The spoiler season for the newest Hearthstone adventure is in full swing so the time has come to start taking a look at the cards that have been revealed so far and shake our magic eight ball to predict the future fate of these digital pieces of cardboard (or whatever magical medium cards are printed on in Azeroth).
Today we’ll take a look at everything that’s been revealed up until now. We’ll continue to run new reviews on Wednesdays and Fridays until the full set has been revealed. So, before you RSVP to Medivh’s party (you wouldn’t dare miss out) make sure you’re prepared for what spoils await!
Karazhan Card Reviews
This is a surprisingly challenging card to evaluate, so I’m not sure why I decided to start with this one, but here we are. As a 1/1 for zero mana, Wisp is complete garbage. In theory a 2/2 for one mana would be twice as good, but twice as good as Wisp is probably still completely useless.
Druid tends not to be aggressive in Standard and it seems unlikely that there’s even room in a deck like Beast Druid to fit in Enchanted Raven. Where you’re more likely to see the Raven is on turn one in the arena against Druid decks.
The Raven isn’t going to hold up against some of the better Arena one-drops like Zombie Chow and Worgen Infiltrator. Moving a bit down in quality, is Enchanted Raven comparable to Clockwork Gnome and Lowly Squire for a Druid deck? My guess is that it’s going to fall short of this mark as well.
You’ll still see it occasionally because it will be better than creatures like Stonetusk Boar and Gadgetzan Jouster, but I wouldn’t expect to see it too regularly.
Creatures that replace themselves have always been favorable in constructed and more than effective in the arena. Kindly Grandmother, from a stats perspective, falls somewhere between Possessed Villager (2/2 for 1 mana) and Harvest Golem (4/4 for 3 mana).
Getting only three total toughness may make it easier for opponents to deal with Granny but if you can turn it into a two-for-one, especially in the arena, you’re going to be pretty happy. On the constructed side, Hunter probably has better options in the two-drop slot but if you want to build a N’Zoth deck (and who doesn’t) and take it into the Wilds (live on the edge) then as a two-drop this is probably better than Loot Hoarder and maybe better than Huge Toad. Maybe.
What’s not to love about a 1/1 for one mana that replaces itself with any random Mage spell from Arcane Blast to Vaporize? Sure, maybe you get Ice Lance, but for the most part you’re going to be happy with what you get. Most importantly you’re getting a Mage spell, unlike Spellslinger who not only gives you a wider array of useless spells but also gives one to your opponent.
I expect Raving Grimoire is going to see a lot of play in spell-based Mage decks, especially Tempo Mage. Since it’s a rare we don’t have to worry about it too much in arena. It isn’t going to outclass Unstable Portal or Blizzard but it’s potentially comparable to Violet Teacher and almost certainly better than Effigy.
I’ll let Kripparian handle this one.
Discovering things is a ton of fun because the game usually gives you some fun options. Discover is obviously a powerful mechanic because the card replaces itself in your hand. Anytime you use a discover card you have a good chance of forcing your opponent to have to use two of the cards they put in their deck to deal with one of yours. Value!
But wait, there’s more! You get a 4/4 body for six mana, which isn’t great, but you also get to restore some health to your hero! If you look at the average cost of spells you’ll see that you’re very likely going to pull up between three and six health off of this.
I expect Paladin decks on the control side of the spectrum are going to experiment with this at first. One problem though is that there’s some competition at six mana in control decks thanks to Sylvanas.
I guess you can play Undercity Huckster, Burgle, and Nefarian in a deck and hope you don’t face another (rogue) Rogue deck? Or maybe the way to approach this is to play a Renounce Darkness deck and hope for Rogue and hope to play Ethereal Peddler and Gadgetzan and make all your cards practically free?
There’s a magical Christmas-land deck that involves Ethereal Peddler, but I don’t think all the pieces exist yet.
Will this be enough to make a Fist of Jaraxxus deck competitive? Warlock has a lot of discard effects thanks to Dark Bargain, Soulfire, Doomguard, Darkshire Librarian, and Succubus. Fist of Jaraxxus, Tiny Knight of Evil, and now Malchezaar’s Imp let you capitalize on this. I guess you can put Deathwing in this deck as well and hope to hit the jackpot?
Obviously the dream is to play Imp, Imp, Soulfire for maximum profit.
You could also try to build this deck in the arena, but I don’t think it’s going to happen very often since Soulfire, Succubus, and the new Imp are the only commons in this combo.
Any Warlock card that puts three creature tokens into play is going to immediately spark some discussion. Five mana is the high end of the curve for most zoo-lock decks and it often gets you Doomguard which slams face as hard as possible for a Warlock.
But, getting three triggers of Knife Juggler or Darkshire Councilman can’t be ignored. Sure, it isn’t five triggers which you’d (maybe) get off of Forbidden Ritual, but it’s not bad, and it comes with six power and toughness worth of bodies instead of five.
I expect that you’ll see this regularly in the arena where zoo decks don’t have easy access to Forbidden Ritual ad Doomguard but will still have Darkshire Councilman and other ways to maximize the efficiency of Kara Kazham!. In constructed I wouldn’t think this spell can shine enough to replace the current zoo-lock components.
Unleash the Pawns (which is what everyone should call this card) could be very, very good for both control and combo Warrior decks. It will be especially good in Patron decks against aggro decks like Zoolock and Shaman. It plays very nicely with Armorsmith and Frothing Berserker so it’s just a matter of finding space for it.
Expect to see this card in proportion with how aggressive the meta becomes once Karazhan is live. The more aggressive the format, the more Unleash the Pawns you’ll run into in response.
Apparently this is the book that Shadow Word: Pain was written in, but it’s written in Draconic. Can’t you feel the flavor?
I’m sure Brian Kibler is excited about this card. Obviously you need a high density of dragons in your deck to trigger this consistently. A 3/6 body for six mana isn’t very good, but if it can become a two-for-one by removing an enemy minion then we’re in business.
It’s like an Imp Master but it doesn’t die to anything except sweepers. Zoo Lock decks are definitely going to give this a spin. This could also find a home in some casual Paladin decks that thrive on repeatable 1/1 generation.
Although a 1/1 for three mana may seem like a bad decision, I wouldn’t write Moroes off until you get a chance to play it on the ladder. You’ll have to be smart in how you play against board sweeps, but working with Steward of Darkshire could be a pretty good pair.
Barnes has narrow application but the first thing that comes to mind is Deathrattle decks. Get a 1/1 copy of Sylvanas? Cairne Bloodhoof? Darkshire Librarian? Bloodmage Thalnos is already a 1/1 anyways! How about Anub’arak? This deck may not be any good, but you won’t know until you try.
Seriously though, N’Zoth Paladin is already a deck and Barnes could fit in with a bit of adjustment (it’s not going to feel good to whiff on Battlecry minions).
I will take this 100% of the time in arena because variance is so much fun! It might not be worth diluting your deck density for this. Maybe it will be fun in Reno Jackson decks. Maybe it’s even effective in those decks. A lot of Legendary minions are bad, but if you get some of the right ones it could be a complete blowout.
Other than Reno I can’t think of decks that might already exist that want Prince Malchezaar around. But, if you get a kick out of the randomness that is Hearthstone, then I suspect you’ll have a lot of fun trying to build this into your decks.
This is possibly the best constructed card spoiled so far. It isn’t difficult to setup your deck so that The Curator always hits gold. Maybe Acidmaw is the only Beast in your deck. Maybe Sir Finley is the only Murloc. Maybe Malygos is the only Dragon. The Curator is exactly what the name implies when you get to pick the three cards you’ll always draw with it.
French vanilla minions, meaning those with only keyworded abilities, are generally not very flashy but can be the bread-and-butter of an arena deck. Two-drops are critical to hitting your curve in the arena. Taunt is also a highly valuable keyword allowing you to force your opponent to make inefficient combat decisions. Being able to trade up with your opponent’s turn-three creature can quickly turn the momentum in a game.
But of course we have to compare Pompous Thespian to the gold standard of two-mana taunters: Annoy-o-Tron. The trade-off is simple: +2 Strength in exchange for Divine Shield. Is it worth it? It depends on your deck. If you’re going to be aggressive and look for tempo swings early on, you may want Pompous Thespian. But for the most part you’ll likely want Annoy-o-Tron.
Obviously there aren’t a lot of implications of Pompous Thespian for constructed play.