Descent of Dragons Review - The Meta Defining Cards So Far
With all the hubbub about Battlegrounds, the Descent of Dragons Card Reveal period has kind of snuck up on us. It seemed like a good idea to start Reveal week with a recap of the cards we have seen so far, to remind you of the most meta defining cards we have seen so far, according to you, the community.
Of note here: This is taken from only a small slice of the available cards, as most of them will be revealed starting this week. We will definitely do more of these articles highlighting the best cards once we have all the cards, most likely after release when there has been time to play with them.
If getting highly rated was a competition then Breath of Dreams would have been the runaway winner. The community thought this was the best card revealed so far, by quite a large margin. It's understandable why. A better Wild Growth? Sign us up!
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Fate Weaver combines a decent body, with a tricky conditional and an effect we know can be very powerful from Emperor Thaurissan. Having 2 of these cards in a deck might lead to some serious shenanigans.
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Lightning Breath is a Breath card, which means it's a powerful card with a bonus if you are holding a Dragon. In this case it means cleaving your opponent's board for 4 damage. Easy to see why the community felt good about this card.
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Candle Breath is another breath card, which sets expectations for the rest of these Breath cards to be revealed. This one is basically a better Sprint, a card that's frequently been used with Preparation to refill after Rogue plays it's hand.
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Nozdormu the Timeless left part of the community in awe. A 4 mana 8/8! But some of the community also saw the downside as a too significant price to pay. Which led to this card being the most voted on and contested card we present to you today.
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Dwarven Sharpshooter is proof that cards don't need to be huge mana cost, Legendary dragons to make an impact. This Hunter card makes that impact in a small package. Literally, cause it's a Dwarf. Jokes aside, this card is a reprint of Steamwheedle Sniper but if has much more support around it in the set now.
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We end with Galakrond, the Nightmare, the most meta defining of the Galakronds we have seen so far, though some of that may have to do with the fact it was the first Galakrond to be revealed. The community seems fairly sure it will define the meta, though much will of course depend on the Invoke cards that fuel Galakrond.
None of those Invoke cards made it into this review, which goes to show that the community isn't quite as sure about their power level as they are about Galakrond. Problem is that the 2 cannot be seperated while playing, so the actual meta defining nature of the Galakrond cards will remain to be seen.
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That's it for this Descent of Dragons card review, check back later this week when the Reveal Season starts up again. See you there!
Descent of Dragons Card List & Guide
Learn more and see all the cards in our dedicated expansion guide.
The set is literally called Descent of Dragons. Even without being a Dragon deck there are still going to be strong dragons that will be splashed into other decks.
As for your other comments, big pally isn't a thing right now because there aren't many cards to support it. Judging by Nozzy, there almost certainly will be this xpac. Plus, Holy Wrath pally is still a deck.
And on the Fate Weaver note, Blizz has already said they're going to be nerfing the Divine Spirit/Inner Fire combo soon, so that won't be relevant. Besides, even with that, the combo becomes better; 2 mana instead of 5 to play the combo means you could literally just play a charger for huge damage. Plus, the highest winrate rn is rez priest anyway, not combo.
When you've played this game long enough, you see why these predictions are always wrong. Breath of Dreams is only a meta defining card if Dragon Druid is a meta-defining deck. Same goes for all the "breath" cards. Hearthstone is full of cards like this that almost nobody has ever used because they were high-powered cards that only fit with low-powered deck archetypes. This set contains cards that seem intended to drive several different dragon decks. One will probably be really good, and the cards that support the rest of them will never see play at all. The likelihood of Breath of Dreams, Candle Breath and Lightning Breath all being good cards is extremely low, because for that to happen all three of these dragon decks have to work.
The same goes for Fate Weaver. If you can build a deck that has room for all the Galakrond mechanics while also having room for whatever combo this card is supposed to power that also has room for the stuff that keeps Priest from being killed by faster, simpler decks, this might work. But if it is not better than the existing Divine Spirit/Inner Fire combo priest decks, people will just play those instead.
Nozdormu is really interesting, because it is a fantastic card for a big Paladin deck, which is an archetype that doesn't currently exist. If you draw Nozdormu, and you play your 8/8 and then get 10 mana crystals to make another big play, you've likely engineered a tempo swing that many opponents won't be able to counter, even with their own mana crystals unlocked. Many aggressive decks need to kill big decks before they get to 10 mana crystals, because they cannot compete card-for-card once the late-game threats start hitting the board. The trouble is, how does the Nozdormu Paladin deck win games where you don't draw Nozdormu? Paladin doesn't have a lot of ways to cheat out big cards, accelerate its mana curve or tutor a big card out of its deck. This card would be insane in Druid. In Paladin, there isn't currently a deck that can take full advantage of what Nozdormu does.
The Galakrond support cards are all over the place, I'd definitely play a 4/5 taunt Battlecry - add a lackey to your hand for 5 mana in Rogue, especially while Heistbaron Togwaggle is still a card, just replace the EVIL Cable Rat and make the deck slightly slower (the burst kill Tempo Rogue has doesn't come too early anyway, and having an infinite value Galakrond for the end game would help).
On the other hand, a 2/2 Rush summon a lackey would and will never see play,
The other Galakronds are harder to evaluate, despite also providing infinite value at the end game. Warlock needs sort of a weird Zoo/Control hybrid to run Galakrond with that hero power, and priest minions are not that good (though, having an extra one every turn will overwhelm your oponent at some point, getting those minions in the mid-game night be worthless).
I'm waiting especially for the warrior Galakrond, wondering if it'll be good enough to replace Dr. Boom, Mad Genius. My bet is - only after it rotates out.
I'm hyped about upcoming expansion!
I really believe that these ".. if you're holding a dragon.." cards should be changed to, "..if you control a dragon" .. which means there is a slight chance of counterplay to opponent by them clearing your dragon before you can use the card. Applied to all previous sets too.
That would make dragon synergy completely garbage. Dragon synergy was designed to work this way because a lot of dragons are big and expensive, and dragon decks aren't supposed to just be zoo decks. 'Counterplay' shouldn't actually mean 'I get to make your cards not work'. Part of what makes hearthstone fun for the average player is that your opponent can't just deny your ability to play the game (try playing against simic flash in mtg... it's pretty miserable), counterplay means that there are ways to fight back. For instance, the counterplay to breath of dreams (and wild growth) is that your opponent is giving up early tempo for long term advantage, so you have a window to stick things on the board and start beating them up.
Fate Weaver will just end up in an OTK with Divine Spirit and Inner Fire.
skulking geist says hi from wild :P
I miss you Geist. Can't we get back together?
You don't need to lower 2 or 1 cost cards for an OTK, having Galakrond and invoke cards in your deck would make your combo priest far less consistent.
I'm also still keeping my extra golden copies of both those cards because I have a feeling at least one of them will be hall of famed before long.
i dont think these cards will be hall of famed, maybe just nerfed.
Breath of Dreams: This card relies on Dragon Druid being good enough - but I think it's there. Wild Growth was so good it had to be nerfed, so Cantrip Wild Growth at 2 has to be insane. The selling point is that Emerald Explorer is so good as well as a huge taunt to ramp into to make more dragons. Breath of Dreams + Crowd Roaster are strong enough payoffs to justify a dragon deck, and Emerald Explorer is a good enough dragon. All this together means that, most likely, it is worth running some other more mediocre dragons like Brightwing, Ysera, and Twilight Drake to fuel the deck - and for all we know there are several more powerful neutral or druid dragons remaining to power it instead. I vote this highly likely to be a major meta player.
Fate Weaver: This feels a bit more speculative, as we need to have Galakrond, the Unspeakable be good AND that deck needs to have enough big stuff to justify an otherwise mediocre 3/6. Galakrond-Priest seems okay and Time Rip is actually sort of insane, but I'm not convinced that that deck wants the upside of Fate Weaver enough to justify the risk of it being a vanilla 3/6.
Lightning Breath: Tough to evaluate as the difference in effect here is so drastic - a Shadowbolt is at least playable, but it will feel real bad not to get that 12 damage. Currently, with no Shaman Dragons, this feels like it's unlikely to hit it - especially since unlike Breath of Dreams, this effect is more reactive and thus not something one can "build around". I suspect it sees no play, but a ton of new shaman dragons will change that.
Candle Breath: This feels very playable though. 6 mana draw 3 is almost good enough on its own which means that casting this for 3 is both insane and pure bonus. Waxadred is a bit meh but this is powerful enough to build around and try for Dragon Rogue.
Lmao. Adorable.
When the fuck was the last time this community got ANY of this actually right.....? XD Hell, you can still go to some meta staple cards and find them have horrible community polls to this day.
Finally someone reasonable
Well... the community has many different opinions, so someone's bound to be right about something. I personally think Waxadred will be tier 1, but I don't think many people agree.
calling the hearthpwn community's opinion meaningless while being a member of the hearthpwn community. so reasonable.
None of these cards will turn out to be meta defining. That is what the history of the community predictions has taught us. Don't believe me? Feel free to dig up previous compendiums and check for yourself.
Kobolds and Catacombs was the easiest for me to find, so let's look at that one.
https://www.hearthpwn.com/news/4136-the-hearthpwn-kobolds-catacombs-community
Duskbreaker was indeed meta-defining. Dragon Priest was a top deck, and it would not have been possible without this.
Kobold Librarian was a staple of every single Warlock deck until it rotated out.
Unstable Evolution saw a reasonable amount of play, but "meta-defining" might be a bit strong.
Reckless Flurry -- no idea why people voted for this. I certainly didn't. It's obviously garbage.
Leyline Manipulator turned out to be mostly meme fodder.
Cavern Shinyfinder was the linchpin of Kingsbane decks, which were so strong the archetype had to be nerfed, so yeah.
Grumble, Worldshaker was fine. Not meta-defining, but fine.
Fal'dorei Strider is one of those fun-but-not-great cards.
Psychic Scream absolutely meta-defining as the strongest board clear ever printed.
Hooked Reaver certainly saw a lot of play in Gul'dan decks, but it was far from the most important card in there.
So a successful prediction rate of 40 percent. Far from perfect, but it's also far from having none correct, as you claim.
Thanks for doing this, great list.
Mostly agree with you, but I don't think you're giving Grumble and Hooked Reaver enough credit.
Rather than nerfing grumble, they nerfed saronite chain gang, which you could argue was directly connected to Grumble's interaction. I definitely think infinite Shudderwok was meta defining for quite a while. It received heaps of play at both a professional level and 5-1 / Legend - which I happened to be during this phase.
As for Hooked Reaver, people would pass up face damage against Warlock to avoid this thing. it synergized so well with hellfire setups into Hooked Reaver + upgraded Spell stone. The most important card in Evenlock (besides Genn :P) was probably Mountain Giant, but Hooked Reaver has to be a top 5 (maybe top 3 depending on the argument).