Blackrock Mountain Card Review – Class Cards Part 1

This is my review of all the spoiled cards. This article include the first half of all the class cards from Blackrock Mountain.

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Published: Apr 1, 2015 09:01 am

Introduction

The Review!

As done on the first part of this Article I will be reviewing the cards in groups, in this case I will review every card by class, and then give my thoughts about the cards and how they affect the class I am talking about after the card’s review.

Druid Cards

Volcanic Lumberer: A 7/8 Taunt for 9 manas is absurdly bad, it must have an awesome ability in order for it to be good. We know it has an ability, but how good this actually is? Well, given the fact Druids are not famous for both their weenies army or for their mass removal abilities, we can say that the “costs less for each minion that died this turn” ability, for the Druid class, is at best mediocre. Therefore, we have to conclude this card is terrible and will not see play. You could also try to make an effort to make this card playable, by running a bunch of not-so-optimal weenies, but fact is: this guy is most likely to still cost around 6~7 in the best case scenario, which is still very bad.

Druid of the Flame: Now this something I like. Both the 5/2 and the 2/5 are irrelevant for the Fast Druid, which is a downside. Regardless, the 2/5 body seems to be a nice addition to the early game of Ramp Druid (The late-game heavy lists). This guy is likely to enter the battlefield as an 2/5 Fire Eagle 95% of the time (which is something scary by itself, only very few opponents are able to deal with a 5-Health minion on turn 3), but sometimes dropping this as a 5/2 Fire Lion behind a big taunt can be something scary, because it will trade for the opponent’s big minions and he won’t be able to respond it in time. I liked this guy but I see its limitations, not the best card but for sure something viable.

Overall Class Analysis: This whole expansion obviously focus only on Mid-range and Late-game decks, with the sole exception of Hunters. And it was no different to Druids, as Blizzard obviously tried to add more options for the Control Ramp Druid. I liked the 2/5 guy a lot, because it fills a slot the Ramp Druid was inefficient at: the 3-drop. And while the 7/8 is a terrible card and likely to not see any play, it is still another option they added to the arsenal of the Ramp Druid.

Hunter Cards

Core Rager: Some people saw some spark of potential in this card, I however saw none. the fact you can get a 7/7 on turn 4 with this card is outshadowed by the fact you also run burn spells on your Face Hunter deck combined with your arsenal of small-minions and medium-charge-minions that you only want to use later in the game, oh yeah did I just mentioned your charge minions all cost 3 mana? It is almost impossible to play this guy for value on turn 4, and chances are: if you were able to, you are probably already winning so much that a 7/7 might just be beating a dead horse. This guy is not good, and I think you better off keeping your Face Hunter curve below 3.

Quick Shot: Now this is a good card. It just adds to the power of the Face Hunter. Just like glaivezooka was in GvG, this is another small addition to the Quickest Deck in the game. This card is very relevant and I believe it will be run as a 2-of in every Face Hunter deck simply because of its raw power. 3 damage for 2 mana is good, but not excellent. It becomes better for Hunters because it adds to their reach arsenal, giving them even more reach, and not only that: at the same time Hunter gets an extra reach/burn spell, they also got an early game removal. No more ragequitting whenever you see a Zombie Chow being played on turn one, all you need to do is Quick Shot it! Oh, did I just forgot to mention this card also draws you a card if you’re empty-handed? This card is bound to be a very strong late-game cycle mechanism, as Face Hunter has the tendency to empty their hands pretty quickly, this card will be drawning a lot of times, but this doesn’t mean it won’t be played only for the draw, as I mentioned before.

Overall Class Analysis: Face Hunter always gets something. And this time was no different, as Blizzard added to the Mid-range of every class, they finally (maybe?) just admited that Control Hunter isn’t something that will be happening any time soon, and decided to just add Aggro Cards. I believe Quick Shot will be a very good addition to the actual Face Hunter list, and will make it so the deck will keep up with the other updated lists.

Mage Cards

Dragon’s Breath: Redundancy… Redundancy leads to consistency, and while this card is far worse than Fireball, it’s still comparable to the same card. We still don’t know if mages would really want to run a third Fireball, but in case they do there is nothing wrong with running Dragon’s Breath. I like this card, but I recognize this has big chances of not seeing play. There are other implications here, like discussing the power to complete the damage on the solo big minion that survived a Flamestrike for free (which isn’t really something relevant when thinking about this card’s power level), but this one is the biggest I can recall.

Flamewaker: Pretty valuable card on its own, which already makes it so this card is good. The fact is: a 2/4 for 3 is ok (not the best, but still pretty good), and the ability is very relevant. Adding 2 Random damage to every spell you cast is just too good to pass. I believe there should be room for this card in any kind of mage build that doesn’t has its name starting with “Freeze”. This card also fixes part of the problem the Control Mage lists has, that is early game defenses so there are chances that a Control Mage list might pop up just because of this guy, similar to the ones StrifeCro was playing on his stream a couple of months back.

Overall Class Analysis: Mage got buffed, a global buff by adding an all-star Class card that affects every kind of mage build. The Flamewaker has chances of not see play on Mech Builds, but I just can not see how it would not see play in Midrange, Control and/or Tempo lists. Dragon’s Breath is pretty weak, which makes me think its irrelevant to evaluate the Class’ power after BRM hits, but it’s still something we should keep an eye on.

Paladin Cards

Solemn Vigil: A huge addition to the Paladin class. Different from Druids, Paladins have an easy way getting stuff killed: be it from their own board, by sacrificing a bunch of 1/1s to trade into something bigger, or be it from their AOE removal combos with equality (or even without it!). This card simply adds the so dreamed Card Draw that won’t take your whole turn (I am looking at you, lay-on-hands) and makes the Paladin Mid-range and Control decks equally scarier.

Dragon Consort: The single strongest class card in this Adventure Mode. This gave Paladins the power to speed up its tempo by playing huge drops earlier in the game. Fun fact, for most of you who didn’t watch the gameplay preview stream by Blizzard, is that the 2-cost removal lasts until you actually cast a dragon, so even if you have no dragon in your hand, you’ll be able to draw a Dragon Card a couple of turns later and still play it with its cost reduced. This is, in my opinion, the most relevant Dragon in the entire set, and it makes it so that if a Dragon Deck becomes viable, it will be a Paladin deck.

Overall Class Analysis: Of all the classes in BRM, Paladin is the one getting most benefits out of it. Paladin is not only getting 2 very good and relevant cards, these cards also happen to fix problems that Paladin had in the past: Tempo and Card Draw.

Priest Cards

Resurrect: I was making some jokes about this card with some friends, and we came up with the name “Stable Portal”, that actually fits this card very good. I have to say I liked it, a 2 mana card that instantly puts a minion you once had on the board. Fun fact: That injured-blademaster will be resurrected as a 4/7, not a 4/3! Priest Control usually runs a lot of strong, valuable minions and these minions all cost more than 2 mana, which means this card is almost always getting you good value. The dream is getting a Blademaster turn 3 killed, just to turn 4 double Resurrect 2x 4/7 bombs on the board, instantly winning the game. Unfortunately, not everything is dreams and fun, and this card can give you some horrible results as well, like getting a 0/1 Hex frog, or a 1/1 Sheep, or that minion that you stole with your cabal-shadow-priest. Overall I think the odds of this card actually working are very high, and I like it, that plus it’s just a 2-mana card, so getting a bad result won’t take away your whole turn. I just don’t know what I would take away in order to run this tech, and there is still another problem about this card that is the fact its ANOTHER situational card being added to the Priest Class (as if Priests didn’t already have enough situational stuff).

Twilight Whelp: At first I loved this card: a 2/3 that won’t Heal the opponent when killed. Then I started thinking: Wait a second, I don’t care about those 5 Heals, and by running this instead of zombie-chow I also happen to lose the potential 5 Damage combo with auchenai-soulpriest. Want more? This guy forces you into running even more Dragons than just the Dragonkin Sorcerer, and this card is a 1-cost card, meaning you want this in your starting hand, while all the other dragons in the game are mulliganed out, meaning the chances you will actually be playing this on turn 1 as a 2/3 are very, very low. I didn’t like this card, this will not make the cut and its far from being the reason that might make a possible Dragon Priest viable.

Overall Class Analysis: Different from Paladins, that got exactly what they needed in the Expansion, Priests just got another situational card to add to its arsenal of “cards that only works some times” which is pretty sad, given how bad positioned the class is in the current metagame. I predict Priests to continue being weak after BRM hits, unless Resurrect prooves to be a lot stronger than what it initially looks.