Hello and welcome to my Rise of Shadows Card Review.
5 – meta defining, build-around (note: not necessarily WILL end up in a top tier deck, but these cards are ones you build entire decks around, or is a key card that enables the deck to even exist)
4 – powerful auto-include, doesn’t win you games but it has very high value
3 – solid but fair, support card, tech card, or good with existing synergy. Might see play, might not.
2 – cards that are mediocre but have potential
1 – total garbage, why would you run this in a serious deck?
Druid
Lucentbark – 3; easily countered with silence, but has good support right now
Crystal Stag – 3; the big question will be if Druid can consistently restore 5 health by turn 5 in games where Crystal Power is NOT drawn.
Crystalsong Portal – 2; Druid minions aren’t great, but this would be a welcome topdeck in an aggressive deck, which seems like Token Druid got a lot of support. If it ends up being a top competitive deck, this could very easily be a 3 or possibly 4.
The Forest's Aid – 2; simply too expensive for the effect, and it doesn’t really fit into any conceivable deck. Maybe in the slowest of games you can drop this and follow it up with Treespeaker. Or maybe you play this on 10, then double Biology Project + Innervate + Treespeaker for 29/29 in stats. Seems pretty lofty of a goal though. (edit: changed from a 1 to a 2, because a lot of good AOEs rotate out, so decks that create enough board presence will eventually stick and push damage).
Lifeweaver – 3; 3-mana 2/5 has traditionally seen at least some amount of play and the “random spell” generation is historically not as bad an effect as people think (Hello Lyra).
Dreamway Guardians – 4; fair card that might see play if Token Druid or “restore health” Druid takes off. edit: Changed from 3 to 4. This is sort of like Fire Fly, but better. No doubt this is strong in a token deck.
Blessing of the Ancients – 2 or 3? Again, this is entirely dependent on if Token Druid becomes a thing.
Acornbearer – 4; if Token Druid IS a thing, this card will be a cornerstone staple
Crystal Power - 4; powerful existing synergy, very flexible, cheap spell to cycle with Auctioneer…I want to rate this a 5 but my own rating system dictates it’s a 4.
Overall – Druid gets a bunch of solid but fair cards. I don’t see anything game breaking, they all just seem….good? Will this be enough to make it competitive?
Hunter
Vereesa Windrunner – 2; There are possibilities but they are too much of a stretch. In another class, this would probably be rated higher.
Oblivitron – 1; requires far too much to be good. You have to not be behind on board on turn 6, have to have a deathrattle mech in hand, and it has to be one who’s deathrattle would be useful. This is a lot better in Wild where you have Sneed’s synergy.
Arcane Fletcher – 3; I never dismiss cards that can cycle through your deck.
Nine Lives – 2; has potential but I think it needs a lot more support. The upside is this isn’t just for mech deathrattles, which means you can discover a Highmane and summon two 2/2s for 3 mana, which is pretty dang good. The downside of that is that you’re summoning two 2/s for 3 mana on turn 7.
Unleash the Beast – 3; potentially higher but that will depend on what the average turn 5 looks like. The beast synergy is nice, the tempo gain is nice, and the synergy with Zul’Jin is nice.
Shimmerfly – 2; as Hunter has never really been a value class and instead has been a tempo class, you have to remember that there are 1-drops with better stats. Webspinner didn’t see a ton of play, and this also is competing with Springpaw, arguably a better 1-mana 1/1 beast that generates a card.
Ursatron – 2; synergy with Oblivitron but I seriously doubt Mech Hunter will be a thing in Standard.
Rapid Fire – 3; flexible card who’s cost opens up some interesting possibilities.
Overall – Hunter loses almost all of its best stuff and gains…pretty much nothing. However, Midrange Beast Hunter still has decent tools, and Scavenging Hyena is still broken and in Standard. I think Midrange will dominate the meta at least in the early days of the expansion when everyone is trying things out, and probably settle in the Tier 2 range.
Mage
Kalecgos – 5; With Jaina rotating, this is potentially a really good reason for Control Mage to stall the game and get to 10 mana. Your opponent will likely be saving removal, but the snowball effect cannot be denied. Imagine if The Lich King’s effect also was a Battlecry and the spells all cost 0.
Khadgar – 4; Low cost, high value, and has existing support.
Conjurer's Calling – 4; This card can be used after trading, or to get past a taunt, and as a Twinspell card, is high value. Also can be discovered from Magic Trick.
Magic Trick – 2; Mage didn’t get incentive to run cards like this. Why not just run the spell you want? This sort of feels like a worse Shadow Visions, in that it can get you additional copies of cheap spells, but the increased RNG factor makes me not want to run this.
Messenger Raven – 2.5; Poor stats, good value…but poor stats. Do you want to draw 2 cards from your deck for 3 mana or draw a random Mage minion and put a 3/2 in play for 3 mana?
Magic Dart Frog – 5; This card is just nuts, BECAUSE it targets minions only. In my opinion, this card enables a new version of Tempo Mage, one that isn’t reliant on (a now dead) T1 Mana Wyrm T2 Apprentice.
Ray of Frost – 4; Not much to say, I just think this card is good and has synergy with other existing good cards.
Overall – Mage loses dragon’s fury and Frost Lich Jaina, and gains….not a whole lot in terms of late game. Are these new tempo oriented tools enough? I’m leaning towards no, but very possibly yes as more cards are released in later sets.
Paladin
Nozari – 1; Powerful effect in a class that doesn’t need it or have good use for it. Nozari? No, sorry.
Commander Rhyssa – 4; Will see play if Secret Paladin sees play.
Dragon Speaker – 2; Stop trying to make “hand buff” happen. It’s not going to happen.
Overall – With Odd/Even Paladin and OTK (Deathknight) rotating, Paladin has a huge hole left over. I don’t think this new dragon synergy is good enough. There is still the Shrivala + Baleful Banker + Holy Wrath combo, but I think that will be fringe, as Paladin is also losing powerful tools like Spikeridged Steed and Sunkeeper Tarim and Stonehill Defender. And Secret Paladin? I’m not convinced yet.
Priest
Catrina Muerte – 5; Huge value, huge synergy, the kind of card you build a deck around.
Madame Lazul – 3; People have said that the value of information is overrated. I think just as valuable as knowing what’s in their hand is knowing what’s NOT in their hand.
Shadowy Figure – 4; This card has a lot of potential! Right off the bat I can see it being used with Convincing Infiltrator in a new form of Res/Wall Priest. You could use it on a card like Hench-Clan Shadequill and then Silence it to make it a 2-mana 4/7.
Mass Resurrection – 4; If there’s anything that keeps Res/Wall Priest alive, it will be this. Otherwise, this is likely just a 2 star card.
Convincing Infiltrator – 4; Card is a solid 4, I would be shocked if this didn’t see play, and not just in Wall Priest.
Forbidden Words – 5; Will be 2x in every Priest deck and you will be playing around it.
Hench-Clan Shadequill - 3; Potentially better than Twilight Drake in that you actually don’t mind it getting silenced, and as Priest loses a lot of reasons to run Dragons and gains reasons to run a Silence package, this could see play.
Unsleeping Soul - 2; I’m not really sure where this fits but I think you’d rather do something else with 4-mana.
Overall - Priest is being pushed in two directions: Silence and Resurrect. Overall Priest seems like they were one of the better classes of this expansion, and I think they’ll have a solid spot in the meta. Mind Blast, Velen, and Divine Spirit/Inner Fire isn’t going away any time soon.
Rogue
Tak Nozwhisker - 2; Cool effect, but too weak to see any play.
Heistbaron Togwaggle - 5; this is a build around effect and opens up many possibilities.
Waggle Pick - 3; Overcosted but Rogue has existing weapon synergy. Not sure where it fits, but you shouldn’t be counting out any Rogue weapon really.
Vendetta - 4; This card might singlehandedly enable Tess Rogue.
Underbelly Fence - 4; Decently stat’d so you don’t mind playing it without the buff, but is pretty crazy strong when you do. And Hallucination andPilfer is in Standard.
Togwaggle's Scheme - 1; To be perfectly honest I think this is very overrated, when Lab Recruiter does essentially the same thing. The only thing going for it is the ability to target enemy minions.
Overall - Rogue certainly seems to be pushed towards Thievery. Given that even in sets where Rogue got…..nothing, they’ve found a way to be a top tier deck. I expect Rogue to be dominant either way.
Shaman
Swampqueen Hagatha - 3; Obviously a powerful effect, though I don’t think strong enough to build a whole deck around. May find its way into a Shudderwock deck I suppose. One upside, it curves right into Hagatha the Witch and with Blazecaller (and most of the Elemental package) rotating, there’s less competition in the 7-drop spot.
Scargil - 2? I don’t know, almost all the good Murlocs are already cheap. Maybe we’ll be in a meta where you can fill up the board and your hand by comboing this with Underbelly Angler.
Muckmorpher - 1; RNG clown fiesta! 5-mana 4/4, no thanks.
Witch's Brew - 3? I don’t know about this card. For 10 mana you can heal yourself for 20. You could heal yourself for 15 for 3 mana with Healing Rain though.
Hagatha's Scheme - 4; In a class that is more traditionally control, this card would be OP. As it is, it’s preeeeeety good.
Underbelly Angler - 4; This card will snowball HARD. I’ve played against enough T2 Radiant Elementals to know how much it sucks when you can’t remove a “must remove” 2-drop.
Sludge Slurper - 4; Battlecry: Guarantee you have a turn 2 play. I dig it.
Walking Fountain - 5; IMO if there’s any single card that enables a controlling archetype in Shaman, this is it. Have we ever seen a Common card that you build a deck around? This card is nuts.
Soul of the Murloc - 3; It’s better than Primal Talismans, which was a 1-star, so I have to give this 2 even though it’s probably a 1 also. Maybe it’s okay since Defile is rotating. edit: Upgrading from a 2 to a 3, for same reasons as Forest's Aid. In a world with fewer board clears, board stickiness is king.
Mutate - 1; I wanna get this from Hagatha, but not put it in my deck.
Overall - I’m not confident that Shaman got enough to be honest. I’m not sold on the Murloc package. Maybe there are enough new things to enable a fresh take on Shudderwock. I expect Shaman to be somewhere in the bottom of Tier 2 at best. It’s losing the only real package it currently has, which is elementals.
Warlock
Fel Lord Betrug - 1; 8-mana 5/7. Doomguard is rotating so we can’t even play this into The Soularium or Lifetap. The Deathknight it rotating so you actually care about your stuff dying.
Arch-Villain Rafaam - 3; Good but not great. Good defensive tool. Elise 1.0 on steroids, if timed properly. Kind of sucks if you have to play this just to not die.
Darkest Hour - 1; Maybe you fill your board with rafaam’s scheme then destroy it and summon a bunch of real minions with this card. Or maybe you just run actual good cards instead.
Eager Underling - 1; 4-mana 2/2, next. Fungalmancer is better in every way...next. Fungalmancer is also rotating…..this won’t take its place.
Impferno - 2; It’s hard to see where this could be good. There’s not a lot of good demons anymore, or good CHEAP demons. This just kind of feels like a crappy Holy Nova.
Plot Twist - 4; I’m positive this will be used somewhere. I remember the Brawl that had a card like this and it was pretty OP to be able to get a second mulligan in the middle of the game.
Aranasi Broodmother - 3; It’s okay. Borderline good enough to just throw into a deck.
Rafaam's Scheme - 1; I’m not convinced this is good enough to see play anywhere. Even if you summon 4, it’s still worse than a 3-mana 4/4 (which is probably just good enough to see play). Summoning five 1/1s is probably the starting point of this being playable, but that means you had a dead 3-drop in your hand for at least 2 turns longer than you wanted.
EVIL Genius - 4; As far as Lackey generators go, this is suuuuper good.
Overall - Warlock loses pretty much everything that made it good. Doomguard, Spellstone, Deathknight, Defile, Despicable Dreadlord, Genn Greymane, the weapon, Cubes/Umbra, Voidlord, etc. Healzoo loses Kobold Librarian, Keleseth, Fungal Enchanter, Happy Ghoul, Tar Creeper, Chain Gang, Dreadlord, Fungalmancer….basically the entire package. It gained……….not really anything I’m excited about. Looks like Warlock’s days are over for now. Tier 3? Tier 4?
Blastmaster Boom - 3; At least with the new tools, I really wanna play Bomb Warrior.
Omega Devastator - 4; Only because you can’t really build a deck around it, but this card is pretty good. A Yeti, that destroys almost anything conditionally, that has Mech synergy. Hell yes!
Wrenchcalibur - 3; If you’re running the Bomb package, you’re probably running this. Otherwise, this card probably is a 2 or 1 and will see no play.
Dimensional Ripper - 1; Stop trying to make “expensive Recruit” happen; it’s not going to happen.
Clockwork Goblin - 3; Again, if you’re running the Bomb package, you’re running this, otherwise this is a 2 or 1 and sees no play.
Sweeping Strikes - 2; This depends on the Rush package and how good it is in comparison to the Bomb package. It’s pretty strong with Zilliax.
Dr. Boom's Scheme - 5; Just kidding this is a 1. They obviously fucked up and had to change the card at the last minute.
Vicious Scraphound - 3; As a mech I think this has a lot of flexibility and it appears as though the average stats of a 2-drop are much less aggressive nowadays.
Improve Morale - 4; I want to play this card in every Warrior deck until it rotates. It enables Execute, gives me a Lackey, enables Gromm, etc etc.
Overall - Obviously with Baku rotating, Warrior loses an entire archetype. Reckless Flurry is also rotating. Maybe Warrior will have to be less about fatigue/attrition and more about the Bomb/Rush package. Whether or not this is good enough I think will entirely depend on the other midrange decks. It’s not looking super promising for Warrior though.
Neutrals
Due to time and (lack of) need for explanation, I will only be writing about legendaries and 5-star cards.
Jepetto Joybuzz - 2; It reminds me of Luna's Pocket Galaxy except it's a Neutral and puts stats on the board, and only applies to two minions instead of all of them. I think it's gonna be kind of tough to highroll and hit your Malygos combo, and for combo decks, consistency is the name of the game.
Archivist Elysiana - 3; The attrition/fatigue player’s wet dream. This is largely a tech card for the Control/Control matchups. I expect to see it played here and there, but not be an auto include.
Chef Nomi - 1; If your deck is empty, chances are you've lost the game. Elysiana is a better end game tech card anyways.
Archmage Vargoth - 5; We’re already seeing how this can be abused. Fortunately, a lot of that stuff is rotating to Wild, but this is still a card that you’ll see a lot of.
Overall - Mostly some decent stuff for Arena with a couple cards here and there that could almost be class cards. I’m glad we didn’t see any broken 2-drop Neutrals. There’s probably some broken combo here somewhere however…..the collective playerbase always finds something.
Thanks for reading! If you'd like to discuss any of these, I'd be more than happy to talk about them.
Disclaimer: I've tried to be as unbiased as possible, but as someone who has primarily played control decks since I started in GvG, naturally I have far less experience in evaluating the strength of aggressive cards, and as such, may be prone to evaluating control cards higher. This is not intentional and does not reflect my personal opinion of aggro decks.
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Just a quick note and I will comment more later. Again, I appreciate seeing points of view that may not be mine to see what I may have missed.
For Warlock, Fel Lord summons a copy. It means you retain the real in your hand. It means you get free trades with Soularium. You can then play the 6 drop to get anything back you couldn't play that turn.
This is a control card, that could be a combo OTK card as well.
So I don't agree that its a 1 star card. But I will go into the review ratings later.
Overall, a good analysis. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Just a quick note and I will comment more later. Again, I appreciate seeing points of view that may not be mine to see what I may have missed.
For Warlock, Fel Lord summons a copy. It means you retain the real in your hand. It means you get free trades with Soularium. You can then play the 6 drop to get anything back you couldn't play that turn.
This is a control card, that could be a combo OTK card as well.
So I don't agree that its a 1 star card. But I will go into the review ratings later.
Overall, a good analysis. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Still, 9 mana to play a 5/7 and get some trades seems a pretty steep cost. 8-mana to play a 5/7 that doesn't do anything is a really steep cost. If you want an 8-mana control card, why not Twisting Nether?
Interesting point of view, you are more generous towards the "control" cards than the cards supporting aggro decks. Also, you must like priest a lot. The overall rating of the class is higher than the others by a wide margin.
Just a quick note and I will comment more later. Again, I appreciate seeing points of view that may not be mine to see what I may have missed.
For Warlock, Fel Lord summons a copy. It means you retain the real in your hand. It means you get free trades with Soularium. You can then play the 6 drop to get anything back you couldn't play that turn.
This is a control card, that could be a combo OTK card as well.
So I don't agree that its a 1 star card. But I will go into the review ratings later.
Overall, a good analysis. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Still, 9 mana to play a 5/7 and get some trades seems a pretty steep cost. 8-mana to play a 5/7 that doesn't do anything is a really steep cost. If you want an 8-mana control card, why not Twisting Nether?
I see this card as a 9 mana or 10 mana play, hence the control nature of the deck it would go into. You could forgo Soularium and go with double Plot Twist instead. You throw in the neutral minions that shuffle portals into your deck and you have a solid board clear on turn 10, and you keep a threat around to keep doing it.
I am not saying its a 5 star card, but 1 star might be missing the mark. I guess we will find out, but I have a feeling this card is going to be a good late game control card to remove wide boards.
I loved the review of the cards, and seeing your ideas. This is the kind of post that makes me love Hearthpwn.
Loving rogues as I do, your rogue breakdown was my first stop. I found a tiny mistake here; hallucination will not be in standard once RoS drops tomorrow.
Interesting point of view, you are more generous towards the "control" cards than the cards supporting aggro decks. Also, you must like priest a lot. The overall rating of the class is higher than the others by a wide margin.
Anything specifically you disagree with that you'd like to discuss?
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Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination.
Prediction in four weeks you will rate the Fel Lord Betrug card at least 3 stars after guys like Zealot and Toast show us how this can be used properly.
Just a quick note and I will comment more later. Again, I appreciate seeing points of view that may not be mine to see what I may have missed.
For Warlock, Fel Lord summons a copy. It means you retain the real in your hand. It means you get free trades with Soularium. You can then play the 6 drop to get anything back you couldn't play that turn.
This is a control card, that could be a combo OTK card as well.
So I don't agree that its a 1 star card. But I will go into the review ratings later.
Overall, a good analysis. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Still, 9 mana to play a 5/7 and get some trades seems a pretty steep cost. 8-mana to play a 5/7 that doesn't do anything is a really steep cost. If you want an 8-mana control card, why not Twisting Nether?
It'll be fun to play around with in Wild with Guldan.
Tak Nozwhisker - 2; Cool effect, but too weak to see any play.
A lot of what you've written seems right, but hard disagree on this. Since it's only 7 mana, you're going to see people playing this I think two ways:
1) On turn 9 followed by Pogo-Hopper. It's a "must remove" target at that point, which will give at least a turn or two to get more hoppers out there. I expect this will be rarer than #2 though...
2) On turn 8/9/10 you'll get Tak + Preparation + Academic Espionage. if you hold it until 10 then that gets you two of the ten cards in your hand on the same turn. I expect it will be inconsistently effective given the RNG nature of AE, but it you have even a little luck this would be a huge swing play/the finishing move.
Also 7 mana 6/6 isn't *strong*, but it's not exactly week either.
You're dead 1000% wrong on Darkest Hour the amount of people underestimating this card is insane. By far the biggest Dark Horse of the expansion, it will be crazy good in Wild and maybe Standard. This is more of a aggro card than Control like most are thinking. For example in Wild aggro is running lots of Deathrattle and you normally have a token trash board going into 6 anyway, you sack them after trading and pull your Doomguards, Malganis, Leeroy..you name it. If that doesn't end the game there the next turn will if opponent doesnt have a immediate hard counter.
Tak Nozwhisker - 2; Cool effect, but too weak to see any play.
A lot of what you've written seems right, but hard disagree on this. Since it's only 7 mana, you're going to see people playing this I think two ways:
2) On turn 8/9/10 you'll get Tak + Preparation + Academic Espionage. if you hold it until 10 then that gets you two of the ten cards in your hand on the same turn. I expect it will be inconsistently effective given the RNG nature of AE, but it you have even a little luck this would be a huge swing play/the finishing move.
Also 7 mana 6/6 isn't *strong*, but it's not exactly week either.
I really hope this is true because I love Espionage/Cutlass Rogue and I want it to be competitive. I'm trying to remain unbiased in the review though. :)
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Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination.
Hunter didn't get any real impactful cards and lost a bunch of them. But Hunter always seems to find a way. I think the 1 drop beast, Shimmerfly is at least 3 stars due to its battlecry instead. It does mean on turn 3, playing the 1 drop beast and possibly a secret, if you get lucky enough. Hunter will probably still be a decent tier 2 deck with Nine Lives.
Priest looks absolutely insane with at least 2 strong archetypes. And some of the cards go in both versions of the decks, which means you may not be able to tell what deck you are playing until later in the game. The silence got so much support, it seems they went overboard with it. Its possibly even a thing you can play in draft mode (Arena). The Rez/Wall Priest makes me worried, but we have to see if the tech cards are good enough to stop them from winning from nowhere with Divine Spirit/Inner Fire combo.
Shaman also seems to have 2 decent decks in the making. Murloc aggro and Shudderwock control. I think the most powerful murloc is the poison 1 drop murloc. It means that Murloc decks don't have to necessarily run Hex and simply trade 1 minion for your large taunt for 1 mana. In the past, casting a 4 cost Hex means you cannot flood the board. There is no other condition to it and that makes it really strong with charge murlocs as well. The Shudderwock is going to be a control value deck, trying to milk Hagatha's scheme for all its worth. And once you play Hagatha hero card, any minion you do play becomes another potential Scheme. Seems like Shaman will be at least tier 2, if not better.
Rogue is a mixed bag for me. I find it to be the 'fun' class when playing it, but the unfun class when facing against it. You work all game and finally deal with all of Rogue's tempo stuff and removal and you are close to killing them. Then, one of their Academy cards completely steals the game and it is infuriating. or worse yet, you destroy their healing weapon, and then they play another one the turn after to keep themselves alive long enough to abuse 1 cost cards. I think the best deck is going to be a hybrid Pirate, Thief deck. It will offer value and tempo in the early game, and offer huge value in the late game. It will lose to really aggressive decks, but will we see any of those right away?
Paladin is going to high roll with their damn, turn 1 secret, turn 2 weapon or buffed minion that it will win games on the spot. Other times it will miss a turn 1 secret into a turn 2 weapon or buffed minion and lose because it has no way of coming back from behind. I don't normally like high roll decks like this. This reminds me of the old days of Shaman of turn 1 Trog, turn 2 Totem Golem. How do most decks deal with such crazy openings? This may be wishful thinking too. This secret deck might be so good, that losing Divine Favor won't matter. I hope not, as I do not want to deal with more of Aggro Paladin for the next 4 months.
Great review, I'm incline to agree with at least 90% of your verdict, but i feel like some of your rating are a little too sever for the potential those cards may be hidding. For instance - to only name a few examples where I disagree- , I do think Unidentified Contract is somewhat interesting - maybe not meta-breaking/shaping - but certainly not a 1 (out of 5). Hench-Clan Burglar will also boost up Burgle-mirror match-up, which shouldn't be overlooked. I may be wrong, but to me Darkest Hour seems like a broken 6 mana cheat cards that will open so many incredible possibilities. Imagine the amount of value you can put on board by turn 6 ...
I may be a little off on Hench-Clan Burglar, now that I look at the 4-drops. Rogue loses Elven Minstrel and Fal'dorei Strider so maybe there's enough room to run it. That deck always did have the problem of too many good 4-drops though.
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Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination.
Magic Dart Frog – 5; This card is just nuts, BECAUSE it targets minions only. In my opinion, this card enables a new version of Tempo Mage, one that isn’t reliant on (a now dead) T1 Mana Wyrm T2 Apprentice.
I think you are wrong here. Flamewaker had better stats, did DOUBLE the damage and was useful when there were no minions to target. If you want to combo with cards like Arcane Missiles you are better off playing Bloodmage Thalnos. Similar 1-damage ping-cards have been fails, Knife Juggler has better stats and is much easer to trigger, as you can often summon minions of deathrattles or several minions of 1 card. Mage will have major problems generating enough ammo for this to have any value, and even with 3 cards, the effect is mediocre.
You're dead 1000% wrong on Darkest Hour the amount of people underestimating this card is insane. By far the biggest Dark Horse of the expansion, it will be crazy good in Wild and maybe Standard. This is more of a aggro card than Control like most are thinking. For example in Wild aggro is running lots of Deathrattle and you normally have a token trash board going into 6 anyway, you sack them after trading and pull your Doomguards, Malganis, Leeroy..you name it. If that doesn't end the game there the next turn will if opponent doesnt have a immediate hard counter.
My thoughts exactly. I keep seeing people saying they think Warlock is dead, but this card alone is why Doomguard was HoF'd. Warlock is going to have a T1 deck, probably because of this card alone.
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#nerfbarnes
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Hello and welcome to my Rise of Shadows Card Review.
Druid
Lucentbark – 3; easily countered with silence, but has good support right now
Keeper Stalladris – 4; good stats with a very high value effect
Crystal Stag – 3; the big question will be if Druid can consistently restore 5 health by turn 5 in games where Crystal Power is NOT drawn.
Crystalsong Portal – 2; Druid minions aren’t great, but this would be a welcome topdeck in an aggressive deck, which seems like Token Druid got a lot of support. If it ends up being a top competitive deck, this could very easily be a 3 or possibly 4.
The Forest's Aid – 2; simply too expensive for the effect, and it doesn’t really fit into any conceivable deck. Maybe in the slowest of games you can drop this and follow it up with Treespeaker. Or maybe you play this on 10, then double Biology Project + Innervate + Treespeaker for 29/29 in stats. Seems pretty lofty of a goal though. (edit: changed from a 1 to a 2, because a lot of good AOEs rotate out, so decks that create enough board presence will eventually stick and push damage).
Lifeweaver – 3; 3-mana 2/5 has traditionally seen at least some amount of play and the “random spell” generation is historically not as bad an effect as people think (Hello Lyra).
Dreamway Guardians – 4;
fair card that might see play if Token Druid or “restore health” Druid takes off.edit: Changed from 3 to 4. This is sort of like Fire Fly, but better. No doubt this is strong in a token deck.Blessing of the Ancients – 2 or 3? Again, this is entirely dependent on if Token Druid becomes a thing.
Acornbearer – 4; if Token Druid IS a thing, this card will be a cornerstone staple
Crystal Power - 4; powerful existing synergy, very flexible, cheap spell to cycle with Auctioneer…I want to rate this a 5 but my own rating system dictates it’s a 4.
Overall – Druid gets a bunch of solid but fair cards. I don’t see anything game breaking, they all just seem….good? Will this be enough to make it competitive?
Hunter
Vereesa Windrunner – 2; There are possibilities but they are too much of a stretch. In another class, this would probably be rated higher.
Oblivitron – 1; requires far too much to be good. You have to not be behind on board on turn 6, have to have a deathrattle mech in hand, and it has to be one who’s deathrattle would be useful. This is a lot better in Wild where you have Sneed’s synergy.
Arcane Fletcher – 3; I never dismiss cards that can cycle through your deck.
Nine Lives – 2; has potential but I think it needs a lot more support. The upside is this isn’t just for mech deathrattles, which means you can discover a Highmane and summon two 2/2s for 3 mana, which is pretty dang good. The downside of that is that you’re summoning two 2/s for 3 mana on turn 7.
Unleash the Beast – 3; potentially higher but that will depend on what the average turn 5 looks like. The beast synergy is nice, the tempo gain is nice, and the synergy with Zul’Jin is nice.
Hunting Party – 1; way too slow to ever see play.
Shimmerfly – 2; as Hunter has never really been a value class and instead has been a tempo class, you have to remember that there are 1-drops with better stats. Webspinner didn’t see a ton of play, and this also is competing with Springpaw, arguably a better 1-mana 1/1 beast that generates a card.
Marked Shot – 1; way too slow
Ursatron – 2; synergy with Oblivitron but I seriously doubt Mech Hunter will be a thing in Standard.
Rapid Fire – 3; flexible card who’s cost opens up some interesting possibilities.
Overall – Hunter loses almost all of its best stuff and gains…pretty much nothing. However, Midrange Beast Hunter still has decent tools, and Scavenging Hyena is still broken and in Standard. I think Midrange will dominate the meta at least in the early days of the expansion when everyone is trying things out, and probably settle in the Tier 2 range.
Mage
Kalecgos – 5; With Jaina rotating, this is potentially a really good reason for Control Mage to stall the game and get to 10 mana. Your opponent will likely be saving removal, but the snowball effect cannot be denied. Imagine if The Lich King’s effect also was a Battlecry and the spells all cost 0.
Khadgar – 4; Low cost, high value, and has existing support.
Power of Creation – 3; Underrated card IMO. Reminds me a bit of Free From Amber.
Mana Cyclone – 4; Do we finally have enough of a reason to play Elementals? I’d like to think so.
Kirin Tor Tricaster – 2; I think the downside of increased spell cost negates the extra spell damage. Just play Cosmic Anomaly.
Conjurer's Calling – 4; This card can be used after trading, or to get past a taunt, and as a Twinspell card, is high value. Also can be discovered from Magic Trick.
Magic Trick – 2; Mage didn’t get incentive to run cards like this. Why not just run the spell you want? This sort of feels like a worse Shadow Visions, in that it can get you additional copies of cheap spells, but the increased RNG factor makes me not want to run this.
Messenger Raven – 2.5; Poor stats, good value…but poor stats. Do you want to draw 2 cards from your deck for 3 mana or draw a random Mage minion and put a 3/2 in play for 3 mana?
Magic Dart Frog – 5; This card is just nuts, BECAUSE it targets minions only. In my opinion, this card enables a new version of Tempo Mage, one that isn’t reliant on (a now dead) T1 Mana Wyrm T2 Apprentice.
Ray of Frost – 4; Not much to say, I just think this card is good and has synergy with other existing good cards.
Overall – Mage loses dragon’s fury and Frost Lich Jaina, and gains….not a whole lot in terms of late game. Are these new tempo oriented tools enough? I’m leaning towards no, but very possibly yes as more cards are released in later sets.
Paladin
Nozari – 1; Powerful effect in a class that doesn’t need it or have good use for it. Nozari? No, sorry.
Commander Rhyssa – 4; Will see play if Secret Paladin sees play.
Dragon Speaker – 2; Stop trying to make “hand buff” happen. It’s not going to happen.
Duel! – 1; The ultimate highroll card. You’re going to summon Crystalsmith Kangor while your opponent summons Malygos.
Call to Adventure – 1; I’d rather play Witchwood Piper.
Mysterious Blade – 5; Fiery Blade Axe. Secret on 1, Mysterious Blade on 2. Easy game.
Desperate Measures – 3; Insane value at the cost of consistency, but on the flip side, your opponent can’t play around it.
Bronze Herald – 2; 3-mana 3/2, no thanks. Good in Arena, maybe?
Lightforged Blessing – 4; This card is just crazy good. As if Paladin needed even more healing.
Never Surrender! - ?? I’m actually unsure about how good this is. 3 maybe? It protects Secretkeeper from Holy Smite but not from Shadow Word: Pain. Interesting thing about this card, it makes a Priest’s Shadow Madness better with Inner Fire.
Overall – With Odd/Even Paladin and OTK (Deathknight) rotating, Paladin has a huge hole left over. I don’t think this new dragon synergy is good enough. There is still the Shrivala + Baleful Banker + Holy Wrath combo, but I think that will be fringe, as Paladin is also losing powerful tools like Spikeridged Steed and Sunkeeper Tarim and Stonehill Defender. And Secret Paladin? I’m not convinced yet.
Priest
Catrina Muerte – 5; Huge value, huge synergy, the kind of card you build a deck around.
Madame Lazul – 3; People have said that the value of information is overrated. I think just as valuable as knowing what’s in their hand is knowing what’s NOT in their hand.
Shadowy Figure – 4; This card has a lot of potential! Right off the bat I can see it being used with Convincing Infiltrator in a new form of Res/Wall Priest. You could use it on a card like Hench-Clan Shadequill and then Silence it to make it a 2-mana 4/7.
Lazul's Scheme – 4; Let me change your mind.
Mass Resurrection – 4; If there’s anything that keeps Res/Wall Priest alive, it will be this. Otherwise, this is likely just a 2 star card.
Convincing Infiltrator – 4; Card is a solid 4, I would be shocked if this didn’t see play, and not just in Wall Priest.
Forbidden Words – 5; Will be 2x in every Priest deck and you will be playing around it.
Hench-Clan Shadequill - 3; Potentially better than Twilight Drake in that you actually don’t mind it getting silenced, and as Priest loses a lot of reasons to run Dragons and gains reasons to run a Silence package, this could see play.
Unsleeping Soul - 2; I’m not really sure where this fits but I think you’d rather do something else with 4-mana.
EVIL Conscripter - 3; Solid card, may or may not see play.
Overall - Priest is being pushed in two directions: Silence and Resurrect. Overall Priest seems like they were one of the better classes of this expansion, and I think they’ll have a solid spot in the meta. Mind Blast, Velen, and Divine Spirit/Inner Fire isn’t going away any time soon.
Rogue
Tak Nozwhisker - 2; Cool effect, but too weak to see any play.
Heistbaron Togwaggle - 5; this is a build around effect and opens up many possibilities.
Unidentified Contract - 1; the only thing that MIGHT allow this to see play is Vilespine Slayer rotating, but then again, Rogue will have Walk the Plank which is just better, and Sap is cheaper and better for tempo.
Waggle Pick - 3; Overcosted but Rogue has existing weapon synergy. Not sure where it fits, but you shouldn’t be counting out any Rogue weapon really.
Vendetta - 4; This card might singlehandedly enable Tess Rogue.
Underbelly Fence - 4; Decently stat’d so you don’t mind playing it without the buff, but is pretty crazy strong when you do. And
Hallucination andPilfer is in Standard.Togwaggle's Scheme - 1; To be perfectly honest I think this is very overrated, when Lab Recruiter does essentially the same thing. The only thing going for it is the ability to target enemy minions.
Hench-Clan Burglar - 3; Just an okay card.
EVIL Miscreant - 4; Very good Lackey generator, and Lackeys are both strong on their own right and good in Rogue who wants cheap minions for combos.
Daring Escape - 0? Just play Shadowstep
Overall - Rogue certainly seems to be pushed towards Thievery. Given that even in sets where Rogue got…..nothing, they’ve found a way to be a top tier deck. I expect Rogue to be dominant either way.
Shaman
Swampqueen Hagatha - 3; Obviously a powerful effect, though I don’t think strong enough to build a whole deck around. May find its way into a Shudderwock deck I suppose. One upside, it curves right into Hagatha the Witch and with Blazecaller (and most of the Elemental package) rotating, there’s less competition in the 7-drop spot.
Scargil - 2? I don’t know, almost all the good Murlocs are already cheap. Maybe we’ll be in a meta where you can fill up the board and your hand by comboing this with Underbelly Angler.
Muckmorpher - 1; RNG clown fiesta! 5-mana 4/4, no thanks.
Witch's Brew - 3? I don’t know about this card. For 10 mana you can heal yourself for 20. You could heal yourself for 15 for 3 mana with Healing Rain though.
Hagatha's Scheme - 4; In a class that is more traditionally control, this card would be OP. As it is, it’s preeeeeety good.
Underbelly Angler - 4; This card will snowball HARD. I’ve played against enough T2 Radiant Elementals to know how much it sucks when you can’t remove a “must remove” 2-drop.
Sludge Slurper - 4; Battlecry: Guarantee you have a turn 2 play. I dig it.
Walking Fountain - 5; IMO if there’s any single card that enables a controlling archetype in Shaman, this is it. Have we ever seen a Common card that you build a deck around? This card is nuts.
Soul of the Murloc - 3; It’s better than Primal Talismans, which was a 1-star, so I have to give this 2 even though it’s probably a 1 also. Maybe it’s okay since Defile is rotating. edit: Upgrading from a 2 to a 3, for same reasons as Forest's Aid. In a world with fewer board clears, board stickiness is king.
Mutate - 1; I wanna get this from Hagatha, but not put it in my deck.
Overall - I’m not confident that Shaman got enough to be honest. I’m not sold on the Murloc package. Maybe there are enough new things to enable a fresh take on Shudderwock. I expect Shaman to be somewhere in the bottom of Tier 2 at best. It’s losing the only real package it currently has, which is elementals.
Warlock
Fel Lord Betrug - 1; 8-mana 5/7. Doomguard is rotating so we can’t even play this into The Soularium or Lifetap. The Deathknight it rotating so you actually care about your stuff dying.
Arch-Villain Rafaam - 3; Good but not great. Good defensive tool. Elise 1.0 on steroids, if timed properly. Kind of sucks if you have to play this just to not die.
Jumbo Imp - 1; This is like Grave Horror but worse in almost every way. It’s also like Corridor Creeper....but worse in almost every way. Just play Mountain Giant if you want a cheap 8/8 in Warlock.
Darkest Hour - 1; Maybe you fill your board with rafaam’s scheme then destroy it and summon a bunch of real minions with this card. Or maybe you just run actual good cards instead.
Eager Underling - 1; 4-mana 2/2, next. Fungalmancer is better in every way...next. Fungalmancer is also rotating…..this won’t take its place.
Impferno - 2; It’s hard to see where this could be good. There’s not a lot of good demons anymore, or good CHEAP demons. This just kind of feels like a crappy Holy Nova.
Plot Twist - 4; I’m positive this will be used somewhere. I remember the Brawl that had a card like this and it was pretty OP to be able to get a second mulligan in the middle of the game.
Aranasi Broodmother - 3; It’s okay. Borderline good enough to just throw into a deck.
Rafaam's Scheme - 1; I’m not convinced this is good enough to see play anywhere. Even if you summon 4, it’s still worse than a 3-mana 4/4 (which is probably just good enough to see play). Summoning five 1/1s is probably the starting point of this being playable, but that means you had a dead 3-drop in your hand for at least 2 turns longer than you wanted.
EVIL Genius - 4; As far as Lackey generators go, this is suuuuper good.
Overall - Warlock loses pretty much everything that made it good. Doomguard, Spellstone, Deathknight, Defile, Despicable Dreadlord, Genn Greymane, the weapon, Cubes/Umbra, Voidlord, etc. Healzoo loses Kobold Librarian, Keleseth, Fungal Enchanter, Happy Ghoul, Tar Creeper, Chain Gang, Dreadlord, Fungalmancer….basically the entire package. It gained……….not really anything I’m excited about. Looks like Warlock’s days are over for now. Tier 3? Tier 4?
Warrior
The Boom Reaver - 1; Possibly better if you’re already in Dr. Boom, Mad Genius.
Blastmaster Boom - 3; At least with the new tools, I really wanna play Bomb Warrior.
Omega Devastator - 4; Only because you can’t really build a deck around it, but this card is pretty good. A Yeti, that destroys almost anything conditionally, that has Mech synergy. Hell yes!
Wrenchcalibur - 3; If you’re running the Bomb package, you’re probably running this. Otherwise, this card probably is a 2 or 1 and will see no play.
Dimensional Ripper - 1; Stop trying to make “expensive Recruit” happen; it’s not going to happen.
Clockwork Goblin - 3; Again, if you’re running the Bomb package, you’re running this, otherwise this is a 2 or 1 and sees no play.
Sweeping Strikes - 2; This depends on the Rush package and how good it is in comparison to the Bomb package. It’s pretty strong with Zilliax.
Dr. Boom's Scheme - 5; Just kidding this is a 1. They obviously fucked up and had to change the card at the last minute.
Vicious Scraphound - 3; As a mech I think this has a lot of flexibility and it appears as though the average stats of a 2-drop are much less aggressive nowadays.
Improve Morale - 4; I want to play this card in every Warrior deck until it rotates. It enables Execute, gives me a Lackey, enables Gromm, etc etc.
Overall - Obviously with Baku rotating, Warrior loses an entire archetype. Reckless Flurry is also rotating. Maybe Warrior will have to be less about fatigue/attrition and more about the Bomb/Rush package. Whether or not this is good enough I think will entirely depend on the other midrange decks. It’s not looking super promising for Warrior though.
Neutrals
Due to time and (lack of) need for explanation, I will only be writing about legendaries and 5-star cards.
Jepetto Joybuzz - 2; It reminds me of Luna's Pocket Galaxy except it's a Neutral and puts stats on the board, and only applies to two minions instead of all of them. I think it's gonna be kind of tough to highroll and hit your Malygos combo, and for combo decks, consistency is the name of the game.
Archivist Elysiana - 3; The attrition/fatigue player’s wet dream. This is largely a tech card for the Control/Control matchups. I expect to see it played here and there, but not be an auto include.
Chef Nomi - 1; If your deck is empty, chances are you've lost the game. Elysiana is a better end game tech card anyways.
Barista Lynchen - 3; A lot of possibilities with this one.
Archmage Vargoth - 5; We’re already seeing how this can be abused. Fortunately, a lot of that stuff is rotating to Wild, but this is still a card that you’ll see a lot of.
Big Bad Archmage - 1
Batterhead - 2
Whirlwind Tempest - 1
Unseen Saboteur - 3
Portal Overfiend - 2
Azerite Elemental - 1
Hench-Clan Hag - 2
Magic Carpet - 3
Tunnel Blaster - 2
Underbelly Ooze - 1
Exotic Mountseller - 3
Mad Summoner - 2
Sunreaver Warmage - 3
Recurring Villain - 2
Hecklebot - 3
Portal Keeper - 1
Arcane Watcher - 3
Spellward Jeweler - 3
Burly Shovelfist - 2
Heroic Innkeeper - 1 (is it possible to rate lower than a 1?)
Eccentric Scribe - 1
Safeguard - 4
Violet Warden - 1
Dalaran Crusader - 1
Proud Defender - 3
Soldier of Fortune - 1
Violet Spellsword - 1
Travelling Healer - 2
Hench-Clan Sneak - 1
Flight Master - 1
Faceless Rager - 2
EVIL Cable Rat - 2
Spellbook Binder - 2
Sunreaver Spy - 4
Mana Reservoir - 1
Dalaran Librarian - 4
Hench-Clan Hogsteed - 3
Arcane Servant - 2
Potion Vendor - 3
Toxfin - 4
Overall - Mostly some decent stuff for Arena with a couple cards here and there that could almost be class cards. I’m glad we didn’t see any broken 2-drop Neutrals. There’s probably some broken combo here somewhere however…..the collective playerbase always finds something.
Thanks for reading! If you'd like to discuss any of these, I'd be more than happy to talk about them.
Disclaimer: I've tried to be as unbiased as possible, but as someone who has primarily played control decks since I started in GvG, naturally I have far less experience in evaluating the strength of aggressive cards, and as such, may be prone to evaluating control cards higher. This is not intentional and does not reflect my personal opinion of aggro decks.
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Just a quick note and I will comment more later. Again, I appreciate seeing points of view that may not be mine to see what I may have missed.
For Warlock, Fel Lord summons a copy. It means you retain the real in your hand. It means you get free trades with Soularium. You can then play the 6 drop to get anything back you couldn't play that turn.
This is a control card, that could be a combo OTK card as well.
So I don't agree that its a 1 star card. But I will go into the review ratings later.
Overall, a good analysis. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Still, 9 mana to play a 5/7 and get some trades seems a pretty steep cost. 8-mana to play a 5/7 that doesn't do anything is a really steep cost. If you want an 8-mana control card, why not Twisting Nether?
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Interesting point of view, you are more generous towards the "control" cards than the cards supporting aggro decks.
Also, you must like priest a lot. The overall rating of the class is higher than the others by a wide margin.
I see this card as a 9 mana or 10 mana play, hence the control nature of the deck it would go into. You could forgo Soularium and go with double Plot Twist instead. You throw in the neutral minions that shuffle portals into your deck and you have a solid board clear on turn 10, and you keep a threat around to keep doing it.
I am not saying its a 5 star card, but 1 star might be missing the mark. I guess we will find out, but I have a feeling this card is going to be a good late game control card to remove wide boards.
I loved the review of the cards, and seeing your ideas. This is the kind of post that makes me love Hearthpwn.
Loving rogues as I do, your rogue breakdown was my first stop. I found a tiny mistake here; hallucination will not be in standard once RoS drops tomorrow.
Keep these kinds of posts up, and thank you!
Hallucination is no longer in standard. Pilfer is the only 1-mana activator for Fence right now in standard.
Anything specifically you disagree with that you'd like to discuss?
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Prediction in four weeks you will rate the Fel Lord Betrug card at least 3 stars after guys like Zealot and Toast show us how this can be used properly.
It'll be fun to play around with in Wild with Guldan.
A lot of what you've written seems right, but hard disagree on this. Since it's only 7 mana, you're going to see people playing this I think two ways:
1) On turn 9 followed by Pogo-Hopper. It's a "must remove" target at that point, which will give at least a turn or two to get more hoppers out there. I expect this will be rarer than #2 though...
2) On turn 8/9/10 you'll get Tak + Preparation + Academic Espionage. if you hold it until 10 then that gets you two of the ten cards in your hand on the same turn. I expect it will be inconsistently effective given the RNG nature of AE, but it you have even a little luck this would be a huge swing play/the finishing move.
Also 7 mana 6/6 isn't *strong*, but it's not exactly week either.
You're dead 1000% wrong on Darkest Hour the amount of people underestimating this card is insane. By far the biggest Dark Horse of the expansion, it will be crazy good in Wild and maybe Standard. This is more of a aggro card than Control like most are thinking. For example in Wild aggro is running lots of Deathrattle and you normally have a token trash board going into 6 anyway, you sack them after trading and pull your Doomguards, Malganis, Leeroy..you name it. If that doesn't end the game there the next turn will if opponent doesnt have a immediate hard counter.
I really hope this is true because I love Espionage/Cutlass Rogue and I want it to be competitive. I'm trying to remain unbiased in the review though. :)
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So to continue my other thoughts...
Hunter didn't get any real impactful cards and lost a bunch of them. But Hunter always seems to find a way. I think the 1 drop beast, Shimmerfly is at least 3 stars due to its battlecry instead. It does mean on turn 3, playing the 1 drop beast and possibly a secret, if you get lucky enough. Hunter will probably still be a decent tier 2 deck with Nine Lives.
Priest looks absolutely insane with at least 2 strong archetypes. And some of the cards go in both versions of the decks, which means you may not be able to tell what deck you are playing until later in the game. The silence got so much support, it seems they went overboard with it. Its possibly even a thing you can play in draft mode (Arena). The Rez/Wall Priest makes me worried, but we have to see if the tech cards are good enough to stop them from winning from nowhere with Divine Spirit/Inner Fire combo.
Shaman also seems to have 2 decent decks in the making. Murloc aggro and Shudderwock control. I think the most powerful murloc is the poison 1 drop murloc. It means that Murloc decks don't have to necessarily run Hex and simply trade 1 minion for your large taunt for 1 mana. In the past, casting a 4 cost Hex means you cannot flood the board. There is no other condition to it and that makes it really strong with charge murlocs as well. The Shudderwock is going to be a control value deck, trying to milk Hagatha's scheme for all its worth. And once you play Hagatha hero card, any minion you do play becomes another potential Scheme. Seems like Shaman will be at least tier 2, if not better.
Rogue is a mixed bag for me. I find it to be the 'fun' class when playing it, but the unfun class when facing against it. You work all game and finally deal with all of Rogue's tempo stuff and removal and you are close to killing them. Then, one of their Academy cards completely steals the game and it is infuriating. or worse yet, you destroy their healing weapon, and then they play another one the turn after to keep themselves alive long enough to abuse 1 cost cards. I think the best deck is going to be a hybrid Pirate, Thief deck. It will offer value and tempo in the early game, and offer huge value in the late game. It will lose to really aggressive decks, but will we see any of those right away?
Paladin is going to high roll with their damn, turn 1 secret, turn 2 weapon or buffed minion that it will win games on the spot. Other times it will miss a turn 1 secret into a turn 2 weapon or buffed minion and lose because it has no way of coming back from behind. I don't normally like high roll decks like this. This reminds me of the old days of Shaman of turn 1 Trog, turn 2 Totem Golem. How do most decks deal with such crazy openings? This may be wishful thinking too. This secret deck might be so good, that losing Divine Favor won't matter. I hope not, as I do not want to deal with more of Aggro Paladin for the next 4 months.
The god of heartpwn made an in depth analysis?
Here is my thumps up my lord!
Seriously though, even if i have some disagreements here and there, overall this is really well thought. Gj mate.
You got me at '' Nozari? No, sorry.''
Trololol ^^
Great review, I'm incline to agree with at least 90% of your verdict, but i feel like some of your rating are a little too sever for the potential those cards may be hidding. For instance - to only name a few examples where I disagree- , I do think Unidentified Contract is somewhat interesting - maybe not meta-breaking/shaping - but certainly not a 1 (out of 5). Hench-Clan Burglar will also boost up Burgle-mirror match-up, which shouldn't be overlooked.
I may be wrong, but to me Darkest Hour seems like a broken 6 mana cheat cards that will open so many incredible possibilities. Imagine the amount of value you can put on board by turn 6 ...
Anyway, thanks for the review
"What have you got there,
PinocchioMalygos?"I may be a little off on Hench-Clan Burglar, now that I look at the 4-drops. Rogue loses Elven Minstrel and Fal'dorei Strider so maybe there's enough room to run it. That deck always did have the problem of too many good 4-drops though.
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I mostly agree with you. Im looking forward some Pala and Priest decks. Nice review, well done!
I think you are wrong here. Flamewaker had better stats, did DOUBLE the damage and was useful when there were no minions to target. If you want to combo with cards like Arcane Missiles you are better off playing Bloodmage Thalnos. Similar 1-damage ping-cards have been fails, Knife Juggler has better stats and is much easer to trigger, as you can often summon minions of deathrattles or several minions of 1 card. Mage will have major problems generating enough ammo for this to have any value, and even with 3 cards, the effect is mediocre.
Reminds me of these guys, and is probably at the same powerlevel:
Undercity Valiant, Eydis Darkbane, Shadowboxer, Wartbringer.
Editor of the Heartpwn Legendary Crafting Guide:
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My thoughts exactly. I keep seeing people saying they think Warlock is dead, but this card alone is why Doomguard was HoF'd. Warlock is going to have a T1 deck, probably because of this card alone.
#nerfbarnes