Journey To Un’Goro Card Review #3

Introduction

Great news everyone, it seems that the new cards are being dropped really quickly this time around! With 5+ cards every day, we’re bombed with tons of new content and we can already start theorycrafting. Just like every time, I’ll try to review most of the cards – give you my thoughts about how powerful they are, whether they will see play or not etc.

I’ll rate every card from 1 to 5, where 1 means “the card is garbage” (unplayable in Constructed), through 3 – “average card” (might see some Constructed play, but it’s not really amazing) to 5 – “insane!” (a card that will almost surely see Constructed play and be powerful). Remember, however, that at this point I’m still reviewing the set without knowing all the cards. Even with the knowledge of every card it’s sometimes hard to predict whether one is good or bad, so take the ratings with a grain of salt.

If I made a mistake somewhere, took the wrong version of the card (sometimes the early translations aren’t 100% correct) or misunderstood the effect, let me know in the comments and I’ll fix it as soon as possible!

Other Un’Goro reviews:

• #1 – Initial Stream Release
• #2 – Up to March 22

Card Reviews

The Caverns Below

And now we know the Rogue’s quest. At first after seeing this, I was super disappointed. It looked really bad for a few reasons. First, it was a bit hard to accomplish given the current tools and this kind of effect works best if you finish it very early. Second, it forces you to build a deck with a lot of bounces etc. which in the past didn’t turn out to be great. Third, you don’t really want to put any bigger minions into your deck, because they will just be 5/5 anyway. That lead me to a conclusion that the card is pretty bad, but…

After thinking for a bit, I’ve figured out that it’s better to wait until seeing the rest of Rogue cards. If powerful enough bounce effects get introduced, it might make some sense. The key is to be able to finish this quest pretty fast, because you can’t wait with Rogue. Even in a relatively slow meta, any Midrange deck will eat you if you don’t do anything serious until turn 6-7 as Rogue, you don’t have any Taunts or heals. But if you do finish the Quest, you can also get it out with Preparation for just 2 mana, which is a great tempo gain. And after finishing it, you should be set. In a world where your Swashburglars are 5/5’s instead of 1/1’s you should be winning the game quite quickly. The card would also have great synergy with minions that spawn more minions – e.g. Barnes is now 2x 5/5 for 4 mana, Violet Teacher spawns a 5/5 whenever you play a spell and even good old Moroes might be great after the quest (but I don’t really see people running it, because it’s bad BEFORE the Quest).

Now, whether this card will see play or not is still up in the air. It doesn’t fit into a currently strong archetype (Water/Miracle) so you’d need to build a deck around it, just like with every other quest. Some Quests are pretty straightforward and easy to rate. This, however, will need TONS of clever deck building and optimizing, because if they find the right deck for it, it might be great card (imagine getting this out around t4-t5) but if they don’t, well… Rating a deck that doesn’t exist in a meta that doesn’t exist is impossible, so I won’t.

Card rating: ?/5

Mimic Pod

It’s one of those cards that support the Quest. And to be honest, the card seems very fair. It’s in line with other card draws – it’s like an Arcane Intellect in terms of mana/cards drawn. However, instead of cycling through your deck, it only draws 1 card and then adds a second copy of it. So you a) don’t dig deeper into your deck and b) you have no way to get presented with 2 options. It also has a higher variance. With AI you always draw 2 cards, with this one you draw only 1 and depending on whether the card is good or bad the effect is doubled. If you draw a card that’s bad in given situation, you’re guaranteed to have 2 bad cards in your hand and vice versa for good cards. And well, obviously there is a Quest synergy if you draw a minion you want to bounce or a card to bounce it.

The card is like an obvious choice for something to include in the Quest Rogue list – but is it? I actually think that the card might make more sense in a slower, more Control version of Rogue (if such thing will ever exist) and the Quest Rogue needs to be a more aggressive deck. After all – making everything 5/5 works way better if you run a heavy tempo deck, it doesn’t do much if you run a slow deck. Then, you won’t necessarily draw the card you want to bounce or bounce with. You might draw Backstab, Eviscerate, Sap or one of the generic minions or whatever. There are a lot of stuff you don’t necessarily want to copy – most of the time you’d actually prefer to dig deeper into your deck.

But it just shows how bad Thistle Tea was. It gives you only 1 more card for 3 more mana. That’s now how it should be costed. I think this card has some chance to be played, but before you put it into your deck, you have to ask yourself a question – would you be happy to put Arcane Intellect into your deck? If yes, then go ahead and try it. If not, then this is most likely a bit worse.

Card rating: 3/5

The Marsh of Queen

I wanted to talk about Hunter quest before talking about the Hunter’s 5-drop so that’s that. Here it is, a Hunter’s quest. And it’s pretty exciting. It’s very similar to Rogue’s one in a way that it’s not straightforward. We didn’t have a working Hunter deck like that before, so it’s impossible to say whether it will be easy to build or not. Playing seven 1-drops seems easy, but is it? Even Face Hunter decks rarely ran more than eight 1-drops IN TOTAL, which means they drew maybe 3 on average per game. With Hunters, especially a deck with a lot of 1-drops, you don’t really go for the long game. You run out of resources very fast. Assuming you only see half of your deck per game (it’s still pretty generous assumption), you’d need to play like 15 1-drops to be able to accomplish it quite consistently. But wait, there’s more – given the card’s reward, it’s not really an instant game finisher, so you want to get it done before, so you can actually take advantage of your reward. So you want to get it done at least a few turns before the game’s end.

So just make a deck with 20 1-drops and call it a day. Sure, but then the deck will be bad. It’s already hard to find 6 solid 1-drops to put in your Hunter deck, you’d be forced to play things that you wouldn’t normally play if you want to run that many. Stuff like Fire Fly would help, but that’s not enough to make it good alone. You’d still need a few turns to finish the quest but after your opponent would deal with your initial “assault” (like Stonetusk Boar to the face, because you didn’t have enough good 1-drops), it would be incredibly hard to win that game. You’d need to solely rely on the reward to get it done, which might not be the case – remember that it’s still RNG. Raptors cycle themselves, but only if you draw them. If you end up drawing a non-Raptor 1-drop, yeah, you play your 1-drop and pass a turn.

What we have to wait for are more cards that support the Quest. I’d imagine that besides the one we know already – Tol’vir Warden – maybe we’ll get another one. And I think that it will be the most viable way to build such a deck. Play it in a Midrange deck with not exactly tons of 1-drops, but ways to snatch your 1-drops. Tol’vir Warden, maybe another card like that, maybe extra Tracking. This way you will be able to play just let’s say ten 1-drops and still be able to finish the Quest consistently – you’ll get about 3-4 from the draws and then snatch the rest of them through other effects. Will that be good enough? That’s the whole charm of the Quests – it’s impossible to tell at this point. While not a completely new archetype, it will be a new way to play the Hunter created around this quest.

Oh, but I didn’t talk about the reward too much. Reward is pretty interesting – it’s a bit similar to the Warlock’s one, but with more immediate punch and less value over time. Warlock’s portal will create 2x 3/2 every turn. Hunter’s Quest gives you a 5 mana 8/8, which is already solid, and it shuffles 15 Raptors into your deck. The raptors are 1 mana 3/2’s that draw a card on Battlecry, meaning that they cycle themselves as you play them. You have 15 small, but powerful cards in your deck – you should expect some Raptor chains, e.g. if you draw 3 in a row, you can play all 3 of them and still get the card you’d draw normally. But on the other hand, if you draw your normal card, you don’t get any extra value. This is still powerful, because on average you should get an extra 3/2 every turn, sometimes you’ll have a great tempo turns with multiple small threats, which will force your opponent to answer with AoE, or well, pretty much die if he has no way to kill them.

The Quest is powerful enough to build a deck around it. But if the deck built around this quest will be powerful enough to be played? That’s still up in the air. Like Rogue’s Quest, I can’t judge this without knowing other Hunter cards yet.

Card rating: ?/5

Tol’Vir Warden

Well and that’s the Hunter’s card I was talking about. At first the card seemed horribly average to me. I mean, sure, in theory it’s a 5-drop that draws you 2 cards. It’s like a much better Azure Drake (which rotates out). But the fact that those cards are 1-drops makes it kinda meh. Or does it? After the Quest was revealed, I rate this card a bit higher. The fact that it will allow you to snatch the 1-drops for the Quest is big. You play two of those and you already have a way to draw four 1-drops. That’s a lot.

The main problem here are the stats. 3/5 for 5 is pretty bad. There is a solid chance that it will get eaten for free by some 5/5, which is the usual 5-drops statline. Outside of the Quest, drawing 1-drops in the mid game also isn’t that good. However, one thing that needs to be said is that it has a mini-Mysterious Challenger effect. One of the best things about MC was that once you’ve dropped it, you’ve pulled all the Secrets from your deck, meaning that you no longer had a chance to draw them. It’s a bit similar with Tol’Vir Warden – 1-drops make your average draw much weaker and pulling them out from your deck now makes your future draws more powerful.

Without the Quest, I’d probably give it 3/5. Average card, might see some play, but not necessarily. But it’s probably a staple if you want to build the Midrange/Control deck (most likely the first one) around the Quest. So I’ll give it 4/5, but we’ll see how the Quest Hunter turns out.

Card rating: 4/5

Glacial Shard

Mini Frost Elemental. Frost Elemental has seen close to zero Constructed play, but this might be actually different in case of this card. The thing is, the same effect is WAY more powerful on a 1 mana card than on a 6 mana card. And given that 2/1 for 1 are probably about as competitive stats as 5/5 for 6, the card seems solid tempo tool.

Freezing a character buys you tempo. Depending on the scenario, it might save you health, save your important minion or maybe just make your opponent’s turn more awkward. For example, freezing an 8/8 might heal you for 8 if that damage was meant to hit face. Let’s say you have Ysera on the board and your opponent has played a Poisonous minion you can’t kill. You can Freeze it and get another turn of Ysera’s effect + maybe even draw a way to deal with the situation next turn. You can also freeze your opponent’s Hero to prevent a weapon attack. Your opponent has 4 attack weapon that lines perfectly with your 4 health minion? Well, you can freeze the face and your minion survives another turn.

Then, there are some combos. Glacial Shard + Corruption in Warlock. It’s a 2 cards combo, but it kills any minion for just 2 mana. The kill is delayed so it doesn’t work as good on minions with ongoing effects, but we’re losing some of the most powerful ones – e.g. Ragnaros the Firelord and Emperor Thaurissan. If Control Warlock might still see play, it might be a combo. Another combo is with Shatter – this is probably even more powerful, as it deals with the threat instantly, but Corruption seems a bit more flexible than Shatter (you can use it without the combo).

Plus it has an Elemental tag, which is obviously a good thing if you run an Elemental deck. I feel like this card is quite powerful, it’s a great 1-drop tempo-wise and it might be played in some of the decks.

Card rating: 4/5

Curious Glimmerroot

The card’s name doesn’t really roll off the tongue, but the effect is amazing. Not even because of how powerful it is, I simply LOVE it because it adds new mechanic into the game. And not just any mechanic, one that requires actual skill, knowledge about the meta, about the cards that are played in each deck etc. It’s one of those cards that I would never recommend new player to put into his deck, but at the same time the best players might get it right 90%+ of time.

3/3 for 3 are pretty standard stats for 1-drop with an effect. But the effect in this case is pretty powerful if it works. Let’s be fair – it’s not as strong as Drakonid Operative – that card doesn’t require you to guess anything, has best possible stats and gives you 3 choices. This one is more similar to other Priest “steal” effects – it draws you a random card from the opponent’s deck if you get it right.

But the main thing is – how hard will it be to guess? Blizzard has confirmed that it will only show class cards (unless the deck has 0 class cards in it, then it will show neutrals), which makes it a big more difficult. Some sets will be very easy to guess. Let’s say you play against Control Warrior and you see Execute, Sparring Partner and Cursed Blade. It’s obvious. But not every set will be like that, especially against decks with tons of possible techs.

Let’s say you face Reno Priest and see Holy Smite, Potion of Madness and Shadowform. Each of those cards sees play in Priest and at this point it’s really guessing. Each of those choices might be right, even if one has a bit higher chance, it’s most likely still less than 50% chance to draw a card.

I think that the card will be very weak in casual or in lower parts of the ladder, because a) player’s skill is lower and b) people run some cards you wouldn’t predict, and it will get gradually stronger and stronger in the higher parts of the ladder, when played by pros. Oh, and obviously the card will probably be much weaker in the first 2 or 3 weeks of the expansion, when the meta still shifts heavily and the decks are optimized. It will get stronger after a month or so when things stabilize a bit. Yeah, we never had a card that worked like that, that’s why I’m really excited for it!

Card rating: 4/5

Volcanosaur

GREAT Arena card. Constructed? It’s harder to rate here. See, the thing is – if you’d always get the best possible Adapt choices for the situation, the card would be nuts. The Flexibility would make it insane. You need a Taunt? You can give it +3 Health and Taunt, you have 5/9 Taunt, close enough to a neutral Ancient of War. You need big body to trade on the board? Divine Shield might work really well. You need some sneaky damage? You can give it Stealth. You need tons of burst and you know that your opponent has no removal? Go for +Attack and Windfury, that’s a 8 attack with Windfury – bonkers!

But given that there are 10 Adapt options and it “only” Adapts twice, there is A LOT of variance here. There is a solid chance that you won’t see the effect you need. It doesn’t give you that safety and certainty. If you need a Taunt, when you play Ancient of War you have a Taunt 100% of time. When you play this, you have a Taunt, what, like 50% of time? You can get options that are completely useless.

So on the one hand, in the best case scenario it would be one of the most powerful 7-drops in the game. It would be DIY 7-drop that allows you to well, adapt to the situation. But if we think about the situation when it fails… well, that’s worse now. I still think that the card is better than many people say it is and I think it has an actual chance to see Constructed play. If not, it will haunt your Arena runs, because it’s completely nuts in Arena – at least it’s Rare so you won’t see it as often as Commons.

Card rating: 3/5

Gluttonous Ooze

Even more Pirate Warrior hate, which is fine. The card, well… It’s strictly a tech card against Aggro decks that run weapons. In those matchups, it’s stronger than Acidic Swamp Ooze because of the Armor gain and DEFINITELY stronger than Harrison Jones, because Jones it too slow. Well, it might also find its way into the meta if some Midrange decks run weapons – like Hunter or Shaman, because in those matchups your health also matters.

If your opponent decided to hit your face with his weapon, it completely counters it. It heals you back for however much he has dealt to you and destroys his weapon. So let’s say against an Arcanite Reaper, that’s 3 mana 3/3 that completely denies a 5 mana card from your opponent. Very powerful, in the best case scenario this card can straight up win you the game.

The truth is that the Aggro decks using weapons to hit face is busted. Weapons are too effective – they’re much harder to deal with minions and they’re more effective than burn spells. Like, Fireball is one of the best burn spells and you can accomplish the same thing with Fiery War Axe for only 2 mana instead of 4 – only in 2 turns instead of 1. It’s still probably not what was their initial plan for weapons and it seems that they’re fixing it now.

At the same time, if the meta slows down, Harrison Jones will probably once again be the #1 weapon destruction choice, like it was before the Gadgetzan. But I’m glad that we have this card in case another weapon swinging class will have a powerful Aggro deck. Between this and Golakka Crawler, Pirate Warrior has no chance to be really popular meta deck, as it will be heavily countered.

It’s a pretty good tech card, so it gets 4/5. But of course it’s way weaker in a meta that’s light on weapons.

Card rating: 4/5

Mana Bind

I was hoping for a new Mage Secret given that we seem to be getting more Secret synergy in Un’Goro. But I honestly don’t know what to think about this one. On the one hand, it has a lot of potential – getting a 0 mana copy of any more expensive spell will be amazing. Druid plays Nourish? Sure, you do the same thing for 0 mana. Well, technically you had to play 3 mana for the Secret, but not always.

But it’s similar to Counterspell in a way that it can be countered quite easily. Even a simple Coin can counter it – now you’ve paid 3 mana (potentially) and card to get a Coin. That’s not a good value, that’s terrible. Then, there is another case of cards that are good for your opponent but useless to you. Let’s say Warrior gives you Shield Slam or I don’t know, Rogue gives you Deadly Poison. They use a card and you get a dead card, basically countering your Secret completely. Counterspell would work much better against those.

Now, one thing I need to take into the account when rating this card is that you get a 0 mana copy of a spell. Mage is known to have multiple spell synergies, like before the rotation the 0 mana copy might be a great fuel for Flamewaker. It might also work well with Gadgetzan Auctioneer if Mage ever decides to play the card. And we still don’t know the Mage’s quest – I guess it will be related to either Secrets or spells in general. And in that case, this Secret might be good enough to see play.

Card rating: 3/5

Vilespine Slayer

Assassinate on a 3/4 body? Count me in. The card is AMAZING. Since 3/4 stats cost around 3 mana, you get the Assassinate effect for just 2 mana. Of course, it requires you to combo it, which might be a bit harder without extra Coins from Tomb Pillager, but Rogue can easily find a way. Right now Kidnapper cries somewhere in the corner.

Okay, but bad news first. In case we see an Aggro meta, this card is bad. Such an effect is great when you get to kill at least a 4-drop with it. Then the effect will net you a positive tempo gain. In case you get swarmed by 1-3 drops, the effect is not that good. The card seems to work best against slower decks, but especially against Midrange. Rogue was always known as the Midrange killer, Midrange decks rely heavily on the mid game tempo and Rogue could easily outtempo them. This role didn’t change and Vilespine Slayer only supports it. In theory, the card is powerful and I can’t imagine it not seeing play unless we get the repeat from Gadgetzan and Aggro decks completely dominating.

Oh, and it seems like a great card to put in your Quest deck. I mean, you will obviously play bounce mechanics in such a deck and this card synergizes really well with stuff like Shadowstep or Shadowcaster.

Card rating: 4/5

Living Mana

It seems like more of a fun card than anything. I’ve tried to theorycraft a bit and think about situations where this card might work well and to be fair – there aren’t as many of them.

My first theory was playing it with temporary mana – if you played 2x Innervate + this on turn 1 it would basically be game over. You’d have 5x 2/2 and and basically 5 Wild Growths on the board. But no, it doesn’t work with Innervate, it was confirmed by devs.

Maybe play it with buffs? This + 2x + Mark of the Lotus in the late game is a board full of 4/4’s. However, you play 3 cards which might get countered by one simple AoE.

I guess the best way to play this is to run it in a Token deck with Savage Roar. It’s a bit like Wisps of the Old Gods which has seen SOME play in WoG, but it was too easy to counter because of all the 1 damage effects (Ravaging Ghoul was peaking in popularity back then). This one is a bit harder to counter, because the minions are 2/2’s. You play it in the late game with Savage Roar in your hand. And two things can happen. Your opponent has AoE and kills all your 2/2’s – you get all the Mana Crystals back and it’s 1 for 1 trade, ultimately not that bad. And if your opponent doesn’t clear them, you have almost no mana, but enough to cast Savage Roar. 7x 2 damage + 8x 2 damage = 30 damage, which is game over in most of the cases. I’d say that it’s pretty powerful, because you basically put your opponent on having the AoE or losing the game. Against the class with 2 damage AoE for example you can add Mark of the Lotus to make them all 3/3’s. It’s a solid win condition in Token Druid deck.

However, there is one reason why this strategy will NEVER get popular. There are ways to counter it completely. Two cards that come to the mind first are Devolve and Mass Dispel. Since the mana regain is Deathrattle, it means that Druid basically loses all the mana down to 3 (or 4 next turn). It means that even a slowest deck can outtempo the Druid and win the game from that point. Devolve is already a pretty common tech in Shaman, in case Druid was running Living Roots, basically every Shaman would run Devolve and it’s game over.

The card might make some sense IF the mana regain was programmed differently than Deathrattle. Right now the potential punish is too hard to make this card commonly played.

Card rating: 2/5

Mirage Caller

It’s a bit similar to the Barnes, but instead of pulling a card from your deck, it summons a copy of a minion that’s already on the board. On the one hand, you won’t be able to have those crazy turn 4 swings like you sometimes have with Barnes, but on the other it’s more consistent. Late game you’ll be able to play a Deathrattle and basically double its effect. This card also makes the Quest easier to accomplish – since you want to target Deathrattles with it, it’s almost like playing 2 more Deathrattles in your deck (but the small bodies don’t ruin the N’Zoth turn).

The main problem I see with this card is that it’s not really on-curve play. There is no powerful Deathrattle 2-drop that Priest would want to run. That would be the best case scenario, play t1 Quest, strong Deathrattle on turn 2 and this on turn 3.

I think that this card will be used in Deathrattle decks anyway, but a powerful 2-drop would make it absolutely bonkers. We already know how powerful the early game Dragon Priest’s curve can be and since they’re now pushing Priest to be more competitive (or so it seems), I can imagine them printing a better early game Priest curve for Deathrattle Priest too.

Card rating: 4/5

Corrupting Mist

It’s like a mass board wipe, but with a delay. I mean, 2 mana Twisting Nether would be amazing, but the delay REALLY makes it pretty bad. In case your opponent has a big board, you want to kill it immediately. You don’t want it to hit you one more time. Then, it also makes things really awkward for you.

Imagine it’s turn 10 and your opponent has some minions on the board. You play Corrupting Mist and… what? You pass? If you play minions, he will just trade with the minions that are ough to die anyway. And if you don’t want to play anything more, why not just play Twisting Nether?

This card has a very small window where it’s powerful. It’s good against early game board floods, let’s say your opponent coins out two 1-drops, you might play Corrupting Mist to counter them. Or the early Pirate start – you can clear a few cards with it.

But I think that the Corruption is just better. You rarely need to target more than one, it doesn’t target your own board and against bigger boards you want to have an immediate clears anyway.

And if you want early AoE, Doomsayer is better. While yes, Doomsayer has a chance to be countered, it also buys you the tempo (because opponent skips the turn) and initiative (because you get to play your minion on the empty board). This doesn’t. Your opponent can reload immediately.

Card rating: 2/5

Lost in the Jungle

At this point I’m pretty sure that Paladin’s quest will have something to do with Silver Hand Recruits. Maybe summon 10 of them, similar to the Murloc Quest for Shaman? And all depends on the context.

If a) Quest won’t require you to summon Recruits and b) we won’t have any Recruits synergies, this card is meh. 2x 1/1 for 1 is just okay, but it’s simply worse than cards like Living Root (no option to damage) or Alleycat (Beast tag makes it much better in Hunter). It also doesn’t synergize with hand buffs, because it’s a spell. So yeah, at this point it’s impossible to rate the card without knowing other Paladin cards. With no synergies, it will be like 2/5, but it can be 4/5 or even 5/5 with them.

Card rating: ?/5

Molten Blade

I know that it’s a bit hard to tell by the border (weapons should get redesigned in that way) but it’s a Warrior’s weapon. First thing that comes to mind is Shifter Zerus and while similar, they’re also very different. Zerus has never seen a serious competitive play, because of the variance. It could transform into any minion in the game – HUNDREDS of them. However, the weapon’s pool is much lower and the power of average weapon is higher than power of average minion.

Weapons also get another advantage over minions – you can pre-equip them. Let’s say that you got Reno Jackson with Zerus, but you didn’t need it. Well, you couldn’t “save him for later”. In case of weapons, let’s say you get Doomhammer but you don’t need it immediately. You can always equip it and save it for later. Sure, it plays into weapon destruction a bit, but not more than pre-equipping any weapon which happens consistently in Control Warrior.

One thing that’s really weak about this card is that it transforms at the start of your turn, BEFORE you draw a card. So when you draw it, it’s a dead card – 1/1 weapon. You need to wait at least one turn to really use it and honestly, most likely you’ll have to wait at least 3-4 turns.

It seems like more of a fun card, to be honest. Since Warrior has a nice variety of weapons already, wouldn’t you prefer to just run the ones that you’re sure of? The weapons that are ALWAYS good and you don’t have to potentially wait 5 turns until they transform into something you want to play? The only situation where you’d want to put this over an already powerful weapon is if you didn’t have access to enough weapons. But it’s Warrior we’re talking about. Fiery War Axe and Gorehowl are still in Standard. Even Fool’s Bane is still in Standard and it’s probably better than random weapons. Would you want to put more than those in your deck? Well, that’s the point – you probably wouldn’t.

Still a fun card and will probably get into some highlights. I’m still waiting for a good Warrior card this expansion 🙁

Card rating: 2/5

Closing

That’s all folks. Thanks for reading and thank you for so many comments on the last review! The new cards are popping out very fast, so I’ll try my best to keep up with the releases and give you reviews that are as fresh as possible 🙂

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comment section below. And if you want to be up to date with my articles, you can follow me on Twitter.

Good luck on the ladder and until next time!

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