League of Explorers Weekly Review: Uldaman

Introduction

The League of Explorers HYPE!!!!

Hi guys, anothersy here. I am Hearthstone Player who has been playing Hearthstone even since Beta. After a few months of grinding the arena, I started to play ranked and playing competitively.

At Blizzcon2015 Blizzard officially announced a new adventure expansion named as ‘The League of Explorers’ and this week’s wing is Uldaman.

So I would to guide you through each week’s released wing to give you some of my opinions about the cards as a notice of what you should be expecting on each week/adventure wing

This week’s wing features Uldaman and will have 3 Bosses according to the following:

First Boss: Chieftain Scarvash

Defeating Chieftain Scarvash will award you with tunnel-trogg , ethereal-conjurer and allows you battle with Druid’s class challenge to earn mounted-raptor.

Tunnel Trogg

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Constructed Opinion: 

• mana-wyrm for Shaman that gains +1 attack per overload. This card may possibly spawn a new breed of shaman that will play more Overload cards

Maybe viable in: Overload Aggro Shaman

Arena Opinion:

• Not that strong, he might be a decent 1-drop but his role on encouraging overload plays may make you lose a lot of tempo. I’ve played a few shaman arena runs lately, and I think the strongest overload minion is fireguard-destroyer. Other Overload minions and spells are like high risk-high return cards.

Ethereal Conjurer

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Constructed Opinion 

• Very aggressive stats. Possibly will see play in Tempo Mage as he is very versatile on his Discover ability and will give 1 draw similar to azure-drake. Downside might be Mage has several spells to Discover, and if you hit a few secrets in your choices you might feel that is card is so RNG based. But hey, the whole Tempo Mage deck is so RNG based, counting from unstable-portals to flamewaker RNG hits adding another RNG card to the pool fits the theme.

Maybe viable in: Tempo Mage

Arena Opinion:

• Somewhat ‘Meh’ stats but is pretty good considering he is a Discover card (Most Discover cards have below average stats), but is not that horrible depending on the spell that you will get. He’s also a common card so he will be showing up for picking a lot. I would pick him just because he gives another card to play, and card draw mechanics in arena is pretty limited.

Second Boss: Mine Shaft

Defeating Mine Shaft rewards you with tomb-spider and unearthed-raptor.

Tomb Spider

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Constructed Opinion: 

• Beast Discoverer. Encourages Beast Druid and Hunter to play it. However, both decks have a tempo oriented play-style and this card isn’t a good tempo card. But it does competes against piloted-shredder.

Maybe viable in: Beast Druid , Midrange Hunter/ Beast Hunter

Arena Opinion:

• Similar opinions to constructed, this card has a below average stats for being a 4-drop minion and that can hurt a lot in arena. I wouldn’t favor this card much in arena and would consider other 4-drops or other choices during the pick. Moreover, Hunter would have the most temptation to pick this card as Hunter class has several strong beast cards, similar to Druid that has several nice beasts too. Other classes this card is not a strong choice as you do not possess the beast synergy in the class.

Unearthed Raptor

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Constructed Opinion:  

• A very strong Battlecry ability. Might encourage a Deathrattle theme deck for Rogue with anubarak as the leader of the deck. In current decks such as Oil Rogue or Mill Rogue might not find this guy suitable as they do not possess strong Deathrattle cards.

Maybe viable in: Control Rogue or Anub’arak Rogue

Arena Opinion:

• Strong card and the 3/4 stats for 3 mana policy now applies to Rogue. 3/4 is always a strong card, if you can land its Battlecry it would be a bonus.

Final Boss: Archaedas

Final boss of this week’s wing is Archaedas, defeating him will reward you with fierce-monkey , reliquary-seeker , excavated-evil, this week’s legendary brann-bronzebeard and finally the Paladin class challenge that will grant Keeper-of-uldaman after completion.

Fierce Monkey

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Constructed Opinion:  

• Power minion, a 3/4 stats for 3 has become a standard minion for every class to have. However, in constructed this card might not see much play. Due to the limited archetypes of Warrior decks limited to only Control Warrior and Patron Warrior (the current strongest archetypes) I find this card not able to fit in to those decks. However, this card might be a strong substitute for some cards in Patron Warrior.

Maybe viable in: Patron Warrior

Arena Opinion:

• Man! I’m so pumped up for Warrior in arena. This is another strong card that Blizzard has given Warrior in arena, keep ’em coming Blizzard, maybe one day Warrior will be able to be Tier 1 in arena.

Reliquary Seeker

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Constructed Opinion:

• A win more card, because the moment you have 6 minions on board you’re in a solid position to win and this card just solidifies that. Most of the time it’ll be played as a 1/1 so it’s not that good.

Maybe viable in: Zoo Warlock

Arena Opinion:

• Her Battlecry is very unplayable, as most time you play it it will be just a normal 1/1, the moment you play her to get the +4/+4 buff you probably already have won from the state of the board.

Brann Bronzebeard

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Constructed Opinion 

• Holy Cow! Double Battlecries? This card is insane. We’ll have to lot of fun testing this guy’s capability in ladder.

Maybe viable in: Unable to evaluate, maybe Handlock? or Battlecry Shaman with rumbling-elemental

Arena?

• Very draft dependent therefore difficult to gain value. Not very strong, as he will hardly do anything. Consider you other legendary choices before picking him.

Excavated Evil

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Constructed Opinion 

• A non-stop area-of-effect board clear if both sides do not decide to stop using it. Basically, a hellfire that puts itself in your opponent’s deck to use. A new area-of-effect for priest but with an interesting backfire. Versus Aggro this card might be a winner, as it creates blank draws for you opponent and they wouldn’t like to devastate their own board. Versus Control or Midrange decks this card is difficult to evaluate as it maybe sometimes good or sometimes bad, as you wouldn’t want to play around another area-of-effect other than your opponent’s main area-of-effect card, For example against Warrior, area-of-effect is the only thing that Warrior lacks, and giving them area-of-effect is bad.

Maybe viable in: Control Priest, Dragon Priest

Arena Opinion:

• I find it difficult to evaluate this card. But as area-of-effect cards are very valuable and this card could backfire you very badly, I don’t think this card is a good pick.

Class Challenge Cards

Druid: Mounted Raptor

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Constructed Opinion:

• piloted-shredder‘s younger brother, a really interesting minion that has potential to compete with shade-of-naaxramas of both midrange and aggro Druid decks.

Maybe viable in: Midrange Druid and Aggro Druid

Arena Opinion:

• Very strong minion, could be considered similar with harvest-golem with a chance to get something better than a 2/1 from its Deathrattle.

Paladin: Keeper of Uldaman

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Constructed Opinion:

• aldor-peacekeeper‘s alternative self.  (But this card is not as crazy as Mysterious Challenger though) I’m kinda sad this guy isn’t a 3-cost minion to make it with the 3/4 stats for 3 in every class policy but that’ll make this card too good. This guy makes paladin remove big stuffs much easier but might be a downside as it also requires you too have a weapon or some minions to deal with the minimized threat.
• One thing I missed about this guy is he can also target your own minions, either buffing up one of your small guys or minimizing your opponent threats so this card is a bit flexible.

Maybe viable in: Secret Paladin, Midrange Paladin, Control Paladin

Arena Opinion:

• Not as good as it is in constructed but still very strong, but is not that good if played naked (played with no Battlecry benefits) but completely negates bigger threats as he makes them small enough for him or your other minions to deal with it. Could be considered as an aldor-peacekeeper in common rarity.

Winner of the week

This week’s competitors are very fierce, but we’ll stick to the most interesting card…

[spoiler]

Honorable Mentions: ethereal-conjurer , keeper-of-uldaman , mounted-raptor , unearthed-raptor

[/spoiler]

Why?

[spoiler]

• brann-bronzebeard has a crazy ability and everybody will have a lot of fun trying to add him in existing decks. So I would like to recommend you to do that too!! 😀
• Honorable Mentions: Cards interesting that will see some play to evaluate their powers.

[/spoiler]

Deck Synopsis

I had a very difficult time to find a deck that benefits most of brann-bronzebeard but does not depend on him. Ended up with Mill Rogue. Mill Rogue is a very difficult deck to pilot, however, really fun to play and really satisfying when you win with it too lol. Our dream combo with this deck would be Brann into coldlight-oracle into shadowstep drawing 8 cards. LOL

Final Thoughts

Hope you all like my evaluation and insights for this week’s wing. Feel free to suggest your decks involving around brann-bronzebeard as I would love to see how this dwarf goes crazy. See you guys on next week’s wing and may all the RNGJesus be with you.

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