New Cards Everywhere!
This week had a ton of new cards, so this week’s installment will be just put towards addressing them all. Without further ado:
This is a great card if Beast Druid ever becomes a thing. It’s basically a Power Word: Shield but with some Druid flair, and we all know how much Shield is run. It gives nice consistency to your deck, a nice buff to your big minions, and it provides further Beast synergy. What’s not to like?
This card is interesting, but it seems slow for the effect. As we’ve seen from a number of random beast Tavern Brawls, as well as numerous Webspinners, Ram Wranglers, and Tomb Spiders, random beasts are, on average, very bad. It also represents a huge tempo loss because they go to your hand. As some have put it, it seems like approximately an Arcane Intellect worth of value, except in a class that doesn’t want to play Arcane Intellect. Perhaps Value Hunter will become a thing, but if it doesn’t, this won’t see much play.
Another value card, but in a class that loves value! Random spells from the Mage class are actually very strong on average, and for value decks this just allows the Mage to spiral the game out of control. It does represent a large tempo loss, so you’ll have to be careful running it in an aggressive meta, but since the Old Gods meta seems that it will be quite slow, I think this card will find a very nice home.
I believe this card will see quite a bit of play, but it will be difficult to find exactly where to play it. Because of the stat to value distribution, you’ll need to get at least one proc off its ability for it to be worth it, probably two or three to justify running it over another three drop. With Muster for Battle rotating out of Standard, it will be interesting if cards like Stand Against Darkness will provide enough incentive to run this.
Amazing. This card is awesome. I actually wish this card was neutral so I could play it in all my decks. This is an example of a card that is really strong and has an ability which can potentially win you the game. I believe it’s actually better than the original Ragnaros, because you can manipulate its ability to guarantee it will hit a single target (probably your face) very easily, unlike original Ragnaros where it could usually target face over the minion you wanted it to kill. This card will see lots of play, no doubt about it.
This is a really cool card. It’s in Paladin, so it’s making your hero power exactly the same power level, barring cards that interact with Silver Hand Recruits, but it grants the potential for really cool Murloc decks. Suddenly your hero power gives way more than just a random 1/1, it gives the potential to buff your current Murlocs or be buffed itself. This doesn’t synergize at all with Anyfin Can Happen, as you’d just get a bunch of 1/1s, but it does create a new rush style of Murloc Paladin, that I hope sees some play.
This card is beyond awful. As in, probably the worst card of the set. You’ll see another few really bad cards if you keep scrolling, but I think this is worse. Four mana to deal with maybe one or two minions, it also kills your own minions, and is only one less mana than Holy Nova. Unless they come out with a mass Shrinkmeister effect card, this will see very little if any play.
This is a really cool card, mainly because Rogues don’t have a lot of cards they want to be playing early. I think realistically the value of an opponent’s random class card is very low, so I don’t know how much value it will actually get. However, as long as the value from the card you receive is worth the single point of stats lost, it’s a good card that will find its way into some Rogue decks I’m sure.
This is one of my favourite cards of the set so far. A list of Toxin cards can be found here so you can see how powerful they are. This card has appropriate stats for how much value it gives, and the Toxins are not only really cool cards, they also give Rogues good ways to activate their Combos. I would say that this is probably an auto-include in practically every Rogue deck going forward.
Awful. This card is so bad I can’t imagine anyone will play it ever. A lot of people said that potentially it could fit into Fatigue Warrior, but you’d have to be in a world where you have this in play instead of Fiery War Axe or Gorehowl. And even if that world existed, you’re playing it on turn five, long after the two health minions have been dealt with. This represents a decent amount of damage in control matchups, and an almost instant loss if you draw it against aggressive decks. Something will have to buff this or control will have to be dominant for this to see play.
I like this card. A lot of people have been comparing it to Healbot and discussing how bad it is, but I see it as an interesting anti-aggro tool which has a lot of potential. If you’re in a situation where you need this, you really need it, and if you’re in a situation where you don’t, it’s fine to hold onto, just like Healbot. It also has a much nicer stat-line, 4/4 is significantly better than 3/3 considering how many things deal 3 damage but not 4. I don’t know how much play this will see, but I think it’s an interesting card and I’m glad they printed it.
Another C’Thun minion, very uninteresting, and has much worse stats than the previous ones revealed. I don’t think it’ll see much play, and that goes down to no play at all if Big Game Hunter sticks around. Glad C’Thun is getting some love, as my favourite God, but this is pretty boring.
Really cool card with a funny name. I like it a lot. It’s definitely a win-more card, but it’s a really neat card for control matchups and it also has a ton of synergy with Dragon decks, which are usually ahead on board, as well as the obvious Dragon tag. I’d like it a lot if this sees a significant amount of play.
Great card. Twilight Drake where you get to pick what you draw. Perfect for the Gods, but not so powerful that it causes any issues. Not much to say here, I think it’ll be an auto include in any deck running any of the three Gods.
Good card, but again very uninteresting. Its synergies are obvious, it works well with decks that want low cost spells. Mage and Rogue both will likely toy with this card and see if it works. It does have the Beast tag as well, so there’s some potential in Druid as well as Hunter, but I think Mage is where this will find the best home.
Have I said awful yet today? Because this card is awful. Incredibly bad statline, incredibly high cost. As one person mentioned, this will be a beast in Arena, where removal isn’t easy to come by, but anywhere else, this is beyond bad. I can’t really think of something that would redeem this. One person said maybe they would give it the Foe Reaper cleave effect where it can kill multiple minions, but even then I don’t think it’s strong enough to see play. Just… bad.
Unfortunately, I think the Gods have gone very downhill. For ten mana, this card needs to be doing something amazing, and for him to say “have Deathlord’s effect trigger at the end of your turn” simply isn’t what you need. If you play this card and pull something without taunt, or play it and pull a low cost minion, you basically lose on the flip-swing. You simply can’t spend your entire turn dropping a card that doesn’t affect the board. Even in Control Warrior, you don’t want to be drawing cards, especially ones without their battlecry. Varian Wrynn proved that. Overall I don’t see this guy seeing a ton of play, unfortunately.
