Introduction
Hello and welcome to the first of many in-depth analysis of MSG (Mean Streets of Gadgetzan) Cards!
We learned quite a lot with the analysis we made from the past, meaning we are likely to have a more precise analysis than ever before!
These analysis will also, sometimes, greatly differ from our first impressions because we had more time to think about the cards.
This time I will make a very different kind of in-depth analysis distribution: Instead of analyzing every single card, I will skip the cards I think don’t need to be analyzed.
As of right now, there are a few cards I don’t think needs in-depth analysis:
- friendly-bartender
- lunar-visions
- pilfered-power
- piranha-launcher
- lotus-assassin
- wind-up-burglebot
- getaway-kodo
This list of cards might/will change in the future. The reasons I am not going to discuss these cards is because everything I thought that needed to be said about them has already been said either by myself in my first-impressions article or by someone else, and not necessarily because I think the card won’t see play or doesn’t deserve analysis.
Without any more delays, let’s start the analysis!
Mark of the Lotus
So we start with this dude because of the number of implications it makes for the game, both now and post-rotation.
Firstly, the interaction of this card and violet-teacher is so obvious it hurts the eye. Everyone thought about it the second it was shown, and the fact this is a 1-mana spell makes it so Token Druid remains viable even after the rotation of living-roots and raven-idol, while still making the deck better now, before the rotation occurs. The fact this is a 1-mana (cheap) spell makes it so you can keep running cards like arcane-giant in your deck after the rotation, which was the main concern of the today’s Druid overall existence post-rotation.
Another interesting point about this card that wasn’t touched by many people who analyzed it is that it actually makes Aggro Druid a possibility in the future, while also making it so you would want to include Violet Teacher in your future Aggro decks, even in your Beast Druid decks.
The +1/+1 should also help in bringing your minions out of a couple AOEs from the game, elevating the skill cap of the game in general with mind-games and counter plays.
Kun the Forgotten King
Druid keeps on getting very fun tools with every expansion, and this isn’t any different. Kun, The Forgotten King is a card that has different applications for different scenarios and I think should feel amazing to have in your Druid deck.
Currently, every single Druid deck runs the fandral-staghelm pack, filled with Spells and double nourishes and Ramps and so forward. These decks often draws a lot of cards, always having tons of cards in hand. In decks like these, Kun can become a very handly zero mana 7/7 that you’ll be able to smash on the board before doing your other plays. At the same time, Kun also has the ability to get you out of difficult situations when getting burned down by a couple of Aggro decks with burn spells, while not being completely useless against decks in which the only thing you would want to cast a turn would be Kun (because then you would be able to cast it and gain 10 armor). There are obviously a bunch of much better anti-Control cards in the game, but the flexibility that Kun offers is what should make him a viable option for most of the Druid decks.
Manic Soulcaster
People always think about the most crazy combos when they see cards like these being spoiled: getting out of fatigue, putting back reno-jacksons in your deck and so forward. The fact remains that cards like these often don’t see any kind of competitive play because they are too clunky to do anything. Sure, getting some extra good cards in your deck is something that can be very good, at the same time this minion is also a 3 mana 3/4 which isn’t bad, but the fact remains that you simply won’t have room for clunky cards in your deck that will only work once every 10 games (and always work if you are facing Nuba).
Fatigue won’t always occur, in fact it is very uncommon, even for Mill decks (which won’t happen for Mages), at the same time, this minion won’t help you at achieving any of your goals in the game, which leads me to believe this won’t see any play at all.
However, I also figured that some extra cool interactions like patches-the-pirate might end up being added to the game, in which case this card could easily see play.
Wickerflame Burnbristle
Another card to help already existing strategies, Wickerflame comes to make Control Paladins stronger in the game.
Right now the already existing Control Paladin decks aren’t performing as good as other decks, so it feels nice to have cards such as this one added.
This dude adds utility, and also room for improvement in the deck as well as the class in the future. The fact it has Divine Shield means it’ll usually heals you for four health before it dies, while also preventing the attack of two minions and damaging those minions as well.
Effects like these, that delays your death while also healing you, are very powerful and should be studied with cautious. I believe this guy will end up seeing play in every Control Paladin list there is, while also being studied by some players in Aggro and Midrange oriented decks. While I do think this guy could have cool interactions with buffs like blessing-of-kings, I ended up figuring that the deck’s design might end up being hurt because of this, because Kings is usually an aggressive card and Wickerflame is a super defensive card, meanwhile as an Aggro Paladin you usually want nothing to do with healing yourself (so that’s a double-lose for Aggros who would think in running this card).
Because of this card’s obvious interaction with buffs, people will, for sure, try this in decks with buffs, but at the end of the day I believe this will be run only in decks that don’t want to buff this card.
Small-Time Recruits
I initially thought this as the alternative to Divine Favor that Aggro Paladins have been looking for. I took a long time tinkering this card, and ended up thinking it is playable even combined with Divine Favor simply because you are allowed into having even more 1-drops in your deck that you are supposed to.
There are, however, a few implications that the constant Aggro nerfs brought us into developing a deck with a card such as this one, but also some good things as well: First is that because we can run both Small-Time Recruits as well as Divine Favor, we can afford to play sub-optimal 1-drops instead of only the good ones, like we can play the nerfed leper-gnome, and even the good old worgen-infiltrator simply because we have so many ways of making up for it.
This card opens up for new and different Paladin Builds, and I am definitely looking forward to what we’ll be able to do in the future.
As an additional commentary, this card will, with absolute certainty, be a powerhouse in the Wild Format in the future because of how good it is in a format with an infinite number of viable 1-drops, obviously that might take a long long time to happen, but it will happen one day, for sure.
Meanstreet Marshal
I am starting to see a pattern here. This combined with wickerflame-burnbristle and we already have two cards that can benefit from buffs and would fit into Midrange Decks. This card, however, has a huge appeal with small-time-recruits as an amazing synergy card!
When I first saw Small-Time Recruits it came to me the thought that “if only this could draw minions that would draw you cards”, and a few moments later I saw Meanstreet Marshal. At one mana, this card is definitely viable, simply because of how powerful the interaction of this card and Small-Time Recruits. I have to admit when I saw this card something kept yelling at me “2 mana card!” and I ended up only seeing this was a one mana card now, so I have to say that Small-Time Recruits just got a lot better.
Dragonfire Potion
Control Priests finally got the alternative lightbomb they have been asking for. This card fills in part of the void left by last year’s rotation in Control Priest and might bring Priests to the “playable” level once again.
I have been reading a lot of comments on the internet of people thinking Priests will get OP after this expansions, but I believe people have been overestimating the rest of the cards Priests have in the game. Even before the rotation Priest never got to be a tier-1 deck, being at best a top tier-2 deck for some time before falling into oblivion again. This time Priests get one of their conditional AOEs back, but still not having access to early game defense tools as it had previous to the rotation in the form of deathlord.
Back to the card, it is simply amazing and fills in one of the holes the Priest class had: For both Control and Dragon Priest, this card should be played as a 2-of in every single one of the builds because of how powerful the effect is. In Dragon Priests however it is even more powerful as the effect is almost unilateral. The thing that bugs me, however, is that the Dragon Priest reign, in case it happens, will be short lived as the majority of the deck will rotate out with the next expansion.
One important thing to note, also, is that with the rotation of both half the Dragon Priest deck base as well as excavated-evil, Priests might become, yet again, a useless class next year unless new tools appear to fill in the void. A card that we’ll be talking in the next article should help us further but I believe we’ll need more.
Drakonid Operative
And we start to see new Dragon Priest cards being added to the game to fill in those voids I have been talking about. Considering this card and netherspite-historian, we start to see a pattern that Blizzard intends to make Dragon Priest a Control-Tricky deck in the future instead of the curve-fest it is supposed to be nowadays.
Because of the high number of cards in the 5-drop slot that Dragon Priest has, the guarantee cycle of azure-drake and other factors this card might not see play in December’s standard, however it is absolutely sure to see play after the rotation in case Dragon Priest remains viable. Another thing to note is that because of Dragonfire Potion, this card could even see play in the slot of azure-drake simply because it is a much bigger body than the Drake is and because we won’t be needing the Spell Power anymore.
As for the card, it obviously compares to Azure Drake in today’s deck building format, because we just would never want to remove blackwing-corruptor from our deck and the 5-drop curve slot is already too crowded, but maybe we can end up finding slots for it as the holy-nova slot just went up to the 6-drop, right? The simple fact this is a Dragon makes it a good card, so keep an eye out for it.
Closing
And here I finish my first batch of in-depth analysis of Spoiled cards. There are still many cards to be revealed so I want to take my time with those Analysis, but you guys should be seeing a lot of me in the coming days with them as we have a LOT of cards to talk about, and we’re bound to have even more in the future!
I hope you guys have enjoyed this analysis, in case you have any questions feel free to ask them in the comments below, and we’ll be seeing each other again very soon!
Love you guys, see you again later!
Cuddles,
Nuba
