As a little personal exercise to see how well I do in reviewing and predicting the important cards and new meta, I've decided to stealth myself during work to write this down. Take note that this is all more for fun and exercise, but can also serve as a good way to bounce thoughts between each other about what you anticipate about the cards and how the decks perform. Feel more than welcome to add your comments!
Additional note : this has been copy-pasted from my blog at Obscure Mechanism and some of the formatting has been damaged, so I'll be fixing the various errors that have come up. Some of the introductory and class analyzing has been cut out to adhere to the forum rules of max characters.
Thanks for reading!
- Druid Set Review -
- Druid entering the Knights of the Frozen Throne -
Druid enters the new expansion with three well-defined and powerful decks that average between Tier 1 and Tier 2, competitively. These decks are; Token Druid, Jade Druid and Ramp Druid, generally all three have very little in terms of bad matchups except that both Jade and Ramp are vulnerable to getting overrun in the early game by extremely fast and tempo-oriented opponents.
All three of these decks on first glance stand basically unharmed by the new cards introduced in Knights of the Frozen Throne, with potential to not only improve existing archetypes but also creating new ones.
- Knights of the Frozen Throne : Druid Cards -
Gnash is a rather unimportant card, outclassed by Feral Rage and to a lesser degree by Wrath. To not dawdle on this card too long, the short version is that Feral Rage allows not only access to 4 damage (a significant improvement over 3, as many problematic minions on turn 3-4 have 4 health) but in a matchup where armor is more important (for example against Freeze Mage) gaining 8 armor is just highly superior. Wrath works better as well since it allows 3 damage that goes through taunts, doesn't need your hero to attack (and spend health doing so), has the flexibility of card draw and a much better mana cost for the effect.
Conclusion : similar to Bite or Claw, a underpowered, inflexible card outclassed by other classic cards like Wrath, Swipe and so on. Should not see play.
Crypt Lord's health and taunt will provide massive delay to aggro but 1 attack is a serious drawback if you need the Crypt Lord to actually do something proactive, like killing an enemy Manatide or Flametongue Totem. It is also highly likely that minions that attack into the Crypt Lord remain alive after doing so, requiring you to use another card like Swipe or similar to finish them off or suffer value loss on board.
Conclusion :Tar Creeper does the job better as a wall since it has 3 attack on opponent's turn and has the relevant tag of Elemental. It is not enough to just delay the enemy minions, a minion should in some manner threaten the opponent's creatures in some way. Probably an irrelevant card.
Not as bad as it looks, since it had to be bumped to 5 mana (from the original 4) for being too efficient. It's probably an okay card in Arena due to the fact that decks there are less refined and 2 poisonous 1/2 spiders can wreck havoc on your opponent's plans (just look at any highlight of Stubborn Gastropod for clarification) but in Constructed formats this is too little, too slow and too vulnerable.
Conclusion : too weak of an effect for too much mana. This card of course wouldn't be run in any aggro deck, but the 5 slot in slower Druid is also highly competitive; with the almost autoinclude of Nourish and the possible return of Druid of the Claw, there won't be room for such a card. Probably decent in Arena.
Versatile, decent minion with both modes being relevant and especially valuable as it turns into a Beast, making it a target for Mark of Y'Sharj. A 1/5 taunt for 2 is much better than Crypt Lord since getting this out turn 1 (with coin) or 2 it actually challenges a lot of small aggro creatures with 1 health, like Patches the Pirate and Bloodsail Corsair. The poisonous mode is relevant too in slower matchups as it will often force the opponent to use some resource to destroy the 1/2 creature. Note too it works with Fandral. The downside of this creature is that the 2 slot in slower Druid is insanely competitive, with almost always auto-includes of Wild Growth and Wrath. There's also potential this minion just ends up in an aggressive/token Druid, as a 1/5 taunt for 2 can provide amazing protection for other smaller minions, or the poisonous version might discourage playing down your defensive minions just to get easily removed.
Conclusion : a good minion, probably great in Arena. It might turn out unplayable in slower decks since it occupies the 2-slot, but aggro decks might welcome it especially to protect their Fledgling.
The Bolster card in creature form is a lot worse, since the mana cost for such a specific synergy ability becomes less playable the larger the overall combo costs - in this case, the combo in mind is Spreading Plague into Strongshell Scavenger, a whooping 9-cost combo to get a number of large taunt minions. The other application of this card is simply play it when you have several taunts on board, curve it out basically, which is a more reasonable approach and is probably what you should be aiming for. So turn 2 - Druid of the Swarm, turn 3 - Crypt Lord or Tar Creeper, turn 4 - Strongshell Scavenger to have a theoretical board of 3/7 Druid of the Swarm + 2/3 Scavenger + 3/9 growing Crypt Lord... In theory this is alright, back-breaking for something like Pirate Warrior to get through, but in execution should prove a lot more difficult to execute successfully especially if your opponent is aware of what you're trying to pull off. Running off with this should win the game in short order, which will happen every once in a while. The more likely scenario is that the opponent will attempt to kill off enough of these taunt minions to lessen the effect of Scavenger, so the question becomes this; how much value does the Scavenger have to provide to be worth a deck slot? A 4 mana 2/3 is basically game losing, and a 2/3 that gives another minion +2/+2 (preferably a minion that can attack on the same turn) is almost acceptable; remember, you're running a rather bad situational card that only gets acceptable if you hit the required conditions - this in itself is a cost, so just hitting one minion for +2/+2 (making this a 4 mana 4/5) is not good enough. in this case I think the minimum requirement for making this playable is to hit at least 2 minions to make up for the 2/3 stats and the fact you included this card in the first place. Depending on the meta and what archetypes surface as superior will determine the usefulness of this card.
Conclusion : Meta-depending, but more towards unplayable. In a curve deck similar to Quest Warrior this has the ability to shine by putting incredibly durable taunt creatures very fast into play. To pay off for the fact you're running this card, ideally you hit at least 2 other minions on average. If this card does in fact prove right for the meta, opponents will do all they can to remove your taunt minions or at least damage them to the point where the buff does very little. I also think the combination of Spreading Plague into this card is too far fetched, expensive and requires too many conditions to be worth running; you actually have to face a player that goes wide with minions for this to work, and a smart opponent might see through your plan and deny it. This card should be good enough when you can play it more as close to curve as possible to buff 2 or so minions, not holding it for a magical combo that gets absolutely slaughtered by a Devolve, Mass Dispel (if combos like this become present in the meta, Dispel might surface as a 1 off) or Shadowflame.
This card has the very interesting aspect of being better the more you are losing on board, which is in itself a very polarized sell. Against aggressive, board-flooding archetypes this card shines, as getting around 3 of these 1/5 beast taunts should pay off the mana cost and situational card inclusion; the problem being is if you're faced against a midrange, slower or more control oriented deck, where this might summon less scarabs and they might prove almost might perform as a whirlwind that healed you for a turn, reminding me of Fog in Magic the Gathering. Also note that 1/5 creatures on average will probably not be able to kill off much of the attackers on turn 4/5 when I expect this to be cast, and the attackers might successfully remove a lot of the taunts without much loss. There's a possibility to run Strongshell Scavenger after this card goes off, a 9 mana combo that gives you a 3/7 taunt for every opponent minion in play. (Provided the opponent doesn't have 7 minions, because Strongshell won't fit into the board anymore!) However the problem of this wombo-combo is that it's either a two turn play or a 9 mana combo that benefits against large enemy boards - and then the opponent gets a chance to deal with the creatures, be it Mass Dispel, Shadowflame, Devolve or whatever else ends up being in the meta - and believe me, people will quickly prepare their decks to deal with this if it actually turns up good.
Conclusion : Spreading Plague seems like a 1-off in a deck, a tech card played on curve to help stabilize after ramping up against an aggressive and swarmy deck. The card gets worse the more there's slower or more combo-oriented decks in the meta, and might see occasional inclusion in slow Druid decks.
An interesting card for sure, hard to assess properly. Let's look at it independently for both abilities. Druid has always been lacking on good AOE, but this card might not qualify for that role; while 3 damage to everything is awesome, a 5 drop deathrattle might just be avoided and abused by the opponent - they can decide to trigger the Fatespinner first (dealing 3 damage is super easy, especially for aggressive decks) then flood the board again, and you're very close to being square one again. The other mode seems to be more for flood decks itself, lending support to token Druid (a Tier 1 deck already!) but again - the opponent might decide to boardwipe your minions and then trigger the Fatespinner, rendering the buff harmless. The problem of this card is that the statline is so terrible that your opponent will most likely be able to control its effect almost every time to his benefit (that is, if he guesses the mode you selected, which on average should be evident by the board state) and being a Deathrattle effect is also a great vulnerability simply because the effect might not matter if it can even get a chance to go off. Another problem is... who is this card for? Jades don't need it, Ramp has better options and Token's 5 slot is already filled to the brim with much more efficient cards, Living Mana and Bittertide Hydra.
Conclusion : cool design but I expect it to be unplayable. The stats on it are terrible for a 5 drop, and the effect should be easy to control by the opponent. I can imagine some fringe situations where Token Druid plays this and creates a difficult situation to defuse for your opponent, but a lot of classes are capable of punishing a 5/3 play on 5. I don't think it helps any archetype that needs the ability it has.
An insane card, basically an always good Firelands Portal, Sprint and Shield Block rolled into 1 card in a class that doesn't mind playing 10 cost cards that much. It reminds me a lot of a better Kazakus potion that always delivers good options. There's not a lot to discuss here, the stabilization and refill this card offers makes it almost an auto-include in any slow, rampy Druid that will most likely exist in the meta of Knights of the Frozen Throne. There's still a consideration on what cards will be excluded from the deck (possibly 1x Nourish in Ramp Druid, 1x Auctioneer in Jade...) for this, and will you run 2 copies or is 1 enough. It remind me a lot of Call of the Wild, as you could view the 5 damage as Huffer, the 5/5 as a significant upgrade to Leokk, and the 5 Armor and 5 Cards as a replacement for Mishra's defensive capability.
Conclusion : a powerhouse of a card that will most certainly make its way into Ramp Druid and very possibly into Midrange-ish and Jade. Two copies maybe overdoing it since the massive draw ability becomes a liability, but I could see this card pushing out at least 1 Nourish.
Mechanically, Malfurion is a very uninteresting and unimpressive card that does the hero upgrade in a very non-flashy manner. In reality, though, it is a rather powerful upgrade after which it will be difficult to have a board against Druid.
The Hero Power is quite strong, allowing for rather cheap removal of 3 health minions and quickly clearing up the board state from threats; once stabilized with Earthen Scales and Feral Rage, you should have plenty of life to work with to secure the board in this way. Even if just armoring up, it should be noted that even if getting steady shot every turn you're still gaining +1 armor; this is very reminiscent of Warrior's improved Tank up, where Warrior would slowly but surely escape lethal threat from Hunter or Mage and secure the game.
On top of this very high improvement you're also getting 5 armor and 2 minions of your choice, sealing the deal of this card just being one of the strongest Death Knight Heroes in the game.
Conclusion : a powerful card hidden under rather unexciting text, a definitive inclusion for already strong slower Druid archetypes that aim to outlast the enemy threat.
A very self-conflicted card - a high cost, low attack but very durable beast that wants to die to get its deathrattle off. The effect is by no doubt strong; with the reveal of the Lich King and the existing high power cards like Caller of the Claw, Dark Arakkoa, Primordial Drake and so on, there is no lack of good taunt minions that can be resurrected. Add in the Stonehill Defender, Tar Creeper and the various Scarab 1/5s that will die during game and you have yourself a full board of high stated minions. Add in N'zoth the Corruptor and in theory you have an unstoppable late board game... but is this at all reliable to pull off? Well, no.
A 9 mana 3/7 is a massive tempo loss, about 10 stat points lower than should be gained from this cost, and a gigantic mana cost that is repaid only if the deathrattle goes off - something that can be ignored, silenced, Devolved and just outright hard to trigger if the board isn't right for it. If played in a theoretical Taunt Druid, a deck that also uses much smaller minions to able to sustain till late game, there's also a probability that all Hadronox does is summon a bunch of trash 1/5 scarabs as there's not enough time to spend turn after turn casting giant taunts like the Lich King and Primordial Drake; this is not that crazy payoff you wanted for investing 9 mana into a 3/7 minion, isn't it? Even N'zoth struggles to see play (more for the reason of low Standard deathrattle viability, but it is comparable) but N'zoth is infinitely better as it impacts the board RIGHT AWAY, and the effect cannot be countered as easily as a 3/7 deathrattler. A saving grace is that Devolve/Hex are Shaman only, but let's assume that Hadronox is actually widely played so silence becomes more present, and you include N'zoth the Corruptor in the deck which resurrects Hadronox even if it was silenced; surely you should expect that a 2nd one will go off, and that is probable. So I would expect that a Hadronox deck also wants to run N'zoth, since it's one of the most insane cards for N'zoth to revive, and it gives Hadronox a second chance to go off. If a N'zoth turn happens and Hadronox is revived, the opponent will need probably more than 2 turns to destroy everything that comes out of the troublesome duo.
So Hadronox's viability in my opinion relies on N'zoth's viability; they each make each other better, Hadronox by itself is too vulnerable and N'zoth without Hadronox is probably too ineffective in Standard, so to answer is Hadronox playable we must make N'zoth playable in Druid.
N'zoth in Standard from actually usable creatures can revive Aya Blackpaw, Infested Tauren, Bone Drake and Cairne Bloodhoof. There's also stuff like Arfus and various very conditional deathrattle minions, but their viability seems very low to me and doesn't assist the deck. There's also the problem of these minions being very tempo loss, and a slow Druid already has to deal with a lot of tempo loss already; it pushes the deck even further into getting steamrolled while you toy around with your low stat minions and ramp cards. However, against slower matchups,... I can see this happen actually, a late game where you obtain an almost unstoppable grip on the board, something similar to Jade Druid's super late game except that instead of raw stats you have deathrattles and other abilities, and not even a card like Twisting Nether does much to slow you down. Then again, we're talking about a super late game deck here with a ton of setup, and with the large push of several Midrange cards a slow deck like this might just regularly get steamrolled.
Conclusion ; to me it seems that Hadronox's viability depends strongly on how well does N'zoth assist the deck, and N'zoth's viability depends what deathrattles are available in the format and does the meta allow you time to set these turns up with said deathrattles. On paper the synergy of the two create an almost unstoppable super late game army, but as always the case with decks like that - it's if you can get there, and did you really need to take that whole complicated journey just to achieve such a convoluted, vulnerable win. Triggering Hadronox remains the biggest problem point, very possibly big enough that it pushes the card to Wild or fun decks only.
- Druid in Knights of the Frozen Throne -
Druid's already stable arsenal of decks will get even more fortified after this expansion especially thanks to the Death Knight card, Ultimate Infestation and possibly Spreading Plague - if the meta demands it, that is.
Ramp Druid seems to have gained the most, not only by getting the interesting taunt toys but also the fact that other classes got whirlwind effects; the biggest enemy of slow Druid, aggressive swarmy decks, might get soft countered by all these whirlwind cards, allowing them to play even more greedier decks.
Token Druid remains strong, as it was always less affected by whirlwind spells than other swarmy decks like Token Shaman or Pirate Warrior by using buff cards or instant board refills like Living Mana. The new Druid of the Swarm looks like a decent inclusion in the deck as well.
Despite the soft counter Jade Druid got in the form of Skulking Geist, I think the deck will still march on pretty strong and possibly replace some of the card choices with these new power cards, particularly the Death Knight Hero and the early game defense - which was so far the only real weakness Jade had.
I can see two new weaker archetypes happen; Taunt Druid and Control Druid. The Taunt one is a more curve deck that can swarm the board with difficult to kill minions from very early, and then just builds on that advantage with value cards like the Lich King and possibly can include cards like the Hadronox + N'zoth. Control Druid is similar to Ramp and Taunt Druid, but is less gimmicky and more oriented towards cards like Ultimate Infestation, the Lich King and perhaps other value generating creatures like Ysera and will quite likely run Hadronox + N'zoth with creatures like Infested Tauren or Sludge Belcher in Wild. The difference would be less reliance on smaller taunts and more focus on resource gap and advantage.
The reason why I consider these two 'weaker' archetypes is that cards to truly refine them I don't believe are there yet, especially without good boardwipes in Druid. Over time and especially in Wild these decks will get a chance to become super fine tuned, but for now in Standard should be beaten by their already functional and faster competition.
- Hunter Set Review -
- Hunter entering the Knights of the Frozen Throne -
Hunter has traditionally been pigeon-holed into playing aggressive and midrange decks with little synergy other than just curving out powerful minions, and this has been the case since the start of the game with an obvious reason - because Hunter lacks good removal, good card draw, good healing and good board clears - all the makings of a good control deck and class. As of right now, Hunter only has an aggressive curve midrange deck since its aggro archetype has been outclassed by Warrior since the introduction of Patches the Pirate and Bloodsail Cultist, and Hunter itself suffered a dark time ever since Reno was in the meta. Hunter used to kill opponents on turn 6-8 back in the day; Pirate Warrior does that in half the time, and more convincingly.
Every expansion Hunter has been given tools it cannot really use; slow and value cards that turn out unusable, because Hunter once losing the board has a miserable, near impossible time getting it back. Is this expansion any different?
- Knights of the Frozen Throne : Hunter Cards -
There's a decent number of strong deathrattles available to Hunter - Savannah Highmane being among the strongest minions in the game even today - however traditionally Hunter never found any success in small value cards like these. We've seen Stampede, Lock and Load and Feign Death, and if these cards were given to any class except Hunter - they might have seen play in a decent Tier deck, but never in Hunter. Play Dead is for very specific targets in the game, but in the best case it hits something like a Highmane... Which for a wombo-combo only card isn't something too crazy in value, it's 2 2/2s for the cost of running a card that will be dead most of the time of the game. I suspect that the case will be the same now; instead of Play Dead, why not just run another reliable creature that will beat the opponent down instead of filling your deck with synergistic cards for a class that has trouble drawing cards and inability to return to a lost board? Aside from that, Hunter already has some decently strong creatures that do this effect, like Terrorscale and Huhuran... Yet, they see no play. What will it take to get this effect finally playable in Hunter, I cannot imagine... other than the idea that a card like this will never fit the class until the other problems are fixed.
Conclusion ; in the long line up of synergy/combo cards in Hunter that never seen play in legitimately competitive decks... This card fits that category all too well. If Feign Death didn't see play despite having a chance during the age of Sludge Belcher and Mad Scientist, I'm not sure what it will take to make this playable.
A very strong card. The ability to tutor up additional copies of Savannah Highmane, N'zoth and god knows what else you're running in the deck is actually pretty intense... You not only fish out the perfect counter against your opponent's play, but you also keep the original in the deck! However, the problem to Hunter remains that such a tempo losing card might be too much for them to handle, as they'll get out-tempo'd out of the early game and have basically no comeback mechanism. Against a slow deck, though, this is simply insane if your discover goes as planned, you can even fish out tech cards that counter whatever you are facing. Needless to say in any other class this card would be entirely busted.
Conclusion ; a powerful card that does not fit an aggressive Hunter build, and the slower builds have so far been pretty unsuccessful. If a slower Hunter deck happens, this will most likely get a spot in it. It reminds me a lot of King's Elekk, although that card was much more competitively stat'd.
A bit of a filler card, mostly anti-control but does very little against aggressive decks as the 3 health on turn 3 is a lot worse than 4 for trading purpose. The beast tag and shroud effect are very handy for landing abilities (Crackling Razormaw and Houndmaster) and this card will be problematic for slower decks to pinpoint with their removal.
Conclusion ; a decent card, if the meta turns out too aggressive it might not see play due to having just 3 health on 3. The 3 slot is also very much occupied with Animal Companion, Deadly Shot, Unleash the Hounds and whatever other minions and spells you wish to run on that cost, like Vicious Fledgling. Good against slower decks that rely on spells to deal with minions.
Basically a 2 cost Emperor Cobra, which is not bad. It however competes against some very powerful secrets like Cat Trick, Explosive, Freezing and Snake Trap, and at some point you simply don't have enough room for all the Secrets - and I can imagine this one gets cut among the first to make it into the Cloaked Huntress deck.
Conclusion ; decent card, useful variety for Putricide to not hit a card you actually want to play out, but I don't think it compares well with other choices.
Not the AOE Hunter deserved, but the AOE it got.
Conclusion ; trash and basically a Macaw nerf. It should be played alongside 2x Corpse Widows to make it actually playable, but with Hunter's tempo reliance and lack of good card draw this might be too difficult to set up.
Fits super-well into various Hunter builds that run deathrattle (which is basically all of them) not only because the ability is super powerful and the stats are excellent, but because Hunter's 5 slot has been lacking since Sludge Belcher and Loatheb rotated out. A good card that fits a lot of decks.
Conclusion ; should see a 1 or 2 off in Hunter decks that run deathrattles, maybe even phases Rhinos out entirely.
This card doesn't fit what Hunter needs, as there's already Hunter's Mark (by far superior), there's already Arcane Shot and hitting your own minions for 2 damage to give them poisonous doesn't seem at all worth it. It is difficult to set up; damaging your own minion for 2 damage (it needs to survive) costs 2 mana, and then you run that minion into whatever needs poisoning... Sounds like a rank26 situation.
Conclusion ; unplayable. If you want poisonous, Crackling Razormaw is the best choice.
A bit of a problematic minion to fit into Hunter for mostly one reason; even the biggest beasts that Hunter runs often fall apart into smaller beasts. To make this card work optimally, you would have to not play creatures like the 1/1 cats, Rat Pack (falls apart into 1/1 rats) Macaws and a whole lot of actually good and played early game minions which Hunter needs to stay in the game. The problem doesn't stop here, as even Savannah Highmane falls apart into 2/2 Hyenas, which is not really much of a win for you. I don't think it fits the current build Hunter has, and some heavy adjusting would have to be made to increase the actual payoff chance; if this card doesn't pay off, why not just run something more reliable that always provides value, like The Lich King? A small factor is that N'zoth brings this card out, but Hunter hasn't had much success with a slow, value deck of this kind.
Conclusion ; doesn't fit what Hunter has now - too many 1/1s and 3/2s that are not worth reviving.
Mostly a fun card, and may still find its way in a Cloaked Huntress deck. There's several things holding it back though; Hunter lacks card draw, and card draw is generally needed to set up a big wombo-combo turn that this card craves. The next thing is that it's 4 mana and Cloaked Huntress is 3; You play Huntress on 3, but will you hold off your 0 cost secrets with the hopes of Huntress staying alive into turn 4 for Putricide? What if Putricide actually randomly plays a secret you were planning to play yourself, effectively blocking you from getting additional value?
Conclusion ; I think it's more of a fun card, you can play it on curve (5/4 for 4 shouldn't cost you the game most of the time, if you've had a curve) and if it lives on you can start cashing in secrets; I wouldn't bank on a combo in poor Hunter for an effect like this. Besides, with Mage and Paladin getting stronger, Secreteater might turn Putricide against you.
The AOE and armor are extremely big for Hunter as their gameplay has mostly been board-centric with resilient minions and with a good curve you can really seal the game with this card. It does conflict with Highmane for the 6 drop spot, but I don't think you mind too much. Let's look at the ability;
This is crazy slow for such a tempo class like Hunter with barely any comeback chance. The ability works by discovering 5 or lower cost beasts twice and combining their ability; Stonetusk Boar + Stubborn Gastropod, Stonetusk Boar + Bittertide Hydra and so on and so forth. There are some very creative things you can do with this! So for 2 mana you discover this mutant, and then you combine their mana cost too to be able to cast it.
Hunter has the tendency to run out of cards in faster decks, so a discover mechanic like this can actually help immensely to compensate for this weakness... However, you cannot secure yourself to draw this card. If you do draw it, you are paying 2 mana in front just to get a card, and let us assume that sometimes the choices are very high cost and/or just not very good. Then those mana costs get combined, and you end up just dropping a single overpriced minion a turn. Some of the 'insane' combos aren't really that mathematically good, because you have to hero power to get them! For example; the Stonetusk Boar + Bittertide Hydra is a charging 9/9, however it does cost 8 mana with the ability usage. The Stonetusk Boar + Stubborn Gastropod is a crazy 2/3 Charge Taunt Poisonous, but in total it costs 5 mana. Can you actually survive as a Hunter while using so much mana just to create cards... that might be too weak, because you have to keep paying the 2 mana ability? Generally combinations that involve Stonetusk Boar seem to offer the highest payoffs, but sometimes all you'll be rolling is Golakka Crawlers and useless dinosaurs with useless abilities that might end up at such high mana costs that you can't afford even playing them in a tense game.
Conclusion ; this Death Knight Hero perhaps needs the most testing, as it experiments with two things; perhaps a more value and slower Hunter deck in whatever meta that may come, and how viable is the Build-a-Beast ability in the first place. I for one would avoid crafting it until the community thoroughly tests it out.
- Hunter in the Knights of the Frozen Throne -
Hunter has been trapped in the same archetype for a long time due to the weaknesses of its class cards. The new expansion offers slower value tools yet again, as it has been done so in the past; while eventually cards powerful and versatile enough to help shape some more synergistic, interesting and tactical Hunter decks will happen - the question is, is that time now, and is the card for that task Deathstalker Rexxar.
While testing will be needed to be decisive on this task, I'm afraid that a slower and gimmicky Hunter deck is still far from the strongest version for the class; Hunter excels at pressure from turn 1, it shines at difficult to deal with minions and most importantly - it has a clock built into its original hero power. Hunter has never been able to do much in the late game, where classes like Mage and Priest could basically toy with them into submission, and having a hero power that creates random mashup beasts seems slightly promising - but are the other tools there?
Deathstalker Rexxar might end up in various Hunter decks alongside Savannah Highmane, but I think the Hunter deck as we know it now (Midrange, with a tendency towards early game tempo and domination) will remain mostly unchanged.
- Mage Set Review -
- Mage entering the Knights of the Frozen Throne -
Mage always lurks between Tier 1 and Tier 2 with several decks since the dawn of the game, and this time is no different; Control Mage, Freeze Mage and Secret Mage are all viable and very powerful decks, and Knights of the Frozen Throne look to only improve on these three decks; especially with the soft counter to Jade Druid (Stalking Geist) and the possible idea of the game slowing down a notch due to the plentiful whirlwind effects and taunts being added to various classes in the game.
- Knights of the Frozen Throne : Mage Cards -
A fairly strong card that reminds greatly of Flamecannon. It fits well with a tempo deck that goes all in from the early turns and aims to finish the game through burn topdecks, and also has synergies with various freeze benefiting cards - most importantly the new Coldwraith. This card doesn't fit slower decks as they can run much more efficient and target burn (and Mage has by far the best selection) but in a strong opening with Mana Wyrms and Sorceress Apprentices can prove overwhelming.
Conclusion ; tempo decks will like this reinvention of Flamecannon, especially as it will cost 0 mana to cast with Sorceress Apprentice. There's some small consideration for a different kind of Tempo/Midrange Freeze Mage (a more minion based deck with freeze synergy) that attempts to cash in on the effect, however I don't see there's enough cards or rewards to fully support such a deck.
Another secret that gets countered by playing a bad minion; a rather large problem of Mage secrets as they tend to be easily countered by just playing the worst and cheapest cards in your hand - especially easy for aggro to capitalize on. There's some benefit over Mirror Image that you can get good battlecries into your hand; at the same time, the opponent might play a huge creature that you get 2 copies, and these creatures might actually be too big for you to play out efficiently.
Conclusion ; another weak secret countered by playing a bad card into it. Shouldn't see competitive play other than from random generating, which isn't too bad as it can refill your hand with good battlecries sometimes and 2 copies of a strong creature in a long match.
A very strong card that can replace Novice Engineer and other card cycling cards, the difference being that this creature is actually threatening enough to slow the opponent even further by taking out minions itself. This card fits both combo/control decks that run Frost Nova and Blizzard (Exodia Mage, Freeze Mage, Control Mage) as well as tempo decks that run Frost Bolt.
Conclusion ; strong card that should see play across a variety of Mage decks, fast and slow builds.
A decent entry for Elemental Mage, however I would say this card is a lot stronger in late game (when you can afford using your hero power) than curving it out, as 1/3 on turn 2 should generally die without doing anything that relevant. In Arena especially this card should be a menace. Note that on curve play it should perform quite poorly, as hero powering on turn 3 (when a lot of great cards are playable!) is a huge tempo loss.
Conclusion ; a decent card that you actually want more in the late game when you can afford hero powering threats. With the addition of Frost Lich Jaina to support Elemental Mage as a viable archetype, this card might become a safe inclusion.
A 3 mana 3/2 is generally a very horrible statline, as a lot of 1 drops can actually trade with it. Another problem with the card is that played on curve it should provide very little in form of disruption; I can imagine it disrupts for example a Druid that wants to ramp up, however tempo Mage was already a strong matchup against such a slow spell heavy deck and this weak minion actually gives Druid probably more breathing room than restricting them from playing spells. Other than that, most decks are creature heavy, and they on average won't mind not playing spells to deal with this creature, especially if curved out.
Conclusion ; weak statline for a weak effect that most decks will ignore by playing minions. A 1 cost 2/1 trades with this creature, which heavily tilts this card to game losing.
This card might turn out crazy powerful in a deck like Freeze Mage and Exodia Mage for providing not only a highly durable minion but also a spell that counts as a trigger for Archmage Antonidas and Open the Waygate. As far as spell generation goes, this is probably up there with Primordial Glyph as far as functionality goes for Exodia decks.
Conclusion ; seems to be strong and fits combo/freeze mages very well.
An exciting card that might provide support to something like a Giants Mage (copying a 0 cost Arcane Giant) might be a safety card to protect your hand from Dirty Rat by creating a duplicate of a needed card, or even being a value card in a Control Mage by creating additional copies of Sindragosa, Elise, Lich King and other value cards. In practical use, however, I would think this is too impractical to be used in a constructed deck.
Conclusion ; probably impractical to use in a regular deck, but gaining this from a spell generating effect will sometimes provide large value or combo redundancy.
The closest thing to this card would be Mysterious Challenger, but to think that they're anywhere similar in power level would be a massive mistake. Even if you didn't include the 6/6 Challenger for 6 in the equation, let's look at the Paladin's secrets in Wild; Avenge, Noble Sacrifice, Redemption, Repentance and whatever you chose to run as the 5th secret - the key to these secrets is how synergistic they are to each other. Dealing with the Challenger's secrets takes precision and a lot of resources, and after all the triggers happen you might be in a worse position than you started with after your dismantling of the traps. Mage Secrets, however, are a lot weaker and have much less in the sense of triggers; most of them are triggered and countered by playing a weak minion and a weak spell, with dropping a small creature often being able to trigger over 50% of the secrets in the game. (Potion of Polymorph, Mirror Entity, Ice Clone) The further problem of running this card is that you will need to run enough secrets to actually make this card playable; since this card doesn't fit a Control Deck (due to having to sacrifice too much deck space for these mostly tempo oriented secrets) we assume that you only play a few of the best secrets in the game; Counterspell, Mirror Entity, Ice Block and 2 other that fit your strategy. You will mostly need to spend your entire turn to Glacial Mysteries to get these mostly shabby secrets, and it should be expected to be game over if you get hit by something like a Secreteater - a card that will be teched in especially if this turns out anywhere good. I also think this card greatly weakens the deck since it takes so much deck space sacrificing just to run it, and most of the space is used by cards you don't really need; all you really want is Counterspell, possibly Mirror Entity and certainly Ice Block.
Conclusion ; a weak card nowhere close to Mysterious Challenger, lacking both the 6/6 for 6 body as well as secrets that are synergistic and actually can be difficult to deal with. I don't think this card matters much to Secret Mage, a deck already functional.
A decent card that reminds me of a mix between Nefarian and Malchezaar; a big body that provides two cards that will vary in quality. Malchezaar provides random legendaries, which often averages a decent Yeti-like body, but also can high and low roll. Sindragosa is of course better than Malchezaar by the fact that it doesn't disrupt your deck. Nefarian steals two cards from the opponent's class, which just like Malchezaar can go from abysmal to insane; Sindragosa is a bit worse than Nefarian because to get the cards you need to destroy the 0/1 Frozen Champions, which can be relevant in a lot of cases especially if the opponent can somehow steal these minions. Note too N'zoth can revive the 0/1 Champions, providing even more value. All in all, Sindragosa is a big body with refilling ability, and should find its place in a super late game deck, possibly one that runs N'zoth.
Conclusion ; a decent card competing with Medivh, the Last Guardian and The Lich King for the 8 drop slot, its inclusion to the deck should be based on what the deck tries to achieve. If you're running a spell heavy deck Medivh might be better; if you don't run N'zoth, the Lich King might be more relevant. I wouldn't hurry to craft Sindragosa because it simply might be outclassed by the other 2 viable 8 drops.
With Mage's powerful control arsenal, on average it should not be at all difficult to survive into turn 9 with a decent life total and secrets as backup. Elemental Mage was already very close to being a viable deck, sacrificing a lot of tempo and control cards for a more midrange theme (which before this expansion just proved too watered down and inferior to Control, Freeze and Secret builds) but with the insane stabilization offered by Frost Lich Jaina I think this deck is getting very close to finalized. The improvement on the hero power is also a severe one;
With Mage's arsenal it is not a big issue to set creatures down to 1 health, and getting a 3/6 lifesteal freeze elemental every time you ping a minion should eventually become backbreaking for your opponent. On paper this deck looks functional, however I would still hold out on crafting this card straight away - as it might actually turn out to be unneeded and the other Mage archetypes still dominate over this deck. There's also the question of the meta, where this card could prove too slow to be useful, or the meta decks aren't weak to it.
Conclusion ; undeniably powerful effect, but other archetypes might still be a better choice over this deck - and it might not fit the meta.
- Mage in Knights of the Frozen Throne -
The new expansion brings new toys for every good Mage archetype that will carry over from before, with Freeze heavy, Elemental and Exodia Mage getting a spotlight. A card I expect to see in almost every Mage deck now is Coldwraith.
Tempo and Secret Mage should remain strong as they are, even without adding any new card to their arsenal.
Exodia Mage gets a powerful entry with Ghastly Conjurer, possibly pushing the deck into high viability - especially if the meta slows down.
Freeze and Control Mage remain good as they are. Control in particular could create a spin-off of Elemental Mage to run Frost Lich Jaina with additional value.
Elemental Mage might be a new entry in the high tier list, with Frost Lich Jaina being a make or break for the deck. Elemental Mage is possible even now in the meta, however it is being outclassed by more refined and focused decks like Freeze and Tempo in their own class, as there's not really that many great elementals for Mage - and Mage never really needed power cards like Blazecaller. I am more leaning towards Jaina not being good enough to push this deck really high, but I can see it as being playable and even favored against some other slower decks.
- Paladin Set Review -
- Paladin entering the Knights of the Frozen Throne -
Paladin has several very powerful variations of a Tier 1 Midrange deck (Murloc and less murloc!) and a stable Control deck that has been performing greatly in ladder, even in Wild. With strong decks like these Paladin is looking to get even more options to reinforce the existing archetypes to better suit bad matchups, and there might be a possibility to build a zoo-ish bubble aggro deck.
- Knights of the Frozen Throne : Paladin Cards -
A powerful minion that strongly reminds me of Shielded Minibot, Righteous Protector is going to be a very annoying obstacle for basically every archetype; it blocks aggro minions and often goes 2 for 1 (like Argent Squire), it can protect valuable minions with its taunt, and is an excellent buff target for Spikeridged Steed, Blessing of Kings, Dark Conviction and so on. In arena this card will be especially tough to deal with, often blocking much larger minions and possibly getting insane trades with buffs.
Conclusion ; a strong minion that might see play even in slower decks just because of the sheer stopping value it has. It has synergy with a zoo Paladin build and is supported by several Divine Shield favoring cards.
While in total value not as strong as the old Keeper of Uldaman, this might fit the curve of an aggroish Paladin a lot more because of minions like Argent Squire and Righteous Protector. A control deck might run this to 'devolve' larger minions, but with the various and more powerful tools that Paladin has for this task, it might not fit next to the almost auto-include cards of Hydrologist, Equality, Pyromancer and perhaps other murlocs.
Conclusion ; fits more for an aggro deck or even Quest Paladin, but other decks probably have their 2 slot already taken.
A weak effect for a 4 drop on the super competitive slot Paladin already has (Truesilver Champion and Consecration) that I do not really see working that well. The Lifesteal ability is a lot better used on cards like Burnbristle, who are cheaper, harder to deal with and effortlessly kill this minion.
Conclusion ; might be interesting for handbuff decks, other decks should probably not include this card especially in the very competitive 4 slot.
An effect that is mostly not good enough to run unless you use it on a Divine Shield and/or deathrattle minion (Tirion Fordring is easily the best target for this spell) it also has the problem of competing with a great number of Paladin staples in the 2 slot.
Conclusion ; the effect is strong, but competes with too many great 2 cost cards and might require too much work to get benefit from.
A lot weaker now that there's more and more strong Divine Shield minions to possibly run (possibly Bolvar, Burnbristle, Tirion, possibly Righteous Defender) and playing a 3 mana 2/2 draw a creature card could possibly be worse than drawing a card - if you draw something irrelevant to the gamestate, like a Bolvar on turn 3 while you're losing the board and game to aggro and zoo. Paladin doesn't have much to do on turn 3 proactively so this card does get a bonus from that, and drawing the card that you actually exactly need makes this worth a look for sure. It might just turn out to not be as good as Stonehill, though.
Conclusion ; a decent tutor card that might require you to fine tune the deck to get what you need. Might see play especially with Paladin's weak 3 cost selection.
Not really too excited about a 4 cost Rager in Paladin that might occasionally spawn a 2/2. The 4 cost across Paladin is generally very competitive, and triggering the deathrattle might not really prove that bad if you can pull it off cheaply. If Crusader has to go into a taunt like Tar Creeper (a 3 drop) it might prove disastrous to run this minion if you can't divine shield it.
Conclusion ; a underwhelming aggro card. The 4 slot is very competitive even in aggro/flood Paladin, and there are high chances that this just turns out to be a 5/2 Rager. You would need to buff it to secure it gets some value from its high attack, but buffing an already high attack minion might prove too costly in the face of good removal.
This weapon has high potential to become very oppressive, as getting it to something like 3 attack might be fairly easy to average. However, it is an absolute trainwreck of a topdeck (a 4 mana Light's Justice) and with the existing Oozes and Harrison Jones in the game you should never over invest into a weapon. It also suffers yet again from being in the super competitive 4 cost slot in Paladin, already taken by powerhouses like Truesilver Champion, Blessing of Kings and so on.
Conclusion ; this weapon needs work to become good, but in the 4 cost there's already the powerful Truesilver Champion. Weapon removal in Hearthstone is also crazy efficient, so trying to be greedy with this weapon and accumulate attack (which may prove difficult in a lot of matchups) will usually result in failure. Paladin also has enough weapons to not need another one with such a minor ability.
One of the craziest statlines in the game, Blackguard in general should survive a turn or even a lot more. The ability is also rather excellent, as if you have something like a Truesilver equipped, Forbidden Healing in hand or Lifesteal creatures on board this could turn out into the craziest Flamewaker you've ever seen. It also hits only random minions, so you will often be able to reliably control the board and not waste shots to the face, as Paladin generally is more board-centric and lacks burst.
Conclusion ; might turn out to be Flamewaker's bigger and much more efficient brother. This creature is very hard to kill and it's ability is stronger than Flamewakers especially since it hits only minions; now comes the question of how reliably can you trigger it. The biggest downside of this card is that the 6 slot already has power entries like Sunkeeper and Steed, and adding even more 6 costs could tilt the deck too much.
A difficult minion to assess, as I don't think it fits the successful Paladin decks out there, it takes setup to get going, and is very vulnerable to a whole bundle of Priest cards, who remains very present in the meta.
Conclusion ; gimmicky creatures that are very vulnerable to being completely diffused (or even stolen) generally don't make it into the game, and I don't see it fit into the already successful Paladin decks. There might be a new Paladin deck that focuses heavily on Divine Shields and if that happens then Bolvar will find a place - so I would advise not crafting it before a ton of testing is done.
An exciting card for sure, one that might be slightly underpowered for 9 mana but with high combo potential to just win the game outright. The Lifesteal weapon and armor helps a lot in stabilizing from a low health amount, and the weapon is very likely to actually provide high pressure to kill the opponent at the point of the game when this is played.
The hero power works a lot like the Shaman totem summoning, where a random named and non-duplicate of a Horseman is summoned. The Horsemen have unique names but otherwise are 2/2 vanilla stats. In general, if you can actually get all 4 2/2s on the board by just hero powering for 4 turns and not get interrupted or lethaled, it can be assumed that you could have won the game much faster by playing something else on 9, like Ysera, Lich King and so on. This is especially true with the widespread use of cards like Primordial Drake, and the several new Death Knight Hero cards actually having a hero power that just outright destroys a horseman. However, in some rare cases it is possible that the opponent just can't handle the 2/2s and loses the game. There are some combo potentials in Standard and Wild, with cards like Burgly Bully, Garrison Commander and Beardo, where you can arrange a OTK with the use of the hero power, and if the goal was to win with the hero power I think this is a better approach.
However, a normal use of this power is playing it like a Justicar Trueheart upgrade; slowly and steadily spam 2/2s, something Control Paladin was doing back in the old day of control, eventually through attrition overwhelming the opponent.
Conclusion ; an exciting card that might make it into super late game Paladin decks that aim to use it as a Justicar Trueheart with a potential win condition wrapped in the package. I would also argue that if one would want to build a deck that aims to win with this hero power should definitively run the combo enablers, as there are enough counters to 2/2 Horsemen that attempting to do it manually will take too long/be impossible to achieve.
- Paladin in Knights of the Frozen Throne -
Control Paladin stands to benefit a lot from this expansion, with numerous tools like the Paladin Death Knight, Corpsetaker and Lich King allowing for even more late game customization. The soft counter to Jade Druid in the form of Stalking Geist should improve this deck's standing even further.
Midrange Paladin gets perhaps the biggest benefit from Corpsetaker and Righteous Protector, but I can see it not changing very much and just staying a high tier deck.
Aggro/Bubble Paladin might certainly be a more viable thing now with so many new tools to play, like Bolvar, Corpsetaker, Righteous Protector and Dark Conviction. In Wild I expect this deck to especially be powerful.
- Priest Set Review -
- Priest entering the Knights of the Frozen Throne -
Priest enters the expansion with high competitiveness in both Wild and Standard; aside from the always good Control decks it has, Priest also found great success with Inner Fire and Silence Priest - and with barely anything new to counter Priest's gameplay and the new low mana whirlwind it got, the class should find itself in a great position.
- Knights of the Frozen Throne : Priest Cards -
A snowbally card that normally doesn't fit Priest's usual gameplay (as Priest lacks actual good burn to close off games) it shouldn't be underestimated. Turn 1 Northshire Cleric into turn 2 saddles you with a nice 2/4 and 2/2 that needs to be dealt with, or a more dreamlike scenario of Coin + Radiant Elemental into a turn 2 Shadow Ascendant + possibly a Power Word Shield creates a 3/6 Radiant Elemental and a 2/2 that keeps buffing your minions, an extremely dangerous opening that might just take the game. However, that is a very dreamlike scenario, and Priest in general doesn't need/care that much for snowball minions. In arena, this minion needs to be dealt with quickly.
Conclusion ; probably will not fit any Priest archetype, but a decent card overall.
A strong boardwipe and healing especially when combined with Bloodmage Thalnos, will buy a lot of time against swarmy decks to reach your better boardwipe, Dragonfire Potion, after which you can stabilize. I can see this being a 1-off in Control Priest, perhaps 2 if the meta proves especially early game swarm oriented.
Conclusion ; a good tech card, will help immensely to stall swarmy decks till you can cast Dragonfire Potion and start stabilizing.
An unexciting card because it trades poorly with 2 and 3 drops, and using Lifesteal that early in the game should be rather useless or low value.
Conclusion ; I don't think you'll ever need to run this card, as it trades poorly and the ability should be often irrelevant when curved out.
An expensive improvement to Resurrect and Onyx Bishop, as it will almost secure you the ability to reanimate your Ysera, Deathwing, Cairne, Lyra and whatever other creature you're trying to get mostly out of Barnes. In the super late game this card might whiff quite often, as by that time you should have a bunch of minor creatures like Northshire Cleric die. It is definitively not as great as Resurrect when using it to get something like a Injured Blademaster, as paying 4 mana to get a Blademaster that had to die earlier... is really not that great of a deal, and requires setup.
Conclusion ; supports a high roll deck that briefly existed with a more precise, but perhaps overpriced card. I don't think you'll want to include this in the deck unless you're really aiming to fetch something like a Lyra or Ysera back in the super late game. This card will often be pretty decent to get from random effects, though.
A 2 mana increase to Thoughtsteal to get 1 more card. The problem of Thoughtsteal though is that it is random, can get very specific and gimmick reliant cards (like Shield Slam) and it gets worse the more there is aggro in the game, as getting a bunch of aggro tools for 5 mana will usually not save you from dying to said aggro.
Conclusion ; Thoughtsteal is a much more competitively priced card, and even that is not run since there's too much aggro that essentially makes this a dead card. If the game goes into slow meta, then cards like this and Thoughtsteal are considerable.
A worse Barnes, as 6 mana leaves very little to actually do with the rest of your turn. There's also the problem of what are you even trying to get with this? Lyra? Lich King? Ysera? There's not really that much you would want, the deathrattles and end of turn cards are mostly too weak in Standard to invest so heavily into gambling for them, you have to not draw those minions and you might end up summoning something completely irrelevant or even detrimental. There's some meme potential with Malygos and Prophet Velen, but there are more competent decks and classes that can execute such a plan much better and with less RNG.
Conclusion ; a more fairly costed Barnes, and fairness usually doesn't cut it. Some combo potential with big effects especially in Wild, but there it's much easier to construct a more reliable deck for that means.
A lot of the time this is a 6 mana Corruption. Against aggro it is a dead draw and against very dangerous targets it might potentially be game over.
Conclusion ; if you're going for an effect like this, Mind Control is infinitely more reliable and effective. The discount on this card doesn't help much against faster decks, and in other cases might allow the opponent to completely negate your entire investment.
A powerful late game drop that curves well with Primordial Drake, possibly heals you by a huge lot (Primordial Drake usually takes out a lot of creatures with it) and allows you to go into a N'zoth turn with this powerful deathrattler returning. Should see play in N'zoth and Quest Priest decks for sure.
Conclusion ; slow, powerful card and one of the best Standard deathrattle minions that doesn't mind that much being countered by something like The Black Knight. It only depends if the meta is too fast for it.
A very meme, low stated card that is useless against aggro and wins basically every match that is about fatigue... Except against Dead Man's Hand decks, if you miss getting the 2x Hands. Should mostly be a for fun card, however if the meta fills up with slow control decks, this is going to be completely insane.
Conclusion ; a powerhouse for a very specific juggernaut meta; otherwise a dead card in a class that has trouble drawing cards easily.
In a way, this card obsoletes Shadowform and Beardo for Priest entirely, save for some niche uses. The battlecry is interesting in the way that it greatly helps with handling 2 difficult opponents for Priest - Lord Jaraxxus and giant Jade golems. The main selling point is, of course, the hero power.
This can combo off insanely with something like Raza the Chained, Burgly Bully coins, Radiant Elementals, Velen and perhaps even Mind Blasts and Holy Smite; it is very easy to picture dealing +15 damage with a not so difficult to prepare setup. This ability also justifies Raza the Chained inclusion in decks, as it often turned out that having a free 'heal 2' hero power meant very little for the cost of making your deck highlander; but with this crazy proactive hero power you can quickly take over the board or kill the opponent just by playing minor cards and protecting your own hero.
I definitively think this is a card catered to a highlander deck to abuse Raza's discount, when this hero power basically blows up everything the opponent is trying to do. I mean, just playing Velen and Mindblast for 9 mana amounts to a total of 20 damage, with the hero power doing 10 by itself. To a less flashy degree it can be played in a non-Raza deck where the OTK power is basically gone, however a more reliable deck like that will suffer less from the drawback of the highlander construction - it's a trade of power for reliability.
Conclusion ; an excellent card that will support the Standard Kazakus build and further power the already strong Wild deck there.
- Priest in Knights of the Frozen Throne -
Highlander Priest gets a massive improvement with the Death Knight Hero, as there's now finally a real benefit to playing Raza the Chained. It is also notable that the DK destroys all +5 power minions in play - a great counter to huge Jade and Demon minions.
Control/Deathrattle Priests get one of the best standard deathrattle minions in the game, supporting N'zoth running decks. With the introduction of Stalking Geist, the worst matchup in the form of Jade Druid should be greatly countered by playing Geist and then destroying the last huge Jades with the new DK. Also, Priests running Archbishop Benedictus should basically never lose a game to fatigue.
Inner Fire and Silence Priests should remain about the same, somewhat weakened by the Geist but nothing they can't build around.
- Rogue entering the Knights of the Frozen Throne -
Rogue tends to have a similar problem to Hunter; it is locked in a well performing deck and cannot really expand out of it. Rogue gets new cards that support convoluted and slow archetypes and synergies but never gets proper sustain or support... aaaand Rogue just returns to playing Miracle. Same cards get played from expansion to expansion, with only one or two change place, but it seems to revolve around Gadgetzan Auctioneer, VanCleef, Eviscerate, Preparation, Backstab, Questing Adventurer... The deck builds itself really, and Miracle endured even the loss of stealth with this old faithful setup. Over time Rogue gained various too slow albeit exciting cards (like Shadowcaster) low supported archetypes that went nowhere (Jade, Burgle, Pirate and Deathrattle) and suffered the same problem since forever; dying without healing. So Rogue remains basically unchanged since forever, the rare exception was the appearance of Quest Rogue but that got almost immediately nerfed into unplayability - and it's back to square one, old faithful Miracle, present since the earliest days.
So the real question is this; will Rogue finally get a new archetype, or will it just improve on Miracle?
- Knights of the Frozen Throne : Rogue Cards -
Spending a lot of cards on one weapon tends to result in a complete loss when destroyed with Oozes and Harrison Jones, and for Rogue to actually obtain a high damage weapon it is needed to use something like Assassin's Blade + Deadly Poison, resulting in a 5/4 weapon for 6 mana, and 2 more to add this effect. While this in fact does heal for 20, you have to also take in count that you will probably need to hit some minions too while also being attacked from turn to turn (because if you spent an entire turn creating a weapon and haven't died, you're probably facing enemy minions on board) probably greatly decreasing the gain you were planning for this convoluted 3 card combo... That is, if you don't lose the game by losing 3 cards to 1 Ooze.
Conclusion ; too much work is needed to make a feasible high attack weapon in Rogue to obtain a bit of healing that is mostly lost to attacking minions with said weapon. If you are healing yourself, it should be assumed that your priority is to out-control the opponent, otherwise it is better to run cards like Cold Blood rather than healing. If you get hit by an Ooze or Harrison after creating this weapon, you should basically lose right away.
Interesting card with a strong effect, but might not be good enough for constructed; with Vilespine Slayer, cards like these are a lot less appealing. In arena this could easily swing games since its mana cost fits very well with using this late game to remove a much bigger minion.
Conclusion ; probably not for constructed because of Vilespine Slayer and high competitive 3 drop in Rogue.
An okay arena card, but probably too meaningless for constructed. It is notable that the 1/1s are good for triggering VanCleef and combos, but it doesn't work with Auctioneer and Arcane Giants and thus might be that Burgly Bully is better.
Conclusion ; an alright card for arena, probably too weak for Miracle.
It is not really easy to make a 50% deathrattle deck, as there are not that many viable deathrattles especially for Rogue, a class that doesn't really benefit from deathrattles in a significant way anymore. On average this should get a 2nd card 30%ish of the time, which is not reliable enough.
Conclusion ; too unreliable for Standard, perhaps possible in Wild. On average it is going to be a 'draw a card' for 2.
Finally a good weapon for Rogue with pretty neat combo ability with Doomerang. Basically you can count this weapon as a better lifesteal, as you are able to hit a minion with +3 attack and remain unharmed. This should be 2x include into basically any Rogue, and perhaps it opens the door for a non-Miracle deck to succeed.
Conclusion ; great card in every format.
This is very comparable to Captain Greenskin, and on average it should be just a +1 durability as Runeforge Haunter's health is more than easily dealt after turn 2, even turn 1 in some cases. I don't think it is worth it to lose a 4 drop to a possible 1 drop just to get +1 durability.
Conclusion ; risks massive tempo loss for little and theoretical gain.
A very cool card in design, although from all the weapons Rogue has available it only combines well with Shadowblade; Assassin's Blade has become too slow, vulnerable and it is hard to imagine a scenario where you get the AB down to 1 durability, Doomerang it and then recast it. While Shadowblade is in fact a fantastic weapon for this card, it might be that it is simply too niche to be used.
Conclusion ; cool design, easily could end up unplayed.
Impractical too high cost minion that conflicts with Auctioneer for the card use, and Vilespine Slayer for the effect.
Conclusion ; inferior to Vilespine Slayer (which kills any minion) and your cards are best saved for a game winning Auctioneer turn. Too many vegetables in the pot, basically.
Good statline but conflicts with the usual Miracle plan of accumulating small spells to trigger off in one turn; however, if you have a reason to suspect that the Miracle approach cannot win the game, you can convert all the coins, Razor petals, Preparations and Backstabs into possible something that can win the game in another manner.
Conclusion ; interesting, conflicts with Miracle's game plan but that might actually be a strength. Needs experimenting.
With stealth and +5 armor, it is very reasonable to assume that you will actually survive the turn you play this card; in a way, this means '9 cost - do nothing and probably don't die.' Remember, you're still affected by cards and abilities like Mind Blast, Fellfire Potion and Steady Shot. So if we spend a whole turn doing nothing, what do we get?
So each turn you get a 'Mirror' card in your hand that works as a copy of whatever was the last card played. Play a coin, the Reflection is a coin. Play a Vilespine, you get a Vilespine. So you can view the hero power as this ; 'Each turn draw a card that is the same one you just played.' So how can this be played?
Well this is a very value Death Knight Hero, one that has a very difficult time running out of cards especially when you play things like Swashburglar or Peddler and double on the card generation. In essence you start every turn with an extra copy of whatever you are playing, so some combo plays become a lot easier to achieve. Another idea with the Hero is to use it like a OTK-ish style of deck, where you play Leeroy + Cold Blood + Cold Blood + Cold Blood and Eviscerate or any such high damage combination, a burst tactic that goes well with the DK's stealth battlecry. There are some other more niche application like in Mill Rogue, or a value deck for Wild that runs the excellent healing and deathrattles there to outvalue almost any opponent.
Conclusion ; in Standard it might find room in a combo/miracle build, as it does function a lot like a high level extension of the deck. In Wild it will be a pretty good fit into mill and value/deathrattle Rogue.
- Rogue in Knights of the Frozen Throne -
In Standard, I don't think much tools have arrived to build anything else than an improved Miracle Rogue. New archetypes need Rogue to be able to heal a great amount at once to be able to survive against early game decks and Mage, but there's not really the cards for that in the format yet and it is going to be difficult to match the value other slower decks have gained in this expansion. Rogue Deathknight does provide some small help against Mage, not sure how often that will come up.
In Wild, Rogue will greatly enjoy the addition of the Death Knight Hero and the Shadowblade; these cards will work fantastically in Mill, Deathrattle, Reno and just general value decks.
- Shaman Set Review -
- Shaman entering the Knights of the Frozen Throne -
Shaman has a variety of decks that work from Tier 1 to Tier 3 in Wild and Standard; Token Evolve, Jade, Elemental, Control and so on. What keeps Shaman especially competitive in the meta is the cards Maelstrom Portal, Devolve and Hex, giving them a massive edge in breaking down virtually any deck. With such a strong background, Shaman looks to push even more of its decks up into Tier 1.
- Knights of the Frozen Throne : Shaman Cards -
A powerful draw card for a generally weak tribe too susceptible to boardwipes. If it was in Paladin, it would basically be broken.
Conclusion ; murlocs in general grossly overkill the opponent or crash and burn from curved out AOE, and as an additional weakness depend too much on having Warleaders in hand or play. While certainly threatening, murlocs on average tend to be outclassed and outpowered rather easily, and the new whirlwind effects do not bode well for them.
One mana cost above Glacial Shard to get +1 health and the Murloc tag... There's some potential to this as freeze is very annoying and strong, and maybe allows the murlocs to snowball while keeping enemy minions at bay, but this is all in all a weak card to take deck space and something like Volcanic Potion and Defile will undo everything you attempted to build with this crappy card.
Conclusion ; a weak murloc that does very little to stop from what usually destroys murlocs in the early game - efficient boardwipes.
Reminds a great deal of Deathlord, but the downside is a lot more severe. There's only one Overload Unlock card left in Standard, and it is not worth playing it just to get a glorified Warden, and it cannot even be curved out. Take in count that Priest just destroys or steals this minion and Shaman can devolve it, and you've given up your turn 4 for nothing. Take note also that if you wish to play this against aggro, which is what this card is for I suppose, you are surrendering a turn 4 for a creature that might just get overrun quite cheaply.
Conclusion ; the loss of turn 4 if curved is massive, as it's a great turn to play outJade Spirit, Jade Lightning and other great cards. The 3 slot is also highly competitive with Manatide Totem, Hex, Stonehill Defender, Hotspring Guardian. Synergy with the new giant is likely not worth running such a sub-par card.
To make this card work you will have to include horrible minions like Glacial Shard and Brrrlock, equip a 3 mana 1/3 weapon and then trade health to kill a creature. Does anyone like the sound of that?
Conclusion ; gimmicky garbage, competitive 3 slot in Shaman, for the abundance of cards you have to run to make this card work - you could just run actual removal.
Should not see play in the same manner as Tidal Surge isn't played; Jade Lightning is just better, and the Shaman 4 slot is already taken. There's a lot better AOE to use, and the freeze theme in Shaman is just not worth it.
Conclusion ; inferior card that at worst works like a 4 mana Freezing Potion.
Generally should freeze 2 to 3 characters, as 7 health is a pretty high amount on turn 5. It's a good defense against weapon-using decks like Pirate Warrior (if you get to live long enough for that to even matter) but on average the mana cost and ability don't seem worth the inclusion.
Conclusion ; the freeze theme on average should not be worth running a card like this.
Good when played on a minion that doesn't care to do much combat, like Tar Creeper or stuff like Manatide Totem, but in general should be too gimmicky to lead a reliable deck. It can also be used offensively, but I can't really imagine you would want to ever do that.
Conclusion ; too gimmicky.
A cool card for something like Crusher Shaman, as getting it to a low cost should be reasonably easy in the deck (you would most likely run Flamewreathe Faceless, Volcano, Earth Elemental and Jade Claws, for example) and that allows you to do something like Snowfury Giant + Snowfury Giant + Ancestral Spirit + Faceless Manipulator with 3 extra mana to do whatever needs done, like taunting them up. It's a great card for a niche deck, basically.
Conclusion ; a mostly fun card for Crusher decks.
On average, due to this card's very restrictive mana cost, you should expect to only get around 1-3 cards the turn you play Moorabi, with the full ten mana available. The highest card gain possible is to use the 3 mana 4/4 'Freeze your other minions' card to gain copies of whatever you have on board (which on average should be some lame totems, some Jade Golems, perhaps a freezing minion like Glacial Shard...) or if you manage to play Brrrlock and Glacial Shard to hit your opponent's minions, which is a lot more feasible than freezing your own board in a sad attempt to gain some cards. (Which on average should be pretty sub-par, since you're playing a nonsense Freeze Shaman.)
Conclusion ; if you want copies of your own cards, rather play Spirit Echo. It is much easier to play along with good cards due to low mana cost, and will not warp your deck building to include weak freeze drops.
The lowest cost Death Knight that curves well for most likely a token deck, but can also work in other decks like Jade and Elemental to greatly outvalue the opponent especially after trading.
This power allows you to essentially 'heal a friendly minion to full'. On average should improve the minion by a tiny margin, and on rare cases it should either greatly increase or decrease the value of the minion. For example, a 3 cost minion can become a Flamewreathe Faceless or the new and abysmal Rattling Rascal. Not much is really needed to discuss about this Hero and the hero power, it has been greatly tested by Evolve and the deck is already Tier 1 - this looks to improve it.
Conclusion ; the easiest to play and use Hero released. Suffers a bit from high and low rolling, but on average should at least heal your minions after trading.
- Shaman in Knights of the Frozen Throne -
Shaman remains strong as ever, with plentiful deck building choices. Almost every archetype is highly likely to be improved by Thrall, Deathseer, especially Jelly and Token Shaman. Crusher Shaman might make a return for Standard.
- Warlock Set Review -
- Warlock entering the Knights of the Frozen Throne -
Warlock enters the Knights of the Frozen Throne without a single competitive deck in Standard, basically a first and all time low for Warlock players. Zoo couldn't handle the loss of Imp Gang Boss and Power Overwhelming at the same time the competition for early game sharpened up substantially by Shaman and Warrior. Even in Wild Warlock has been slowly slipping with the once King of Wild, Renolock; other Control and Aggro decks leveled up and gained new tools, but Warlock missed it all and promptly fell behind.
- Knights of the Frozen Throne : Warlock Cards -
A decent zoo card and an exceptionally good trigger for Devilsaur Egg. There are possibilities of some extremely bad situations where this card cannot be played (as it would perhaps destroy the only minion you have on board, like a Doomguard) but those shouldn't happen often enough in zoo to discourage running this efficient card.
Conclusion ; a decent card for the now non-existing zoo deck, though it by itself is nowhere enough to bring zoo back. A consideration are also the numerous whirlwind effects being added to the game that might counter zoo before it even happens.
Warlock has been starving for a good 2 cost spell ever since Dark Bomb left for Wild, and this will help fill that rather large hole in Warlock's early game removal.
Conclusion ; a good single copy for a more Control Warlock deck to combat early game, regain life and set up a powerful Defile. Works great with spell power.
A well stated demon that should only be played in a Discardlock, a rather random and volatile archetype that so far hasn't been successful. Note that this card is very likely not a good inclusion into Quest Warlock, as it might prove very easy to force you to discard the Quest upon completion.
Conclusion ; it's hard to assess this minion without seeing it in action, but the text really is very horrible on the eyes. The best use of this minion is dropping it into a Mirror Entity or using Treachery, it seems.
Possibly the card to pull out Control Warlock out of the slums, it takes very little to have Defile become a 2 mana 'destroy all minions' especially when coupled with Bloodmage Thalnos. If this early game boardclear proves to be as good in the meta as it looks on paper, then the return of Handlock is very much possible.
Conclusion ; a lot of hope rests on this card to be as good as it looks in theorycraft, and it might just be enough to enable Handlock in Standard. In Wild this card should also see inclusion in Renolock and improve the deck significantly.
This card can also be used to crack the Devilsaur Egg, but the card is very much a horrible Deadly Shot without that synergy - and likely costs too much mana for such a bad effect against swarmy boards.
Conclusion ; an underpowered version of a card that rarely sees play as is.
A very good Demon, which is like a very small club of minions. It might not find a place in Warlock that easily with the plentiful AOE that is already run, however the effect is very strong and this demon can be brought back with Bloodreaver Gul'dan, perhaps pushing it enough to inclusion.
Conclusion ; a strong card by itself that will most likely make it into a Standard Death Knight deck, and might be teched into other decks to set up Defiles and control swarmy minions.
This ability can easily be ignored by about 90% of the decks that we currently know of and expect in the meta; you're playing a rather weak minion (a 2/3 for 2 with 'do nothing ability' is not something worth including) and the chance to encounter a deck that relies on a specific card or actually HIT that very card should be somewhere in the single digit of percentages. Ideally you bust something like this against Exodia Mage and remove a critical piece of the combo; but if for example you hit Antonidas or Alex in Freeze Mage, you are still very likely to just die to burn damage since you are after all - a Warlock.
Conclusion ; irrelevant.
Mostly this card is for memes where you give your opponent creatures with terrible deathrattles or abilities, but the most competitive way to use this minion is to secure a Doomsayer going off on your opponent's turn. That is not as great as a Doomsayer going off on your turn, as it gives your opponent a chance to rebuild - but it is something that can be considered.
Conclusion ; a meme card.
I won't go into a rant about Discardlock's core mechanical problem; it has been debated and argued so many times it is not worth discussing further. It's a polarized deck that is difficult to control and doesn't have enough ingredients or supporting mechanics to make it a stable thing.
The Blood Queen is all in all an alright minion that should rather easily be a +5/6 attack minion with lifesteal for 5, which is sorta decent and might help with Warlock's common bleeding problem. It is a bit troublesome that this card is 5 cost, as it might end up sitting in your hand from early game and eventually discarded for Felhound or Doomguard, which are arguably on paper much more reliable and prone to winning games than the Blood Queen. While it is true that Warlock has traditionally had problem healing... Was that really ever a problem for zoo? Is this really the minion Discardlock needs to make it viable, or do you believe that what is really needed is more cards like Malchezaar's Imp and Silverware Golem, cards that actually turn the downside of Discard into a powerful resource?
Conclusion ; I am of the belief that more importantly than Lifesteal the deck needs more cards that actually create value from discarding, like Malchezaar's Imp and Silverware Golem, and clunky cards like this when drawn early will end up in the Discard pile. Note that the Queen does continue to grow while in game, and in my opinion it's a solid minion for a regular kind of zoo - but a full Discardlock still seems like a bad nightmare of a unstable, unreliable deck.
So this is quite convincingly the most bombastic battlecry of the Death Knights; it's very similar to N'zoth with an arguable advantage that in some situations (and especially for Warlock who just unlocked a Lifesteal hero power) gaining 5 armor might be more important than a 5/7 body.
So let's talk Demons in Standard. There's several ways to actually build a deck containing this card with the purpose of reanimation; you can go the zoo route and run possibly Flame Imp, Voidwalker, Malchezaar's Imp, Possessed Villager, Lakkari Felhound and Doomguard. This is a more aggressive build that goes for the early game control and tries to snowball from there to a win. There's a good chance you discard either Gul'dan or Jaraxxus in this sort of deck, but it will have a much higher pressure on the opponent from the early game - and if you actually play Gul'dan you will swarm the board with Fellhounds and Doomguards, which is just insane. Also note that this battlecry revives Jaraxxus 6/6 demons too. The slower route would be something like Abyssal Enforcers, Despicable Dreadlords and Voidwalkers, also good stuff. Now let's look at the hero power!
This is basically the most intense hero power in the game alongside DK Anduin, as dealing 3 damage to any target will grind out any small minion the opponent can throw at you while healing you in the process - and health gain has always been one of Gul'dan's weakest points till this card.
What matchups does this card help? Hunter (if the game gets to this point, of course) and freeze Mage matchup has traditionally been the worst for Warlock, as they had a terrible time escaping Jaina's burst range after Alex; this card will not erase this weakness, but will act a lot like Warrior armoring up every turn to escape lethal range - and if the Mage doesn't act quick, you'll survive while burning them out at the same time.
It will need experimentation to see what demons can be really played in Standard and will depend on the meta. In Wild, however, I see this card as a secondary N'zoth and next to Jaraxxus as a possible Plan A or B, depending on what opponent you face.
Conclusion ; an exciting card that will need experimentation - but without doubt the text is powerful and will improve even further with better demons added to game.
- Warlock in Knights of the Frozen Throne -
Warlock in Standard does not really have anything viable, noted especially by the complete absence of Warlock in recent tournaments.
With the inclusion of Defile, Despicable Dreadlord and DK Gul'dan, a Control Warlock is likely to appear, a mixture between Handlock and Demonlock. Testing will be needed to see if these 2 cards were enough to push this archetype, but I believe so.
Some new cards for Zoo and Discardlock have been added, however I feel Zoo is still too easily countered (especially with the new whirlwind effects) and Discardlock has not been given a card that combats its own flaw of design.
In Wild Renolock will probably push towards Tier 1 again with the addition of Defile and DK Gul'dan.
- Warrior Set Review -
- Warrior entering the Knights of the Frozen Throne -
With one of the cheapest, easy to play and powerful aggro decks in the game, Warrior enters the new expansion with a Tier 1 Pirate, Tier 2 Taunt and Tier 3 Control deck, as usual Warrior's wide selection of quality cards and good Classic set supporting different styles of play. Taunt and Control are waiting for the Jade Idol counter to become available to push for higher Tiers, and till then Warrior players just use Pirate to quickly go through ranks.
- Knights of the Frozen Throne : Warrior Cards -
It's hard to imagine there's ever going to be enough powerful cards to support a Enrage deck to a point where this card becomes actually viable, where damaging your own minions with weak cards like this doesn't result in you just losing the game rather quickly.
Conclusion ; cute and very synergistic, but the lack of good enough minions to actually Enrage and the implication of hurting your own minions usually doesn't cut it in a competitive game. We're far from Grim Patron days, and I don't believe even in Wild this card will find a place in such a deck since there's Ravaging Ghoul, Whirlwind, Revenge, Cruel Taskmaster...
A powerful card draw and tutor. Control Warrior already runs a lot of rather dumb card draw mechanics, and a card like this will certainly fit into its arsenal - possibly allowing it to secure a turn 2 Fiery War Axe every game (coin Forge of Souls on turn 1 against aggro) or in late game to get hold of Gorehowl, Blood Razor or whatever is being run in the meta. Pirate Warrior could also run a copy of this, as it's one of the best topdecks you could get if your opponent is still hanging on.
Conclusion ; a fantastic card that should fit every Warrior.
Conclusion ; this will quite likely find a spot in Taunt or Control Warriors that wish to counter swarmy midgame decks like Token Druid or Shaman.
Another cute card that wants to be whirlwind'd to provide value, but I can't really see the value of 2/2s in Warrior. For example, dropping this minion and a Ravaging Ghoul for 6 mana gives a 1/3, a 2/2 and a 3/3 Ghoul; that does not at all sound worth the effort. Also, if you perform several Whirlwinds in the same turn, the other ghouls might die or become 2/1s in the process, becoming even more useless.
Conclusion ; too clumsy to execute, and nowhere as potent as old Grim Patrons were.
For the ability this creature has, the statline is excellent; a 3 mana 4/3 is rather threatening as it can take out numerous 4 mana 5/4s or other key minions, and even if it does get destroyed by a 2 mana 3/2 you are still getting 6 armor, which sorta makes up for the bad trade. However, in a matchup where 6 armor doesn't matter enough, losing this minion to something like a Fiery War Axe charge might prove too devastating. A very cool side of this minion is that it can be resurrected by N'zoth.
Conclusion ; it's a rather cool designed minion that might not see play due to the fact that on 3 health it might get dispatched so easily that not even 6 armor makes up for the tempo loss. N'zoth synergy in Warrior gives it a high plus.
Comparable to Frostwolf Warlord, which is actually probably easier to buff above this minion and requires a lot less work. Both, however, seem unplayable.
Conclusion ; unlikely to be worth the effort. Frostwolf Warlord might just be objectively better.
A rather hilarious card that reminds a lot of Archbishop Benedictus, with the slight advantage over the Archbishop being that you control what you get into your deck and with a second copy of DMH you can shuffle into infinity and become immune to fatigue.
The problem of this card is that it is a super late game cast only; there's no point really to cast this earlier than just before hitting Fatigue, especially if your hand is full of cards useless for the matchup - this makes it a dead card against aggro and midrange, as the victor of this matchup should be clear almost from the opening hands. Against a slow control deck, ideally a Priest, it's still far from perfect! If the Priest manages to steal one or two of these cards, you're looking at an endless game where the Priest might actually be better equipped to win the game in the long run - since he didn't specialize the deck into running this strategy and might have something to tilt the game into his favor.
Conclusion ; I believe a deck running these cards should be very specialized builds with the win condition unlike other decks, and very likely a Elise the Trailblazer that you keep reshuffling into the deck and gaining her packs, as it is common for Warrior to at one point be forced to spend both his Brawls, Shield Slams and Executes to stay alive, and a replenish-able resource of minions and spells will be needed to bring the game to a close. It's a meme deck with some potential for sure.
Is 2 mana with a sometimes very serious drawback worth the gain of 10 armor? When is the right time to play the card, and if you wait for the opponent to have no creatures in hand - do you even need the 10 armor anymore? If you play this on turn 2, are you risking yourself from getting overrun by 0 cost trash minions and 4 mana Savannahs soon after? It's not to be so quickly judged that you are going to pull out the enemies minions out of his hand and beat them down - you are after all expending a card from your hand for this effect, and in place of this card you could have had a Fiery War Axe or Execute, for example. Take also in consideration that the 1 mana Iron Hide (5 armor with no drawback) is considered trash and unplayable.
This card will need a lot of experimentation and meta knowledge, however I suspect that there's really no need to gain so much armor so abruptly while at the same time not only risking having your opponent emptying his hand at you while you're not really ready - but also the possibility that the discount hit something the opponent will be able to use later in the game to a devastating effect.
Conclusion ; it might be an irrelevant card, as there's not such a massive need to gain so much armor so early in the game, while risking being stampede'd. Experimentation is needed, but if Iron Hide didn't see play, what does this card have over it?
A gimmicky card that reminds me a lot of Confessor Paeltras. Rotface is a bit better as there's a good chance to actually get this to trigger 2-3 times on the turn it comes out, which will often cost a lot of resources. So the question is, what can you get from Rotface?
Well, the best pull would be another Rotface, naturally, and that is on the top of highrolls along with hand refilling cards like Lich King and Ysera - as you did just spend a lot of cards to make this happen. On the average side you're probably getting various 5/5s that will often act as vanilla minions (Elise, Malchezaar, Muklas...) and on the very low end you will be getting things like the new Princes, Thalnos, the 1/1 shapeshifter, Nat Pagles... But in the end, the average minion you will be getting is usually going to be Yeti stats or better, and filling your board with Yetis is often good enough for a turn 10 play.
Conclusion ; mostly a fun card with high and low roll potential. I can't imagine it will be a mainstay in a Control deck as it requires a LOT of preparation to get the best out of it (and it can just spawn a bunch of trash, as there are a lot of underwhelming minions) but it will certainly be a fun card to play.
Garrosh's ability is mostly comparable to having a triple Flamestrike in hand that is sometimes susceptible to a taunt minion or good/bad placement by the opponent. This weapon cannot be underestimated, since if Garrosh has the life total to play with, recovering from 3x Flamestrikes hitting your board while Garrosh uses his mana to fill the board is absolutely brutal.
The hero power is however much likely the weakest upgraded hero power in the game, and Warrior who has synergy with armor and uses his life total to deal with minions loses his signature ability - that's a rather rotten deal, as it exposes you right back to being burned down by the opponent right after you've used Shadowmourne to clear the enemy minions! I mean, true, dealing 1 damage to every minion is nothing to snort at, but I don't believe it fits much in what Garrosh normally plays in the deck.
I personally am not a big fan of this hero, and feel Taunt Warrior's Sulfuras is a much more tangible upgrade. Shadowmourne is absolutely insane value, but if it gets Oozed and you're again facing the chance to be burned down after losing your armor hero power, Scourgelord Garrosh might be left behind.
Conclusion ; Scourgelord Garrosh's weapon is absolutely massive in controlling the board, but trades his useful armor up hero power for a 2 mana whirlwind effect, which I don't feel is much of an upgrade especially against an opponent who doesn't play low health minions. Remember that even Sulfuras gets held back sometimes.
- Warrior in Knights of the Frozen Throne -
Warrior is looking good in the new expansion; Control Warrior is getting the counter to Jade Druid they needed in Skulking Geist, and all Warrior decks are getting a powerful weapon tutor in form of Forge of Souls. I expect Taunt Warrior to return to the meta, especially with the addition of The Lich King into their arsenal.
- Neutral Set Review -
- Knights of the Frozen Throne : Druid Cards -
Conclusion ; irrelevant. Will mostly cause headaches from being discovered or gained through RNG effects. Does help Deathstalker Rexxar's hero power to create cheaper minions.
Conclusion ; a 1/1 Lifesteal is worthless without buffs and dropped in early game, as it works more like a vanilla 1/1 in that case. Murloc decks aren't really going for survivability anyway - they want to snowball out of control, not regain life. Will mostly cause headaches from being discovered or gained through RNG effects, and a slight nerf to Unite the Murlocs quest reward.
Conclusion ; against Pirate Warrior playing this out seems like an auto lose to N'zoth's first mate, and with the additions of whirlwind across many classes this might never connect for more than 2. Still, it's a threatening aggro minion for sure.
Conclusion ; very strong, as even Abusive Sargent got nerfed and this feels like it could be objectively just a better minion.
Conclusion ; A good budget replacement for Thalnos or Kobold Geomancer, and the Divine Shield might find application in Paladin. Warlock also might enjoy this card for use with Defile.
Conclusion ; if you're going for early game aggression with cards like this, Acherus Veteran seems like a better fit.
Conclusion ; there's not really a deck in the meta that desperately needs Spell Damage, so the text is mostly irrelevant. Possibly decent for Shaman, but Thalnos and Totems might be enough to cover them since Spirit Claws was nerfed.
Conclusion ; On an empty board, this is a 3 mana 4/4, which is very competitive. Will probably see experimentation in slow decks that don't have much for early game. Slight synergy with trash Freeze Shaman.
Conclusion ; A very decent effect actually, but probably not good enough for constructed. Good snowbally arena card.
Conclusion ; it's hard to imagine this can regularly grow beyond a 4/4, a lot of the time it's just a dead card in hand.
Conclusion ; too gimmicky.
Conclusion ; decent minion that might see some experimentation in flood decks.
Conclusion ; unlikely to live to become much more than a 4 mana 5/3 in a good case.
Conclusion ; might not be easy to pull it off, but it's a rather cool arena card.
Conclusion ; dustworm, most of the time. Too underpowered.
Conclusion ; overpriced. At 5 mana you can already get +5 power minions, which basically are good enough to take out most other minions.
Conclusion ; a powerful dragon card that fills many openings for Dragon-loving decks. In essence this is a 8/5 Dragon a lot of the time that helps with Dragon synergy cards for Priest and in Wild.
Conclusion ; adorable but too high of a cost. While it can be played to discourage boardwipes or dropped into a Doomsayer, all in all it's just a 5 mana 2/2 you pay in advance to possibly get a 8/8. It does have some potential, but I believe it to be too gimmicky and prone to bad matchups.
Conclusion ; prohibitive mana cost makes this hard to use with burn spells.
Conclusion ; overcosted.
Conclusion ; extremely powerful and should see play in various decks. I can see Jade Druid liking this card in particular.
Conclusion ; this expansion added a boatload of trash deathrattles.
Conclusion ; needs experimentation. Will depend if some Hero card becomes too powerful, like DK Anduin.
Conclusion ; very strong tempo card! Triggering a heal on yourself is very easy to do in any class with something like Mistress of Mixtures or Earthen Ring Farseer, and getting a free Happy Ghoul with it could prove defensive enough to counter strong aggro openings. Priest can just use his hero power, but I'm not sure Priest is that interesting in this card.
Conclusion ; garbage.
Conclusion ; strong, especially for handbuff and evolve decks.
Conclusion ; a strong pirate for sure and likely will replace the weaker addition to that deck, the Naga Corsair.
Conclusion ; The downside is rather negligible, as you can control when it happens and might be able to avoid it altogether. Good card for arena.
Conclusion ; a very powerful effect for neutral! It will need practical experimenting, but being able to resurrect your Tirion, Earth Elementals and other power drops could make this card playable in very specialized decks.
Conclusion ; more tools for Dragon Priest, but also playable in N'zoth loving classes! On average, this will give a very powerful dragon as there are only like 3 bad ones but +10 powerful ones like Ysera and Sindragosa.
Conclusion ; there are not really good enough cards in Hearthstone to support this card yet.
Conclusion ; this might as well be a Paladin card, as it seems it will auto include in Paladin's deck, especially the Divine Shield one. Other classes are a lot less viable for this.
Conclusion ; a powerful evolve target for sure, but not for much else. The risk of giving your opponent the 5/5 is basically unavoidable.
Conclusion ; interesting card, but playing a 1/4 on 4 that pulls out 0 costs might cost you the game. Considerations are for buffing this minion (which is not that good, as it pulls out a random minion and might still just pull a 1 or so power) or running cards like Validated Doomsayer... but then you're playing trash that spawns other trash. This is a surefire way to regret spending your dust.
Conclusion ; lifesteal isn't that relevant or prominent and there are better handbuffing cards for those who want them.
Conclusion ; terrible stats for not much of an effect. What are you planning to get on turn 5 that has already died?
Conclusion ; the highly anticipated counter to Jade Idol that also hits some other mostly less relevant targets in the game. The main use of this card is to give slow and lumbering decks like Control Warrior and Control Priest a shot at actually winning the game, and this card delivers. There are some side effects like destroying Shield Slam, Cold Blood, Inner Fire, Earthen Scales... etc, but those cards are less relevant - what really only matters is that it stops infinite Jades, and slow decks will tech this in.
Conclusion ; a cool card that easily becomes a high power drop on 6, but is probably too impractical to use (and I can only think of Warrior wanting to use this card since it's so aggressive) and just using the weapon itself might be a more reliable plan.
Conclusion ; an interesting tech choice that counters Miracle and Druid turns a lot, and possibly prevents AOEs from clearing your board. I do think it is too expensive, too specific of a counter and too easy to remove.
Conclusion ; in a swarmy deck, getting this in the opening hand is backbreaking for the opponent, and a deck that can run this card without sacrificing much is certainly possible. You can't guarantee to have this in your opening hand of course, but when you do your opponent might just scoop.
Conclusion ; needs experimenting.
Conclusion ; a cute card that should probably be only run by slow decks starving for deathrattles. The Death Knight cards are a lot lower in power level to Ysera dream cards, but playing a 4 mana 2/2 to get a random DK card (that might turn out useless) might be too much of a tempo drop. There's also the weakness to Priest stealing it rather easily. There are definitive highroll potentials with this card by getting Death and Decay and Frostmourne.
Conclusion ; it's hard to imagine any class sacrifice their 4 drops for a sort of okayish minion. Shouldn't see play.
Conclusion ; one of the best taunt minions in the game, well stated and with a powerful but significantly weaker Ysera-like effect on 8. Will especially be run in other classes that lacked a good 8 drop other than Medivh, and Stonehill Defender just got buffed for having this as an option. Note though that these Death Knight cards are not 'always' good like Ysera dream cards; there are definitive highrolls (Frostmourne and Death and Decay) and lowrolls that don't fit your deck, harm your deck too much or do very little like Death Grip. Will definitively spark the use of Black Knights.
- Final Conclusion for Each Class and the Frozen Throne meta -
Druid :
Druid's Token deck, already a Tier 1 deck in both formats, has gained an exceptionally strong addition with Druid of the Swarm. With a massive statline of 1/5 for 2 mana, this beast can soak up and destroy a lot of popular turn 1 creatures (Patches the Pirate and Southsea Deckhand) and remain standing, possibly getting even further powered by Mark of Y'Shaarj. With this powerful body it can provide protection for Vicious Fledgling and other beaters, creating a very difficult combination to counter reminisce of Zoo's Flame Imp + Voidwalker. Even late game this creature can be useful by gaining Poisonous to bring down taunts.
The drawback from Skulking Geist might harm Jade Druid, however do note that the deck can be built in new ways that are not so vulnerable for losing Jade Idol, has gained good antiaggro tools, has Malfurion the Pestilent and Ultimate Infestation, and can even without Jade Idols grow the biggest golems of the Jade gang. The deck will remain strong, just that more Control decks will be playable with Geist around.
Slower Druid decks have gained Malfurion the Pestilent and Ultimate Infestation, two highly powerful cards that will open up Ramp Druid and Jade Druid to possibly push for Tier 1.
The other additions are decent and it could happen that Taunt and Control Druid - defensive spin-off decks on the Ramp theme - also appear in Standard (and should be viable in Wild) but I anticipate these two lack enough good tools to make it out of Tier 2 and 3.
Hunter :
There are nowhere enough tools to bring out a slower Control Hunter even in Wild, and to be fair even with the cards I list above I don't believe Midrange Hunter will make much of a move out of the bottom, especially with the new AOE spells and creatures arriving that challenge Hunter's ever lovable turn 1 1/1 plays.
Corpse Widow to me looks like the only real card out of these three that will see play, as Hunter's 5 slot has been lacking and reluctantly filled by the Rhinos, and Widow does allow for some crazy tempo swings. Stitched Tracker deserves a mention for being one of the strongest fake-tutor cards in the game, that in almost any other class would see instant inclusion - but in Hunter might just turn to 'not face enough'.
Deathstalker Rexxar's battlecry is great, but his hero power is almost a 100% downgrade for a class with such lack in control tools; again, almost any other class would be able to use this much better.
Mage :
Even if Mage got nothing out of this expansion, it would still probably rule Tier 1, especially with the addition of Skulking Geist. Instead, Mage gets the excellent Coldwraith for basically any deck, support for Exodia Mage (a deck that with just a small push in the form of Ghastly Conjurer might have become the killer of all Midrange and Control) and a Death Knight that supports the Elemental tribe, a decent tribe that might turn just too weak next to the various Freeze and Exodia variants it can build.
Mage will without worry remain on top of Tier 1 with multiple decks, in my opinion.
Paladin :
With a Midrange Paladin being in Tier 1 and Control Paladin waiting for Skulking Geist to become available, Paladin is looking good in taking up the top of the meta with several very different decks. The existing decks all get great upgrades (the Lich King especially handy to them, especially through Stonehills) and Paladin stands very well to counter what new decks are expected from other classes, regaining its ability at attrition war with the new Uther of the Ebon Blade with a tiny chance at a combo win spin-off.
With Jade being soft countered, Paladin can now also push more for a deathrattle theme, and Corpse Raiser could find a place in such a deck. Corpsetaker might see inclusion in the deck though it is questionable, as there are so many must-have 4 costs in it already.
Aggro/Bubble Paladin is getting a push towards viability too, a deck that is already crazy strong in Wild.
Priest :
Depending on the results of Skulking Geist, Priest might shy away more from playing Inner Fire/Silence Priest and focus more on Control, where it always had a powerful arsenal to play with. I would expect Inner Fire to suffer a small setback and possibly need to start using cards like Kooky Chemist if it wanted to continue on with its plan (since Geist will not affect Divine Spirit, still allowing for gross overkills) but I believe the deck will mostly remain unaffected and instead be pushed out by returning Control decks from Warrior and Mage, if Jade Druid becomes less present. Note too that Inner Fire Priest normally farms Jade Druid, so with that fantastic matchup gone Inner Fire might just fade out even if Geist isn't countering it that often.
Priest did get one of the best Deathrattle minions in Standard, a minion they can get from Freed from Amber, and with their massive ability to heal and boardwipe with Dragonfire Potion and Spirit Lash, I expect Priest to have 3 slow viable decks - Control, Deathrattle and Dragon, with at least one reaching the top of Tier 2 Standard.
DK Anduin is going to probably be more of a Highlander or Wild Reno thing, as it really shines with Raza. I'm unsure about the deck's success, but it does highly reward the Highlander build.
Rogue :
I wouldn't really say Rogue got much out of the expansion other than the fantastic Shadowblade and the probably more fun oriented DK. Miracle will get stronger especially if the meta slows down as it is capable of truly disgusting one turn kills - especially with the sneaky new Death Knight.
Shaman :
I don't really think Shaman got a lot of the expansion, but comically enough it never really needed much. It has competitive decks of various styles across all Tiers, and probably the best card it got, Thrall Deathseer, pushes it's most successful decks of Jelly (Jade and Elemental) and Token even further. Token Shaman is already Tier 1, and I would expect Jelly Shaman to also join it there.
Snowfury Giant might be enough to return a interesting Crusher Shaman, as it works basically as well as Arcane Giant. I don't believe a deck like this can get over Tier 2, as it is countered by other Shamans and probably beaten down by the improved token Druids.
Warlock :
Warlock basically had nothing to lose since it didn't exist in Standard, and now has a chance to push back into the meta with probably a Control deck. I think zoo and Discardlock still get beaten by token and pirate decks, and Discardlock is still a flawed mechanic that needs cards that can control its drawback better.
Control Warlock, or Handlock, stands in an absolutely fantastic spot if the meta slows down; to those who missed the era of old Handlock, it was dubbed the 'Control Killer' with its turn 4 Giants and Twilight Drakes that it then proceeds to copy with Manipulators, all the while having good AOE (Twisted Nether being the only true bomb in the game) and the deadliest Hero replacement in the game, Lord Jaraxxus. Sad thing that Jade Druid might become less present, as Handlock farmed them even with a bad hand.
With the addition of Defile and to a lesser degree the Dreadlord, Handlock has finally been given an answer to Turn 1 and 2 pressure, and with DK Gul'dan gained a survival tool to help against the most dreaded matchup - Burn and Freeze Mage. This set right here is the biggest chance Gul'dan will get to have a Control deck in Standard, I believe. The power of Defile and the DK is simply insane, and will get even better over time.
In Wild, Renolock should return to the top of Tier 1 Wild with these additions.
Warrior :
Pirate Warrior remains Tier 1, likely just slightly upgraded by Forge of Souls. It might struggle a bit more with Defile and Spirit Lash in the game, but the sheer power of it can't be so easily stopped.
Control and Taunt Warrior basically gains the most by the Skulking Geist existing, as it can now much freely build slow, lumbering decks that outcontrol the opponent. I think with the existence of Geist, Taunt Warrior will be able to push towards Tier 1 again. However, I'm not sure where Control Warrior stands anymore; I feel that Taunt Warrior is just a supreme deck with better odds against almost every other deck (especially with cards like Dirty Rat) and if that turns out the case then Control Warrior might just disappear in favor of various Taunt builds.
Dead Man's Hand existing possibly brings a new joke archetype for Warrior, and is worth mentioning; if the meta ever becomes so slow that this is possible, a never exhausting never fatiguing Warrior could exist. I've definitively built dumber things that worked!
Thank you for reading and commenting. As we approach the new expansion full of wondrous new toys for us to experiment with, remember all :
''If you put your heart into the game, and/or are Rank 20, all decks are viable!''
Comparable to Frostwolf Warlord, which is actually probably easier to buff above this minion and requires a lot less work. Both, however, seem unplayable.
Conclusion ; unlikely to be worth the effort. Frostwolf Warlord might just be objectively better.
Keep in mind, Death Revenant gains stats for each damaged minion across the board, Frostwolf Warlord gains stats for each FRIENDLY minion.
And I don't agree with you on Bladestorm. You say warrior has synergy with armor, but other than Shield Slam and weapon hits, there's nothing for Armor Up! to synergize with. You also say that Bladestorm is very weak if the opponent doesn't play low health minions, and even DIE, INSECT! doesn't kill everything. In fact bladstorm lets you deal with pretty much any minion very efficiently, with your synergy cards, Execute, Sleep with the Fishes ; lets you build armor as well very efficiently with Armorsmith, lets you draw cards very efficiently with Battle Rage and Acolyte of Pain... DIE, INSECT! and Armor Up! don't do that. What I mean by efficient is that all these combos will cost you a single card with Bladestorm, as opposed to 2 cards with Whirlwind, Ravaging Ghoul, Blood To Ichor, etc. You'll make insane tempo swings AND preserve card advantage with bladestorm, on top of OP Shadowmourne. If you are afraid of face damage nothing stops you from playing other armor cards like Shield Block or Mountainfire Armor !
I've only read your warrior review and I agree with pretty much everything else, I like your way of thinking I'll read the other ones later.
Hey, thanks for the comment! Warrior is sadly among the last I did, when my time was running short, so I didn't expand as much on the class as I did on Druid. That Death Revenant entry is a bit lacking!
I did in fact notice that Death Revenant gains +1/+1 for every other damaged minion, however I felt that casting a 5 cost minion that requires actual setup to be decent (as it starts at a rather unplayable 3/3, and with the high mana cost of 5 it seems to demand to be played alongside a Blood Razor deathrattle or Whirlwind only, to not spend your entire turn making a big dumb vanilla card) turns out just more demanding, too synergy and opponent reliant just to possibly get... like a single 6/6 or 7/7 on average for all that, in a most likely whirlwindy control deck that aims to outlast opponents? Also, with the high demand of the rest of the deck for Whirlwind effects to me this creature looks to be unplayable, and should have been a neutral instead. To me Frostwolf Warlord remains better as it with little expense and some deck adjusting it easily comes out as a 5 mana 6/6 even in Taunt Warrior, and that relies more on your action and not your opponent's.
I'll give some more thought for Scourgelord Garrosh as you do bring up some interesting positives to consider, but my concern is that Quest Warrior just outclasses Control Warrior now (especially with Stonehill Defenders and The Lich King) and everything you can perform with the new Garrosh - Taunt Warrior will perhaps just do more efficiently. It might turn out that if Scourgelord Garrosh isn't as well performing as Quest - Control Warrior isn't good enough to run over Taunt Warrior anymore.
Druid's Token deck, already a Tier 1 deck in both formats, has gained an exceptionally strong addition with Druid of the Swarm. With a massive statline of 1/5 for 2 mana, this beast can soak up and destroy a lot of popular turn 1 creatures (Patches the Pirate and Southsea Deckhand) and remain standing, possibly getting even further powered by Mark of Y'Shaarj. With this powerful body it can provide protection for Vicious Fledgling and other beaters, creating a very difficult combination to counter reminisce of Zoo's Flame Imp + Voidwalker. Even late game this creature can be useful by gaining Poisonous to bring down taunts.
The drawback from Stalking Geist might harm Jade Druid, however do note that the deck can be built in new ways that are not so vulnerable for losing Jade Idol, has gained good antiaggro tools, has Malfurion the Pestilent and Ultimate Infestation, and can even without Jade Idols grow the biggest golems of the Jade gang. The deck will remain strong, just that more Control decks will be playable with Geist around.
Slower Druid decks have gained Malfurion the Pestilent and Ultimate Infestation, two highly powerful cards that will open up Ramp Druid and Jade Druid to possibly push for Tier 1.
The other additions are decent and it could happen that Taunt and Control Druid - defensive spin-off decks on the Ramp theme - also appear in Standard (and should be viable in Wild) but I anticipate these two lack enough good tools to make it out of Tier 2 and 3.
Hunter :
There are nowhere enough tools to bring out a slower Control Hunter even in Wild, and to be fair even with the cards I list above I don't believe Midrange Hunter will make much of a move out of the bottom, especially with the new AOE spells and creatures arriving that challenge Hunter's ever lovable turn 1 1/1 plays.
Corpse Widow to me looks like the only real card out of these three that will see play, as Hunter's 5 slot has been lacking and reluctantly filled by the Rhinos, and Widow does allow for some crazy tempo swings. Stitched Tracker deserves a mention for being one of the strongest fake-tutor cards in the game, that in almost any other class would see instant inclusion - but in Hunter might just turn to 'not face enough'.
Deathstalker Rexxar's battlecry is great, but his hero power is almost a 100% downgrade for a class with such lack in control tools; again, almost any other class would be able to use this much better.
Mage :
Even if Mage got nothing out of this expansion, it would still probably rule Tier 1, especially with the addition of Stalking Geist. Instead, Mage gets the excellent Coldwraith for basically any deck, support for Exodia Mage (a deck that with just a small push in the form of Ghastly Conjurer might have become the killer of all Midrange and Control) and a Death Knight that supports the Elemental tribe, a decent tribe that might turn just too weak next to the various Freeze and Exodia variants it can build.
Mage will without worry remain on top of Tier 1 with multiple decks, in my opinion.
Paladin :
With a Midrange Paladin being in Tier 1 and Control Paladin waiting for Stalking Geist to become available, Paladin is looking good in taking up the top of the meta with several very different decks. The existing decks all get great upgrades (the Lich King especially handy to them, especially through Stonehills) and Paladin stands very well to counter what new decks are expected from other classes, regaining its ability at attrition war with the new Uther of the Ebon Blade with a tiny chance at a combo win spin-off.
With Jade being soft countered, Paladin can now also push more for a deathrattle theme, and Corpse Raiser could find a place in such a deck. Corpsetaker might see inclusion in the deck though it is questionable, as there are so many must-have 4 costs in it already.
Aggro/Bubble Paladin is getting a push towards viability too, a deck that is already crazy strong in Wild.
Priest :
Depending on the results of Stalking Geist, Priest might shy away more from playing Inner Fire/Silence Priest and focus more on Control, where it always had a powerful arsenal to play with. I would expect Inner Fire to suffer a small setback and possibly need to start using cards like Kooky Chemist if it wanted to continue on with its plan (since Geist will not affect Divine Spirit, still allowing for gross overkills) but I believe the deck will mostly remain unaffected and instead be pushed out by returning Control decks from Warrior and Mage, if Jade Druid becomes less present. Note too that Inner Fire Priest normally farms Jade Druid, so with that fantastic matchup gone Inner Fire might just fade out even if Geist isn't countering it that often.
Priest did get one of the best Deathrattle minions in Standard, a minion they can get from Freed from Amber, and with their massive ability to heal and boardwipe with Dragonfire Potion and Spirit Lash, I expect Priest to have 3 slow viable decks - Control, Deathrattle and Dragon, with at least one reaching the top of Tier 2 Standard.
DK Anduin is going to probably be more of a Highlander or Wild Reno thing, as it really shines with Raza. I'm unsure about the deck's success, but it does highly reward the Highlander build.
Rogue :
I wouldn't really say Rogue got much out of the expansion other than the fantastic Shadowblade and the probably more fun oriented DK. Miracle will get stronger especially if the meta slows down as it is capable of truly disgusting one turn kills - especially with the sneaky new Death Knight.
Shaman :
I don't really think Shaman got a lot of the expansion, but comically enough it never really needed much. It has competitive decks of various styles across all Tiers, and probably the best card it got, Thrall Deathseer, pushes it's most successful decks of Jelly (Jade and Elemental) and Token even further. Token Shaman is already Tier 1, and I would expect Jelly Shaman to also join it there.
Snowfury Giant might be enough to return a interesting Crusher Shaman, as it works basically as well as Arcane Giant. I don't believe a deck like this can get over Tier 2, as it is countered by other Shamans and probably beaten down by the improved token Druids.
Warlock :
Warlock basically had nothing to lose since it didn't exist in Standard, and now has a chance to push back into the meta with probably a Control deck. I think zoo and Discardlock still get beaten by token and pirate decks, and Discardlock is still a flawed mechanic that needs cards that can control its drawback better.
Control Warlock, or Handlock, stands in an absolutely fantastic spot if the meta slows down; to those who missed the era of old Handlock, it was dubbed the 'Control Killer' with its turn 4 Giants and Twilight Drakes that it then proceeds to copy with Manipulators, all the while having good AOE (Twisted Nether being the only true bomb in the game) and the deadliest Hero replacement in the game, Lord Jaraxxus. Sad thing that Jade Druid might become less present, as Handlock farmed them even with a bad hand.
With the addition of Defile and to a lesser degree the Dreadlord, Handlock has finally been given an answer to Turn 1 and 2 pressure, and with DK Gul'dan gained a survival tool to help against the most dreaded matchup - Burn and Freeze Mage. This set right here is the biggest chance Gul'dan will get to have a Control deck in Standard, I believe. The power of Defile and the DK is simply insane, and will get even better over time.
In Wild, Renolock should return to the top of Tier 1 Wild with these additions.
Warrior :
Pirate Warrior remains Tier 1, likely just slightly upgraded by Forge of Souls. It might struggle a bit more with Defile and Spirit Lash in the game, but the sheer power of it can't be so easily stopped.
Control and Taunt Warrior basically gains the most by the Stalking Geist existing, as it can now much freely build slow, lumbering decks that outcontrol the opponent. I think with the existence of Geist, Taunt Warrior will be able to push towards Tier 1 again. However, I'm not sure where Control Warrior stands anymore; I feel that Taunt Warrior is just a supreme deck with better odds against almost every other deck (especially with cards like Dirty Rat) and if that turns out the case then Control Warrior might just disappear in favor of various Taunt builds.
Dead Man's Hand existing possibly brings a new joke archetype for Warrior, and is worth mentioning; if the meta ever becomes so slow that this is possible, a never exhausting never fatiguing Warrior could exist. I've definitively built dumber things that worked!
Thank you for reading and commenting. As we approach the new expansion full of wondrous new toys for us to experiment with, remember all :
''If you put your heart into the game, and/or are Rank 20, all decks are viable!''
Hello there!
As a little personal exercise to see how well I do in reviewing and predicting the important cards and new meta, I've decided to stealth myself during work to write this down. Take note that this is all more for fun and exercise, but can also serve as a good way to bounce thoughts between each other about what you anticipate about the cards and how the decks perform. Feel more than welcome to add your comments!
Additional note : this has been copy-pasted from my blog at Obscure Mechanism and some of the formatting has been damaged, so I'll be fixing the various errors that have come up. Some of the introductory and class analyzing has been cut out to adhere to the forum rules of max characters.
Thanks for reading!
- Druid Set Review -
- Druid entering the Knights of the Frozen Throne -
Druid enters the new expansion with three well-defined and powerful decks that average between Tier 1 and Tier 2, competitively. These decks are; Token Druid, Jade Druid and Ramp Druid, generally all three have very little in terms of bad matchups except that both Jade and Ramp are vulnerable to getting overrun in the early game by extremely fast and tempo-oriented opponents.
All three of these decks on first glance stand basically unharmed by the new cards introduced in Knights of the Frozen Throne, with potential to not only improve existing archetypes but also creating new ones.
- Knights of the Frozen Throne : Druid Cards -
Gnash is a rather unimportant card, outclassed by Feral Rage and to a lesser degree by Wrath. To not dawdle on this card too long, the short version is that Feral Rage allows not only access to 4 damage (a significant improvement over 3, as many problematic minions on turn 3-4 have 4 health) but in a matchup where armor is more important (for example against Freeze Mage) gaining 8 armor is just highly superior. Wrath works better as well since it allows 3 damage that goes through taunts, doesn't need your hero to attack (and spend health doing so), has the flexibility of card draw and a much better mana cost for the effect.
Conclusion : similar to Bite or Claw, a underpowered, inflexible card outclassed by other classic cards like Wrath, Swipe and so on. Should not see play.
Crypt Lord's health and taunt will provide massive delay to aggro but 1 attack is a serious drawback if you need the Crypt Lord to actually do something proactive, like killing an enemy Manatide or Flametongue Totem. It is also highly likely that minions that attack into the Crypt Lord remain alive after doing so, requiring you to use another card like Swipe or similar to finish them off or suffer value loss on board.
Conclusion : Tar Creeper does the job better as a wall since it has 3 attack on opponent's turn and has the relevant tag of Elemental. It is not enough to just delay the enemy minions, a minion should in some manner threaten the opponent's creatures in some way. Probably an irrelevant card.
Not as bad as it looks, since it had to be bumped to 5 mana (from the original 4) for being too efficient. It's probably an okay card in Arena due to the fact that decks there are less refined and 2 poisonous 1/2 spiders can wreck havoc on your opponent's plans (just look at any highlight of Stubborn Gastropod for clarification) but in Constructed formats this is too little, too slow and too vulnerable.
Conclusion : too weak of an effect for too much mana. This card of course wouldn't be run in any aggro deck, but the 5 slot in slower Druid is also highly competitive; with the almost autoinclude of Nourish and the possible return of Druid of the Claw, there won't be room for such a card. Probably decent in Arena.
Versatile, decent minion with both modes being relevant and especially valuable as it turns into a Beast, making it a target for Mark of Y'Sharj. A 1/5 taunt for 2 is much better than Crypt Lord since getting this out turn 1 (with coin) or 2 it actually challenges a lot of small aggro creatures with 1 health, like Patches the Pirate and Bloodsail Corsair. The poisonous mode is relevant too in slower matchups as it will often force the opponent to use some resource to destroy the 1/2 creature. Note too it works with Fandral. The downside of this creature is that the 2 slot in slower Druid is insanely competitive, with almost always auto-includes of Wild Growth and Wrath. There's also potential this minion just ends up in an aggressive/token Druid, as a 1/5 taunt for 2 can provide amazing protection for other smaller minions, or the poisonous version might discourage playing down your defensive minions just to get easily removed.
Conclusion : a good minion, probably great in Arena. It might turn out unplayable in slower decks since it occupies the 2-slot, but aggro decks might welcome it especially to protect their Fledgling.
The Bolster card in creature form is a lot worse, since the mana cost for such a specific synergy ability becomes less playable the larger the overall combo costs - in this case, the combo in mind is Spreading Plague into Strongshell Scavenger, a whooping 9-cost combo to get a number of large taunt minions. The other application of this card is simply play it when you have several taunts on board, curve it out basically, which is a more reasonable approach and is probably what you should be aiming for. So turn 2 - Druid of the Swarm, turn 3 - Crypt Lord or Tar Creeper, turn 4 - Strongshell Scavenger to have a theoretical board of 3/7 Druid of the Swarm + 2/3 Scavenger + 3/9 growing Crypt Lord... In theory this is alright, back-breaking for something like Pirate Warrior to get through, but in execution should prove a lot more difficult to execute successfully especially if your opponent is aware of what you're trying to pull off. Running off with this should win the game in short order, which will happen every once in a while. The more likely scenario is that the opponent will attempt to kill off enough of these taunt minions to lessen the effect of Scavenger, so the question becomes this; how much value does the Scavenger have to provide to be worth a deck slot? A 4 mana 2/3 is basically game losing, and a 2/3 that gives another minion +2/+2 (preferably a minion that can attack on the same turn) is almost acceptable; remember, you're running a rather bad situational card that only gets acceptable if you hit the required conditions - this in itself is a cost, so just hitting one minion for +2/+2 (making this a 4 mana 4/5) is not good enough. in this case I think the minimum requirement for making this playable is to hit at least 2 minions to make up for the 2/3 stats and the fact you included this card in the first place. Depending on the meta and what archetypes surface as superior will determine the usefulness of this card.
Conclusion : Meta-depending, but more towards unplayable. In a curve deck similar to Quest Warrior this has the ability to shine by putting incredibly durable taunt creatures very fast into play. To pay off for the fact you're running this card, ideally you hit at least 2 other minions on average. If this card does in fact prove right for the meta, opponents will do all they can to remove your taunt minions or at least damage them to the point where the buff does very little. I also think the combination of Spreading Plague into this card is too far fetched, expensive and requires too many conditions to be worth running; you actually have to face a player that goes wide with minions for this to work, and a smart opponent might see through your plan and deny it. This card should be good enough when you can play it more as close to curve as possible to buff 2 or so minions, not holding it for a magical combo that gets absolutely slaughtered by a Devolve, Mass Dispel (if combos like this become present in the meta, Dispel might surface as a 1 off) or Shadowflame.
This card has the very interesting aspect of being better the more you are losing on board, which is in itself a very polarized sell. Against aggressive, board-flooding archetypes this card shines, as getting around 3 of these 1/5 beast taunts should pay off the mana cost and situational card inclusion; the problem being is if you're faced against a midrange, slower or more control oriented deck, where this might summon less scarabs and they might prove almost might perform as a whirlwind that healed you for a turn, reminding me of Fog in Magic the Gathering. Also note that 1/5 creatures on average will probably not be able to kill off much of the attackers on turn 4/5 when I expect this to be cast, and the attackers might successfully remove a lot of the taunts without much loss. There's a possibility to run Strongshell Scavenger after this card goes off, a 9 mana combo that gives you a 3/7 taunt for every opponent minion in play. (Provided the opponent doesn't have 7 minions, because Strongshell won't fit into the board anymore!) However the problem of this wombo-combo is that it's either a two turn play or a 9 mana combo that benefits against large enemy boards - and then the opponent gets a chance to deal with the creatures, be it Mass Dispel, Shadowflame, Devolve or whatever else ends up being in the meta - and believe me, people will quickly prepare their decks to deal with this if it actually turns up good.
Conclusion : Spreading Plague seems like a 1-off in a deck, a tech card played on curve to help stabilize after ramping up against an aggressive and swarmy deck. The card gets worse the more there's slower or more combo-oriented decks in the meta, and might see occasional inclusion in slow Druid decks.
An interesting card for sure, hard to assess properly. Let's look at it independently for both abilities. Druid has always been lacking on good AOE, but this card might not qualify for that role; while 3 damage to everything is awesome, a 5 drop deathrattle might just be avoided and abused by the opponent - they can decide to trigger the Fatespinner first (dealing 3 damage is super easy, especially for aggressive decks) then flood the board again, and you're very close to being square one again. The other mode seems to be more for flood decks itself, lending support to token Druid (a Tier 1 deck already!) but again - the opponent might decide to boardwipe your minions and then trigger the Fatespinner, rendering the buff harmless. The problem of this card is that the statline is so terrible that your opponent will most likely be able to control its effect almost every time to his benefit (that is, if he guesses the mode you selected, which on average should be evident by the board state) and being a Deathrattle effect is also a great vulnerability simply because the effect might not matter if it can even get a chance to go off. Another problem is... who is this card for? Jades don't need it, Ramp has better options and Token's 5 slot is already filled to the brim with much more efficient cards, Living Mana and Bittertide Hydra.
Conclusion : cool design but I expect it to be unplayable. The stats on it are terrible for a 5 drop, and the effect should be easy to control by the opponent. I can imagine some fringe situations where Token Druid plays this and creates a difficult situation to defuse for your opponent, but a lot of classes are capable of punishing a 5/3 play on 5. I don't think it helps any archetype that needs the ability it has.
An insane card, basically an always good Firelands Portal, Sprint and Shield Block rolled into 1 card in a class that doesn't mind playing 10 cost cards that much. It reminds me a lot of a better Kazakus potion that always delivers good options. There's not a lot to discuss here, the stabilization and refill this card offers makes it almost an auto-include in any slow, rampy Druid that will most likely exist in the meta of Knights of the Frozen Throne. There's still a consideration on what cards will be excluded from the deck (possibly 1x Nourish in Ramp Druid, 1x Auctioneer in Jade...) for this, and will you run 2 copies or is 1 enough. It remind me a lot of Call of the Wild, as you could view the 5 damage as Huffer, the 5/5 as a significant upgrade to Leokk, and the 5 Armor and 5 Cards as a replacement for Mishra's defensive capability.
Conclusion : a powerhouse of a card that will most certainly make its way into Ramp Druid and very possibly into Midrange-ish and Jade. Two copies maybe overdoing it since the massive draw ability becomes a liability, but I could see this card pushing out at least 1 Nourish.
Mechanically, Malfurion is a very uninteresting and unimpressive card that does the hero upgrade in a very non-flashy manner. In reality, though, it is a rather powerful upgrade after which it will be difficult to have a board against Druid.
The Hero Power is quite strong, allowing for rather cheap removal of 3 health minions and quickly clearing up the board state from threats; once stabilized with Earthen Scales and Feral Rage, you should have plenty of life to work with to secure the board in this way. Even if just armoring up, it should be noted that even if getting steady shot every turn you're still gaining +1 armor; this is very reminiscent of Warrior's improved Tank up, where Warrior would slowly but surely escape lethal threat from Hunter or Mage and secure the game.
On top of this very high improvement you're also getting 5 armor and 2 minions of your choice, sealing the deal of this card just being one of the strongest Death Knight Heroes in the game.
Conclusion : a powerful card hidden under rather unexciting text, a definitive inclusion for already strong slower Druid archetypes that aim to outlast the enemy threat.
A very self-conflicted card - a high cost, low attack but very durable beast that wants to die to get its deathrattle off. The effect is by no doubt strong; with the reveal of the Lich King and the existing high power cards like Caller of the Claw, Dark Arakkoa, Primordial Drake and so on, there is no lack of good taunt minions that can be resurrected. Add in the Stonehill Defender, Tar Creeper and the various Scarab 1/5s that will die during game and you have yourself a full board of high stated minions. Add in N'zoth the Corruptor and in theory you have an unstoppable late board game... but is this at all reliable to pull off? Well, no.
A 9 mana 3/7 is a massive tempo loss, about 10 stat points lower than should be gained from this cost, and a gigantic mana cost that is repaid only if the deathrattle goes off - something that can be ignored, silenced, Devolved and just outright hard to trigger if the board isn't right for it. If played in a theoretical Taunt Druid, a deck that also uses much smaller minions to able to sustain till late game, there's also a probability that all Hadronox does is summon a bunch of trash 1/5 scarabs as there's not enough time to spend turn after turn casting giant taunts like the Lich King and Primordial Drake; this is not that crazy payoff you wanted for investing 9 mana into a 3/7 minion, isn't it? Even N'zoth struggles to see play (more for the reason of low Standard deathrattle viability, but it is comparable) but N'zoth is infinitely better as it impacts the board RIGHT AWAY, and the effect cannot be countered as easily as a 3/7 deathrattler. A saving grace is that Devolve/Hex are Shaman only, but let's assume that Hadronox is actually widely played so silence becomes more present, and you include N'zoth the Corruptor in the deck which resurrects Hadronox even if it was silenced; surely you should expect that a 2nd one will go off, and that is probable. So I would expect that a Hadronox deck also wants to run N'zoth, since it's one of the most insane cards for N'zoth to revive, and it gives Hadronox a second chance to go off. If a N'zoth turn happens and Hadronox is revived, the opponent will need probably more than 2 turns to destroy everything that comes out of the troublesome duo.
So Hadronox's viability in my opinion relies on N'zoth's viability; they each make each other better, Hadronox by itself is too vulnerable and N'zoth without Hadronox is probably too ineffective in Standard, so to answer is Hadronox playable we must make N'zoth playable in Druid.
N'zoth in Standard from actually usable creatures can revive Aya Blackpaw, Infested Tauren, Bone Drake and Cairne Bloodhoof. There's also stuff like Arfus and various very conditional deathrattle minions, but their viability seems very low to me and doesn't assist the deck. There's also the problem of these minions being very tempo loss, and a slow Druid already has to deal with a lot of tempo loss already; it pushes the deck even further into getting steamrolled while you toy around with your low stat minions and ramp cards. However, against slower matchups,... I can see this happen actually, a late game where you obtain an almost unstoppable grip on the board, something similar to Jade Druid's super late game except that instead of raw stats you have deathrattles and other abilities, and not even a card like Twisting Nether does much to slow you down. Then again, we're talking about a super late game deck here with a ton of setup, and with the large push of several Midrange cards a slow deck like this might just regularly get steamrolled.
Conclusion ; to me it seems that Hadronox's viability depends strongly on how well does N'zoth assist the deck, and N'zoth's viability depends what deathrattles are available in the format and does the meta allow you time to set these turns up with said deathrattles. On paper the synergy of the two create an almost unstoppable super late game army, but as always the case with decks like that - it's if you can get there, and did you really need to take that whole complicated journey just to achieve such a convoluted, vulnerable win. Triggering Hadronox remains the biggest problem point, very possibly big enough that it pushes the card to Wild or fun decks only.
- Druid in Knights of the Frozen Throne -
Druid's already stable arsenal of decks will get even more fortified after this expansion especially thanks to the Death Knight card, Ultimate Infestation and possibly Spreading Plague - if the meta demands it, that is.
Ramp Druid seems to have gained the most, not only by getting the interesting taunt toys but also the fact that other classes got whirlwind effects; the biggest enemy of slow Druid, aggressive swarmy decks, might get soft countered by all these whirlwind cards, allowing them to play even more greedier decks.
Token Druid remains strong, as it was always less affected by whirlwind spells than other swarmy decks like Token Shaman or Pirate Warrior by using buff cards or instant board refills like Living Mana. The new Druid of the Swarm looks like a decent inclusion in the deck as well.
Despite the soft counter Jade Druid got in the form of Skulking Geist, I think the deck will still march on pretty strong and possibly replace some of the card choices with these new power cards, particularly the Death Knight Hero and the early game defense - which was so far the only real weakness Jade had.
I can see two new weaker archetypes happen; Taunt Druid and Control Druid. The Taunt one is a more curve deck that can swarm the board with difficult to kill minions from very early, and then just builds on that advantage with value cards like the Lich King and possibly can include cards like the Hadronox + N'zoth. Control Druid is similar to Ramp and Taunt Druid, but is less gimmicky and more oriented towards cards like Ultimate Infestation, the Lich King and perhaps other value generating creatures like Ysera and will quite likely run Hadronox + N'zoth with creatures like Infested Tauren or Sludge Belcher in Wild. The difference would be less reliance on smaller taunts and more focus on resource gap and advantage.
The reason why I consider these two 'weaker' archetypes is that cards to truly refine them I don't believe are there yet, especially without good boardwipes in Druid. Over time and especially in Wild these decks will get a chance to become super fine tuned, but for now in Standard should be beaten by their already functional and faster competition.
- Hunter Set Review -
- Hunter entering the Knights of the Frozen Throne -
Hunter has traditionally been pigeon-holed into playing aggressive and midrange decks with little synergy other than just curving out powerful minions, and this has been the case since the start of the game with an obvious reason - because Hunter lacks good removal, good card draw, good healing and good board clears - all the makings of a good control deck and class. As of right now, Hunter only has an aggressive curve midrange deck since its aggro archetype has been outclassed by Warrior since the introduction of Patches the Pirate and Bloodsail Cultist, and Hunter itself suffered a dark time ever since Reno was in the meta. Hunter used to kill opponents on turn 6-8 back in the day; Pirate Warrior does that in half the time, and more convincingly.
Every expansion Hunter has been given tools it cannot really use; slow and value cards that turn out unusable, because Hunter once losing the board has a miserable, near impossible time getting it back. Is this expansion any different?
- Knights of the Frozen Throne : Hunter Cards -
There's a decent number of strong deathrattles available to Hunter - Savannah Highmane being among the strongest minions in the game even today - however traditionally Hunter never found any success in small value cards like these. We've seen Stampede, Lock and Load and Feign Death, and if these cards were given to any class except Hunter - they might have seen play in a decent Tier deck, but never in Hunter. Play Dead is for very specific targets in the game, but in the best case it hits something like a Highmane... Which for a wombo-combo only card isn't something too crazy in value, it's 2 2/2s for the cost of running a card that will be dead most of the time of the game. I suspect that the case will be the same now; instead of Play Dead, why not just run another reliable creature that will beat the opponent down instead of filling your deck with synergistic cards for a class that has trouble drawing cards and inability to return to a lost board? Aside from that, Hunter already has some decently strong creatures that do this effect, like Terrorscale and Huhuran... Yet, they see no play. What will it take to get this effect finally playable in Hunter, I cannot imagine... other than the idea that a card like this will never fit the class until the other problems are fixed.
Conclusion ; in the long line up of synergy/combo cards in Hunter that never seen play in legitimately competitive decks... This card fits that category all too well. If Feign Death didn't see play despite having a chance during the age of Sludge Belcher and Mad Scientist, I'm not sure what it will take to make this playable.
A very strong card. The ability to tutor up additional copies of Savannah Highmane, N'zoth and god knows what else you're running in the deck is actually pretty intense... You not only fish out the perfect counter against your opponent's play, but you also keep the original in the deck! However, the problem to Hunter remains that such a tempo losing card might be too much for them to handle, as they'll get out-tempo'd out of the early game and have basically no comeback mechanism. Against a slow deck, though, this is simply insane if your discover goes as planned, you can even fish out tech cards that counter whatever you are facing. Needless to say in any other class this card would be entirely busted.
Conclusion ; a powerful card that does not fit an aggressive Hunter build, and the slower builds have so far been pretty unsuccessful. If a slower Hunter deck happens, this will most likely get a spot in it. It reminds me a lot of King's Elekk, although that card was much more competitively stat'd.
A bit of a filler card, mostly anti-control but does very little against aggressive decks as the 3 health on turn 3 is a lot worse than 4 for trading purpose. The beast tag and shroud effect are very handy for landing abilities (Crackling Razormaw and Houndmaster) and this card will be problematic for slower decks to pinpoint with their removal.
Conclusion ; a decent card, if the meta turns out too aggressive it might not see play due to having just 3 health on 3. The 3 slot is also very much occupied with Animal Companion, Deadly Shot, Unleash the Hounds and whatever other minions and spells you wish to run on that cost, like Vicious Fledgling. Good against slower decks that rely on spells to deal with minions.
Basically a 2 cost Emperor Cobra, which is not bad. It however competes against some very powerful secrets like Cat Trick, Explosive, Freezing and Snake Trap, and at some point you simply don't have enough room for all the Secrets - and I can imagine this one gets cut among the first to make it into the Cloaked Huntress deck.
Conclusion ; decent card, useful variety for Putricide to not hit a card you actually want to play out, but I don't think it compares well with other choices.
Not the AOE Hunter deserved, but the AOE it got.
Conclusion ; trash and basically a Macaw nerf. It should be played alongside 2x Corpse Widows to make it actually playable, but with Hunter's tempo reliance and lack of good card draw this might be too difficult to set up.
Fits super-well into various Hunter builds that run deathrattle (which is basically all of them) not only because the ability is super powerful and the stats are excellent, but because Hunter's 5 slot has been lacking since Sludge Belcher and Loatheb rotated out. A good card that fits a lot of decks.
Conclusion ; should see a 1 or 2 off in Hunter decks that run deathrattles, maybe even phases Rhinos out entirely.
This card doesn't fit what Hunter needs, as there's already Hunter's Mark (by far superior), there's already Arcane Shot and hitting your own minions for 2 damage to give them poisonous doesn't seem at all worth it. It is difficult to set up; damaging your own minion for 2 damage (it needs to survive) costs 2 mana, and then you run that minion into whatever needs poisoning... Sounds like a rank26 situation.
Conclusion ; unplayable. If you want poisonous, Crackling Razormaw is the best choice.
A bit of a problematic minion to fit into Hunter for mostly one reason; even the biggest beasts that Hunter runs often fall apart into smaller beasts. To make this card work optimally, you would have to not play creatures like the 1/1 cats, Rat Pack (falls apart into 1/1 rats) Macaws and a whole lot of actually good and played early game minions which Hunter needs to stay in the game. The problem doesn't stop here, as even Savannah Highmane falls apart into 2/2 Hyenas, which is not really much of a win for you. I don't think it fits the current build Hunter has, and some heavy adjusting would have to be made to increase the actual payoff chance; if this card doesn't pay off, why not just run something more reliable that always provides value, like The Lich King? A small factor is that N'zoth brings this card out, but Hunter hasn't had much success with a slow, value deck of this kind.
Conclusion ; doesn't fit what Hunter has now - too many 1/1s and 3/2s that are not worth reviving.
Mostly a fun card, and may still find its way in a Cloaked Huntress deck. There's several things holding it back though; Hunter lacks card draw, and card draw is generally needed to set up a big wombo-combo turn that this card craves. The next thing is that it's 4 mana and Cloaked Huntress is 3; You play Huntress on 3, but will you hold off your 0 cost secrets with the hopes of Huntress staying alive into turn 4 for Putricide? What if Putricide actually randomly plays a secret you were planning to play yourself, effectively blocking you from getting additional value?
Conclusion ; I think it's more of a fun card, you can play it on curve (5/4 for 4 shouldn't cost you the game most of the time, if you've had a curve) and if it lives on you can start cashing in secrets; I wouldn't bank on a combo in poor Hunter for an effect like this. Besides, with Mage and Paladin getting stronger, Secreteater might turn Putricide against you.
The AOE and armor are extremely big for Hunter as their gameplay has mostly been board-centric with resilient minions and with a good curve you can really seal the game with this card. It does conflict with Highmane for the 6 drop spot, but I don't think you mind too much. Let's look at the ability;
This is crazy slow for such a tempo class like Hunter with barely any comeback chance. The ability works by discovering 5 or lower cost beasts twice and combining their ability; Stonetusk Boar + Stubborn Gastropod, Stonetusk Boar + Bittertide Hydra and so on and so forth. There are some very creative things you can do with this! So for 2 mana you discover this mutant, and then you combine their mana cost too to be able to cast it.
Hunter has the tendency to run out of cards in faster decks, so a discover mechanic like this can actually help immensely to compensate for this weakness... However, you cannot secure yourself to draw this card. If you do draw it, you are paying 2 mana in front just to get a card, and let us assume that sometimes the choices are very high cost and/or just not very good. Then those mana costs get combined, and you end up just dropping a single overpriced minion a turn. Some of the 'insane' combos aren't really that mathematically good, because you have to hero power to get them! For example; the Stonetusk Boar + Bittertide Hydra is a charging 9/9, however it does cost 8 mana with the ability usage. The Stonetusk Boar + Stubborn Gastropod is a crazy 2/3 Charge Taunt Poisonous, but in total it costs 5 mana. Can you actually survive as a Hunter while using so much mana just to create cards... that might be too weak, because you have to keep paying the 2 mana ability? Generally combinations that involve Stonetusk Boar seem to offer the highest payoffs, but sometimes all you'll be rolling is Golakka Crawlers and useless dinosaurs with useless abilities that might end up at such high mana costs that you can't afford even playing them in a tense game.
Conclusion ; this Death Knight Hero perhaps needs the most testing, as it experiments with two things; perhaps a more value and slower Hunter deck in whatever meta that may come, and how viable is the Build-a-Beast ability in the first place. I for one would avoid crafting it until the community thoroughly tests it out.
- Hunter in the Knights of the Frozen Throne -
Hunter has been trapped in the same archetype for a long time due to the weaknesses of its class cards. The new expansion offers slower value tools yet again, as it has been done so in the past; while eventually cards powerful and versatile enough to help shape some more synergistic, interesting and tactical Hunter decks will happen - the question is, is that time now, and is the card for that task Deathstalker Rexxar.
While testing will be needed to be decisive on this task, I'm afraid that a slower and gimmicky Hunter deck is still far from the strongest version for the class; Hunter excels at pressure from turn 1, it shines at difficult to deal with minions and most importantly - it has a clock built into its original hero power. Hunter has never been able to do much in the late game, where classes like Mage and Priest could basically toy with them into submission, and having a hero power that creates random mashup beasts seems slightly promising - but are the other tools there?
Deathstalker Rexxar might end up in various Hunter decks alongside Savannah Highmane, but I think the Hunter deck as we know it now (Midrange, with a tendency towards early game tempo and domination) will remain mostly unchanged.
- Mage Set Review -
- Mage entering the Knights of the Frozen Throne -
Mage always lurks between Tier 1 and Tier 2 with several decks since the dawn of the game, and this time is no different; Control Mage, Freeze Mage and Secret Mage are all viable and very powerful decks, and Knights of the Frozen Throne look to only improve on these three decks; especially with the soft counter to Jade Druid (Stalking Geist) and the possible idea of the game slowing down a notch due to the plentiful whirlwind effects and taunts being added to various classes in the game.
- Knights of the Frozen Throne : Mage Cards -
A fairly strong card that reminds greatly of Flamecannon. It fits well with a tempo deck that goes all in from the early turns and aims to finish the game through burn topdecks, and also has synergies with various freeze benefiting cards - most importantly the new Coldwraith. This card doesn't fit slower decks as they can run much more efficient and target burn (and Mage has by far the best selection) but in a strong opening with Mana Wyrms and Sorceress Apprentices can prove overwhelming.
Conclusion ; tempo decks will like this reinvention of Flamecannon, especially as it will cost 0 mana to cast with Sorceress Apprentice. There's some small consideration for a different kind of Tempo/Midrange Freeze Mage (a more minion based deck with freeze synergy) that attempts to cash in on the effect, however I don't see there's enough cards or rewards to fully support such a deck.
Another secret that gets countered by playing a bad minion; a rather large problem of Mage secrets as they tend to be easily countered by just playing the worst and cheapest cards in your hand - especially easy for aggro to capitalize on. There's some benefit over Mirror Image that you can get good battlecries into your hand; at the same time, the opponent might play a huge creature that you get 2 copies, and these creatures might actually be too big for you to play out efficiently.
Conclusion ; another weak secret countered by playing a bad card into it. Shouldn't see competitive play other than from random generating, which isn't too bad as it can refill your hand with good battlecries sometimes and 2 copies of a strong creature in a long match.
A very strong card that can replace Novice Engineer and other card cycling cards, the difference being that this creature is actually threatening enough to slow the opponent even further by taking out minions itself. This card fits both combo/control decks that run Frost Nova and Blizzard (Exodia Mage, Freeze Mage, Control Mage) as well as tempo decks that run Frost Bolt.
Conclusion ; strong card that should see play across a variety of Mage decks, fast and slow builds.
A decent entry for Elemental Mage, however I would say this card is a lot stronger in late game (when you can afford using your hero power) than curving it out, as 1/3 on turn 2 should generally die without doing anything that relevant. In Arena especially this card should be a menace. Note that on curve play it should perform quite poorly, as hero powering on turn 3 (when a lot of great cards are playable!) is a huge tempo loss.
Conclusion ; a decent card that you actually want more in the late game when you can afford hero powering threats. With the addition of Frost Lich Jaina to support Elemental Mage as a viable archetype, this card might become a safe inclusion.
A 3 mana 3/2 is generally a very horrible statline, as a lot of 1 drops can actually trade with it. Another problem with the card is that played on curve it should provide very little in form of disruption; I can imagine it disrupts for example a Druid that wants to ramp up, however tempo Mage was already a strong matchup against such a slow spell heavy deck and this weak minion actually gives Druid probably more breathing room than restricting them from playing spells. Other than that, most decks are creature heavy, and they on average won't mind not playing spells to deal with this creature, especially if curved out.
Conclusion ; weak statline for a weak effect that most decks will ignore by playing minions. A 1 cost 2/1 trades with this creature, which heavily tilts this card to game losing.
This card might turn out crazy powerful in a deck like Freeze Mage and Exodia Mage for providing not only a highly durable minion but also a spell that counts as a trigger for Archmage Antonidas and Open the Waygate. As far as spell generation goes, this is probably up there with Primordial Glyph as far as functionality goes for Exodia decks.
Conclusion ; seems to be strong and fits combo/freeze mages very well.
An exciting card that might provide support to something like a Giants Mage (copying a 0 cost Arcane Giant) might be a safety card to protect your hand from Dirty Rat by creating a duplicate of a needed card, or even being a value card in a Control Mage by creating additional copies of Sindragosa, Elise, Lich King and other value cards. In practical use, however, I would think this is too impractical to be used in a constructed deck.
Conclusion ; probably impractical to use in a regular deck, but gaining this from a spell generating effect will sometimes provide large value or combo redundancy.
The closest thing to this card would be Mysterious Challenger, but to think that they're anywhere similar in power level would be a massive mistake. Even if you didn't include the 6/6 Challenger for 6 in the equation, let's look at the Paladin's secrets in Wild; Avenge, Noble Sacrifice, Redemption, Repentance and whatever you chose to run as the 5th secret - the key to these secrets is how synergistic they are to each other. Dealing with the Challenger's secrets takes precision and a lot of resources, and after all the triggers happen you might be in a worse position than you started with after your dismantling of the traps. Mage Secrets, however, are a lot weaker and have much less in the sense of triggers; most of them are triggered and countered by playing a weak minion and a weak spell, with dropping a small creature often being able to trigger over 50% of the secrets in the game. (Potion of Polymorph, Mirror Entity, Ice Clone) The further problem of running this card is that you will need to run enough secrets to actually make this card playable; since this card doesn't fit a Control Deck (due to having to sacrifice too much deck space for these mostly tempo oriented secrets) we assume that you only play a few of the best secrets in the game; Counterspell, Mirror Entity, Ice Block and 2 other that fit your strategy. You will mostly need to spend your entire turn to Glacial Mysteries to get these mostly shabby secrets, and it should be expected to be game over if you get hit by something like a Secreteater - a card that will be teched in especially if this turns out anywhere good. I also think this card greatly weakens the deck since it takes so much deck space sacrificing just to run it, and most of the space is used by cards you don't really need; all you really want is Counterspell, possibly Mirror Entity and certainly Ice Block.
Conclusion ; a weak card nowhere close to Mysterious Challenger, lacking both the 6/6 for 6 body as well as secrets that are synergistic and actually can be difficult to deal with. I don't think this card matters much to Secret Mage, a deck already functional.
A decent card that reminds me of a mix between Nefarian and Malchezaar; a big body that provides two cards that will vary in quality. Malchezaar provides random legendaries, which often averages a decent Yeti-like body, but also can high and low roll. Sindragosa is of course better than Malchezaar by the fact that it doesn't disrupt your deck. Nefarian steals two cards from the opponent's class, which just like Malchezaar can go from abysmal to insane; Sindragosa is a bit worse than Nefarian because to get the cards you need to destroy the 0/1 Frozen Champions, which can be relevant in a lot of cases especially if the opponent can somehow steal these minions. Note too N'zoth can revive the 0/1 Champions, providing even more value. All in all, Sindragosa is a big body with refilling ability, and should find its place in a super late game deck, possibly one that runs N'zoth.
Conclusion ; a decent card competing with Medivh, the Last Guardian and The Lich King for the 8 drop slot, its inclusion to the deck should be based on what the deck tries to achieve. If you're running a spell heavy deck Medivh might be better; if you don't run N'zoth, the Lich King might be more relevant. I wouldn't hurry to craft Sindragosa because it simply might be outclassed by the other 2 viable 8 drops.
With Mage's powerful control arsenal, on average it should not be at all difficult to survive into turn 9 with a decent life total and secrets as backup. Elemental Mage was already very close to being a viable deck, sacrificing a lot of tempo and control cards for a more midrange theme (which before this expansion just proved too watered down and inferior to Control, Freeze and Secret builds) but with the insane stabilization offered by Frost Lich Jaina I think this deck is getting very close to finalized. The improvement on the hero power is also a severe one;
With Mage's arsenal it is not a big issue to set creatures down to 1 health, and getting a 3/6 lifesteal freeze elemental every time you ping a minion should eventually become backbreaking for your opponent. On paper this deck looks functional, however I would still hold out on crafting this card straight away - as it might actually turn out to be unneeded and the other Mage archetypes still dominate over this deck. There's also the question of the meta, where this card could prove too slow to be useful, or the meta decks aren't weak to it.
Conclusion ; undeniably powerful effect, but other archetypes might still be a better choice over this deck - and it might not fit the meta.
- Mage in Knights of the Frozen Throne -
The new expansion brings new toys for every good Mage archetype that will carry over from before, with Freeze heavy, Elemental and Exodia Mage getting a spotlight. A card I expect to see in almost every Mage deck now is Coldwraith.
Tempo and Secret Mage should remain strong as they are, even without adding any new card to their arsenal.
Exodia Mage gets a powerful entry with Ghastly Conjurer, possibly pushing the deck into high viability - especially if the meta slows down.
Freeze and Control Mage remain good as they are. Control in particular could create a spin-off of Elemental Mage to run Frost Lich Jaina with additional value.
Elemental Mage might be a new entry in the high tier list, with Frost Lich Jaina being a make or break for the deck. Elemental Mage is possible even now in the meta, however it is being outclassed by more refined and focused decks like Freeze and Tempo in their own class, as there's not really that many great elementals for Mage - and Mage never really needed power cards like Blazecaller. I am more leaning towards Jaina not being good enough to push this deck really high, but I can see it as being playable and even favored against some other slower decks.
- Paladin Set Review -
- Paladin entering the Knights of the Frozen Throne -
Paladin has several very powerful variations of a Tier 1 Midrange deck (Murloc and less murloc!) and a stable Control deck that has been performing greatly in ladder, even in Wild. With strong decks like these Paladin is looking to get even more options to reinforce the existing archetypes to better suit bad matchups, and there might be a possibility to build a zoo-ish bubble aggro deck.
- Knights of the Frozen Throne : Paladin Cards -
A powerful minion that strongly reminds me of Shielded Minibot, Righteous Protector is going to be a very annoying obstacle for basically every archetype; it blocks aggro minions and often goes 2 for 1 (like Argent Squire), it can protect valuable minions with its taunt, and is an excellent buff target for Spikeridged Steed, Blessing of Kings, Dark Conviction and so on. In arena this card will be especially tough to deal with, often blocking much larger minions and possibly getting insane trades with buffs.
Conclusion ; a strong minion that might see play even in slower decks just because of the sheer stopping value it has. It has synergy with a zoo Paladin build and is supported by several Divine Shield favoring cards.
While in total value not as strong as the old Keeper of Uldaman, this might fit the curve of an aggroish Paladin a lot more because of minions like Argent Squire and Righteous Protector. A control deck might run this to 'devolve' larger minions, but with the various and more powerful tools that Paladin has for this task, it might not fit next to the almost auto-include cards of Hydrologist, Equality, Pyromancer and perhaps other murlocs.
Conclusion ; fits more for an aggro deck or even Quest Paladin, but other decks probably have their 2 slot already taken.
A weak effect for a 4 drop on the super competitive slot Paladin already has (Truesilver Champion and Consecration) that I do not really see working that well. The Lifesteal ability is a lot better used on cards like Burnbristle, who are cheaper, harder to deal with and effortlessly kill this minion.
Conclusion ; might be interesting for handbuff decks, other decks should probably not include this card especially in the very competitive 4 slot.
An effect that is mostly not good enough to run unless you use it on a Divine Shield and/or deathrattle minion (Tirion Fordring is easily the best target for this spell) it also has the problem of competing with a great number of Paladin staples in the 2 slot.
Conclusion ; the effect is strong, but competes with too many great 2 cost cards and might require too much work to get benefit from.
A lot weaker now that there's more and more strong Divine Shield minions to possibly run (possibly Bolvar, Burnbristle, Tirion, possibly Righteous Defender) and playing a 3 mana 2/2 draw a creature card could possibly be worse than drawing a card - if you draw something irrelevant to the gamestate, like a Bolvar on turn 3 while you're losing the board and game to aggro and zoo. Paladin doesn't have much to do on turn 3 proactively so this card does get a bonus from that, and drawing the card that you actually exactly need makes this worth a look for sure. It might just turn out to not be as good as Stonehill, though.
Conclusion ; a decent tutor card that might require you to fine tune the deck to get what you need. Might see play especially with Paladin's weak 3 cost selection.
Not really too excited about a 4 cost Rager in Paladin that might occasionally spawn a 2/2. The 4 cost across Paladin is generally very competitive, and triggering the deathrattle might not really prove that bad if you can pull it off cheaply. If Crusader has to go into a taunt like Tar Creeper (a 3 drop) it might prove disastrous to run this minion if you can't divine shield it.
Conclusion ; a underwhelming aggro card. The 4 slot is very competitive even in aggro/flood Paladin, and there are high chances that this just turns out to be a 5/2 Rager. You would need to buff it to secure it gets some value from its high attack, but buffing an already high attack minion might prove too costly in the face of good removal.
This weapon has high potential to become very oppressive, as getting it to something like 3 attack might be fairly easy to average. However, it is an absolute trainwreck of a topdeck (a 4 mana Light's Justice) and with the existing Oozes and Harrison Jones in the game you should never over invest into a weapon. It also suffers yet again from being in the super competitive 4 cost slot in Paladin, already taken by powerhouses like Truesilver Champion, Blessing of Kings and so on.
Conclusion ; this weapon needs work to become good, but in the 4 cost there's already the powerful Truesilver Champion. Weapon removal in Hearthstone is also crazy efficient, so trying to be greedy with this weapon and accumulate attack (which may prove difficult in a lot of matchups) will usually result in failure. Paladin also has enough weapons to not need another one with such a minor ability.
One of the craziest statlines in the game, Blackguard in general should survive a turn or even a lot more. The ability is also rather excellent, as if you have something like a Truesilver equipped, Forbidden Healing in hand or Lifesteal creatures on board this could turn out into the craziest Flamewaker you've ever seen. It also hits only random minions, so you will often be able to reliably control the board and not waste shots to the face, as Paladin generally is more board-centric and lacks burst.
Conclusion ; might turn out to be Flamewaker's bigger and much more efficient brother. This creature is very hard to kill and it's ability is stronger than Flamewakers especially since it hits only minions; now comes the question of how reliably can you trigger it. The biggest downside of this card is that the 6 slot already has power entries like Sunkeeper and Steed, and adding even more 6 costs could tilt the deck too much.
A difficult minion to assess, as I don't think it fits the successful Paladin decks out there, it takes setup to get going, and is very vulnerable to a whole bundle of Priest cards, who remains very present in the meta.
Conclusion ; gimmicky creatures that are very vulnerable to being completely diffused (or even stolen) generally don't make it into the game, and I don't see it fit into the already successful Paladin decks. There might be a new Paladin deck that focuses heavily on Divine Shields and if that happens then Bolvar will find a place - so I would advise not crafting it before a ton of testing is done.
An exciting card for sure, one that might be slightly underpowered for 9 mana but with high combo potential to just win the game outright. The Lifesteal weapon and armor helps a lot in stabilizing from a low health amount, and the weapon is very likely to actually provide high pressure to kill the opponent at the point of the game when this is played.
The hero power works a lot like the Shaman totem summoning, where a random named and non-duplicate of a Horseman is summoned. The Horsemen have unique names but otherwise are 2/2 vanilla stats. In general, if you can actually get all 4 2/2s on the board by just hero powering for 4 turns and not get interrupted or lethaled, it can be assumed that you could have won the game much faster by playing something else on 9, like Ysera, Lich King and so on. This is especially true with the widespread use of cards like Primordial Drake, and the several new Death Knight Hero cards actually having a hero power that just outright destroys a horseman. However, in some rare cases it is possible that the opponent just can't handle the 2/2s and loses the game. There are some combo potentials in Standard and Wild, with cards like Burgly Bully, Garrison Commander and Beardo, where you can arrange a OTK with the use of the hero power, and if the goal was to win with the hero power I think this is a better approach.
However, a normal use of this power is playing it like a Justicar Trueheart upgrade; slowly and steadily spam 2/2s, something Control Paladin was doing back in the old day of control, eventually through attrition overwhelming the opponent.
Conclusion ; an exciting card that might make it into super late game Paladin decks that aim to use it as a Justicar Trueheart with a potential win condition wrapped in the package. I would also argue that if one would want to build a deck that aims to win with this hero power should definitively run the combo enablers, as there are enough counters to 2/2 Horsemen that attempting to do it manually will take too long/be impossible to achieve.
- Paladin in Knights of the Frozen Throne -
Control Paladin stands to benefit a lot from this expansion, with numerous tools like the Paladin Death Knight, Corpsetaker and Lich King allowing for even more late game customization. The soft counter to Jade Druid in the form of Stalking Geist should improve this deck's standing even further.
Midrange Paladin gets perhaps the biggest benefit from Corpsetaker and Righteous Protector, but I can see it not changing very much and just staying a high tier deck.
Aggro/Bubble Paladin might certainly be a more viable thing now with so many new tools to play, like Bolvar, Corpsetaker, Righteous Protector and Dark Conviction. In Wild I expect this deck to especially be powerful.
- Priest Set Review -
- Priest entering the Knights of the Frozen Throne -
Priest enters the expansion with high competitiveness in both Wild and Standard; aside from the always good Control decks it has, Priest also found great success with Inner Fire and Silence Priest - and with barely anything new to counter Priest's gameplay and the new low mana whirlwind it got, the class should find itself in a great position.
- Knights of the Frozen Throne : Priest Cards -
A snowbally card that normally doesn't fit Priest's usual gameplay (as Priest lacks actual good burn to close off games) it shouldn't be underestimated. Turn 1 Northshire Cleric into turn 2 saddles you with a nice 2/4 and 2/2 that needs to be dealt with, or a more dreamlike scenario of Coin + Radiant Elemental into a turn 2 Shadow Ascendant + possibly a Power Word Shield creates a 3/6 Radiant Elemental and a 2/2 that keeps buffing your minions, an extremely dangerous opening that might just take the game. However, that is a very dreamlike scenario, and Priest in general doesn't need/care that much for snowball minions. In arena, this minion needs to be dealt with quickly.
Conclusion ; probably will not fit any Priest archetype, but a decent card overall.
A strong boardwipe and healing especially when combined with Bloodmage Thalnos, will buy a lot of time against swarmy decks to reach your better boardwipe, Dragonfire Potion, after which you can stabilize. I can see this being a 1-off in Control Priest, perhaps 2 if the meta proves especially early game swarm oriented.
Conclusion ; a good tech card, will help immensely to stall swarmy decks till you can cast Dragonfire Potion and start stabilizing.
An unexciting card because it trades poorly with 2 and 3 drops, and using Lifesteal that early in the game should be rather useless or low value.
Conclusion ; I don't think you'll ever need to run this card, as it trades poorly and the ability should be often irrelevant when curved out.
An expensive improvement to Resurrect and Onyx Bishop, as it will almost secure you the ability to reanimate your Ysera, Deathwing, Cairne, Lyra and whatever other creature you're trying to get mostly out of Barnes. In the super late game this card might whiff quite often, as by that time you should have a bunch of minor creatures like Northshire Cleric die. It is definitively not as great as Resurrect when using it to get something like a Injured Blademaster, as paying 4 mana to get a Blademaster that had to die earlier... is really not that great of a deal, and requires setup.
Conclusion ; supports a high roll deck that briefly existed with a more precise, but perhaps overpriced card. I don't think you'll want to include this in the deck unless you're really aiming to fetch something like a Lyra or Ysera back in the super late game. This card will often be pretty decent to get from random effects, though.
A 2 mana increase to Thoughtsteal to get 1 more card. The problem of Thoughtsteal though is that it is random, can get very specific and gimmick reliant cards (like Shield Slam) and it gets worse the more there is aggro in the game, as getting a bunch of aggro tools for 5 mana will usually not save you from dying to said aggro.
Conclusion ; Thoughtsteal is a much more competitively priced card, and even that is not run since there's too much aggro that essentially makes this a dead card. If the game goes into slow meta, then cards like this and Thoughtsteal are considerable.
A worse Barnes, as 6 mana leaves very little to actually do with the rest of your turn. There's also the problem of what are you even trying to get with this? Lyra? Lich King? Ysera? There's not really that much you would want, the deathrattles and end of turn cards are mostly too weak in Standard to invest so heavily into gambling for them, you have to not draw those minions and you might end up summoning something completely irrelevant or even detrimental. There's some meme potential with Malygos and Prophet Velen, but there are more competent decks and classes that can execute such a plan much better and with less RNG.
Conclusion ; a more fairly costed Barnes, and fairness usually doesn't cut it. Some combo potential with big effects especially in Wild, but there it's much easier to construct a more reliable deck for that means.
A lot of the time this is a 6 mana Corruption. Against aggro it is a dead draw and against very dangerous targets it might potentially be game over.
Conclusion ; if you're going for an effect like this, Mind Control is infinitely more reliable and effective. The discount on this card doesn't help much against faster decks, and in other cases might allow the opponent to completely negate your entire investment.
A powerful late game drop that curves well with Primordial Drake, possibly heals you by a huge lot (Primordial Drake usually takes out a lot of creatures with it) and allows you to go into a N'zoth turn with this powerful deathrattler returning. Should see play in N'zoth and Quest Priest decks for sure.
Conclusion ; slow, powerful card and one of the best Standard deathrattle minions that doesn't mind that much being countered by something like The Black Knight. It only depends if the meta is too fast for it.
A very meme, low stated card that is useless against aggro and wins basically every match that is about fatigue... Except against Dead Man's Hand decks, if you miss getting the 2x Hands. Should mostly be a for fun card, however if the meta fills up with slow control decks, this is going to be completely insane.
Conclusion ; a powerhouse for a very specific juggernaut meta; otherwise a dead card in a class that has trouble drawing cards easily.
In a way, this card obsoletes Shadowform and Beardo for Priest entirely, save for some niche uses. The battlecry is interesting in the way that it greatly helps with handling 2 difficult opponents for Priest - Lord Jaraxxus and giant Jade golems. The main selling point is, of course, the hero power.
This can combo off insanely with something like Raza the Chained, Burgly Bully coins, Radiant Elementals, Velen and perhaps even Mind Blasts and Holy Smite; it is very easy to picture dealing +15 damage with a not so difficult to prepare setup. This ability also justifies Raza the Chained inclusion in decks, as it often turned out that having a free 'heal 2' hero power meant very little for the cost of making your deck highlander; but with this crazy proactive hero power you can quickly take over the board or kill the opponent just by playing minor cards and protecting your own hero.
I definitively think this is a card catered to a highlander deck to abuse Raza's discount, when this hero power basically blows up everything the opponent is trying to do. I mean, just playing Velen and Mindblast for 9 mana amounts to a total of 20 damage, with the hero power doing 10 by itself. To a less flashy degree it can be played in a non-Raza deck where the OTK power is basically gone, however a more reliable deck like that will suffer less from the drawback of the highlander construction - it's a trade of power for reliability.
Conclusion ; an excellent card that will support the Standard Kazakus build and further power the already strong Wild deck there.
- Priest in Knights of the Frozen Throne -
Highlander Priest gets a massive improvement with the Death Knight Hero, as there's now finally a real benefit to playing Raza the Chained. It is also notable that the DK destroys all +5 power minions in play - a great counter to huge Jade and Demon minions.
Control/Deathrattle Priests get one of the best standard deathrattle minions in the game, supporting N'zoth running decks. With the introduction of Stalking Geist, the worst matchup in the form of Jade Druid should be greatly countered by playing Geist and then destroying the last huge Jades with the new DK. Also, Priests running Archbishop Benedictus should basically never lose a game to fatigue.
Inner Fire and Silence Priests should remain about the same, somewhat weakened by the Geist but nothing they can't build around.
''He traded sands for skins, skins for gold, gold for life. In the end, he traded life for sand.''
(.o.))~ ~(('o') (.o.))~
- Rogue Set Review -
- Rogue entering the Knights of the Frozen Throne -
Rogue tends to have a similar problem to Hunter; it is locked in a well performing deck and cannot really expand out of it. Rogue gets new cards that support convoluted and slow archetypes and synergies but never gets proper sustain or support... aaaand Rogue just returns to playing Miracle. Same cards get played from expansion to expansion, with only one or two change place, but it seems to revolve around Gadgetzan Auctioneer, VanCleef, Eviscerate, Preparation, Backstab, Questing Adventurer... The deck builds itself really, and Miracle endured even the loss of stealth with this old faithful setup. Over time Rogue gained various too slow albeit exciting cards (like Shadowcaster) low supported archetypes that went nowhere (Jade, Burgle, Pirate and Deathrattle) and suffered the same problem since forever; dying without healing. So Rogue remains basically unchanged since forever, the rare exception was the appearance of Quest Rogue but that got almost immediately nerfed into unplayability - and it's back to square one, old faithful Miracle, present since the earliest days.
So the real question is this; will Rogue finally get a new archetype, or will it just improve on Miracle?
- Knights of the Frozen Throne : Rogue Cards -
Spending a lot of cards on one weapon tends to result in a complete loss when destroyed with Oozes and Harrison Jones, and for Rogue to actually obtain a high damage weapon it is needed to use something like Assassin's Blade + Deadly Poison, resulting in a 5/4 weapon for 6 mana, and 2 more to add this effect. While this in fact does heal for 20, you have to also take in count that you will probably need to hit some minions too while also being attacked from turn to turn (because if you spent an entire turn creating a weapon and haven't died, you're probably facing enemy minions on board) probably greatly decreasing the gain you were planning for this convoluted 3 card combo... That is, if you don't lose the game by losing 3 cards to 1 Ooze.
Conclusion ; too much work is needed to make a feasible high attack weapon in Rogue to obtain a bit of healing that is mostly lost to attacking minions with said weapon. If you are healing yourself, it should be assumed that your priority is to out-control the opponent, otherwise it is better to run cards like Cold Blood rather than healing. If you get hit by an Ooze or Harrison after creating this weapon, you should basically lose right away.
Interesting card with a strong effect, but might not be good enough for constructed; with Vilespine Slayer, cards like these are a lot less appealing. In arena this could easily swing games since its mana cost fits very well with using this late game to remove a much bigger minion.
Conclusion ; probably not for constructed because of Vilespine Slayer and high competitive 3 drop in Rogue.
An okay arena card, but probably too meaningless for constructed. It is notable that the 1/1s are good for triggering VanCleef and combos, but it doesn't work with Auctioneer and Arcane Giants and thus might be that Burgly Bully is better.
Conclusion ; an alright card for arena, probably too weak for Miracle.
It is not really easy to make a 50% deathrattle deck, as there are not that many viable deathrattles especially for Rogue, a class that doesn't really benefit from deathrattles in a significant way anymore. On average this should get a 2nd card 30%ish of the time, which is not reliable enough.
Conclusion ; too unreliable for Standard, perhaps possible in Wild. On average it is going to be a 'draw a card' for 2.
Finally a good weapon for Rogue with pretty neat combo ability with Doomerang. Basically you can count this weapon as a better lifesteal, as you are able to hit a minion with +3 attack and remain unharmed. This should be 2x include into basically any Rogue, and perhaps it opens the door for a non-Miracle deck to succeed.
Conclusion ; great card in every format.
This is very comparable to Captain Greenskin, and on average it should be just a +1 durability as Runeforge Haunter's health is more than easily dealt after turn 2, even turn 1 in some cases. I don't think it is worth it to lose a 4 drop to a possible 1 drop just to get +1 durability.
Conclusion ; risks massive tempo loss for little and theoretical gain.
A very cool card in design, although from all the weapons Rogue has available it only combines well with Shadowblade; Assassin's Blade has become too slow, vulnerable and it is hard to imagine a scenario where you get the AB down to 1 durability, Doomerang it and then recast it. While Shadowblade is in fact a fantastic weapon for this card, it might be that it is simply too niche to be used.
Conclusion ; cool design, easily could end up unplayed.
Impractical too high cost minion that conflicts with Auctioneer for the card use, and Vilespine Slayer for the effect.
Conclusion ; inferior to Vilespine Slayer (which kills any minion) and your cards are best saved for a game winning Auctioneer turn. Too many vegetables in the pot, basically.
Good statline but conflicts with the usual Miracle plan of accumulating small spells to trigger off in one turn; however, if you have a reason to suspect that the Miracle approach cannot win the game, you can convert all the coins, Razor petals, Preparations and Backstabs into possible something that can win the game in another manner.
Conclusion ; interesting, conflicts with Miracle's game plan but that might actually be a strength. Needs experimenting.
With stealth and +5 armor, it is very reasonable to assume that you will actually survive the turn you play this card; in a way, this means '9 cost - do nothing and probably don't die.' Remember, you're still affected by cards and abilities like Mind Blast, Fellfire Potion and Steady Shot. So if we spend a whole turn doing nothing, what do we get?
So each turn you get a 'Mirror' card in your hand that works as a copy of whatever was the last card played. Play a coin, the Reflection is a coin. Play a Vilespine, you get a Vilespine. So you can view the hero power as this ; 'Each turn draw a card that is the same one you just played.' So how can this be played?
Well this is a very value Death Knight Hero, one that has a very difficult time running out of cards especially when you play things like Swashburglar or Peddler and double on the card generation. In essence you start every turn with an extra copy of whatever you are playing, so some combo plays become a lot easier to achieve. Another idea with the Hero is to use it like a OTK-ish style of deck, where you play Leeroy + Cold Blood + Cold Blood + Cold Blood and Eviscerate or any such high damage combination, a burst tactic that goes well with the DK's stealth battlecry. There are some other more niche application like in Mill Rogue, or a value deck for Wild that runs the excellent healing and deathrattles there to outvalue almost any opponent.
Conclusion ; in Standard it might find room in a combo/miracle build, as it does function a lot like a high level extension of the deck. In Wild it will be a pretty good fit into mill and value/deathrattle Rogue.
- Rogue in Knights of the Frozen Throne -
In Standard, I don't think much tools have arrived to build anything else than an improved Miracle Rogue. New archetypes need Rogue to be able to heal a great amount at once to be able to survive against early game decks and Mage, but there's not really the cards for that in the format yet and it is going to be difficult to match the value other slower decks have gained in this expansion. Rogue Deathknight does provide some small help against Mage, not sure how often that will come up.
In Wild, Rogue will greatly enjoy the addition of the Death Knight Hero and the Shadowblade; these cards will work fantastically in Mill, Deathrattle, Reno and just general value decks.
- Shaman Set Review -
- Shaman entering the Knights of the Frozen Throne -
Shaman has a variety of decks that work from Tier 1 to Tier 3 in Wild and Standard; Token Evolve, Jade, Elemental, Control and so on. What keeps Shaman especially competitive in the meta is the cards Maelstrom Portal, Devolve and Hex, giving them a massive edge in breaking down virtually any deck. With such a strong background, Shaman looks to push even more of its decks up into Tier 1.
- Knights of the Frozen Throne : Shaman Cards -
A powerful draw card for a generally weak tribe too susceptible to boardwipes. If it was in Paladin, it would basically be broken.
Conclusion ; murlocs in general grossly overkill the opponent or crash and burn from curved out AOE, and as an additional weakness depend too much on having Warleaders in hand or play. While certainly threatening, murlocs on average tend to be outclassed and outpowered rather easily, and the new whirlwind effects do not bode well for them.
One mana cost above Glacial Shard to get +1 health and the Murloc tag... There's some potential to this as freeze is very annoying and strong, and maybe allows the murlocs to snowball while keeping enemy minions at bay, but this is all in all a weak card to take deck space and something like Volcanic Potion and Defile will undo everything you attempted to build with this crappy card.
Conclusion ; a weak murloc that does very little to stop from what usually destroys murlocs in the early game - efficient boardwipes.
Reminds a great deal of Deathlord, but the downside is a lot more severe. There's only one Overload Unlock card left in Standard, and it is not worth playing it just to get a glorified Warden, and it cannot even be curved out. Take in count that Priest just destroys or steals this minion and Shaman can devolve it, and you've given up your turn 4 for nothing. Take note also that if you wish to play this against aggro, which is what this card is for I suppose, you are surrendering a turn 4 for a creature that might just get overrun quite cheaply.
Conclusion ; the loss of turn 4 if curved is massive, as it's a great turn to play outJade Spirit, Jade Lightning and other great cards. The 3 slot is also highly competitive with Manatide Totem, Hex, Stonehill Defender, Hotspring Guardian. Synergy with the new giant is likely not worth running such a sub-par card.
To make this card work you will have to include horrible minions like Glacial Shard and Brrrlock, equip a 3 mana 1/3 weapon and then trade health to kill a creature. Does anyone like the sound of that?
Conclusion ; gimmicky garbage, competitive 3 slot in Shaman, for the abundance of cards you have to run to make this card work - you could just run actual removal.
Should not see play in the same manner as Tidal Surge isn't played; Jade Lightning is just better, and the Shaman 4 slot is already taken. There's a lot better AOE to use, and the freeze theme in Shaman is just not worth it.
Conclusion ; inferior card that at worst works like a 4 mana Freezing Potion.
Generally should freeze 2 to 3 characters, as 7 health is a pretty high amount on turn 5. It's a good defense against weapon-using decks like Pirate Warrior (if you get to live long enough for that to even matter) but on average the mana cost and ability don't seem worth the inclusion.
Conclusion ; the freeze theme on average should not be worth running a card like this.
Good when played on a minion that doesn't care to do much combat, like Tar Creeper or stuff like Manatide Totem, but in general should be too gimmicky to lead a reliable deck. It can also be used offensively, but I can't really imagine you would want to ever do that.
Conclusion ; too gimmicky.
A cool card for something like Crusher Shaman, as getting it to a low cost should be reasonably easy in the deck (you would most likely run Flamewreathe Faceless, Volcano, Earth Elemental and Jade Claws, for example) and that allows you to do something like Snowfury Giant + Snowfury Giant + Ancestral Spirit + Faceless Manipulator with 3 extra mana to do whatever needs done, like taunting them up. It's a great card for a niche deck, basically.
Conclusion ; a mostly fun card for Crusher decks.
On average, due to this card's very restrictive mana cost, you should expect to only get around 1-3 cards the turn you play Moorabi, with the full ten mana available. The highest card gain possible is to use the 3 mana 4/4 'Freeze your other minions' card to gain copies of whatever you have on board (which on average should be some lame totems, some Jade Golems, perhaps a freezing minion like Glacial Shard...) or if you manage to play Brrrlock and Glacial Shard to hit your opponent's minions, which is a lot more feasible than freezing your own board in a sad attempt to gain some cards. (Which on average should be pretty sub-par, since you're playing a nonsense Freeze Shaman.)
Conclusion ; if you want copies of your own cards, rather play Spirit Echo. It is much easier to play along with good cards due to low mana cost, and will not warp your deck building to include weak freeze drops.
The lowest cost Death Knight that curves well for most likely a token deck, but can also work in other decks like Jade and Elemental to greatly outvalue the opponent especially after trading.
This power allows you to essentially 'heal a friendly minion to full'. On average should improve the minion by a tiny margin, and on rare cases it should either greatly increase or decrease the value of the minion. For example, a 3 cost minion can become a Flamewreathe Faceless or the new and abysmal Rattling Rascal. Not much is really needed to discuss about this Hero and the hero power, it has been greatly tested by Evolve and the deck is already Tier 1 - this looks to improve it.
Conclusion ; the easiest to play and use Hero released. Suffers a bit from high and low rolling, but on average should at least heal your minions after trading.
- Shaman in Knights of the Frozen Throne -
Shaman remains strong as ever, with plentiful deck building choices. Almost every archetype is highly likely to be improved by Thrall, Deathseer, especially Jelly and Token Shaman. Crusher Shaman might make a return for Standard.
- Warlock Set Review -
- Warlock entering the Knights of the Frozen Throne -
Warlock enters the Knights of the Frozen Throne without a single competitive deck in Standard, basically a first and all time low for Warlock players. Zoo couldn't handle the loss of Imp Gang Boss and Power Overwhelming at the same time the competition for early game sharpened up substantially by Shaman and Warrior. Even in Wild Warlock has been slowly slipping with the once King of Wild, Renolock; other Control and Aggro decks leveled up and gained new tools, but Warlock missed it all and promptly fell behind.
- Knights of the Frozen Throne : Warlock Cards -
A decent zoo card and an exceptionally good trigger for Devilsaur Egg. There are possibilities of some extremely bad situations where this card cannot be played (as it would perhaps destroy the only minion you have on board, like a Doomguard) but those shouldn't happen often enough in zoo to discourage running this efficient card.
Conclusion ; a decent card for the now non-existing zoo deck, though it by itself is nowhere enough to bring zoo back. A consideration are also the numerous whirlwind effects being added to the game that might counter zoo before it even happens.
Warlock has been starving for a good 2 cost spell ever since Dark Bomb left for Wild, and this will help fill that rather large hole in Warlock's early game removal.
Conclusion ; a good single copy for a more Control Warlock deck to combat early game, regain life and set up a powerful Defile. Works great with spell power.
A well stated demon that should only be played in a Discardlock, a rather random and volatile archetype that so far hasn't been successful. Note that this card is very likely not a good inclusion into Quest Warlock, as it might prove very easy to force you to discard the Quest upon completion.
Conclusion ; it's hard to assess this minion without seeing it in action, but the text really is very horrible on the eyes. The best use of this minion is dropping it into a Mirror Entity or using Treachery, it seems.
Possibly the card to pull out Control Warlock out of the slums, it takes very little to have Defile become a 2 mana 'destroy all minions' especially when coupled with Bloodmage Thalnos. If this early game boardclear proves to be as good in the meta as it looks on paper, then the return of Handlock is very much possible.
Conclusion ; a lot of hope rests on this card to be as good as it looks in theorycraft, and it might just be enough to enable Handlock in Standard. In Wild this card should also see inclusion in Renolock and improve the deck significantly.
This card can also be used to crack the Devilsaur Egg, but the card is very much a horrible Deadly Shot without that synergy - and likely costs too much mana for such a bad effect against swarmy boards.
Conclusion ; an underpowered version of a card that rarely sees play as is.
A very good Demon, which is like a very small club of minions. It might not find a place in Warlock that easily with the plentiful AOE that is already run, however the effect is very strong and this demon can be brought back with Bloodreaver Gul'dan, perhaps pushing it enough to inclusion.
Conclusion ; a strong card by itself that will most likely make it into a Standard Death Knight deck, and might be teched into other decks to set up Defiles and control swarmy minions.
This ability can easily be ignored by about 90% of the decks that we currently know of and expect in the meta; you're playing a rather weak minion (a 2/3 for 2 with 'do nothing ability' is not something worth including) and the chance to encounter a deck that relies on a specific card or actually HIT that very card should be somewhere in the single digit of percentages. Ideally you bust something like this against Exodia Mage and remove a critical piece of the combo; but if for example you hit Antonidas or Alex in Freeze Mage, you are still very likely to just die to burn damage since you are after all - a Warlock.
Conclusion ; irrelevant.
Mostly this card is for memes where you give your opponent creatures with terrible deathrattles or abilities, but the most competitive way to use this minion is to secure a Doomsayer going off on your opponent's turn. That is not as great as a Doomsayer going off on your turn, as it gives your opponent a chance to rebuild - but it is something that can be considered.
Conclusion ; a meme card.
I won't go into a rant about Discardlock's core mechanical problem; it has been debated and argued so many times it is not worth discussing further. It's a polarized deck that is difficult to control and doesn't have enough ingredients or supporting mechanics to make it a stable thing.
The Blood Queen is all in all an alright minion that should rather easily be a +5/6 attack minion with lifesteal for 5, which is sorta decent and might help with Warlock's common bleeding problem. It is a bit troublesome that this card is 5 cost, as it might end up sitting in your hand from early game and eventually discarded for Felhound or Doomguard, which are arguably on paper much more reliable and prone to winning games than the Blood Queen. While it is true that Warlock has traditionally had problem healing... Was that really ever a problem for zoo? Is this really the minion Discardlock needs to make it viable, or do you believe that what is really needed is more cards like Malchezaar's Imp and Silverware Golem, cards that actually turn the downside of Discard into a powerful resource?
Conclusion ; I am of the belief that more importantly than Lifesteal the deck needs more cards that actually create value from discarding, like Malchezaar's Imp and Silverware Golem, and clunky cards like this when drawn early will end up in the Discard pile. Note that the Queen does continue to grow while in game, and in my opinion it's a solid minion for a regular kind of zoo - but a full Discardlock still seems like a bad nightmare of a unstable, unreliable deck.
So this is quite convincingly the most bombastic battlecry of the Death Knights; it's very similar to N'zoth with an arguable advantage that in some situations (and especially for Warlock who just unlocked a Lifesteal hero power) gaining 5 armor might be more important than a 5/7 body.
So let's talk Demons in Standard. There's several ways to actually build a deck containing this card with the purpose of reanimation; you can go the zoo route and run possibly Flame Imp, Voidwalker, Malchezaar's Imp, Possessed Villager, Lakkari Felhound and Doomguard. This is a more aggressive build that goes for the early game control and tries to snowball from there to a win. There's a good chance you discard either Gul'dan or Jaraxxus in this sort of deck, but it will have a much higher pressure on the opponent from the early game - and if you actually play Gul'dan you will swarm the board with Fellhounds and Doomguards, which is just insane. Also note that this battlecry revives Jaraxxus 6/6 demons too. The slower route would be something like Abyssal Enforcers, Despicable Dreadlords and Voidwalkers, also good stuff. Now let's look at the hero power!
This is basically the most intense hero power in the game alongside DK Anduin, as dealing 3 damage to any target will grind out any small minion the opponent can throw at you while healing you in the process - and health gain has always been one of Gul'dan's weakest points till this card.
What matchups does this card help? Hunter (if the game gets to this point, of course) and freeze Mage matchup has traditionally been the worst for Warlock, as they had a terrible time escaping Jaina's burst range after Alex; this card will not erase this weakness, but will act a lot like Warrior armoring up every turn to escape lethal range - and if the Mage doesn't act quick, you'll survive while burning them out at the same time.
It will need experimentation to see what demons can be really played in Standard and will depend on the meta. In Wild, however, I see this card as a secondary N'zoth and next to Jaraxxus as a possible Plan A or B, depending on what opponent you face.
Conclusion ; an exciting card that will need experimentation - but without doubt the text is powerful and will improve even further with better demons added to game.
- Warlock in Knights of the Frozen Throne -
Warlock in Standard does not really have anything viable, noted especially by the complete absence of Warlock in recent tournaments.
With the inclusion of Defile, Despicable Dreadlord and DK Gul'dan, a Control Warlock is likely to appear, a mixture between Handlock and Demonlock. Testing will be needed to see if these 2 cards were enough to push this archetype, but I believe so.
Some new cards for Zoo and Discardlock have been added, however I feel Zoo is still too easily countered (especially with the new whirlwind effects) and Discardlock has not been given a card that combats its own flaw of design.
In Wild Renolock will probably push towards Tier 1 again with the addition of Defile and DK Gul'dan.
- Warrior Set Review -
- Warrior entering the Knights of the Frozen Throne -
With one of the cheapest, easy to play and powerful aggro decks in the game, Warrior enters the new expansion with a Tier 1 Pirate, Tier 2 Taunt and Tier 3 Control deck, as usual Warrior's wide selection of quality cards and good Classic set supporting different styles of play. Taunt and Control are waiting for the Jade Idol counter to become available to push for higher Tiers, and till then Warrior players just use Pirate to quickly go through ranks.
- Knights of the Frozen Throne : Warrior Cards -
It's hard to imagine there's ever going to be enough powerful cards to support a Enrage deck to a point where this card becomes actually viable, where damaging your own minions with weak cards like this doesn't result in you just losing the game rather quickly.
Conclusion ; cute and very synergistic, but the lack of good enough minions to actually Enrage and the implication of hurting your own minions usually doesn't cut it in a competitive game. We're far from Grim Patron days, and I don't believe even in Wild this card will find a place in such a deck since there's Ravaging Ghoul, Whirlwind, Revenge, Cruel Taskmaster...
A powerful card draw and tutor. Control Warrior already runs a lot of rather dumb card draw mechanics, and a card like this will certainly fit into its arsenal - possibly allowing it to secure a turn 2 Fiery War Axe every game (coin Forge of Souls on turn 1 against aggro) or in late game to get hold of Gorehowl, Blood Razor or whatever is being run in the meta. Pirate Warrior could also run a copy of this, as it's one of the best topdecks you could get if your opponent is still hanging on.
Conclusion ; a fantastic card that should fit every Warrior.
A more fair version of old Death's Bite, Blood Razor is excellent in clearing the board of small minions and enabling cards like Grommash Hellscream, King Mosh, Sleep with the Fishes, Acolyte of Pain and so on.
Conclusion ; this will quite likely find a spot in Taunt or Control Warriors that wish to counter swarmy midgame decks like Token Druid or Shaman.
Another cute card that wants to be whirlwind'd to provide value, but I can't really see the value of 2/2s in Warrior. For example, dropping this minion and a Ravaging Ghoul for 6 mana gives a 1/3, a 2/2 and a 3/3 Ghoul; that does not at all sound worth the effort. Also, if you perform several Whirlwinds in the same turn, the other ghouls might die or become 2/1s in the process, becoming even more useless.
Conclusion ; too clumsy to execute, and nowhere as potent as old Grim Patrons were.
For the ability this creature has, the statline is excellent; a 3 mana 4/3 is rather threatening as it can take out numerous 4 mana 5/4s or other key minions, and even if it does get destroyed by a 2 mana 3/2 you are still getting 6 armor, which sorta makes up for the bad trade. However, in a matchup where 6 armor doesn't matter enough, losing this minion to something like a Fiery War Axe charge might prove too devastating. A very cool side of this minion is that it can be resurrected by N'zoth.
Conclusion ; it's a rather cool designed minion that might not see play due to the fact that on 3 health it might get dispatched so easily that not even 6 armor makes up for the tempo loss. N'zoth synergy in Warrior gives it a high plus.
Comparable to Frostwolf Warlord, which is actually probably easier to buff above this minion and requires a lot less work. Both, however, seem unplayable.
Conclusion ; unlikely to be worth the effort. Frostwolf Warlord might just be objectively better.
A rather hilarious card that reminds a lot of Archbishop Benedictus, with the slight advantage over the Archbishop being that you control what you get into your deck and with a second copy of DMH you can shuffle into infinity and become immune to fatigue.
The problem of this card is that it is a super late game cast only; there's no point really to cast this earlier than just before hitting Fatigue, especially if your hand is full of cards useless for the matchup - this makes it a dead card against aggro and midrange, as the victor of this matchup should be clear almost from the opening hands. Against a slow control deck, ideally a Priest, it's still far from perfect! If the Priest manages to steal one or two of these cards, you're looking at an endless game where the Priest might actually be better equipped to win the game in the long run - since he didn't specialize the deck into running this strategy and might have something to tilt the game into his favor.
Conclusion ; I believe a deck running these cards should be very specialized builds with the win condition unlike other decks, and very likely a Elise the Trailblazer that you keep reshuffling into the deck and gaining her packs, as it is common for Warrior to at one point be forced to spend both his Brawls, Shield Slams and Executes to stay alive, and a replenish-able resource of minions and spells will be needed to bring the game to a close. It's a meme deck with some potential for sure.
Is 2 mana with a sometimes very serious drawback worth the gain of 10 armor? When is the right time to play the card, and if you wait for the opponent to have no creatures in hand - do you even need the 10 armor anymore? If you play this on turn 2, are you risking yourself from getting overrun by 0 cost trash minions and 4 mana Savannahs soon after? It's not to be so quickly judged that you are going to pull out the enemies minions out of his hand and beat them down - you are after all expending a card from your hand for this effect, and in place of this card you could have had a Fiery War Axe or Execute, for example. Take also in consideration that the 1 mana Iron Hide (5 armor with no drawback) is considered trash and unplayable.
This card will need a lot of experimentation and meta knowledge, however I suspect that there's really no need to gain so much armor so abruptly while at the same time not only risking having your opponent emptying his hand at you while you're not really ready - but also the possibility that the discount hit something the opponent will be able to use later in the game to a devastating effect.
Conclusion ; it might be an irrelevant card, as there's not such a massive need to gain so much armor so early in the game, while risking being stampede'd. Experimentation is needed, but if Iron Hide didn't see play, what does this card have over it?
A gimmicky card that reminds me a lot of Confessor Paeltras. Rotface is a bit better as there's a good chance to actually get this to trigger 2-3 times on the turn it comes out, which will often cost a lot of resources. So the question is, what can you get from Rotface?
Well, the best pull would be another Rotface, naturally, and that is on the top of highrolls along with hand refilling cards like Lich King and Ysera - as you did just spend a lot of cards to make this happen. On the average side you're probably getting various 5/5s that will often act as vanilla minions (Elise, Malchezaar, Muklas...) and on the very low end you will be getting things like the new Princes, Thalnos, the 1/1 shapeshifter, Nat Pagles... But in the end, the average minion you will be getting is usually going to be Yeti stats or better, and filling your board with Yetis is often good enough for a turn 10 play.
Conclusion ; mostly a fun card with high and low roll potential. I can't imagine it will be a mainstay in a Control deck as it requires a LOT of preparation to get the best out of it (and it can just spawn a bunch of trash, as there are a lot of underwhelming minions) but it will certainly be a fun card to play.
Garrosh's ability is mostly comparable to having a triple Flamestrike in hand that is sometimes susceptible to a taunt minion or good/bad placement by the opponent. This weapon cannot be underestimated, since if Garrosh has the life total to play with, recovering from 3x Flamestrikes hitting your board while Garrosh uses his mana to fill the board is absolutely brutal.
The hero power is however much likely the weakest upgraded hero power in the game, and Warrior who has synergy with armor and uses his life total to deal with minions loses his signature ability - that's a rather rotten deal, as it exposes you right back to being burned down by the opponent right after you've used Shadowmourne to clear the enemy minions! I mean, true, dealing 1 damage to every minion is nothing to snort at, but I don't believe it fits much in what Garrosh normally plays in the deck.
I personally am not a big fan of this hero, and feel Taunt Warrior's Sulfuras is a much more tangible upgrade. Shadowmourne is absolutely insane value, but if it gets Oozed and you're again facing the chance to be burned down after losing your armor hero power, Scourgelord Garrosh might be left behind.
Conclusion ; Scourgelord Garrosh's weapon is absolutely massive in controlling the board, but trades his useful armor up hero power for a 2 mana whirlwind effect, which I don't feel is much of an upgrade especially against an opponent who doesn't play low health minions. Remember that even Sulfuras gets held back sometimes.
- Warrior in Knights of the Frozen Throne -
Warrior is looking good in the new expansion; Control Warrior is getting the counter to Jade Druid they needed in Skulking Geist, and all Warrior decks are getting a powerful weapon tutor in form of Forge of Souls. I expect Taunt Warrior to return to the meta, especially with the addition of The Lich King into their arsenal.
- Neutral Set Review -
- Knights of the Frozen Throne : Druid Cards -
Conclusion ; irrelevant. Will mostly cause headaches from being discovered or gained through RNG effects. Does help Deathstalker Rexxar's hero power to create cheaper minions.
Conclusion ; a 1/1 Lifesteal is worthless without buffs and dropped in early game, as it works more like a vanilla 1/1 in that case. Murloc decks aren't really going for survivability anyway - they want to snowball out of control, not regain life. Will mostly cause headaches from being discovered or gained through RNG effects, and a slight nerf to Unite the Murlocs quest reward.
Conclusion ; against Pirate Warrior playing this out seems like an auto lose to N'zoth's first mate, and with the additions of whirlwind across many classes this might never connect for more than 2. Still, it's a threatening aggro minion for sure.
Conclusion ; very strong, as even Abusive Sargent got nerfed and this feels like it could be objectively just a better minion.
Conclusion ; A good budget replacement for Thalnos or Kobold Geomancer, and the Divine Shield might find application in Paladin. Warlock also might enjoy this card for use with Defile.
Conclusion ; if you're going for early game aggression with cards like this, Acherus Veteran seems like a better fit.
Conclusion ; there's not really a deck in the meta that desperately needs Spell Damage, so the text is mostly irrelevant. Possibly decent for Shaman, but Thalnos and Totems might be enough to cover them since Spirit Claws was nerfed.
Conclusion ; On an empty board, this is a 3 mana 4/4, which is very competitive. Will probably see experimentation in slow decks that don't have much for early game. Slight synergy with trash Freeze Shaman.
Conclusion ; A very decent effect actually, but probably not good enough for constructed. Good snowbally arena card.
Conclusion ; play Eggnapper instead.
Conclusion ; it's hard to imagine this can regularly grow beyond a 4/4, a lot of the time it's just a dead card in hand.
Conclusion ; too gimmicky.
Conclusion ; decent minion that might see some experimentation in flood decks.
Conclusion ; unlikely to live to become much more than a 4 mana 5/3 in a good case.
Conclusion ; might not be easy to pull it off, but it's a rather cool arena card.
Conclusion ; dustworm, most of the time. Too underpowered.
Conclusion ; overpriced. At 5 mana you can already get +5 power minions, which basically are good enough to take out most other minions.
Conclusion ; a powerful dragon card that fills many openings for Dragon-loving decks. In essence this is a 8/5 Dragon a lot of the time that helps with Dragon synergy cards for Priest and in Wild.
Conclusion ; adorable but too high of a cost. While it can be played to discourage boardwipes or dropped into a Doomsayer, all in all it's just a 5 mana 2/2 you pay in advance to possibly get a 8/8. It does have some potential, but I believe it to be too gimmicky and prone to bad matchups.
Conclusion ; prohibitive mana cost makes this hard to use with burn spells.
Conclusion ; overcosted.
Conclusion ; extremely powerful and should see play in various decks. I can see Jade Druid liking this card in particular.
Conclusion ; this expansion added a boatload of trash deathrattles.
Conclusion ; needs experimentation. Will depend if some Hero card becomes too powerful, like DK Anduin.
Conclusion ; very strong tempo card! Triggering a heal on yourself is very easy to do in any class with something like Mistress of Mixtures or Earthen Ring Farseer, and getting a free Happy Ghoul with it could prove defensive enough to counter strong aggro openings. Priest can just use his hero power, but I'm not sure Priest is that interesting in this card.
Conclusion ; garbage.
Conclusion ; strong, especially for handbuff and evolve decks.
Conclusion ; a strong pirate for sure and likely will replace the weaker addition to that deck, the Naga Corsair.
Conclusion ; The downside is rather negligible, as you can control when it happens and might be able to avoid it altogether. Good card for arena.
Conclusion ; a very powerful effect for neutral! It will need practical experimenting, but being able to resurrect your Tirion, Earth Elementals and other power drops could make this card playable in very specialized decks.
Conclusion ; more tools for Dragon Priest, but also playable in N'zoth loving classes! On average, this will give a very powerful dragon as there are only like 3 bad ones but +10 powerful ones like Ysera and Sindragosa.
Conclusion ; there are not really good enough cards in Hearthstone to support this card yet.
Conclusion ; this might as well be a Paladin card, as it seems it will auto include in Paladin's deck, especially the Divine Shield one. Other classes are a lot less viable for this.
Conclusion ; a powerful evolve target for sure, but not for much else. The risk of giving your opponent the 5/5 is basically unavoidable.
Conclusion ; interesting card, but playing a 1/4 on 4 that pulls out 0 costs might cost you the game. Considerations are for buffing this minion (which is not that good, as it pulls out a random minion and might still just pull a 1 or so power) or running cards like Validated Doomsayer... but then you're playing trash that spawns other trash. This is a surefire way to regret spending your dust.
Conclusion ; lifesteal isn't that relevant or prominent and there are better handbuffing cards for those who want them.
Conclusion ; terrible stats for not much of an effect. What are you planning to get on turn 5 that has already died?
Conclusion ; the highly anticipated counter to Jade Idol that also hits some other mostly less relevant targets in the game. The main use of this card is to give slow and lumbering decks like Control Warrior and Control Priest a shot at actually winning the game, and this card delivers. There are some side effects like destroying Shield Slam, Cold Blood, Inner Fire, Earthen Scales... etc, but those cards are less relevant - what really only matters is that it stops infinite Jades, and slow decks will tech this in.
Conclusion ; a cool card that easily becomes a high power drop on 6, but is probably too impractical to use (and I can only think of Warrior wanting to use this card since it's so aggressive) and just using the weapon itself might be a more reliable plan.
Conclusion ; an interesting tech choice that counters Miracle and Druid turns a lot, and possibly prevents AOEs from clearing your board. I do think it is too expensive, too specific of a counter and too easy to remove.
Conclusion ; in a swarmy deck, getting this in the opening hand is backbreaking for the opponent, and a deck that can run this card without sacrificing much is certainly possible. You can't guarantee to have this in your opening hand of course, but when you do your opponent might just scoop.
Conclusion ; needs experimenting.
Conclusion ; a cute card that should probably be only run by slow decks starving for deathrattles. The Death Knight cards are a lot lower in power level to Ysera dream cards, but playing a 4 mana 2/2 to get a random DK card (that might turn out useless) might be too much of a tempo drop. There's also the weakness to Priest stealing it rather easily. There are definitive highroll potentials with this card by getting Death and Decay and Frostmourne.
Conclusion ; it's hard to imagine any class sacrifice their 4 drops for a sort of okayish minion. Shouldn't see play.
Conclusion ; one of the best taunt minions in the game, well stated and with a powerful but significantly weaker Ysera-like effect on 8. Will especially be run in other classes that lacked a good 8 drop other than Medivh, and Stonehill Defender just got buffed for having this as an option. Note though that these Death Knight cards are not 'always' good like Ysera dream cards; there are definitive highrolls (Frostmourne and Death and Decay) and lowrolls that don't fit your deck, harm your deck too much or do very little like Death Grip. Will definitively spark the use of Black Knights.
- Final Conclusion for Each Class and the Frozen Throne meta -
Druid :
Druid's Token deck, already a Tier 1 deck in both formats, has gained an exceptionally strong addition with Druid of the Swarm. With a massive statline of 1/5 for 2 mana, this beast can soak up and destroy a lot of popular turn 1 creatures (Patches the Pirate and Southsea Deckhand) and remain standing, possibly getting even further powered by Mark of Y'Shaarj. With this powerful body it can provide protection for Vicious Fledgling and other beaters, creating a very difficult combination to counter reminisce of Zoo's Flame Imp + Voidwalker. Even late game this creature can be useful by gaining Poisonous to bring down taunts.
The drawback from Skulking Geist might harm Jade Druid, however do note that the deck can be built in new ways that are not so vulnerable for losing Jade Idol, has gained good antiaggro tools, has Malfurion the Pestilent and Ultimate Infestation, and can even without Jade Idols grow the biggest golems of the Jade gang. The deck will remain strong, just that more Control decks will be playable with Geist around.
Slower Druid decks have gained Malfurion the Pestilent and Ultimate Infestation, two highly powerful cards that will open up Ramp Druid and Jade Druid to possibly push for Tier 1.
The other additions are decent and it could happen that Taunt and Control Druid - defensive spin-off decks on the Ramp theme - also appear in Standard (and should be viable in Wild) but I anticipate these two lack enough good tools to make it out of Tier 2 and 3.
Hunter :
There are nowhere enough tools to bring out a slower Control Hunter even in Wild, and to be fair even with the cards I list above I don't believe Midrange Hunter will make much of a move out of the bottom, especially with the new AOE spells and creatures arriving that challenge Hunter's ever lovable turn 1 1/1 plays.
Corpse Widow to me looks like the only real card out of these three that will see play, as Hunter's 5 slot has been lacking and reluctantly filled by the Rhinos, and Widow does allow for some crazy tempo swings. Stitched Tracker deserves a mention for being one of the strongest fake-tutor cards in the game, that in almost any other class would see instant inclusion - but in Hunter might just turn to 'not face enough'.
Deathstalker Rexxar's battlecry is great, but his hero power is almost a 100% downgrade for a class with such lack in control tools; again, almost any other class would be able to use this much better.
Mage :
Even if Mage got nothing out of this expansion, it would still probably rule Tier 1, especially with the addition of Skulking Geist. Instead, Mage gets the excellent Coldwraith for basically any deck, support for Exodia Mage (a deck that with just a small push in the form of Ghastly Conjurer might have become the killer of all Midrange and Control) and a Death Knight that supports the Elemental tribe, a decent tribe that might turn just too weak next to the various Freeze and Exodia variants it can build.
Mage will without worry remain on top of Tier 1 with multiple decks, in my opinion.
Paladin :
With a Midrange Paladin being in Tier 1 and Control Paladin waiting for Skulking Geist to become available, Paladin is looking good in taking up the top of the meta with several very different decks. The existing decks all get great upgrades (the Lich King especially handy to them, especially through Stonehills) and Paladin stands very well to counter what new decks are expected from other classes, regaining its ability at attrition war with the new Uther of the Ebon Blade with a tiny chance at a combo win spin-off.
With Jade being soft countered, Paladin can now also push more for a deathrattle theme, and Corpse Raiser could find a place in such a deck. Corpsetaker might see inclusion in the deck though it is questionable, as there are so many must-have 4 costs in it already.
Aggro/Bubble Paladin is getting a push towards viability too, a deck that is already crazy strong in Wild.
Priest :
Depending on the results of Skulking Geist, Priest might shy away more from playing Inner Fire/Silence Priest and focus more on Control, where it always had a powerful arsenal to play with. I would expect Inner Fire to suffer a small setback and possibly need to start using cards like Kooky Chemist if it wanted to continue on with its plan (since Geist will not affect Divine Spirit, still allowing for gross overkills) but I believe the deck will mostly remain unaffected and instead be pushed out by returning Control decks from Warrior and Mage, if Jade Druid becomes less present. Note too that Inner Fire Priest normally farms Jade Druid, so with that fantastic matchup gone Inner Fire might just fade out even if Geist isn't countering it that often.
Priest did get one of the best Deathrattle minions in Standard, a minion they can get from Freed from Amber, and with their massive ability to heal and boardwipe with Dragonfire Potion and Spirit Lash, I expect Priest to have 3 slow viable decks - Control, Deathrattle and Dragon, with at least one reaching the top of Tier 2 Standard.
DK Anduin is going to probably be more of a Highlander or Wild Reno thing, as it really shines with Raza. I'm unsure about the deck's success, but it does highly reward the Highlander build.
Rogue :
I wouldn't really say Rogue got much out of the expansion other than the fantastic Shadowblade and the probably more fun oriented DK. Miracle will get stronger especially if the meta slows down as it is capable of truly disgusting one turn kills - especially with the sneaky new Death Knight.
Shaman :
I don't really think Shaman got a lot of the expansion, but comically enough it never really needed much. It has competitive decks of various styles across all Tiers, and probably the best card it got, Thrall Deathseer, pushes it's most successful decks of Jelly (Jade and Elemental) and Token even further. Token Shaman is already Tier 1, and I would expect Jelly Shaman to also join it there.
Snowfury Giant might be enough to return a interesting Crusher Shaman, as it works basically as well as Arcane Giant. I don't believe a deck like this can get over Tier 2, as it is countered by other Shamans and probably beaten down by the improved token Druids.
Warlock :
Warlock basically had nothing to lose since it didn't exist in Standard, and now has a chance to push back into the meta with probably a Control deck. I think zoo and Discardlock still get beaten by token and pirate decks, and Discardlock is still a flawed mechanic that needs cards that can control its drawback better.
Control Warlock, or Handlock, stands in an absolutely fantastic spot if the meta slows down; to those who missed the era of old Handlock, it was dubbed the 'Control Killer' with its turn 4 Giants and Twilight Drakes that it then proceeds to copy with Manipulators, all the while having good AOE (Twisted Nether being the only true bomb in the game) and the deadliest Hero replacement in the game, Lord Jaraxxus. Sad thing that Jade Druid might become less present, as Handlock farmed them even with a bad hand.
With the addition of Defile and to a lesser degree the Dreadlord, Handlock has finally been given an answer to Turn 1 and 2 pressure, and with DK Gul'dan gained a survival tool to help against the most dreaded matchup - Burn and Freeze Mage. This set right here is the biggest chance Gul'dan will get to have a Control deck in Standard, I believe. The power of Defile and the DK is simply insane, and will get even better over time.
In Wild, Renolock should return to the top of Tier 1 Wild with these additions.
Warrior :
Pirate Warrior remains Tier 1, likely just slightly upgraded by Forge of Souls. It might struggle a bit more with Defile and Spirit Lash in the game, but the sheer power of it can't be so easily stopped.
Control and Taunt Warrior basically gains the most by the Skulking Geist existing, as it can now much freely build slow, lumbering decks that outcontrol the opponent. I think with the existence of Geist, Taunt Warrior will be able to push towards Tier 1 again. However, I'm not sure where Control Warrior stands anymore; I feel that Taunt Warrior is just a supreme deck with better odds against almost every other deck (especially with cards like Dirty Rat) and if that turns out the case then Control Warrior might just disappear in favor of various Taunt builds.
Dead Man's Hand existing possibly brings a new joke archetype for Warrior, and is worth mentioning; if the meta ever becomes so slow that this is possible, a never exhausting never fatiguing Warrior could exist. I've definitively built dumber things that worked!
Thank you for reading and commenting. As we approach the new expansion full of wondrous new toys for us to experiment with, remember all :
''If you put your heart into the game, and/or are Rank 20, all decks are viable!''
''He traded sands for skins, skins for gold, gold for life. In the end, he traded life for sand.''
(.o.))~ ~(('o') (.o.))~
Read it all and just wanted to thank you for this !
''He traded sands for skins, skins for gold, gold for life. In the end, he traded life for sand.''
(.o.))~ ~(('o') (.o.))~
''He traded sands for skins, skins for gold, gold for life. In the end, he traded life for sand.''
(.o.))~ ~(('o') (.o.))~
Druid :
Druid's Token deck, already a Tier 1 deck in both formats, has gained an exceptionally strong addition with Druid of the Swarm. With a massive statline of 1/5 for 2 mana, this beast can soak up and destroy a lot of popular turn 1 creatures (Patches the Pirate and Southsea Deckhand) and remain standing, possibly getting even further powered by Mark of Y'Shaarj. With this powerful body it can provide protection for Vicious Fledgling and other beaters, creating a very difficult combination to counter reminisce of Zoo's Flame Imp + Voidwalker. Even late game this creature can be useful by gaining Poisonous to bring down taunts.
The drawback from Stalking Geist might harm Jade Druid, however do note that the deck can be built in new ways that are not so vulnerable for losing Jade Idol, has gained good antiaggro tools, has Malfurion the Pestilent and Ultimate Infestation, and can even without Jade Idols grow the biggest golems of the Jade gang. The deck will remain strong, just that more Control decks will be playable with Geist around.
Slower Druid decks have gained Malfurion the Pestilent and Ultimate Infestation, two highly powerful cards that will open up Ramp Druid and Jade Druid to possibly push for Tier 1.
The other additions are decent and it could happen that Taunt and Control Druid - defensive spin-off decks on the Ramp theme - also appear in Standard (and should be viable in Wild) but I anticipate these two lack enough good tools to make it out of Tier 2 and 3.
Hunter :
There are nowhere enough tools to bring out a slower Control Hunter even in Wild, and to be fair even with the cards I list above I don't believe Midrange Hunter will make much of a move out of the bottom, especially with the new AOE spells and creatures arriving that challenge Hunter's ever lovable turn 1 1/1 plays.
Corpse Widow to me looks like the only real card out of these three that will see play, as Hunter's 5 slot has been lacking and reluctantly filled by the Rhinos, and Widow does allow for some crazy tempo swings. Stitched Tracker deserves a mention for being one of the strongest fake-tutor cards in the game, that in almost any other class would see instant inclusion - but in Hunter might just turn to 'not face enough'.
Deathstalker Rexxar's battlecry is great, but his hero power is almost a 100% downgrade for a class with such lack in control tools; again, almost any other class would be able to use this much better.
Mage :
Even if Mage got nothing out of this expansion, it would still probably rule Tier 1, especially with the addition of Stalking Geist. Instead, Mage gets the excellent Coldwraith for basically any deck, support for Exodia Mage (a deck that with just a small push in the form of Ghastly Conjurer might have become the killer of all Midrange and Control) and a Death Knight that supports the Elemental tribe, a decent tribe that might turn just too weak next to the various Freeze and Exodia variants it can build.
Mage will without worry remain on top of Tier 1 with multiple decks, in my opinion.
Paladin :
With a Midrange Paladin being in Tier 1 and Control Paladin waiting for Stalking Geist to become available, Paladin is looking good in taking up the top of the meta with several very different decks. The existing decks all get great upgrades (the Lich King especially handy to them, especially through Stonehills) and Paladin stands very well to counter what new decks are expected from other classes, regaining its ability at attrition war with the new Uther of the Ebon Blade with a tiny chance at a combo win spin-off.
With Jade being soft countered, Paladin can now also push more for a deathrattle theme, and Corpse Raiser could find a place in such a deck. Corpsetaker might see inclusion in the deck though it is questionable, as there are so many must-have 4 costs in it already.
Aggro/Bubble Paladin is getting a push towards viability too, a deck that is already crazy strong in Wild.
Priest :
Depending on the results of Stalking Geist, Priest might shy away more from playing Inner Fire/Silence Priest and focus more on Control, where it always had a powerful arsenal to play with. I would expect Inner Fire to suffer a small setback and possibly need to start using cards like Kooky Chemist if it wanted to continue on with its plan (since Geist will not affect Divine Spirit, still allowing for gross overkills) but I believe the deck will mostly remain unaffected and instead be pushed out by returning Control decks from Warrior and Mage, if Jade Druid becomes less present. Note too that Inner Fire Priest normally farms Jade Druid, so with that fantastic matchup gone Inner Fire might just fade out even if Geist isn't countering it that often.
Priest did get one of the best Deathrattle minions in Standard, a minion they can get from Freed from Amber, and with their massive ability to heal and boardwipe with Dragonfire Potion and Spirit Lash, I expect Priest to have 3 slow viable decks - Control, Deathrattle and Dragon, with at least one reaching the top of Tier 2 Standard.
DK Anduin is going to probably be more of a Highlander or Wild Reno thing, as it really shines with Raza. I'm unsure about the deck's success, but it does highly reward the Highlander build.
Rogue :
I wouldn't really say Rogue got much out of the expansion other than the fantastic Shadowblade and the probably more fun oriented DK. Miracle will get stronger especially if the meta slows down as it is capable of truly disgusting one turn kills - especially with the sneaky new Death Knight.
Shaman :
I don't really think Shaman got a lot of the expansion, but comically enough it never really needed much. It has competitive decks of various styles across all Tiers, and probably the best card it got, Thrall Deathseer, pushes it's most successful decks of Jelly (Jade and Elemental) and Token even further. Token Shaman is already Tier 1, and I would expect Jelly Shaman to also join it there.
Snowfury Giant might be enough to return a interesting Crusher Shaman, as it works basically as well as Arcane Giant. I don't believe a deck like this can get over Tier 2, as it is countered by other Shamans and probably beaten down by the improved token Druids.
Warlock :
Warlock basically had nothing to lose since it didn't exist in Standard, and now has a chance to push back into the meta with probably a Control deck. I think zoo and Discardlock still get beaten by token and pirate decks, and Discardlock is still a flawed mechanic that needs cards that can control its drawback better.
Control Warlock, or Handlock, stands in an absolutely fantastic spot if the meta slows down; to those who missed the era of old Handlock, it was dubbed the 'Control Killer' with its turn 4 Giants and Twilight Drakes that it then proceeds to copy with Manipulators, all the while having good AOE (Twisted Nether being the only true bomb in the game) and the deadliest Hero replacement in the game, Lord Jaraxxus. Sad thing that Jade Druid might become less present, as Handlock farmed them even with a bad hand.
With the addition of Defile and to a lesser degree the Dreadlord, Handlock has finally been given an answer to Turn 1 and 2 pressure, and with DK Gul'dan gained a survival tool to help against the most dreaded matchup - Burn and Freeze Mage. This set right here is the biggest chance Gul'dan will get to have a Control deck in Standard, I believe. The power of Defile and the DK is simply insane, and will get even better over time.
In Wild, Renolock should return to the top of Tier 1 Wild with these additions.
Warrior :
Pirate Warrior remains Tier 1, likely just slightly upgraded by Forge of Souls. It might struggle a bit more with Defile and Spirit Lash in the game, but the sheer power of it can't be so easily stopped.
Control and Taunt Warrior basically gains the most by the Stalking Geist existing, as it can now much freely build slow, lumbering decks that outcontrol the opponent. I think with the existence of Geist, Taunt Warrior will be able to push towards Tier 1 again. However, I'm not sure where Control Warrior stands anymore; I feel that Taunt Warrior is just a supreme deck with better odds against almost every other deck (especially with cards like Dirty Rat) and if that turns out the case then Control Warrior might just disappear in favor of various Taunt builds.
Dead Man's Hand existing possibly brings a new joke archetype for Warrior, and is worth mentioning; if the meta ever becomes so slow that this is possible, a never exhausting never fatiguing Warrior could exist. I've definitively built dumber things that worked!
Thank you for reading and commenting. As we approach the new expansion full of wondrous new toys for us to experiment with, remember all :
''If you put your heart into the game, and/or are Rank 20, all decks are viable!''
''He traded sands for skins, skins for gold, gold for life. In the end, he traded life for sand.''
(.o.))~ ~(('o') (.o.))~
''He traded sands for skins, skins for gold, gold for life. In the end, he traded life for sand.''
(.o.))~ ~(('o') (.o.))~
''He traded sands for skins, skins for gold, gold for life. In the end, he traded life for sand.''
(.o.))~ ~(('o') (.o.))~