I'll go through this set card by card! Neutrals first.
Neutral:
- Peculiar Hermit: Great flavour, interesting in a Druid deck that has Crystalsong Portal.
- Blooming Lasher: Very weak. 1 mana 0/2 in neutral is a very low tempo play and only becomes an Enchanted Raven on turn 2.
- Reckless Quel'dorei: This actually depicts a shal'dorei i.e. nightborne. This is an extremely powerful turn 1 play with no immediate downside. In fact, it could synergize with egg cards quite nicely. I'd say it's too powerful.
- Phasing Fox: I don't really see why this needs the swap synergy as it usually won't last for more than a turn otherwise. Not powerful enough to put in a Time Vortex deck – it's not even really an upside.
- Displaced Corsair: A 1 mana 2/2 is once again not very powerful. I'd say this could be a 1/2 easily.
- Zin-Azshari Rat: This is a fun card for all the combos it enables, but I don't really get the flavour? Why is this rat able to give you spells? And why any spells?
- Parasitic Corruptor: There is too much text here. Additionally, the effect is overcomplicated. It would be more intuitive and simply more useful if the deathrattle was just part of the battlecry instead – it doesn't need to be a Voodoo Doll reprint. The effect you're giving it is also quite powerful even with it being a deathrattle. This card needs a rethink.
- Glassjaw Fiend: Reminds me of Anima Golem. However, I think this is a lot better, being an early game card. Maybe having Reckless Quel'dorei and Glassjaw Fiend is too much overstatting for one expansion? I'm not sure about it.
- Coldlight Elder: Good – just a small Violet Teacher with murloc synergy. I like it.
- Azsuna Alchemist: How do these stack? For instance, I play Dalaran Mage and two Azsuna Alchemists. The Dalaran Mage subsequently dies. Do both Alchemists lose Spell Damage or does the aura of one make the other's persist?
- Acidblood Bogbeast: This is very strangely worded. I'm not actually sure how I would fix it, but it's very difficult to read. "While damaged, at the end of your turn, deal 1 damage to all enemy minions." It's still janky. The balance is fine otherwise. I wouldn't put 'beast' in the name if it's not a beast though.
- Wormhole Agitator: ahhh parasitic card. At least it has vanilla stats. I'm not sure why this is a good effect because it's only useful as a... soft counter? For Murozond decks. Even then it's a very weak effect and seems like a waste of deck space.
- Polarity Reverser: Another parasitic card... but it's somewhat more useful than the previous one. I don't think either of these cards would see play.
- Time Capsule: This is a pretty good egg. It's actually better than Runic Egg because it doesn't put you closer to fatigue and samples only from your OG deck. Thumbs up.
- Displaced Defender: I debate whether this is better or worse than Stonehill Defender. For fatigue and value generation it's worse. For tutoring it's better. It really does depend on the deck.
- Fel-touched Angler: Very scary card. Sticky murlocs with +3 attack buff with a new body to boot could be oppressive indeed, especially when you pair this with Coldlight Elder.
- Time-Lost Protodrake: Clarification on Warped: is this an aura trigger like Enrage or a pseudo-Battlecry? Does it lose rush if you put something between it and the Time Vortex?
- Solicitous Priestess: There is no reason why this shouldn't be restricted to targeting minions. Heroes don't have Deathrattles.
- Paradox Incubator: Muckmorpher? Very slow "eggy" card that has a) a deckbuilding restriction and b) no immediate impact. Another clarification: This can't trigger multiple times, right? It obviously loses its text/doesn't remember being a Paradox Incubator after it transforms.
- Chromie: I like her. I do think that "Parallel Universe" should transform the minions into ones of the same Cost –– but that weakens the effect. I'd change the flavour somewhat.
- Time Guardian: Oof more parasitism. I don't think this is a very good card to print, even though it's a good tempo play. The fact that one of the Time Guardians dies renders the other's deathrattle useless, and that feels awkward to play with.
- Congested Ooze: Really like this card.
- Hyjal Harpy: Nice pack filler.
- Demonsbane Dervish: Oof, very punishing to Warlock. Light's Champion is I think the only demon-hate card in neutral and that has a very 'meh' effect. This is a bit more polarizing so I'd at least lose the +1/+1.
- Indomitable Brave: I love this effect. Interesting to play around and take advantage of.
- Palace Handmaiden: Archmage Vargoth? Is that you? In all seriousness, this is probably too powerful an effect to exist. Imagine Warlocks running Twisting Nether and Mages using Flamestrike with this card, and building up their own tempo with minions in between. I imagine this would be bonkers in wild. Also crazy with Priest resurrect spells and even the legendary spells like Kangor's Endless Army.
- Temple Archivist: Good card. Good flavour. A+
- Untamed Gardener: Very interesting. The fact that it can target itself and that your opponent can also proc it makes it very dangerous but it sucks against zoo decks. I don't exactly see what deck you do play this in because it costs quite a bit, it requires spells (which zoo decks don't run so many of) and can hit your opponent's minions. Unfortunately this just isn't the statline for this card. I'd say bump it down to a 3 mana 2/5 or a 4 mana 2/7.
- Sentinel Ward: The fact that it has attack is puzzling. It's very much a static object, so the flavour is off on that point. Aside from that, it's just a +1/+1/+1 on Spectral Knight, so I guess that's okay.
- Captain Varo'then: This is brutal. It effectively neuters combo decks and allows aggro/midrange to be very dominant. I'm not sure 6 mana is okay on this.
- Shen'dralar Sage: This is a nice snowball-y card and I hate it in Rogue.
- Unbound Mana Storm: I don't think this would be played, but I like the idea. The name is pretty long and cumbersome, however.
- Displaced Doomsayer: Funny and balanced.
- Meticulous Planner: Art and statline/effect don't mesh for me.
- Infinite Collaborator: Hogger with a weird condition doesn't cut it for me. I also don't see the point of summoning Dragons when most of the synergy comes from holding them (exception for Onyxia because Classic didn't have dragon synergies).
- Legion Devastator: I like the balance and effect, but not sure about the flavour of it being a Fel Reaver. If you could explain it I'd probably be okay with it.
- Zheros, Eternity's Heart: This doesn't feel like a legendary effect to me. Card draw is pretty 'meh' and this doesn't do anything the turn it's played.
- Anachronos: Now this is crazy. You might be able to do some insane combos with this card... I'm looking at Jepeto for this one, but I guess he already does that on his own.
- Mo'arg Warbringer: While Feeding Time stuck on a 3 mana 4/3 is something that can be done, I'm not sure that it should. Since it's a common I'll let it slide. For comparison however, I'd see North Sea Kraken for balance: 9 mana 9/7 that deals 4 to anything vs. 8 mana 7/6 that deals 3 to a minion. Makes me think this is quite underpowered.
- Stomping Crystalmaw: Feels broken. I know the new 9/9 Rush for 9 is powerful – in arena especially – but a 7/6 deal 7 damage for 8 mana seems much more powerful (even compare it to Mo'arg Warbringer). I'd nerf the attack to 5 or 6.
- Continuum Protector: No complaints here.
- Murozond the Infinite: I do feel like the Time Vortex token has too much going on (esp. with the minions thing) but that's up to you. I'm also not sure about Murozond having that Warped effect. Seems tacked on.
- Snobby Aristocrat: Well, here we go with the evolve nerfs.
- Advance Scout: Fair enough.
- Antinomious Giant: I don't know what's going on with the name, but since this expansion reminds me of WotOG, would you have liked a giant that said "Costs (1) less for each Attack of your C'thun"? I don't think that is the kind of parasitism we need here. Since these giants are very powerful with time vortex it feels like you need them if you want to play that deck, which you shouldn't.
6
Just a year after Blizzard decided Ice Block was so toxic for the game that they removed it from Classic, condemning Mage to the sorry state it has been for the past 2 expacs, they add the effect back in the game... I don't get it...
-1
Just a year after Blizzard decided Ice Block was so toxic for the game that they removed it from Classic, condemning Mage to the sorry state it has been for the past 2 expacs, they add the effect back in the game... I don't get it...
2
I use the Legend one because 1. It looks classy as f*** 2. Getting to Legend is hard and I don't plan to do it ever again.
Before getting it I had set different card backs for each of my decks, as thematically appropriate as I could (greenery for druid, arcane-y for mage etc)
4
Any card that'll make mage less of a joke.
More generally, last-expansion-of-the-year metas are CRAZY since we have 3 full years of cards to play with. Expect craziness equal to last year's Cubelockalypse.
2
I don't know if it related but the cardback for November 2018 is already shown in game and it looks somewhat similar to the announcement art. Its title is "the Moonwell"
1
- A rant out of my own heart :) Agree that turn 1-2 Tracking is pointless, I use the one copy I have surgically, mostly when I have 10-11 cards left on deck and I have 33+% to get the card I need.
- I used to run 1 Tracker instead of MCT, but the body is too weak, you lose way too much tempo, and the current meta has enough aggro to punish you heavily for it.
- see my post above for my thoughts on Highmane vs Devilsaur
- Mossy Horror is a must. Not only for dealing with Spreading Plague, or thinning Zoolock/EvenShamen boards, but also as an emergency activator for our own eggs/bombs
I'm interested to see what the Giggling nerf will do to the meta. Mind Control Tech, Blood Knight, Mossy Horror, all three will depreciate because Giggling will disappear... My first instinct is that MCT and Mossy will still be worth the inclusion in most decks they are in, while Blood Knight will go to deep freeze again. For DeathRecruit Hunter specifically, since we don't have tools to deal with wide boards (other than DK battlecry) I think it'll still be worth the inclusion.
5
I think Timeless Giant is a great idea, but it could be better worded, something like "Costs (1) less for each unused Mana Crystal during your previous turn."
2
Sure, mathematically you are correct, even a 15% chance to win is better than 0%. Practically tho, this one is just demoralising, which affects my winrate as a whole.
Think about this: It is not uncommon for the Warrior to end the game with a health+armour total of more than 30. This means that as a rule I do more damage to them by conceding than if I had stayed.
2
I decided against my better judgement to not auto-concede when their hero power got upgraded.
I opted to go wide on the board rather than equipping weapon on turn 2 and 3. I lost a Hench-Clan Thug to Shield Slam but got to connect with a Cold Blooded Dire Mole.
After the board got cleared with Reckless Flurry I played Giggling Inventor, they played Stonehill. I Fungalmancered the Giggling and cleared Stonehill with Deadly Poison.
Then, they played Giggling Inventor too.
With 4 unpopped bubbles, my Blood Knight became a 15/15. They armoured up to high heavens but it got to stick and connect to the face once, before getting silenced.
By that point my hand was getting pretty thin, so my turn 9 play was Baku. I had 4 more minions on board but the highest attack was the silenced Blood Knight.
Then Baku survived the Brawl.
And despite all this unbelievable luck, they had armoured up enough to be 2 out of range.
So I topdecked a Southsea Deckhand.
So, here. That's what it takes. Piece of cake.
2
An important note about how cost reduction works now: Say that you have Malygos and Floop in your hand, and you play Florist.
If it hits Malygos, all is well, 2-mana Malygos + 4-mana Floop clone
If it hits Floop (which, since you played Florist is now a 4-mana Florist) Floop becomes 0-mana *BUT* if at a later turn you play Malygos (or any other minion) Floop will turn into a 4-mana copy, loosing the discount.
In my experience this makes the combo tough to execute and rather unreliable, so typically I run Oaken Summons+Ironbark Golems instead of Floop.