, and that's always nice… if you're the one executing it that is. You play around it in the same way that you play around Mirror Entity so that kinda sucks. That's one flaw with this card. It's rather easy to play around.
There is notable synergy with the Secret cards like the aforementioned Kabal Lackey, as well as Medivh's Valet, Kirin Tor Mage and Ethereal Arcanist. But something that might not be as obvious is synergy with Mirror Entity. Play Mirror Entity first, then play this, and when your opponent plays a minion, you'll get the full minion, then your opponent will get a Sheep. Doesn't work if you play it the other way around though so watch out. I personally think that's AWESOME. Secrets that have synergy with other Secrets is something we haven't seen yet.
As a potion, you can get this from Kabal Chemist. If you're a Priest or a Warlock, it's no secret what you just played (see what I did there?), unless you somehow got another Mage Secret (which will rarely happen but once in a blue moon, it could). As a Mage though, you can play a different Secret to trick people into thinking this is the Secret you just played and you can play them right into your trap card (both figuratively, and literally).
The card is promising and has potential, but it has the downside that it's easy to play around (you play around this exactly as you would play around Mirror Entity), and against Aggro, it won't work out very well.
This is the first Warlock Murloc minion in the game, making 3 of 9 classes having their own Murlocs. The other two classes being Paladin and Shaman.
This is the second 4 mana 4/2 in the game, preceded by Cult Master.
This is the second card in the game that makes other cards you play cost Health instead of Mana, obviously preceded by Cho'gall. This makes it possible for this to become a recurring theme.
When it was first revealed, this card was just referred to as "Warlock Murloc" and had no actual name.
This is a weird card since none of us are used to Warlocks getting Murlocs (but I suppose it still makes more sense than Rogues getting a Beast in LoE). The effect of making Murlocs cost Health instead of Mana is not really as useful as doing that same effect to spells, mostly because most Murlocs are cheap. In a traditional Murloc deck, the best you could put out with this is a Murloc Warleader, or Old Murk-Eye if you’re playing Wild (okay, can some please tell me why Old Murk-Eye isn't in Standard, it makes absolutely no sense that he isn't). If you’re playing some weird Murloc deck, you could play Finja, the Flying Star, but no traditional Murloc decks would run him, just really weird ones. On top of that, you're paying 3 stats for this effect and rather bad stat distribution. In what deck can you really play this card and have it make sense.
This is the second 5 mana 2/2 minion in the game, preceded by Dopplegangster. Both of these cards are from the same set and both nerf Firelands Portal (this one especially since it has a drawback).
A very weird card to evaluate. At first glance, it looks like trash. And in most circumstances, this card admittedly is not so good. Dealing 5 damage is worth about 3.66 mana, and a 2/2 minion is worth 1 mana (as seen from Enchanted Raven and Mistress of Mixtures). Combining the two effects into one card means this card seems fair at 5 mana just evaluating those two factors. But this card has two drawbacks. One, you can't target face with this, which isn't a huge downside but there will be situations you will want to hit face with this. The second drawback is that it damages you for 5 when it dies. When you look at the card this way, it sounds like a steaming pile of garbage. As I mentioned before, this card isn't very good but it does have some upsides, namely that:
You can play this, then play Evolve to gain the benefit of the Battlecry without the drawback of the Deathrattle, and get a 6-drop (hopefully not a Big-Time Racketeer). You can also play this when your opponent has a Sylvanas Windrunner on the field. You'll kill the Sylvanas, then it'll steal this. You gain the benefit of the Battlecry and your opponent suffers the drawback of the Deathrattle. Of course, there's also the obvious synergy with Brann Bronzebeard to dealing a whopping 10 damage which will kill almost everything your opponent can throw at you. These are all really nice way to make this card good and potentially playable, but otherwise, I think this card is bad.
When I first saw this card, I honestly thought it was fake. I know that Blizzard makes poorly designed and/or god awful cards sometimes (The Boogeymonster), but I didn’t think they would make something like this. This card is simply abysmal, which is a shame because the artwork of this card is so awesome!
It should be blatantly obvious why this card is bad, but let's just see how we can explain it? How much is a 3/1 minion worth? Judging by the 1 mana 1/3's we have, as well as the 1 mana 2/2's, I think it's pretty safe to say that a 3/1 minion is worth 1 mana. Now how much is "deal 2 damage to the enemy hero" worth? Hunters have it as Hero Power, and Hero Powers tend to be worth about 0 mana (Fireblast = Moonfire, Reinforce = Wisp), and it's comparable to Sinister Strike so Steady Shot too is worth 0 mana. This means that this card could be 2 mana and it wouldn't be too OP, and might see some niche play. As it is, it's just trash. Why not just run Wolfrider instead? And Wolfrider already sees very little play.
Well here is the first Warlock potion. Many are disappointed by this card, and while I don't think the card is extremely powerful, I'm going to go out on a limb, and say that I honestly don't think this card is as bad as it looks. It's comparable to Demonfuse, which was a bad card, but the only real reason it was bad was because it gave the opponent a Mana Crystal (essentially casting a Wild Growth for your opponent) which is a really big downside. If Demonfuse was just a 2 mana "Give a Demon +3/+3", it probably would've been really good. Likewise, if you use this in a Demon deck, where almost all (if not all) of your minions are Demons, this is just a 3 mana "Give a minion +3/+3", which is about on par with Blessing of Kings which already sees a fair amount of play.
For that reason, I think this card is honestly not that bad, but it does nerf Kabal Chemist a bit. Not because the card is bad but because it's extremely unlikely that you will have any Demons as a Mage or Priest.
After an initial disappointment of the reveal of Bloodfury Potion, we got a much better potion that's very similar to Dragonfire Potion. It's not quite as good as Dragonfire Potion (mainly because it always damages your own stuff), but it's still pretty damn good. It serves as basically a bigger, scarier Hellfire. Ideally you would want to use this when your board is empty, or you only have really small things you don't mind losing. Of course, as Hellfire does too, this card deals damage to both heroes which will occasionally be a game-saver for you.
Not always, but a lot of the time, this can be treated as a cheaper Flamestrike that does more damage, and other times, it can even act as a Twisting Nether. With Kabal Chemist taking a bit of a nerf from Bloodfury Potion, this card definitely makes up for that.
Here is a really cool card and yet another Secret Mage tool. It's quite similar to Thing from Below. It's not as powerful as Thing from Below obviously, but card is just OP, and this card is still really good. The really great thing about the card is that is costs 2 less for each Secret you've played, and not just 1. If it just 1, I would say this card isn't very good, but because it costs 2 less, you only have to play 2 Secrets to make it a 2 mana 5/5, and 3 to make it a 0 mana 5/5. Along with Kabal Lackey and Kirin Tor Mage, you can easily make the Secrets more playable and reduce the cost of this card much easier and faster. Every Secret based card of course will help with the deck, but this one especially.
Here we have a bit of a boring card. It's not as "fillery" as a card like Worgen Greaser or Grook Fu Master, but it's still a bit on the "fillery" side. This card at the very least does something useful, removing your opponent's weapon. This is a very prominent effect in a certain meta, but a very rare effect to see on multiple cards. Currently, all we have is Acidic Swamp Ooze and Harrison Jones for completely removing a weapon, and then we have Bloodsail Corsair for removing Durability. Surely, adding one more card to that pool would be a nice addition.
The card has nice stats, 4/3 for 3 so it has a better stats:cost ratio than Bloodsail Corsair, but the problem is that it's simply a worse Acidic Swamp Ooze. That doesn't automatically make the card bad, but I think you would rather play Acidic Swamp Ooze than this as it has the same stat amount for the cost (stats = mana cost · 2 + 1) that this card has, but Acidic Swamp Ooze is guaranteed to remove the weapon. Removing 1 Durability isn't that much worse than destroying since weapons don’t tend to have a lot of Durability, but Acidic Swamp Ooze can take care of Doomhammers, Assassin's Blade, and basically any other weapon with more than 3 Durability. So I don't see anyone running this card over Acidic Swamp Ooze.
Despite what I said, this is by no means a "bad card". It has a decent statline and a useful, albeit outclassed effect. If you want to make some weird deck that has weapon removal up the ass, then you could put this in there. The card is also good in Arena because it’s a 4/3 for 3 that sometimes has an upside effect.
Well, Amaz has revealed the Priest Legendary, and it's about as good as he made it out to be. It's probably the best Priest Legendary so far. Out of every class in the game this card could belong to, Priest was probably the best choice (couldn't be Mage though because of Coldarra Drake) because they have the best uses with this card. Being able to save 2 mana to heal yourself every turn is huge because now you can play on curve and use your Hero Power at the same time. Suddenly you no longer have to wait until turn 9 to play Confessor Paletress, as you can now play it on turn 7 and use a 0 cost Hero Power. You can now regain the tempo you lost from playing Shadowform, and you basically get a free Holy Smite every turn. If you're feeling risky, you can play duplicate in your deck, a second Shadowform, free Darkbombs every turn that don't cost card slots.
That's just scratching the surface of what you can do with this. Why not play Justicar Trueheart along with this, 0 mana heal for 4 each turn. You can even combo this further with Auchenai Soulpriest or Prophet Velen to get some additional damage or additional healing. It also has some gimmicky synergy with Auctionmaster Beardo since your Hero Power now permanently costs 0, eliminating one of the key drawbacks of Auctionmaster Beardo's effect. Does Beardo suddenly becomes viable, or close to viable with this card? Maybe it does.
As a "no duplicates" effect, it's a perfect fit with Reno Jackson and Kazakus in a Reno Priest of any type, normal or Shadowform. Overall, this card has a very cool effect with a nice body, and tons of possible combos you do with this card. Oh, and the artwork is awesome!
So, after we failed to receive what was most likely the Warlock Legendary, we received Jade Blossom (It wasn't revealed at the time what a "Jade Golem" was), and now we've received this somewhat interesting card right here. It's a 4/6 for 5 that gives you a Coin whenever your opponent plays a spell. This means that if your opponent only plays a single spell, this is effectively like a 4 mana 4/6, that might give you another Coin. Now, would you play a vanilla 4 mana 4/6? Maybe, maybe not, but unfortunately, you can't play it on turn 4 with ramping or going second with the coin you receive at the start of the match. This seems nice particularly in Rogue where it not only gives you Combo synergy and Gadgetzan Auctioneer synergy, but also perfectly curves from Tomb Pillager so this card may have potential in Rogue.
Notably, this is a Neutral card and not a Rogue card so other classes can benefit from additional Coins now. Although Rogue is probably the best class for this card, Mage and Druid are other classes that might be able to use this for something.
But we can’t get too optimistic. If we look at Troggzor the Earthinator, it was a 7 mana 6/6 that, whenever your opponent played a spell, would summon a 3/5 minion that could get further buffed up by more spells. It we make that comparison; the appeal of this card seems to go away. The potential this card has however is still there.
This is the first minion in the game with the text "whenever this minion is healed".
COMPARABLE CARDS:
I don't know. This card seems REALLY unique.
REVIEW:
Well, Priests have been needing a 2-drop for a while now. Shrinkmeister was cool but it was rotated out when WoTOG was released, and it was usually played in combination with Cabal Shadow Priest and not much as a turn 2 play. Museum Curator is also good but it doesn't fight for the board very well and a lot of really good Deathrattle minions rotated out with WoTOG's release. For a while, most Priest decks have been looking for a 2-drop which can be played on turn 2 and have a good impact. The only types of Priests that don’t need this card are Dragon Priest and C'Thun Priest.
Good news is that Mana Geode seems like a perfect contender for that spot. Its effect doesn't do anything right away, but if it did, it would be too powerful, not to mention Priest is the best class of getting around this rule cards like Power Word: Shield and new Kabal Talonpriest set to release this expansion. Its effect of getting healed and summoning a 2/2 Crystal effectively makes this a Taunt as it can very easily get out of hand if you don’t kill it as soon as you can. It being 3 Health is part of why this is good. If it was a 3/2, I’d say that this card isn't very good, but that one extra Health point really makes a difference as it now can't die to a 1-drop, and it can live against quite a few 2-drops. This in particular works well with Wild Pyromancer to deal 1 damage to it, then Circle of Healing to heal this back up, as well as any additional Crystals from this. Wild Pyromancer is also already run in a lot of Priest decks so it seems like a natural fit there. It also has some indirect synergy with the new Priest Legendary, Raza the Chained as you no longer have to spend 2 mana each turn to summon these Crystals.
It's overall just a really good Priest 2-drop, which already has synergy with lots of cards Priests are running, and a natural fit to Control Priest.
This is the first card the mentions the Jade Golem, which is like the gimmick of the Grimy Goons giving minions in your hand extra stats, as well as the Kabal which had a theme of potions, as well as not having any duplicates in your deck.
This card was revealed a few days before it was intended to be revealed. This had players stumped over what the Jade Golem was.
The text "Jade Golem" is bolded in a similar fashion to Spare Parts (look at cards like Clockwork Gnome and Tinkertown Technician). This could be to showcase the importance of the item to the Jade Lotus faction.
As of November 21st, we now know what a Jade Golem is. A Jade Golem is a 1/1 minion that gains +1/+1 each time you summon another Jade Golem, similar to C'Thun. Just like that Old God, you'll have a deck built around Jade Golems, summoning a bunch of Jade Golems and buffing them. Although no word has been mentioned about it, you might also have a way of tracking how big your Jade Golems will be when you play a Jade Golem card, just like its Old God counterpart.
If you play this on turn 3, you're summoning a 1/1 in addition to casting a Wild Growth. Remember that Wild Growth costs 2, but a 1/1 costs 0 (Wisp), but you are combining them all together to gain 1 card, rather than having to draw and play 2 separate cards. This card feels good enough on its own, and after just a single buff, you're already getting enough value to outvalue this card's Basic counterpart. And if you already have 10 mana, you'll gain that Excess Mana and for just 1 more mana, you'll most likely summon a 4/4 or 5/5 Jade Golem.
Its only downside is that is doesn't curve well from Wild Growth (play Wild Growth on 2, and now you have 4 mana on turn 3 so you float 1 mana when you play), but is that really that big of a downside?
It took a while but after a long time, we finally have our second Jade Lotus card. Lotus Agents was card 12/132, this is card 79/132. As we’ve already seen before, this is yet another card with the “Jade Golem” mechanic, in which a Jade Golem is a 1/1 minion that grows by +1/+1 every time you play another Jade Golem, in a very C'Thun-esque fashion. This is our first minion that plays with this theme.
If you don’t have any Jade Golems summoned, and you summon a 1/1, this is just a 4 mana 3/4 split across two bodies. Not too great by itself, so for that reason, I think this card is worse than the Jade Blossom. This will need at least one buff before it reaches 4/5 (Chillwind Yeti statline). Unlike Jade Blossom though, this card has synergy with Brann Bronzebeard. Based on the number of Jade Golem minions we have (that have Battlecry of course), Brann Bronzebeard may make its way into Jade Golem decks. It was virtually an auto-include in C'Thun decks so it could happen.
Well, it took 80/132 cards, but we finally have our first Shaman card revealed. After getting a 4 mana 7/7, and a 1 mana 3/3 weapon, and with the class already dominating the meta, Shaman doesn't need any more broken cards, does it? Nope, and here we have a prime candidate of a Shaman card that’s "good but not broken". Dealing 4 damage and summoning a 1/1 for 4 mana is not particularly good, but after it gains 1 buff, it’s a 4 mana 2/2 that deals 4 damage, comparable to Keeper of the Grove. If Keeper of the Grove dealt 4 damage instead of 2, it would probably see play.
Of course, this card can also grow a lot larger, and if Jade Golems are anything like C'Thun in terms of cards, there will be enough tools to buff this significantly. After quite a few buffs, you can make this a 4 mana 7/7 that deals 4 damage, and doesn't overload you for 2.
Oh, and it's a damage spell for Shaman that isn't random.
Here, we have our Jade Lotus tri-class Legendary revealed. It's not as wildly creative and innovative as Kazakus, but it is more interesting than Don Han'Cho, as it is the only card that works with Jade Golems on both Battlecry and Deathrattle (and most likely the only card in this set with that text line). What is important to note as because it summons two Jade Golems, it will buff up the Jade Golem twice. It may not look extremely appealing at first, but when you buff it with other cards like Jade Spirit, Jade Lightning or Wild Blossom (of course, you can’t out all 3 of these in the same deck), you’ll be able to summon a 5/5 on Battlecry, then a 6/6 on Deathrattle. For that, this seems like the Twin Emperor Vek'lor of Jade Golem decks.
It does have the inherent downside of being able to die really easily only having 3 Health, but when you summon two beefy Jade Golems, I think the value is justified. Interestingly, it has synergy with both Brann Bronzebeard and Baron Rivendare, but you wouldn't run Baron Rivendare in a Jade Golem deck to begin with, and Rivendare is only playable in Wild anyway.
Savjz revealed a card for us, our first Rogue card with the Jade Golem theme. This one is on the more interesting side. Even if it’s your first Jade Golem card played, it’s a 2 mana 1/1 than dealt 2 damage, which honestly isn't that bad (looking at you Blowgill Sniper). We all know how easy it is to Combo Eviscerate off, this is the same cost and almost the same. Except, instead of that extra 2 damage, you summon a minion, a 1/1, a 2/2, a 3/3, or even higher. This might replace Eviscerate in Jade Golem Rogue decks, or maybe you run both. As pointed out by Nurgling13, this is essentially a reverse SI:7 Agent.
It honestly just seems like an auto-include in any Jade Golem Rouge deck.
So, here we have an interesting card. The text “full Health” is very rare in Hearthstone. Particularly, if you compare this to Ancestral Healing, you’re gaining a 4 mana 2/6 (not particularly amazing), but you're losing Taunt. Ancestral Healing isn’t really seeing any play except maybe in Arena. For that reason, this seems like strictly an Arena card, and in Arena, it's a decent card. You can attack into a minion, then use this to heal it back up. In Constructed though, I do see one good application for this card. Notice that you can restore ANY minion to full Health, not just friendly ones. Say hello to Auchenai Soulpriest, in which this basically turns the Battlecry into "destroy a minion". I'm not saying this alone makes this card viable in Constructed, but it definitely seems tempting.
Of course, even without Auchenai Soulpriest, Priest is still the best class for this as this effect works with cards like Northshire Cleric and the new Mana Geode. Otherwise though, this card isn't too exciting.
This is the second minion in the game with an effect that draws multiple cards, preceded by pre-nerf Ancient of Lore (which drew 2 cards instead of 1, but still restored only 5 Health).
Here is a very strange, but deceptively potential filled card in my opinion. At first glance, it doesn't look very good, especially because it's too hard to combo this with most 6+ Health minions in the game. Admittedly, yes, that is true that you're not too likely to have a 6+ Health minion when you play this card, I see a place where this card can fit. That place is Jade Golem decks. Primarily Druid because they have the ability to Innervate, but Shaman and Rouge could work as well.
Just think about it. We'll most likely have enough ways to summon and buff Jade Golems up, and most Jade Golem summoning cards currently are cheap. You have the ability to play a Jade Blossom, Jade Lightning, Jade Shuriken, or Jade Spirit in the same turn as this card, which will allow you to more reliably get the two cards off.
Of course, the downside is that if you can’t get a 6+ Health minion to stick, it’s just a 6 mana 4/4, and nobody’s excited to play that. This is one of those rare cards that’s better in Constructed than Arena, because you can easily build you deck around this card in Constructed. In Arena, not so much.
The bugs are a swarmin' here for Valeera who seems to be almost everything now. Pirates, poison, funnel cakes, coins and now weird bug looking things. Along with Jade Shuriken, it's yet another piece for the inevitable Jade Golem Rogue deck that some people will be trying. Now, how good is this on paper? Well, when it dies, it at least summons a 1/1, effectively being a Possessed Villager with 1 extra mana for Stealth. Paying 1 mana for Stealth isn't that good (compare Silent Knight to Shielded Minibot), but as we all know, the Jade Golems grow. After it dies, everything revolving around Jade Golems now become better which is the key factor here. It's an early game tool that will make your Jade Shurikens and Jade Spirits more powerful.
You probably wouldn't play Unearthed Raptor in a Jade Golem deck, but because this has Stealth, it’s likely to survive the following turn, then you can copy this with the Raptor and summon another Jade Golem. Actually, if we get more cards like this or Aya Blackpaw, the Raptor might be tried out in some Jade Golem Rogues.
This is the first Jade Golem card with a Choose One effect.
COMPARABLE CARDS:
Uh...?
REVIEW:
Well, we already have Jade Blossom which summons a Jade Golem and ramps. We now have received another tool for Jade Golem Druid. Lots of Jade Golem cards have additional costs for bodies and effects. This card however, you just play it for 1 and summon a Jade Golem which is good because it provides immediate value for no cost and gives your Jade Golem a really cheap buff. Not only that but is has the flexibility of shuffling 3 extra copies of itself into your deck. That may not sound like much at first, but being able to shuffle 3 extra copies of this card into your deck and have them all keep that same effects means you can theoretically play infinite Jade Golems, but it also works in Fatigue Druid decks that aren't Jade Golem based because when you shuffle this into your deck, you will literally never go into fatigue as long as you keep shuffling these back into your deck as you will simply just keep shuffling stuff into your deck and raising its size. You can simply auto-win against Control Warrior this way.
It’s a really good card for Fatigue decks even without any other Jade Golem synergy which makes this probably the best Jade Golem card released so far. In Jade Golem Druid, no questions asked, you play this card. As a Choose One effect, it also synergizes with Fandral Staghelm. Whether or not Fandral will fit into a Jade Golem Druid depends on how much room you can make for Choose One cards, but even without Fandral, it's still an exceptional Jade Golem card.
Thijs may has only gotten us one pack, but he did give us a REALLY nice card.
This card features the tri-class Legendaries, Don Han'Cho, Aya Blackpaw and Kazakus in Murloc form. (Shoutout to The_Clueless_One for figuring that out, right here).
For those of you who were worried about the Grimy Goons hand-buffing decks becoming too powerful, meet the single card in the expansion and completely shits on them. They buff everything in their hand and play them all? Devolve them for only 2 mana and completely get rid of all of those buffs. Because they most likely will lose some stats, you can play this, then Lightning Storm and you can take out minions you normally wouldn't be able to deal with. If you dislike Anyfin Can Happen decks, this card alone completely destroys that. No more Murlocs and no more burst from them. In addition to that, it also can work as a pseudo-Mass Dispel, removing Deathrattles, passive effects, etc., but the minions you devolve could end up actually being better than their previous counterparts (quite unlikely though as you would simply just choose not to devolve them), but they might also get other Deathrattles or anything of the likes. Even then, it weakens your opponent's stuff and completely annihilates hand-buffing decks from the Grimy Goons.
Even with prevalent Shaman currently is, they still can get really awesome cards and this one is certainly another awesome Shaman card.
The Murlocs in the card art is a possible reference to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The left-most Murloc has nunchucks (Michaelangelo). The one in the center has a swordfish katana (Leonardo), and the right-most Murloc has a staff (Donatello). However the other Murloc doesn't have a Sai (which is Raphael's weapon), instead appearing to have nothing.
It appears that we aren't finished with making these Murloc puns. Shamans have received an extremely limited number of Murloc support cards. We received one in GvG and one in LoE. That's pretty much it, so it’s about time we received one more, especially because one of them is out of Standard, and the other one will be out of Standard in about 4 or 5 months from now. So, how good is this particular card? Some people have been saying it's bad, but I will say that it isn't as bad as it looks.
Simply summoning 4 1/1 minions would not too great (compare to Stand Against Darkness), but instead, the minions are Murlocs which actually makes the card somewhat better because you reduce the cost of Everyfin is Awesome by 4, and you have obvious synergy with Murloc Warleader, summoning four 3/2 minions for 4 mana, equaling a 4 mana 12/8 (beating a 4 mana 7/7). So if you consider that, this card has some potential in a Shaman Murloc deck which of course won't be viable with this alone but admittedly, the combo with Everyfin is Awesome does make this card more appealing.
Well, here is yet another Jade Golem Druid card. We already have Jade Blossom and Jade Idol, and now we have a minion that does the work. As seen by both of those aforementioned cards, summoning a Jade Golem is worth around 0.5 to 1 mana. If we look at Sen'jin Shieldmasta, we can assume that a 3/6 Taunt is worth about 4.5 mana (nobody plays Fen Creeper or its C'Thun counterpart). Therefore, combining all this together gives us roughly 5.5 mana worth of value for summoning a 1/1 Golem. After one buff to the Jade Golem, this card does start becoming worth the cost, and anything after that makes this simply great. Of course, playing 6 mana for a 3/6 Taunt isn't particularly great feeling, but of course, you are most likely summoning a 3/3+ Jade Golem when you play this card, and it does provide another reason to play Brann Bronzebeard in Jade Golem Druid. The Jade Golem is also protected by the Taunt. With that all being said, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this card is better than people are giving it credit for and I think it will be tried in Jade Golem Druid.
We have another Shaman card revealed, and a damn good one. Aggro or Midrange Shaman may not need any more good cards, but Control Shaman could use some, especially because Elemental Destruction rotates out 4 or 5 months from now, eliminating the powerful Hallazeal + ED combo. This is exactly the type of really good Shaman card I think we're all okay with. It's really good, but doesn’t help Midrange Shaman which is currently dominating Standard.
Enough about that though, let's discuss why the card is good. Okay, it's blatantly obvious why the card is good, but let us analyze it anyway. It's a 4 mana 3/6, a rare (but ever since Karazhan, is starting to become more common) statline and a very good one, that essentially casts a Holy Light, which may I remind you, costs 2 mana. So, in total, we have 6 mana worth of value from 2 cards wrapped up into a 4 mana card. The only drawback is that you Overload for 1, and with Tunnel Trogg or Unbound Elemental, the Overload can become an advantage. Overloading for 1 prevents you from playing Doomhammer next turn, but only Aggro Shamans really care about playing Doomhammer on turn 5. Not to mention, Doomhammer isn't even played anymore.
To put it this way, it's simply an awesome Control Shaman card with a really good healing effect and really good stats. The Overload drawback isn't even that bad since you still have 4 mana to play with on turn 5, and in the very late game, the Overload drawback is pretty much negligible.
This is the first Jade Golem card that gives the Jade Golem a keyword, similar to howTwilight Geomancer is the only C'Thun card that gives C'Thun a keyword (which is also Taunt) instead of stats as every other one does.
Another Shaman card for Jade Golems have been revealed and this is one of the more interesting ones. It's like Jade Behemoth for Druids, except instead of having Taunt itself, it gives the Jade Golem Taunt. Obviously, Jade Golems grow bigger and become better based on how many of their synergy cards you play, but this one especially because it gives the Jade Golem Taunt. Obviously the bigger the Jade Golem is, the better the Taunt is. The Jade Golem arguably needs to be at least a 3/3 to have gotten sufficient value from the Battlecry (effectively summoning an Ironfur Grizzly for 2 mana). Because Shamans already have Jade Lightning as well as most likely other upcoming Jade Golem cards and the tri-class cards, we can safely say that is a completely manageable task.
As with many other Jade Golem cards, it synergizes with Brann Bronzebeard, and because this costs 7, the two can be played on the same turn creating a pseudo-Twin Emperor Vek'lor effect. For this reason, I think we can safely say that Brann Bronzebeard will make its way into Jade Golem decks, for mostly the same reason it makes it into C'Thun decks. In addition, it's a solid late-game defense wall for Jade Golems decks. This is important because just like its Old God counterpart, you want to be able to survive long enough to gain the necessary value. I'm going to go ahead and say that I think this is good.
The Virmen are a race of bunny like creatures from WoW. One who doesn't know this may look at the word and think of it as a misspelling of the word "vermin" which refers to house pets.
Blizzard still hasn't given up on Beast Druid after it got its first support card in GvG and has been given the "Taunt Warrior" syndrome since TGT. I don't think the problem is a lack of Beasts, we already have a fair amount of Druid and Neutral Beasts. We also already have enough support cards (Wildwalker, Mark of Y'Shaarj, Menagerie Warden, etc.), which is what this card is so I don't think this is really necessary because if you include all of these, you'll have too many support cards and not enough Beasts. One of Beast Druid's problems is that it lacks card draw. We end up having to rely on Mark of Y'Shaarj and Neutral draw cards like Loot Hoarder or Azure Drake, which unfortunately have no Beast synergy.
For that reason, I feel like this card is somewhat pointless for the deck because it doesn't fix the deck’s problem and fills a space which doesn't need to be filled anymore. That's not to say you can't play this in a Beast Druid because it's very much like Houndmaster, in which it costs 1 more mana but it gains +2 Health over, but also loses the Taunt. Comparing cards from two different classes is a tricky route to go through but I feel as if this is a bit worse than Houndmaster in terms of overall value. That and the 5-drop slot in Beast Druid is already fairly full, being that we have Druid of the Claw, Stranglethorn Tiger and maybe even Azure Drake. I feel like this doesn’t really help Beast Druid at all unless they get some other cards.
Here is the card that Gero and Tsubaki revaled? Ever heard of them before they revealed this card? Me neither. In their reveal video, they really hyped us this card to make it look really exciting and good. Unfortunately, it was just to make the card look good, and they did that because… this card sucks. It just sucks, especially when you compare it to Youthful Brewmaster which doesn’t need a Combo to activate, and its a Neutral. One from the CLASSIC set might I add.
One can make the argument that it has the flexibility to act as a 2 mana 2/3 and to be fair, sometimes you don’t necessarily want to activate Youthful Brewmaster in the first place. But then, why would you put this in your deck in the first place just to be a 2 mana 2/3 with no effect on anything. At that point, you might as well just run River Crockolisk. Would it really have been too much if the text said "it costs (1) less"? No, not really. That would make up for the requisition needed for the effect.
In addition to the card being bad, I have to wonder why it's a ferryman? What do Rogues have to do with ferrymen? At this point, just give Rogues everything. That's what they are.
This is the first non-Trogg minion in the game with an effect of "whenever your opponent does X, do Y".
One of the books in the card art has the signature Hearthstone swirl on it.
COMPARABLE CARDS:
Other 4 mana 3/3's and 4/4's.
REVIEW:
Here is a card with a very interesting and rather unique effect. Because your opponent will always draw a card on their next turn before they can deal with this (except Snipe that is), that card is basically a 4 mana 4/4 that prevents your opponent from force drawing with spells, minion effects or even Life Tap, or else they will make this minion grow stronger and more threatening. This makes this card good in topdeck wars where your opponent will need to draw into some removal within the next 2 or 3 cards or face a big threat that will just keep getting bigger and bigger. While Mill decks tend to not have very much room for replacements, this card has some rather interesting synergy with Coldlight Oracles and Naturalize to mitigate some of its drawbacks and even turn them into advantages.
Of course, the downside is that if its killed next turn, it simply was just a 4/4 Taunt (unless your opponent has lethal) since your opponent ideally wants to kill this as fast as they can (but you can play a card that actually has Taunt to protect it). Fairly good card in Arena with some niche applications in Constructed.
This is the first weapon in the game that has any relation to Jade Golems.
This is the fourth weapon that isn't held like a bow or a sword, but instead is simply a handpiece weapon. The other three handpiece weapons are Spirit Claws, Tentacles for Arms and Brass Knuckles.
This is the second "claw" weapon for Shaman, and in the whole game for that matter. Obviously preceded by Spirit Claws.
In this card's reveal video, several golden animations of the Jade Lotus cards were shown.
We all knew it was coming as soon as we saw the artwork for this card. We all knew it was going to be another "claw" weapon like Spirit Claws and we all knew it was going to be related to the Jade Golems in some way or another. What we didn't all know though is what class the weapon would belong to. It was quite unlikely it would belong in Druid because they don't have any weapons and introducing one when the game was around this long would be weird. It could've belonged to Rogue to give them a good weapon which everyone has been complaining about since the Gadgetzan Ferryman outrage (that card just sucks). Ultimately it ended up being in Shaman.
Fortunately, this card is significantly less powerful than Spirit Claws. But remember how powerful Spirit Claws is? Me saying what I said isn't necessarily calling the card bad (it's like saying Kabal Crystal Runner is significantly less powerful than Thing from Below, but that doesn’t make KCR bad because it isn't). To be fair, the card actually isn't really that great. If you play it on turn 2, it's a less powerful Fiery War Axe that not only has 1 less Attack but also Overloads you for 1. In exchange for that, you get a 1/1 minion on turn 2. That doesn't sound like a fair trade-off. Look at Stormforged Axe which see no play whatsoever. Seems pretty underwhelming so far.
This card does have some saving graces to it. The golem from this only needs one buff to make the value warranted (which seems to be the case for a lot of these Jade Golem cards). Second, it's yet another Jade Golem card that synergizes with Brann Bronzebeard, being able to summon 2 Golems. At turn 5, the Golems are probably at least a 2/2 (especially if you played Jade Lightning or Jade Spirit on the previous turn). Playing both on the same turn does allow you to summon a 3/3 and a 4/4. That and it is an early game weapon which alone is useful for trading without sacrificing your board.
People had guessed it, a Stealth synergy card for Rogues after every other Rogue minion (except Gadgetzan Ferryman) has Stealth so it would seem fitting. This post by SanityBox shows all of the Stealth minions and Stealth granting effects in Standard. Ask yourself, how many good/decent Stealth minions are there? Now ask yourself, how many Stealth minions do you have to play in your deck to make this reliably trigger almost 100% of the time? Simply because there aren't a huge amount of Stealth minions in the game, this is a weakness compared to Houndmaster. That said though, there are some interesting tricks you can do.
Particularly, Shaku, the Collector becomes a bit better with this card, being able to make it a 4/5 will grant it more survivability which is what that card needs, being able to make it more likely to give you another card. You can also play this on Moroes and now it doesn't die to a Maelstrom Portal or Ravaging Ghoul's Battlecry. You can even use stuff like Master of Disguise or Fadeleaf Toxin (from Xaril) to give any minion the buff. I don't think the card is particularly amazing because it has less targets than Houndmaster, but it does have some potential and it will be played for experimental reasons.
Created because of 100,000 character limit that Hearthpwn threads have. Link to Part 1 here. Link to Part 3 here.
SECTION 5 (Posted November 14th)
Smuggler's Run
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Well, these cards keep coming back, and honestly, this card is a bit boring. It’s a really good card that has potential in the inevitable "Hand Buff Paladin" we’ll probably see a lot of, but we've already seen quite a bit of this gimmick in the set. I mean, it’s a "gang" so I suppose this makes sense, but still... It's simple, it allows very effective early game buffs to play larger minions earlier in the game which will be a huge strength in the deck. Paladin decks in general normally don’t play that many spells so this will normally hit quite a bit of targets.
On a side note, this card has quite possibly the best card art for any card in the game to date. Hopefully the golden animation lives up to that.
Rating: Very Good
Dopplegangster
Dopplegangster
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Here is the card Trump got to reveal, and yeah, it's pretty cool. It's yet another card that works with the "buffing in hand" mechanic, and this is one of the coolest ways to make a card that works with it. Ever since Echoing Ooze came out in Naxxramas, we haven't really seen anything like it. I suppose that does make the card unique, but at the same, the effect works so well if this mechanic that it feels natural to make a similar card for this set.
So, to start off, keep this in your hand, and it gets buffed. Simple. After being buffed one time, it's already better than Force of Nature. That may not sound like much, but a Neutral Force of Nature would actually be rather useful for some classes. But keep it in your hand long enough and it can suddenly become a way to summon 3 5/5's or 6/6's, which is huge! Combo it with Brann Bronzebeard, and oh my god, you're filling the board. Only effective way out of that is with a Twisting Nether.
But it’s not just the "buffing in hand" cards that work well with this, Evolve does as well. Definitely playable in an Evolve deck, to where 6 mana can get you three 6-drops. Yet it does take 2 cards to do, but I mean, you're getting 3 big minions with it, I think it’s justified (though someone is going to get 3 Big-Time Racketeers doing this).
And if you play it without any buffs, it's a Neutral Force of Nature, not that bad.
Rating: Very Good
Grimestreet Protector
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This is… I don’t really know the right word, or set of words to describe this card. It's an interesting card to say the least. It makes the most sense in Paladin because this card does work with the Hero Power to effectively make Argent Squires. Paladin has also received the most (and arguably the best) “buff in hand” cards, and more stats on any minion (especially one with Divine Shield) is a plus. It also has Taunt so it provides even more protection for the Divine Shield minions, and for yourself. Overall, it sounds pretty nice so I’m going to say that it’s good.
Rating: Good
Grimy Gadgeteer
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Well here is an interesting card here. With the "end of turn" effect, it's guaranteed that you will get an activation off (unless you play into Snipe), effectively making it a "Battlecry: Give a random minion in your hand +2/+2". A 4/3 for 4 is worse than a 3/3 for 3, so it seems a little bit worse than Shaky Zipgunner in that regard. Although this card will occasionally get multiple activations off, it won't happen extremely often. Your opponent will probably think of this as a Taunt and try to kill it as soon as he/she has the opportunity to. Although, Warrior will most likely get another card that buffs minions in your hand, which will make this card better in that regard. For the time being though, I'm going to rate this as Average.
Rating: Average
Brass Knuckles
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53 cards into the set and we the inevitable Warrior weapon of the set, and surprise, surprise, surprise, it buffs minions in your hand. The card certainly looks cool, but unfortunately, it's slow. It's a 2 Attack weapon on turn 4 (or later) which means an additional swing to kill something is probably needed. It has 3 Durability, so after you attack, you will buff something in your hand 3 times (read my comment about Grimy Gadgeteer). Of course, as we've also seen in the set is one key card that might make this card see play. That card is Grimestreet Pawnbroker. You can play the Pawnbroker on turn 3, then play this on turn 4, and you have an Assassin's Blade that costs 1 mana less, and has an upside ability. Unfortunately, you may not too reliably get this effect off, and there is the possibility of Harrison Jones coming back into the meta, in which case this card won't be played regardless. We'll simply have to wait for the expansion before we can really see how good this weapon is. With how fast cards have been revealed, maybe the expansion gets released sooner than we thought.
Rating: Average
Rat Pack
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In WoTOG, Forsen revealed Renounce Darkness, and here in MSoG, he revealed this badass Beast so he's revealed at least two really cool cards in a row. Good for him. I'm not even trying to hide the fact that this is a really awesome and good card. Infested Wolf is a card that a lot of Hunters are currently running, and this card is very similar to that. Essentially -1/-1 and -1 mana and is guaranteed to summon 2 Rat tokens. At worst, it's a 3 mana 2/2 with "Deathrattle: Summon 2 Rats" which by itself is already not too bad, it would probably see at least a little bit of play that way. Where this card really shines though is with the obvious synergies with the "buff in hand" cards. We've already seen that this (as well as Dispatch Kodo) will work well with Trogg Beastrager and Shaky Zipgunner, but that isn't all. It also works well with cards like Houndmaster, making this thing even more meaty and big, and it also works with temporary attack buffs like Abusive Sergeant or Dire Wolf Alpha.
Sure, dealing with 2 1/1 Rats may not be that difficult, but try dealing with 5 or 6 of them at once. Without a board clear, you have some forces to be reckoned with. Even with a board clear though, people won't want to waste a Flamestrike, Dragonfire Potion or Twisting Nether just to clear a bunch of 1/1 minions. The best part about that is if the Rats stay alive, they also benefit from the same Beast synergy as the Rat Pack does.
Rating: Very Good
Knuckles
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Just when you thought Hunter couldn't get any more exciting, here we have our Legendary revealed and it's a pretty exciting one. Not just because it's yet another card that benefits from "buffing in hand" cards, but also because it has a mechanic in which we haven't really seen before. The closest thing we have to this is Foe Reaper 4000, which was never a "bad card" per se, but it was just REALLY slow and expensive. This however may not be very fast, but it's not that expensive. It basically works as allowing you to get a free Cobra Shot each turn if you can keep this minion on board (and Cobra Shot obviously would've been broken if it was 0 mana). That's where 7 Health is a huge benefit because on turn 5, dealing 7 damage is not very easy (it's safe from Fireball). Your opponent will most likely have to waste hard removal or a Hex/Polymorph to get rid of this at that stage, and it being used on this means it won’t be used on Savannah Highmane.
For all of you SMorc'ers out there, this card allows you to go face and trade at the same time. It definitely pushes a more Control based Hunter which Blizzard has tried to do for a while now, allowing you to make some nice trades and just like Hunter has always done, go face, all at the same time. And of course, it benefits from being buffed in the hand, dealing more damage to minions, more damage to face, and giving higher Health to the minion. It also has some really nice synergy with Tundra Rhino, potentially giving you a turn 10 HUGE charger combo.
Rating: Good/Very Good
Don Han'Cho
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After a lot of waiting, going into Incognito browsers and clicking "Endorse Gang" several times, arguably one of the most hyped up cards for the set has finally been revealed. And, it’s admittedly quite disappointing. There has been some backlash from the Hearthstone community. After this, I don't think many people will want to vote for cards from this set again.
But on the card itself, and as disappointing as the card is, it's by no means a "bad card". Giving +5/+5 to a minion is huge, about 5 mana worth of value (compare to Blessing of Kings or Power Word: Tentacles), especially to a minion like Rat Pack or Dispatch Kodo, but even if you don’t hit one of those two, it’s still decent. I would absolutely like to play a 3 mana 8/8 or something along those lines. If you buff a Soggoth the Slitherer with this, you'll gain an even bigger amount of value. The dream with this would be to play it with Brann Bronzebeard to give +10/10 in your hand. Brann is definitely a consideration for a deck like this. Any "buff in hand" centered deck should consider running this if the player has it.
Good news for you if you're bored and/or annoyed with all the "buff in hand" cards we've seen (only counting the cards that buff others, we've covered 11), is that the Grimy Goons week is over, meaning we most likely won't see any other cards with these effects. Next week will be either Kabal or Jade Lotus.
Rating: Good/Very Good
Madam Goya
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This is a very weird card, with a very unusual effect. You choose a friendly minion on the board and swap it with a random minion in your deck. Something that is very important to note is the use of the word "swap". When you choose a minion, it puts that minion back into the deck, and takes another minion out of your deck to replace it. It's not like Barnes where it summons a copy, it puts the actual card into the battlefield. This means that the effect could go either way. It could either help you tremendously, or backfire terribly, and as we've all seen in Hearthstone before, even bad outcomes with a 1/500 chance of happening will still occasionally happen.
When you string together an unreliable effect with a really unimpressive statline (4/3 for 6 is a pretty bad stats:cost ratio), you get a card that looks like a piece of garbage. Although, yes, this card is not particularly good, there are some synergies and interesting tricks you can do with this effect. If you have a critically damaged minion, you can shuffle it back into your deck (healing it to full Health), and summon a new minion to replace it. Ideally, Paladins also have the best use with this card as they can use the effect on a Silver Hand Recruit and replace it with a bigger minion (of course, the recruit however will be a bad topdeck). If you summon a Tirion Fordring or Ragnaros the Firelord (or even Lightlord) with that, that's really good. But it won't always be that.
The card requires you to really build your deck around it in a similar fashion to an Astral Communion deck. Ideally, you don't want a lot of Battlecries because they work poorly with this minion. Overall, it's a very weird and gimmicky card that probably won’t see any serious play but some people may try to play some gimmicky deck with it. It's also nice to see Blizzard design cards with very unique effects as that proves that they’re willing to experiment with new designs.
Rating: Other
Grimscale Chum
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Here it is, the last Paladin card revealed, and it's yet another "buff in hand" card. This is the fourth one for Paladins, and it follows the inevitable and very weird "Murloc Paladin" synergy which doesn't really make any sense, but it's whatever.
Now for this card, you'd have to play it in a Murloc deck to consistently get the buff, but you wouldn't play this is an Anyfin Paladin because you'll probably summon this when you don't really want to. This means that you'd to play this in a different type of Murloc Paladin, perhaps probably a really aggressive Murloc deck to swarm the board. Could that work? It possibly could, but would you play this card in that deck? That's kinda questionable. Would you play this over something like Grimscale Oracle or Murloc Tidecaller? That's when you actually might reasonably consider replacing them.
Rating: Average
Leatherclad Hogleader
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Hog Wild! Amirite? Kudos to you if you get that reference. But on to the actual card, it and its two brethren cards (Spiked Hogrider and Tanaris Hogchopper) are three very interesting tech-ish cards. This can be a very good card against control, allowing a 6/6 for 6 with Charge, which is absolutely insane, however for your opponent to have 6 cards in hand is not a very reliable effect. Goblin Sapper, despite its potential, never really took off because it wasn't very reliable. Theoretically, you could play this is in a Mill deck (mostly Rogue with a little bit of Druid) and almost always get a 6/6 for 6 with Charge, but people never really played Goblin Sapper in Mill Rogue which could almost always be a 6/4 for 3, nor did they play Clockwork Giant which could almost always be a 2 mana 8/8. Not because they were bad cards for the deck but because neither card really helped them reach their win condition. Playing a 2 mana 8/8 in Mill Rogue is awesome, don't get me wrong, but it didn't help in fatiguing the opponent which is ideally how you would win in Mill Rogue.
So, because of that, I think it has potential, and I think some people will try it and who knows, it actually might end up working out, but I don't really see it.
Rating: Average
Spiked Hogrider
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We're continuing our theme of motorcycle hogs, with this card right here. It's very much like the Leatherclad Hogleader, but has -1/-1 for -1 mana, and it has a condition that is usually easier to activate. Your opponent doesn’t need to have 6 cards in hand, he/she just needs a Taunt minion, and then this gains Charge. This card is actually comparable to The Black Knight, which may not be popular right now, but if huge Taunt minions become popular, people that have it will easily tech it right in. So, if The Black Knight isn’t popular at any point, this card probably won't be either. The Black Knight also destroys the minion with any damage to worry about, this not so much. With a cost of 5, you can't play both cards in the same turn either (unless you save The Coin until turn 10, or have an Emperor Thaurissan tick).
There however are some upsides to this compared to its Legendary counterpart. For one, this has better stats (5/5 for 5 vs 4/5 for 6), meaning it'll be better than The Black Knight if you can't get the effects to activate. This card is also a Rare instead of a Legendary, meaning you can put 2 of these in your deck, and it will be easier for new players to acquire. If they get this, they can use it as a budget substitute for its Legendary counterpart. If you have The Black Knight, yeah, you'd run that instead of this card, but this works as a nice alternate option for any players, whether new or more experienced, who don't have The Black Knight.
Rating: Average/Good
SECTION 6 (Posted November 17th)
Tanaris Hogchopper
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We've save the worst of the hog cards for last, isn't that wonderful? I'm not going to hide anything, this card sucks, it just sucks. The effect is unnecessarily difficult to activate and if it isn't activated, it’s just a 4/4 for 4. Maybe it has some place in a meta if just "rush deck vs rush deck", but even then, it's not that good.
Rating: Very Bad
Volcanic Potion
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Finally after 10 days, we receive Mage card number 2 after receiving Manic Soulcaster on November 4th, she was alone for 10 days. It’s a very interesting and weird card for Mages. It's a 1 mana cheaper Consecration that deals damage to every minion. It deals 2 damage, so it can kill smaller creatures, but it also kills friendly Sorcerer's Apprentices. It however doesn't kill Mana Wyrms or Flamewakers which is a good thing, but with a two sided AoE, you have to consider both sides getting damage. Hellfire was usually used if your opponent's board was a lot larger than yours, and Demonwrath was mainly used in Demon decks where your own stuff didn't get damaged. For that reason, I don’t see this being an absolutely game-breaking AoE spell, but when your board isn't very big, and your opponent's board is, this spell will be useful at effectively a 3 mana Consecration. Right now we need AoE to beat the "hand buffing" we received for a week, and I don't know if this will be it, but it's better than nothing.
Rating: Average
Kabal Chemist
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It's now Kabal week at the time of this review. If you thought the Grimy Goons were boring with the repetitive "hand buff" mechanic, then we have good news for you. The Kabal is looking more promising with this "potion" theme. We've already seen Kazakus and his ability to create a custom spell, but here we have his… Followers? Cultists? Troops? Whatever you want to call them, they're here. This is essentially a Common version of Kazakus, rocking the exact same stats, cost and similar effect, giving you a random potion. At the time of this review, the potions that can be given are:
So we haven't seen all of the potions so far, but depending on how strong every potion is how good this card will be. Right now, I think it has potential and will see some play.
Rating: Good
Abyssal Enforcer
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It took 64 cards, but we finally got our first Warlock card. Here's the card Kripp revealed, and he tends to get very interesting cards. In TGT, he got Astral Communion, and in WoTOG, he got Hallazeal the Ascended.
This card is just as interesting as those two. For one, it’s a Hellfire with a 6/6 Demon for 3 additional mana. The card simply looks insane, providing a fairly sized body on the board, as well as clearing the opponent’s board. To put it this way, it's simply awesome and will definitely see play in practically every non-Zoo Warlock deck.
It’s also a Common, meaning it’s an AMAZING Warlock card in Arena.
Rating: Very Good
Kabal Lackey
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We've had Secret Paladin and Secret Hunter before, so having a Secret Mage is only fitting. It has some decent tools, but it does lack tools to make it a viable top tier meta deck, and this is a tool introduced to help that out. You simply play it, and then your next Secret costs 0, which is not only perfect synergy for cards like Mana Wyrm and Flamewaker, but also is a nice buff to Medivh's Valet, in which you can almost guarantee that 3 damage. If this card makes Secret Mage viable, perhaps Kirin Tor Mage also becomes viable. Could be the case. People will try out some Secret Mage and maybe it works. If it gets more tools as well as maybe another Secret, it does look rather promising.
Rating: Good
Inkmaster Solia
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Here is the card that Brian Kibler revealed, and it's not a Dragon, or a Priest card. It's the Mage Legendary for the expansion. If you've been living under a rock, Mage is known for getting really bad Legendaries in some expansions. We have Archmage Antonidas, a REALLY good Legendary that fits into almost every type of Mage, and they have Rhonin, a decent Legendary with some potential to be really good, but it's just slow… but then, we have Flame Leviathan which is too gimmicky and unreliable, and Anomalus, which is just too slow and expensive.
The reason I say that, is that this Legendary gives off a lot of promise to be really good in Reno Mage. The ability for Mages to cast a 0 cost spell is pretty big, especially a Flamestrike or even a Pyroblast, there is utmost potential for this card to really rock. Especially in combination with Kazakus, you can get a 10 cost spell, or even a 5 cost spell, and cast it for free and get enough value to justify playing this card in that deck. The ability to make a spell cost 0 is similar to the effect of Cho'gall, but you don’t pay any Health to do that. Imagine playing this, then casting Flamestrike. Yes, you lose 2/2, but you don’t nuke yourself in the face for 7.
Ironically, this card also has synergy with Duplicate, which you fortunately can play in the same turn (just remember to play Duplicate first), as well as Manic Soulcaster, which again, is playable in the same turn (and that doesn’t even waste your 0 cost spell either). The theme of having no duplicates in your deck is also one that the Kabal seems to take on, so there’s even more tools to come for making this deck work, but even then, this still fits in the current Reno Mage deck. It overall poses a lot of promise.
Rating: Good
Potion of Polymorph
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We've seen Kabal Lackey so it only makes sense that Mages would get a Secret, and we've seen Kabal Chemist, so it only makes sense that Mages would get a "potion" card. Lo and behold, we have both combined into one card. It’s not the best Mage Secret, but it is a potentially nice one. It's a lot like Mirror Entity, where you ideally want to hit a big minion and transform them into a Sheep. It's a better Repentance in that regard, as it also reduces the Attack and effectively Silences the minion. If you hit what you want to hit, it's a cheaper Polymorph, and that's always nice… if you're the one executing it that is. You play around it in the same way that you play around Mirror Entity so that kinda sucks. That's one flaw with this card. It's rather easy to play around.
There is notable synergy with the Secret cards like the aforementioned Kabal Lackey, as well as Medivh's Valet, Kirin Tor Mage and Ethereal Arcanist. But something that might not be as obvious is synergy with Mirror Entity. Play Mirror Entity first, then play this, and when your opponent plays a minion, you'll get the full minion, then your opponent will get a Sheep. Doesn't work if you play it the other way around though so watch out. I personally think that's AWESOME. Secrets that have synergy with other Secrets is something we haven't seen yet.
As a potion, you can get this from Kabal Chemist. If you're a Priest or a Warlock, it's no secret what you just played (see what I did there?), unless you somehow got another Mage Secret (which will rarely happen but once in a blue moon, it could). As a Mage though, you can play a different Secret to trick people into thinking this is the Secret you just played and you can play them right into your trap card (both figuratively, and literally).
The card is promising and has potential, but it has the downside that it's easy to play around (you play around this exactly as you would play around Mirror Entity), and against Aggro, it won't work out very well.
Rating: Average/Good
Seadevil Stinger
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This is a weird card since none of us are used to Warlocks getting Murlocs (but I suppose it still makes more sense than Rogues getting a Beast in LoE). The effect of making Murlocs cost Health instead of Mana is not really as useful as doing that same effect to spells, mostly because most Murlocs are cheap. In a traditional Murloc deck, the best you could put out with this is a Murloc Warleader, or Old Murk-Eye if you’re playing Wild (okay, can some please tell me why Old Murk-Eye isn't in Standard, it makes absolutely no sense that he isn't). If you’re playing some weird Murloc deck, you could play Finja, the Flying Star, but no traditional Murloc decks would run him, just really weird ones. On top of that, you're paying 3 stats for this effect and rather bad stat distribution. In what deck can you really play this card and have it make sense.
Rating: Somewhat Bad
Bomb Squad
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A very weird card to evaluate. At first glance, it looks like trash. And in most circumstances, this card admittedly is not so good. Dealing 5 damage is worth about 3.66 mana, and a 2/2 minion is worth 1 mana (as seen from Enchanted Raven and Mistress of Mixtures). Combining the two effects into one card means this card seems fair at 5 mana just evaluating those two factors. But this card has two drawbacks. One, you can't target face with this, which isn't a huge downside but there will be situations you will want to hit face with this. The second drawback is that it damages you for 5 when it dies. When you look at the card this way, it sounds like a steaming pile of garbage. As I mentioned before, this card isn't very good but it does have some upsides, namely that:
You can play this, then play Evolve to gain the benefit of the Battlecry without the drawback of the Deathrattle, and get a 6-drop (hopefully not a Big-Time Racketeer). You can also play this when your opponent has a Sylvanas Windrunner on the field. You'll kill the Sylvanas, then it'll steal this. You gain the benefit of the Battlecry and your opponent suffers the drawback of the Deathrattle. Of course, there's also the obvious synergy with Brann Bronzebeard to dealing a whopping 10 damage which will kill almost everything your opponent can throw at you. These are all really nice way to make this card good and potentially playable, but otherwise, I think this card is bad.
Rating: Somewhat Bad
Backstreet Leper
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When I first saw this card, I honestly thought it was fake. I know that Blizzard makes poorly designed and/or god awful cards sometimes (The Boogeymonster), but I didn’t think they would make something like this. This card is simply abysmal, which is a shame because the artwork of this card is so awesome!
It should be blatantly obvious why this card is bad, but let's just see how we can explain it? How much is a 3/1 minion worth? Judging by the 1 mana 1/3's we have, as well as the 1 mana 2/2's, I think it's pretty safe to say that a 3/1 minion is worth 1 mana. Now how much is "deal 2 damage to the enemy hero" worth? Hunters have it as Hero Power, and Hero Powers tend to be worth about 0 mana (Fireblast = Moonfire, Reinforce = Wisp), and it's comparable to Sinister Strike so Steady Shot too is worth 0 mana. This means that this card could be 2 mana and it wouldn't be too OP, and might see some niche play. As it is, it's just trash. Why not just run Wolfrider instead? And Wolfrider already sees very little play.
Rating: Very Bad
Bloodfury Potion
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Well here is the first Warlock potion. Many are disappointed by this card, and while I don't think the card is extremely powerful, I'm going to go out on a limb, and say that I honestly don't think this card is as bad as it looks. It's comparable to Demonfuse, which was a bad card, but the only real reason it was bad was because it gave the opponent a Mana Crystal (essentially casting a Wild Growth for your opponent) which is a really big downside. If Demonfuse was just a 2 mana "Give a Demon +3/+3", it probably would've been really good. Likewise, if you use this in a Demon deck, where almost all (if not all) of your minions are Demons, this is just a 3 mana "Give a minion +3/+3", which is about on par with Blessing of Kings which already sees a fair amount of play.
For that reason, I think this card is honestly not that bad, but it does nerf Kabal Chemist a bit. Not because the card is bad but because it's extremely unlikely that you will have any Demons as a Mage or Priest.
Rating: Average
Felfire Potion
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After an initial disappointment of the reveal of Bloodfury Potion, we got a much better potion that's very similar to Dragonfire Potion. It's not quite as good as Dragonfire Potion (mainly because it always damages your own stuff), but it's still pretty damn good. It serves as basically a bigger, scarier Hellfire. Ideally you would want to use this when your board is empty, or you only have really small things you don't mind losing. Of course, as Hellfire does too, this card deals damage to both heroes which will occasionally be a game-saver for you.
Not always, but a lot of the time, this can be treated as a cheaper Flamestrike that does more damage, and other times, it can even act as a Twisting Nether. With Kabal Chemist taking a bit of a nerf from Bloodfury Potion, this card definitely makes up for that.
Rating: Good
SECTION 7 (Posted November 21st)
Kabal Crystal Runner
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Here is a really cool card and yet another Secret Mage tool. It's quite similar to Thing from Below. It's not as powerful as Thing from Below obviously, but card is just OP, and this card is still really good. The really great thing about the card is that is costs 2 less for each Secret you've played, and not just 1. If it just 1, I would say this card isn't very good, but because it costs 2 less, you only have to play 2 Secrets to make it a 2 mana 5/5, and 3 to make it a 0 mana 5/5. Along with Kabal Lackey and Kirin Tor Mage, you can easily make the Secrets more playable and reduce the cost of this card much easier and faster. Every Secret based card of course will help with the deck, but this one especially.
Rating: Good/Very Good
Toxic Sewer Ooze
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Here we have a bit of a boring card. It's not as "fillery" as a card like Worgen Greaser or Grook Fu Master, but it's still a bit on the "fillery" side. This card at the very least does something useful, removing your opponent's weapon. This is a very prominent effect in a certain meta, but a very rare effect to see on multiple cards. Currently, all we have is Acidic Swamp Ooze and Harrison Jones for completely removing a weapon, and then we have Bloodsail Corsair for removing Durability. Surely, adding one more card to that pool would be a nice addition.
The card has nice stats, 4/3 for 3 so it has a better stats:cost ratio than Bloodsail Corsair, but the problem is that it's simply a worse Acidic Swamp Ooze. That doesn't automatically make the card bad, but I think you would rather play Acidic Swamp Ooze than this as it has the same stat amount for the cost (stats = mana cost · 2 + 1) that this card has, but Acidic Swamp Ooze is guaranteed to remove the weapon. Removing 1 Durability isn't that much worse than destroying since weapons don’t tend to have a lot of Durability, but Acidic Swamp Ooze can take care of Doomhammers, Assassin's Blade, and basically any other weapon with more than 3 Durability. So I don't see anyone running this card over Acidic Swamp Ooze.
Despite what I said, this is by no means a "bad card". It has a decent statline and a useful, albeit outclassed effect. If you want to make some weird deck that has weapon removal up the ass, then you could put this in there. The card is also good in Arena because it’s a 4/3 for 3 that sometimes has an upside effect.
Rating: Average
Raza the Chained
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Well, Amaz has revealed the Priest Legendary, and it's about as good as he made it out to be. It's probably the best Priest Legendary so far. Out of every class in the game this card could belong to, Priest was probably the best choice (couldn't be Mage though because of Coldarra Drake) because they have the best uses with this card. Being able to save 2 mana to heal yourself every turn is huge because now you can play on curve and use your Hero Power at the same time. Suddenly you no longer have to wait until turn 9 to play Confessor Paletress, as you can now play it on turn 7 and use a 0 cost Hero Power. You can now regain the tempo you lost from playing Shadowform, and you basically get a free Holy Smite every turn. If you're feeling risky, you can play duplicate in your deck, a second Shadowform, free Darkbombs every turn that don't cost card slots.
That's just scratching the surface of what you can do with this. Why not play Justicar Trueheart along with this, 0 mana heal for 4 each turn. You can even combo this further with Auchenai Soulpriest or Prophet Velen to get some additional damage or additional healing. It also has some gimmicky synergy with Auctionmaster Beardo since your Hero Power now permanently costs 0, eliminating one of the key drawbacks of Auctionmaster Beardo's effect. Does Beardo suddenly becomes viable, or close to viable with this card? Maybe it does.
As a "no duplicates" effect, it's a perfect fit with Reno Jackson and Kazakus in a Reno Priest of any type, normal or Shadowform. Overall, this card has a very cool effect with a nice body, and tons of possible combos you do with this card. Oh, and the artwork is awesome!
Rating: Very Good
Burgly Bully
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So, after we failed to receive what was most likely the Warlock Legendary, we received Jade Blossom (It wasn't revealed at the time what a "Jade Golem" was), and now we've received this somewhat interesting card right here. It's a 4/6 for 5 that gives you a Coin whenever your opponent plays a spell. This means that if your opponent only plays a single spell, this is effectively like a 4 mana 4/6, that might give you another Coin. Now, would you play a vanilla 4 mana 4/6? Maybe, maybe not, but unfortunately, you can't play it on turn 4 with ramping or going second with the coin you receive at the start of the match. This seems nice particularly in Rogue where it not only gives you Combo synergy and Gadgetzan Auctioneer synergy, but also perfectly curves from Tomb Pillager so this card may have potential in Rogue.
Notably, this is a Neutral card and not a Rogue card so other classes can benefit from additional Coins now. Although Rogue is probably the best class for this card, Mage and Druid are other classes that might be able to use this for something.
But we can’t get too optimistic. If we look at Troggzor the Earthinator, it was a 7 mana 6/6 that, whenever your opponent played a spell, would summon a 3/5 minion that could get further buffed up by more spells. It we make that comparison; the appeal of this card seems to go away. The potential this card has however is still there.
Rating: Average
Mana Geode
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Well, Priests have been needing a 2-drop for a while now. Shrinkmeister was cool but it was rotated out when WoTOG was released, and it was usually played in combination with Cabal Shadow Priest and not much as a turn 2 play. Museum Curator is also good but it doesn't fight for the board very well and a lot of really good Deathrattle minions rotated out with WoTOG's release. For a while, most Priest decks have been looking for a 2-drop which can be played on turn 2 and have a good impact. The only types of Priests that don’t need this card are Dragon Priest and C'Thun Priest.
Good news is that Mana Geode seems like a perfect contender for that spot. Its effect doesn't do anything right away, but if it did, it would be too powerful, not to mention Priest is the best class of getting around this rule cards like Power Word: Shield and new Kabal Talonpriest set to release this expansion. Its effect of getting healed and summoning a 2/2 Crystal effectively makes this a Taunt as it can very easily get out of hand if you don’t kill it as soon as you can. It being 3 Health is part of why this is good. If it was a 3/2, I’d say that this card isn't very good, but that one extra Health point really makes a difference as it now can't die to a 1-drop, and it can live against quite a few 2-drops. This in particular works well with Wild Pyromancer to deal 1 damage to it, then Circle of Healing to heal this back up, as well as any additional Crystals from this. Wild Pyromancer is also already run in a lot of Priest decks so it seems like a natural fit there. It also has some indirect synergy with the new Priest Legendary, Raza the Chained as you no longer have to spend 2 mana each turn to summon these Crystals.
It's overall just a really good Priest 2-drop, which already has synergy with lots of cards Priests are running, and a natural fit to Control Priest.
Rating: Very Good
Jade Blossom
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As of November 21st, we now know what a Jade Golem is. A Jade Golem is a 1/1 minion that gains +1/+1 each time you summon another Jade Golem, similar to C'Thun. Just like that Old God, you'll have a deck built around Jade Golems, summoning a bunch of Jade Golems and buffing them. Although no word has been mentioned about it, you might also have a way of tracking how big your Jade Golems will be when you play a Jade Golem card, just like its Old God counterpart.
If you play this on turn 3, you're summoning a 1/1 in addition to casting a Wild Growth. Remember that Wild Growth costs 2, but a 1/1 costs 0 (Wisp), but you are combining them all together to gain 1 card, rather than having to draw and play 2 separate cards. This card feels good enough on its own, and after just a single buff, you're already getting enough value to outvalue this card's Basic counterpart. And if you already have 10 mana, you'll gain that Excess Mana and for just 1 more mana, you'll most likely summon a 4/4 or 5/5 Jade Golem.
Its only downside is that is doesn't curve well from Wild Growth (play Wild Growth on 2, and now you have 4 mana on turn 3 so you float 1 mana when you play), but is that really that big of a downside?
Rating: Good/Very Good
Jade Spirit
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It took a while but after a long time, we finally have our second Jade Lotus card. Lotus Agents was card 12/132, this is card 79/132. As we’ve already seen before, this is yet another card with the “Jade Golem” mechanic, in which a Jade Golem is a 1/1 minion that grows by +1/+1 every time you play another Jade Golem, in a very C'Thun-esque fashion. This is our first minion that plays with this theme.
If you don’t have any Jade Golems summoned, and you summon a 1/1, this is just a 4 mana 3/4 split across two bodies. Not too great by itself, so for that reason, I think this card is worse than the Jade Blossom. This will need at least one buff before it reaches 4/5 (Chillwind Yeti statline). Unlike Jade Blossom though, this card has synergy with Brann Bronzebeard. Based on the number of Jade Golem minions we have (that have Battlecry of course), Brann Bronzebeard may make its way into Jade Golem decks. It was virtually an auto-include in C'Thun decks so it could happen.
Rating: Average/Good
Jade Lightning
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Well, it took 80/132 cards, but we finally have our first Shaman card revealed. After getting a 4 mana 7/7, and a 1 mana 3/3 weapon, and with the class already dominating the meta, Shaman doesn't need any more broken cards, does it? Nope, and here we have a prime candidate of a Shaman card that’s "good but not broken". Dealing 4 damage and summoning a 1/1 for 4 mana is not particularly good, but after it gains 1 buff, it’s a 4 mana 2/2 that deals 4 damage, comparable to Keeper of the Grove. If Keeper of the Grove dealt 4 damage instead of 2, it would probably see play.
Of course, this card can also grow a lot larger, and if Jade Golems are anything like C'Thun in terms of cards, there will be enough tools to buff this significantly. After quite a few buffs, you can make this a 4 mana 7/7 that deals 4 damage, and doesn't overload you for 2.
Oh, and it's a damage spell for Shaman that isn't random.
Rating: Good
Aya Blackpaw
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Here, we have our Jade Lotus tri-class Legendary revealed. It's not as wildly creative and innovative as Kazakus, but it is more interesting than Don Han'Cho, as it is the only card that works with Jade Golems on both Battlecry and Deathrattle (and most likely the only card in this set with that text line). What is important to note as because it summons two Jade Golems, it will buff up the Jade Golem twice. It may not look extremely appealing at first, but when you buff it with other cards like Jade Spirit, Jade Lightning or Wild Blossom (of course, you can’t out all 3 of these in the same deck), you’ll be able to summon a 5/5 on Battlecry, then a 6/6 on Deathrattle. For that, this seems like the Twin Emperor Vek'lor of Jade Golem decks.
It does have the inherent downside of being able to die really easily only having 3 Health, but when you summon two beefy Jade Golems, I think the value is justified. Interestingly, it has synergy with both Brann Bronzebeard and Baron Rivendare, but you wouldn't run Baron Rivendare in a Jade Golem deck to begin with, and Rivendare is only playable in Wild anyway.
Rating: Very Good
Jade Shuriken
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Savjz revealed a card for us, our first Rogue card with the Jade Golem theme. This one is on the more interesting side. Even if it’s your first Jade Golem card played, it’s a 2 mana 1/1 than dealt 2 damage, which honestly isn't that bad (looking at you Blowgill Sniper). We all know how easy it is to Combo Eviscerate off, this is the same cost and almost the same. Except, instead of that extra 2 damage, you summon a minion, a 1/1, a 2/2, a 3/3, or even higher. This might replace Eviscerate in Jade Golem Rogue decks, or maybe you run both. As pointed out by Nurgling13, this is essentially a reverse SI:7 Agent.
It honestly just seems like an auto-include in any Jade Golem Rouge deck.
Rating: Very Good
Hozen Healer
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So, here we have an interesting card. The text “full Health” is very rare in Hearthstone. Particularly, if you compare this to Ancestral Healing, you’re gaining a 4 mana 2/6 (not particularly amazing), but you're losing Taunt. Ancestral Healing isn’t really seeing any play except maybe in Arena. For that reason, this seems like strictly an Arena card, and in Arena, it's a decent card. You can attack into a minion, then use this to heal it back up. In Constructed though, I do see one good application for this card. Notice that you can restore ANY minion to full Health, not just friendly ones. Say hello to Auchenai Soulpriest, in which this basically turns the Battlecry into "destroy a minion". I'm not saying this alone makes this card viable in Constructed, but it definitely seems tempting.
Of course, even without Auchenai Soulpriest, Priest is still the best class for this as this effect works with cards like Northshire Cleric and the new Mana Geode. Otherwise though, this card isn't too exciting.
Rating: Average
Fight Promoter
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Here is a very strange, but deceptively potential filled card in my opinion. At first glance, it doesn't look very good, especially because it's too hard to combo this with most 6+ Health minions in the game. Admittedly, yes, that is true that you're not too likely to have a 6+ Health minion when you play this card, I see a place where this card can fit. That place is Jade Golem decks. Primarily Druid because they have the ability to Innervate, but Shaman and Rouge could work as well.
Just think about it. We'll most likely have enough ways to summon and buff Jade Golems up, and most Jade Golem summoning cards currently are cheap. You have the ability to play a Jade Blossom, Jade Lightning, Jade Shuriken, or Jade Spirit in the same turn as this card, which will allow you to more reliably get the two cards off.
Of course, the downside is that if you can’t get a 6+ Health minion to stick, it’s just a 6 mana 4/4, and nobody’s excited to play that. This is one of those rare cards that’s better in Constructed than Arena, because you can easily build you deck around this card in Constructed. In Arena, not so much.
Rating: Average/Good
SECTION 8 (Posted November 26th)
Jade Swarmer
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The bugs are a swarmin' here for Valeera who seems to be almost everything now. Pirates, poison, funnel cakes, coins and now weird bug looking things. Along with Jade Shuriken, it's yet another piece for the inevitable Jade Golem Rogue deck that some people will be trying. Now, how good is this on paper? Well, when it dies, it at least summons a 1/1, effectively being a Possessed Villager with 1 extra mana for Stealth. Paying 1 mana for Stealth isn't that good (compare Silent Knight to Shielded Minibot), but as we all know, the Jade Golems grow. After it dies, everything revolving around Jade Golems now become better which is the key factor here. It's an early game tool that will make your Jade Shurikens and Jade Spirits more powerful.
You probably wouldn't play Unearthed Raptor in a Jade Golem deck, but because this has Stealth, it’s likely to survive the following turn, then you can copy this with the Raptor and summon another Jade Golem. Actually, if we get more cards like this or Aya Blackpaw, the Raptor might be tried out in some Jade Golem Rogues.
Rating: Good
Jade Idol
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Well, we already have Jade Blossom which summons a Jade Golem and ramps. We now have received another tool for Jade Golem Druid. Lots of Jade Golem cards have additional costs for bodies and effects. This card however, you just play it for 1 and summon a Jade Golem which is good because it provides immediate value for no cost and gives your Jade Golem a really cheap buff. Not only that but is has the flexibility of shuffling 3 extra copies of itself into your deck. That may not sound like much at first, but being able to shuffle 3 extra copies of this card into your deck and have them all keep that same effects means you can theoretically play infinite Jade Golems, but it also works in Fatigue Druid decks that aren't Jade Golem based because when you shuffle this into your deck, you will literally never go into fatigue as long as you keep shuffling these back into your deck as you will simply just keep shuffling stuff into your deck and raising its size. You can simply auto-win against Control Warrior this way.
It’s a really good card for Fatigue decks even without any other Jade Golem synergy which makes this probably the best Jade Golem card released so far. In Jade Golem Druid, no questions asked, you play this card. As a Choose One effect, it also synergizes with Fandral Staghelm. Whether or not Fandral will fit into a Jade Golem Druid depends on how much room you can make for Choose One cards, but even without Fandral, it's still an exceptional Jade Golem card.
Thijs may has only gotten us one pack, but he did give us a REALLY nice card.
Rating: Very Good
Devolve
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For those of you who were worried about the Grimy Goons hand-buffing decks becoming too powerful, meet the single card in the expansion and completely shits on them. They buff everything in their hand and play them all? Devolve them for only 2 mana and completely get rid of all of those buffs. Because they most likely will lose some stats, you can play this, then Lightning Storm and you can take out minions you normally wouldn't be able to deal with. If you dislike Anyfin Can Happen decks, this card alone completely destroys that. No more Murlocs and no more burst from them. In addition to that, it also can work as a pseudo-Mass Dispel, removing Deathrattles, passive effects, etc., but the minions you devolve could end up actually being better than their previous counterparts (quite unlikely though as you would simply just choose not to devolve them), but they might also get other Deathrattles or anything of the likes. Even then, it weakens your opponent's stuff and completely annihilates hand-buffing decks from the Grimy Goons.
Even with prevalent Shaman currently is, they still can get really awesome cards and this one is certainly another awesome Shaman card.
Rating: Good
Call in the Finishers
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It appears that we aren't finished with making these Murloc puns. Shamans have received an extremely limited number of Murloc support cards. We received one in GvG and one in LoE. That's pretty much it, so it’s about time we received one more, especially because one of them is out of Standard, and the other one will be out of Standard in about 4 or 5 months from now. So, how good is this particular card? Some people have been saying it's bad, but I will say that it isn't as bad as it looks.
Simply summoning 4 1/1 minions would not too great (compare to Stand Against Darkness), but instead, the minions are Murlocs which actually makes the card somewhat better because you reduce the cost of Everyfin is Awesome by 4, and you have obvious synergy with Murloc Warleader, summoning four 3/2 minions for 4 mana, equaling a 4 mana 12/8 (beating a 4 mana 7/7). So if you consider that, this card has some potential in a Shaman Murloc deck which of course won't be viable with this alone but admittedly, the combo with Everyfin is Awesome does make this card more appealing.
Rating: Average
Jade Behemoth
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Well, here is yet another Jade Golem Druid card. We already have Jade Blossom and Jade Idol, and now we have a minion that does the work. As seen by both of those aforementioned cards, summoning a Jade Golem is worth around 0.5 to 1 mana. If we look at Sen'jin Shieldmasta, we can assume that a 3/6 Taunt is worth about 4.5 mana (nobody plays Fen Creeper or its C'Thun counterpart). Therefore, combining all this together gives us roughly 5.5 mana worth of value for summoning a 1/1 Golem. After one buff to the Jade Golem, this card does start becoming worth the cost, and anything after that makes this simply great. Of course, playing 6 mana for a 3/6 Taunt isn't particularly great feeling, but of course, you are most likely summoning a 3/3+ Jade Golem when you play this card, and it does provide another reason to play Brann Bronzebeard in Jade Golem Druid. The Jade Golem is also protected by the Taunt. With that all being said, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this card is better than people are giving it credit for and I think it will be tried in Jade Golem Druid.
Rating: Good
Jinyu Waterspeaker
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We have another Shaman card revealed, and a damn good one. Aggro or Midrange Shaman may not need any more good cards, but Control Shaman could use some, especially because Elemental Destruction rotates out 4 or 5 months from now, eliminating the powerful Hallazeal + ED combo. This is exactly the type of really good Shaman card I think we're all okay with. It's really good, but doesn’t help Midrange Shaman which is currently dominating Standard.
Enough about that though, let's discuss why the card is good. Okay, it's blatantly obvious why the card is good, but let us analyze it anyway. It's a 4 mana 3/6, a rare (but ever since Karazhan, is starting to become more common) statline and a very good one, that essentially casts a Holy Light, which may I remind you, costs 2 mana. So, in total, we have 6 mana worth of value from 2 cards wrapped up into a 4 mana card. The only drawback is that you Overload for 1, and with Tunnel Trogg or Unbound Elemental, the Overload can become an advantage. Overloading for 1 prevents you from playing Doomhammer next turn, but only Aggro Shamans really care about playing Doomhammer on turn 5. Not to mention, Doomhammer isn't even played anymore.
To put it this way, it's simply an awesome Control Shaman card with a really good healing effect and really good stats. The Overload drawback isn't even that bad since you still have 4 mana to play with on turn 5, and in the very late game, the Overload drawback is pretty much negligible.
Rating: Very Good
Jade Chieftain
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Another Shaman card for Jade Golems have been revealed and this is one of the more interesting ones. It's like Jade Behemoth for Druids, except instead of having Taunt itself, it gives the Jade Golem Taunt. Obviously, Jade Golems grow bigger and become better based on how many of their synergy cards you play, but this one especially because it gives the Jade Golem Taunt. Obviously the bigger the Jade Golem is, the better the Taunt is. The Jade Golem arguably needs to be at least a 3/3 to have gotten sufficient value from the Battlecry (effectively summoning an Ironfur Grizzly for 2 mana). Because Shamans already have Jade Lightning as well as most likely other upcoming Jade Golem cards and the tri-class cards, we can safely say that is a completely manageable task.
As with many other Jade Golem cards, it synergizes with Brann Bronzebeard, and because this costs 7, the two can be played on the same turn creating a pseudo-Twin Emperor Vek'lor effect. For this reason, I think we can safely say that Brann Bronzebeard will make its way into Jade Golem decks, for mostly the same reason it makes it into C'Thun decks. In addition, it's a solid late-game defense wall for Jade Golems decks. This is important because just like its Old God counterpart, you want to be able to survive long enough to gain the necessary value. I'm going to go ahead and say that I think this is good.
Rating: Good
Virmen Sensei
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Blizzard still hasn't given up on Beast Druid after it got its first support card in GvG and has been given the "Taunt Warrior" syndrome since TGT. I don't think the problem is a lack of Beasts, we already have a fair amount of Druid and Neutral Beasts. We also already have enough support cards (Wildwalker, Mark of Y'Shaarj, Menagerie Warden, etc.), which is what this card is so I don't think this is really necessary because if you include all of these, you'll have too many support cards and not enough Beasts. One of Beast Druid's problems is that it lacks card draw. We end up having to rely on Mark of Y'Shaarj and Neutral draw cards like Loot Hoarder or Azure Drake, which unfortunately have no Beast synergy.
For that reason, I feel like this card is somewhat pointless for the deck because it doesn't fix the deck’s problem and fills a space which doesn't need to be filled anymore. That's not to say you can't play this in a Beast Druid because it's very much like Houndmaster, in which it costs 1 more mana but it gains +2 Health over, but also loses the Taunt. Comparing cards from two different classes is a tricky route to go through but I feel as if this is a bit worse than Houndmaster in terms of overall value. That and the 5-drop slot in Beast Druid is already fairly full, being that we have Druid of the Claw, Stranglethorn Tiger and maybe even Azure Drake. I feel like this doesn’t really help Beast Druid at all unless they get some other cards.
Rating: Average
Gadgetzan Ferryman
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Here is the card that Gero and Tsubaki revaled? Ever heard of them before they revealed this card? Me neither. In their reveal video, they really hyped us this card to make it look really exciting and good. Unfortunately, it was just to make the card look good, and they did that because… this card sucks. It just sucks, especially when you compare it to Youthful Brewmaster which doesn’t need a Combo to activate, and its a Neutral. One from the CLASSIC set might I add.
One can make the argument that it has the flexibility to act as a 2 mana 2/3 and to be fair, sometimes you don’t necessarily want to activate Youthful Brewmaster in the first place. But then, why would you put this in your deck in the first place just to be a 2 mana 2/3 with no effect on anything. At that point, you might as well just run River Crockolisk. Would it really have been too much if the text said "it costs (1) less"? No, not really. That would make up for the requisition needed for the effect.
In addition to the card being bad, I have to wonder why it's a ferryman? What do Rogues have to do with ferrymen? At this point, just give Rogues everything. That's what they are.
Rating: Very Bad
Daring Reporter
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Here is a card with a very interesting and rather unique effect. Because your opponent will always draw a card on their next turn before they can deal with this (except Snipe that is), that card is basically a 4 mana 4/4 that prevents your opponent from force drawing with spells, minion effects or even Life Tap, or else they will make this minion grow stronger and more threatening. This makes this card good in topdeck wars where your opponent will need to draw into some removal within the next 2 or 3 cards or face a big threat that will just keep getting bigger and bigger. While Mill decks tend to not have very much room for replacements, this card has some rather interesting synergy with Coldlight Oracles and Naturalize to mitigate some of its drawbacks and even turn them into advantages.
Of course, the downside is that if its killed next turn, it simply was just a 4/4 Taunt (unless your opponent has lethal) since your opponent ideally wants to kill this as fast as they can (but you can play a card that actually has Taunt to protect it). Fairly good card in Arena with some niche applications in Constructed.
Ratings: Average
Jade Claws
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We all knew it was coming as soon as we saw the artwork for this card. We all knew it was going to be another "claw" weapon like Spirit Claws and we all knew it was going to be related to the Jade Golems in some way or another. What we didn't all know though is what class the weapon would belong to. It was quite unlikely it would belong in Druid because they don't have any weapons and introducing one when the game was around this long would be weird. It could've belonged to Rogue to give them a good weapon which everyone has been complaining about since the Gadgetzan Ferryman outrage (that card just sucks). Ultimately it ended up being in Shaman.
Fortunately, this card is significantly less powerful than Spirit Claws. But remember how powerful Spirit Claws is? Me saying what I said isn't necessarily calling the card bad (it's like saying Kabal Crystal Runner is significantly less powerful than Thing from Below, but that doesn’t make KCR bad because it isn't). To be fair, the card actually isn't really that great. If you play it on turn 2, it's a less powerful Fiery War Axe that not only has 1 less Attack but also Overloads you for 1. In exchange for that, you get a 1/1 minion on turn 2. That doesn't sound like a fair trade-off. Look at Stormforged Axe which see no play whatsoever. Seems pretty underwhelming so far.
This card does have some saving graces to it. The golem from this only needs one buff to make the value warranted (which seems to be the case for a lot of these Jade Golem cards). Second, it's yet another Jade Golem card that synergizes with Brann Bronzebeard, being able to summon 2 Golems. At turn 5, the Golems are probably at least a 2/2 (especially if you played Jade Lightning or Jade Spirit on the previous turn). Playing both on the same turn does allow you to summon a 3/3 and a 4/4. That and it is an early game weapon which alone is useful for trading without sacrificing your board.
Rating: Average
Shadow Sensei
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REVIEW:
People had guessed it, a Stealth synergy card for Rogues after every other Rogue minion (except Gadgetzan Ferryman) has Stealth so it would seem fitting. This post by SanityBox shows all of the Stealth minions and Stealth granting effects in Standard. Ask yourself, how many good/decent Stealth minions are there? Now ask yourself, how many Stealth minions do you have to play in your deck to make this reliably trigger almost 100% of the time? Simply because there aren't a huge amount of Stealth minions in the game, this is a weakness compared to Houndmaster. That said though, there are some interesting tricks you can do.
Particularly, Shaku, the Collector becomes a bit better with this card, being able to make it a 4/5 will grant it more survivability which is what that card needs, being able to make it more likely to give you another card. You can also play this on Moroes and now it doesn't die to a Maelstrom Portal or Ravaging Ghoul's Battlecry. You can even use stuff like Master of Disguise or Fadeleaf Toxin (from Xaril) to give any minion the buff. I don't think the card is particularly amazing because it has less targets than Houndmaster, but it does have some potential and it will be played for experimental reasons.
Rating: Average
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Section 6 posted.
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Section 7 posted.
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Section 8 posted. This is the last section before the stream. The cards from the stream will be in part 3.
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You wouldn't play Baron Rivendare in a Jade deck?
You're wrong. I will after you stated this.
Deathrattle Jade Baron Rogue incoming.
Remember playing Control Shaman with Reincarnate shenanigans? No? It was fun, here's a refresher!
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