Mean Streets of Gadgetzan Card Review – Arena Edition, Part 2

hightdetal

Published: Nov 18, 2016 12:26 pm

Introduction

Class cards

shaky-zipgunner is really good. The stats are what you expect and the ability is very good if it lands on the correct minions. +2/+2 buff is a lot stronger than a +1/+1 which most Grimestreet cards give. With the +2/+2 buff you can turn bad cards into good ones just by having their stats pumped. have a crappy 2/2? now it’s a 4/4 for 2 mana. Shaky Zipgunner has crazy potential for a curve if you get lucky. In a dream scenario you can play Zipgunner on turn 3 then on the following turn trade it in and play a buffed 4 drop like a 6/7 chillwind-yeti. Overall amazing card will definitely be a great pick.

Rating: Amazing

shaku-the-collector isn’t great. First of all it’s important to understand that Shaku will only be able to attack once as noone is going to let you keep it on the board and 2/3 is easy to kill. gilblin-stalker costs 2 mana, has 2/3 stats and stealth. Is the card gained from Shaku worth 1 mana? The answer is no. It’s not worth spending 1 mana to get a random card from enemy as we have swashburglar who does that and on top of that gives 1/1 body. Lastly you have to consider that Shaku will be offered besides 2 other legendaries which even decreases it’s value further. Overall Shaku isn’t great and better legendaries are out there.

Rating: Bad

grimestreet-outfitter is very tough to evaluate. How good it is will depend on how many minions in hand you will have when it’s played. Which means you shouldn’t pick Grimestreet Outfitter if you drafted a spell heavy deck. To be at least worth the mana Outfitter should buff at least 2-3 minions which is achievable. The biggest problem with this card is you want to play it as soon as possible so the minions you play are buffed. Yet Grimestreet Outfitter is a bad turn 2 play as it is just a 1/1. Then the problem arises of when you want to play it? Certainly not in the turns 1-4 as you need to play strong minions then. From turn 5+ Outfitter won’t have that many minions left to buff most likely and the buffs won’t matter as much for higher stated minions. Will have to wait and see how this card will turn out to be when the expansion hits.

Rating: Average

stolen-goods is complete garbage in Arena and is not meant for it. First of all you can’t guarantee you will have a taunt minion in your deck at all. Then you can’t guarantee that you will have a taunt in hand when you want to play Stolen Goods. It also loses too much tempo if played as it has no immediate effect on the board. And lastly the minion who receives it is random which brings unnecessary randomness.

Rating: Terrible

trogg-beastrager has stats that you should expect from a 2 drop already which makes it at least average. The effect of Beastrager isn’t too great for 2 reasons. First of all it is hard to have a beast in hand for the effect to even trigger. Secondly the +1/+1 buff isn’t anything spectacular. You can compare Trogg Beastrager to shaky-zipgunner. Zipgunner not only doesn’t require a beast in hand but it also gives 2 times as much health and attack to a minion than Beastrager does. Also it is certainly not worth to draft beasts in later picks just so Beastrager has something to buff. Overall not a bad card if the effect doesn’t trigger and not a great one if it does.

Rating: Average

alley-armorsmith has bad stats and the effect doesn’t do much good in Arena. oasis-snapjaw costs 4 mana with the same stats and isn’t considered to be great in Arena. The armor doesn’t matter for Warrior because of the hero power. Overall bad stats bad effect not much to say.

Rating: Terrible

grimestreet-enforcer is yet another Grimestreet themed card which is tough to evaluate as we don’t know how powerful buffing cards in hand is. The stats aren’t great for sure. How good this card is heavily depends on if you are ahead or behind on the board. The good thing about Grimestreet Enforecer is that it’s a Paladin class card. Paladin is known for having a strong early game and being able to get on the board early on. If you manage to get a board early on and drop Grimestreet Enforecer uncontested on it Enforcer will surely win the game on its own. It also depends on what is the spell and minion distribution in your deck. In minion heavy decks Grimestreet Smuggler will shine. Overall Smuggler should be pretty good if you manage to get on the board early on.

Rating: Good

grimestreet-pawnbroker is going to be a good card. The stats are what you want from 3 mana. Giving a weapon +1 durability is crazy if the buff goes on top-tier weapon like fiery-war-axe or arcanite-reaper. The +1 attack to the weapon is quite nice too, however the + 1 durability is really the best thing about this card. Of course Pawnbreaker will be best used in weapon heavy decks so you can be sure the effect goes off. Even if you don’t have many weapons you have nothing to lose by playing Pawnbreaker for the stats. Overall really great addition to Warrior’s early game.

Rating: Good

Neutral commons

kooky-chemist is interesting. It has the same effect as crazed-alchemist, however Kooky Chemist has better stats as 4 mana 4/4 is better on turn 4 than 2/2 is on turn 2. I personally like the effect a lot because it has very high potential if used right and the circumstances are right. The bad thing with the effect of Kooky Chemist is that since it is a battlecry you will be forced to use it even when you don’t want to. The effect may backfire if there is only one other minion on the board. Overall Kooky Chemist is very situational and it’s hard to give an accurate rating so I’d say this card is average just for its stats.

Rating: Average

I think misstress-of-mixtures is a great card if put into the right deck. Of course Misstress of Mixtures isn’t meant to be put in an aggressive Hunter or Warlock deck despite its good stats. In midrange and control decks unlike with zombie-chow the effect of Mistress is actually beneficial. Not only it is great in the early game as 1 mana 2/2 stats are amazing, but also in the mid and late game when the card can be used to restore 4 health to yourself in dire situations. Compared to Zombie Chow the 1 health difference is huge though as Mistress of Mixtures will still die to 1 mana 2/1 minions in the early game. Yet the effect is less punishing and less risky than Chow for the player who played it. Overall Mistress isn’t as good as Chow due to 1 health difference, however it is still a great card.

Rating: Good

friendly-bartender should be looked as straight up 2 mana 2/3 in Arena. 1 health doesn’t make a difference at all and Bartender is not a big threat to your opponent. It’s just average.

Rating: Average

big-time-racketeer is another stat card without interesting effects in Arena. The potential to combo this with something else is nullified since this is Arena. The question is how this compares to boulderfist-ogre and the answer is it is a bit worse than Boulderfist Ogre but not too much. 7 health makes Boulderfist Ogre more resilient to removal like fireball. The 1/1 Racketeer won’t have a big impact by the turn 6 so it is essentially 6/6 vs 6/7.

Rating: Average

grook-fu-master is windfury-harpy 2.0. It is, however better than Windfury Harpy as it costs whole mana crystal less in exchange for only 1 attack. Yet that doesn’t make the card any good and it is still a bad pick due to its stats which are of a 4 mana minion. There is combo potential with minion buffs, however it is rare to pull off combos like that in Arena and the risk of taking this bad card is too high. Overall bit better than Windfury Harpy but still bad.

Rating: Bad

hired-gun is a simple and solid stat card. 4/3 for 3 mana is nice and on top of that you get taunt. Even though taunt is meant to protect other minions and it’s best when a card with taunt has a lot of health, Hired Gun is still very nice. The good thing about Hired Gun is that unlike with many other early game drops, Hired Gun is relevant in the late game too because of the taunt.

Rating: Above average

worgen-greaser is straight up rubbish in Arena. Stat distribution is awful. 6/3 will die to 3/2 minions and small removals. High attack doesn’t matter if a card doesn’t get to attack at least once. 5/4 and even 4/4 minions have a lot better stat distribution than Worgen Greaser.Overall don’t know why this card even got released.

Rating: Terrible

Neutral rares

second-rate-bruiser is too situational to be good. 4/5 taunt is not worth 5 mana as seen by booty-bay-bodyguard which has a slightly different stat distribution. It is unlikely for the effect to trigger unless your opponent plays a token heavy class like Paladin or Shaman. If the effect triggers then the card is very good. 3 mana for 4/5 stats is insane value and on top of that you get taunt. Yet the problem arises that if you are able to play this card for 3 mana you are likely behind on the board and 3 mana 4/5 won’t save you. Overall a high risk high reward card which might be too situational.

Rating: Below average

Neutral epics

fel-orc-soulfiend has a very interesting effect. In all classes except Priest this card will be worse than 3 mana 3/3 unless you manage to somehow heal it or taunt it. By the time you can attack with it Fel Orc will already be 3/5 stats. If it kills a minion (2/3 for example) next turn it will be 3/1 which is the same as if you were to play a 3 mana 3/3 and kill a minion. So in classes besides Priest this card is worse than vanilla 3 mana 3/3. In Priest, however this card really shines. if you heal it once for it to go back to 3/7 it’s essentially 5 mana 3/7 which is very good to have in the early game. It’s often said how Priest’s hero power doesn’t have a use in the early game and Fel Orc Soulfiend gives Priest something to do with his hero power in the early game. Overall solid card for Priests, bad for everyone else.

Rating: Bad(for anything other than Priest), Good (for Priest)

wind-up-burglebot will either give a card or not. There are no scenarios in which Burglebot will draw 2+ cards. If that happens it’s because you were so ahead in the game due to other reasons and that you would have won either way. 5/5 stats are not worth the risk as 6 mana is a big investment. If the effect of Burglebot would be guaranteed to draw a card at least once it may be considered to be somewhat good but the fact that it has to survive opponent’s turn, then attack into something and not die to draw only one card makes the card trash. Even the mech tag won’t save it.

Rating: Terrible

Neutral legendaries

finja-the-flying-star is complete garbage. You won’t have 2 murlocs in your deck. Even if you do Finja won’t kill anything as it has 2 attack. Even if it does magically summon murlocs they won’t be any good as all murlocs have low stats. There is not going to be any murloc synergy from this card as it is rare to draft any murlcos in your deck. Overall trash and there should be better legendaries out there for sure.

Rating: Terrible

patches-the-pirate is a better version of stonetusk-boar. Unless you are playing Rogue or Warrior, pirates will be hard to come by so Patches will rarely get summoned from the deck. If it does the impact isn’t huge or anything it’s just a 1/1 charge minion on the board. Overall it’s basically a Stonetusk Boar which may sometimes be a free 1/1 charge, however since it is a legendary there are going to be better options available.

Rating: Below average

auctionmaster-beardo is a good cards just for its stats. The ability is just icing on the cake. 3 mana 3/4 stats are great and even if you do not trigger the ability at all it is a good deal. If the ability triggers the refreshed hero power could be useful from time to time. The fact that this card is a legendary brings it down a bit since you may get offered stronger cards. Overall a good card just for its stats.

Rating: Above average

Grimmy Goons cards

Grimmy Goons cards can be played by Hunter, Paladin and Warrior.

grimestreet-informant isn’t too good mainly for its stats. You can compare this to jeweled-scarab. Discovering a Hunter Paladin or Warrior card is better than discovering a 3 drop most of the time, however the idea is similar. The classes from whom you can discover the card aren’t too bad. Getting a weapon for Hunter can be vital to push for lethal. Warrior can use some strong control cards that Hunter has. Paladin in general has a lot of great cards and solid early game minions. The biggest problem is that Grimestreet Informant may be too slow. It is also a bad play on turn 2 which makes it even worse.

Rating: Below average

grimestreet-smuggler has below average stats for sure. Sure it buffs a minion in your hand which would mean the card’s worth 3/5 stats, however the thing is that Grimestreet Smuggler isn’t a good turn 3 play and it is a very slow card. On top of that it brings unnecessary randomness into your deck. In Arena if your goal is to average 7 wins you want to be as consistent as possible and Grimestreet Smuggler is the opposite. Sometimes it will buff the card you need or it may buff a late game card like north-sea-kraken for which it doesn’t matter if it is 9/7 or 10/8. The best buff you could get would be for a 4 drop if going first or another 3 drop if Smuggler was coined out. Even then +1/+1 doesn’t impact the game too much Overall base stats aren’t great, effect is random and not too impactful.

Rating: Below average

Jade Lotus cards

Jade Lotus cards can be played by Druid, Rogue and Shaman.

lotus-agents has awful stat distribution. When you consider that Lotus Agents only has 1 health more than ice-rager it is easy to see how bad the stats are. Discover a card is good, however you may discover things like weapon buffs from Rogue or ramp cards like wild-growth which are bad in mid game. Due to its stat distribution Lotus Agents is a lot worse than both kabal-courier and grimestreet-informant. Overall bad stats is what brings this card down.

Rating: Bad

Kabal cards

Kabal cards can be played by Mage, Priest and Warlock

kabal-courier is better than lotus-agents and grimestreet-informant. Of course it is not a good turn 3 play by all means, however it isn’t as bad as playing 1/1 Grimestreet Informant on turn 2. On turn 3 2/2 Courrier may be able to kill opposing 3/2 minions form the turn before. The classes from whom card is discovered are quite good and fill the gaps of each other. Getting a heal as a Warlock is great. Same goes for getting cards that exchange health for card advantage to Priest. And Mage in general has best spells to discover from.

Rating: Average

kazakus is crazy good value and a huge potential. If you pick Kazakus early on it is worth to pick it and avoid duplicates along the way. If Kazakus shows up during mid draft, count the amount of duplicates in your deck. If the amount of duplicates is below 3-5 then sure go for Kazakus. If it is more than 5 duplicates in the deck Kazakus becomes a very risky pick as the stats of it are very bad. 3/3 stats are quite bad for 4 drop, however the ability of Kazakus compensates it for sure. The custom spell can be very powerful and swing the board making comebacks possible form dire situations, however it is all about balancing the amount of duplicates in the deck. Overall hard to evaluate and everything depends on the deck Kazakus is in

Rating: Good

Closing

That is all for today. As always thanks for reading. If you have any questions, concerns or would like to discuss some of the new cards feel free to leave a comment down below. Stay tuned for the next part and until next time. Bye.

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