Hearthpwn

Five cards that will exceed expectations, five that will disappoint, and five that just might—if the stars align—not be completely terrible.

THE GOOD (five strong cards that aren't getting the respect they deserve)

Forbidden Flame: Yes, it's inefficient removal, but it's also extremely flexible—more so than most of the other Forbidden cards. Adequate against both aggro and control, and always capable of triggering your Flamewaker or Archmage Antonidas. You'll never be sorry to have this in your back pocket.

Carrion Grub: An ideal 3-drop for a beast-oriented hunter, or even a fairly standard midrange list. It's extremely hard to remove a 2/5 on curve, which means this is probably the best, most reliable partner Houndmaster has ever had.

Ancient Harbinger: You pay a premium of 1 (maybe 1.5) mana to put a sturdy minion into play that demands to be removed; if your opponent can't remove it, you get to draw your deck's most important minion. I'm not sure people appreciate how important—and difficult—it will be to actually get C'Thun in your hand; most games right now aren't long enough for you to even have a 50 percent chance of naturally drawing a specific legendary. The meta might slow down, and C'Thun decks will surely be slower than average, but this card will still have an important role to play in making them reliable.

Hogger, Doom of Elwynn: Potentially massive value and utility, especially in a traditional control warrior list. Might just fill the hole that Dr. Boom is leaving behind (for warrior—he's not so hot for classes that can't trigger him easily/cheaply). People might be wary because he looks a lot like Troggzor the Earthinator, the Great Disappointer, but the difference is that you can actually control whether his ability is triggered or not.

Feral Rage: Better than Healing Touch, which used to be played in the pre-Healbot days, and better than Ice Barrier, which still is played. Gives druid a sort of warrior-lite ability to stack health (attractive for super-slow lists), but it's versatile too, capable of clearing minions or even going face. And it's pretty solid with Fandral Staghelm, whom I expect to see in nearly every competitive druid list in coming seasons (certainly every list that includes two or more of Wrath, Living Roots, Power of the Wild, and Raven Idol). People are seriously sleeping on this one.

THE BAD (five cards that players have unrealistically high expectations for)

Doomcaller: It's an awesome, exciting card, and I understand why people like it, but if you really think it's going to see play, prepare for disappointment. The meta might slow down, but if I will eat my hat if it slows down enough that you can draw and play C'Thun, get him killed, play a vanilla 8-drop to shuffle him back into your deck, draw him again, and play him again. You'll be lucky to draw him even once if you're not running Ancient Harbinger!

Faceless Summoner: Obviously a strong card, and it'll be a powerhouse in arena, but people who think this will make a big splash on the ladder are kidding themselves. It might not get played it all—it has no immediate impact on the board, no natural synergies, and no obvious role in any mage deck. It's just a little too expensive to offer nothing more than stats and board presence (cf. the mighty new Flamewreathed Faceless).

Steward of Darkshire: An easily-removed, tempo-negative 3-drop with a strong ability that's hard to trigger when it counts. With Haunted Creeper leaving Standard, there's no good way for paladin to summon 1-health minions without paying mana (or maybe I've just failed to foresee the new Wisp and Imp Master meta), which means that this is an aggro card you can't really play until turn 5 or so. It has lots of intriguing combo potential (with other new cards of dubious merit, like Rallying Blade and Stand Against Darkness), but I just don't see what competitive deck can make it work reliably. Hobgoblin paladin was never very strong, and I think Steward will be less impactful than Mr. Goblins and Gnomes.

Blood Warriors: A super-conditional version of Echo of Medivh—a card that barely saw play in competitive decks for a class with much stronger combo potential. This card is not playable.

Cyclopian Horror: Depending on the speed of the meta, it might be marginally better than Sen'jin Shieldmasta. That's not saying much. The Brann Bronzebeard combo is fun, but don't count on it.

THE UGLY (five cards that were universally panned—and are probably terrible—but have some major theoretical upside)

Tentacles for Arms: Scorn a unique card that offers infinite value at your own peril. Yes, it's probably too slow even for the slowest, grindiest warrior, but we won't know that for sure until we see the new meta. This thing effectively gives warrior two hero powers at once—it's the only card in the game that cannot be destroyed, transformed, or in any way removed. If there's a lot about a card that seems broken, count on somebody to find a way to break the game with it.

Darkshire Librarian: There probably still aren't enough cards built around this mechanic to make a top-tier deck, but this is a big step in the right direction. Tiny Knight of Evil into this gal is a very strong opener, and unlike many of the discard minions, she actually has a little upside even when you don't trigger Tiny Knight or Fist of Jaraxxus (she's like a mega-Loot Hoarder if you manage to drop her from an empty hand).

Demented Frostcaller: It's strange that people rated this card very poorly but rated Shatter fairly highly. The two are pretty much meant for each other—if one works, the other will work too. This guy seems too expensive (and Shatter too conditional) but he has the potential to completely lock an opponent down—particularly an opponent who plays limited numbers of big minions—and generate hyper-efficient minion kills with Shatter and Ice Lance.

Giant Sand Worm: Like Tentacles for Arms, this one is probably going to prove unplayable, but the text is so insane that it demands a long second look. Could this be the board clear control hunter has always fantasized about? If you can stick one, its value with Stablemaster or Bestial Wrath is absolutely astronomical. But yes, alas, it'll probably just get Entombed or BGHed or something. We can dream.

Power Word: Tentacles: This is, objectively, a bad card. That's not going to stop some combo priest from OTKing you with it.

I'm going to have enough dust for six, I think, and if I get totally unlucky opening packs, it'll be Hallazeal the Ascended, Fandral Staghelm, Twin Emperor Vek'lor, N'Zoth the Corruptor, and Xaril, Poisoned Mind.

I certainly think it's possible that the card will see play, but this valuation is way too optimistic. Most of these "good" results are actually pretty bad—a mediocre 5-mana body plus a small weapon not really worth 2 mana once you're past turn 3. On turn 7 or later, a 2- or 3-attack weapon just isn't very significant. You're basically paying 7 mana, and using your whole turn, on an oversized Arathi Weaponsmith—a card that doesn't see play even though the 2/2 weapon is much more relevant that early in the game.

In Standard, you have one terrible result (Cursed Blade), nine bad results (all the 2/2, 2/3, and 3/2 weapons), a couple bad-ish ones that depend on your list (Charged Hammer and SoJ are bad in CW but could be strong in a tempo list; Poisoned Blade is just the opposite), and seven good results (which are also slightly list-dependent; any deck with Heroic Strike is going to be insanely happy with Doomhammer, but CW would probably rather have almost any of the others).

Basically he has a 60% chance of being a slightly bad play, a 35% chance of being a really good play, and a 5% chance of being a total disaster. He's actually probably better in Wild just because the chance of getting Cursed Blade is lower.

Basically three reasons:

1) They're tryharding and actually hope to make the top 100.

2) They're working on a golden hero.

3) They lack the skill/confidence to build their own decks.

And yeah, I feel you. It's kind of depressing, especially when they already have the golden hero and you know it's #1 or #3.

It keeps going and going and going!

Can't wait to see the golden art for this guy.

Not gonna lie, I wish I'd saved up and crafted mine in gold, especially considering I have golden Gul'dan.

I don't think Soggoth is bad, but I'd be pretty disappointed to unpack him. And I'll weep if I get the Boogeymonster. But yeah, otherwise it's an interesting bunch of cards I'll be happy to experiment with.

I will be a bit disappointed if some of the art we've seen on murals doesn't end up in the game. Weren't the Twin Emperors (or one of them, anyway) on one of the murals?

Definitely. Jaraxxus will always be good, and if you like control warlock, you owe it to yourself to be playing him.

Quote from PRKSlayer >>

I'm surprised at all the cards people are mentioning that I'm glad to actually see leaving standard (Nerubian Egg, Zombie Chow, Sludge Belcher, Haunted Creeper, and Mad Scientist). If they were to 'replace them' then I'd think it would be of minions of the same rarity (sadly not Loatheb). I'd rather have cards that provide something unique that we don't see in most of the other cards (My choices would be Stonesplinter Trogg and Echoing Ooze).

Quote from Agithore_the_Corrupted >>

Quote from arrumph >>

What's with the little black strip at the very top of the art? It looks like somebody made this with Hearthcards.

 That's because they did? The original card was in Taiwanese. It was then translated into English and recreated in Hearthcards.

Quote from AlchemistApprentice >>

Quote from arrumph >>

What's with the little black strip at the very top of the art? It looks like somebody made this with Hearthcards.

 Hearthpwn staff creates confirmed cards to get them here in English ASAP. They show up in different languages (and different places) and for example this one was in some Asian language (don't remember which one). The majority of Hearthpwn users can't read that, but can read in Enlish. That's why they put them here - recreated with Hearthcards - in English.

Quote from FunKaliTy >>

Quote from arrumph >>

I gave myself a 9. Maybe a little cocky? But I do think I'm very good at every aspect of the game. I've made legend with homebrewed decks (and netdecks, of course). I've never cracked the top 100, but I have been very close, and I've finished the season in the top 300 a couple times. I average over 7.5 wins per arena run.

In spite of that, of course, I still catch myself making mistakes every single day. Maybe I should've said 8, I don't know. There's always room to grow!

If you avg. above 7.5 wins in arena you are among the very best in the world^^
Even Kripp just barely avg. above 7 wins :P

No love for Wildwalker? She's so sassy!

I gave myself a 9. Maybe a little cocky? But I do think I'm very good at every aspect of the game. I've made legend with homebrewed decks (and netdecks, of course). I've never cracked the top 100, but I have been very close, and I've finished the season in the top 300 a couple times. I average over 7.5 wins per arena run.

In spite of that, of course, I still catch myself making mistakes every single day. Maybe I should've said 8, I don't know. There's always room to grow!

Wait, what? A playable hunter legendary? A maybe-actually-good hunter legendary?

Must be fake.