With the expansion and Standard format coming out next week, this week has held a lot of news. First there were the Standard Nerfs, and now we have the full reveal of every card coming out in Whispers of the Old Gods. There were over 80 new cards revealed – a few more than I have room to cover – so I’ll be going over the Legendary minions that were just revealed, as well as a few of my personal favorites.
1. Fandral Staghelm
Fandral Staghelm is one of the best cards I’ve seen in a while. Probably not the best card in the set, but definitely one of the ones that will see the most play. He’s only one stat below the average for a four drop, and his ability is absolutely insane. Pairing it with some of the bigger cards like Druid of the Claw or Ancient of War is one thing, but even simply pairing it with Wrath more than pays for itself. I can’t imagine there will be too many Druid decks that don’t have this as an auto include. Imagine this on turn four, Nourish on turn five!
2. Anomalus
Anomalus is odd. This reminds me a lot of Flame Leviathan, in the sense that you can understand where Blizzard was going with it, but it simply isn’t good enough to see play. With below average stats and no taunt, this card just doesn’t see any play in my mind, even in Value Mage. Perhaps I’ll be proven wrong, but without a better statline or more incentive to play it in general, I can’t imagine ever seeing this in play outside of Arena.
3. Malkorok
I really like Malkorok. The obvious comparison is Blingtron, but here you don’t need to worry about your opponent pulling something amazing. The only explicitly bad result here is Cursed Blade. Even Light’s Justice or the new 1/3 Pirate weapon pay for the extra cost on Malkorok, since he has very good stats. Control Warrior and Fatigue Warrior decks will certainly be playing this in place of their missing Shieldmaidens, as a good body with value attached. It’s also a good replacement for Gorehowl, if a less consistent one. This card will see quite a bit of play I’m sure.
4. Nat the Darkfisher
This is obviously the corrupted version of Nat Pagle, but I’m not entirely sure it will see any more play. Obviously it’s decent in certain Mill decks, but even then there are so many matchups where you don’t want your opponent to draw too many cards early or they will steamroll you. Maybe this will see play as a late game answer to Control matchups, forcing your opponent to draw a few extra cards and hit fatigue faster. Realistically I can’t see this in too many decks, perhaps some niche situations but that’s about it.
5. Twin Emperor Vek’Lor
The other Emperor is another seven mana 4/6 with Taunt, with no other abilities. That’s 6/12 of stats, split up, with Taunt, for seven mana. This card is beyond insane. I can’t possibly imagine a world where this wouldn’t be played in every C’Thun deck. It’s not even hard to pull off, C’Thun starts at six attack so two good buffs will put it up to the mere ten attack needed to activate these bad boys. This card is the perfect answer to aggro, it has a ton of value attached, it’s not easy to remove, and it’s easy to activate. What’s not to love here? One of the best cards in the set, hands down.
6. Blade of C’Thun
We’re obviously into my personal favorites now, but I can understand why some might mistake this for a legendary. This card is really cool. If you break it up, you’re getting an Assassinate (five mana) with a 4/4 body (four mana) and the buff to C’Thun is just a nice bonus. Obviously it’ll take a slow meta for this to see play, but with all the aggro nerfs that just happened, and all the slow cards just released, this may be the perfect answer to the massive beasts walking through the Old Gods set. While making your own massive beast even stronger.
7. Doomcaller
Once again, a very plain C’Thun card with decent stats for the cost, but a really good bonus considering how powerful C’Thun is. This one in particular has the added benefit of bringing your C’Thun back to life. One of the biggest issues with C’Thun is that he is too easy to remove once played. Well… try removing three. This is the exact buff that C’Thun decks needed to not only be competitive, but see high tier play. I’m planning mine out as we speak!
8. Evolve
Evolve is really cool. It does take up a slot in your deck, unlike Master of Disguise, but it works on your entire board. That means it not only works as a form of healing for your board, it also makes them all stronger. Including totems. Feral Spirits, Tuskarr Totemic, any other token generation you can throw in? This works with them all. It’ll be really cool to see if this card is strong enough by itself to give birth to a new token based Shaman deck, or if it might even be strong enough to just see play in typical Midrange Shaman. It’s really cool either way.
9. Shadow Strike
This is one of my favourite Rogue cards, period. It’s a massive Backstab for three mana. When I say massive, I mean this alone will easily kill pretty much anything that needs killing. Obviously it won’t work on things with more than five health, or things that are damaged already, but I’m treating this as a slightly conditional Assassinate, and I absolutely love it.
10. Silver Hand Murloc
This is what comes from the Paladin hero power after you play Vilefin Inquisitor. I don’t have anything important to say about it from a game sense, but I couldn’t not highlight it because IT’S JUST TOO CUTE!