The Best and Worst of Karazhan in the Hearthstone Arena
Today we are joined by our resident arena gurus Adurin, Boozor, and Neonangel to take a look at the cards of the One Night in Karazhan adventure. They'll be talking about their favourites & disappointments of the set, and poor Anduin.
Do you have a favourite Karazhan card or one that you plan to avoid at all costs? We'd love to hear your thoughts, and you can share them in the comments section below. Onto the show!
Best Class Card
Onyx Bishop
Onyx Bishop for priest is quite possibly the strongest card I've seen. The value potential from this card alone is an insane tempo play if done properly. It's sad that it was given to Priest who is currently the worst class in arena and doesn't seem to be changing any time soon.
Firelands Portal
Going to have to take the obvious Firelands Portal. The card by itself gives ridiculous value and another powerful weapon for mage. It's not something the class needs, but as a card, it is the strongest addition in this new adventure.
Enchanted Raven
I think Enchanted Raven is a great first-turn play for Druid and can easily benefit from Mark of Y'Shaarj or another card that interacts with Beasts.
Best Neutral Card
Violet Illusionist
Violet Illusionist alone has a great chance at changing Arena completely - premium stats for 3 mana and makes your hero immune on your turn. Weapon classes are gonna have a big boost in the Arena thanks to this card.
Moat Lurker
Moat Lurker gets my vote here because of it's ability to completely change the Arena landscape. Giving a hard removal to all classes makes everyone more wary, and in turn, changes the way you play. This makes the card incredibly powerful. Much like Corrupted Seer, I am betting we will see this card frequently.
Moat Lurker
Moat Lurker is such an interesting new card with several fun applications, both offensively and defensively. I think he will see a lot of play in Arena and create unique situations for your opponent to deal with.
Worst Class Card
Purify
The fact that Purify even exists boggles my mind...
Adurin is still salty about this card even after it was announced that it would be temporarily removed from the Arena.
Nightbane Templar
I think we can all agree Purify was the worst card in the set until Blizzard removed it from Arena. That leaves Nightbane Templar to carry the torch. Even if you could ever find a way to get the Battlecry off, its impact is pretty underwhelming. No Battlecry and it's a worse Warsong Commander. Best case scenario it is a slightly better Razorfen Hunter. Pretty bad.
Cat Trick
Before they announced it was removed from Arena, Purify was my definite pick, but now I think I'll have to go with Cat Trick. It is a card that does nothing until your opponent has a specific action. It is likely that it will trigger at some point during the game, but due to the unpredictability of the card, I just can't justify picking it in a draft.
Worst Neutral Card
Pantry Spider
Book Wyrm seems like the obvious choice, however, I believe Pantry Spider is the worst. Yes, you may get two drops with 1/3 worth of stats for 3 mana, but unless you have a buff waiting for it, belonging to Beasts may not even matter. There are better cards in the 3 mana slot, especially for tempo.
Book Wyrm
I believe Book Wyrm is a waste of an Arena pick. The condition for this card is difficult and the upside is already very conditional. You will most likely play this card as a 3/6 for 6 mana more often than not and proceed to lose the game after giving up so much tempo.
Arcane Giant
Arcane Giant deserves that spot. This is a minion you may not be able to cast your entire game. If you do manage to cast him, he's probably still going to be very expensive.
Honorable Mention
Menagerie Warden
Menagerie Warden for Druid. Quite frankly it could have been best class card from Karazhan, but with the beast tag you never know. This is still an excellent card for Druid and we'll be seeing more of them soon.
Menagerie Warden
Menagerie Warden is an excellent card for a class that needed a boost. This is Druid's impersonation of Mage's Faceless Summoner, except with an incredible upside. The Beast condition is not guaranteed but in Druid, it shouldn't be hard to land this card's Battlecry on a suitable target resulting in an incredible tempo swing for Druid in the mid game.
Firelands Portal
Firelands Portal is probably my favorite of the Portal spells and this only stands to make Mage even stronger in Arena; not that it needed any help.
Overall Best Class
The Indecisive
Mage and Rogue are still going to be top tier in arena specially with Karazhan bonuses. With that said, Druid got a nice boost, and all weapon classes in general have a boost with Violet Illusionist. There is some crazy stuff on the horizon, that you can be sure of.
Mage
Mage, Druid, Hunter, Shaman and Rogue, all get very serviceable cards from the adventure, but my vote will have to go to Mage. They received a nice set of tools to add to their already impressive line up of cards. The class will be a powerhouse for the foreseeable future.
Rogue
I think overall, Rogue got the best deal with Ethereal Peddler, Deadly Fork, and Swashburglar. They are good cards that are priced fairly and don't have a drawback. Rogue was already strong in Arena and these new choices should help keep it there.
Overall Worst Class
Priest
Honestly, even with a really great rare and a good common, Priest got utterly destroyed with Purify. Priest needs a ton of help, which we likely won't see from an Adventure due to small amounts of class cards being released. It is quite obvious to the community that Priest is gonna be the worst class of Hearthstone for the foreseeable future.
Priest
Poor Anduin. Everyone is rooting for him, but he is getting hammered with the quality of cards Priest received. At this point, he can only look towards the next expansion for a complete overhaul to come back into relevancy.
Priest
I don't think it's any surprise that Priest is the absolute worst of the bunch. It received Onyx Bishop, Priest of the Feast, and Purify. None of these cards do anything to make Priest more powerful in Arena. In fact, they decided to remove Purify from Arena completely because it was so bad. Now, Priest has less new cards than any other class to draft.
About Our Reviewers
Adurin
Adurin has been playing Hearthstone casually since beta. He's a F2P account player, having not spent any cash on buying packs since he began. He enjoys Arena greatly, as it tests his skills and knowledge on deck building and proper usage to win (with a bit of luck to boot). His favourite card is Ancient of Lore.
Boozor
Boozor has been playing Hearthstone very casually since launch. He started playing exclusively in late 2015 and decided to focus on Arena since he was a F2P player. He considers the randomness and drafting portion of Arena the most fun. His favourite cards are Sylvanas Windrunner and Alexstrasza.
Neonangel
Neonangel has played Hearthstone since Beta and loves to play Arena. He maintains the Arena impact threads, Tavern Brawl tracker, and has created numerous decks to try and help others conquer normal and heroic mode content. His favourite Adventure, so far, has been Curse of Naxxramas.
Cat Trick worst class card in arena??? ARE U KIDDING ME??? WHERE DID U PUT YOUR BRAIN
You can't use Frost Elemental to double up on your own deathrattles or to 'stealth' your more valuable minions
How about restoring a damaged minion to full health? What about (even temporarily) removing an enemy minion with a strong ability (i.e. doesn't care much about being Frozen). What about pulling a Taunt out of the way?
I'm not trying to argue that Moat Lurker is overpowered or anything, just that it isn't just a 'worse Frost Elemental'. It is full of skill-testing combo potential. You're not going to build an Arena deck around it, but it does more than temporarily sequester an enemy minion.
What's worse about it? Like other people said you can use it on your own minions to trigger deathrattles or even heal them back to full life or, even better, you can use it on an enemy's taunt and you can go face to finish the game.
It's better in every way.
Can you explain to me how you would effectively use Moat Lurker? Also, how do you link cards in this chat. I'm a new HS player and just joined this community.
Maybe I'm terribly in the wrong here , but with all due respect , I fail to understand how exactly Onyx Bishop is game breaking and "quite possibly the strongest card I've [he or she has] seen."
To me , it's just a vanilla 3 mana body combined with a Resurrect effect for one less card slot and no discount. And well, Resurrect doesn't strike me as an insanely valuable arena card unless I'm missing something here.
I think a more sensible comparison is to Silver Hand Knight, which is a decent 5-drop in arena. Onyx Bishop loses 1 attack but can summon something with much more stats to make up for it. It also gains potential value over time, as you will drop a few larger cards as the game goes on.
Usually when you combine 2 cards, you add 1 to the mana cost. So since this uses one less card (as you noted), it essentially has a 1-mana discount, which is excellent (almost as good as Booty Bay Bodyguard is bad)- though, I agree, certainly not "game breaking".
Tl;dr: priest sucks in both constructed and arena right now and will suck for a greater part of the year.
I think one of the strongest contender would be Cloaked Huntress
It's a common and the stats are great for a 3-drop.
The effect is also pretty good and so much tempo gained in the environment of increasingly fast-paced Arena.
There are also Carrion Grub (not in ONiK) and Kindly Grandmother which would make Hunter a even better class in Arena.
That guy's opinion on Cat Trick was stupid...
I'm sorry but he basically stated the definition of a secret and them complained about the card.
It's the first time Hunter has something to do against spells. It's great for tempo if you're expecting AoE or Removal. It's not a curve play, but it is a good secret.
If he said that "spells aren't that common in arena as monsters" then okay, fair argument.
I like the rest of the choices tho.
With neon stating that there was unpredictability, I believe that one could easily infer that was due to decks generally having more monsters than spells. That's how I read it at least the first time.
Spells in arena are few and far between for it to be majorly effective.
Moat Lurker is a Frost Elemental with worse stats but can snowball.
Why you think it gives copy for you? 100% sure it gives it for original owner.
Wait a second, it will summon the crature on MY side? Notback to the owner?
That makes it truly powerful! o_O
Looks like the reviewers only agree on one thing- the worst arena class.
RIP Anduin 2016
ZetaGasm