Not much to mention here, most of these cards are pretty good, except Dust devil which is pretty awful unless you're up against a priest and arcane anomaly which is pretty meh, but it could work.
But I ask you? How many 1 cost elementals do you actually need? They will ruin your late game topdecks if you lower the weight of your deck by putting too many in, Fire Fly is a good card, but more likely useful in combination decks, like handbuff paladin and rogue and hunter combo/quest decks.
The introduction of radiant elemental for priest, along with their legendary along with oracle and lightspawn indicates a elemental priest might arise to take the place of dragon priest because it's about managing a curve much like dragon priest..
Outside of priest Volatile elemental looks like a strong 2 drop to clear the way for your 3 drop since the deathrattle always hits minions never face. And shimmering tempest is a lot like a loot hoarder which is never a bad card.
Fire Plume Harbinger is a strange one, you might think of it as an auto-include but you might find that you can manage your curve just fine without it, then again its good for reducing the cost of elementals with strong battlecrys and there are a lot of them.
Tar creeper is good against aggro for sure, but don't auto-include it, 1 attack is pretty awful and your opponent will not attack with his weak minions into it unless he feels that it's advantageous.
Shaman has the most options on turn 3 with the ever present unbound which combines well with a lot of their control tools like feral spirit, lightning bolt, lightning storm. It also goes well with FW faceless follow up on turn 4. the new hot spring guardian should be pretty amazing to follow up on turn 5 when you're overloaded for 2 after playing faceless.
igneous is most just for fuel if you have few elementals, or a curve filler take your pick, but it's immediate value is of a basic 2 drop.
I think it's a shame that Ice Rager is being booted to wild, it's actually one of my favourite cards. It hits face really hard and denies most 4 drops on an empty board a 5/2 is pretty insane on turn 3, Well at least I can get a 6/3 Thunder Lizard or it could be a 3/6 which is better than a Blackwing Technician, a 3/3 divine shield is a better scarlet crusader, 3/3 spell immune is a faerie dragon resistant to a lot more AOEs. the biggest weakness is it requires an elemental the turn before it, however It's not a bad turn 4 play, or a play when you're overloaded.
We know all about water elemental, not counting the freeze its's strong enough just for its 3/6 stats, steam surger has vanilla stats and gives a free spell, it might be a meh spell, but a free spell is a free spell, and that gives a token you can use later too.
Fire plume phoenix will toast enemies with it's direct damage, 2 turns earlier than you can fire elemental, 2 damage not 3 but that's often all you need, it will also be the go:to 4 drop for shaman outside of wild, but In wild Fireguard will be amazing, strike that is is amazing, it's better than faceless because you can follow it up with another 4 drop the following turn, such as waterspeaker, another fireguard or Tol'vir Stoneshaper.
Stoneshaper being just a good value 4 drop, it's better than a silvermoon guardian and a senjin if activated
Tar lurker is a defensive elemental for warlock decks, I doubt there will be many warlock decks using elemental synergy but it might use tar creeper/lurker to activate servant of Kalimos the subsequent turn. Servant of Kalimos appears to be a very strong card almost on the level of azure drake which is booted to the hall of fame, it discovers you a card and has a strongish body on board for it's cost (and unlike Gorrilabot or primalfin lookout, not contingent on board state), it's no drakonid op but it alone might make non-priest/shaman/mage elementals decks possible.
Earth Elemental should continue to be a good card, if you manage your curve wisely, it's tough as a rock and hits hard, eternal sentinel is still in the game too.
The value of fire ele should be obvious, but frost elemental is like a taunt/heal, and you gain a 5/5 which is decent stats, I like to think of it like a -1 attack fire elemental that's better when you're up against fewer but bigger targets, even trump put this it in his deck recently, mage has Shatter and with freezing potion frostbolt and glacial spike and frost nova (which I suspect we will see a lot more of with stealthed adapt minions with big stats).
Frozen Crusher? I think that's garbage, what good is a 6 mana 8/8 that attacks only once every 2 turns? okay maybe against minions since you're often left with an 8/3 anyway. you can ancestral healing it, or silence it (maybe elemental priest).
I won't comment here, at this point, you've already got your curve managed, if you're playing right.
After looking at the decks players have made it seems some have gone overboard with the new cards (Fire Fly, or underestimated how some of them can fit nicely in the curve (Thunder Lizard), or forgot about the old classics which did have their place before (Unbound Elemental).
I still believe the strongest elemental decks will be hybridised with something else, primarily, in my opinion, Elemental Jade Shaman and Elemental Tempo Mage.
Elemental decks seem strong if they're played on curve; at the same time the power level of various elementals from turn to turn seems to have a lot of variance, with the top end obviously being better. Therefore I wonder how viable a purely elemental deck would be even playing on curve. Of course, we've also got to recognise playing on curve is the dream, and that it's not something that can consistently be relied on. On that basis, I think a pure elemental deck will really struggle.
Hybridising the decks bolster the power of some of the elementals but also allow the deck to survive off curve plays. I still think a card such as Fire Fly will be extremely important for these decks as minions to fill out the curve and set up for next turn. However, I think Igneous Elemental is pretty bad. It generates elementals whilst being one itself, yes, but it's also a worse Harvest Golem. If Harvest Golem isn't seeing play, I struggle to see how Igneous can see play without the deck running ways to gain tempo.
I believe jades and elemantals are counterproductive with each other .what you wana do do in a turn feed the jade machine or curve for your elemantals.Off curve plays can be done with non requirement elementals like small ones or the ones shaman already have working like a dragon priest maybe.Elemental tempo mage i am with you on that one.
I don't think jade elemental shaman will be relevant, not without Brann Bronzebeard, because without him jade claws, jade sprit, aya blackpaw and jade cheifton aren't nearly as threatening.
Jade Claws will still be a thing though, but that's pretty good on its own.
Tempo mage lost flamewaker so it won't exist as we remember it, it will be totally changed, maybe it will use freeze mechanics and Shatter, and that does work with elementals since 3 of them freeze.
Jade Lightning is pretty poor in tempo without being wound up with other jade cards, meanwhile Stormcrack and Lightning Bolt are worth it even early on.
Overload withdraws your future tempo, but you can repay it the current turn and the next turn with Eternal Sentinel and you can snowball your Unbound Elementals and the same time.
Simple the idea is to not run low impact elementals like Fire Fly, and Igneous Elemental, and make your low cost cards have the highest impact Glacial Shard on the other hand is much much better card to put in those decks.
you've also got Harbinger to lower the cost of all your elementals in hand by 1, making overload less relevant.
You also can heal a minion and place a minion with hot spring protector, and there is phoenix, fire elemental, and blazecaller which remove and place a minion.
Didn't you understand me? Fire fly is badin elemental decks, for shaman you have so much choice in elementals you don't need the extra 1/2 which is pretty pointless anyway. If you plan your deck carefully you'll no doubt find that the extra 1/2 is superfluous, and you've much rather have a higher impact low drop, or more high impact cards, 2x 2 different 1 drops is plenty enough for most midrange decks.
For mage you have other methods for creating flame elemental tokens with flame geyser's from your deck and flame geysers from your Steam Surgers.
And I think you underestimate the power of the other low drops, lets assume a moderate scenario: you get turn 1 air elemental against rogue, they can't backstab and play their 1 or 2 drop, they might hero power and facetank 2 damage; results: Your opponent's face is down 2 health, and you have initiative on the board, against druid they would only be down 1 health instead of 2, but unlike rogue they don't have a dagger equipped so you're ahead on tempo. Even Freezing a 2/1 on turn 1 with a glacial shard is a good result.
But their effects later in the game are quite powerful, an air elemental messes up betrayal, power shot, grievous bite, explosive shot, meteor, But also steadily brings in a little bit of damage while your other minions suck up enemy cards, while the elemental can't be pinged off by mage or taken out by mortal coil on the hunt, moonfire or backstab.
But a 1 mana 1/2, is just a 1 mana 1/2....1 damage can be ignored for a while, 2 cannot.
Yeah harbinger might be a 2 mana 1/1 (like a silver hand recruit) but it makes phoenix into a better SI-7 agent, you can squeeze in faceless on 3 mana, unbound for 2 combine with lightning bolt on turn 3, you can get fire elementals on turn 5.....It's pretty impactful.
True, I considered patches, but I also thought of the deck as a whole, I don't want to dilute my mid-game and late game in favour of the first few turns against pirate warrior or rogue specifically, but I'd still pack Jade claws because seems decent against patches openings, but also snowballs unbound later on. Shaman also will have Hot Spring Guardian and Jinyu Waterspeaker, and Earth Elemental....I don't think pirate warrior will be an issue.
Maybe jade claws is too expensive though.
Here's a strange thing, Sometimes I even pack Forked Lightning it is one third of the cost up front as lightning storm and with Stormforged Axe or Jade Claws from a previous turn you can control the board with minimal mana use.
I still disagree with Harbinger, for two reasons. Firstly, to be good you have to have elementals in your hand, and preferably ones that card be played in the following turns. Again, this won't always happen, and then you're getting low value out of a 2 mana 1/1. Secondly, if you don't have Harbinger in your hand, it becomes a terrible topdeck. The argument you made about the phoenix with Harbinger caught my eye, because yes that's powerful, but then from a deck building perspective the question is is phoenix powerful without Harbinger? I don't know, but I'm inclined to think it's on the weak side. Maybe I'll wrong about this.
Not all plays have to be awesome, a turn 4 phoenix taking out a 3/2 is pretty good despite the 3/3 body, and it does curve into Servant of Kalimos.
I also had the same thinking, I wasn't completely sold on harbinger myself, but then I realised the overall swing of harbinger is pretty amazing even if you only get 2 elementals, or even just getting out a 'nix on turn 3, it allows for many interesting plays.
Yeah the overload on earth elemental is pretty harsh.
That's why I consider Thunder Lizard, which would be a decent follow up if you don't have eternal sentinel on turn 6, hot springs can heal any damage the elemental has on turn 6 as well. Or a cost reduced phoenix, can give some help.
Since Elemental synergy are dependant on the turn before we need to examine the curve.
1 cost:Fire Fly,Glacial Shard, Air Elemental, Dust Devil, Crystalline Oracle, and Arcane Anomaly, Flame Elemental
Not much to mention here, most of these cards are pretty good, except Dust devil which is pretty awful unless you're up against a priest and arcane anomaly which is pretty meh, but it could work.
But I ask you? How many 1 cost elementals do you actually need? They will ruin your late game topdecks if you lower the weight of your deck by putting too many in, Fire Fly is a good card, but more likely useful in combination decks, like handbuff paladin and rogue and hunter combo/quest decks.
2 cost: Pyros, Shimmering Tempest, Radiant Elemental, Fire Plume Harbinger, Volatile Elemental
The introduction of radiant elemental for priest, along with their legendary along with oracle and lightspawn indicates a elemental priest might arise to take the place of dragon priest because it's about managing a curve much like dragon priest..
Outside of priest Volatile elemental looks like a strong 2 drop to clear the way for your 3 drop since the deathrattle always hits minions never face. And shimmering tempest is a lot like a loot hoarder which is never a bad card.
Fire Plume Harbinger is a strange one, you might think of it as an auto-include but you might find that you can manage your curve just fine without it, then again its good for reducing the cost of elementals with strong battlecrys and there are a lot of them.
3 Cost: Magma Rager, Ice Rager, Tar Creeper, Unbound Elemental, Hot Spring Guardian, Igneous Elemental
Tar creeper is good against aggro for sure, but don't auto-include it, 1 attack is pretty awful and your opponent will not attack with his weak minions into it unless he feels that it's advantageous.
Shaman has the most options on turn 3 with the ever present unbound which combines well with a lot of their control tools like feral spirit, lightning bolt, lightning storm. It also goes well with FW faceless follow up on turn 4. the new hot spring guardian should be pretty amazing to follow up on turn 5 when you're overloaded for 2 after playing faceless.
igneous is most just for fuel if you have few elementals, or a curve filler take your pick, but it's immediate value is of a basic 2 drop.
I think it's a shame that Ice Rager is being booted to wild, it's actually one of my favourite cards. It hits face really hard and denies most 4 drops on an empty board a 5/2 is pretty insane on turn 3, Well at least I can get a 6/3 Thunder Lizard or it could be a 3/6 which is better than a Blackwing Technician, a 3/3 divine shield is a better scarlet crusader, 3/3 spell immune is a faerie dragon resistant to a lot more AOEs. the biggest weakness is it requires an elemental the turn before it, however It's not a bad turn 4 play, or a play when you're overloaded.
4 cost: Water Elemental, Lightspawn, Fireguard Destroyer, Fire Plume Phoenix, Steam Surger
We know all about water elemental, not counting the freeze its's strong enough just for its 3/6 stats, steam surger has vanilla stats and gives a free spell, it might be a meh spell, but a free spell is a free spell, and that gives a token you can use later too.
Fire plume phoenix will toast enemies with it's direct damage, 2 turns earlier than you can fire elemental, 2 damage not 3 but that's often all you need, it will also be the go:to 4 drop for shaman outside of wild, but In wild Fireguard will be amazing, strike that is is amazing, it's better than faceless because you can follow it up with another 4 drop the following turn, such as waterspeaker, another fireguard or Tol'vir Stoneshaper.
Stoneshaper being just a good value 4 drop, it's better than a silvermoon guardian and a senjin if activated
5 cost: Earth Elemental, Servant of Kalimos, Lyra the Sunshard, Tar Lurker
Tar lurker is a defensive elemental for warlock decks, I doubt there will be many warlock decks using elemental synergy but it might use tar creeper/lurker to activate servant of Kalimos the subsequent turn. Servant of Kalimos appears to be a very strong card almost on the level of azure drake which is booted to the hall of fame, it discovers you a card and has a strongish body on board for it's cost (and unlike Gorrilabot or primalfin lookout, not contingent on board state), it's no drakonid op but it alone might make non-priest/shaman/mage elementals decks possible.
Earth Elemental should continue to be a good card, if you manage your curve wisely, it's tough as a rock and hits hard, eternal sentinel is still in the game too.
6 cost: Fire Elemental, Frost Elemental. Frozen Crusher, Pyros
The value of fire ele should be obvious, but frost elemental is like a taunt/heal, and you gain a 5/5 which is decent stats, I like to think of it like a -1 attack fire elemental that's better when you're up against fewer but bigger targets, even trump put this it in his deck recently, mage has Shatter and with freezing potion frostbolt and glacial spike and frost nova (which I suspect we will see a lot more of with stealthed adapt minions with big stats).
Frozen Crusher? I think that's garbage, what good is a 6 mana 8/8 that attacks only once every 2 turns? okay maybe against minions since you're often left with an 8/3 anyway. you can ancestral healing it, or silence it (maybe elemental priest).
7+ cost: Baron Geddon ,Neptulon, Tar Lord, Blazecaller, Stone Sentinel, Stormwatcher, Ragnaros the Firelord, Al'Akir the Windlord, Ragnaros, Lightlord, Kalimos, Primal Lord, Pyros
I won't comment here, at this point, you've already got your curve managed, if you're playing right.
After looking at the decks players have made it seems some have gone overboard with the new cards (Fire Fly, or underestimated how some of them can fit nicely in the curve (Thunder Lizard), or forgot about the old classics which did have their place before (Unbound Elemental).
I don't think jade elemental shaman will be relevant, not without Brann Bronzebeard, because without him jade claws, jade sprit, aya blackpaw and jade cheifton aren't nearly as threatening.
Jade Claws will still be a thing though, but that's pretty good on its own.
Tempo mage lost flamewaker so it won't exist as we remember it, it will be totally changed, maybe it will use freeze mechanics and Shatter, and that does work with elementals since 3 of them freeze.
Jade Lightning is pretty poor in tempo without being wound up with other jade cards, meanwhile Stormcrack and Lightning Bolt are worth it even early on.
Overload withdraws your future tempo, but you can repay it the current turn and the next turn with Eternal Sentinel and you can snowball your Unbound Elementals and the same time.
And even without sentinel, you can weave in a pretty good low drop like Thunder Lizard or Glacial Shard.
Simple the idea is to not run low impact elementals like Fire Fly, and Igneous Elemental, and make your low cost cards have the highest impact Glacial Shard on the other hand is much much better card to put in those decks.
you've also got Harbinger to lower the cost of all your elementals in hand by 1, making overload less relevant.
You also can heal a minion and place a minion with hot spring protector, and there is phoenix, fire elemental, and blazecaller which remove and place a minion.
Didn't you understand me? Fire fly is bad in elemental decks, for shaman you have so much choice in elementals you don't need the extra 1/2 which is pretty pointless anyway. If you plan your deck carefully you'll no doubt find that the extra 1/2 is superfluous, and you've much rather have a higher impact low drop, or more high impact cards, 2x 2 different 1 drops is plenty enough for most midrange decks.
For mage you have other methods for creating flame elemental tokens with flame geyser's from your deck and flame geysers from your Steam Surgers.
And I think you underestimate the power of the other low drops, lets assume a moderate scenario: you get turn 1 air elemental against rogue, they can't backstab and play their 1 or 2 drop, they might hero power and facetank 2 damage; results: Your opponent's face is down 2 health, and you have initiative on the board, against druid they would only be down 1 health instead of 2, but unlike rogue they don't have a dagger equipped so you're ahead on tempo. Even Freezing a 2/1 on turn 1 with a glacial shard is a good result.
But their effects later in the game are quite powerful, an air elemental messes up betrayal, power shot, grievous bite, explosive shot, meteor, But also steadily brings in a little bit of damage while your other minions suck up enemy cards, while the elemental can't be pinged off by mage or taken out by mortal coil on the hunt, moonfire or backstab.
But a 1 mana 1/2, is just a 1 mana 1/2....1 damage can be ignored for a while, 2 cannot.
Yeah harbinger might be a 2 mana 1/1 (like a silver hand recruit) but it makes phoenix into a better SI-7 agent, you can squeeze in faceless on 3 mana, unbound for 2 combine with lightning bolt on turn 3, you can get fire elementals on turn 5.....It's pretty impactful.
True, I considered patches, but I also thought of the deck as a whole, I don't want to dilute my mid-game and late game in favour of the first few turns against pirate warrior or rogue specifically, but I'd still pack Jade claws because seems decent against patches openings, but also snowballs unbound later on. Shaman also will have Hot Spring Guardian and Jinyu Waterspeaker, and Earth Elemental....I don't think pirate warrior will be an issue.
Maybe jade claws is too expensive though.
Here's a strange thing, Sometimes I even pack Forked Lightning it is one third of the cost up front as lightning storm and with Stormforged Axe or Jade Claws from a previous turn you can control the board with minimal mana use.
Yeah the overload on earth elemental is pretty harsh.
That's why I consider Thunder Lizard, which would be a decent follow up if you don't have eternal sentinel on turn 6, hot springs can heal any damage the elemental has on turn 6 as well. Or a cost reduced phoenix, can give some help.