Hearthpwn

A little AoE love for a class that could use more of it. Something of a Swipe / Foe Reaper hybrid. Could serve as a replacement for Druid of the Flame and Mounted Raptor during the next rotation. Beast Druid would definitely need a new three drop. A four-drop variant to replace Savage Combatant could also be considered (3/5 and 2 damage, or perhaps one damage to all enemies, making it an tauntable swipe?)

Should been "Zuck Foo"

Dear Blizzard:

When you nerf all the good Druid cards into oblivion because they are "restricting design space" and preventing you from giving them any good new cards, you are then supposed to finally give them those good new cards!

A decent class legendary is not enough, because you can rarely build around such cards (and definitely not Fandral).

 ....

Note that I think the real issue is that Blizzard thought the meta would be slower than it is (yeah right) and expected the Old Gods - C'Thun Druid included - to be a factor. Why they thought this and then gave Shaman a turn four 7/7 and a free mid-game 5/5 taunt is beyond me.

I've been playing a variant of this deck with Fandral for Leroy and a Raven Idol for Finley.

Fandral is a super-star in this deck and flat-out wins you games sometimes. Innervate him on turn two and follow him up with any Choose One, and you probably are going to steamroll your opponent unless they have hard removal for him.

Last game - Innervate Fandral on T2, Druid of the Flame / Innervate / Power of the Wild on T3. Say hello to 4/6, 6/6 and a 3/2.

And as a side point: The very existence of Staghelm and his extreme early-game threat will cause people to keep premium removal in their opening hand. If you don't have or draw Staghelm, it sits in their hand, dead. Advantage, you.

You don't build your deck around this card. Because you can only have one copy of a legendary, you can only build around them if they have huge effects like Reno and C'Thun, both of which Blizzard has balanced by literally forcing to warp your deck around their needs.

Staghelm, like almost all other legendaries, is an adder. You play him in a deck where he synergizes well, you don't play him if he does not. Assuming you have more than a few Choose One's (and almost all Druid decks will have 2xWrath, 2xMire Keeper, 2xDotC at minimum, probably more), all you need is one copy of one of them to make Staghelm a net gain.  And if you can play him early, either via ramp or Innervate, you will almost always get a positive trade and/or force premium removal.

This is definitely a solid card. I can't wait to craft my golden one tomorrow!

One thing few people have noted: Staghelm may be the best turn one/two Innervate play Druid has ever had. If the Druid can follow up with a couple Choose One's like Wrath, Power of the Wild, Mark of Nature, Dire Keeper, etc it is likely gg unless the opponent draws specific removal cards.

Quote from AlexHeinrichs >>

Druid C'thun looks straight up broken. The curve is insane and you have ramp + innervate to cheat mana into playing this guy/C'thun early.

Can't wait to get my hands in this expansion!

Quote from Takwin >>

Silence is now valued at two mana, which is fair. 

So so you get a 2/2 for 2 with the option of 2 damage or that silence. 

Fair nerf, and still a good card. 

Quote from cuttlefish5 >>

Nerf here was needed, and they hit the point without killing the card.

Getting rid of charge? Fine.

Turning a class epic into the equivalent of a common neutral? Screw up. Big time. In fact, I think Silverhand Knight is better in most situations.

The new FoN should have been a Choose One: Summon three 2/2 treants, or deal 2 damage to three random enemies.

This make it balanced (better than SHK because of the Choose One, which is a Fireball/Arcane Missiles combo) for a class epic. As it is, it is nothing but dust. Pure garbage.

Oh, and before you ask, such a spell could handle spell damage by giving you half an extra charge per spell damage (3-4 enemies at +1, 4 enemies at +2, etc).

Not all epics are great cards...but in general they are at least interesting and have unique effects if they are not. The new FoN is not only vanilla, but crappy vanilla. That's a spit in the face of the very concept of "Epic".

Heavy ramping into what, exactly? Ramping depletes your hand, and Nourish doesn't work because a Druid cannot go yet another turn without putting something on the board.

All current Druid archetypes are dead. C'Thun Druid might work but its hard to say until we see all the cards and can play it. Either way, it won't be a lot of fun in my opinion - a bunch of crappy, non-interacting vanilla minions until you either get overrun for playing such crap, or draw your Coin-Flip-For-Victory card...and then see it removed 99% of the time on the next turn because your opponent is not so stupid as to not have saved his or her hard removal.

Quote from SC2FFCigam >>

Well, it's a nice and welcome nerf.

Offe course Druid is badly hurt but it was expected and this time most of the cards remain playable.

 

I voted meta-defining on this one. C'thun is the central card to this expansion, so you can be sure Blizzard has tested it to keep sure it is viable in at least some decks. Clearly, Druid is meant to be one of them. With the likely horrible nerfs to other Druid cards, and with Beast Druid being non-viable in Standard even with the new card (too many others were lost or will be nerfed), I am pretty confident that Ramp-C'Thun Druid will be the deck of choice for this class in standard.

It also is one more dagger in the heart of Druid in Arena, but that is another story.

This reminds me of the new Druid card Mire Keeper - a respectable but unexciting replacement for Piloted Shredder. It will see some play, but it won't be the card you fear your opponent has in his or her hand.