New Neutral Common Card Revealed - Strongman
PlayHearthstone on YouTube just revealed a new Madness at the Darkmoon Faire card: Strongman
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Discuss this Card
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This card looks incredibly strong. With Survival of the Fittest you get a additionnal 10/10. Fits in a lot of decks to. 6/6 taunt for 0 mana is not a joke.
As someone pointed out this might be an include in a handlock deck with twisting nether. We'll have to see if Warlock gets enough sustain.
Well they went with "uncorrupted it's trash, corrupted it's insane" for this one.
Well, this exists in a similar design space to Anubisath Defender, which did see some level of play, though not as a focal card. My intuition would suggest that the 'corrupt' mechanic is weaker that the 'this turn' option, since if you draw into this, it won't be precorrupted by what you've been doing. Additionally, the corrupting price is 8 mana, rather than 5.
To its credit, spells are a pretty restrictive requirement, and opening that up to any card, and any class really opens up your options. You could, for example, put down a Tirion Fordring, and flank him with strongmen.
That said, a deck that's running Tirion is probably a duel deck, and while a 6/6 isn't bad, per se, it's not what you want off of Duel! or Commencement. A warlock might play out a twisting nether, and follow up with one of these, or a particularly brutal mage might Pyroblast you in the face (or just drop the box) and use these to buy themselves space.
But perhaps the most interesting use of this card is to cover the weaknesses of certain other lategame cards. It used to be that some cards had massively impactful effects, but did nothing on the turn you played them out (take The Mistcaller for a smaller example).
So let me offer a set of minions that Strongman makes significantly more viable:
Big Bad Archmage (Still not a deck worth running), Emeriss (Seriously, that's 2 free 12/12s with taunt on the board? If you can make it to turn 10 in wild, then this is a deck to watch out for), Ancient Void Hound, Lord Jaraxxus (still not safe, but closer), Master Oakheart, Nethrandamus (Taunts now guaranteed), Rattlegore (Already viable, but no longer dead the turn he comes out), Ysera, Ysera, Unleashed, Doomcaller (And you've already got C'Thun as an option in that deck) Gruul is still just stats, but less so. You also have spell options like Survival of the Fittest (Side-note: Even with double Embiggen, Survival still corrupts these guys, meaning you're playing free 14/14s, potentially), Tree of Life (Y'all remember that card?) and of course, Twisting Nether which you can now follow up in striking fashion.
Now, I want to make something clear: I don't think all of these cards will see play just because of strongman. Not at all. Most of those cards are basically below what you want a payoff card to look like these days (looking at you Ysera. I loved you back in the day, but a 4 mana 7/6 is not good enough, these days.) Nor am I saying that Strongman will even see play at all; after all, you need to be surviving to turn 8+ to get the payoff, and you need to already have it in hand; that means it's a dead card until then. If every slot matters, then you can't afford something that combos past turn 8. That said, if you are making it to that point, and you're drawing hard enough to get access to both the combo pieces, then strongman helps you overcome the problem of 'oh no, I played my one 10-mana minion this turn, and it did nothing on board, and now they'll just kill me with board, and I won't survive long enough to get the long-term boost. A pair of 6/6 with taunt is a pretty good start, and it deserves further testing.
Cards I'm especially curious about: Emeriss, and Survival of the Fittest. The rest are interesting, but are either already played, or not good enough to be meta-defining.
Also, with Emeriss, too, we have the already memetic deck built around bulking up your charge minions to absurd levels and, at the end, smOrcing them all in. Seriously, you duplicate one King Krush, hit them with Emeriss, and Beastmaster Leoroxx is like, a pretty easy OTK. Previously, Emeriss would have been the bottleneck, and you'd either have to pray that you didn't just die from the tempo loss or find another buff option, and duplicate twice. If Emeriss is suddenly tempo-viable (Again, two 12/12s with taunt, that's 32/32 on the board, AKA more than The Ancient One), then the deck is much simpler to pull off.
Survival of the Fittest, Likewise, would love a deck where you can spam out a pair of free 10/10s.
nice pull from ultimate infestation
Sweet! A 10/10 taunt
a follow-up for 8-mana cost card or more? everybody now have access to an anubisath defender, nice
Thinking about this more, I think this card is great in hard control priest and warlock decks. Playing Twisting Nether or Plague of Death and being able to follow up with this is really great.
That's the main good thing about this card right now IMO.
Feels Strongman
That's a card I like, It's simple but with a very poweful pay off. Maybe it wont be good enough for a competitive deck, but you never know, 0 mana cards must be keept an eye on
I couldn't help but notice that the backgrounds in both the presenter's rooms had a few pretty obscure things, as well as Kazakus and Don Han'cho posters. Could just be a coincidence, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's at least something there hinting at a future set...
Kind of situational. But in a dedicated Y'Shaarj control deck could be really good.
maybe it has some hidden utility but Im not going to waste a deckslot for a 7 mana 6/6 taunt that can be 0 after playing a 8+
Priest will use it to 100%. Same for a few other late game decks.
we're moving toward control/ combo again from tempo/aggro dekc and guess what, Glide is gonna shine
unplayable, corrupting a 7 mana card is hard as f*ck, most classes dont even play an 8 mana card, and classes thay play play very few
Turn 8 2 6/6 Taunt minions on top of a 8 cost card.
k
It seems okay but if you want some free taunts that hit the board after you play an 8 drop wouldn't you want to play Strength in Numbers instead ? I guess at that point you're playing druid and why would you do that lmao
Strong boi indeed
im not saying that will be the case, but, warlock or shaman could use it to figth back the board after a twisting nether or the tydal whatever is called aoe spell with lifesteal.