Introduction
I just copy-paste this introduction into every part of the review, so it might be slightly off sometimes. But I’ve figured that introduction is not the important part, so I want to focus on the reviews themselves 🙂
Yeah, it’s this time of the year again. Blizzard is torturing us by slowly announcing new cards for the expansion that is supposed to come out in ~a month from now. But hey, at least we’re getting some info.
First thing I want to say is that I really love the cards. Not talking about the stats, the effects, but the whole theme. Old Gods is one of my favorite lore parts in Warcraft. Although I wasn’t there to raid C’thun yet (I’ve started playing in The Burning Crusade, which was the first expansion – C’thun was the raid boss in vanilla game). Yogg-Saron, on the other hand, I’ve raided a lot. It was one of the coolest fights in WoW. Even though it had some really annoying mechanics that made us question our life choices of wiping the raid 10 times on the Friday afternoon when we could do something else, boss was INSANE. The visions, the whispers, player needing to refresh their “sanity” meter and stuff like created an incredible mood surrounding the fight.
But, back to Hearthstone. Card reviews. One thing I want to say before I start. It’s very likely that over half of my predictions will turn out to be completely untrue after the expansion. This one is especially hard to gauge, because besides the expansion itself, we’re getting new formats AND nerfs to Classic cards. We have really no idea which Classic cards will be nerfed or how Standard will really impact the meta. Then, the expansion is supposed to have 134 playable cards and we know, what, 40 so far? It makes judging the card’s strength even harder. Let’s give you a quick example – Eater of Secrets. This card would be insane in meta dominated by Secret Paladin. But with Standard coming, like half of the cards used in the deck are rotating out. Right now the Secret Paladin is dead. But! What if they release a new, strong Secret and other early game minions to compensate? Well, then it can come back even stronger. So it’s impossible to say whether the card will be strong or not. Keep that in mind when reading my thoughts, because that’s only what they are – thoughts.
My reviews will be mostly about the Standard format & Arena. It’s very clear that the Standard format will be a more competitive (Blizzcon points, official tournaments will be hosted in Standard etc.) one and writing two separate reviews for Standard/Wild seems excessive.
I’ll review only a few cards in each article. I try to go pretty in-depth on each one and I don’t want these to be too long.
Shadow Word: Horror
First of all, why does this card NOT work like Shadow Word: Pain? At first I’ve assumed that the effect says “3 attack or less” and I already wasn’t impressed, but I thought that it would make a good tech card. And it turns out it’s only 2 or less and I have almost given up on this card.
It’s an incredibly situational removal that removes… well, not a lot. 1-drops. And like half of the 2-drops. This card can definitely have it’s moments – but let’s be real, it’s going to sit in the hand for most of the games, being useless. It’s great when played on turn 4 against Aggro or Zoo decks… and it’s useless later. Okay, not useless, but it will definitely be harder to find uses. It’s pretty much dead card against a lot of Midrange and Control decks. Not to mention that Priest might run some 2 or less attack minions himself, so when he has the board, it can also be deadly for his own minions.
I mean, it’s not terrible card. 4 mana to clear all the puny guys is okay. But, Priest class has tons of situational removals, and the thing is – only the least situational usually make it into the decks. The problem with this is that it might suck even against fast decks. Let’s say you play against Zoo. Enemy plays Flame Imp, Knife Juggler and then Nerubian Egg. Yeeeaaah. A dead card. It’s just an example, but I wanted to illustrate that even fast decks don’t necessarily open with a lot of 1-2 attack minions.
So, for just one more mana you get Excavated Evil. It damages everything, no matter how much attack it has. So if enemy has some damaged big drops, or I don’t know, even a 3/2 minion, it kills it. Pretty much every minion that dies to SW:H will also die to Excavated Evil. And much more. Yes, damaging your own board if you have bigger minions is a problem. But it’s still far less situational than Shadow Word: Horror.
Another thing is that Priest just doesn’t need it. With Lightbomb going away, Priest needs a big AoE, not ANOTHER way to kill small stuff. Priest never had problems with swarms of small minions. Wild Pyromancer, Auchenai Soulpriest + Circle of Healing, Holy Nova, possibly Excavated Evil. That’s tons of small AoE. Priest needs a big board clear good in slower matchups, not something against, I don’t know, Aggro Paladin’s early minion spam.
I don’t like it in Arena too. I mean, I have played a lot of games where enemy dropped like 2 or 3 “2 or less attack minions” throughout the whole game. Shadow Word: Pain is great, because there is a big difference between 2 and 3 attack + it’s only 2 mana / single target. It means that it’s very easy to find a target. For this – yes, it’s easy to find a single target. Maybe 2 minions sometimes. But enemy rarely floods the whole board with 2 or less attack minions. It happens, but doesn’t happen often enough. If it doesn’t happen – it’s a dead card. Dead cards in Arena really suck, especially in the class that NEEDS a strong early game curve to beat the enemy, because their Hero Power is completely useless without board presence. I guess it won’t be the worst Rare pick ever, just because cards like Gurubashi Berserker or Wobbling Runts are pretty common in Arena, but be prepared to use it on a single enemy minion a lot of times.
Mark of Y’Shaarj
I dig this one. Actually, it’s AMAZING. Okay, the truth is – for it to be a thing, Beast Druid prooobably needs to be played. Or at least a Midrange Druid with a lot of Beasts. I mean, it’s possible – Mounted Raptor is already playable and it will probably be a 3-drop of choice with Shade of Naxxramas gone, Savage Combatant has made as an one-of into some Druid decks and with Shredder gone, I believe it has a chance to be played as 2-of. And then, the classic Druid of the Claw. That’s already 6. Throw in 4 more, even without the Beast synergies, and this card can definitely see play.
But, why is this card amazing. You have noticed how Power Word: Shield is played in nearly every Priest deck? Because there is just NO REASON to not play it. For just 1 mana, and you often have 1 spare mana, you buff a minion with +2 health and then you cycle a card. It didn’t cost you card advantage, it didn’t cost you almost any tempo and it has given you value (more health = better trades).
Then, we have this card. For just 1 more mana we have a PW:S that buffs not only Health, but also Attack. But, there is a catch. The card you use it on must be a Beast. It is however a pretty small price for the insane effect. For 2 mana you get a +2/+2 buff AND a card cycle. It should make your trades so much better. I think we might have one of the best cards of the expansion. Yes, it doesn’t seem overpowered at a first glance, but if Druid won’t get hit too hard besides the combo, this card might be a Druid’s ticket back to the meta.
In Arena, like every effect that has a synergy with certain tribal, it really depends on your deck. But I guess it’s a safe early pick. It can be directly compared to the Mark of the Wild. Obviously weaker if you don’t have a Beast, because it lacks the Taunt, but it’s similar to the power level. I mean, Mark of the Wild is mainly played for the buff, Taunt is only a nice addition (which is yes, crucial in some cases). So without any Beasts in your deck, I’d say this is below average. Then again, the more Beasts you have – the better it becomes. And as we all know, Beasts are pretty common in Arena. After all, the neutral Beasts like Bloodfen Raptor/Huge Toad, Lost Tallstrider, Jungle Panther, Stranglethorn Tiger etc… are pretty common in Arena. Even if you don’t pick any Beast synergies, you often have a few of those in your deck. Then, if you pick this early and you look at the synergy a bit… the effect should trigger often enough. You probably will never have as much Beasts for it to be insane, but with even ~5 of them in your deck, I’d say that the rating goes to “above average”.
Scaled Nightmare
Aaalright. First of all, I love this card. I don’t think it’s going to be too strong, but I really like it. For example, I like it MUCH MORE then Validated Doomsayer, even though concept of the cards is slightly similar. This is one of those cards with “kill me” written all over it. And that’s what will probably be done – this card will be killed before it will be able to grow. But, if it won’t or there will be some crazy shenanigans… hell will rain upon the enemy.
In no buff scenario, this card is too slow. 2/8 into 4/8 into 8/8. So only two turns after you play it, the statline becomes “worth playing” for the mana cost (in terms of constructed). While 8 health is really cool, 2 or 4 attack is not enough in the late game. Enemy will have plenty of time to deal with it. And if you play against a deck that can’t deal with big minions (Aggro), it could as well be Boulderfist Ogre and it probably wouldn’t make a difference, right? Ogre would actually do more total damage a turn after and the same amount of damage after 2 turns. Only 3 turns on the board makes Scaled Nightmare deal more damage than Ogre. And I’m comparing this one to a card that’s unplayable in Constructed, mind that. So let’s be honest – if you don’t intend to build a deck around it, don’t play it. It’s just way too slow.
Not to mention that it’s a dead card against Priest if you don’t intend to instantly do something. I mean, 2/8? 3 words: Cabal Shadow Priest. Also, if this card would be commonly played, I’d assume that Stampeding Kodo COULD make a comeback. After all the card is pretty solid.
But then again, this card has insane synergy with attack buffs. Let’s take a very simple scenario. You play this one on turn 8 and buff it with 2x Blessing of Might. Now it has 8 attack. Next turn (when you can attack with it), it has 16 attack. And next turn you just kill the enemy. It basically doubles every attack buff placed on it every turn. So it’s a must-remove-it minion. The problem in this scenario is that you need to apply buffs beforehand. The buffs get doubled on the start of your turn, which means that you give enemy a turn to react. While it’s fair, it’s not so good. Enemy just, I don’t know, Shield Slams it or plays any other removal. Well, now he gets 3 for 1 value. And that’s really bad. So buff shenanigans are deadly, but risky.
So, what’s the deal with this card? STEALTH is the deal. I can see this card being played in a slow Rogue deck. Not Aggro one. All he needs to do is survive and keep this in stealth and then he just wins. And when I’ve seen this card, I’ve remember one thing they’ve said – they don’t like the Master of Disguise, because they need to take it into the account when designing ANY of the cards. I think the upcoming Classic changes might include changing Master of Disguise. Because THAT’S one of those cards that could be really, really problematic.
So, what’s the deal here? You play a Control Rogue list. Reactive, with a lot of removals, Taunts, life gain and stuff. Then you play those Dragons and Master of Disguise. Then, what’s the deal? Ideally, you play Scaled Nightmare + Conceal on turn 7. Then you play Master of Disguise on turn 8. And the attack grows like that. T8 it’s 4. T9 it’s 8. T10 it’s 16. T11 it’s 32 = OTk. So after playing that, all the Rogue needs to do is survive. And we already know that if you build a deck around surviving (let’s say Anyfin Paladin), you should be able to survive.
I actually think the deck might be broken. Play it like any other combo deck, draw into the Scaled Nightmare and Master of Disguise, combo those (even on turn 10 if you don’t draw Conceal) and win the game a few turns later. It’s really, really hard to kill minions in stealth. And it’s much harder to kill minions with 8 health that are in Stealth. Right now the only common means to do so is Brawl (which still has a chance to not kill it) and Equality + Consecration. So yeah, that’s not a lot.
This combo is not hard countered by Taunts, because you’d play cards like Silence and Sap (and you have all the mana you want to play those after the Scaled Nightmare is already on the board – you aren’t restricted like with a lot of other combos). Then, it won’t get countered by heals – enemy can’t heal over 30 anyway and it’s 32 after 4 turns. Even Warrior’s 30 points of Armor wouldn’t stop it – Rogue would just have to wait one more turn for it to grow to 64.
IF and I say IF Master of Disguise won’t get nerfed and IF there will be no easy means to clear minions with Stealth, or those won’t be played in the meta, this might be broken as hell. But I suppose they either change the Master of Disguise OR give players an easy way to deal with stealthed minions.
In Arena… It’s okay. It’s GREAT if you’re winning the game – if you have the board or drop it on the empty board and enemy doesn’t have a chance to kill it while it’s still 2 Attack, you’re looking at 4/8 for 6 mana. That’s a solid statline. And it gets better each turn. 8 Health is pretty hard to kill in Arena without hard removal. If you control the game and use other minions / spells for trading, you put enemy on 3-4 turns clock with this guy, even if he’s at full health. I think it might actually be a nice finisher in high tempo decks. You start losing the steam around turn 6, but you should still have the board tempo required to make this card work.
P.S. I’ve just realized! Shadow Word: Horror made to counter Scaled Drake + Master of Disguise combo. MIND BLOWN!
Steward of Darkshire
Is it just me or there is something wrong with her face? Rest of the card’s art looks alright, but her face is strangely disturbing… Nevermind. The card. Hmm, I’d say that it’s still very hard to judge its potential without knowing what Paladin decks will look like in the meta. If Aggro Paladins will still be viable – this might be pretty awesome. If Paladin becomes a more, hm, Control class – not that much.
It’s confirmed to work with the Twilight Drake. And it will obviously work with the Silver Hand Recruits. But is it good enough? I don’t think so. You’d need to play quite a lot of 1 health minions for it to be good. Imagine Aggro Paladin, though. Play this on turn 3 and follow with I don’t know, Leper Gnome + Abusive Sergeant + something on turn 4. Suddenly your board is mostly 1 health minions, but incredibly hard to remove.
It being a 3/3 for 3 is… okay. It means that it’s possible to just drop it on turn 3 and get away with it. And the good thing is that it also has very nice late game scaling. After all, if you can play it and follow by a bunch of 1 health minions, you can make quite a strong board and get a lot of value. Divine Shield is priced at about 1 mana, so you turn your 1-drops into 2-drops etc.
I think the card would be strong in Midrange Paladin if Muster for Battle and more importantly Quartermaster were still playable in standard. Turn 6 this + Muster into turn 7 Hero Power + Quartermaster would be crazy strong. The biggest problem with Quartermaster was how the 1/1’s were easy to kill with any AoE. With Divine Shields, they would be much more AoE-proof and even harder to trade on the board. It’s like spawning 3 Argent Squires.
Okay, Muster is gone, but we still have Stand Against Darkness. Steward of Darkshire alone doesn’t make it a strong card, oh no. But it’s definitely a good start. Summoning 5x Argent Squire is actually a great value as opposed to summoning 5x 1/1. But I’d say that we still need some other form of the Silver Hand Recruit synergy. Something like a new version of Quartermaster. Something that can make the recruits more valuable AND make the Divine Shields even more useful.
Overall, I see this card working in two cases. First one is Aggro Paladin being viable. Second one is deck based around Silver Hand Recruits being viable. If you don’t run 1 health minions or cards generating more Silver Hand Recruits (and I remind you – Muster is gone), it’s obviously not good. But overall, it’s an okay card.
Oh, and I like it in Arena. 3/3 for 3 means it’s already playable. The effect is pretty strong – even if just you count turning your Hero Power into “Summon an Argent Squire“. 1 health minions aren’t THAT common in Arena, because Mage, Rogue and Paladin are top 3 classess and they all have pretty easy time dealing with 1 health minions. But if you play a high tempo deck, having some 2/1’s isn’t bad. And you know, Muster is still there in Arena. It’s already one of the strongest cards, and with this one it’s even better.
Skeram Cultist
Finally, we get to see one of the new neutral Cultists. And just like before, they continue with the “vanilla bodies + buffing C’Thun (wherever it is)” theme. And you know what, it might work on the smaller minions. I mean, you don’t expect much from your low drops. Played in the early game they usually eat a removal or trade with opponent’s low drops. If they can do that – that’s fine. 2/3 fo 2 and 3/4 for 3 aren’t the best things ever, but okay. This one? I don’t like this one.
First of all – making it 7/6 instead of 6/7 either means that Big Game Hunter gets nerfed or that Blizzard has no clue how to design cards. I’ve heard voices saying that “SO WHAT, HE BGHS YOUR 7/6, HE WON’T HAVE BGH FOR C’THUN!!!” No, that’s not how it works. C’thun decks already have to sacrifice the tempo/value because they play vanilla minions that don’t do anything until they drop C’Thun. Meanwhile, until C’Thun, opponent’s deck will be stronger, because his minions actually do something. This disadvantage AND getting your 6-drop killed while it gained no value means that you will lose before you can ever play the C’Thun.
But hey, in case BGH really gets nerfed it might be played in C’Thun decks. From what I’ve seen, there is no real indication that we’re getting a higher quality Cultists. The only one that’s really playable is the C’Thun’s Chosen. The rest are bad. But that’s the point – you play bad cards to have a big, crazy strong finisher. And if the quality of the Cultists won’t increase, this might actually be played. But the thing is – with 7 Neutral Cultists in total, assuming none will be a Legendary, there will be 14 cards you can put into your deck to buff C’Thun. That’s never going to happen unless you build a really budget deck (they seem to be cheap – Common/Rare quality and C’Thun will be given out for free). I think that every deck will play around 4 kinds of Cultists. That’s enough to easily get C’Thun over 10 Attack and that’s the most important thing. Not only it makes dropping him strong, but it also activates the additional effects on the “Worshippers” (the Class cards that have insane effects when C’Thun is above 10 Attack). And that means that the 3 weakest ones will probably never see play. Is this one of the weakest ones? I’m not sure, right now it seems weaker than the others, but we’ll have to wait and see – especially what happens to BGH.
Also, I dislike the +2/+2. 2-drop gives the same buff to C’thun. Even +3/+3 would be better. There would be actually a point to run it over the small drops if this one gave +3/+3.
Arena: C’Thun and related cards won’t be available in Arena.
Cabalist’s Tome
Eeeeeh… No. The card is high value, you can’t deny that. Getting 3 cards for 1 is great in terms of card advantage. And Mage spells are actually mostly good. But, I don’t like this card for a few reasons.
First one is: it’s TERRIBLY SLOW. It’s pretty much unplayable in any faster matchups. How many times you have you had free 5 mana when playing against Aggro? Not only you probably have a good ping target most of the turn, but you prefer to play, I don’t know, something that has instant impact. This card is pure value – it gives you zero tempo. And playing a 5 mana card that gives you zero tempo is already risky.
Second one: “random” is a big keyword here. Getting 3 cards vs getting 3 RANDOM cards is a difference. Mage has some useless spells and most importantly – it has some situational spells. Getting them might not help you at all. Let’s say more value cards against fast decks. Or 1 mana spells against Control decks.
That’s why Ethereal Conjurer is so much better. It deals with both of those problems. Yes, it’s lower value, but. It gives you a 6/3 body, meaning it’s not a zero tempo card. 6/3 on the board might not be best in Aggro matchups, but it usually baits a trade or burn spell. Then, you get to Discover one of 3 cards – meaning you can pick a card that fits the situation. Yes, I realize that this card would just give you all 3. But how many times at least one of them was useless? Often even 2 of them. You trade a 6/3 body on the board for 2 worst spells from the 3. I don’t think I’d play Ethereal Conjurer if I always just got the 3 spells from the stake without getting a body on the board. And that’s basically it.
Okay, but let’s not be that negative. The card is obviously strong in slow matchups. If meta slows down and Control Mage becomes a thing (stuff like Reno Mage is already playable on the ladder), they might include it. In slow matchups, it usually will gain you value (you will rarely get three 1 mana spells that won’t do much) AND the value gained won’t come from your deck. Meaning you don’t actually draw those 3. Meaning you don’t get closer to fatigue, which is big in super slow matchups. Right now the only matchup where it matters is most likely the Control warrior, but that’s my point – if the meta slows down, it’s going to be good. If you are not concerned about fatigue scenario – Arcane Intellect should be your card draw of choice. Why? Because 2 for 3 is more mana efficient than 3 for 5 AND drawing from your own deck is stronger than getting random cards, because you don’t put bad cards in your deck, that’s simple.
In Arena I can see playing one of that card. Almost every Mage spell is okay/good in Arena. And you don’t mind having one or two high value cards in your deck, especially for those top deck scenarios. When both players are running low on cards, I can see this card being insane. It can give you the burn you need to seal the game, it can give you removals, it can give you more value cards (Duplicate/Arcane Intellect). So it’s actually decent, but pretty much as an one-of only and I mean, if you get this, don’t go too high on other card draw either. Not like you’re going to get second copy of the same Epic, that’s rather unlikely.
P.S. Oh, and it can give you another copy of itself for INFINITE VALUE. I wait for those Trolden videos when someone casts Cabalist’s Tome just to get… three Cabalist’s Tomes!
Y’Shaarj, Rage Unbound
Oh yeah, we’ve finally got the 3rd Old God revealed. And as suspected, it’s another 10 mana minion with game-changing effect. But… is the effect really game changing? I’ve read some people really hyped with this card. But I honestly think it’s weak. And it’s DEFINITELY the weakest out of 3 Old Gods revealed so far.
So, 10/10 stats are good. But you expect that from a 10-drop. And honestly, when it comes to big stats like that – 8/8 or 10/10 or something like that doesn’t really matter. Few stats difference with such a big number isn’t a big deal, because it either gets removed or pushes for a lot of damage. You can’t leave anything so big on the board. So the stats are fine.
Then, the effect. It pulls out a random minion out of your deck, onto the battlefield. Sounds familiar? Varian Wrynn, maybe? I remember the TGT hype. It was ranked the best Legendary in the set pre-release. And it turned out to be almost unplayable. While tinkered with at first, after around a month or so only the most hardcore fans still played it. And I’d actually say that the effect is stronger than the Y’Shaarj’s one. Yes, it might not put ANY cards onto the battlefield, but in that case it draws you 3 cards. And in the best case scenario, it puts up to 3 minions onto the Battlefield.
One of the biggest reasons why it failed is… the fact that pretty much every deck, even the Control Warrior, plays the small or Battlecry minions. In both cases, the card is unimpressive. “Armies of Stormwind” summoning Armorsmith, Acolyte of Pain and drawing one card wasn’t really an effect worth 10 mana. Then, the Battlecries. You play Ironbeak Owl in your deck? Well, you need to hope that it won’t get pulled out. Big Game Hunter? Same. You also can’t play it in any deck that is based on PLAYING a certain minion. Like combo decks based on a minion with Battlecry – C’Thun comes to mind. But that’s least of the problems.
Y’Shaarj is a big RNG roll. You either play it in a wonky deck like Astral Communion Druid that just doesn’t run small minions at all or you hope that you get something meaningful on the board. Obviously, the best case scenario of dropping this on turn 10 and getting an Ysera out is insane. I mean, it basically means you have gotten a 1 mana 10/10 AND drew a card. But that’s the best case scenario. If you drop this and get a 2-drop, you gained pretty much no value. This is just a pile of stats that doesn’t do anything after it’s played. So if the minion you get isn’t good enough, the card pretty much sucks.
And the thing is, IF the meta slows down too much, I actually think that it might not be a good card. As we all know, fatigue is a big deal in very slow matchups. Drawing additional card out of your deck AND not playing it on your own terms (like you know, it might draw out a Sen’jin Shieldmasta into opponent having a 5/5 minion on the board, normally you wouldn’t play it just to die for free if you didn’t have to) might make it a bad card in very slow matchups. If the meta is too fast – any 10 mana card that doesn’t win you a game right away is unplayable. For this card to even see play, the meta needs to be right in the sweet spot – not fast enough, but also not slow enough. So honestly, I don’t really see this card working, unless we actually hit that spot.
Oh, and in the Arena. It’s good. But not great. 10 mana is a lot and Arena decks are known for having TONS of small cards. Usually around 1/2 of your minions are 1-3 drops. So don’t expect too much. Since fatigue is not a big deal, getting a 10/10 + let’s say a Spider Tank for 10 mana is okay. In terms of tempo it basically means a 7 mana 10/10, which is awesome. But like I’ve said before, any stats above 8/8 rarely matter – enemy needs to have an answer or he’s screwed anyway. It’s a strong card, but the fact that it costs 10 mana might make it only “good”, not “insane”. The thing is, it’s very good in the games that end up in value war. But it’s nearly useless in games that are tempo-based. And since Arena is pretty heavily tempo-based, this card might just be too slow. Not like it matters that much – it’s a Legendary anyway, so you’re not going to see it often.
Ancient Harbinger
Okay, so this card could as well read “at the start of your turn, put a random Old God from your deck into your hand”. After all, you won’t play this card in any other deck than the Old Gods ones. I mean, what would you want to put into your hand? Sea Giant? Deathwing? Those aren’t the cards you necessarily want to have as soon as you can, to play them when you can. Old Gods are. Old Gods are meant to be slammed on turn 10 with a HUGE impact. I mean, sometimes you will have to wait longer, but that’s the main point of the Legendaries.
But, back to this card. Stats are underwhelming – 4/6 for 6 is kinda bad. It’s like 4.5 mana worth of stats. So the effect is meant to be worth 1.5 mana. But is it? It might be, actually. The only problem I see is the “start of your next turn” thing. So this actually needs to survive in order for you to draw the Old God. And how big are the chances that it will?
If you play against fast decks, it definitely will survive. But the thing is – they don’t care about you drawing a 10 mana card. They want to close the game before turn 10 anyway. So they can just ignore it, and since it’s pretty understatted minion with no Taunt or anything, it won’t work too well.
Then, in slow decks, it might be pretty easy to remove it. But then again – it might be used as a removal bait. After all, it’s not a very important part of your deck. It’s not your win condition or anything. Enemy throwing an Entomb or something will surely be an okay deal for you. And if it doesn’t get removed – drawing your Old God is pretty huge.
So it’s the standard “sucks against Aggro, is decent against Control” kind of minion. So it all depends on the meta. Oh, and it depends on whether the Old Gods decks will be playable. The most likely one it might see play in is the C’Thun deck. After all, C’Thun is a really vital part of it. You don’t draw it – you play a very inferior deck, because tons of your cards are just vanilla cards with no effect. He’s the main win condition and him being stuck on the bottom of the deck might lose a lot of games. Drawing it out is good. Then, possibly the N’Zoth, the Corruptor. You also KINDA build a deck around it, not as much as the C’Thun, but if you play a lot of Deathrattles, you really want to play it too.
I think it’s good that this card exists. I mean, IN CASE C’Thun decks work, having a way to draw it out is nice. But then again, it’s ANOTHER minion you have to play to make the C’Thun playable. Cultists at least have vanilla stats, this one is even below vanilla. It might make it hard to put it. Maybe one of those, but I don’t see playing too – it would be an overkill.
In Arena… Well, it’s crappy. The only 10 mana minions in the game are Epics and Legendaries. And there aren’t a lot of them – even after this expansion there will still be less than 10, most of which will be Legendaries. So, unless you have a 10 mana minion it’s a vanilla 4/6 for 6, which SUCKS really hard. Then, even if you have one, it needs to survive. Which might be hard, since most of the popular 6-drops can kill it for free. So you know, the card is really bad in Arena.
Closing
Yeah! I’ve finally caught up with the current releases. I honestly didn’t expect so many cards being revealed, lately it’s like 3-4 per day! And since my reviews are pretty… in-depth, it was hard writing about every of them. But yeah, here it is.
I like the expansion so far. Overall power level isn’t incredibly high, but we need to remember that two most broken expansions – Naxx and GvG – are cycling out of the Standard. So there will be no Shredder, no Belcher, no Boom, no stuff like that. Meaning that cards that might seem average now might actually be strong in the new meta.
And I like the fact that they don’t want to push too many clearly broken cards. If only ‘average’ cards are ever played, much, MUCH more cards are viable. When every 4-drop is outclassed by Shredder, a lot of them become unplayable simply because you don’t have any reason to put it over a Shredder into your deck. Without many broken cards, you can get much more creative while deckbuiliding, thus meta will be healthier. I hope for more “tier 1 decks”, not the same 3-4 decks dominating the meta all the time.
Next review will probably come out after the weekend, so they’ll have a chance to flood me with new cards once again 🙂 I hope that you liked it. Please share your thoughts in the comments!
