Hearthpwn

Hitting this on turn 4 against super greedy, super late game decks will probably lose you the game.  You would need some sort of Pyro +equality or the other one at 5 to give all minions 1/1 instead.

Against aggro or mid range, you CAN clear the board and then they will be out of resources if they dump their hand onto the board.

So I think this is one of those cards that you go for it and try to have board clears or someway to negate the opponent from plopping down a big boy.

Lay on Hands is playable for sure then, because you could heal for 8 and look for your 2 card board clear combos too.

If anything, this card is going to be skill testing.  You dont just play it on turn 4 automatically.  You need to base that on what your opponent is playing.

Against Hunter or Rogue though, I think this is a VERY BAD card.  Deadly Shot or Sap means they get to essentially use 10 mana, kill the dragon and pile more stats onto the board.  That kind of tempo loss is really really bad.

Hunter plays Deadly Shot, then Singleton Brann and you are looking at a very early game loss.

Not very powerful in most situations.  Very powerful in limited and specific conditions.

Didn't see this card first go around.  It has some interesting counter plays but not sure if its worth a deck slot.  Depends on the meta.

I think that only Highlander decks MIGHT be able to fit this in if they feel it necessary.

I think the best use is to use it with either Druid Quest or Shaman Quest.

Druid Quest AFTER you complete it.  As the Druid, you give your opponent a useless hero power after you are done using it.  Or if you don't have many choose one cards in your hand, use their active hero power for the turn and give them one they cannot use.

Shaman but not hero power activation.  You swap hero powers for a turn, most likely they could not use it OR if they do get very little benefit from it. 

Seems like an interesting card to play with, but best against certain classes with hero powers you want to deny or steal for a turn, like Boom hero power.

I do agree that a permanent swap at 2 mana is far too powerful or bad for the game.  Now if this was a legendary minion at 10 mana, that would be different.

People just play the Paladin card and win on the same turn with murlocs.  Not very fun to play against.

I see this card not only as a tech card, but as a specific build around card.

Denying your opponent good draws from their deck is a winning strategy.  If they draw a 1/1 on crucial turns, that is such a huge tempo loss as well as potentially game losing on the spot.

Much like Corrupted Blood, once you get enough critical mass of these 1/1 birds, the opponent cannot draw on curve answers, board removal or anything relevant to play.

So that means people might start to tech in that OTHER card that changes all your neutral cards into class cards.  You have a card this powerful that can nerf specific deck types (highlander) and just deny other decks the ability to play their deck properly.

Granted, shuffling 4 total birds is not statistical significant to swing unfavorable matches your way, especially if you are disfavored at 40 to 60 win rate.  But, it should swing the percentage points in your favor 5 to 10 points, just enough to beat those 50/50 match ups.

But if you were to build an entire deck around this concept?  You are talking resurrecting them.  Getting more copies to play over and over again.  3 classes might be able to pull this off.  Rogue, Priest and Hunter.  Though I think Priest has the best chance to be consistent at an actual new deck archetype.

Call it Albatross Priest.  The concept to is to limit your deck to the amount of deathrattles.  Then keep resurrecting them over and over again.

If your opponents ignore the birds, that's ok, you can go face or trade and still get the ability.  Mass Hysteria not only makes the board go away, it makes sure your opponent gets dead draws in the future.

I think the anti-highlander tech is a side benefit, not the main course.  People will play highlander decks for fun and in the beginning to play with the new 9 drop Alexstraza.  That card is that good.  But most highlander decks do not have enough consistency or life gain to be a high tier competitive deck.

This card also hoses so many other decks and archetypes.  The new Druid side quest?  They now get to summon a 1/1.  Big Paladin wants to play all big minions and Duel and so forth?  Now they get a 1/1 instead.  Hunter wants to draw cards with their Hunter's Call spell?  Sure, but you are getting a 1/1 as well.

This card seems really disruptive and I don't think I have even touched on half of the interactions and deck types this screws up.

In Wild, with Weasel Tunneler, you have potentially a really sick crazy deathrattle deck waiting to be abused.

Well we didn't predict a Neutral-less Paladin theme in the set, but this card was interesting to me regardless.  Now that Paladin seems to have a sub theme of no neutral cards, I see this card going up in value.

The biggest obstacle is how you build the deck, followed by when you actually play this card.  This isn't a 'me go face' type of card.  And it isn't an auto play hero card on curve either.

This is a very skill or timing based card based on the current state of the game and what neutral cards you put into your deck.

I think this card goes from fun or meme, to playable and will see play in these new paladin style decks.  How good the deck will be is still up in the air, but the card is good enough to warrant 2 slots in those decks.

I haven't done extensive research, but did cherry pick a few decks.  Many of the top tier decks are running neutral cards.  Some of those cards are tech cards.  Those tech cards are not useful or relevant in some match ups.  This card turns those useless cards into something else, and hopefully more useful.

If you play Acidic Swamp Ooze or Harrison Jones, this card will turn it into something else.  You ask then, why not run that something else instead of this purifier card?

So I realize this is most likely a bad epic that will have good Arena play, but not much else.  It will be fun to play with in Standard, but not be competitive.

I do like the fact though that it transforms the other one in your deck to something else.  This is key if running 2 of this card.  That means you won't draw dead because you won't have any other neutral cards in your deck.

If using this as a tech card against Corrupted Blood or Bombs, then I think it fits right into Highlander decks.  It's an early 2 drop against control decks but you save it against shuffle decks instead.  Let your opponent shuffle a ton of bombs in your deck and then make them into live draws.

Basically this card and the armor destroyer minion make Warrior no longer viable as the Bomb Variants.  Warrior is going to have to shift into aggro/tempo builds in order to stay competitive.

Also, you could combo this with the 9 drop that shuffles 10 cards into your deck.  If your choices are sub optimal, that's ok, go ahead and play this card and you will get something in class instead.

I think this card would be playable and perhaps OP if the text had an additional line attached.

"These (transformed) cards cost (1) less mana"

This can be the same thing that Rafaam was to Zoo decks.  If you are losing it was the 30th card that gave your deck new life because if you get to the late game, you lose as an aggro zoo deck.

Now this effect only costs 2 mana and gives you class cards, some of which are legendary and some of which are not.  You can get some pretty good stuff including ways to steal a game.

I think this is worth exploring in a minion heavy mid range dragon style deck as many of the dragons are going to be neutral.  This is far better than you think, but might require too severe of deck restriction to not be played in good decks.

It's a fun card to play with at least.

This is playable for sure.  It also only costs 2 mana, so you can use this early game or late game depending on your deck design or counter strategy.

It's also only cards in your deck, so you can easily wait to use this when you know it will not hurt you or remove specific cards you don't want to transform.

I think this is a decent highlander card too.  Especially if you are going against a deck you have no chance at, but your class cards might have an answer.

For example, transforming the Pirate that steals weapons is useless against some classes like Priest.  So against Priest, go ahead and turn that card into something far more useful.

This basically allows you to play ALL the neutral tech cards with less of a downside.  I actually think this card can be a thing.

If your opponent has no minion, and you are playing control Priest, you are already winning, especially if they are mid range or aggro.  Against control, you get to play this card when they drop their big bomb and you get a discounted copy.

How can this card be bad?  This card is very playable and perhaps close to meta-defining.  Playing this on curve against any other deck with a solid 2 drop means you will always compete for early board just long enough to Mass Hysteria them all away.

As someone else pointed out, this is a solid card that works in both anti-aggro and anti-control decks.  The deathrattle means they have to have 2 kill spells.

Let's say your opponent plays some discounted broken dragon on turn 6, like Ysera.  You copy it, then kill their minion with a spell on turn 7.  You now have a Ysera waiting for you if they ever decide to kill this creature.

In a mid-range world full of powerful dragons, this card is really good.

This is a very good common and in Arena, will be pretty amazing to get multiples depending on the class.

This card might go in a highlander dragon deck though.  Gives those decks more flexibility and resources.

So the way I look at this is a delayed Flame Trap or Duskbreaker, but that means its better than it looks.  Sure, the battlecry gives you immediate impact and will slow down or hose aggro decks on the spot.  This card will get ignored by aggro, which is a mistake.

They can't play anything greater than 5 attack (or grant more than 5 attack) because this can trade into it then.  If they DO play more to the board, its like playing into a Doomsayer.  If the priest player CAN find a way to kill this, then you just lost on the spot.  AND the priest  player can play to the board without fear of losing or damaging their own minions.

So instead of trying to show how much worse the card is by comparing it to Duskbreaker, I am trying to find a way to make the delayed damage trigger a benefit.  How do we trigger this on our turn and willingly?

Dragon decks will not be able to afford putting in board removal as a standard control deck.  Instead this card will act as the Mass Hysteria for Dragon decks.  Copying this card is quite easy AND can the copy can be killed far more easily.  I think there is potential here.

Quote from TyrantrumRex >>

Quote from badhank14 >>

This seems underwhelming.  If the card was worded slightly differently, I think it would be playable.  Now, I think its far too random and the stats too vanilla to be interesting if you top deck this.

New wording...

"Battlecry:  You draw your highest cost card and your opponent draws the lowest cost card.  Swap their costs."

I would play this card above.  Not the one they printed.

 No way... That would be instant win... Opponent is stuck with a 9 cost aggro minion, and your Malygos now costs 2?? That's silly... There has to be some RnG involved or its ridiculous OP

 You can get 1 cost Malygos right now.  And fairly easily.  If you draw your Malygos before you play this card, it doesnt work, just like all the other cards that do the same thing.

Jepetto Joybuzz.  Luna's Pocket Galaxy.

This card has RNG built in because if all you do is include 1 9 mana cost card in hopes in drawing it to reduce it, you will often fail.  Are you also not running 10 cost cards in your deck?  How would you build a Malygos deck with only 1 9 cost card and nothing higher?  What happens when you draw Malygos, do you have an alternative plan?

This card is just as good or bad as Jepetto Joybuzz.  Except what if your opponent has the lowest cost card in their deck as 4.  Still a discount, but nothing like other cards. 

This is not OP and would not be but that's ok.  It's not going to be played except in high roll decks.

Yeah, this card is really far more powerful than people give credit for.  It counters so many things.  And this can and will be abused by resurrect Priest.  The ability to give your opponent a bunch of 1/1 that DON'T draw a new card is powerful against almost any deck.  Even Aggro, they don't want to top deck a 1/1 when they are looking for a finisher or mid range card.

Also, this ruins so many other decks as I have to change my vote to meta-defining for sure.  Even if this card NEVER gets played, it simply existing means that any deck that starts to get greedy, will get this card thrown at them.

Control decks cannot afford to draw 1/1 minions either.  If they don't play the 1/1 after drawing it, it will sit in their hand, clogging it up with nothing they can use which means any card draw they do have will have to be careful not to overdraw and burn cards.

In Wild, I believe that we have an actual deck now that will annoy your opponent into conceding.  N'zoth to keep those dead birds coming back for more too.

In Standard, this will keep Highlander decks from being too powerful and that new Dragonqueen cards seems like they are pushing for the Highlander decks too.  If Zephyr cannot get the other player out of a jam because of some birds in their deck, that is truly meta-defining.  I hope better players make this a competitive deck just so that casters of Hearthstone have to comment on this card constantly.

Quote from Inzan1ty >>

Shadowstep-Keleseth anyone ? *shudder*

 Worse yet, Shaman Quest with double battlecry to reduce by 4.  Not that I think thats the best build for the battlecry Quest deck, but if there is enough Dragon and Battlecry support, it might just work.

That's truly scary if it does.  I am probably not the only one who wants to try that out either.  Even if it becomes a meme or fun deck, I think that alone is worth trying to abuse the mana reduction.

I will gladly take a 5 mana Ysera that I can play Dragon Breeder on for 7 mana total.

Or Baleful Banker the reduced mana Dragon and then use Shudderwock to discount the card again.

Much shennagans await this card.

Quote from Inzan1ty >>

Big Shaman, Big / Rush Warrior.

But those already have better tools to cheat out their big stuff, 6-5 pass Vanilla Stats but still voted bad because this minion will never see competitive play. "One Star".

 

 Right, in those decks, I would rather have more control on how I draw those cards or the cost of those cards.  Keep in mind for those that think this card is really good...you still have to play small cost cards in almost all decks, even in 'Big' decks.  Unless you are Priest in Wild, but that's a different issue.

If you are doing nothing for 4 turns, you are going to lose.  This is also turn 5 at best, which means whatever you got discounted could be played on turn 6 at the earliest.  I am thinking of the best case scenario and this is what I came up with.

Turn 5 you play this card and draw a 9 cost Dragonqueen Alexstraza.  You get lucky and they draw a 1 cost card.  On turn 6, you get to play a 9 mana card for 1 mana and the 2 free dragons that get generated from Dragonqueen.  Seems REALLY good for a turn 6 play.  Well that likelyhood is far less than you think.

Most players mulligan HARD for their low cost cards so they can play cards in the first few turns.  If you are a standard mid range or control deck, you will never keep your 9 mana cards in your hand, unless its part of a specific strategy.  You want early board minions and spells to interact with your opponent.

This means that by the time turn 5 comes around, you will have a small chance of getting a high cost card discounted by 2 or 3 mana at best.  Thats not terrible of course, but its also not game breaking as you have no control of your opponents deck.

Also, this MIGHT be good against Aggro, but unless your big cost card is a board clear OR a minion with Taunt, Aggro decks will simply ignore your cards and go face.

There are better counters to combo decks than this, so I think this is a no go.