Karazhan Card Analysis- The Best Cards

Introduction

Hello everyone! In this article I will write about the most interesting cards, especially cards people sleep on. At the end, as a bonus, I will give you a short primer about the deck I used to finish at Legend Rank 28 last season. In case you are looking for a deck to climb quickly to Legend I can only heavily recommend trying this deck out. It is excellent in the current aggressive metagame.

So far as it looks like the new adventure will probably spawn a couple of new decks, but also will boost existing decks.

The best new cards

Out of all the new cards I think this is the strongest one. You guys are probably all aware of the dream scenarios, like copying a Sylvanas Windrunner or Savannah Highmane. Pulling out such a minion is very powerful and especially if you play Barnes on Turn 4. But card games are all about consistency and chance. So when evaluate the card, you should take a look at things that happen on a consistent basis.

And when it comes to Barnes, even getting  a 1/1 copy of a cycle card like Acolyte of Pain, Loot Hoarder, Bloodmage Thalnos is far above the curve and very powerful. There is not a single card in Hearthstone that has the combined stats of a Chillwind Yeti, and draws you a card. And even if you fail and get a 1/1 without an effect, the card is still decent.

Not only Deathrattle minions are powerful when you copy them, also cards like Gadgetzan Auctioneer, Emperor Thaurissan Questing Adventurerand Violet Teacher are arguably even more powerful than their death rattle counterparts.

Out of all the possible shells for this card, I think the decks that will make the most out of Barnes are going to be Freeze Mage and Miracle Rogue. The existing decklists of both these archetypes already have naturally a lot of good targets for Barne and very few failure minions like Alexstrasza and Azure Drake. In addition to that he will also see a lot of play in Deathrattle decks like Midrange Hunter, N’zoth Paladin and N’zoth Warrior.

So overall the consistent outcomes (mere 1/1 and 1/1 that draws you a card) coupled with the ridiculous outcomes like getting Archmage Antonidas, Gadgetzan Auctioneer or Emperor Thaurissan and probably winning the game on the spot, makes this card the most powerful in the new expansion.

People will try out all waky Control and Midrange decks with The Curator. You will see Control/ Midrange- Paladin with Stampeding Kodo, Azure Drake and some random Murlocs. Maybe even you will see a Reno Jackson– Paladin, the ultimate shitty deck, but at least fun deck. And after several weeks, you will mainly see The Curator in Dragon Warrior, where he is the absolute nuts. Dragon Warrior naturally has already three targets (Dragons obviously, two copies of Fierce Monkey and sir finley mrrgglton). Even if you already drew Sir Finley, and only draw two cards, it is still very good. From a mathematical point of view, it is extremely unlikely to only draw a dragon with the Curator. So overall this card is amazing in Dragon Warrior and will see a ton of play, especially because you now have a more consistent way to replace your Hero Power with Sir Finley.

After Barnes, I think this is the second strongest new card, a lot of people don’t evaluate correctly. When it comes to Control decks, especially spell heavy Control decks like Control Priest or some Reno Jackson- Control Mage, you currently have a very hard time closing out a game and seizing board control. You have a ton of reactive cards that kill minions and very few cards that actually close out the game against decks like Dragon Warrior. Which results in the fact you give them all the time to draw into their big bombs like Grommash Hellscream and put pressure on you, even very late in the game. After you played Medivh all your reactive cards like Blizzard, Flamestrike, Fireball, Entomb and Holy Nova can create huge tempo swings and turn the game around, because you not only remove a minion, but you also get a decent sized minion. I even think this card will see play in Reno Jackson Warlock, especially because of Twisting Nether. Nether resolves before you get a minion, so when you play it, while you have the weapon active, you not only clear the board, you also get a 8 mana minion.

The only downside of Medivh is that non- weapon classes become vulnerable to weapon destruction, like Harrison Jones. But whenever a new expansion comes out, people usually have very few open slots and therefore not so much room for tech cards, so I don’t see weapon destruction being very popular.

This card was made to push slower Dragon decks. Drakonid Crusher is superior in a faster Dragon deck, like Dragon Warrior, so you don’t really have slots for Book Wyrm in faster Dragon decks.  A body attached to a removal effect has always been very powerful in Hearthstone (Fire Elemental, Blackwing Corruptor). I don’t think this card will be any different. Even at Turn 6 you will usually have a lot of good targets for Book Wyrm, which especially in a slower Dragon deck will help you seize board control. I think this will see a lot of play in Dragon Priest, Dragon Paladin and Dragon Control Warrior.

Another card that is very good in slower Dragon decks. Museum Curator already saw play in Dragon Priest. Discover is a very strong mechanic, because of the flexibility you get from it. Obviously a 2 mana 1/3 is not that great, but playing a 1/3 on Turn 2  is still better than doing almost nothing and using your Hero Power on Turn 2.  Especially Dragon Priest has very few Turn 2 plays. The flexibility of this card makes it in my eyes very strong. Against faster decks you will look for a medium-sized dragon, whereas against slower decks you will look for the very expensive dragons like Alexstrasza, Ysera and Deathwing.

This is the card I’m most excited about, because I think it has a high chance of bringing back the old Vanilla Secret Hunter (lots of Secrets together with Eaglehorn Bow = high amount of damage). It was one of my most favorite decks, because it was fun, good and did not have overpowered cards like Mad Scientist.

Lock and Load was among the first decks I played when the Grand Tournament was released. The archetype was always decent, especially with Antique Healbot. With the introduction of the Standard format Lock and Load- Hunter remained viable. Cloacked Huntress will push this archetype to the next level. Being able to play a bunch of Secrets for free is very good and can make for some nice tempo swing turns. Playing Cloacked Huntress together with Lock and Load on Turn 5 and replace all your Secrets for free with random Hunter cards will be definetely very powerful. I think the new Lock and Load Hunter will be very direct damage heavy and Eaglehorn Bow will be the deck’s main win condition.

This is the only Priest Class card that is actually good. Priest got some good neutral cards, but the other two Class cards are bad and let us just skip them and not talk about them. Currently Control Priest is lacking not only early game (which the new Expansion did not fix), it also lacks good 5 drops. This is a Resurrect attached to a three mana body. Having more cards to bring back minions like Injured Blademaster and Auchenai Soulpriest will help Priest and I think will make it a viable class. It is also possible that Injured Kvaldir will now start seeing play.

Sadly I only see Priest being viable and not actually being a Top Tier Class.

This is a slighlty worse Shieldmaiden. On average you will get a 4/4 minion and also gain four armor. Sadly it has random bullshit attached to it so, sometimes you get something very bad like Evolved Kobold and sometimes you get very lucky and get Flamewreathed Faceless. I don’t think it will see play in C’thun Warrior, the slots for the Cultists make the list way too tight. Standard Control Warrior/ N’zoth Control Warrior on the other hand has enough flexible slots for this card. I think after the metagame has settled, and people know what tech cards are not needed anymore, it will start being a 2-of staple in every Control Warrior deck.

Bonus: N’zoth Warrior

In case you are looking for a good and fun deck to climb the ladder with, I heavily recommend playing N’zoth Warrior. This is the deck I used last season to finish at Legend Rank 28 last season. I think it is the strongest Control deck in  the current metagame and probably will still be after the new expansion hits. You consistently farm Dragon Warrior, Midrange & Aggro Shaman, Token Druid and Zoo Warlock. Against all these decks I had over the last two season a 70 %+ winrate. So in case you want to make it to Legend quickly, I’d really suggest trying this deck out and it will do very well for you.

The strong and consistent early game of Fiery War Axe, Loot Hoarder coupled with the heavy removal suite will make sure that aggressive decks have a very tough time against you.

The Midrange Hunter matchup is also not that bad, I had a 40 % winrate against them (out of almost 100 games). Obviously the Control matchups are bad, but they were so uncommon at high Ranks. Literally everyone and their grandmother was playing aggressive decks at high Legend last season. In case Control decks become a more common sight, you could swap Baron Geddon for Elise Starseeker.

When the new expansion hits, the only change I will make to this deck is cutting Harrison Jones for Barnes, the legendary Piloted Shredder and also cut 1 Ravaging Ghoul for 1 Twilight Summoner.

Quick Mulligan:

I. Keep Fiery War Axe and Loot Hoarder against every deck.

II.Keep Slam against decks that have a lot of two health minions (f.ex. Tempo Mage, Zoo Warlock). Otherwise you only keep Slam when you already have a Fiery War Axe and face a matchup where you need to take out 4+ health minions (f.ex. Totem Golem).

III. Keep Brawl against decks that flood the board (Shaman, Zoo) and against every non- Warrior Control deck.

IV. Keep Bash against decks that have many good targets (Dragon Warrior).

Conclusion

I hope you like my article and if you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments.The new expansion looks very exciting and I can’t wait to start building sweet new decks.

In my next article, I will cover deckbuilding possibilities with the new adventure, especially with Priest, which should now be in a much better spot than previously.