Introduction
Hello boys and girls, today I am making a recap of everything (meaningful) that happened during the weekend in the order that happened. Actually, i’ll talk about the cards spoiled in any order I believe it should be fit.
As you all know, this weekend we had one of the most expected Hearthstone announcement of all times, are you ready to know everything that happened?
The Announcement
Well, March 11th felt like the Hearthstone day, everyone woke up and set their alarm clocks so nobody would miss the great announcement, what would the announcement be about?
New Heroes?
Good cards to substitute ones that are rotating?
The release Date?
Standard Changes to Classic cards?
Nobody knew what was going to be said in the great announcement, there were a lot of speculations but only one thing was sure: The Expansion Theme!
Everybody and their mothers knew that the expansion was going to be “Whispers of the Old Gods”, awesome theme by the way!
So, it is Announcement time! I grabbed my popcorn and prepared for the great announcement, gathered with Stonekeep on skype so we could discuss everything that was going to be said.
The casters start talking some random things about tournament, but who care? Nobody wants to watch Secret Paladins and Combo Druids beating each other to death, we want to see announcements!
Ok, the random tournament talk is over, I see Ben Brode and Jackie Chan sitting on a table, they’re ready to start talking *hype intensifies*
Ben Brode puts on a cape, ok he is going to say the expansion theme, we already know it but let’s pretend we don’t so we can skip to the next things…..
And…..
Expansion theme Announced! But we already knew that, well the next thing to be announced is….
NOTHING!
That is it, they gathered over 300 thousand people on a stream simply to announce the theme of the expansion that we all have been knowing for the past month!
Ben Brode, with his invisibility cape, simply disappeared and left us in the greatest vacuum in Hearthstone history.
They showed us a couple of barely-playable cards (being ultra positive about it) and then tell us to swallow a tournament nobody wanted to watch just to get to see 3 more cards in the course of 3 whole days!
All the expectations, all the hype, everything was assassinated right in front of our eyes, it’s like that scene from Fate/Zero where the little kid thinks he is free from the torture and doom he was living in the past days, and right after he cries of happiness/relief he is then dragged into a horrifying death.
The Cards Announced – A Deeper Analysis
So you all got a glance of my first impressions regarding the announced cards, and almost all of them were limited to “Poop!”, however there are a lot of other implications regarding the announced cards we should be looking into.
The Cultists: Trying to get the most important point about these Cultists is that they’re vanilla cards with the ability to buff the Deck’s God card as a bonus. While having a river-crocolisk or spider-tank in your deck seems like a terrible idea regardless of them buffing your God card or not, having vanilla minions with abilities such as senjin-shieldmasta isn’t all that bad, there is also the option of a Legendary cultist-like minion that is above average. So far the Cultists spoiled are horrible, and you won’t want to make your God deck with avarage cards, regardless of the buff they give your God card.
Images: http://i.imgur.com/8VGFImu.png http://i.imgur.com/5igYNLJ.png
The Gods: C’Thun was the only spoiled god card up to this very moment, and he looks like a powerful one. The fact he dies to BGH is meaningless when compared to having a card that is both good when you’re ahead or behind. The God effect is devastating and shouldn’t be taken lightly, as clearing a full board or dealing lethal damage to your opponent is a really good tool. The playability of these cards however are all in the hands of the Cultists cards that are still to be spoiled.
Image: http://i.imgur.com/MWbJ54e.png
Polluted Hoarder: This card is terrible and won’t see play in any constructed deck. This is below average even if you count “average” as basic cards, as even playing gnomish-inventor is better than this.
Image: http://i.imgur.com/9XuICtE.png
Corrupted Healbot: The thing about high cost minions is that they have to be impactful or good on their own. Every minion that has ever seen play is either impactful or good on its own, and I don’t see this fitting into any of these categories. It doesn’t have taunt or charge, the ability can only be put to good use by Priests, but then Priests wouldn’t want to play a big vanilla minion just to have the chance of dealing lots of damage with auchenai-soulpriest. I am well aware of the interaction I just believe this is pure garbage.
Image: http://i.imgur.com/bu6HyOA.png
Validated Doomsayer: Another good example of “garbage” card. Validated Doomsayer is only good when you’re very ahead or the board is totally clean, but in case that happens I would always prefer ysera or cairne-bloodhoof. I believe the main focus of this card is giving Control a post-sweeper card to play, but this just won’t cut it.
Image: http://i.imgur.com/vapTobU.png
Stand Against Darkness: Muster for Battle this is not, and I don’t believe it ever will be. This card isn’t multi-task like Muster is, and won’t have any effect aside from giving you a couple 1/1s. dark-wispers is a garbage tier card even with the option to Choose One and to use savage-roar. I don’t believe this card will be playable – What made Muster for Battle so good was that it had two mini-effects in one card, and that despite being weak on their own when combined they were good enough to make the card playable, this card costs more and is a one-trick pony.
Image: http://i.imgur.com/lY5rjIi.jpg
Eater of Secrets: This proves Blizzard is giving Wild some love. Don’t fool yourself thinking this will be standard playable, but after Combo Druid gets nerfed, I don’t see anything getting close to Secret Paladin in a long time because of how powerful and refined the deck is in Wild format so at least having a way to consistently counter it should make things co-exist. However, there shall be a point where you’ll only see Secret Paladins and Secret-Paladin-Counters in Wild, good thing that isn’t the competitive format anyways, and I for one won’t be touching it. PS: Secret Paladin won’t be standard playable because of the high number of parts it loses with the rotation, however in case new cards to replace the lost pieces come (which I highly doubt), things can change.
Image: http://i.imgur.com/fabLUui.jpg
Giant Sandworm: This card is a great hint that they want to nerf big-game-hunter. I still don’t know how they plan on doing it, but launching a 8/8 that is only good when it stays on board plus announcing that you believe that BGH is “unhealthy” for the game in the same day is at least suspicious. This card isn’t good enough to see play on its own, with or without BGH since Ragnaros is much better (immediate impact), but at least here there is a chance this sees play.
Image: https://i.imgur.com/KTvfSCT.jpg
Text: 8 Mana 8/8 Hunter’s Beast.
If this minion kills another minion, it can attack again.
Hogger, Doom os Elwynn: A giant imp-gang-boss! This card looks playable, so I won’t say anything bad to it. Fair should be the most common description for this card as it doesn’t seem to be too good, but people are for sure going to be trying this one. I won’t get my hopes high on it, and I don’t think you should craft it until I see it being played.
Image: http://i.imgur.com/P4aRbqH.jpg
Text:7 Mana 6/6 Neutral Legendary
Whenever this minion takes damage, summon a 2/2 Gnoll with Taunt.
Closing
And this is it for everything that happened this weekend. I almost got depressive when I saw I am still going to have to put up with Combo Druid and Secret Paladins for 2 more months in Standard, but that is how life it!
I hope you guys enjoyed my detailed analysis of the spoiled cards and my rage description of the announcement event!
Love you guys, see you around!
PS: Here is me hoping to see new Hero Skins soon *-*, I really want a new Priest and Paladin.
