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.
2
A murloc deck without Gentle Megasaur?
2
In my attempts at a murloc deck (rank 4-5 EU) I found a few things to be true:
1. Book of Specters is as likely to help you as to fuck you over. To better my chances I dropped 2xFrostbolt for 2xGlacial Shard (and removed Mana Wyrms, too few spells to be worth it)
2. You need, need, NEED more utility, so I added 1xPolymorph and 2x Spellbreakers.
3. Continuing with the theme of more utility but not in spell form, I added 1x Fungal Enchanter and 1x Ghastly Conjurer
2
I'm intrigued, this is the first proposed deck I've seen that actually USES the Baku augmentation...
2 questions:
1. How would you trigger the Cube? just smashing against enemy minions?
2. Why no Blackwald Pixie? Seems like a natural fit for this deck
2
This deck has all the positives and negatives of a mid-range control-y elemental deck, plus the completely unnecessary handicap of not having Glyph, Frostbolt, Firebolt or Polymorph (Meteor/Blizzard too, for more controlling variants).
The buff to the hero power simply cannot compensate for that, especially since the entire point of the deck is to get to Jaina as fast as possible, negating the buff anyway...
2 damage/2 mana isn't efficient (neither is 1dmg/1mana btw). It is slightly better than the insulting 1dmg/2mana but the fact remains that mages waste mana every time they use their hero power. Building a deck around the weakest aspect of the class faces an uphill battle from the get-go.
I've tried it, but it's not working. Especially in the current meta, where you need every bit of utility you can squeeze into your deck.
3
it's bad enough you have to give up frostbolts to make Keleseth work, giving up Fireballs removes your ability to finish the game fast and past walls of minions.
Arcane Keysmith is tricky in this deck. You have to juggle them both so it doesn't disturb your elemental chain-play, and play them at the correct turn depending on the enemy.
Secrets have utility beyond their card effect. It's a mind-game, forcing the opponent to play more conservatively, or simply give up once they see you have read them correctly...
In the current meta EVERYONE expects just either Exploding Runes or Counterspell, so they check with Coin or a small spell and if it goes through they throw a minion that can soak up/negate the damage, so you can throw a curveball with Frozen Clone or Mirror Image. You usually end up with Lifedrinkers or Armored Beatles, but I have tricked people 3-4 times already into giving me Lich Kings or Cubes loaded with Voidlords ^^
3
Sounds good! My preference for the Fledgling is because 1. It has the chance to facilitate a crazy aggressive early game the same way Mana Wyrm would in other decks (victory by turn 5-6) 2. I'm very dust-poor :)
10
This deck is a great idea. I'm a mage-only player, currently at Rank 4 after being stuck on 5 for the past week or so, the meta was literally killing me.
A few changes I made:
2x Arcane Keysmiths instead of including Exploding Rune and Counterspell, much more situational utility, and you free up 1 deck space.
1 extra Tar Creeper on that space.
2x Steam Surgers and 1xWater Elemental, that 2dmg spell comes in handy a lot more than a single target freeze
No Cauldron Elemental, instead 1xIronbeak Owl, You won't run out of damage, and you need the utility.
No Mana Wyrms, not nearly enough spells to make them worth it, they just take up space. Instead:
1x Flamestrike. You won't always need it but god it's good to have when you do.
1x Vicious Fledgling. Personal favourite. Will either win you the game, or force the opponent to spend single target removal on it.