The Golem Ninja Academy of the Jade Lotus

eternalhs

Published: Nov 27, 2016 12:11 pm

This article is over 8 years old and may contain outdated information

Introduction

Another problematic gang

I’ve written articles about both Grimy Goons and the Kabal and there was a problem which I’ve noticed with the Grimy Goons. They had a strong mechanic but they have offered nothing new to the table other than different uses of that mechanic. Kabal, on the other hand, brought about potions, Reno synergy, additions for dragon priest and secret mage (Gul’dan was left crying in the corner). It was fun seeing what crazy decks can you make with the Kabal classes. Now, as I’m writing this, I see that the Jade Lotus suffers from the same problem as the Grimy Goons. Sure, their mechanic is far less boring but it is all that they are bringing to the table. I wish that there were more things that the Jade Lotus classes focused on other than trying to get the best out of the Jade Golem mechanic.

Best masons in the town!

Did you know that ninjas were also masons? I didn’t but apparently they are and their statues, the jade golems, are already causing panic among some players. We can’t talk about the gang without explaining the gang mechanic first. Jade Golem keyword means that when certain condition are met you can get one Jade Golem. The very first Jade Golem that you play has 1/1 stats but the each next Jade Golem that you play gets a +1/+1 stat increase for each other Jade Golem that you have played this turn. So far we know that the number can go up to 30 but maybe it can go even beyond that.

Jade Golem isn’t an individual minion but it is instead summoned via spell effects like jade-idol, via minions like jade-swarmer or even via weapons like jade-shuriken. Each of the three Jade Lotus class (druid, rogue and shaman) have their own class cards which summon Jade Golems in one way or another.

Golem Growth Tree Hormones

When I first saw what this new mechanic does the first thing that came to my mind was that it is going to be most efficient in the druid class and so far it does seem like that is going to be the case. Druid has three very powerful jade golem cards and those are jade-idol, jade-behemoth and jade-blossom but the one that is going to bring the pain and define druid as the go to jade golem class is without a doubt the jade-idol.

This card is simply insane. Not only that it costs 1 mana, nor that it has a choose one: mechanic, nor even that it summons a Jade Golem but you can shuffle three copies of this card into your deck which is crazy. I don’t see a world where you would ever go for the summon effect first instead of putting more copies of this card into your deck. So, you’ve put several copies of this card into your deck. Good, what happens now? Well, enter gadgetzan-auctioneer to make use out of all those 1 cost spells and draw you all those 1 cost spells that you’ve just casually filled your deck with. Don’t have the auctioneer in hand or it is still to early to make good use of it? Don’t worry, who need the auctioneer in the early game when you have fandral-staghelm to make the jade-idol even more insane.

Do you require more firepower in the late game or are you looking to gain huge tempo swings earlier on with your Jade Golems? jade-blossom is a wild-growth on steroids that provides you with an early game Jade Golem, something that you most likely won’t be getting earlier in the game unless you haven’t listened to me and went for the golem with jade-idol. In this case jade-behemoth isn’t a completely bad card if it can provide you with an additional 2/2 body. 6 mana for 5/7 worth of stats isn’t too bad. If you get to play it even later in the game when you’ve already played, lets say, 5 Jade Golems than a 9/14 worth of stats for 6 mana is a bargain. I don’t see jade-behemoth seeing any play in the gadgetzan-auctioneer Jade Golem druid deck but it might pop up here and there on some other lists. I would personally stick with the gadgetzan-auctioneer Jade Golem deck and throw in a couple of arcane-giants for good measure.

Other options

Remarkably, the Jade Golem druid isn’t the only druid that you’ll get to play. Two other druid archetypes have been given a slight buff as well and those are the token druid deck which got mark-of-the-lotus and the ramp druid deck which got pilfered-power.

From what I’ve seen there are plenty of players who still aren’t sure what to think about pilfered-power. I, for one, think that it is pretty good if you manage to combine it with something like living-roots on turn 3 to gain 2 empty mana crystals and your turn 4 suddenly became turn 6 instead. On the other hand we have the mark-of-the-lotus which seem like a really good card for the token druid deck, a deck which really does appreciate board buffs, but it doesn’t compare too well against its counterpart power-of-the-wild. It all boils down to power-of-the-wild being useful when you have nothing on the board and getting a strong buff from fandral-staghelm. mark-of-the-lotus could still see some play and I except that some token druid decklists are going to play at least one copy of it. I honestly don’t believe that either of these cards are bad cards but I think that neither of these deck archetypes aren’t going to see as much play as the Jade Lotus druid.

Nothing great, just tears

I feel for you, rogue players. Every expansion one class just gets the shorter end of the stick and this time it is the rogue. The developers have told us that it is ok to have the worst class because there are 9 classes in the game and 1 out of those 9 classes is always going to be the 9th class in terms of power and playability. Priest has been getting the short end of the stick for an entire year and now someone else has to. Unfortunately to some, that someone else is not shaman (though his time will come in 4 months) but rogue. Nevertheless, lets take a look at what tools did the rogue get.

Probably one of the two most disappointing cards that the rogue had received this expansion is the class legendary shaku-the-collector. Yes, we do understand that Blizzard has been pushing the rogue into the ”card stealer” direction for a year now and this card fits that direction perfectly, but I don’t see a world in which I would want to play this card. It is a 3 mana 2/3 minion with stealth that will give you 1 card from your opponents class on the following turn and then die. I would play swashburglar and undercity-huckster. Rogues were also given another good card which is counterfeit-coin. the-coin is already great in rogue decks because it enables you to get your combo cards going and having at least 1 more coin in your deck probably won’t hurt you. 2 additional coins is maybe a little bit too much but 1 will most likely see play.

I can’t talk about the rogue in this expansion without going on a rant about the gadgetzan-ferryman. Why does this card even exist? I understand their idea that one class has to be the worst class in the game but this is the purify scenario all over again. Why does this card exist? Who is to blame for it? Well, IskarHS has given us a direct answer to that question. In a blog post which you can find here IskarHS explains that the card was designed to cater to the players who like playing a deck that bounces minions back into your hand, much like purify was designed to cater to those players who enjoy playing silence priest. How many players play these decks? We’re told that a small pocket of players play these decks and that even if 1/2% of players play decks like these that they will make cards for those decks.

All is not lost

Despite not getting enough good cards in this expansion, rogue still has a very strong deck which is Malygos rogue. Another deck that I would propose to you is a pirate rogue deck centered around patches-the-pirate. It is a combo deck and the combo should go like this: southsea-captain to pull out patches-the-pirate then gang-up and gang-up on patches-the-pirate then southsea-deckhand to pull out 4 more patches-the-pirate which are now all 2/2 minions with charge and two cold-blood on any of them for additional 8 damage and the grand total of 20 damage in a single turn for 10 mana without the emperor-thaurissan discount. Yes, it is a bit of a weird combo and it requires a few cards to use but it is better than nothing. Who knows, maybe a version of this might see play one day. One can dream about a viable rogue pirate deck.

Not totems

Rejoice! Almost all shaman cards have been revealed and there hasn’t been a single totem synergy card. In my opinion there hasn’t been a single good shaman card revealed either but there is still the shaman legendary which will be revealed after I’m done writing this article and non epic shaman cards have been revealed so far. However, I feel that it is safe to say that shaman will not get any more Jade Golem cards (besides probably the legendary minion). So far, each class besides rogue, has been given 3 Jade Golem cards and something tell me that we won’t be seeing the 4th Jade Golem cards.

So, what can I say about shaman? I’m honestly glad that shaman didn’t get any really good cards because it has been the dominant class for an entire year. The only two cards that have caught my attention are devlove and call-in-the-finishers so I’ll say a few words about each of them starting with devlove. I’ve noticed that I am in the minority with this opinion but I don’t think that devlove is a great card. I don’t even think that it is a good card. It is a great card in some scenarios like when a rogue gives stealth to a bunch of minions or when your opponent has a board filled with deathrattle minions but other than that it does barely anything. I would much rather clear my opponents board that transform his/hers minions into smaller minions because that doesn’t solve the problem of my opponent having a board filled with minions. What that does is probably buys me one additional turn before I get rekt anyway.

call-in-the-finishers caught me completely off guard as I was not expecting Blizzard to push the murloc shaman deck…ever again. What can we do with this card? It can be used to lower the cost of everyfin-is-awesome and make it cost 3 mana but if you have no other murlocs on the board you’re still paying 7 mana to cast that spell. You would have to have at least 3 other murlocs on the board to combo this with everyfin-is-awesome on turn 4 which is not easy to execute because most murlocs have 1 health and die from literally anything. I don’t see this card seeing any play and I don’t see murloc shaman appearing because this card exists, especially when midrange shaman still has all the tools that it needs to be a tier 1 deck.

Conclusion

Jade Lotus didn’t bring much to the table besides the jade golem mechanic but that mechanic is still more fun to play than the Grimy Goons hand buffing mechanic. I really don’t think that we will see any Jade Golem deck other than a druid deck. With that being said, dear readers, we’ve reached the end of this three-week gang review articles. I hope that you’ve had fun reading these articles and that maybe I’ve given you some ideas regarding the decks that you will play in the near future. The expansion is upon us (it is most likely 2 weeks away) and soon we will begin theroycrafting and deckbuilding. As always, tell me what do you think about this gang? Are you excited to play with the jade golem mechanic? What are your thought about rogue getting the short end of the stick? Leave your opinions and feedback in the comments below. One more important thing that I would like to ask you is to not be shy in suggesting topics for future articles from me. I love writing these articles and I love writing articles that I think that you will enjoy so if there is anything that you would like me to write about do suggest it in the comments and I will see what I can do about it. As always if you’ve liked this article do consider following me on twitter https://twitter.com/Eternal_HS. There you can ask me all sorts of Hearthstone questions (unrelated to this article) and I’ll gladly answer them as best as I can.

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Author

eternalhs