View list of cards released so far in this dedicated post.
Introduction
This is the series where our contributors – high ranked ladder and Arena players – and players from Team HSP review the new revealed The Grand Tournament cards. We rate every card both in Constructed and Arena, then give you our thoughts about them. This post will be updated every time we’ll get a new review!
When it comes to the rating, we rate the cards from 1 to 5:
1 – Very Bad – The card will see no play in any kind of deck. It won’t be drafted in Arena unless you’re present with other terrible options. E.g. Magma Rager, Dalaran Mage.
2 – Bad – The card might see some occasional play in low tier or budget decks, but isn’t good enough to be played in top tier decks. It will rarely be drafted in Arena – either it needs to synergize with the deck or you need to be present with other bad options. E.g. Boulderfist Ogre, Frostwolf Warlord (Constructed), Ironforge Rifleman, Ancient Mage (Arena)
3 – Average – The card might fill some niche and see play in couple of decks. Not an especially strong card, but can be used to fill gaps in the deck after putting staple cards. In Arena, it’s the card you’re gonna draft pretty often – the card is good enough to not ruin the quality of your deck, but nothing impressive. E.g. Gnomish Inventor, Sen’jin Shieldmasta (Constructed), Bloodfen Raptor, Archmage (Arena)
4 – Good – You’re gonna see this card in a lot of decks. Either it fits into a certain archetype or is overall a good card. Your Constructed deck are mostly filled with cards of those quality. They’re strong and definitely serve their purpose. In Arena, those are the cards you actually want to see and draft – every great deck will have at least couple of those. E.g. Azure Drake, Defender of Argus, Haunted Creeper (Constructed), Harvest Golem, Mechanical Yeti, Stormwind Champion (Arena)
5 – Very Good – This is THE card that will be auto-include or at least a very strong contender. The card that is gonna be really strong and see a lot of play in many decks. Card that is often best in its role, the one that you can’t really pass. In Arena, this is the card you want to see most in the draft, the base of 12 wins Arena decks, one that you instantly pick when you see it. E.g. Dr. Boom, Mad Scientist, Piloted Shredder (Constructed), Flamestrike, Truesilver Champion, Fire Elemental (Arena)
This time we review the cards that won the last voting – Coliseum Manager.
modded
Constructed: Very Bad (1)
Arena: Bad (2)
This card has vanilla stats for a three-drop, and a drawback to boot! This card is slightly better in arena as in the late game you can trade, bounce and replay it when you run out of cards, but this card is unusable in constructed. It’s a strictly worse druid-of-the-flame as Hearthstone has a tempo metagame and this cards takes a crap on your own tempo for negligible value. It only has five health, and two attack doesn’t really kill much.
TL;DR: If you pull this card, enjoy your forty dust.
Stonekeep
Constructed: Bad (2)
Arena: Good (4)
The first Inspire card where the effect that you can actually see as a drawback, not a bonus. I really like this card and I hope that more cards like that will be released, it puts an interesting twist to Inspire cards.
Sadly, in Constructed it’s pretty bad. Right now I don’t see a place where it could fit. It looks like he’s designed to squeeze a lot of value – trade into something, get him back into your hand, replay and trade into something again. The 2/5 stats are nice against Aggro decks, but against Aggro you want 2 for 1 instead of getting him back into the hand – it’s a big tempo loss. And against Control, the 2 attack is not enough to kill anything important. Unless I’m missing something, I don’t see it being used in Constructed.
In Arena, however, I rate this card good just because of the stats. The stats are comparable to the Druid of the Flame, which is a very good Arena card. Arena games are also slower, so getting him back into your hand isn’t necessarily that bad. Sometimes sacrificing tempo in order to gain value may work out just fine. Later in the game when you have a lot of mana to work with, trading him into small drops and bouncing back may be actually a solid tactic. The only drawback is that you sometimes need to use Hero Power and don’t want to get him back into your hand at the same time. It might create certain awkward situations.
Hoarth
Constructed: Bad (2)
Arena: Good (4)
The concept of the card is very strong, have an overstatted minion with an inspire drawback. The big problem with this card is that it doesn’t fulfill the concept. A 2/5 for 3 isn’t strong enough to require a drawback. There are already much stronger 3 drops such as imp gang boss and blackwing tech. If this card was 1/1 stronger, it would be a very competitive and staple card especially as a lot of decks are centered around hitting a 4 drop (meaning that you can usually get away without using your hero power the next turn). I like the concept behind the card, but ultimately it won’t see much play in competitive decks.
Sixis
Constructed: Very Bad (1)
Arena: Average (3)
This cards is utter trash. Not only the effect is 99% a drawback (you can heal it I suppose) but the stat line is very bad. I can see this guy’s stats being decent in Arena but in Constructed it will never see any play. There’s really not much to say, the card is incredibly underwhelming and its not even close to competing the mana slot with less competition of the game.
This card on another note teaches us just how bad the Inspire mechanic is gonna help Aggro drastically to take over the meta. The anti tempo nature of the mechanic makes it so easy for Aggro to exploit it if they even print an Inspire card that has Inspire as a drawback. It will immediately be picked up by aggressive or proactive decks since they barely rely on their hero power especially on the early turns. Just my quick 2 cents.
Lucky
Constructed: Very Bad (1)
Arena: Good (4)
Stats are solid, but you also need a somehow useful Battlecry to justify playing it in Constructed. Unfortunately this card hasn’t a good one. Without instant effect, bouncing it to the hand is just a tempo loss.
Very good card for Arena though, due its great stats and slower game pace.
Smashthings
Constructed: Impossible to say (?)
Arena: Bad/Average (2.5)
Let’s start by thinking about this guys stats: it is a 3 mana 2/5.
This is, I think important to bear in mind when we try to evaluate the inspire effect printed on the card. 3-drops with negative card text (e.g. Deathlord, Ogre Brute, Dancing Swords) all have extra stat points to compensate for the negative card text. But this card has seven stat points (which is in line with vanilla 3-drops).
What does this mean? Well, it means either that this is just a bad card, or it means that in the remainder of the set there is something(s) that make this text useful.
For example imagine if there where an ‘Undertaker like’ card that benefits from inspire. Or what if there was a late game minion that does something powerful whenever you play in minion (MEGA KNIFE JUGGLER FTW!!). In such cases, maybe the ability to repeatedly play a minion that your opponent cannot interact with (e.g play it and then immediately bounce it back with hero power) will in some way be useful.
To give you some idea of what may be possible with the rest of the set: Warsong Commander + Multi use Hero Power + Summoning Portal + this card.
Basically, if this card is going to see any play I think it will be in some sort of combo deck that can use the ‘bounce’ mechanic to great effect.
If, on the other hand, people have the idea of playing a super slow control deck that kills a 3/2 with this card and then “heals it up” with Hero Power I think they will sorely disappointed; that sort of tactic is waaaayyyy too slow to be remotely viable.
In short: this is just one of those cards that needs the whole set to be known in order to be properly assessed. It is either an interesting combo piece or completely worthless.
WindUpRabbit
Constructed: Very Bad (1)
Arena: Average/Good (3.5)
In Constructed it’s a Druid of the Flame with a HUGE drawback, won’t see any play whatsoever. Not worth playing at all.
In Arena, I think playing it on turn 3 is ok since you don’t want to spend your T4 on using your hero power, you can also get a lot of value by reusing it, better in Arena than constructed due to the stats.
