Hearthpwn

Veklor was a neat card!

I found this card very situational, much like Cult Master, and I could never get it to work. I'd never have it in hand when I had my Illidari summons (namely Coordinated Strike). Like other token combos it's highly overrated by newcomers who like to theorytinker without considering the probabilities of drawing the two cards or the card advantage lost by playing the two combo cards together.

It's nice if you can get it to work, but if you really need to draw 6 cards on turn 7, something probably already went wrong.

Edit: didn't realise this was in 2017 before introduction, my bad.

It doesn't spawn it, you still have to play (and more importantly, pay for) it. IMHO 3 mana 1/2 and 2 damage is bad, ergo this spell is bad. I agree with gbrading.

Haha dang, hope you find something else you like

you are just not playing around it. 

Divine Shield gives you a 2:1 card advantage on this -- if not silenced or transformed, removals which are fairly rare (esp in paladin)

I suppose that is true, not only because of Arcane Missiles and Sorcerer's Apprentice but also because 2 drops are strictly better than 1 drop Hero Powers. Converting cards into HPows was always gonna be bad haha. Should have been a 3/5 like Violet Teacher if they actually wanted it to be playable, but then again, Tunnel Trogg meta...

Let's be honest, competitively this can often be a worse version of Violet Teacher if not for Cobalt Scalebanes which might get 2/3s to buff. I'd say it's of at best in a tempo/midrange deck and really winmore with such low health -- Heck, you almost might as well play Archmage Antonidas if you need to recycle spells. Cards (especially so for maintaining tempo on board, going into the late game) are a much more important resource than this.

Edit: to be clear anything with stats worse than a vanilla minion, and requires another card to get value isn't good. Consider Fire Plume Phoenix which includes a free Zap! -- those are the sorts of card you want, not the other way around like this combo. So that's why it's playable but really bad for you.

Depends what "most scenarios" are. +1 durability is fairly good but it is more midrange.

Agree wholeheartedly. I originally thought "give it lifesteal" but you're right, a few buffs and that quickly spirals into OPness -- i'm just "never lucky" as certain streamers say. A minion aura is a good compromise! Good suggestion, now go brave the forums to deliver it to Team 5/Blizz :P

It would be nice if you could apply debuffs with a weapon but no. "Technology isn't there yet" or "10 is too many slots for new players to understand," take your pick. ;)

Freeze/Ice shaman was halfbaked, they are afraid of making another Ice Lance or even making Shaman halfway decent again... You can tell, because Ice Shock is an basic card which goes golden early (so Team 5 thought it would never see play) and those are usually crap cards (exception: Shadow Visions + Mind Blast, but then again Discover is OP af).

There are no good shamans in Raven Shaman anyway (elemental being screwed over by the lack of any good overloads to play outside of Wild sets -- thanks for nothing in KFT, Team 5). I hope they make some for 2018 or shammy will be crap again for another 2 years while they plan how to buff them, not figure it out, and then make them OP ASF in a single set which lasts for another 2 years >.>

Agreed, freeze isn't yet a thing for Shaman. It really should be, they should have given the effect of the KFT Trollo Legendary to an epic card, and made some sort of Thrall Deathseer synergy with the Legendary. This should NOT be the only activator in the deck. Now that even Jade Claws* (edit:whoops typo) was removed and Spell Claws nerfed: RIP OP Shaman, 2015-2017.

While I agree that the draw component of Recruit is sorely broken (my favoured comparison being Call to Arms vs Lay on Hands, where the draw-3 costs a whopping 5.5 mana over Holy Light), I sincerely doubt that Doomguard is the problem. YelloRambo has good points, but that's [Tempo] YelloRambo shouting hail mary, and the card has existed in classic (albeit with its downside and no way to cheat it) without needing changes.

The real thing about Call to Arms (or any other Recruit mechanic) is that it's broken in tempo, not necessarily in value. I regularly get punished by Controlock decks playing Hellfire when I coined it out it in testing up to the nerf yesterday; now *many* classes have 6 mana deal 2 AoE or taunts (Blizzard, Rexxar, Spreading Plague, Spikeridged in mirror). So how does that affect lackey, because you're not trying to kill it? Well, by the time you play and kill it, it'll be turn 7. By then you're probably dead to aggro and can't have healed (Pact nerf), so the problem will probably correct itself. Voidlord gets normally played only two turns later, and Doomguard could have been played with Charge two turns earlier. I think that with the cost nerfs it checks out in tempo, generally speaking.

The main concern I have is like Kibler, Zalae, and Thijs that Crystal Core + Vicious Scalehide will be insane. Even if it's much harder for Crystal Core to pull off any OTK BS, it now has a solid position in the meta (because it was previously constrained by Tauntlords) and has ridiculous lifesteal potential against aggro. 2 mana lifesteal & rush is pretty insane, especially with Shadowstep (remember there is it counts as a 2 for Prince Keleseth though). 

Hey thanks, good guide and a lot of comprehensive info in the many many spoiler boxes!  Just wondering do you keep Minstrel in the mulli at #5 priority? It seems quite strong to draw the auctioneer (especially as you only play 1), but definitely the Faldorei, cheap spells and weapon cards you listed already are more important. Thanks in advance!

(Also, you still mention Patches and Counterfeit Coin from MSG in that Mulligan part of the guide, you can probably take them out now with Raven Standard) :)