The cards continue to roll out, and this week we received the final Old God. Boy is he a doozey. Three weeks remain until the new set is launched, and so far the cards look pretty great. This week’s announced cards are really good, probably the best week for the set so far. Here goes:
Choose one cards will always be good. This is no exception. Either you Innervate it out for consistent ramp, or you play it to get to your massive cards a bit faster, or you simply create a 5/5 body for four mana. In no scenario is this card bad. I think this card will be a staple of Druid in the upcoming years.
This card is amazing, if you are able to play it. For eight mana and only one card you get a 5/2 with charge, a 5/4 with taunt, and a 2/4. That’s 21 points of stats for eight mana. If the meta gets to a place where Control or even Midrange Hunter is good, then this card will be played in every single deck, it’s incredible for its value. The only fear is that it doesn’t fit in Face Hunter, and right now that’s the only super viable Hunter deck. We’ll have to see if that changes.
Great card. A solid 5/5 with taunt for six mana is fringe playable, when you add in the fact that its cost will have gone down in almost every scenario, it becomes insane. A 5/5 with taunt for five is good, for four it’s insane, for anything less it’s almost game-breakingly good. The fact that it doesn’t even have Overload makes this card insane. Shaman will be good in the upcoming months.
This card is very strong. At first glance it’s not great when compared to other weapons, but then you have to realize that Death’s Bite is cycling out of Standard. Also, the fact that they printed a five mana Shaman weapon makes me believe strongly that Doomhammer will be nerfed – especially considering how strong Aggro Shaman is at the moment. This card will be a good replacement for a Midrange/Control Shaman deck who is looking for great value, which this card has in spades.
This is probably my favourite card printed from the new set. Recombobulator is pretty good in a lot of scenarios, since it effectively heals your minion as well as giving the potential for value off a minion that had a Battlecry already go off. This card is just strictly better. The best stats for a four mana card, as well as not only healing but potentially buffing your minions. It also comes down one turn after Tuskarr Totemic, which is a strong three mana card because of its Battlecry, but has poor stats. If this card isn’t an auto-include in almost every Shaman deck, I’ll eat my hat.
One thing I love about this set is that the cards that include incredibly strong and unpredictable RNG effects are not incredibly playable. Meaning we won’t have games decided by cards like Shredder nearly every game. This card is no exception. A fun card, maybe something you’ll pull off a random ability and use as a last ditch Hail Marry, but not great in any sense. You know we’ll see a ton of videos of people playing this against a board of 1/1s and hitting themselves in the face nine times.
This card is actually really good. It’s a seven mana 7/7, which is decent stats for the cost and fills a void in Handlock/Control Warlock decks who were never super happy about playing Dr. Boom. The best scenario I see for this card is playing it and then playing Siphon Soul, killing an opponent’s creature for three health and no mana. Obviously you’ll lose a card as well, but since Warlocks typically have those in spades, I see this card being an auto-include in any non-Zoo deck.
Good card. Good stat line, good effect. It deals with small boards very effectively, and it provides another whirlwind effect for a deck that just lost Death’s Bite. This seems like a more reliable Unstable Ghoul, the only downside is that you can’t store the whirlwind effect in play. I will expect this to see quite a bit of play, especially if aggressive decks remain dominant.
This card was released in a video calling it really bad. I think that’s being far too harsh. Grim Patron decks make a lot of duplicates for only a few cards, but they are susceptible to board clear effects. However, if you are able to create a few copies and then use Blood Warriors, you suddenly have two or three more Grim Patrons in your hand, and they are forced to either save their removal or have tons of different board clears. I think this will find a place in Patron decks, the value is simply too strong to overlook, especially considering it creates cards rather than drawing them, so it doesn’t put you closer to fatigue.
Oh my goodness. Well… here’s The Ancient One!
Okay, first off, these cards aren’t great. That doesn’t mean they aren’t really cool. As Ben Brode said, these were created to see neat deckbuilding opportunities, and in order to allow players to experience really cool moments. It was never intended for competitive play. Given that they said this upfront, this card is so cool, and I can’t wait to see the videos of people pulling it off!
Wow. Did I mention RNGesus? Yeah, this is him. It’s hard to even review a card like this. Obviously he won’t be played competitively (at least more than here and there in Casino Mage decks), but this card is going to create some of the coolest games you’ve ever played. Oh look, you buffed your Yogg-Saron with a few buff spells! Oh, you just Assassinated him too. Oops. The possibilities are endless, and I can’t wait to see the many many videos which come out of this card! I know I’ll definitely try him out, for fun if nothing else.