A really interesting card, bringing Ramp Druid back if it succeeds. The loss of a ton of removal (Living Roots, Mulch, Azure Drake spell damage buff) hurts Druid's survivability a lot though, so not sure if this can be viable. Menagerie Warden looks sweet with this, as does a 0-cost Yogg-Saron for a board clear later in the game.
I am having a hard time seeing how this card is so great. Unless you have some card draw in your hand, it might have no impact at all even the turn AFTER you play Barnabus, let alone the turn you play him. Most of other reward cards have either direct, immediate impact on the board (warrior, priest, paladin) or cause you to go berserk the next turn (hunter, mage, shaman). Warlock and Rogue are probably the closest comparisons, with their reward being a slower, steadier advantage, but rogue's can be more immediate and controlled because it affects minions in hand, while warlock's is steady and guaranteed.
Imagine you play Verdant Longneck to complete the quest. You get Barnabus and play him the same turn. At that late point in the game, you'd typically have around three cards remaining in hand. If one of them is not Nourish or some other draw, the next turn could be very boring, because you'd have about a 1/3 chance of drawing a spell in a typical deck (zero impact of Barnabus on that turn) and about a 1/6 chance of drawing a low-cost minion, on which Barnabus's impact is minimal, probably nothing more than allowing you a free hero power or such. Basically Barnabus's effect in this case is to give you a coin flip as to whether you can have a Kun-like turn with a free fatty, or not, with the coin flips ending when either you run out of cards or you hit some card draw. If you DO have card draw like Nourish, then you *might* get an Avianna/Kun kind of turn if you hit the lottery. But on the other hand, you might just hit your spare Wild Growth and the Innervate you no longer need.
This is a weird reward card in that the reward is heavily dependent on having card draw in hand and drawing the right cards after it is played. None of the other reward cards have such a slow, draw-dependent structure.
That being said, it is certainly still powerful and it will be a fun archetype to test. Obviously, card-draw (Nourish) or card-generation (Ysera) is powerful with this quest and reward. It also makes Living Mana a little more playable, because after the quest is complete, you can actually risk having a bunch of mana crystals stolen from you by a Mass Silence or Devolve, as you no longer have much use for them.
I am not sold on this quest. Sure, if you get it, it can provide you with immense tempo in the late game. But you need to get there and to use the tempo, you need to draw a lot of cards. It doesn't matter whether your hand is big or small, you only can tempo out the minions that were in your deck when you played Barnabus the Stomper . But it is not a win condition on its own like Warlock or Hunter that provide you with value without having to care about it once you fulfilled the quest.
I personally see this card playable in a Jade Druid deck. You mulligan the quest away, use it later as a cycle with Gadgetzan Auctioneer and will complete the quest while following your gameplayn anyway. And then you have a 5 mana 8/8 and good tempo for all the minions left in your deck. Not as a main win condition (against control you shouldn't anyway overextend), but just as a bonus. But besides that scenario, I have difficulty to imagine a good decklist. Doesn't mean there is none, just that I have my doubts.
The timmy in me is pretty excited about this one, and it's not even that hard to do the quest. You do need heavy card draw and ramp to sustain the effect in being worthwhile though, because if you draw a 0 mana yshaarj on turn 10 with 2 cards in hand, it might as well have been 10 mana anyway. Brann rotating out makes the c'thun combo deck not an OTK combo sadly, but it does make malygos really good. With drake going into the hall of fame we'll likely just see both lunar visions and nourish be played in a jungle giants deck.
I don't think this is good in jade druid. Jade druid doesn't need 0 minions to stomp on everyone.
Well, when you've completed the quest you're likely to be about halfway through your deck. That means that about half of the games, Malygos is going to be 9 mana. It may be good to include malygos anyway, but it can't be the win condition of the deck. Besides, Living Roots is rotating out, and so is Raven Idol. Malygos isn't going to be nearly as good in druid anymore.
Quests are not secrets. I guess Counterspell and your opponent being a moron is your best bet.
They will probably include some anti-quest tech card in the future if they become problematic, but a straight up removal does not sound fun to play against. Might as well read "if your opponent has a quest active, kill your opponent."
There are already cute ways to play against the quest REWARDS, though, like Convert and Mirror Entity.
Quests are not secrets. I guess Counterspell and your opponent being a moron is your best bet.
They will probably include some anti-quest tech card in the future if they become problematic, but a straight up removal does not sound fun to play against. Might as well read "if your opponent has a quest active, kill your opponent."
There are already cute ways to play against the quest REWARDS, though, like Convert and Mirror Entity.
Mirror Entity works. Convert is rotating out.
Anybody with a quest will play it on turn 1. That means you could only counterspell it with a Kabal Lackey + Counterspell combo, with you going first. I see this as being EXTREMELY rare.
And with that possibility in mind, anyone who goes second with a mage opponent who just did a Kabal Lackey combo to get a secret up ... they will just lead with coin to kill the counterspell. So you cannot ever block the quest, bottom line.
Would just like to say that Maly Druid is dead, even with this card. Mostly because if you draw maly before completing the quest, you are screwed. If this spell sees play, and it will at least be experimented with for sure, it going to be in a bomb deck where you just start dropping bombs every where after you complete the quest. Cards like Nourish will be all the more important to this style of deck for hand refills. One of the few decks I can see the new Hemet in since you want early game five plus cards to complete the quest quickly then you want to not draw them after you complete the quest for the more powerful draws.
caveat: Some may play the dear Madam to put Malygos back in the deck, still not a great option though.
Here is my theorycraft, it uses hemet to remove unwanted weaker minions after quest is fulfilled. I went for the absurd option of only running a combo of alexstraza+Malygos after hemet is used for the fun of it, but probably would be overall better to run more control type dragons with taunt and removal abilities as well.
Anyways only sharing this to ask 'will cards like forbidden ancient and celestial dreamer proc the quest if their battlecries go off?' how does the "stack" work with this?
Can people stop pretending that Barnabus is Aviana when it's NOT. There is a clear difference. Aviana can be used for OTK, Barnabus cannot.
You're right. It's not aviana. It's BETTER than aviana. Barnabus can OTK without even using kun, although kun would probably be run in that deck anyway. Now how reliable is this OTK? That depends. Hell, you can put more than 1 otk in your deck with barnabus. Just put both kun and malygos in your deck and OTK happens probably 80% of the time.
Yeah....assuming you have perfect draws and don't draw either Maly, Kun or both before you get off the quest. You're forgetting that the 0 cost discount is only for minions in your deck.
Yeah....assuming you have perfect draws and don't draw either Maly, Kun or both before you get off the quest. You're forgetting that the 0 cost discount is only for minions in your deck.
The best Barnabus OTK I've come up with involves leeroy, alex and double rocketeer, which is resilient to drawing up to 2 combo cards if you have innervate, as long as neither are alex. Not a combo to build a deck around.
Another issue I see is that you have to build your deck to finish the quest, which might hurt your consistency. However, you do not have to finish it super early, so Arcane Giants Ancient of Wars and maybe something like Dark Arakkoa+ some support could be enough. I would not write it off!
Making a deck that can reliably survive to trigger the quest AND take advantage of the reward is a big challenge. Here's what I came up with after I abandonned my dreams of playing Medivh and Malygos:
It can copy Stranglethorn Tigeror another 5 attack beast, triggering the quest a second time.
If it targets Charged Devilsaur, the 7/7 will have charge, but can attack face.
It can copyTyrantus, which will most likely end the game the following turn.
The high cost minions won't be stuck in your hand because Barnabus the Stomper couldn't reduce its cost, thanks to Giant Anaconda. If you pull out a Charged Devilsaur, it will have charge and still able to attack face.
A really interesting card, bringing Ramp Druid back if it succeeds. The loss of a ton of removal (Living Roots, Mulch, Azure Drake spell damage buff) hurts Druid's survivability a lot though, so not sure if this can be viable. Menagerie Warden looks sweet with this, as does a 0-cost Yogg-Saron for a board clear later in the game.
I also made a full video review:
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Can quests be destroyed (eater of secrets)?
,
Guys. I got two words for this card: magma rager
I am having a hard time seeing how this card is so great. Unless you have some card draw in your hand, it might have no impact at all even the turn AFTER you play Barnabus, let alone the turn you play him. Most of other reward cards have either direct, immediate impact on the board (warrior, priest, paladin) or cause you to go berserk the next turn (hunter, mage, shaman). Warlock and Rogue are probably the closest comparisons, with their reward being a slower, steadier advantage, but rogue's can be more immediate and controlled because it affects minions in hand, while warlock's is steady and guaranteed.
Imagine you play Verdant Longneck to complete the quest. You get Barnabus and play him the same turn. At that late point in the game, you'd typically have around three cards remaining in hand. If one of them is not Nourish or some other draw, the next turn could be very boring, because you'd have about a 1/3 chance of drawing a spell in a typical deck (zero impact of Barnabus on that turn) and about a 1/6 chance of drawing a low-cost minion, on which Barnabus's impact is minimal, probably nothing more than allowing you a free hero power or such. Basically Barnabus's effect in this case is to give you a coin flip as to whether you can have a Kun-like turn with a free fatty, or not, with the coin flips ending when either you run out of cards or you hit some card draw. If you DO have card draw like Nourish, then you *might* get an Avianna/Kun kind of turn if you hit the lottery. But on the other hand, you might just hit your spare Wild Growth and the Innervate you no longer need.
This is a weird reward card in that the reward is heavily dependent on having card draw in hand and drawing the right cards after it is played. None of the other reward cards have such a slow, draw-dependent structure.
That being said, it is certainly still powerful and it will be a fun archetype to test. Obviously, card-draw (Nourish) or card-generation (Ysera) is powerful with this quest and reward. It also makes Living Mana a little more playable, because after the quest is complete, you can actually risk having a bunch of mana crystals stolen from you by a Mass Silence or Devolve, as you no longer have much use for them.
I am not sold on this quest. Sure, if you get it, it can provide you with immense tempo in the late game. But you need to get there and to use the tempo, you need to draw a lot of cards. It doesn't matter whether your hand is big or small, you only can tempo out the minions that were in your deck when you played Barnabus the Stomper . But it is not a win condition on its own like Warlock or Hunter that provide you with value without having to care about it once you fulfilled the quest.
I personally see this card playable in a Jade Druid deck. You mulligan the quest away, use it later as a cycle with Gadgetzan Auctioneer and will complete the quest while following your gameplayn anyway. And then you have a 5 mana 8/8 and good tempo for all the minions left in your deck. Not as a main win condition (against control you shouldn't anyway overextend), but just as a bonus. But besides that scenario, I have difficulty to imagine a good decklist. Doesn't mean there is none, just that I have my doubts.
I am starting to worry that based on the rest of the set and speed of the current meta that this quest might be hard to complete.....or make useful
When life gives you lemons, trade'em for limes and get some Coronas!
Quests are not secrets. I guess Counterspell and your opponent being a moron is your best bet.
They will probably include some anti-quest tech card in the future if they become problematic, but a straight up removal does not sound fun to play against. Might as well read "if your opponent has a quest active, kill your opponent."
There are already cute ways to play against the quest REWARDS, though, like Convert and Mirror Entity.
Editor of the Heartpwn Legendary Crafting Guide:
https://www.hearthpwn.com/forums/hearthstone-general/card-discussion/205920-legendary-tier-list-crafting-guide
Made a theorycrafting deck for this. Lots of low-cost 5 mana - plenty of high cost beefy guys. Lots of card draw.
Would just like to say that Maly Druid is dead, even with this card. Mostly because if you draw maly before completing the quest, you are screwed. If this spell sees play, and it will at least be experimented with for sure, it going to be in a bomb deck where you just start dropping bombs every where after you complete the quest. Cards like Nourish will be all the more important to this style of deck for hand refills. One of the few decks I can see the new Hemet in since you want early game five plus cards to complete the quest quickly then you want to not draw them after you complete the quest for the more powerful draws.
caveat: Some may play the dear Madam to put Malygos back in the deck, still not a great option though.
Here is my theorycraft, it uses hemet to remove unwanted weaker minions after quest is fulfilled. I went for the absurd option of only running a combo of alexstraza+Malygos after hemet is used for the fun of it, but probably would be overall better to run more control type dragons with taunt and removal abilities as well.
Anyways only sharing this to ask 'will cards like forbidden ancient and celestial dreamer proc the quest if their battlecries go off?' how does the "stack" work with this?
The various "razorpetal" cards have something to say about that
Why does Vicious Fledgling exist
Can people stop pretending that Barnabus is Aviana when it's NOT. There is a clear difference. Aviana can be used for OTK, Barnabus cannot.
Yeah....assuming you have perfect draws and don't draw either Maly, Kun or both before you get off the quest. You're forgetting that the 0 cost discount is only for minions in your deck.
Editor of the Heartpwn Legendary Crafting Guide:
https://www.hearthpwn.com/forums/hearthstone-general/card-discussion/205920-legendary-tier-list-crafting-guide
Making a deck that can reliably survive to trigger the quest AND take advantage of the reward is a big challenge. Here's what I came up with after I abandonned my dreams of playing Medivh and Malygos:
This deck takes advantage of the synergy of beast druid with the Druid quest:
I really like the thinking here. But I would probably replace the Feral Rage with two Lunar Visions for the four extra card draw.