Introduction
Welcome back to second installment of my card reviews in Arena for the upcoming expansion Journey to Un’Goro. Just as before the cards will be rated with these ratings: Terrible, Bad, Below average, Average, Above average, Good, Amazing. With that let’s jump into the cards and see what the new expansion has to offer.
Card reviews
In Arena 1/2 minions are extremely bad. The problem with them is that they don’t trade down nor they trade up well. Most of the time you will only get to deal 1 damage with them which is bad for 1 mana. Fire Fly also adds a flame-elemental to your hand. Because of that you can use it as a 2 drop by playing both Fire Fly and Flame elemental and getting two 1/2 minions on board. Even though this is nothing to be happy about, it is still a play. The fact that both parts are elementals are quite big and it’s what saves Fire Fly from being terrible. They are quite flexible and Fire Fly makes elemental synergies a bit better and easier to accomplish. Still the stats aren’t good at all, especially for Arena
Rating: Bad
Flame Geyser adds the same Flame Elemental to your hand as Fire Fly does. Flame Geyser deals only 2 damage which usually costs 1 mana as seen in cards such as arcane-shot or holy-smite. Even Mage has a 1 mana deal 2 damage with arcane-blast which is rotating out with Journey to Un’Goro. With Flame Geyser you pay 1 mana for 2 damage and 1 mana to add a Flame Elemental to your hand. Adding a Flame Elemental to your hand is definitely not worth 1 mana. On top of that don’t forget that Flame Geyser is a Mage class card. This means it has to compete with other premium Mage removal spells like frostbolt.
Rating: Bad
In Arena murloc synergies are absent which means Primalfin Lookout is 3 mana 3/2 which is bad. Even if you have murlocs you need to specifically play them on turn 1 or 2. Overall just a card not meant for Arena.
Rating: Terrible
Kalimos, Primal Lord has an insanely strong effect if you manage to play an elemental a turn earlier. The effect is so strong that it is worth to save an elemental and sacrifice some tempo just so you can get Kalimos effect to trigger. Kalimos has 4 invocations for you to choose from. Those are: invocation-of-air, invocation-of-water, invocation-of-fire, invocation-of-earth. All of these effect are very strong but because you can choose which one you get it’s worth to hold on to an elemental and it’s what makes Kalimos so crazy. Overall Kalimos is just crazy how powerful it is, especially in Arena.
Rating: Amazing
Tol’vir Stoneshaper is hard to evaluate accurately without knowing how many elementals there will be in the set. Yet it is certain that Tol’vir will be very strong in Arena. Just without any effect it is a 4 mana 3/5 which makes him average. Even though it is going to be hard to play an elemental on turn 3, the effect is very powerful if you manage to play an elemental the turn before. Unlike many mid/early game cards, Tol’vir is going to be very strong in the late game too. We can compare Tol’vir to psych-o-tron which is a great card itself. Psychotron costs 1 more mana and doesn’t even have 5 health compared to Tol’vir. Overall I have big hopes for Tol’vit and I think it’s going to be very good in Arena.
Rating: Amazing
First of all Hydrologist’s stats aren’t great for a 2 drop. Yet since in the current meta 2 mana 2/3 minions are on a decline, the 2/2 stats of Hydrologist aren’t that bad right now. Discovering a secret is quite good, however Paladins do have many secrets that are bad. Hydrologist is quite similar to dark-peddler, however Paladin’s secrets are usually worse than some of Warlock’s 1 mana cards. Because Dark Peddler is very good in Arena a slightly weaker version of it will still be quite decent.
Rating: Good
Mimic Pod is basically a worse version of arcane-intellect or thoughtsteal. Mimic Pod is meant for constructed since you can choose which cards you put into your deck there. In Arena you aren’t going to have that many great cards that you want to get multiple copies of in your hand. The biggest reason why Mimic Pod is bad is lack of flexibility. With Arcane Intellect or Thoughtsteal you get 2 more options in your hand for what you can do whilst Mimic Pod only gives one. It is a lot better to draw a minion and a removal than 2 minions or 2 removals since you want both removals to deal with opponent’s board and minions to develop your own.
Rating: Below average
Tol’vir Warden is yet another minion that is meant for constructed and is bad in Arena. First of all in Arena you can’t guarantee you will have at least two 1 drops remaining in your deck when playing Tol”vir Warden. The 3/5 stats are worth 4 mana so you’re paying 1 mana for its effect. If you don’t have any more 1 drops in your deck when you play Tol’vir it is just a 3/5 which costs 1 more mana than it should. Besides you want to have 1 drops in the early game and most of the time you are going to play Tol’vir in the late game when the 1 cost minions won’t have an impact. Overall just too many things are wrong with this card in Arena for it to be good.
Rating: Bad
Glacial Shard is going to be very strong in Arena. When we look at frost-elemental which is an average card in Arena, we see that it sacrifices 1/2 compared to boulderfist-ogre. On the other hand Glacial Shard doesn’t sacrifice any stats for its effect. It is also a lot better than Frost Elemental since it is so flexible costing 1 mana. You might want to save it in your hand for the freeze effect later on and just fit Glacial Shard in another turn when you need that freeze effect. On top of all this Glacial Shard unlike many early game cards, is also decent in the late game for its freeze effect. Overall Glacial Shard will be a premium 1 drop for sure.
Rating: Amazing
Curious Glimmerroot is going to be very strong. It has 3/3 stats which is sufficient for a 3 drop. On top of that you have a chance to get a card from it. Granted it is quite a difficult task to do in Arena since it might be hard to judge which cards the opponent would pick. When deciding which card out of the three started in opponent’s deck, take rarity as consideration. Common cards are a lot more likely to be in opponent’s deck than epics or legendaries. On top of that you should also think about which card you would want the most. Even if you think a card has a bigger chance of having started in opponent’s deck, if it isn’t a great card you may want to risk it and hope that you get the better card with lower percentage of it being the right one. Overall I really like this card and this mechanic in general because it requires a lot of thought process to be put in if you want to make full use of this card. Currently my favorite card revealed so far.
Rating: Good
Volcanosaur is insanely flexible. Adapt mechanic is very flexible in general. When you adapt twice, then a card becomes crazy. There are many combinations that are very strong together like windfury and stealth or +3 health and taunt. You can choose the adaptations according to what the current board state is. Volcanosaur can be a great finisher, big taunt, a huge stated minion and much more. The flexibility is what makes Volcanosaur so crazy good. You will always be happy to have a Volcanosaur or two in your late game.
Rating: Amazing
Weapons aren’t too common in Arena which means Gluttonous Ooze is going to be a 3 mana 3/3 most of the time which is average for a 3 drop. If it does destroy a weapon it gets a lot of value. The armor is not too important in Arena since it is more minion based. Because it is a 3 drop most of the time you will only be able to destroy an early game weapon. It’s not worth it to hold on to Gluttonous Ooze to try to snipe a weapon so you’re better off playing it as a 3/3 instead. Overall a minion with sufficient stats and a great ability if it triggers.
Rating: Above average
Mana Bind is bad compared to counterspell or spellbender which aren’t too great either. If the opponent plays a spell which costs 3 or less than you don’t get any value from the card at all. If it costs more, most likely it was a board clear or a hard removal. In that case yes you get a board clear, however your board is already gone and unlike with Counterspell Mana Bind doesn’t help anything for your board. On top of that your opponent is going to know what spell you copied so it is going to be very easy for him to play around. Overall just a way worse version of Counterspell or Spellbender.
Rating: Bad
Vilespine Slayer is crazy good. The stats are 3/4 which are of a premium 3 drop. And if comboed Vilespine Slayer destroys a minion. Compared to assassinate which is a good card, Vilespine gives a free 3/4 body if you combo it. That is a huge tempo swing since you essentially destroyed an enemy minion for 2 mana. It is such a strong tempo play that it may win you the game on its own if used correctly. It’s best use is in aggressive tempo oriented decks. In those decks Vilespine is going to shine and make them a lot better. Overall a really strong card for Arena and I’m looking forward to playing with it.
Rating: Amazing
It’s really hard to rate Living Mana since we’ve never had such a mechanic. Living Mana turns your mana crystals into mana-treant 2 mana 2/2 minions with deathrattle: gain an empty mana crystal. If your opponent ignores these minions you won’t get a lot of mana to develop more onto the board next turn. If the opponent does kill them all you will get your empty crystals which will be refreshed on your turn. The card does seem quite strong because it puts out so much stats. At max you can get seven 2/2 minions which totals to 14/14 for 7 mana only. On paper these stats seem strong and if your opponent kills the Mana Treants it’s all great, however if he ignores them next turn you’re in trouble because you won’t have mana to play with. Therefore it is a bad card if you’re behind on board since the opponent can ignore the Treants. If you’re ahead then the stats become a huge threat and you might win the game without even needing more mana. Overall I think Living Mana will be a decent play, even though it is a risky card.
Rating: Above average
So we already have razorfen-hunter in Arena and this is basically a way better version of it. Razorfen is average in Arena and Mirage Caller summons a 1/1 copy of a friendly minion. This works especially well with deathrattles like tortollan-shellraiser which will come to Un’Goro too. Since the Priest quest in Un’Goro is to summon 7 deathrattles it seems reasonable that Blizzard is going to print out more deathrattle cards to supplement it. With each deathrattle released Mirage Caller is going to get better and better. Because it only costs 3 mana, you can play a deathrattle minion and then summon a copy of it with Mirage Caller instantly generating a lot of value. Overall I think the card is strong right now but i think it is going to get even better.
Rating: Good
corruption is already an above average card in Arena. Corrupting Mist for only 1 more mana corrupts everything on board. Warlock already has a ton of board clears so Corrupting Mist isn’t as good as it would have been in some other classes. The good thing about Corrupting Mist is that it can be both used as a board clear and a hard removal. If opponent plays an annoying to remove minion you can simply cast Corrupting Mist and it is going to die at the start of your turn. The bad thing about Corrupting Mist is that even if you manage to corrupt the whole opponent’s board, he will still be able to hit you in the face a lot. Because of that most of the time you will want to corrupt only 2-3 minions and not more. Overall Corrupting Mist’s rating is similar to Corruption’s since you will often times only hit 1-2 minions with it.
Rating: Above average
Currently there are very few synergies with silver-hand-recruits so Lost in the Jungle should be looked at simply 1 mana two 1/1 minions. And how good is that? Well two 1/1 are better than a single 2/1 which is the most common among 1 drops. You get 2/2 stats in total for 1 mana which is quite good. Having 2 Recruits on the board is also good because Paladin has a lot of buffs and often times you’re stuck with a buff without a minion on board so Lost in the Jungle helps with that. Overall not much to say about two 1/1s.
Rating: Above average
Weapons in Arena are very powerful, even weapons which are considered bad in constructed are great in Arena. Most of the weapons Molten Blade will transform to are going to be at least below average in quality. The good thing about Molten Blade is that if you don’t like the weapon that it transformed into, you can simply do something else this turn and wait for Molten Blade to turn into something better. With Molten Blade all weapons have an equal chance of showing up. This means that you have a good chance at getting a very strong epic weapon like gorehowl or doomhammer. Still the biggest upside of this card is that you can wait until you get a good weapon and then reap value from it. I think Molten Blade is going to be extremely good addition to Warrior.
Rating: Amazing
Crackling Razormaw is already a 3/2 common beast for Hunter. This itself is worth at least an above average rating. On top of that Razormaw has a crazy good battlecry. Adapt is worth around 1 mana which means you are getting 3 mana’s worth of stuff for only 2 mana. Having a beast should be a lot easier with Un’Goro bringing quite a few beasts to Hunter. On top of that there are more 1 mana beasts coming for Hunter which makes Crackling Razormaw even better. Another great thing is that in the late game Razorrmaw can still be useful, unlike many other early game cards. Overall just a great body, great battlecry and the fact that it is a beast is just a cherry on the cake.
Rating: Amazing
King Mosh is way too situational for its effect. Yet it is a 9/7 body which is a huge threat nonetheless. Since it costs 9 mana you can’t combo it with revenge or ravaging-ghoul which makes the dream of this being a board clear even less possible. Since we’re talking Arena, most of the time this will be just a overcosted 9/7 for 9 mana. Sure you can send in your small drops into opponent’s threats and then King Mosh them or use a weapon to deal some damage and finish off with Mosh. Sadly those kind of scenarios will happen rarely and King Mosh is just too situational.
Rating: Below average
Small Raptor is very interesting and it doesn’t fit many archetypes. It is very good in aggressive or midrange tempo decks, however if you’re playing anything slower than that then Small Raptor is not going to be as good. The stats for Small Raptor aren’t good since it is just a vanilla 1 mana 2/1 beast. IF you compare it to fiery-bat it is a direct downgrade from that. It does shuffle a 4/3 raptor which costs 1 mana, however often times that may be too slow. You also want to ask yourself am I happy drawing a 4/3 for 1 mana right now? In late game often times you’d rather get a huge threat rather than a 4/3 minion. So Small Raptor can make your late game worse, however if you are playing an aggressive deck this won’t be a problem. On top of all this you have to remember that if you never draw the generated Raptor, you played a vanilla 1 mana 2/1 beast which is quite bad.
Rating: Bad
Right off the bat the stats are average for a 3 drop. The effect, however, has a lot of potential. The problem is that right now there aren’t that many deathrattless in the game which means you won’t get to trigger Terrorscale’s effect as often as you’d like, however it will be very great from time to time when you do have the deathrattles. Even if you don’t use the effect, you still played a 3 mana 3/3 which isn’t bad. Nonetheless Terrorscale Stalker is nothing more than a 3/3 which will generate a lot of value from time to time.
Rating: Average
Here we go another 3 mana 3/3. This time the effect is even harder to trigger, especially in the early game. There aren’t that many neutral elementals to be able to pull Thunder Lizards battlecry off. Just as Terrorscale Stalker, Thunder Lizard is going to be 3 mana 3/3 at least 90% of the time. In the cases where you did play an elemental a turn before Thunder Lizard will basically save you 1 mana since adapt should be valued around that.
Rating: Average
The first question that comes to mind is how many recruits should Lightfused Stegodon adapt until it’s worth it. Clearly adapting just one isn’t good enough since the body is only a 3/4. Adapting 2 Silver Hand Recruits makes Lightfused Stegodon good and anything on top of that is just cherries on the cake. Making your Recruits 4/1 can have a lot of value. The main problem is that you need to have Recruits on the board already. If you simply hero power and adapt the Recruit with Stogoden then it’s no good use since you payed 6 mana for 3/4 and an adapted 1/1. Because you already need a board for Stegodon it’s not as good since chances are you can win without it if you have a big board already. Yet it is still a good card if you hit 3 or more Recruits, even though it is quite hard.
Rating: Above average
Straight away the stats are slightly below average for a 6 drop. The effect, however easily makes up for it. The biggest problem with early game cards is that you don’t want to draw them in late game and Hemet helps immensely with that. Without any 1,2 and 3 drops in your deck you will always top deck at least a 4 cost card which makes your late game significantly better than opponent’s. There is a problem that powerful spells like sap or hex may get destroyed too. Yet the advantage of having a better late game heavily outweighs the disadvantages. Another point that needs to brought up is fatigue. Since Hemet will destroy at least a third of your deck most of the time you are going to hit fatigue a lot sooner, however that isn’t a problem if you win before reaching fatigue. With way better top decks than your opponent it should be easier to win the late game in turn closing the game out before fatigue even hits. Overall the card is good, even though it has a few disadvantages.
Rating: Good
What makes Blazecaller bad in Arena is that unlike some other elemental synergies like thunder-lizard, Blazecaller goes all in on elemental synergies and if you played an elemental the turn before, the card is amazing. On the other hand if you didn’t, the card becomes terrible. With Arena Blazecaller will be 7 mana 6/6 more often than not. Sure in the right deck it can make wonders, however in reality it’s not going to trigger that often, especially if you’re not playing Shaman, Mage or Priest. Take the rating with a grain of salt since in the right decks Blazecaller can be amazing.
Rating: Bad
Servant of Kalimos is similar to Blazecaller, however to a lesser extent. Still the same downsides apply, however having a 5 mana 4/5 is a lot better than 7 mana 6/6. On the other hand discovering an elemental isn’t as good as dealing 5 damage either. Still, the fact that Servant of Kalimos can still be playable even if its battlecry doesn’t trigger makes it better than Blazecaller.
Rating: Below average
Ravenous Pterrordax is a bit similar to void-terror, however worse most of the time. The best use for Ravenous Pterrordax theoretically is to use it on small 1/1 tokens and then reap value from it. In Arena, though, you won’t have such tokens to sacrifice as often. That means you are going to be sacrificing at least a 3/2 most of the time which let’s be fair is a bad deal. Adapting is worth 1 mana which means if you destroy a 2 drop it’s still iffy if it was worth it since the 2 drop could attack next turn and you often would rather have 2 minions instead of one. And this is looking at a good scenario for it. Because you can’t play the card without killing a minion on board, it will be stuck in your hand often. The stats aren’t great either. Overall just a cluster of bad situations.
Rating: Bad
Evolving Spores is meant as a finisher once you have the board. Giving the minions +3 attack or windfury to finish off the game is a quite nice thing and in that sense Evolving Spores is a great card. If you use it just to make a board and not as a finisher, it’s not as great. You would have to adapt at least 5 minions for it to be worth it. Anything less and it’s not too great. The card is also clunky to use and will get stuck in hand often. Nonetheless Evolving Spores is a great finisher and that’s why I like the card.
Rating: Above average
Spirit Echo would be great in most classes. In Shaman, however, it’s not as great. You don’t really want to fill up your hand with a bunch of useless minions. For Spirit Echo to be worth it you’d ideally use it on at least 3 strong minions. Less than that means Echo Spirits is a worse arcane-intellect. If you have 3 strong minions on board most likely you have this game in the bag and you’d rather have something like a bloodlust rather than Spirit Echo. Overall just a win more card that doesn’t even help you turn your huge board into a win.
Rating: Bad
Cornered Sentry will be worse than a simple 2/3 for 2 mana most of the time. You give opponent 3 minions with initiative which can trade into your board or they can simply attack Cornered Sentry to make it a 2/3. Giving the opponent 3 disposable damage is a very bad idea. The 2/6 stats aren’t great either since they die to a simple 4/3. Currently there aren’t that many early game drops which can be killed easily by Cornered Sentry except 2 mana 3/2 which can still trade into Cornered Sentry if you send the three 1/1 raptors too. Overall just bad as giving opponent minions with initiative is never a good idea.
Rating: Bad
Stegodon is meant to deal with small early game minions. In Arena Stegodon loses it’s purpose of killing small drops since there are very few of them. 2 attack means it will trade equally to most 3 drops which you never want your 4 cost minion to do. Overall it just doesn’t have a purpose in Arena since there aren’t many early game drops to kill.
Rating: Below average
Spikeridged Steed is hard to evaluate. It gives 8 stats worth of buffs which is similar to blessing-of-kings, however on top of that Steed gives the minion deathrattle: summon a Stegodon. As you’ve seen previously Stegodon isn’t that great in Arena, however when you make it spawn as a deathrattle worth 2 mana then it becomes pretty good. With Steed you also need to consider that you will need a minion to buff. If you use it on Silver Hand Recruit, though, it is quite good still as you get 18 stats for 8 mana. Steed also can make your mid-sized minions huge threats.
Rating: Good
Tortollan Primalist is way too random for Arena. When playing Arena and seeking to get as high average as possible, you want to play cards as consistent as they can get. Tortollan Primalist is the opposite of consistency and will screw you over multiple times. It’s stats are thrash for 8 mana. The best thing to discover would be a strong AoE or card draw since random targets don’t matter for these. There are plenty of bad spells which you will get offered and then Tortollan Primalist will be just a 8 mana 5/4.
Rating: Terrible
Closing
That’s all for part 2 of my Journey to Un’Goro reviews. What do you think of the new cards? Feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts on these new cards. As always thanks for reading and stay tuned for part 3!
Until next time.
Published: Mar 31, 2017 09:05 am