League of Explorers: Class Cards Review Part 2

Part two, covering Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock and Warrior.



Museum Curator: I've been fiddling around with Priest a fair bit despite never really giving the class a second look, and I've been finding a pretty decent amount of success with my rather randomly-constructed (non-dragon) Priest decks. Museum Curator is a pretty awesome two-drop, because Deathrattle cards are pretty awesome. Again, Discover lets you choose the cards, and Museum Curator's stat of 1/2 is certainly far more preferable than the Jeweled Scarab. The Priest's only Deathrattle card is the Dark Cultist, and since class cards show up more often the Dark Cultist is going to show up a fair amount of times. And from my experience of playing this card... you can get a shit-ton of awesome things. Putting aside the sticky minions everyone loves (Piloted Shredder, Harvest Golem, Sludge Belcher, Haunted Creeper, Nerubian Egg, Piloted Sky Golem) you can get even legendaries! I've gotten the likes of Cairne Bloodhoof, Chillmaw, Sylvanas Windrunner, Sneed's Old Shredder, Toshley... all awesome cards to have. It's a card that really is far more awesome than it looks like.



Entomb: Again, a card that didn't really impress me when I first saw it. Entomb is really a cheaper version of Mind Control. It only costs 6 mana, but it basically does the same thing as Mind Control -- it removes an opponent's minion and turns it to your side... except instead of making it an immediate presence in the battlefield, you shuffle it into your deck and have a chance to draw it later. At 6 mana it's a bit costly compared to other removals (Assassinate is 5, Polymorph is 4) but none of them allow you to plop that Ysera or Dr. Boom or whatever into your deck. It's surprisingly effective, though a fair amount of practice is needed to play with it.



Excavated Evil: Excavated Evil is... a strange card. Again, it's not bad, but it really is very situational. It's a five-mana version of the Warlock's Hellfire, except costing one more mana and doesn't hit the faces... and it gets shuffled into your opponent, allowing them to use it against you. On paper it looks really bad, but then Priest doesn't really have a good AoE spells beyond Holy Nova (or the gimmicky Auchenai Soulpriest + Circle of Healing), and having this alternative in their arsenal is decent. Most of the better Priest minions (Holy Champion and Dark Cultist come to mind) have more than 3 health. And giving Face Hunters a card that damages their own fragile 1-health minions means that you've wasted a Face Hunter's draw, whereas any remaining Patron Warriors will be absolutely punished by this. Paladin decks that rely on swarming the board like Murloc or Quartermaster Paladins will also get completely crushed. It's going to take a lot of practice, however, and sometimes Excavated Evil might backfire against you if you play it against another control deck. However, depending on your deck and the opponent you're facing you might really find Holy Nova more useful. It's nice to have an alternative though.



Pit Snake: The Emperor Cobra's younger cousin. The Pit Snake's a cheap minion at one mana with one health, so it's definitely going to die after attacking whatever you want it to attack. It's horrendously bad against Mages, Druids and Rogues because they'll likely fireblast/hero attack it before you have a chance to attack unless you put stealth on it, but then you're better off playing Patient Assassin or Emperor Cobra itself if you're so desperate for a 'poison' minion. It's not horrible, though. It's a cheap one-mana minion that can threaten big things like Sludge Belchers and Dr. Booms, and seeing that it's a Rogue minion it helps to activate combos if played in later turns. And unlike most other one-drops out there, Pit Snake is a minion that is still useful if you topdeck it in the lategame. Not the best one-drop, obviously, but still a decent card.



Tomb Pillager: Tomb Pillager is a decent card, especially played on a Deathrattle deck. It actually has a decent synergy with Unearthed Raptor below. A four mana 5/4 is decent, powerful enough to kill other 3-5 drops it's facing, and since you gain something from its death the low health isn't that big of a detriment. Coins are extremely great for Rogues to chain combos, and giving Rogues more 0-mana spells means some synergy with things like Gadgetzan Auctioneer and Edwin Van Cleef. It's a great solid 4-drop that works wonders in Miracle and Oil Rogue variants, too, with the extra Coin spell mattering with both Auctioneer triggers and the simple utility of getting more mana in a turn.



Unearthed Raptor: Again, Deathrattles are awesome. I actually made an Unearthed Raptor deck, and while I don't exactly have some of the most dangerous Deathrattles out there (Sylvanas Windurunner in particular is a prime target for duplication) there's a lot of awesome Deathrattles especially from the Naxxramas expansion. Or from this one, even, with the Tomb Pillager actually being a decent Deathrattle to copy from. Unearthed Raptor has a really nice stat distribution at 3/4. Obviously playing it naked doesn't work well, but copy a Piloted Shredder's Deathrattle. Or even a Haunted Creeper, Loot Hoarder and the prime candidate, the Nerubian Egg, if you're playing the Unearthed Raptor on curve. It's a very flexible card, and even if you're forced to drop this without a suitable Deathrattle to clone (and you really should) it's still a decent 3/4 of its own. Hell, if you're feeling lucky and you put Baron Rivendare in your deck... the dream would be turn 2 Nerubian Egg, turn 3 Unearthed Raptor and turn 4 Baron Rivendare. Four 4/4's! Even without the Baron, Simply copying the Nerubian Egg's Deathrattle means that for 3 mana you get a 3/4 that spawns a 4/4. That's insane value.



Tunnel Trogg: Another excellent card. It's not the best card out there, of course, but a lot of Shaman decks in ladder and in arena are fond of using this card, and I can see the appeal. Up until now the only real card that benefited from the Overload mechanic was the Unbound Elemental, who gains a measly +1/+1 for every overload card. The Tunnel Trogg gains +1 Attack for every overloaded crystal. And it's a one drop as opposed to a three drop, making it comparable to the excellent Mana Wyrm in mages. And considering the sheer amount of two-mana and three-mana overload cards (Totem Golem, Feral Spirit, Lightning Storm, Lava Burst) the Tunnel Trogg can easily turn into a 2/3 by turn 2, or turn into a 3/3 by turn 3. The Tunnel Trogg is one of the few genuinely excellent one-mana drops that demand removal, and can definitely hold its own against your 3/2 and 2/3 two-drops thanks to its nice 3 health.



Rumbling Elemental: Nowhere as exciting as the cards we've covered, the Rumbling Elemental is a bit of an underwhelming thing. It's basically a Knife Juggler that deals double damage, but only if you're playing Battlecry minions. Comparable to Ship's Cannon, except that Battlecry minions are far more versatile than the limited Pirates. It's slow and gimmicky, but it's not a bad card. It's not hard to put this card in a Brann Bronzebeard deck, of course, and considering the fact that Shamans have some of the best Battlecry minions in the form of Fireguard Destroyer, Tuskarr Totemic and Fire Elemental, you can easily see the Rumbling Elemental just snowball out of control. With 6 health for 4 mana it's sturdy enough to take a few hits (unlike the Knife Juggler or Ship's Cannon). I haven't had a chance to use it because my Shaman cards are crappy, but it's definitely a fun-looking card.



Everyfin is Awesome: Everyfin is cool when you're part of a team... This is Anyfin Can Happen's Shaman cousin, the last of the murloc synergy cards. Paladins and Shamans are the ones with class-specific murlocs in the Murloc Knight and the honestly underwhelming Slitfin Spiritwalker, though the Shaman has access to Neptulon who helps murlocs out a bit. Everyfin is Awesome is appropriately awesome, because it works even if you don't have a Murloc deck. You can just stock up a couple of Murloc Tiderunners, who are solid swarming minions on their own. Two Murloc Tiderunners turns this into a 3 mana card. Hell, a single Tiderunner turns this into a 5 mana card, making it a far better and more permanent variation of Bloodlust. +2/+2 across the whole board isn't anything to laugh at, especially if you have powerful minions like Fire Elementals or Totem Golems just hanging around. It even makes the Murloc Tinyfin not as worthless because they can just hang around to trigger this card. Compared to Anyfin Can Happen... Anyfin is far more flexible because you don't have to have a developed board, but it's far more unpredictable whereas Everyfin can give you lethal so long as you have a board. And for Shamans having a board is relatively easy.



Curse of Rafaam: Initially it seemed bad to me, but after facing off against a Zoolock that employed liberal use of this card, I've gained a new respect for it. Using the mechanic used in the Chromaggus fight and other various Blackrock Mountain boss fights, Curse of Rafaam spends two mana to lob a card into your opponent's hand that makes them take two damage. Against a Zoolock deck that easily swarms the board, it forces the opponent to choose whether to play a minion on the second/third turn and deal with the Zoolock's enroaching board, or to get rid of this constant two damage in their hand. It's not effective against all classes, though, and you can even force your opponent to trigger your own Stonesplinter Trogg or Burly Rockjaw Trogg. It's a very gimmicky card, but it's one that can sometimes tear you apart if played properly.



Dark Peddler: Dark Peddler is another fun card. Definitely blows the Jeweled Scarab out of the water. It's a two mana 2/2, meaning that it's a decent (if sub-par) body on its own. You discover a one-cost card as opposed to a three-cost card, but obviously for Warlocks it's not a problem considering the sheer amount of good one-drops that they have. Soulfire, Flame Imp, Power Overwhelming, Voidwalker, Mortal Coil, Corruption... and considering you find class cards more often, it's great. It doesn't really fuck up your tempo as well because on turn three you can play your one-drop and a two-drop, or play your one-drop and Soul Tap. It's not going to win any games, but it's definitely one of the more solid cards in Hearthstone.



Reliquary Seeker: A very gimmicky card, one that I thought was absolute trash when I first saw it. If you have six minions, you get a 5/5 for one mana. Of course, a 5/5 costing one mana is absolutely insane... but how often do you have six other minions? Then I remembered that Warlocks have Imp-plosion -- something that destroyed me a couple of times on both ladder and arena. And so long as they have one or two other minions on the field, they're very likely to fill up the board to five or six slots, and it's a small matter of playing another minion and then the Reliquary Seeker. After all, as awesome as a full board of small minions are, sometimes Zoolocks just need big minions. The fact that it's a one-mana minion means playing her is a trivial matter unlike other 'if you have' minions like the utterly moronic Fossilzed Devilsaur. At the end of the day, though, Warlock has access to way better one-drops and such a hard to trigger effect ends up being susceptible to silences, making this nowhere as good as it seems.



Fierce Monkey: A three-mana 3/4 with Taunt! Silverback Patriarch's big brother, except with two extra attack. It's one health more than an Ironfur Grizzly, as the other comparison. It's a beast, though I doubt it's going to matter at all to a Warrior. The Fierce Monkey is a decent three-drop minion, and with the fall of the Patron Warrior deck, TGT and LOE have both been giving us a fair amount of Taunt-support card like Sparring Partner, Bolster, and both Fierce Monkey and Obsidian Destroyer in this expansion. It's a wholly decent card, though there's really not much else to say about it.



Obsidian Destroyer: Obsidian Destroyer is one of my favourite cards in this expansion as well. My Warcraft III fanboy is happy that a Warcraft III unit got made into a card. It's a cool card, and basically Dr. Boom lite, proving that you can have a non-Dr.-Boom 7-drop that doesn't suck. A seven mana 7/7 is a decent stat line, and it summons a 1/1 with Taunt at the end of the turn, forcing your opponent to at least spend a Fireblast or a minion's attack on it. It works great with a Frothing Berserker hanging around in the sidelines, and if the Scarabs survive it's going to make your Bolsters extra-awesome. Definitely a great late-game card, I must say.



Cursed Blade: Easily the worst card in the expansion, and easily one of the worst cards ever. Why would you ever include this card in your deck as opposed to Fiery War Axe I don't know, but damn. I honestly can't see any point at including this card -- yes, for one mana you theoretically can deal 6 damage, but you get double damage. It's not even a Spell Damage thing where you get an extra point or two of damage, you get double damage. If you use the Cursed Blade to kill a Leper Gnome, that's 6 damage straight to your face. If you have the misfortune to fight a Freeze Mage, you can be stuck with this weapon while they Frostbolt and Ice Lance your face. I honestly can't think on top of my head a better card than this -- Wisp, Murloc Tinyfin, Target Dummy, all of those at least put a small presence on the board. Minimal effect, yes, but at least none of them double the damage to your hero. I honestly can't think of why you would want to use this card at all. If it's double damage dealt and double damage you receive it'd be something else, but as it is, the only thing that it's got going for it is being a decent two-mana weapon that costs one mana. That doubles the damage you receive.

Thus ends my review of the League of Explorers cards. Overall it ends up looking somewhat underwhelming. Discover is an excellent tool to play with, and there are certainly some superstars among the new cards (Reno, Finley, Keeper of Uldaman, Ethereal Conjurer, Unearthed Raptor, Obsidian Destroyer) but most of them are fun gimmicky cards or just cards that are decent. But they're far easier to incorporate to decks, Battlecry and Murloc cards aside, compared to the extreme dragon synergy required by the Blackrock Mountain adventure. Granted nothing can compete with how solid the Naxxramas cards are and how indispensable some of them are, but still.

In the future I might update this blog with a couple more Hearthstone-related posts. Maybe talk a bit about the Basic set and general tips for deckbuilding when you're on a gold/dust budget.

League of Explorers: Class Cards Review Part 1

As it says on the title. Today we're reviewing half of the Class Cards, alphabetically. So Druid, Hunter, Mage and Paladin.



Raven Idol: The ultimate extreme in choosing, Raven Idol, for one mana, lets you Discover a minion or a spell. Druid spells are generally pretty awesome other than a couple less-than-stellar ones you could get the Idol back, or Nourish, but since you can choose it's not really that big of a deal. As far as minions go, it definitely casts a far wider range than the likes of Tomb Spider or Gorillabot or Jeweled Scarab, so the minion discovery is definitely far less consistent. Most of the time you'll egt a druid minion or two among the picks, though, and the various Druids of the X, Mounted Raptor, Darnassus Aspirant, Keeper of the Grove, the Ancients, Malorne et cetera are all decent ones to pick. For 1 mana it's definitely a great utility card to play at the first turn if you don't have a 1-drop minion, or it could just be used when you have one mana left over. Spell is definitely the way to go here, though.



Mounted Raptor: Hello, Piloted Shredder lite! Mounted Raptor is a fun little card to play. It has the stat distribution of a decent 2-drop at 3/2, but you get a random 1-drop minion. It's also a beast, allowing a decent amount of synergy with beast synergy cards like Druid of the Fang and Knight of the Wild. Druids really need more 'if you have a beast, gain X' cards, though. It's a decent three-drop, one that I have an unexpectedly fun time playing. Freaking raptors, man.



Jungle Moonkin: A deceptively bad card, in my opinion. It's a four drop with 4/4 that gives both players Spell Damage +2, like that one Omnitron minion from the Tavern Brawl. The Warcraft geek in me is happy to see a Wildkin finally make it into a Hearthstone card. It's a rather difficult card to play because your opponent gets a huge advantage and can totally punish you with 8-damage Fireballs and 5-damage Hellfires, but on the other hand you don't really play the Jungle Moonkin on turn 4. You wait until you're on turn 8 and then play it with a gigantic Swipe which deals 6 damage to an opponent + 3 damage to everything else your opponent owns. You play it on turn 9 with a Loatheb to stop your opponent from using spells, then next turn you Starfall the fuck out of them. It's a difficult card to play, and definitely needs a spell deck, but it's not that horrible of a card. It's also a beast, for what it's worth.


Dart Trap: Hunters have another Secret to play with! When your opponent uses their Hero Power, Dart Trap launches 5 damage to a random enemy. On paper it's nice to get another secret since the common Hunter secrets (Explosive, Bear and Freezing) all involve the enemy attacking, and having them over-analyze just whether to attack the Hunter's face or attack a minion, or even stop them from attacking with their valuable big minion, is going to possibly put a wrench in the whole mind-games thing. While 5 damage is punishing, the random factor really takes any punch out of it, though. I tried putting this in my Hunter deck and most of the time it hits all those minions you ignore while you go for face, and five damage on a Silver Hand Recruit or a Mad Scientist is just a big waste. And with so many other great Hunter cards, Dart Trap honestly ends up being extremely underwhelming.


Desert Camel: A three mana 2/4 is not exactly a stellar stat distribution, but it allows both players to put a one-cost minion onto the battlefield. And honestly not every deck has one-cost minions. Hunters and Warlocks are really the only ones fond of it, and using three mana to summon a 2/4 plus a free 2/1 Leper Gnome or Worgen Infiltrator is decent. It's a Beast, naturally, so it adds to the wide range of Beasts for Hunters to choose from. It's ultimately too slow for most aggro Hunter decks, and it's extremely risky to play against Warlocks and you might end up giving them free 3/2's on the board, but Desert Camel's not a bad card depending on the deck. It's one of those 'decent if the deck works', though I doubt I'll be using the camel any time soon.


Explorer's Hat: It's a card you get for free! Harrison Jones doesn't make it into the League of Explorers adventure, but his hat does. It's hunter-specific and it gives a minion +1/+1 with the Deathrattle of recovering the hat back. 2 Mana is a bit too expensive for a buff on a class that generally plays hard and fast, though, and the recycling effect I don't think is that good unless you're making a deck that totally abuses Explorer's Hat. Against classes that don't typically play silences like Warrior or Warlock it can be pretty devastating. You can theoretically combo it with cards like Djinni of Zephyrs, Dragonkin Sorcerer or the Valkyr sisters and whatnot, but I still think ultimately the hat's going to be a bit underwhelming, especially in Hunter. Now put it in a proper control deck like Warrior or Paladin that can utterly abuse the 'cast a spell on a minion' mechanic...


Forgotten Torch: The other free card. Roaring Torch deals 3 damage for 3 mana, which is pretty pitiful, but shuffles a 'deal 6 damage' card that deals 3 mana into your deck, basically a discounted Fireball. That makes it pretty decent, especially in a spell-heavy deck or in decks that can abuse Spell Damage. It's a nice alternative to the similar three-mana-deal-three-damage Frostbolt, except instead of freezing you get another spell in your deck. This expansion does have a decent amount of cards that shuffles extra cards into your deck, yeah? It's a bit gimmicky, but it's definitely a decent card.


Etheral Conjurer: Another discover card, this one discovering you a spell. Mage spells are mostly good and you're likely to get one of the freeze spells, or Fireball, or Flamestrike, and you'll be happy. It's great in mid-range mages, and while it looks fragile with a 6/3 stat, by turn 5 you can control the enemy's board so there aren't really any 3/2's left. The fact that Discover lets you choose one of three spells really makes the Etheral Conjurer as good as Raven Idol, except that Mage spells are generally far more devastating. Losing control? Have this Flamestrike. Need lethal? Here, have this Fireball or Pyroblast. It's pretty great in spell mages, and honestly it's a shame it isn't statted as a 5/4 or a 4/5, because it would've been unreal how solid of a minion it is. I guess ethereals just aren't that sturdy. It's great in control mages, it's great to replace your second Azure Drake in Reno decks... it's pretty awesome.


Animated Armor: Ah, the Steel Sentinel turned into a minion! And he is nowhere as OP as his hero ability is. A four mana 4/4 isn't really that powerful, and a class that doesn't really use weapons doesn't really have a need to take one damage at a time. It's great if you can get Animated Armor behind a Taunt to tank those Kill Commands or Fireballs, but honestly any half-competent player will target the Armor first before anything. Mal'Ganis this ain't, and the measly 4/4 means that it's really not going to do much against late-game minions, and on early game the effect doesn't matter.


Sacred Trial: Mysterious Challenger get another toy to play with! This is nowhere as bad as the Noble Sacrifice/Avenge/Redemption combo, though, and I honestly think that it's not as good as the other Paladin secrets. It just adds to the sheer amount of secrets your enemy needs to play around, though, and while they can summon a cheap one-drop Deathrattle minion like Nerubian Egg and have you trigger its effect, it's a nice little way to remove a careless player's minion for one mana, or just confuse your opponent and cause them to play badly. It's decent, I guess.



Keeper of Uldaman: One of my favourite cards in the expansion! A four mana 3/4 is definitely decent, and the Keeper of Uldaman is at the same time a soft removal and a buffing card, much in the spirit of the Mage's Polymorph: Huffer. The Keeper of Uldaman can just be dropped to turn the enemy's Dr. Boom or Ysera into a measly 3/3, allowing the Keeper of Uldaman to whack it and survive the next turn. Or you might need that extra punch to break through the enemy's taunt, and you buff your Silver Hand Recruit from a 1/1 to a 3/3. It's an extremely fun and versatile card to play, and being a decently-statted minion itself doesn't hurt either. Man, Paladins have a crapton of great four-drops.


Anyfin Can Happen: Murloc support cards, oh boy! Anyfin Can Happen summons seven Murlocs on turn ten, and I've enjoyed an insane amount of success with this card. It initially seems bad because it's a ten-mana card and really you could just fill your board and your opponent can just board-clear it without the Murlocs doing anything, but the trick really is to not fill your deck's minions entirely with Murlocs, so out of the seven Murlocs you summon the synergistic ones like Murloc Warleader, Old Murk-Eye and Bluegill Warrior are liable to be summoned. Having two Bluegill Warriors and an Old Murk-Eye buffed by Warleaders and Grimscale Oracles aren't something to laugh at. While the effects of Anyfin Can Happen can be diluted thanks to some Murlocs' effects not triggering (Murloc Tiderunner, Coldlight Seer, Coldlight Oracle) and some of the garbage Murlocs summoned by Murloc Knight possibly showing up, it's still a great way to gain board control -- so long as your opponent doesn't already have lethal on the board, Anyfin Can Happen will force your opponent to either use an AoE spell on your murloc swarm (and chances are they already did it to get rid of your murlocs earlier) or have to trade against them. It's a card that I thought was horrible when I first saw it, but after playing around with it... it's actually pretty awesome. You just have to build a proper deck for it.

League of Explorers: Neutral Cards Review

Hearthstone: The League of Explorers

-blows dust off of blog-

Well, this didn't really pan out as I wanted. I didn't quite have enough time to really play video games, especially to dedicate a huge amount of time to talk about it as I play it. I might do it in the future, but until I actually have free time that's going to be on the bucket list. I also finished the Curse of Naxxramas adventure mode, and I honestly didn't quite have that much interest in just transcribing the dialogue and yapping on and on about the mechanics and how I beat it, not when literally everyone else had done it years ago -- with Youtube footage, to boot!

But Hearthstone recently got a new expansion, this time in the form of a third Adventure Mode, The League of Explorers. Unlike Curse of Naxxramas or Blackrock Mountain, the League of Explorers isn't based on any pre-existing raid dungeon from World of Warcraft, and a lot of its main characters (bar Brann Bronzebeard) are Hearthstone-original creations. It's got a big Indiana Jones vibe -- ironic that Harrison Jones is already a card and therefore didn't have a role in it -- and while three of its four settings are based on pre-existing Warcraft locations, the plot is wholly original and far more on the zany adventure side. It's a fun romp involving genies, murlocs, museum thefts, mummies, troggs and scarab beetles.

And it's definitely an adventure that is friendlier to new players -- I still think that the cards you get from the first few wings of Naxxramas to be some of the most essential cards to really build good decks, but you get just more cards from League of Explorers. You get two free spells just for purchasing the first wing of the adventure! 

And one of the things that I really love doing about this blog really is reviewing cards and just talking about them. So for this post, let me talk about the Neutral cards. With pictures, now!

Jeweled Scarab: So, well, I'm going to go through these cards in the rough order that you get them from the adventure mode. And right off the bat we have Jeweled Scarab, showcasing the new mechanic in this expansion: Discover. Discover will let you choose one of three random cards, Arena style, from a pool of Neutral and the Class you're currently playing. It's a surprisingly useful mechanic, allowing players to quickly adapt to situations and even extend the amount of cards available to them. For Jeweled Scarab, you get to Discover a three-cost card, making sure that you play on tempo for the third turn. In exchange for this effect, it gets the pitiful stat of 1/1, lower than most one-drops even. It's not a bad card, but it's not really good either. I've enjoyed some decent success with the Jeweled Scarab, but ultimately there are way too many other better two-drops out there. It dies for way too little effort on the enemy's part, and it's not worth it to buff it if you're playing a Druid or whatever. A bit of a mini-nerf for Piloted Shredder as well, because without the battlecry this is an utterly pointless 1/1 card. Fairly better in Arena, though, where playing on tempo and establishing board control is essential. Also, it's a Beast, which might help out in those Beast Druid decks. 

Djinni of Zephyrs: Zinaar, the first boss, got turned into a minion. And not even a legendary! Well, that's what you get for being a non-entity. Zinaar itself already have decent, if unspectacular, stats for a five-drop. 4/6 is respectable, but it has the potential to grow so much more if you happen to have minions on the field and a buffing card in hand. Rogues, Warriors, Druids and especially Paladins have ways to do this, and the Djinni have enjoyed a great deal of success in my control Paladin deck with Blessing of Kings, Blessing of Might and Seal of Champions buffing smaller minions while the already-sturdy Djinni grows ever-bigger. Getting a 7/6 and a 3 attack buff on a minion for a mere 6 mana isn't a laughing matter. Despite not really giving much of a thought to him the Djinni has became one of my favourite if rather unreliable card in this expansion. Though it's an Epic, so it's a given that its effects are slightly more difficult to pull off.

Anubisath Sentinel: Kinda like the Dark Cultist, except the Anubisath Sentinel gives a +3/+3 buff, an relatively awesome amount. On paper it really looks good. You play 5 mana to get a slightly weaker 4/4 minion, but the effect means you get 14 stats worth of value. In practice, though, it's remarkably easy for your opponent to deal with the Anubisath Sentinel, either by silencing it or by killing the other minions first. And a 4/4 means that the Anubisath Sentinel can be dealt with by a four-drop or a couple of two-drops, and unlike the cheap three-mana Dark Cultist, five mana takes up a good chunk of your mana pool even in turns nine or ten. It can be useful, that's for sure, and it's not a bad card, but like the Jeweled Scarab it's a bit underwhelming. And unlike the Scarab where you get a guaranteed three-drop in your hand, with the Anubisath you get a crappy minion for its cost where you don't always get the benefit.

Summoning Stone: Based on that one fun Tavern Brawl where when you cast a spell you get a minion of the same cost. Except, well, you spend five mana on summoning this minion that ultimately does nothing, is absurdly easy for your enemy to deal with since it can't even take out one-health minions, and you can only have so many minions on the board so the value of the Summoning Stone is limited once you cast a couple of spells. You might get some mileage in a Freeze Mage deck where you can stop your enemy's minions from attacking your Summoning Stone with Frost Nova, allowing you to get a couple of effect triggers off, but ultimately it's a fun concept that doesn't really make for a good minion. It costs five mana, too, without providing a really tangible effect on the board -- the Anubisath Sentinel above at least gives you a 4/4 body even if it does nothing. 

Ancient Shade: This is a bit of a delicate card to play. Getting a 7/4 minion for four mana is absolutely ridiculous value, of course. And the drawback of shuffling a 'deal 7 damage to yourself' card isn't honestly that bad, since, unlike cards like Flame Imp or Pit Lord you might actually not draw the Ancient Curse card.... especially in rush aggro decks, where the Ancient Shade will definitely find its home. Of course, despite hitting like a gigantic truck on steroids, the Ancient Shade will get wrecked by most popular four drops -- Piloted Shredder, the Yetis and all the rest can easily one-shot the Ancient Shade, and if the opponent has a couple of 2/3 or 2/1 minions from their first three turns then the Ancient Shade is well and truly screwed... but it's still an interesting minion to play, and a nice little alternative to the Best Four-Drop Ever™, the Piloted Shredder. It's not a bad card to play at all especially if you can engineer a Taunt minion to stand in the way or give the Shade Stealth on the turn it's summoned, it's just a bit difficult to play with

Reno Jackson: Reno is easily one of my favourite cards in the game, with his kooky smile and his insane effect. Fully heal your hero! Definitely an effect befitting a legendary, and surprisingly 4/6 for 6 mana isn't horrible at all, so it's not like some of the less-stellar legendaries where their stats really make them way too fragile to justify putting them in your deck. And having only one copy of each card in your deck is actually easier than you think. Obviously some decks like Face Hunter or Freeze Mage can't afford to lose the duplicate spells or minions that make the deck what it is, but so many other non-thematic decks, especially control decks, can easily swap out that second Piloted Shredder or Shielded Minibot or Nerubian Egg or Haunted Creeper or Flame Imp or Dark Cultist for... well, some of the 'good card but not as good as Card X', of which there are a lot of from the Grand Tournament. It's actually a smart move to give these less than stellar cards some chance to shine. So, for example, instead of running two Piloted Shredder, maybe you run a Shredder and an Ancient Shade. Or a Tomb Spider. Or an Evil Heckler. Maybe replace a second Haunted Creeper with the Jeweled Scarab. Those of the cards that are decent but don't make the cut can have their time to muck around. A full heal isn't anything to laugh at -- and surprisingly enough it's balanced enough to allow you to make a comeback from losing, but if the enemy has had sufficient board control they can still easily take out Reno and knock you back down. Reno's awesome.

Tomb Spider: The second wing has only two neutral cards, surprisingly. Tomb Spider is the Webspinner's bigger and far more awesome brother. Like the Scarab, it's weak for its mana cost. A 3/3 for four mana is pretty blah, but at least it won't die to a fireball or an Explosive Trap. Tomb Spider lets you actually choose which beast you want, and it's surprisingly good. Playing it on a Druid or Hunter deck nets you class cards more often than not (the algorithm is skewed towards finding class cards more often) and whereas Webspinners are a luck-based mission where you can get utter trash, the Tomb Spider lets you choose the best out of three. More times than not you'll get value, and the Tomb Spider itself is still free for you for Houndmaster or Ram Wrangler or Druid of the Fang synergy. The Tomb Spider isn't a card you can just stuff into any deck -- though the additional card draw's nice -- but in a properly crafted Beast Druid or Beast Hunter deck, the Tomb Spider is a surprisingly scary utility card.

Brann Bronzebeard: Brann's a rather unique card as well, a reverse version of Baron Rivendare from Curse of Naxxramas. While the Baron's stat line of 1/7 is wacky and means that he's a negligible presence in the battlefield, Brann is one mana cheaper and has one extra attack, so he can actually take out some of your enemy's smaller minions. Having battlecries trigger twice allows you to discover two cards from the Scarab or the Tomb Spider, allows the Fire Elemental to deal six damage on a single minion (the effect repeats twice on the same minion), allows the Draenei Totemcarver, Frostwolf Warlord and dragon synergy cards to get stupidly huge buffs, allows Dr. Boom to summon four Boom Bots... again, though, you really have to make a Battlecry oriented deck and I don't think there's quite enough good Battlecry cards out there to really make a solid deck. I've fought against some pretty awesome Shaman, Rogue and Priest decks featuring Brann, though, and while they are still works in progress Brann definitely has the potential to make some pretty awesome decks in the future. (As a side-note: I totally got wrecked with a Rafaam + Brann combo in an Arena run one time)

Murloc Tinyfin: He's adorable. That's about it, though. A Murloc with the stat line of a Wisp isn't anything to talk home about. I suppose it can just help swarm the field and soak up buffs from the Warleader and Oracle, and help trigger Tidecaller and Murk-Eye buffs, but Murlocs have so many other better alternatives and the 0-mana 1/1 really does absolutely nothing. Murlocs get a couple of great support cards in League of Explorers, but the Tinyfin isn't one of them. I play a Paladin Murloc deck, and I bang my head in frustration any time my Murloc Knight shits out this little bucktoothed baby, or when said bucktoothed baby takes up a slot when I use Anyfin Can Happen. But, well, it's hard to stay angry at a face like that, yeah?

Huge Toad: Huge Toad has one of the funniest artwork in the game. Look at Small Toad just hanging out being cute next to the Huge Toad's leg! The Huge Toad is a decent two-drop. It's a 3/2 with a Deathrattle of dealing a damage to a random enemy, basically a reverse Flame Juggler. It's not as good as the Flame Juggler because it's a Deathrattle as opposed to a Battlecry, and for a Deathrattle it's really underwhelming... but it is a Beast and thus finds itself a nice niche as the go-to 3/2 two-drop for Beast decks, instantly replacing Bloodfen Raptor. It's not a bad card, just a bit underwhelming. These are the cards that can really help to pad out your deck and replace duplicates in Reno decks, however.

Gorillabot A-3: I honestly didn't expect Mech synergy cards to appear in League of Explorers, and the Gorillabot is actually decent. Like the Clockwork Knight, Cogmaster or Goblin Blastmage, though, it requires you to have other mechs on the board for its effect to trigger, and it has a bit of an unimpressive stat-line for a four-drop with 3/4... on the other hand, though, putting a Gorillabot in my Mech Mage and Mech Shaman deck has always given me awesome Mech cards. Sometimes you get absolute winners with Mechwarpers, Fel Reavers, Zap-o-matics, Mimiron and Snowchuggers, and honestly when you come to think of it there really aren't any bad Mech cards that are duds to discover. The requirement for the Gorillabot isn't honestly that hard to comply with, since Mech decks tend to swarm the early game anyway with Mechwarper synergy. It's a card that's actually a fair bit better than I thoguht it would be before actually playing it.

Naga Sea Witch: It's a bit of an odd card, that's for sure. All your cards cost five. You can play her out at turn five and on turn six you can drop 9-mana monstrosities like Ysera or Molten Giant or Ragnaros... but on the hand, cheap cards also become expensive so you can't just lob your one-mana two-mana spells wily-nilly. You can also play Aviana on turn six, and all your minions will cost one (the card you play later will overwrite the earlier card's aura). It's... definitely a difficult card to play, and while it's an insanely cool effect, albeit one that is temporary (like the Auchenai Soulpriest you have a choice to get rid of the Naga Sea Witch's effect). I don't think it's a bad card, even if I haven't really thought of a good deck where she can fit in, but I'm sure she'll find a niche somewhere.

Sir Finley Mrrgglton: Sir Finley is my second-favourite Legendary in this expansion! Sir Finley is a one-mana legendary (who is also a murloc!) that replaces your hero power with a discovered one, and it's brilliant. It works especially well in Shamans, whose ability is a bit m'eh honestly, and I've enjoyed great success using Sir Finley in my Murloc Paladin deck where I don't want to swarm the board with Silver Hand Recruits (I want it to be swarmed with murlocs) but still need to use the hero power to trigger the Murloc Knight or just for the sake of using up my mana... and depending on the situation I can be even more aggressive with Steady Shot, I can help control the board with Fireblast, I can use Heal or Armor Up to just be even more difficult to kill... and that's just for a Murloc Paladin! Sir Finley's versatile enough to find himself in other decks, too. Warlocks can use it when you don't need to Soul Tap anymore, especially in the late game. Druids and Shamans in particular can make use of this power, and Rogue decks that don't make use of weapons can have a far more spammable hero power. a 1/3 isn't a bad stat distribution either, allowing Sir Finley to lay a dapper beatdown on those Leper Gnomes and still survive.

Fossilized Devilsaur: Skelesaurus Hex joins Zinaar as bosses downgraded into neutral minions. And the Devilsaur... isn't impressive at all. An eight mana 8/8 that gains Taunt when you have a beast? It tries to fit into the many Beast support cards that TGT and LOE has seen fit to grant us, but the Devilsaur is a rather crappier version of the Ironbark Protector, a basic Druid card... and the Ironbark Protector is hardly ever played anymore for anyone with access to things like Ancient of War and Druid of the Claw. The effect isn't guaranteed either, and if it's something like an eight-mana 8/9 or 9/9 it would've been better... but as it is, it's a worse version of the Ironbark Protector. To add insult the Devilsaur isn't even a beast, so there literally is no reason to include this card in a Beast synergy deck as opposed to the Ironbark Protector -- and you wouldn't even want to include Ironbark Protector in a Beast synergy deck. 

Eerie Statue: It's another bad card in my opinion. It's a more extreme version of the Ancient Watcher, and it costs 4 mana. Like the Ancient Shade up above, it's a four mana with an attack of seven, except unlike the Ancient Shade it has a far more durable 7 health. It also cannot attack unless it's the only minion on the battlefield... which really won't happen ever. You might argue of using Hellfire or Twisting Nether to wipe out the field and then drop Eerie Statue... and then your opponent plays a minion, and then the Eerie Statue is stuck as a space-occupying lesion on the board. Yes, you can give it taunt with Defender of Argus or Sunfury Protector. You can silence it, wasting valuable silences that you can use on the enemy. You can eat it with Void Terror. But it takes way too much effort for something that doesn't really pay off that much, since as a minion it's still susceptible to things like Big Game Hunter, Hex, Polymorph and all the rest of the removal cards out there. And unlike the Ancient Watcher who's cheap at 2 mana, four mana is way too expensive for such a gimmicky card. That said, though, with a proper deck it's definitely something that can rampage around on a board, and a particular card comes to mind -- the Wailing Soul. Hell, throw a Fel Reaver in there and have the Wailing Soul just silence all the drawbacks to your minions. It's actually looking quite attractive now, and even then the Statue can actually activate on its own if you play your cards right and manage to clear the enemy's things by turn 5 after you sunmmon the Statue.

Wobbling Runts: Is a 2/6 for six mana that summons three 2/2 minions when it dies. It's a decent gimmicky card, one that's way too slow for a six-mana card, and having three 2/2 minions isn't honestly that big of a deal other than to get a couple more 2-damage attacks out. The concept is hilarious, though the base Wobbling Runts really coudl've been stat-ed better. A 3/6 or a 4/6 would be far more attractive. My attempts at playing Wobbling Runts in a Deathrattle deck end up not really working out because you can only have seven minions on the board, and with sticky stuff like Haunted Creeper and Piloted Shredder usually hanging out, it doesn't really pan out. Doesn't really have much synergy with Kel'Thuzad or Baron Rivendare either, since the 2/2's will swarm the board way too much. It's not a bad card, though, and a decent card to fill a six-drop slot.

Elise Starseeker: She's a card that I thought was horrible. You shuffle a card into your deck, which when drawn and played will shuffle a second card into your deck, which is a four-mana 6/6 with Taunt that will change everything in your hand and deck into Legendary minions. The fact that you still have to spend money on dropping the Map and the Golden Monkey cards looked like it really sucked... but it turns out to be a great card for Control or Fatigue decks. 3/5 isn't a bad stat line for a four-mana drop, so Elise isn't going to be dead weight when you play her either. And since Control and Fatigue decks tend to draw every card on their deck, it happens quite often in the games featuring Elise that I've seen. And honestly the Golden Monkey's just a nice fun bonus that will clinch that victory in a long run game. It's nice if you manage to get the Golden Monkey out and holy shit that stream of legendary monsters is just going to tear everything your enemy has down. But even if you don't manage to draw it, Elise herself is a decent four-drop that just has an effect that gives you potential to shit King Krush, Dr. Boom, Alexstrasza and Kel'thuzad out.

Arch-Thief Rafaam: Rafaam the SUPREME ARCHAEOLOGIST is a 9-mana card with a slightly-below-average 7/8 statline with a Discover hat always gives you a choice between three spell cards: swarm the board with 3/3 mummies, deal 10 damage randomly to your enemy, or give a minion 10/10. All three cards cost 10 mana, making Rafaam a far more extreme version of the Jeweled Scarab as it gives you a card to nuke the field with next turn. It's particularly great in control decks so long as you're not losing. It's a bit too slow, perhaps, and the 'deal 10 damage randomly' spell is stupidly weak for ten mana (compare it to Avenging Wrath and Arcane Missiles) unless you have, like, a Jungle Moonkin or Malygos out (in which case it's a literal nuke) but that's why Rafaam is awesome -- you can choose the spell you want depending on the state of the board. You have a full board? Get the 10/10 buff and buff one of them -- brilliantly awesome that one time when I happen to have a Djinni on board. You're losing in the control game? So long as your opponent can't lethal you in two turns (and Rafaam can help take out a big minion himself) you can flood the board with a crapton of 3/3's. And woe betide your enemy if you're a Shaman with Bloodlust at hand. You happen to have a Malygos rampaging around? Well, spell damage nuke time. Rafaam is comparable to Ysera (my favourite and first legendary), placed in a far more accessible position for players. Rafaam is a huge finisher that can help you gain control when both sides aren't yielding. Like Ysera, simply playing Rafaam when you're already backed into a corner isn't going to do much, but he's still an awesome way to clinch the victory. Arguably I still think Ysera is far more useful because of the sheer cheap spells Ysera gives you (0 mana Sap, 2 mana 5-damage AoE, 4 mana 7/6 and the crap dryad) but Ysera's randomness means that when you get a card that's unusable to the situation you can't really do much, whereas with Rafaam with a little thinking you can actually make Rafaam's three artifacts win the game.