Nuba Reviews KFT, Part 2

Introduction

And suddenly Blizzard decides to release tons of new card spoilers at once, leaving me with quite the tight schedule.

But since there were some pretty cool cards released in the last batch, I decided to put up with the schedule and have some fun writing this review 😀

If you missed the first part, you can always find it here:

https://hearthstoneplayers.com/let-bets-begin-kft-card-reviews/

Here you can also find some sort of guidelines for the ratings I give:

• 5 – Multi-deck staple – All-star cards of Hearthstone. Cards like dr-boom, sludge-belcher, arcanologist, ravaging-ghoul, hydrologist and arcane-giant comes to mind.
• 4 – Deck Staple – A card that is good enough to have a deck being built simply because of it, like shieldmaiden, finja-the-flying-star, the-curator, medivhs-valet, lyra-the-sunshard, and nzoth-the-corruptor.
• 3 – Good card, but not a staple – Cards that are good but can be replaced by something else. In this category cards like fire-fly, sherazin-corpse-flower and earthen-scales should be seen.
• 2 – Techs and Narrow cards – Cards that are either only played as Techs or narrow cards, in this category we can fit cards like eater-of-secrets and medivh-the-guardian.
• 1 – Bad Cards that can be sometimes picked in Arena – Meh.
• 0 – Horrible Cards – magma-rager, amgam-rager and so onwards.

And without any more delays, let’s begin!

Abominable Bowman

Score: 1

This card’s Deathrattle is a pretty powerful effect, which shall make this a good pick in Arena, however I just can’t see this card being playable in Constructed as there are way better things to do with 7 mana as a Hunter than playing a Vanilla 6/7 that has some odds of being relevant to the game.

savannah-highmane continues to be the ideal curve-topper unless something very powerful with immediate effect like an 8-mana-call-of-the-wild shows up once again.

Fatespinner

Score: 5

Due to the nature of this card’s design more reviews are likely to give it a 3 in score, but the design involved in the creation of this card is quite fascinating and as such I am going ahead and giving it a 5.

Much like other cards we haven’t seen before, evaluating an effect that has no other “look-alike” card in the game is quite hard, nearly impossible honestly.

I like this card mostly because it has a lot of skill involved, in both playing with or against it as this is one of the very few cards where there is bluff involved in Hearthstone, and I haven’t been able to bluff in Hearthstone since a very long time.

Increasing the skill level of the game with a playable card is huge, and giving Druid some sort of board clear that doesn’t involve discarding your entire hand is magnificent as well.

So far the best designed card in the expansion, and I just can’t wait to playtest this card to tell if it is indeed as good as I just rated.

Bolvar Fireblood

Score: 1

Only reason I am not giving this a 0 is because there are situations in arena where you’ll be left with the choice of this, millhouse-manastorm and lorewalker-cho, and you can (sometimes) pick this over Lorewalker Cho.

Light’s Sorrow

Score: 0

What a sorrow!

This card will never see play either in Arena or in Constructed, congratulations you just got a free Rare card of your choice!

Corpsetaker

Score: 4.5

People are underestimating how easy it is to make this ability proc. I have read, too many times already, that this card only needs you to be playing something like a tirion-fordring in order to get Taunt+Divine Shield, but what if you draw Tirion before playing this card? What if you draw both Tirion and wickerflame-burnbristle before playing a single copy of Corpsetaker? You’ll just be playing a 3-mana 4/4 in your deck? I don’t think so.

While I do agree that simply playing this card in already existing Shaman and/or Paladin decks can be a thing, simply because the odds of playing this with a few abilities is still high enough, I can’t help but think you could do better by building a deck around it without hurting your deckbuilding.

A very powerful card by the way, can compete with a few of Hearthstone’s all-star cards but I honestly can’t tell if this is a 4 or a 5 in terms of rating, so I’ll go the scared-man’s path and rate it 4.5.

Bonemare

Score: 5

LOL! this deserves a 5 simply because of the gigantic mess it will cause in Arena, this is a neutral firelands-portal-level card in Arena, so everyone will be able to play their own “Common Dr. Boom” in Arena, sometimes even 3-5 copies of it, maybe even as their only finisher!

In constructed this is still a powerful effect as it has instant effect on the board, a cool body, and helps you snowball into a victory pretty easily without even having to fear traditional buff counters like spellbender.

Hunters? Paladins? I currently just don’t see why people wouldn’t want to top their curve with such a powerful card, the effect is strong enough to maybe even retiring some super powerful cards like the-curator, although I think this possibly will be playing side-by-side with it on Paladin.

I still don’t believe they made this a common.

Animated Berserker

Score: 2

Cute. I’m giving this a 2 because I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt.

There isn’t much to talk about this card, I have no idea how it can possibly fit any Warrior strategy, but I do agree that it has some remote chances of seeing play for some reason I can’t quite tell why.

A horrible pick in Arena by the way.

Sanguine Reveler

Score: 4

I’ll just go ahead and say that this will see play in every Wild Zoo deck list, maybe even make the deck a top-tier once again simply because of how well this interacts with currently playable Zoo cards.

The fact this is yet another powerful 1-drop also gives it quite the chances of seeing play, so I just can’t see a world where this wouldn’t be a playable in Wild Zoo.

In Standard, however, things might change as there just aren’t enough nerubian-eggs running around, although I do acknowledge the rest of the “killable” cards are around, I can’t still tell if having one less blowable card still makes it a contender.

People will, sure as hell, try it in Standard though, so prepare yourself to face a few Zoo decklists at least in the first week.

Howling Commander

Score: 4

Another very powerful card for Paladin Control that interacts well with the already all-star Paladin Legendaries.

This card is slightly anti-synergic with corpsetaker, but if you add even just one more divine-shield minion to your deck you might as well fit both without any problem.

This is a very powerful card as it thins your deck, draws you a surely-playable card, and can’t die to pings.

This card is powerful enough that it could find its way into wild but I have my doubts as finding a home there is slightly harder than in Standard.

Venomstrike Trap

Score: 3

A good card that has almost the same effect as snake-trap but being straight up better in a lot of situations.

I like this card and believe it will see play.

Snowflipper Penguin

Score: 3

A beast-wisp is always cool to have.

Actually, anything-wisp is cool to have.

This card can see play in Wild on hobgoblin decks, but can also see play in Standard in Tempo becomes an issue.

Wisps are known to have seen play in a deck there and there, so this is for sure a playable card in those decks, but as I stated in the intro this can easily be replaced by other of the already existing Wisps in all the currently playable decks, granting this a 3 rating.

Shadowblade

Score: 3

A small update to deadly-poison as Rogues haven’t been using other weapons for quite some time now.

Giving your hero Immune can be quite helpful as well as you can hit big minions with it without worrying too much about your life total, so this indirectly heals you.

I like this card and I am sure it will see play somehow.

Defile

Score: ???

Alright let’s skip the score on this one and focus on the buggy interactions this have.

The thing I am most interested about is seeing how this works with both dreadsteed as well as grim-patron, giving the possibility this card has to going infinite.

Will it break the game? Will it just stop working at some point? Will the servers crash every time someone does this?

I don’t even care about rating this card at this moment, I just want to see how it interacts with these cards given it is supposed to give them time to pop Deathrattles and Abilities.

Cryostasis

Score: 1

An “ok” buff that won’t let you take advantage of it right away.

I don’t think this will be playable but I do agree that this can be picked in Arena over a few bad epics so this gets a well deserved 1.

Moorabi

Score: 1

This not being a Tauren is sad so I give it a 1 instead of a 2.

Obviously not being a Tauren affects the gameplay potential of this card, as nothing can be called “Moo-something” without it being a tauren.

In all seriousness, even if a couple more Freezing cards are added to the game I just can’t see “Freeze Shaman” being something valid unless somehow they break it.

Eternal Servitude

Score: 4

A few billion times better than resurrect, which already saw some fringe play.

Potentially broken in the right deck, this card is a lot less susceptible to flopping than than Resurrect is, people will initially play this in conjunction with onyx-bishop but eventually I expect it to not need/want the Bishop.

Oh, you can play this on the same deck you play stuff like doomsayer too, something we never even dreamed before.

Doomed Apprentice

Score: 3

For some reason I like this card a lot more than I liked the 6-mana neutral one, and boy this delivers!

At 3 mana you are always allowed to do something else other than playing this, which can mean you might be able to sneak in one or even two copies of this in your Tempo Mage deck.

The fact this can be played to lock your opponent out of an important sweeper for even just a turn is huge. While I don’t know if this will see play, I recognize this as a powerful card, with a powerful effect at a budgeted mana cost.

Prince Valanar

Score: 2

Much like it’s 3-mana brother, Prince Valanar doesn’t have any game-breaking effect that you’d force yourself to build your deck around it, but rather you’ll want to play this card as a tech on a deck/class that can support it, so let’s skip the chitchat and jump straight to what we did with the 3-mana dude:

• Paladins can’t play this card.
• Mages can’t play this card.
• Druids can’t play this card.
• Warriors can’t play this card.
• Priests can’t play this card.
• Warlocks can’t play this card.
• Rogues could potentially play this card but they have some slightly better cards.
• Hunters could play this card instead of houndmaster? Possibly.
• Shamans can play this card if they’re not going the Golem-path, which I haven’t seen happening this standard, but it is a possibility.

So after this brief analysis I’ll just go ahead and update the score.

New Score: 1

Dead Man’s Hand

Score: 0

Never pick this in Arena, never play this in constructed.

Spreading Plague

Score: 3

Not a bad spell, the fact that you only need to be 2 minions behind for this to break even is also a plus. An amazing  card on a metagame where Shaman is at least tier 2, but it has the limitation of being limited to only the most defensive Druid archetypes possible.

You will want to be playing this card on decks that are usually behind on the early turns like some sort of Ramp Druid or Control Druid. However this has quite an unique effect that you most likely wouldn’t want to miss if you were playing such a deck.

Just an addition, when this spawns 4 or more minions, this becomes broken. This card is slightly metagame-dependant, but can push fringe decks to the top tiers simply because it exists.

Frost Lich Jaina

Score: 3

I’m super inclined to rate this a 4, because if somehow you manage to make a good Elemental Control deck, you’re likely to want to play this card. However, a big part of me sees this card as an already-powerful standalone card that can be played by itself as a finisher already.

The limitations of making an Elemental Control deck are also not that attractive as it is to simply push a big threat such as this one into your deck and win because of it.

All in all, “just yet another very powerful finisher”, but this has the chances of going bigger.

Also, keep this card in mind: anomalus.

Ice Walker

Score: 2

Meeehh.

Freezing is nice, but you’ll want to use this card’s effect immediately after playing it for it to stop being “completely bad”. The odds of this card dying without doing much are higher than one might think, but not that high to the point I might consider this a tech or a fringe card in a few decks that might want an elemental somehow.

Meat Wagon

Score: 0

Alright so I know this has A LOT of potential, but I’m talking RIGHT NOW – There is no high-cost card for this to pull, no 0/20 dude with some crazy ability or anything, so as of right now this is completely unplayable, and a horrible card to pick in arena.

The best thing you can do with this card is get it to pull lightspawn from your deck currently, but even that doesn’t justify playing this card.

Maybe Priests get a bigger Lightspawn or something, but as of right now this is a completely useless card.

Closing

And this gigantic review is finished for now!

This was so tiring, but since we don’t have as much time to write about Hearthstone today as we used to have in the past we don’t have the luxury of making multiple small articles anymore!

I hope you guys enjoyed this review, and that I was able to enlighten you all with my point of view!

What do you think of the ratings so far? Do you disagree with any? Which ones? Let me know all your opinions and more on the comments section!

As always, love you guys and we’ll see each other again on the next review!

Much love,

Nuba

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