Hearthstone: Witchwood Card Reveal/Reviews, Part #7 [Final Stream Cards]

 Last night we've got the entire set of Witchwood revealed last night, so let's just get cracking to the card reviews. As usual with all my final card reviews, I'm going to end with a bit of a final quick prospective rating of each and every card, and we'll look back near the tail-end of the Witchwood expansion cycle to see how right (and wrong) I am.

But first... the card reviews! We'll go in order of the classes.

Carrion Drake: Dragon Hunter is apparently something that they want to turn into a thing? I mean, we've got some new dragons that would actually work in a more midrange deck that a dragon hunter would theoretically be, but that said, I don't think Carrion Drake (or Emeriss, for that matter) would work particularly well. A 5-mana 3/7 Poisonous isn't even good, but it's conditional, too? Granted, the ask isn't that much, but Maexxna never saw play, and I don't think a cheaper version will.

Vilebrood Skitterer: Theoretically this spider is going to kill any one minion the moment it comes into play, since it's a 5-mana 1/3 Poisonous and Rush. But at the same time... five mana is so expensive, and you most likely lose this Vilebrood Skitterer as well. I think it might be playable at 4 mana, but at 5? I dunno. I think it's a bit worse than the Toxmonger/Elven Archer combo, and I don't even think that's good. A neat card, but not one I see being particularly meta-defining.

Curio Collector: A mage minion, Curio Collector is a 5-mana 4/4 that gains +1/+1 whenever you draw a card. Daring Reporter (which proc'd off your opponent's card draws, so you have no control) wasn't played, and while Mage is able to draw a crapton of cards with cards like Arcane Intellect or Book of Specters, I don't really see Curio Collector being good enough to see play, for the same reason that Cryomancer never saw play -- it's ultimately just a big body that doesn't synergize with anything else.

Cinderstorm: A big, far more expensive Arcane Missiles. Still inconsistent and sometimes just does nothing significant to the board. Probably one of the worse spells Mage has, to be honest.

Snap Freeze: Snap Freeze is Shatter, but good. You either freeze a minion or destroy a frozen minion, which is neat removal. While I don't think you ever really run Snap Freeze in a deck, it's going to be a pretty powerful option to discover out of any discover or random mage effects, since unlike Shatter, you can at least guarantee a use for Snap Freeze to disable a minion even if you don't have any Frost Novas or Frostbolts handy to freeze anything.


Prince Liam: Liam Greymane, a.k.a. "that dude that died during the Worgen introduction mission", is one of the few legendaries to not be revealed prior to this stream, and boy, he definitely is an interesting card, isn't he? One of the biggest problems that a Secret Paladin deck has is that if you draw the secrets it's really bad -- something that I expressed when reviewing Bellringer Sentry. And without the consistency of "play all of them" that Mysterious Challenger has, sometimes you just draw them and you whiff. Well, Prince Liam essentially gives a very powerful mid-game deck transformation where it changes all the 1-cost cards in your deck (so it also includes cards like your Argent Squires and Righteous Protectors) into random legendary minions, which tend to be better in the late-game. Granted, Aggro Paladin decks can actually survive a fair bit into the mid-game thanks to cards like Sunkeeper Tarim, Crystal Lion and Vinecleaver, but Prince Liam ends up being a bit of a cool card that can give you a big out for control decks.

Hidden Wisdom: Oh, hey, a new paladin secrets. You basically draw 2 cards if your opponent plays 3 cards in a turn. I don't think it's good -- I personally don't think the "your opponent plays 3 cards in a turn" trigger is particularly easy to proc consistently, and unlike Hunter's Rat Trap, who I rated 'decent', Hidden Wisdom doesn't actually impact the board and I don't think you can justify playing this rather sub-par 1-mana card.

Ghostly Charger: ...who doesn't charge. Ha-ha, Blizzard. Ghostly Charger is a bigger Argent Horserider, but with Rush. A 5-mana 3/4 with Divine Shield and Rush is... okay? I'm not sure if it's ever better than Argent Commander, though, and this ghostly horsey feels more like an arena card to me. It does kind of allow Paladin decks to play Countess Ashmore for a relatively consistently decent rush card, though.

Nightscale Matriarch: I absolutely enjoy playing dragon decks because dragon decks are cool, but I honestly think this big dragon is still a bit too slow. Nightscale Matriarch's an... okay 7-mana 4/9 dragon that summons a 3/3 token any time a friendly minion is healed. And that's not that big of an ask, I suppose, and the Matriarch can likely survive a turn or two. And 3/3 bodies aren't that bad either, but at the same time it's so slow, the impact might sometimes be negligible in later turns... and that's all if dragon priest even survives into the new meta, which I kinda doubt.

Quartz Elemental: A bit of an interesting effect, where this dude must have full health to attack. And a 5-mana 5/8 is... okay? But at the same time, there are a lot of better 5-mana cards to play that doesn't require you to constantly heal him. If this had taunt it'd probably be fairly insane, and while I suppose I can see Quartz Elemental in an odd Priest deck, it's a bit of a long shot, really.

Divine Hymn: For 2 mana, restore 6 health to everything on your side of the board. It's a one-sided Circle of Healing that also heals your face and... and I don't know. I don't think it's good enough. It's too expensive for a board heal since you have access to Circle of Healing, and I don't think it does enough in terms of survivability to fill in the void left by Greater Healing Potion, otherwise you'd play Binding Heal. It's a great card in arena, I think, but I don't think it's powerful enough to see play in constructed.

Squashling: Hee hee, pumpkins. I like this dude. It's a Voodoo Doctor with one extra cost and Echo. And honestly, it's neat design. I don't think it's ever going to see widespread play, but the potential of adjusting a large amount of healing depending on your turn while building your board is pretty neat. It's ultimately a bit cumbersome, though, and I also don't think the Auchenai-machinegun combo really works but it's a well-designed card.

Cutthroat Buccaneer: A 3-mana 2/4 that, upon combo, gives your weapon +1 attack. It's a cheaper but far weaker-statted Naga Corsair, with the extra additional ask of having Combo. Really looks weak compared to Naga Corsair, right? I don't think that Kingsbane Rogue even wants this.

Shudderwock: The other missing legendary, Shudderwock, is one hell of an ugly sonuvabitch, but it's an actually awesome card. It's a better Tess Greymane, I think, because it repeats all battlecries from cards you've played this game. And as shown in the reveal stream... it can go really bonkers with some battlecries like Baleful Banker, Zola the Gorgon, Saronite Chain Gang and all that stuff. Shaman's got a fair bit of pretty powerful battlecries as well, and in Wild he's basically a second N'Zoth if you want to. It's a pretty powerful card! I'm not sure it deserves that much hype, but it does look pretty fun and good.

Ghost Light Angler: A 2-mana 2/2 echo Murloc. Ghost Light Angler is kinda fine, but I think he's particularly powerful as a card to synergize with Hagatha the Witch, allowing you to spam Ghost Light Anglers to get multiple spells. And I suppose it synergizes with quest murloc, even if I don't think that's good enough. Okay, I suppose.

Earthen Might: Ah, now we have Shaman spells. And Earthen Might is... is a pretty good card for elemental shamans. You buff a minion +2/+2 (so in a pinch you can buff your totems) and if it's an elemental, you get a bonus elemental into your hand. It's not a card that I think is powerful enough to put into a deck, but definitely not a card you're sad to get out of Hagatha.

Blazing Invocation: Another card you're not sad to get out of Hagatha, Blazing Invocation is a 1-mana card that discovers a battlecry minion, theoretically allowing you to cycle via Hagatha for another spell if you don't see any particularly good ones. It also synergizes with Shudderwock, which is nice. Right now this weird Hagatha/Shudderwock package does seem sligthly messy, but at the same time it's definitely a lot more exciting than the silly hand druid. The problem, again, is that Hagatha sometimes just generates crappy spells, and I'm not sure if that's good enough.

Zap!: 0-mana, deal 2 damage to a minion, and you overload for 1. Kind of like Backstab, and you don't need to target an undamaged minion. Nowhere as exciting as Lightning Bolt, I think, as spells you're getting from Hagatha goes, but a pretty neat little spell to kind of help you win over the board.

Ratcatcher: Holy shit Cubelock is getting so many tools. Ratcatcher is a 3-mana 2/2 rush that... destroys a friendly minion to absorb their attack and health. Not only do you help to destroy your own Cubes and Lackeys, Ratcatcher also helps to contest the board. I don't think you run two of this dude in your deck, but a single one to help control the board is certainly very viable. And it's not even that expensive, so in a pinch you can just play Ratcatcher on curve to eat a Kobold Librarian and contest aggro boards. Very interesting card for sure. This is just good, right?

Witchwood Imp: A 1/1 with stealth that, as a deathrattle, buffs a random friendly minion with +2 health? It's pretty bad, I think. If health is what you care about, why not just play cards like Blood Imp? I guess this is to kind of dilute the demon pool? There aren't any cards that really generate random demons in standard, though.

Fiendish Circle: It's Call in the Finishers, but with 1/1 Imps instead of 1/1 murlocs. Call in the Finishers was only used in conjunction with Everyfin is Awesome, and for the longest time Stand Against Darkness didn't see play, so without any specific synergy cards, Fiendish Circle probably won't see play either.

Curse of Weakness: Interesting card. it's an echo card that, for 2 mana, you give the opponent board -2 attack until your next turn. So the enemy board spends an entire turn with the debuff. Sometimes it's -4 or -6 because Curse of Weakness is an Echo card. And while I think it's a bit too cute, remember that we do have a neutral Shadow Word: Horror in Mossy Horror, so Curse of Weakness might be the Pint-Sized Potion in this puzzle? If nothing else, it's a pretty powerful card to help delay the enemy board (especially aggro boards) for a turn or two while you set up.

Dark Possession: For 1 mana, you deal 2 damage to a friendly character, and you discover a demon? Hell yeah. This is the sort of self-damage effect that's good. I don't think Cubelock runs this because they have way too many tools already, but this is the sort of self-damage effect that you want, not Blood Witch. Discovering a demon is really good, too, and even with Witchwood Imp polluting the demon pool, you still can discover, y'know, Voidlords.

Rabid Worgen: A simple 3-mana 3/3 Rush minion for warrior. The thing is, while Rabid Worgen isn't particularly impressive on its own, I do think that the Rush shell for Warrior does have potential. Not a Tier 1 deck, I don't think, but the relative large amount of Rush minions they get does mean that they can pretty consistently rely on effects like Woodcutter's Axe to go off, and to control the board while they set up whatever end-game they want.

Sandbinder: Neutral cards now. Sandbider is a 4-mana 2/4 that draws an elemental out of your deck and... its statline is just too weak, isn't it? Elemental decks certainly wouldn't want to run this over the far superior Servant of Kalimos, and I can't really think up of any elementals that you're extremely desperate to tutor that you'd ever run a 4-mana 2/4.

Baleful Banker: A 2-mana 2/2 that shuffles a copy of a minion into your deck? I dunno, I think people are overhyping this. Manic Soulthief or whatever from Mage never saw play at all, but on the other hand, the Banker is way cheaper, meaning it's far more feasible to combo out. And it's neutral, so all cards have the chance to bank on later value. I think he's a bit too slow to see consistent play (when a card with a similar effect gets cut out of decks that run Reno and Kazakus...), but definitely an interesting effect.

Chief Inspector: Chief Inspector is a 5-mana 4/6 that destroys all enemy secrets. It's essentially an Eater of Secrets that doesn't get an insane amount of boosts if it eats secrets, but it's not a pathetic understatted minion if it fails to proc. Chief Inspector loses a mere 1 attack from the vanilla statline, meaning you're going to be far happier including him in the same vein as Skulking Geist. I just think that he came into the meta one expansion too late since a lot of the Mage secret synergies have gone, and the reason Hunter secrets are powerful is that because they activate the spellstone, which Chief Inspector doesn't necessarily deal with well. An okay counter card, though. I like him.

Lifedrinker: 4-mana 3/3 mosquito that deals 3 damage and heals for 3. Both are directed at heroes, which makes this not that good. Okay in arena, though. It's probably going to see most play via Zombeasts and the like.

Night Prowler: Eerie Statue never saw play, but Night Prowler can still attack regardless... she's just waiting for the baord to be empty to hop down and become a 4-mana 7/7. I guess it's pretty good in druids and hunters? I don't think she's consistent enough considering the fact that aggro paladin is around and they have a very easy way of flooding the board.

Mad Hatter: Love the flavour on this thing. Very Lewis Caroll. And if you have control of the board, Mad Hatter's a 'win more' situation where it's a 4-mana 3/2 that buffs three of your minions... but most times it's just going to be way too expensive and sometimes you just whiff.


Cauldron Elemental: 8-mana 7/7 that has a Raid Leader style +2 buff for elementals... I don't think it's good enough to see play in any elemental deck, but you won't be sad to discover this out of Servant of Kalimos. Too expensive to put into your deck, though.

Deranged Doctor: Oh, hey, neutral healing! Deranged Doctor is like a delayed Ragnaros Lightlord, and an 8-mana 8/8 isn't the worse body out there... but the fact that it's a deathrattle on a vanilla minion kind of makes me somewhat pessimistic for this crazy dude to become the next Antique Healbot. Decent in arena, but in constructed if you're so desperate for healing run the Applebaum instead.

Darkmire Moonkin: Budget Malygos! It's probably not going to see play, though -- 7 mana is hella expensive for a 2/8 body that exists to buff spell damage.

Wyrmguard: A 7-mana 3/11 that gains taunt and +1 attack if you're holding a dragon. It's like Wyrmrest Agent on steroids... but Wyrmguard comes out so late, at around the time in the game where you want to play your big dragons and not just a big taunt that sits around and doesn't do much. Granted, it's good with Lady in White, but a lot of things in this set are good with Lady in White and I'm not sure she's consistent enough. Neat to see the dragon archetype still receiving some love, though.

Furious Ettin: 7-mana 5/9 with Taunt is neat. It's just not constructed neat. Good in arena in the same way that the Mastodon was good in arena.

Felsoul Inquisitor: A Mogu'shan Warden with one less health but with lifesteal and the demon tag. Won't see play. 1 attack is piddly on a lifesteal minion. And yes, he's insane with Lady in White, but if you draw him before you play the Lady you get a really shit minion.

Unpowered Steambot: A 4-mana 0/9 mech with taunt. A big Shieldbearer that, again, is good with Lady in White... but honestly, play Mogu'shan Warden instead, which is just merely bad if he doesn't get buffed. Unpowered Steambot is straight-up shit if he doesn't get buffed.

Tanglefur Mystic: A 3-mana 3/4 that adds a random 2-cost minion to each hand. It's... cute, kinda like a Spellbinder that throws 2-cost minions. And there are a fair bit of good 2-cost minions out there. Ultimately, arena card.

Marsh Drake: Comparable to Muck Hunter, the Marsh Drake is a 3-mana 5/4 that summons a 2/1 poisonous minion for your opponent. The thing is... yeah, as a hunter or warrior you have a weapon ready, or maybe as a paladin you have a Silver Hand Recruit set up to trade, and then with a bit of an effort you get a 3-mana 5/4... is it that good? On the times that you topdeck this dude without a way to readily kill the Drakeslayer, Marsh Drake just looks silly. Great design, though, and while I don't think it's going to be the best card, it's going to be one that's going to be kinda fun to experiment with.

Hench-Clan Thug: A 3-mana 3/3 that gains +1/+1 for each time your hero attacks, so... druid? Rogue for sure will try it out, I think, although ultimately I think it's a bit too slow. No TGT card with Inspire: +1/+1 ever really saw play, though, so I don't see this one seeing play outside the arena.

Walnut Sprite: Very cute, but I think each class have far, far better echo cards than Walnut Sprite. At 3 mana he's just a bit too expensive to consistently echo, and the fact that he's just a vanilla 3/3 on the board is just kinda silly.

Lost Spirit: A 2-mana 1/1 that, as a deathrattle, buffs your minions with +1 attack. Comparable as a smaller Spawn of N'Zoth, and that card never saw play either, so I don't think Lost Spirit really does, not even in token swarm decks.


Vicious Scalehide: A 2-mana 1/3 Rush and Lifesteal minion, which is... not that good, honestly. But it's going to be amazing to get Rush and Lifesteal onto minions on Deathstalker Rexxar, for sure. It's a card that probably won't see play -- I don't think Hunter or Rush Warrior wants him, but I do think he's okay.

Swamp Dragon Egg: A bit too slow for an egg, really. The reason all the other eggs like Nerubian, Devilsaur and Dragon Egg saw some play is because their deathrattle impacts the board, whereas Runic Egg draws a card. Swamp Dragon Egg adds a dragon to your hand, sometimes which you just plain can't play, and some dragons do have some specific uses (like the Nightscale Matriarch). Don't think this is good.

Swamp Leech: Not a good card on its own, but a cheap 1-mana Lifesteal option to throw into the Deathstalker Rexxar pool is definitely very powerful in that regard. As far as a card that stands on itself, though, the leech's probably not going to be good.
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My quick Ratings:

Druid:
Druid gets a couple of fun toys -- that said, though, I'm unconvinced "Hand Druid" is powerful enough to really worth adding all these sub-par cards into your hand. Maybe some of the Hand Druid cards will see play, but that's not because of the Hand Druid archetype, I think. Beast Druid looks a bit interesting, although it's more of a value-combo with Witching Hour and Witchwood Grizzly. I guess they're just kinda giving druid a bit of a break after holding the meta by the neck for a while?

• 5: N/A
• 4: N/A
• 3: Splintergraft, Witching Hour, Bewitched Guardian, Ferocious Howl
• 2: Wispering Woods, Druid of the Scythe, Witchwood Apple
• 1: Duskfallen Aviana, Gloom Stag, Forest Guide

Hunter:
A bit all over the place, and I don't think the dragon hunter deck will ever be a thing... but hunters did get a fair bit of powerful tools for controlling archetypes, and some very interesting cards like Shaw, Dire Frenzy and Rat Trap that I'm curious if they'll see play. It's a bit inconsistent, but I'm definitely curious to see if it'll see play. I mean, I was one of the doomsayers for Spell Hunter and that deck was decent.

• 5: Wing Blast
• 4: Dire Frenzy
• 3: Houndmaster Shaw, Hunting Mastiff
• 2: Emeriss, Vilebrood Skitterer, Rat Trap
• 1: Toxmonger, Carrion Drake, Duskhaven Hunter

Mage:
A lot of the Mage cards feel more cute than usable, especially some cards that straight-up interacts with secrets in the very expansion that secret-synergy cards rotate out. That said, though, the Book of Specters/Arugal elemental deck seems pretty good, I think, and while I'm slightly cautious at declaring it as the next big thing, it's definitely a deck I can see happening. I'm more ambivalent about mage for this expansion -- I'm curious to see how the decks will evolve when we remove Ice Block and the secret package.

• 5: Book of Specters
• 4: Archmage Arugal, Bonfire Elemental
• 3: Black Cat, Vex Crow
• 2: Toki Time-Tinker, Arcane Keysmith, Curio Collector, Snap Freeze
• 1: Cinderstorm

Paladin:
One thing about Paladin is that so much of their synergy -- Dude or Murloc -- revolve fully around Call to Arms. I'm not sure that the Secret package will really work, really, as cool as Prince Liam is. While Liam I can see working somewhat in a less aggressive token deck, I don't really see a lot of the other cards in paladin really working out. And they don't really synergize well with anything, yeah? We've got buffs, secrets, rush, healing, and even dragon synergy... it's a bit messy, to be honest, and as such otherwise decent cards like the Glass Knight or Bellringer Sentry are just waiting for more support to really be viable, I think.

• 5: N/A
• 4: Prince Liam
• 3: Silver Sword, Ghostly Charger, Rebuke
• 2: The Glass Knight, Cathedral Gargoyle, Bellringer Sentry, Paragon of Light, Sound the Bells
• 1: Hidden Wisdom

Priest:
A bit of a more mellow expansion for Priest as well. Lady in White is the most interesting card for Priest, I think, especially with a large amount of high-health minions Priest has access to. There are some cards that try to fill in the role of Priests' powerful cards that are leaving standard, but at the same time I don't think the likes of Holy Water, Divine Hymn and Nightscale Matriarch are quite that powerful. A lot of the Priest card looks okay, but not spectacular, so again, it looks pretty interesting but nothing jumps out saying "new OP".

• 5: N/A
• 4: Lady in White
• 3: Chameleos, Vivid Nightmare, Coffin Crasher
• 2: Holy Water, Divine Hymn, Nightscale Matriarch, Squashling, Quartz Elemental
• 1: Glitter Moth

Rogue:
I really love the funky "generate many random cards then bomb the board with Tess Greymane" package that Tess, Pickpocket and Blink Fox has, but the rest of the Rogue package feel somewhat all over the place. I don't see Spectral Cutlass really working when Kingsbane is an option, and neither of the pirate cards really look that good. Wanted particularly looks bad, and Cheap Shot looks more impractical than anything.

• 5: N/A
• 4: Tess Greymane, Blink Fox
• 3: Pick Pocket, Mistwraith
• 2: Face Collector, Cursed Castaway, Cutthroat Buccaneer, Cheap Shot
• 1: WANTED, Spectral Cutlass

Shaman:
The shaman cards are all funky, and while I don't think that Shaman is necessarily going to be 'the new OP', between Shudderwock, Hagatha and a bunch of new cheap spells, I do think that the shell is there for a very interesting and weird Shaman deck that alternates between spamming the board with minions and spells. One thing that really makes me worry is that Shaman spells? There are a lot of crappy shaman spells out there, and that might just cause Shaman to end up being crappy for yet another expansion. We'll see. Slightly more optimistic. than I probably should.

• 5: N/A
• 4: Shudderwock, Zap
• 3: Hagatha the Witch, Blazing Invocation, Ghost Light Angler, Witch's Apprentice
• 2: Bogshaper, Earthen Might
• 1: Totem Cruncher, Murkspark Eel

Warlock:
Otherwise known as "holy fuck, how do I fit all of these good cards into my Cubelock?" Ratcatcher and Lord Godfrey are extremely potent cards for Cubelock that's probably going to fill in the void left by N'Zoth and some of the minor cards Cubelock has. Curse of Weakness and Dark Possession are pretty decent cards too, and yes, the rest of the Warlock set this expansion is kinda garbage... but the good cards they get are really good and might just empower Warlock even more.

• 5: Lord Godfrey
• 4: Ratcatcher
• 3: Curse of Weakness
• 2: Glinda Crowskin, Dark Possession 
• 1: Deathweb Spider, Blood Witch, Fiendish Circle, Duskbat, Witchwood Imp

Warrior:
A bit unsure about the Warriors, to be honest. I'm rating most of the Rush mechanic a 3 in this list, because... it looks good (if not great), but at the same time if the Rush mechanic flops the entire class just kind of flops on its belly, and I don't see anything from Rush Warrior that really  pops out at me.

• 5: N/A
• 4: Darius Crowley, Town Crier, Woodcutter's Axe
• 3: Festeroot Hulk, Redband Wasp, Rabid Worgen, Warpath, Militia Commander
• 2: Blackhowl Gunspire
• 1: Deadly Arsenal

Neutral:
A lot of interesting cards this time around from the neutral section, really. While I kinda didn't cover Baku and Genn a lot, it's evident that Genn and Baku decks can work -- even if I don't think they'll necessarily be the best meta decks in this expansion. There are a fair bit of other interesting cards as well, like the powerful Countess Ashmore, and other pretty interesting cards like Dorian, Voodoo Doll and Baleful Banker. A lot of other neutral cards play with the dragon synergy and the hero power synergy, which I also think is cool. (Note that, as usual, there are a lot of cards in the 1-slot that'd be great in arena but won't see play in constructed).

Ultimately, I do think that the power level  for this expansion as a whole might be eclipsed by the previous few expansions, and it will be more TGT than Old Gods or Un'Goro. Oh well, I suppose we'll know tomorrow, won't we?

• 5: Countess Ashmore
• 4: Genn Greymane, Baku the Mooneater, Muck Hunter, Voodoo Doll, Rotten Applebaum
• 3: Dollmaster Dorian, Muck Hunter, Witchwood Piper, Scaleworm, Witchwood Grizzly, Clockwork Automaton, Blackwald Pixie, Baleful Banker
• 2: Azalina Soulthief, Mossy Horror, Nightmare Amalgam, Chief Inspector, Gilnean Royal Guard, Phantom Militia, Deranged Doctor, Swift Messenger, Marsh Drake, Night Prowler, Ravencaller, Pumpkin Peasant, Wyrmguard
• 1: Walnut Sprite, Sandbinder, Mad Hatter, Lifedrinker, Cauldron Elemental, Darkmire Moonkin, Felsoul Inquisitor, Unpowered Steambot, Hench-Clan Thug, Vicious Scalehide, Swamp Dragon Egg, Splitting Festeroot, Worgen Abomination, Witch's Cauldron, Furious Ettin, Tanglefur Mystic, Lost Spirit, Spellshifter, Swamp Leech

Hearthstone: Witchwood Card Reveal/Reviews, Part #6

 More cards! This one covers almost all of the 'drip-feed' cards. We'll have another review session after the 9th, where the big stream will reveal all the remaining cards. Witchwood releases on the 12th, which means that this is actually one of the faster jumps from expansion announcement to reveal! At least that's what I feel, anyway. Oh well. On with the reviews!

The Glass Knight: The Glass Knight is the first Paladin Legendary we're getting in this expansion, and like the Blackhowl Gun Turret... from a flavour standpoint it honestly feels kinda generic. And Glass Knight feels a bit weird because that effect and statline doesn't really feel like they are special or powerful enough to put on a legendary minion. Sure, a 4/3 with Divine Shield with the potential to regain that Divine Shield is powerful. It's sort of comparable to something like Piloted Shredder, maybe? But at the same time, you also need to restore health, which means putting Glass Knight into a deck with all those stuff from Kobolds & Catacombs like Lesser Pearl Spellstone and the Benevolent Djinn, and neither of those ended up panning out. None of the new paladin cards revealed so far heal, and Paladins lose Ragnaros Lightlord, Ivory Knight and Forbidden Healing, some of their best healing cards. I guess they could go for Lifesteal minions? Glass Knight isn't a bad card, it's just a card that I don't think it's ever really going to find a place in current meta decks.


Silver Sword: An interesting weapon. Silver Sword is an 8-mana 3/4 weapon that essentially buffs the entire board with +1/+1 every time you attack. And Paladins do love their board-buffs! It's a very late-game weapon, though it's honestly a pretty powerful effect. The problem is whether it's going to be too slow to run in either the Dude Paladin or Murloc Paladin variants, the two most powerful Paladin archetypes at the moment. Dude Paladin does end up being able to slot in Vinecleaver, so maybe they can fit in a Silver Sword as a backup to buff the tokens if they ever run out of Lightfused Stegodons? I dunno. A 3/4 for 8 is definitely crappy, but it's still a weapon that can hit for four times and thusly buff for four times. It's an okay card, I feel, and although I'm not sure whether it'll find a place immediately it's definitely going to be able to help out a deck or two in the future.

Bellringer Sentry: Oh, hey, Mysterious Challenger's smaller, furrier cousin. Bellringer Sentry's a 4-mana 3/4 with the battlecry and deathrattle similar to Mad Scientist, essentially giving two charges of the effect. Both Mad Scientist and Mysterious Challenger have shown how powerful this effect can be, and I do think that Paladin does have a fair amount of decent Secrets they want to play. You do still have to put all the 1-cost cards into your deck, though, and unlike the Challenger, you can't thin your entire deck at once, and rather the secrets are played one by one. As much as people try to hype Bellringer Sentry up, I think we're short a couple of cards for a proper secret paladin deck to pop up in modern standard. After all, right now the only secrets that see play are ones that are generated by Hydrologist.

Worgen Abomination: Great art! Not sure about the effect, though. It's like Baron Geddon and King Mosh had a weird baby. The Abomination is a 7-mana 6/6 that deals 2 damage to all damaged minions, being a shittier Sleep With The Fishes... but it's so expensive, and so situational, that I don't really think that any deck would want to run him over Geddon, and right now Geddon doesn't even see play outside of Elemental synergies. Warriors have enough ways to unleash damage, and Warlocks have the simply better Lord Godfrey. So.

Town Crier: Warriors get the Town Crier, hyped up to be one of the best cards in the expansion... and I agree! A 1-mana 1/2 is decent stats, and you tutor specifically a Rush minion from your deck. And that's really good! Yes, not all the Rush minions are great, but Darius Crowley, Militia Commander and Muck Hunter do look decent, especially if you can guarantee them on demand. Hopefully we'll get a couple more good Rush minions before the expansion is over, but honestly? It's still a pretty powerful effect. It's not even a understatted minion like Howling Commander was from KOTFT, too. It looks good.

Totem Cruncher: Yeah, I'm not feeling this card. Totem Cruncher is an adorable porcupine with a 4-mana 2/3 statline, and it has taunt and will eat all your totems, and gain +2/+2 for each totem destroyed. And someone will silence Totem Cruncher and you'll be sad. Lil' Exorcist never saw play, and while you can definitely muck around with your board to make sure Totem Cruncher gets value, I still don't think it's the sort of huge totem-synergy card in the way that Thing From Below was. Neat design for sure, but I don't think it's good.

Countess Ashmore: Oh man. Oh shit, this card. It's a 7-mana 6/6 that draws three cards. Better than that, it's a minion that tutors three cards. It's like the Curator, except instead of drawing a bunch of tribes, it draws a Rush, Lifesteal and Deathrattle minion. And one of the reasons why Curator sometimes was a bit hard to run is that murlocs tended to be so insular in their synergy that it's hard to fit murlocs into decks that doesn't necessarily plan to run beast or dragon synergy. In contrast, it's way, way easier to fit in Lifesteal, Rush and Deathrattle minions. It's cards, too, which means spells work with the good Countess. And that's a way to draw a bunch of minions to work with Dollmaster Dorian, assuming Dorian can survive a turn.

That said... Countess Ashmore's choices are looking somewhat limited at the moment. There are obviously a lot of powerful deathrattle minions in standard. It's the other two keywords that might give a slight headache. The obvious Lifesteal minions right now are Obsidian Statue, Amethyst Spellstone and maaaybe Chillblade Champion? (Corpsetaker and Leeching Poison 'gains' Lifesteal later on and so doesn't work) There's the neutral Pumpkin Peasant, but I'm not sure you run those. Rush, of course, is mostly found in Warrior and Hunter cards, unless you put in neutral ones -- I think Muck Hunter or Swift Messenger might actually be semi-decent to synergize with Countess Ashmore? We'll have to see the full complement of Witchwood cards to see if we get any new Lifesteal or Rush cards, because right now the classes with great Rush minions doesn't have great Lifesteal minions and vice versa, making Countess Ashmore maybe not that good... but with a bigger card pool? She's definitely going to be extremely powerful somewhere down the line.

Book of Specters: Oh, hey, another card that works well with Dollmaster Dorian! Book of Specters draws you three cards for two mana, which is insanely cheap especially compared to cards like Arcane Intellect and Cabalist's Tome. For two mana, you  draw three secrets... but you discard any spells drawn. This means Book of Spells doesn't really work with burn-mage decks, but what it does work is Dollmaster Dorian -- and unlike Countess Ashmore, Book of Specters is cheap enough to feasibly combo with Dorian for a Turn 7 play. More realistically, Book of Specters seems like a great fit for a deck that runs mostly minions -- sort of like a Spiteful Summoner deck. Maybe you run just Pyroblast and Blizzard/Flamestrike in your deck, and then fill the rest with minions? Notably, Book of Specters doesn't discard either Frost Lich Jaina or Aluneth. Maybe you can play sort of a elemental package, which Mages can do somewhat well? Not sure if that's strong enough at the moment. I certainly really like this card. It's a neat deck-building challenge, and a neat little card that  serves as a powerful but conditional card. Do like this.


Mossy Horror: Oh, hey, Shadow Word: Horror on a stick! This big mossy Grinch is a neutral Shadow Word: Horror, being a 6-mana 2/7 that essentially casts Shadow Word: Horror. Keep in mind that if you take the Horror effect as costing 4 mana like the spell, then you get a 2-mana 2/7 body... and that's pretty good! The problem is that Shadow Word: Horror itself as a card never saw play before the combo with Pint-Sized Potion, a card that rotates out of standard as well. Sure, Mossy Horror might, in a pinch, serve as a little bomb against things like Zoolock or Aggro Paladin decks, but at turn 6 it arrives when those decks are likely to have done their fancy buffs to make their little tokens have more than 2 attacks, and at that point you should probably run actual AoE's available to your class.

Festeroot Hulk: Festeroot Hulk is... a bit weird. He's a 5-mana 2/7 that gains +1 attack after a friendly minion attacks. He's sort of like a Variation of Darkshire Councilman or Frothing Berseker, except mass-summoning and mass-damaging is a fair bit easier than having fellow minions attack. Especially for a Warrior card. Festeroot Hulk's statline are defensive enough that he's likely to survive after the turn he's summoned, but at the same time unless you drop him into a full board and have your full board attack, and then have your full board attack again next turn... I dunno. It's a nice gimmick, but it doesn't look particularly practical.

Splitting Festeroot: Flavour-wise, this card is good. You get this monstrous two-headed haunted tree monster that has 4/4 stats. And then it splinters into two 2/2's as a deathrattle, and then into two 1/1's. And the 1/1's are even called Woodchips! Adorable, and I love it from a flavour standpoint. From a playability standpoint. Splitting Festeroot is a 8-mana 4/4 and that's such a huge tempo loss. So no. Cute effect, unplayable card.

Tess Greymane: Aw, shit, Rogue legendary! Tess Greymane is an 8-mana 6/6 that replays every card you've played from another class this turn, but with targets chosen randomly. I think it's a better, smaller Yogg-Saron, because you have a huge control over whether you play certain spells you obtain from another class. And one thing that makes Tess better better than Yogg is that she's cheaper and she plays all cards. Which means, yes, minions and potentially hero cards all get replayed when you drop this lady down onto the board. And that 'targets chosen randomly' bit doesn't seem to be that debilitating when you're doing things like summoning minions.

The problem, of course, is the cards that 'Burgle', for lack of a better word to call the mechanic. Currently, the only cards with reliable burgle effects in standard are Hallucination, Lilian Voss and the new cards Blink Fox and Pickpocket; since the previously most powerful ones with this effect -- Shaku, Swashburglar and Undercity Huckster -- are rotating to wild. And even then, I don't really see a deck that combines all those cards together. That said Tess Greymane's effect is interesting enough that someone's probably going to make a decent burgle deck just yet. But maybe it's enough of a shell to make a Tess deck? Worth noting that I still don't think Spectral Cutlass is good enough to play in a Tess Greymane deck, and you'll still probably run Obsidian Shard over that.

Blink Fox: Blink Fox is a simple card. It's a bigger 3-mana version of Swashburglar, except it's a beast. And it's going to be about as good as Swashburglar, which means that more streamlined Miracle or Kingsbane decks won't ever want Blink Fox, but Tempo ones would probably run it. Not much to say about Blink Fox -- it's perfectly decent, but whether it will see a place in decks depends on how viable cards like Tess Greymane are.

Archmage Arugal: The evil Archmage Arugal is Mage's second legendary card, the 'serious' legendary to offset Toki's more meme-y status. Arugal is a 2-mana 2/2 with Chromaggus's effect, but only for minions. Thank god, because doubling Frostbolts and Fireballs are a wee bit too powerful. And while Chromaggus wasn't played that much, it's also a very slow 8-mana 6/8, whereas Arugal is a cheaper, more well-statted 2-mana 2/2. You could play Arugal in the same turn with either Coutness Ashmore or Book of Specters, all of which likely draws you minions, and as long as your hand has enough space that's a lot of value generation. It's a good card, and if you can time it  just right to draw your Sorcerer's Apprentices it might actually be pretty scary. Overall, a perfectly good card for combo decks... the problem is whether a combo that can utilize Arugal exists just yet.

Bonfire Elemental: A very solid Elemental card for elemental mage decks,  which honestly haven't been on the cusp of being good. Bonfire Elemental is a 5-mana 5/5 that, if you played an elemental in the previous turn, you get to draw a card. You can relatively reliably get Servant of Kalimos, another 5-mana "if you played an elemental in the previous turn" card, to go off, so Bonfire Elemental's definitely around that same ballpark. Drawing a card, I feel, is far more powerful than discovering an elemental where you sometimes just whiff badly, so yeah. The only real problem is whether a Mage Elemental deck will actually work, and at the moment I really don't see it being more powerful than Control or Big-Spell mages.

Arcane Keysmith: Oh man, I do not look forward to meeting this bitch in wild. Arcane Keysmmith came out one expansion too late to have fun with all the mage secret synergy since Ice Block, Kabal Crystal Runner and Medivh's Valet are moving into wild, but god damn! Imagine if she was around during the previous expansion. Keysmith is a 4-mana 2/2 that discovers a secret and plays it for free, and that's pretty insane tempo -- you don't even spend a secret from your deck. And while she's still  a good card, I don't really see her being that good. She could be a way to generate secrets in that aforementioned Arugal/Book of Specters big spell mage? I dunno about her place in standard. But she's a pretty neatly designed card, I think.

Witchwood Piper: Witchwood Piper's an interesting card. She's a 4-mana 3/3 that draws a card -- specifically, the lowest-costing minion in your deck. It's another part of a 'draw a minion' puzzle that involves the likes of Arugal, Book of Specters, Dollmaster Dorian and Countess Ashmore, and I'm genuinely interested how many other tools we're getting in the expansion. A 4-mana 3/3 that draws a specific card isn't the worst out there, and she might be a way to guarantee a combo piece. Maybe part of Quest Mage? It's interesting. Maybe you put her in a spell-heavy deck with a couple of specific combo minions? A very interesting card, even if I can't really think up of a specific usage for her right now.

Druid of the Scythe: Druid of the Scythe is a druid 3-mana card that either becomes a 4/2 rush or a 2/4 taunt, both of which are beasts. It's a pretty standard druid of the X card that we've all come to somewhat expect to pop up every expansion, and... and it's pretty solid, I guess? The taunt version is essentially a shittier Tar Creeper, but sometimes you kind of need the taunt, whereas a 3-mana rush with 4 is... okay. Druid of the Scythe feels more of an 'okay' card to me, something you are happy to get in arena and not one that I think would ever be bad in a deck, but I also feel there are a lot of better cards out there for druid to use.

Bewitched Guardian: An... interesting card, I guess? The Bewitched Guardian is a 5-mana 4/1 with taunt that gains health depending on the cards you have in your hand. It's essentially a bigger Twilight Drake, but with Taunt, and... I don't think you really run this card even in hand druid (which I still am ambivalent about). Druids have access to a better taunt, I think, in Druid of the Claw. Maybe you run both? I guess? Not very excited about this one.

Ferocious Howl: Another druid card. You draw a card for 3 mana, and then gain armour for every card in your hand. Again, another hand-druid card and not a bad one, this time around. The card draw's really important and I'm glad they included it, whereas gaining armour means that this is essentially a version of Oaken Summons that instead of recruiting a minion, you draw a card. And maybe you don't want to recruit a minion in exchange for far more armour. It's not the best card, I think, but I said the same thing about Oaken Summons and that card ended up being playable, so I can definitely see Ferocious Howl being playable.

Paragon of Light: A paladin minion, Paragon of Light is a 3-mana 2/5 with Taunt and Lifesteal if it has 3 or more attack... and I'm not sure if she's ever going to work. Meanstreet Marshall was another card from paladin who has an upside if you increase his attack by just one, and while it's a far better play to buff a more stable 2/5 minion as opposed to wasting it on a 1/2, and there certainly are ways to do that with cards like Fungalmancer, I'm not sure Paragon of Light has a particular place in the very aggro-centric paladin decks we have at the moment.

Hearthstone: A Look Back - Mean Streets of Gadgetzan

 The third part of my look back to the sets rotating out of Standard, this time with the final and perhaps most divisive and controversial set of all, Mean Streets of Gadgetzan.

As always, I'm going to review the cards based on their entire run throughout the Year of the Kraken and Year of the Mammoth, so cards that were good at a point in its time in Standard meta will all get 4/5's and 5/5's. A good example would be, say, Mark of the Lotus, which never saw play during the Gadgetzan era, but one of the most powerful cards for aggro druid during the Frozen Throne era; or Raza, who was a fun little gimmick legendary during Gadgetzan but one of the most powerful legendaries bar none during Frozen Throne and Kobolds & Catacombs, so much that it got nerfed. Will also try to keep this short and rapid-fire.

Druid: 

• Kun, the Forgotten King: 4/5. It took a while, but Kun eventually saw a neat place in Jade Druid when they realized that, yes, they can combo Kun with Ultimate Infestation for a monstrous turn 10 play. Kun's also part of a bunch of wacky decks, especially in Wild, among them in concert with Twig of the World Tree, or one where you combine Kun, C'Thun and Aviana together. Addendum: there are a lot of degenerate things you can do in Wild especially in subsequent sets, with some particularly fun combo decks involving newer cards like King Togwaggle. A card that was decent when it first entered the meta, and now occupies a neat little niche of its own. 
• Lunar Visions: 1/5. Nourish is just always better. 
• Pilfered Power: 1/5. I genuinely forgot this card exists! But way too unwieldy and expensive for a ramp card. 
• Jade Idol: 5/5. THE uncontested king of the meta during the Frozen Throne era is definitely Jade Druid. It's already strong in Gadgetzan and Un'Goro, but became especially oppressive during Frozen Throne, and a good part of that is the sheer power of Jade Idol potentially going infinite, and synergizing very well with Fandral Staghelm, Gadgetzan Auctioneer and Druid's ramping capabilities. It's also, y'know, 1-mana. Has indirectly led to the nerfs of many other cards in Druid's arsenal. I'd honestly go so far as to say it's the second most-powerful card from Gadgetzan.
• Virmen Sensei: 1/5. Haha Beast Druid. Virmen's understatted, and not a beast himself. Silly rabbit.
• Celestial Dreamer: 1/5. This card genuinely made me go "huh". It's not bad, but it just has so little applications. 
• Mark of the Lotus: 5/5. While initially looking like a poor man's Savage Roar, it turns out that it helped the genesis of Token Aggro Druid, especially bolstered throughout Un'Goro and Frozen Throne. Mark of the Lotus is one of the cheapest permanent mass-board buff, and rightfully one of the scariest.
• Jade Blossom: 5/5. Another reason why Jade is so awesome? Why don't you ramp while you jade? Yeah. Jade Blossom's so powerful that some decks that aren't strictly jade even run this to ramp. 
• Jade Behemoth: 4/5. Like the rest of the Jade Druid package, Jade Behemoth's pretty damn powerful. Wouldn't be as powerful if not for the power of Jade Druid itself as an archetype.

Hunter:

• Knuckles: 1/5. Too slow to see play. Effect's cool, the cost and stats aren't.
• Piranha Launcher: 1/5. WAY too slow. Fun art, bad card.
• Rat Pack: 2/5. Rat Pack didn't actually see play in hand-buff Hunter (which suck), but turned out to be a very decent 3-mana beast for hunters to play. Ultimately ousted out due to Hunter's huge amount of great 3-mana cards, especially with newer additions like Bearshark. 
• Hidden Cache: 1/5. The hand-buff gimmick for the Goons faction is the only mechanic that straight-up flops in Gadgetzan, but Hunter gets hit worst because of the weird ask of having beasts in hand. Cache's a delayed buff and also a secret... and secret decks don't actually run beast minions. 
• Trogg Beastrager: 1/5. Oh, a beast-handbuff card that isn't a beast. Wonder why it didn't work out?
• Dispatch Kodo: 1/5. With the caveat that this card is amazing when you stitch it with Deathstalker Rexxar and something with lifesteal or poisonous. As a playable card? Stats are too low to really see play. 
• Alleycat: 4/5. A very powerful early-game card. Sadly, Hunter itself isn't that good of a class in this period of time, but Alleycat's still one of Hunter's stronger and most stable tools, especially with the follow-up of Un'Goro's Crackling Razormaw. 
• Smuggler's Crate: 1/5. Handbuff hunter sucks. 
• Shaky Zipgunner: 1/5. Delayed handbuff hunter sucks even more. 

Mage:

• Inkmaster Solia: 1/5. Solia saw some experimentation in highlander mage decks, but ultimately there's just not that many mage spells you want to cast for zero, and it's not like you get it for free -- you pay the 7 mana for Solia. Modern Wild Reno decks cut her out.
• Manic Soulcaster: 1/5. Never really saw serious play, I think. Recycling minions isn't what mage as a class wants to do. Absolutely outclassed by newer card Zola the Gorgon in Wild. 
• Greater Arcane Missiles: 1/5. It's not a bad card, it's just extremely inefficient in terms of damage output and randomness. Actually sort of an indirect buff to "add random mage spell" cards, honestly. 
• Potion of Polymorph: 3/5. Not the best secret that mage has access to, but a legitimate tech choice when Un'Goro and K&C made the Secret Mage package work. 
• Volcanic Potion: 3/5. A fun little AoE for mages to control the early game, but ultimately phased out in favour of cards that have the flexibility of going face.
• Kabal Crystal Runner: 5/5. Secret Mage doesn't find its legs until Un'Goro added Arcanologist, but Kabal Crystal Runner is definitely one of the most powerful cards in that deck. Especially revitalized in conjunction with Aluneth, which allowed you to just wantonly dump cards and secrets and eventually free 0-mana 5/5's. 
• Freezing Potion: 1/5. Another in that "mage random mage spells suck" pool. 
• Kabal Lackey: 4/5. He actually sucks for the longest time, but when Aluneth became a thing, Kabal Lackey ended up finding a niche by being another way to cheat out secrets for free and just dump your hands before Aluneth reloads it up. It's very interesting to note that no version of Secret Mage really ran Kabal Lackey until Aluneth.
• Cryomancer: 1/5. Conditional 5-mana 7/7 isn't bad, but not what Mage wants. 

Paladin:

• Wickerflame Burnbritle: 2/5. Burnbristle is a card that kept seeing some sort of fringe play, as part of a weird divine shield paladin during Gadgetzan, and later as a legitimately good card to activate Corpsetaker during Frozen Throne. It's not the best card that Paladin has, though, and would end up being outclassed due to lack of real synergy.
• Meanstreet Marshal: 1/5. Conditional draw isn't that good, and hand-buff didn't work that well. 
• Small-Time Recruits: 1/5. 3 mana to draw three 1-cost minions? Yeah, Small-Time Recruits didn't work. Clearly the prototype to the far superior Call To Arms, though, which just summoned the minions instantly. 
• Getaway Kodo: 1/5. No one ever really put Getaway Kodo in a deck, since you're wasting a card slot, but it's definitely one of the more popular secrets to discover via Hydrologist, and honestly due to the nature of Murloc Paladin, it's actually one of the better secrets to discover.
• Grimestreet Enforcer: 2/5. Probably one of the few only hand-buff card to really be good or decent, and that's because Enforcer has a continuous effect. It's great in arena, but not that amazing in constructed. 
• Grimestreet Protector: 1/5. Too weak for control paladin, actually. You'd rather play Tirion or Ragnaros. 
• Grimscale Chum: 4/5. Grimscale Chum didn't see any actual play during the Gadgetzan era, but as more and more Murloc support is added for Paladin, and especially when Patches eventually got nerfed, Grimscale Chum returned as a very powerful one-mana option for Murloc Paladin alongside Tidecaller and Inquisitor. It's very interesting how Grimscale Chum ended up being rendered essentially unplayable due to charging Patches. 
• Smuggler's Run: 2/5. A decent hand-buff card due to its cheapness, but, y'know, handbuff kinda sucks. 
• Grimestreet Outfitter: 1/5. A two-mana 1/1 is a pretty bad tempo loss. It's not as bad as some of the hunter or warrior hand-buff cards and is barely decent in arena, but still never saw play. 

Priest:

• Raza the Chained: 5/5 [pre-nerf], 2/5 [post-nerf]. I am one of those people who was 'unfortunate' enough to crack open a Raza during the Gadgetzan era, and he never saw play. It's a very neat effect, and I built a Shadowform-Reno deck with Raza, but it's cute at best. Raza, of course, saw immense play coupled with the mighty Shadowreaper Anduin as one of the most devasating and powerful combos in the Frozen Throne era's mightiest deck, the highlander priest, which got even stronger when its biggest competitors, pirate warrior and jade druid, were nerfed. Eventually Raza himself got hit with the nerf bat during K&C, and the change of your hero power costing 1 and 0 is a significant one. Raza/Kazakus Priest still sees some amount of play in Wild, but hardly the powerhouse it once was. 
• Mana Geode: 1/5. Very interesting effect, and genuinely powerful if you get him going, but it's so hard to reliably damage Geode and heal it in the early game, and by that point you're better-served using more stable cards. 
• Dragonfire Potion: 5/5. Wow, Priest got a lot of great cards in this set, huh? Dragonfire Potion is straight-up the best AoE spell in the game, easily sparing a huge chunk of Priest's powerful dragon minions. It's so powerful that even non-dragon priest variants ran it. Essentially replaces Holy Nova and Excavated Evil in a huge way.
• Pint-Size Potion: 4/5. Initially very unassuming, but when zoo and aggro decks became rampant, people realized that Pint-Size Potion combined with Shadow Word: Horror, an unsable card from Old Gods, ended up being one of the most powerful mass-murder tools in Priest's arsenal. Once it made the jump to Wild, the two-card combo sort of fell out of favour for more efficient removal.
• Greater Healing Potion: 4/5. Essentially replacing Darkshire Alchemist, Greater Healing potion is a card that activates spell synergies for priest, is discoverable by Shadow Visions, and heals nearly half of Priest's health -- a very powerful tool that makes Priests even harder to kill.
• Drakonid Opeative: 5/5. One of the most powerful cards in Priest's arsenal, it's extremely well-statted, and you even get to choose the card you want to copy from your opponent's deck! Easily a powerhouse that single-handedly kept the Dragon Priest archetype together even as Blackrock Mountain rotated out. 
• Potion of Madness: 4/5. The reason Priest could survive against aggro decks is to take control of their tokens and make them murder each other. A big "fuck you" to Patches, and is basically obligatory in all Priest decks when Patches ran rampant. 
• Kabal Talonpriest: 5/5. A Dark Cultist, but with a battlecry effect? Kabal Talonpriest is one of Priest's most stable early-game minions, and honestly is a card jammed in many non-Big-Priest decks simply because of the potential trading benefits it could give. 
• Kabal Songstealer: 2/5. A powerful silence-on-a-stick. Eventually sort of phased out as Priest got better tools, but Songstealer's a genuinely powerful card nonetheless... it's just that even in a singleton deck, Priest has way too much good stuff.

Rogue:

• Shaku, the Collector: 3/5. Shaku's a very balanced card that saw a lot of sporadic play due to its fun effect, but never truly defined an archetype. He's versatile more than anything else.
• Lotus Assassin: 1/5. Great concept! Just never really had a spot anywhere.
• Luckydo Buccaneer: 1/5. Oh wow, I forgot this card existed. 
• Counterfeit Coin: 5/5. A lot of people, including myself, scoffed at this card... but turns out that it's amazing to activate combos, Edwins and Gadgetzan Aucitoneers. It did admittedly take some time for Counterfeit Coin to find its way into Rogue decks (I think it's Vilespine Slayer and later Elven Minstrel that really made it good?) but it's practically a staple of most rogue decks at the moment.
• Gadgetzan Ferryman: 4/5. An interesting card that was mocked endlessly for being a shittier Young Brewmaster back in the time when he's released, but Quest Rogue showed up in the next expansion and no one is smiling anymore. Quest Rogue ended up being nerfed, but shit, Ferryman was one of the deck's enablers back in the day. 
• Shadow Sensei: 1/5. Stealth rogue didn't work.
• Jade Shuriken: 2/5. Jade Rogue's... cute, and worked as a sort of a low-tier borderline-playable deck, but it's not particularly good compared to its druid and shaman compatriots. Not bad, which is what 2/5 means. 
• Jade Swarmer: 2/5. Ditto with the above. 
• Shadow Rager: 1/5. Funny, but a bad card.

Shaman:

• White Eyes: 2/5. White Eyes is a strong effect and you're so happy to discover him from Stonehill Defender, but never a card that fit in the 30-card deck slot. 
• Lotus Illusionist: 1/5. Too slow to really see play, and doesn't work with Shaman's game plan. Actually decent in Arena. 
• Finders Keepers: 1/5. Haha overload. The idea of overload is to vomit value onto the board, not to maybe kinda-sorta get a card that does something useful. 
• Devolve: 4/5. Surprisingly good, especially when Aggro Paladin and Aggro Druid became popular. Turns out all those murlocs and living mana tokens end up being turned into a bunch of harmless 1-drops and Wisps once you devolve them. A very powerful tech card when Shaman wasn't a bad class. 
• Jade Claws: 5/5. Essentially replacing Spirit Claws, Jade Claws helped to build a board while being a decent weapon to trade, and I think is the reason why the jade package really worked in Shaman at all. 
• Jinyu Waterspeaker: 2/5. Interesting tech card and a very well-designed card, and sort of flitted in and out of shaman decks, but was eventually left out of the more streamlined Evolve Shaman decks.
• Call in the Finishers: 1/5. Funny to use with Everyfin is Awesome, but once that card rotated out Call in the Finishers ends up pretty much unplayable and you're better off spamming murlocs with actual murloc cards. 
• Jade Lightning: 4/5. Like Jade Claws, it's in itself a slightly-weaker-than-normal spell that comes with a body. Plus, it goes face and Shamans get spell damage rather easily, so it's neat to finish off the enemy. 
• Jade Chieftain: 2/5. Actually left out of Jade Shaman decks, or reduced to a one-off, which aimed to be more of an aggro/midrange build that doesn't have a place for a 7-mana 5/5. By late turns Jade Shamans resorted to evolve and bloodlust shenanigans, so while not technically a bad card, Chieftain just didn't work in the deck.

Warlock:

• Krul the Unshackled: 3/5. Highlander Warlock didn't necessarily pan out that well, at least not until more demons are added in Frozen Throne and Kobolds & Catacombs, so Krul didn't really saw that much play in standard. In Wild, the Krul package as a whole is more of a greedier tech choice that's sometimes left out.
• Kabal Trafficker: 2/5. Kind of a neat tech card currently to bring in more demons without diluting the Possessed Lackey gimmickry, but ultimately too unreliable. There's a lot of bad demons, too, the sort that you never want. 
• Unlicensed Apothecary: 1/5. Oh, look, a bad demon, the sort that you never want.
• Bloodfury Potion: 3/5. Saw some legitimate usage in zoo warlock variants that uses more demons, and can definitely catch people off-guard. 
• Seadevil Stinger: 1/5. Haha, murloc warlock. 
• Felfire Potion: 1/5. Saw some use initially until it was cut for being way too masochistic. Warlocks have far better removal.
• Crystalweaver: 3/5. Same with Bloodfury Potion, saw some fringe use in demon-zoo warlock variants. It's just not in all the zoo Warlock variants, sadly, because zoo warlocks kind of want a mixture of pirates and demons. 
• Abyssal Enforcer: 3/5. Hellfire on a body! Abyssal Enforcer's a very solid minion, it just didn't find that much space to really work. Easily one of the most powerful Warlock options in arena, but ended up being cut out of many warlock decks for not synergizing with what they're trying to do.
• Blastcrystal Potion: 1/5. A neat bit of removal, but eventually got phased out as people realized Siphon Soul's almost always better. 

Warrior:

• Hobart Grapplehammer: 1/5. I tried to make this card work so much, but it's just way too slow, even in Pirate Warrior. His stats are too low to really work in that deck. 
• Sleep With the Fishes: 5/5. One of Warrior's more powerful tools. Not exactly mass execute, but a damn good board clear, even if  it does take some effort to get this to go off it's insanely cheap, and is particularly great when you can recycle it and whirlwind effects with Dead Man's Hand.
• Brass Knuckles: 1/5. Delayed handbuff! Haha. 
• Stolen Goods: 1/5. Handbuff! Hahaha.
• Grimestreet Pawnbroker: 1/5. Weapon handbuff! Hahaha HA. 
• Alley Armorsmith: 4/5. Okay, this card's actually pretty decent. In conjunction with Bloodhoof Brave, Alley Armorsmith ended up being a pretty solid card in control warrior decks, especially in Quest/Taunt Warrior in Un'Goro. Ultimately Warrior ended up hedging towards Pirate Warrior almost exclusively in the Un'Goro/Frozen Throne era, but Alley Armorsmith did some good work before that. 
• I Know a Guy: 1/5. Turns out one mana discover a card isn't that good. Probably the best out of the 1/5's here,  though that's not saying much. 
• Public Defender: 1/5. Zero attack taunt, HAHAHA! Oh man, poor Warrior!
• Grimy Gadgeteer: 1/5. It's a continuous effect, which I guess is good... but you compare this with Grimestreet Enforcer, which buffs your entire hand, and Grimy Gadgeteer just sucks. 

Tri-Class:

• Aya Blackpaw: 5/5. Aya herself isn't the most exciting card, with decidedly sub-par stats, but she's a hugely aggressive card that summons a jade, and summons a second jade. She won't win you games, but she does end up causing that mid-game plan for Jade Druid and Shaman to be particularly powerful. 
• Lotus Agents: 1/5. None of the "discover a card from three classes" cards really worked out. Lotus Agents is decent in arena, but the stats are pretty bad. 5-mana 5/3? Really? 
• Jade Spirit: 4/5. Jade Spirit isn't necessarily the best Jade card, but she's very solid and stable, making her an auto-include in any Jade deck as the early-mid card to quickly ramp up the Jade Idol game-plan for druids or the Bloodlust gameplan for Shaman.
• Kazakus: 5/5. Six out of five, even. One of the most powerful cards in the expansion, Kazakus has always seen play in some shape or form, being powerful in warlock and particularly highlander priest, which, as mentioned above, became the de facto oppressive deck for a while during Frozen Throne and K&C. Kazakus's ability to simply create such a huge value spell that can either push damage to the face, clear the board or build a board depending on the situation is just so versatile, skill-testing and amazingly balanced. 
• Kabal Courier: 2/5. Kabal Courier's stats are slightly less shit than Lotus Agents and Grimestreet Informant, and the nature of highlander cards ended up causing him to be slotted in as a more-value early game card.
• Kabal Chemist: 1/5. Decent in arena, but a lot of the potions are way too situational or class-specific for constructed.
• Don Han'Cho: 1/5. Okay, I guess I should talk a bit about why hand-buff sucks, huh? The idea of building up stats to win is interesting, but the hand-buff cards are so weak and are such a huge tempo loss in the early turns, and none of them really let you choose to buff, say, a charge minion, so by the time you actually play the buffed minions you end up losing out to decks that just play decently-statted minions every turn. Handbuff decks are outsped by aggro, and countered by silence and devolve effects. Don Han'Cho, in particular, is a 7-mana 5/6, a pretty huge loss in board tempo that the +5/+5 buff to whatever minion comes next ends up balancing itself out into a hefty tempo loss. To rub salt in injury, Bonemare, a common card released two expansions later, is essentially a more powerful version of Don Han'Cho who adds the stat buff to a minion already on board to smash the face. 
• Grimestreet Informant: 1/5. 2-mana 1/1's suck. The reason Jeweled Scarab worked is because it curves really well. Informant doesn't. 
• Grimestreet Smuggler: 1/5. Handbuff cards don't work well, as mentioned.

Neutral Legendaries:

• Patches the Pirate: 5/5 [pre-nerf] 3/5 [post-nerf]. Here he is. The man in CHARGE of the metagame for four expansions straight. If I could give a card more than a 5/5 rating, it would be pre-nerf Patches. This innocuous "Stonetusk Boar that jumps out of your deck" is surprisingly amazing, especially in conjunction with so many other pirate synergy. Swashburglar, Small-Time Buccaneer, Bloodsail Corsair, N'Zoth's First Mate, Southsea Captain... throw in the fact that Frozen Throne would introduce Keleseth, which made Patches even more oppressive... it got so bad that so many aggro classes introduced the package of Bloodsail Corsair, Patches and Southsea Captain; or alternatively Golakka Crawler; simply because Patches is just that good. He's nerfed and is now shit (and I've mentioned how many other cards became playable because of the Patches nerf), but never forget how he was, quite literally, in charge. 
• Addendum: This addendum was added when I made the switch to Wild around the time of Witchwood... and turns out that Odd Rogue and Pirate Warrior? They still play Patches! A 1/1 in the early game is still pretty nice to have, especially with the early pirates both Rogue and Warrior both have, and with Ship's Cannon and Southsea Captain, Patches actually ends up still seeing a surprising amount of play -- but a balanced amount. He's not in charge anymore, but it's a happy ending for everyone's favourite Beholder Pirate.
• Auctionmaster Beardo: 2/5. Interesting effect and good stats, but never really saw play outside of a combo deck with Uther of the Ebon Blade, which is a fringe deck at bes. 
• Sergeant Sally: 1/5. Never saw play.
• Genzo, the Shark: 1/5. There was a brief moment when Genzo was played in some aggro decks, but turns out he just doesn't have any real synergy with anything. Neat card, though.
• Finja, the Flying Star: 4/5. A powerhouse in murloc paladin and murloc shaman (when it existed). Turns out a stealthed murloc that recruits two Murlocs is just pretty damn powerful. Finja ends up being somewhat dropped from murloc decks when they became more aggressive due to the introduction of Rockpool Hunter, but he's still a legitimate mid-game choice. 
• Madam Goya: 1/5. Stats are too low, and the effect is too inconsistent. 
• Wrathion: 1/5. Cool character! The card doesn't actually work well, though, being rather under-statted and unreliable. 
• Mayor Noggenfogger: 1/5. The Mayor of the Memes! Unplayable, but funny as hell. 

Neutral:

• Weasel Tunneler: 1/5. Another meme card. Interesting card, but not actually good, despite what Weasel Priest might want you to think. 
• Dirty Rat: 5/5. An amazing tech card that has the huge potential of backfiring. It's sort of like Doomsayer, I think, where it's not a card that's going to work in every match-up, and not a card you play on tempo, but sometimes you just rip a combo piece out of someone's hand -- it's not a drop-it-and-forget-it tech card like Loatheb or Geist, and I appreciate Dirty Rat a lot for that. One of the most frustrating or satisfying cards depending on how he swings the game, and a very powerful tool in Combo-centric metas.
• Blubber Baron: 1/5. Too unwieldy. 
• Fel Orc Soulfiend: 1/5. Too masochistic and doesn't really do enough.
• Burgly Bully: 2/5. Uther/Beardo combo decks and some Quest Mage decks tried to run burgly Bully, but otherwise the effect just isn't strong enough to really justify running him. A very neat design, though.
• Defias Cleaner: 1/5. Too situational -- you'd rather just run Spellbreaker. 
• Fight Promoter: 1/5. Stats are way too low. 
• Leatherclad Hogleader: 1/5. Too situational, and even when it works it's not better than Leeroy.
• Wind-up Burglebot: 1/5. Oh my god this card exists. Pretty much unplyabale. 
• Small-Time Buccaneer: 5/5 [pre-nerf] 1/5 [post-nerf]. Like I said, all cards that needed to be nerfed is a 5/5 before it. What's essentially a 3/2 that summons a charging 1/1 will basically just lock down any board. And yes, he's a conditional 3/2, but Rogues, Shamans and Warirors can all reliably equip a weapon on the second turn and the fact that he comes with Patches, which helps clear the board, causes STB to freely hit the face for 3 damage a couple of times. Eventually got nerfed, and was never seen even while Pirate decks flourished. While Patches bounced back, his buddy never did.
• Backroom Bouncer: 1/5. Neat in arena, but if Cult Master saw no play, neither will the Bouncer. 
• Bomb Squad: 1/5. Cute, and it's tried in Evolve decks, but not good enough. 
• Doppelgangster: 4/5. Everyone hyped up Doppelgangster for handbuff synergies, but turns out Doppelgangster's true home isn't with hand-buff but with Evolve. Three 6-drops on turn 6 is an insane play. And the existence of the Doppelgangster/Evolve combo is honestly the only reason Shaman's even still able to muster some sort of resistance during its 'dark days' pre-Witchwood. Afterwards, Evolve Shaman sort of fell out of favour both in Standard and Wild. 
• Second-Rate Bruiser: 1/5. Saw some attempt to be used as a tech card against zoo and aggro, and it's admittedly decent -- but turns out AoE spells are just better. Not a bad card, though, and great in arena. 
• Spiked Hogrider: 1/5. Decent in arena, but there are so many better 5-drops than the silly hogriders. 
• Mistress of Mixtures: 5/5. One of the most powerful 1-mana drops, essentially replaces Zombie Chow of the past. Mistress of Mixtures saw a lot of play in aggro druid and especially multiple variations of Warlock, which just allows them to tap without repercussion as the Mistress will trade and restore health to the Warlock. Easily one of the more deceptively powerful cards. 
• Blowgill Sniper: 1/5. A more expensive Elven Archer with one more stat. Tried out, but not even the murloc tag works. 
• Friendly Bartender: 1/5. Great in arena, actually! Doesn't do enough in constructed.
• Gadgetzan Socialite: 1/5. Outclassed by Earthen Ring Farseer, and even that rarely sees play.
• Backstreet Leper: 1/5. This card is so bad and there's no real way to make this dude good. 
• Hired Gun: 1/5. Very decent in arena! Doesn't do enough in constructed, though, and essentially replaced by Stonehill Defender and Tar Creeper, far superior 3-mana taunts. 
• Street Trickster: 1/5. Haha, 0-attack minions. 
• Toxic Sewer Ooze: 1/5. Absolutely outclassed by Acidic Swamp Ooze. Not even that good in arena.
• Daring Reporter: 1/5. Tries to kind of tech against enemy draw, but doesn't actually do enough.
• Hozen Healer: 1/5. Very decent in arena, but his stats are too low and it's very hard to find the right moment where Hozen Healer will actually do something significant. 
• Kooky Chemist: 1/5. You want the effect, not the stats, to the cheaper Crazed Alchemist is strictly better. 
• Naga Corsair: 5/5. Saw a great amount of usage in multiple pirate decks, since Naga Corsair has an offensive statline and a weapon buff effect. Particularly great in Pirate Warrior in conjunction with Bloodsail Cultist. Recently found a new home in Kingsbane Rogue, where her buff is appreciated very much.
• Tanaris Hogchopper: 1/5. When is your opponent's hand ever empty?
• Worgen Greaser: 1/5. AKA Pack Filler. Can we give this guy a 0/5?
• Grook-Fu Master: 1/5. Actually saw a brief amount of usage to activate Windfury on Corpsetaker, but itself is a pretty crap card. 
• Red Mana Wyrm: 1/5. Was briefly experimented upon in Mage and Rogue, but it's way too expensive. Even lampshaded by the flavour text. 
• Streetwise Investigator: 1/5. Doesn't do enough to warrant being run as a counter card..
• Ancient of Blossoms: 1/5. Neat in arena, but there are way better taunts out there.
• Big-Time Racketeer: 1/5. Tried out in Evolve decks and with Brann, but turns out that just a pile of stats doesn't really warrant spending 6 mana on. Again, okay in arena. 

Hearthstone: A Look Back - One Night in Karazhan

 Part two of my look back onto the Year of the Kraken, the expansions that are going to rotate out as the Year of the Raven arrives soon. Not much to really say here -- Karazhan's the last Adventure-style release and the last content to be introduced into the game that's not a 100+ cards expansion, and while initially it's an expansion that really failed to shake up the meta too much, Karazhan's cards are the sort that really didn't manage to shine until subsequent expansions added tools to make the cards work.

Again, as with my Old Gods retrospective review, the rankings here are done based on the performance of the cards and how much they saw play over the two years they're in Standard format. So cards that were great for a long period of time but don't see play currently (like Babbling Book, to use an example from this expansion), or vice versa (like Barnes), will all get around 4/5's or 5/5's. Also, it's not particularly an in-depth review, and I'll try to keep each card review within a couple of sentences.

Druid:

• Enchanted Raven: 4/5. The good Raven here isn't a card that really made the waves when it was first introduced since we're all "haha beast druid", but eventually became a strong monster particularly during the Frozen Throne era. It's always seen some fringe play as a solid one-drop to replace Living Roots, but with the advent of powerful cards during Un'Goro and Frozen Throne, Enchanted Raven easily became one of Druid's more powerful openers. 
• Menagerie Warden: 1/5. Everyone tried to make beast druid work. It didn't happen, even though on paper Menagerie Warden's a pretty powerful and well-statted card.
• Moonglade Portal: 2/5. Saw some amount of play as a defensive tool for Druid, but eventually got phased out and ultimately replaced by Malfurion the Pestilent.

Hunter:

• Kindly Grandmother: 5/5. Kindly Grandmother is probably one of the stronger 2-mana cards Hunter's gotten, and it's definitely one of the cards that helped to keep Hunter playable during the times when it was floundering. Great deathrattle, great in aggro and not half-bad in midrange. 
• Cloaked Huntress: 4/5. Although admittedly the resurgence of Cloaked Huntress into a powerhouse for Secret Hunter decks really didn't happen until Kobolds & Catacombs. Everyone tried Cloaked Huntress back when it was new and it was... decent, but Secret Hunter was just over-eclipsed by everything else. It's not until the addition of Wandering Monster and Lesser Emerald Spellstone that the deck really works. 
• Cat Trick: 4/5. Pretty great secret -- summoning a stealthed beast? Triggers on spells, making it another thing that could potentially bamboozle the opponent? Yeah, Cat Trick's a pretty good card for hunters. Just solid all around. 

Mage:

• Medivh's Valet: 5/5. Wow, Karazhan introduces a lot of Secret synergy, huh? Medivh's Valet isn't particularly good during the Karazhan and Gadgetzan era due to the fact that while the effect and stats were amazing, there just wasn't a natural progression to using it. It's not until Arcanologist came along in Un'Goro that the Secret Mage archetype really works, and Medivh's Valet is a core card in that deck. Especially powerful when it evolved into an Aluneth burn mage deck in K&C. 
• Firelands Portal: 4/5. A monster in arena so much that they had to nerf Firelands Portal's appearance rate in arena twice. In constructed, it sort of replaced and later co-existed alongside Pyroblast as the only big finisher spells Mage runs. Burst damage, and a huge body? Yeah, It's pretty strong. 
• Babbling Book: 5/5. Deceptively powerful. While it's since fallen out of favour as Mages gravitated from just generating a load of value to either fine-tuned Quest and Secret archetypes, Babbling Book has a one-up over cards like Journey Below or I Know A Guy in that it comes with a 1/1 body... which doesn't seem much, but matters a lot especially during the Patches meta. Particularly the fact that Mage spells are freaking good. Balancing this humble dude, I think, was the genesis for the creation of some of the unwieldier spells in the Year of the Mammoth. 

Paladin:

• Nightbane Templar: 1/5. A slightly better Razorfen Hunter, but it's conditional. And extremely fragile. Tried out briefly, but never saw play.
• Silvermoon Portal: 1/5. Never saw play either, with Blessing of Kings really outclassing it although it's worth noting that it's recently tried out in Lynessa Sunsorrow decks... but ends up just not being good enough. 
• Ivory Knight: 2/5. Sort of replaces Forbidden Healing for the Control Paladin archetype during this period, and a genuinely good card... but honestly ends up way too slow for the metagame, and Paladins have way too many 1-mana secrets that really gimped Ivory Knight sometimes. 

Priest:

• Purify: 2/5. While right now we're just fresh off a Priest-dominated metagame (at the time of writing, it's at the end of the K&C expansion), back in Old Gods and Karazhan Priest is honestly a bit of the underdog and a joke, which is why the release of Purify angered the entire community to lead into one of the swiftest responses and apologies from Blizzard, removing Purify from arena and rethinking their release schedule as to not upset the fans of the current 'bad class'. Purify's honestly useless back in the meta back then, since a 2-mana card draw's just kinda bad, but ended up finding a legitimate usage during Un'Goro with the release of Humongous Razorleaf, forming a legitimate Silence Priest deck. So it's a happy ending for Purify after all!
• Priest of the Feast: 3/5. One of the most solid and most powerful four-drops in the game, and a huge staple for Priest decks during the Year of the Mammoth. A powerful potentially continuous effect, and a very solid body at that? Yeah. 
• Onyx Bishop: 1/5. Interesting effect, but the randomness sort of makes the good Bishop very unreliable and a huge risk. The cute thing was to bring back an un-Injured Blademaster, but that turned out to not be that good, and the resurrect mechanic is essentially revamped with the Big Priest deck which never wants to run Onyx Bishop which would dilute the graveyeard with a weak 3/4 body. 

Rogue:

• Swashburglar: 5/5. The humble Swashburglar was ridiculed when it was first revealed. Essentially the same with Babbling Book, the 'Burgle' mechanic was fun but not necessarily powerful. And a random spell from the enemy's class  isn't as good as a Mage spell... but turns out that a combination of Swashburglar's decent effect and the fact that he's a Pirate made Swashburglar the Rogue equivalent to N'Zoth's First Mate for Rogues, giving value and building a board in the Gadgetzan meta. Of course, back when Karazhan was the newest expansion everyone was doom-saying about the Burgle mechanic being a flop. And it kinda is... but Swashburglar's just that good .
• Deadly Fork: 1/5. Too slow. Never saw play. 
• Ethereal Peddler: 1/5. Likewise, too slow, never saw play, and there's just not that much burgle synergy to really go around to make this that good of a play. 

Shaman:

• Spirit Claws: 5/5 [pre-nerf] 1/5 [post-nerf]. Yep, this motherfucker was the bane of the meta during the Karazhan era. Shaman got a fuck-ton of powerful tools in TGT and Old Gods, and a very powerful Face Shaman ended up being one of the most powerful decks during the Old Gods/Karazhan era, essentially turning the game into "Shaman's Tier 1, everything else is lower". And, as you probably saw in my reviews above... a lot of the good cards for other class didn't see a home in a deck until later expansions. Spirit Claws turns out to work too well with Totems, is a more powerful Fiery War Axe that can come out at turn 1 and just is such a powerful aggro tool. It got nerfed by a full mana point, and never saw play afterwards. 
• Wicked Witchdoctor: 1/5. Never saw play -- the better Violet Teacher never saw play either, so I'm genuinely baffled that they printed this card and thought statline was playable.
• Maelstrom Portal: 5/5. Yet another reason Shaman's so good. It doesn't need the spell damage synergy to be good, but it's so easy for Shaman to land a spell damage totem on the board. Maelstrom Portal deals less damage than Lightning Storm, but it adds an extra body to oppress the board and doesn't overload you. It's easily one of the most powerful early game tools in Shaman's arsenal for sure. Alongside Spirit Claws, Totem Golem, Tunnel Trogg and Flametongue Totem, this is the reason Shaman was so powerful during this era. 

Warlock:

• Malchezaar's Imp: 3/5. Discard Warlock is sort of a joke now, but during Karazhan it actually ended up revitalizing Zoo Warlock. It's not a particularly top-tier deck, but Malchezaar's Imp is easily one of the most powerful catch-up mechanics in that deck, helping you to cycle the cards discarded by your Doomguards and everything. Decent card, shame the discard mechanic never really got itself together, with subsequent expansions not really giving it that much proper tools. 
• Kara Kazham: 1/5. Too slow and edxpensive. Never saw play. 
• Silverware Golem: 3/5. We needed more cards like Silverware Golem to really make Discard Warlock good, honestly. It's a great play -- a Darkshire Councilman on turn 2, summoning a 3/2 that draws a card and a 3/3 Silverware Golem from your hand, and potentially drawing a card from Malchezaar's Imp... and it's great! But as the power levels of the cards increases with new expansions, this sort of discard zoo warlock is just plain unable to catch up. 

Warrior:

• Fool's Bane: 1/5. Too slow and impractical, and can't go face. Never saw play. 
• Ironforge Portal: 3/5. Ironforge Portal saw a fair amount of use in the Control Warrior archetype that was pretty solid during the Old Gods and Karazhan meta, but eventually just got outclassed by other more powerful tools that Warrior receives in subsequent expansions, especially when Pirate Warrior became the de facto warrior deck. 
• Protect the King: 1/5. Funny, but too expensive for what you get, and way too susceptible to Maesltrom Portal and Ravaging Ghoul even if you manage to get it off 

Neutral:

• Moroes: 1/5. Too weak, the effect isn't necessarily that powerful. Also see: Maelstrom Portal.  
• Barnes: 5/5. Six out of five, nowadays. Barnes is a solid "hey, maybe this dude can get some value yuk yuk yuk" multi-purpose turn 4 card in the same way that Loatheb, Sylvanas, Dr. Boom and Ragnaros are just multi-purpose happy times for their mana slots. But it's not until Frozen Throne when the Big Priest archetype really ended up abusing Barnes by summoning cheap 1/1 copies of Y'Shaarj, Lich King, Ysera and Obsidian Statue, killing the copy off and then cheating it back with Eternal Servitude. That's just Big Priest -- some Spell-only Hunters put in Barnes and Y'Shaarj for the potential tempo swing of having a 10/10 by turn 4 would be. And thus Barnes became one of the biggest powerhouses despite his humble effect, and easily the most powerful card to come out of this metagame. 
• Prince Malchezaar: 1/5. Very flashy effects, but the restrictions and the sheer amount of build-around legendaries that might not even fit your deck's playstyle just ends up diluting the hell out of your deck. AMAZING in Arena, though. I got a 12-win run once thanks to a Malchezaar deck. 
• The Curator: 3/5. Never super-powerful, but always a very fun card to build around. It's a versatile card that tutors out cards of a specific tribe, drawing up to three, and its stats isn't that bad thanks to the Taunt it comes with. Curator's never going to win you games, and back in Karazhan people are sort of tunnel-visioned into putting Curator with the other menagerie cards, but in practice it saw the most play in things like Quest Warrior and slower Murloc Paladin, especially when Un'Goro introduces a lot of new beasts and dragons. 
• Medivh, the Guardian: 4/5. Medivh was always around, but was sort of overshadowed by the likes of Ragnaros and other big-name cards. He really came out to be a very solid late-game value generator during the Frozen Throne era, where he's a powerful win-more addition to Jade Druid, synergizing well with Ultimate Infestation and Druid's other expensive cards. And even outside of Jade Druid, Medivh really works well in a fair amount of other decks as well. 
• Arcane Giant: 2/5. Not seen that much currently, but Arcane Giant decks are legitimately powerful in decks that spam a lot of spells like Mage, and was briefly the finisher for Quest Mage until someone perfected the Apprentice/Molten Reflection/Archmage Antonidas combo. 
• Avian Watcher: 1/5. A Secret-synergy card that's just ultimately a slightly-bigger Taunt, and is too weak to find a home anywhere. 
• Book Wyrm: 2/5. Book Wyrm's an interesting tech choice to put into Dragon Priest decks, a Shadow Word: Pain with a decent body, but it honestly gets choked out by other, better dragons that while it's still a legitimate tech card, better dragons would eventually take over Book Wyrm's slot as the mid-game dragon. 
• Moat Lurker: 1/5. Neat effect, but too expensive to make work. 
• Arcane Anomaly: 1/5. Never really saw play -- doesn't do that much, and not even a new elemental tag really helped it out. 
• Runic Egg: 1/5. Never really saw play -- there are lots of better eggs out there. 
• Netherspite Historian: 4/5. A key card in what makes Dragon Priest so powerful. A 2-mana play is very good for Priests, and the ability to choose dragons and potentially discover a late-game bomb or a dragon that's just suitable for your situation is amazing. Hell, it got most Dragon Priest decks to actually cut out things like Deathwing, Ysera and Alexstrasza with the justification of streamlining the deck because you can relatively reliably get big end-game dragons from Historian. 
• Pompous Thespian: 1/5. Haha Thespian. Neat in arena, but never saw play in constructed. 
• Pantry Spider: 1/5. Poor stat distribution, not even aggro hunters and druids want to play this little dude. 
• Violet Illusionist: 1/5. Neat concept, but never actually saw play anywhere in a serious deck. 
• Zoobot: 3/5. Its stats is good enough and it's cheap enough to see play in Token Druid and Murloc Paladin decks. It very rarely hits more than one minion since the murloc-dragon-beast deck didn't really work, but sometimes giving a single murloc or Enchanted Raven a +1/+1 bonus is good enough.
• Arcanosmith: 1/5. Okay in arena, I think, but positively bad and very unwieldy in constructed. 
• Menagerie Magician: 1/5. Unlike Zoobot, the Magician's too expensive and poorly statted to ever see play.