HSP reviews TGT: Grand Crusader & Confuse

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)

Grand Crusader

Smashthings

Constructed: Average/Good (3.5), Good (4) in Paladin

Arena: Very Good (5)

Grand Crusader is a pretty interesting card, I like to think of it as a 6 mana Azure Drake.

Card draw is of course a powerful effect and so therefore any card that offers you cards with a decent body is going to be strong. Okay sure, drawing a random card from the Paladin class will be less useful that getting something from your own deck (e.g Azure Drake). But even still: card draw is card draw.

The most interesting aspect of the card is that it is neutral, if it were Paladin specific it would be a lot less interesting.

As a Paladin player you could use this to get more class cards and hope that you draw into something you already have in your deck (a third copy of muster for battle or a second Tirion would be fantastic).

You can of course run this card in some other class, and that could lead to some very interesting deck design considerations. For example:

• Mage is a class that is really weak regarding minion buffing whereas this is one of Paladin’s Strengths. Thus, by using Grand Crusader you could get hold of minion buff cards, mitigating one of the weaknesses of the Mage class.

• You could also look for powerful combo’s; Priest getting Aldor Peacekeeper/Humility could be very powerful in conjunction with Cabal Shadow Priest.

• You could just play it for the card: Shaman is one of the worst classes for card draw mechanics, and so therefore you might run this in Shaman not because you are looking for any special synergy with the Paladin card but merely because you want to draw something.

Right now, it is hard to imagine exactly what constructed decks might run this card. But I do feel it is strong enough to see some (niche) constructed play.

In Arena I think the card is basically on par with the likes of Azure drake (which I would rate as 4.5), I have bump its rating to 5 simply because this card is competing against epics, and there are a lot of bad epics out there.

Sixis

Constructed: Bad (2)

Arena: Average (3)

This card has stats comparable to other popular 6-drops, but his effect doesn’t do not even close to enough. Basically for that price you need effects like Emperor Thaurissan or Sylvanas Windrunner. Not much more to explain, in constructed you need much more value from a 6 drop. Most of the time the card drawn will be very crappy anyway.

Lucky

Constructed: Bad (2)

Arena: Average (3)

I don’t see this card seeing any play in constructed. It’s slow, its value is decent but not great, and doesn’t have special synergy with anything due to its random battlecry. Not necessarily a bad card, but doesn’t fill any role, therefore there will always be better things to put in your deck.

Stonekeep

Constructed: Bad (2), Average (3) in Priest

Arena: Good (4)

The card is fun, but not that great in Constructed. The good comparison is Azure Drake. He’s -1/-1, but costs 1 less and has +1 Spell Damage. And it draws from your own deck. It’s really important – drawing from your own deck is usually stronger. You are sure that the cards you’re gonna draw will be good, they will synergy with your deck etc. “Adding” a card into your hand is only important when you play a long, control game that goes into the fatigue. By “adding” a card instead of drawing, you don’t thin your deck, hit fatigue slower and overall have more cards to work with (like the Thoughtsteal in Priest).

The general quality of Paladin cards is actually pretty decent – he has a lot of high value cards. The problem is that each class has terrible cards – in case of Paladin, for example, all Secrets are pretty poor. If you were guaranteed to get only best cards, this would be great. But as it stands right now, I wouldn’t rely on the RNG to actually draw a good card not a shitty one.

I think the class which can benefit most from Paladin cards is actually.. Priest. Humility, Aldor Peacekeeper and Eadric the Pure combo nicely with Cabal Shadow Priest, Shadow Madness and Shadow Word: Pain. Buffs have good synergy with Priest. Holy Light or Lay on Hands may be comboed with Auchenai Soulpriest for massive burn. Equality has good synergy with all the AoEs Priest has. Funnily, I think random Paladin card might be even better in Priest than in Paladin.

In Arena, you aren’t that picky, because your deck is also random. Paladin has one of the highest quality class cards in the game and even things like Avenge or Noble Sacrifice aren’t TERRIBLE in Arena. Since the Paladin’s random card might actually on average be of a higher quality than the one from your deck, this card is good.

Confuse

Lucky

Constructed: Bad (2)

Arena: Average (3)

Hard to evaluate, you can do a lot of stuff with this card but is also very situational. It combines interestingly with so many common Priest cards like Cabal Shadow Priest, Shadow Madness, Shadow Word: Death, Shadow Word: Pain, Velen’s Chosen, Power Word: Shield, Lightbomb, Deathlord and many others. In some situations can work as effective and cheap removal as well. Its versatility is there and new decks may arise, we’ll see whether or not they make the cut.

Sixis

Constructed: Bad (2)

Arena: Average (3)

It’s hard to really know how good this card is, it’s easy to see the multiple applications it has, but the problem is the big amount of combo cards that Priest has makes it hard to find a deck that can have synergy while maintaining consistency and tempo. Ultimately, we will have to figure out how the post-TGT meta is going to be because reacting game is what Priest does best.

Stonekeep

Constructed: Bad (2)

Arena: Very Bad/Bad (1.5)

Cool card. Very cool card. I love it! But I don’t think it’s gonna work. Obviously, by switching minion’s attack and health Priest can do a lot of cool stuff. He can use different Shadow Words, he might steal something with Shadow Madness or Cabal Shadow Priest, he might put minions into Lightbomb range, he might use it on his high health minions (think Deathlord, Ysera or buffed minions) to push for a lot of damage… But you know what? He could already do the same things for 2 mana. Crazed Alchemist is a card. And it also puts a 2/2 body on the board! And it wasn’t played. I mean, some people tried it in different brews, but ultimately it didn’t get into meta.

I think the card is really cool, but often it’s just gonna be a Crazed Alchemist without any body. Sometimes it could lead to a cool combos, but Priest has a lot of situational cards already. This one I don’t think is best. In how many situations you will actually get 3 or 4 switches that are good for you? I can’t think of many. It’s gonna be 1-2 switches you want most of the time.

And if you want to play Combo deck with high health minions – once again, Inner Fire and Crazed Alchemist are the cards already.

I love the concept and the “gimmickyness” of this card, but I honestly don’t see it working.

In Arena, it’s pretty bad. The card by itself doesn’t do almost anything and you have to combo it with other things to work. Combos don’t work in Arena. Again, it’s just a Crazed Alchemist without a body on the board = bad. I can think of some scenarios where it can be useful, but generally it’s waaaay to situational for Arena.

---