Boomsday Project Card Review/Reaction #6

 Bunch of new cards! Not much to say here. This was briefly taken down and uploaded with a way's worth of new cards.

The Soularium: The Warlocks' legendary spell is... interesting? At the point of writing we've barely seen any Warlock cards, only the honestly pretty m'eh Omega Agent, so I'm not sure if we're going to get any sort of huge discard boost. I mean, every time we get a discard warlock synergy card, everyone gets mildly excited only for discard warlock to still be a dud. I mean, the quest, Zavas, Cataclysm and Lana'thel are still in the rotation, so maaaaybe we're getting somewhere? Soularium drawing three cards for 1 mana and discarding them is interesting, because maybe you just want to discard three cards to progress the quest (or maybe there's a Silverware Golem style minion printed in this set) or if it's somewhat later -- or, more likely, if you're not playing a discard synergy deck -- you just get a three-card advantage and maybe you just machinegun them into the board. It's otherwise a pretty mellow legendary spell, I'm afraid.

Void Analyst: An interesting demon synergy card! One of Gadgetzan's Crystaweaver's biggest weakness, I think, is that the Cyrstalweaver himself isn't a demon, which made including him in a demon zoo Warlock deck a bit of a toss-up. Void Analyst is a 2-mana 2/2 demon, but with the deathrattle of giving all demons in your hand +1/+1. In a vacuum, she's an okay card? Hand-buffing has been proven to not be quite that strong, though it is worth noting that most Warlock decks nowadays want to keep your Voidlords and Doomguards in your hand until you can cheat it out with Skull of the Man'ari... but those same deck also run Bloodreaver Gul'dan, who you wouldn't want to bring back Void Analyst with. I guess Even Warlock could play this? They only run Homunculus, Reaver and Dread Infernal, after all. Ultimately an interesting card, but not one I see a lot of potential in seeing play in the current Warlock decks.

Thunderhead: First up we've got a bunch of interesting Shaman elementals. Thunderhead here is a 4-mana 3/5 that after you plays a card with Overlord, you get two 1/1 Sparks with Rush? It's the same effect with Voltaic Burst, which I suppose synergizes with this card, but I honestly think that you don't really want to play Thunderhead with Voltaic Burst -- there are a fair amount of other Overload cards that are better than Voltaic Burst. Yes, there's a lot of talk about how Voltaic Burst is good with Dire Wolf Alpha or Flametongue Totem, but that sort of requires a turn 3 play at best and you overload, which means that it isn't going to do the early-game board control that Jade Claws or Maelstrom Portal used to afford. Thunderhead himself looks decent, and if there are more cheap Overload cards printed might be good, but I personally don't see this happening, and especially not when there are so much better ways to play Shaman -- either Even or Shudderwock -- than a weird Overload synergy gameplan.

Storm Chaser: Storm Chaser is a card who I'm going to reserve my judgement until I actually see the Shaman legendary spell. She's a 4-mana 3/4 elemental that tutors a spell that costs 5 or more. Man, we are seeing lots of card-tutoring effects in this set, huh? At the moment the only expensive spell Shamans have in Standard are Volcano, Bloodlust and the Spellstone. In Wild we can add Everyfin is Awesome to that list. So I'm genuinely quite curious -- a card that guarantees tutoring Bloodlust isn't horrible at all, but probably not worth the tempo loss of playing an undercosted 4-drop. That's not to say Storm Chaser is a bad card, mind you -- it's just waiting for this set to reveal the card that you really want to draw.

Omega Mind: The Shamans also get an Omega card, a 2-mana 2/3. Vanilla stats! And if you have 10 mana crystals, your spells have Lifesteal this turn... which, well, Volcano! Maybe you don't run two Healing Rains, and just keep Omega Mind around. On a faster-paced game you have an additional 2/3 card, and on a slower game maybe you combo this with your Volcanos and Lightning Storms to get a lot of extra health. Certainly better stats than poor, unused Hallazeal, for sure. Even Shaman could use this too, I think.

Dreampetal Florist: Hey, if you're having some second thoughts about what to put into the seven-mana slot of your Psychmelon Druid deck, look no further than Dreampetal Florist! She's a 7-mana 4/4 that, at the end of your turn, reduces the cost of a random minion by seven. WHAT THE UTTER FUCK! I mean, I thought Floop was amazing, I thought Psychmelon was great... But this just pushes Druid over the edge, honestly. Forget Treants, combo druid just got a whole lot easier with this card. It's an end-of-turn effect so you're guaranteed a tick of the Florist's insane seven-mana discount by your next turn, you get a 4/4 body, and, hell, you can even rather reliably tutor this card. It's not even a one-time battlecry, either, so if by some miracle the Dreampetal Florist survives, you get another discount. Great card, honestly. Pretty fucking amazing. Not sure what else I can say... be wary of Florists and Melons.

Meteorologist: Another Hand-Mage card, and this isn't one that I think is going to be as good as the Astromancer. Meteorologist is a 6-mana 3/3, which is horrible stats, and deals as much damage as cards in your hand to a random enemy. Yeah, sure, with an empty board this is potentially 9 damage to the face, but you have to put a 6-mana 3/3 into your deck, and your hand has to be full? Why wouldn't you run like, practically any other huge mage spell? I don't want to say "this is trash" until we see the entire set, because maybe there's something I'm missing... but this is kinda trash.

Necrium Vial: A card given to Rogues... this is... just bizarre, isn't it? It's not even like Necrium Dagger where "it's neat, but I don't see it working just yet". Necrium Vial triggers a friendly minion's Deathrattle twice. Which is a powerful effect! But it costs five mana? Considering Play Dead only costs 1, I'm genuinely not sure what Deathrattle is so valuable that you'd be willing to pay five mana to do it twice. A Carnivorous Cube with Leeroy, maybe? As much as I've enjoyed the Deathrattle synergy given to Rogues, Necrium Vial is one I don't see really working out.

Security Rover: Now Security Rover is an interesting one. He's a 6-mana 2/5 mech for warriors, which, whenever it takes damage, summons a 2/3 Taunt mech. It's like Grim Patron and DoomHogger had a baby, and that baby is a robot! Mind you, you do still have to play a 6-mana 2/5, which is terrible -- but magnetize kind of helps to save this by giving you a way to heal and buff the Security Rover, while you constantly summon little 2/3 Taunt babies. I suppose you can set up Blood Razor to trigger on the turn you play Security Rover, so for 6 mana your play is summoning a 2/4 Rover and a 2/3 Taunt, which... isn't bad? I dunno. On first glance I really kind of wished Rover was a little stronger, but without looking at the full batch of Magnetic minions that Warriors are going to have, I'm not willing to dismiss Rover quite that soon. It's a pretty interesting effect that definitely could be abused.

Replicating Menace: A neutral card and a mech, and... a strange one? Replicating Menace is a 4-mana 3/1, which is pretty crappy, but summons three 1/1 Microbots. Like a very, very bad version of Piloted Shredder. The only real saving grace is that it has Magnetic, meaning you can play this as a buff. It's comparable to Eggnapper, but costs one more and sometimes the stats have Charge... I dunno. Doesn't look that good to me. Yes, it's better with the Dr. Boom hero card since it has Rush,  but so does practically every other Mech out there with Dr. Boom.

Arcane Dynamo: A brain jellyfish? Wait, what? This is an awesome monster design, even if I don't necessarily think it's a particularly impressive card. It's not a beast, but I don't think this is a naturally occurring jellyfish either. The Arcane Dynamo is a 6-mana 3/4 that allows you to Discover a spell that costs 5 or more... and sadly, I really don't think it's going to really see much play. What is it with spells that cost 5 or more, by the way? Storm Chaser also has the same wording. I suppose a good comparison for Dynamo is the Ethereal Conjurer from League of Explorers, who is a 5-mana 6/3 but discovers just a spell, or druids' Raven Idol that's just a 1-mana cost spell. And, sure, Arcane Dynamo discovers from a narrower pool, and especially for classes with the big-bomb legendary spells, you can discover a second copy of Kangor's Endless Army or the Boomship or whatever. The thing is... I'm not sure it's worth running a 6-mana 3/4 for the chance to roll that dice to maybe get the spell you need. Interesting card, but ultimately I think it's too weak.

EMP Operative: Oh, the Crab of this set. Of course it's going to happen. EMP Operative is a pretty simple counter card, as she just straight-up destroys a mech without any fuss. No stat gains like Golakka Crawler or Eater of Secrets, no set damage like Dragonslayer.... she just destroys a mech. And she's a 5-mana 3/3, which honestly is kind of a terrible body. Way too bad to put into your deck 'just in case' in the vein of Skulking Geist. As far as counter cards go, it's not the best but it's neat that this exists.

Seaforium Bomber: It's Iron Juggernaut junior. A 5-mana 5/5 that shuffles a bomb into your opponent's deck that deals 5 damage when drawn. Iron Juggernaut was a 6-mana 6/5 that shuffles a 10-damage bomb, and it never saw play. And, yeah, Augmented Elekk is a thing, but it's not going to help this particular card see any play, really.

Mecha'thun: Wait, what the FUCK? We're getting a robot C'Thun? No, Mecha'thun doesn't actually have anything to do with the C'Thun mechanic in Wild, which is a bit of a doo-doo shame, nor does he actually synergize with C'Thun in any sort of way, but fuck, what a bizarre card! Mecha'thun is obviously meant to be more of a meme/joke card, but it's definitely an interesting minion. A 10-mana 10/10 Mech with the Deathrattle of "if you have no cards in your deck, hand and battlefield, win". It's our second alternate win condition other than the Paladin Death Knight, and it's... it's interesting, for sure. Mecha'thun wants an empty deck, hand and battlefield, and not as a battlecry, either -- as a deathrattle. It has to die as the absolute last minion on board, while you've dumped your hand and deck. Assuming it doesn't get silenced or transformed, of course.

Now obviously we need to acknowledge that Mecha'thun is a horrible win condition. If you want to draw through your deck quickly and then win by some way, there are many, many other ways to do so. Like, Death Knights alone are a simple thing to point as 'change the game to work for a new win condition' cards. It's not even like Rin from K&C because Mecha'thun demands that it be basically the final, last card you kill and not just a mana/tempo investment the way Rin works. But Mecha'thun is a card you'll want to play when you go for the glory, and there are some interesting ways to activate Mecha'thun. Rogues can easily cycle through their deck with Myra's Unstable Element, but there's the problem on how to cheat out and kill Mecha'thun in the same turn, and also getting rid of everything on your side of the battlefield. Druids are another class with an easy way to cycle through their deck with Nourish and Ultimate Infestation (and if you really want to Mecha'thun, put Hemet Jungle Hunter to shoot out any cards that's not part of your combo) and ramp to ten mana. And then it's a matter of playing every single card from your hand, trade away every minion, then play Mecha'thun, Innervate and Naturalize with those as the absolute last cards in your hand. Warlocks are another one -- Hemet your deck, then play Mecha'thun, pray to god it survives, and then play Cataclysm to discard your hand and kill everything on board. Shame Bloobloom costs 2 mana.

Overall, a pretty damn bizarre card, and one I'm positive won't ever see any real competitive play, but god damn if it won't be hilarious the one time you manage to get this to work. If nothing else, the existence of Mecha'thun makes Spiteful Summoner turns and random mech generation to be a bit more... interesting. If nothing else, maybe you can put Mecha'thun into your deck jut to use as a huge 10-mana 10/10 to magnetize things to in order to guarantee a big bomb for your Kangor's Endless Army, or to play with the Boomship?

(I spent way more time talking about Mecha'thun than I thought I would)

A little addendum that I've been quietly adding to this post in order to not clog up the final post.

Luna's Pocket Galaxy: The mage's legendary spell is... interesting? It pushes for an interesting archetype, in any case. A 7-mana spell that changes all the cost of minions inn your deck to one is undoubtedly a powerful effect, but is it worth spending 7 mana to do nothing? Worth noting that this is easily comparable to the Druid Quest from Un'Goro, but Barnabus the Stomper actually gives you an extra body on the board during the turn that you discount your minions, and Druid has access to both Kun and Aviana. Yes, the reveal video (gloriously acted, by the way, worth checking out) notes this potential combo where you discount your entire deck, topdeck Stargazer Luna, and then do a combo with Archmage Arugal, multiple Sorcerer's Apprentices and Archmage Antonidas to do the Quest Mage OTK... but eh. Maybe you use this with Aluneth, but Aluneth sees the most use in aggro mage and while spending six mana to equip Aluneth might be an acceptable tempo loss, I'm not sure if spending turn 6 and 7 basically doing nothing is worth it for aggro mage. Ultimately, a card that's going to be fun if you discover it from outside your deck, but will require some huge deck-building tinkering to make actually work as the 'star' of the deck.

Dr. Morrigan: The Warlock legendary card is... not that good, honestly. 8-mana 5/5 with the deathrattle of 'swapping' her with a minion from your deck? If you really do want the recruit mechanic, why not just play Possessed Lackey, which is cheaper and also recruits specific Doomguards and Voidlords? If you want a minion that doesn't die and is just an inexhaustible resource, Bloodreaver Gul'dan is such a far more stable and less finnicky end-game card. Warlocks just have way too much power on their fingertips at the moment that a card like Dr. Morrigan honestly just looks straight-up bad.

Subject 9: Subject 9 is a pretty unexpected card, honestly. A neutral legendary Beast, Subject 9 is a 5-mana 4/4 that draws five different secrets from your deck. And that's... that's not that powerful, isn't it? Mysterious Challenger was powerful because he's a 6-mana 6/6, not that huge of a statline loss, and also immediately puts all the secrets into play. Subject 9 draws five different secrets, yes, but what deck plays more than five different secrets? Mages tended to just go with three at the maximum or they really dilute their deck. Paladins don't really play more than two or three either, and even then both Mages and Paladins want to cheat these out with cards like Bellringer Sentry and Arcanologist/Kirin Tor Mage combos. That leaves Hunter, I guess, who actually want to play their secrets in order to activate their spellstone, but that's such a slow play! As a hunter you want to play your secrets and upgrade your spellstone before turn 5, so playing an understatted minion on turn 5 and only upgrading your spellstone at turn 6. Nah, this card seems pretty weak.

Also, it's not until this point that I realize that the Nightmare Amalgam and the boss Experiment 3C is actually subtle foreshadowing to the Boomsday Project!


The Storm Bringer: Shaman's legendary spell is another one that fails to impress. It's a 7-mana spell that can be drawn by the Storm Chaser, yes, but its effect is decidedly underwhelming. You transform your minions into Legendary minions. And yes, you're more likely to get bigger minions like Deathwings and Lich Kings more than not -- the odd Chameleos you get out of Storm Bringer is going to be the low roll compared to the relatively okay legendaries you're going to get. But if you have a board big enough to play Storm Bringer, why not just play Bloodlust and kill the enemy? Or to guarantee some increase in value by playing Thrall Deathseer? Not a card that I actually see as particularly powerful, if we're being honest.

Galvanizer: This little feller is a little 2-mana 1/2 mech that reduces the cost of your mechs in your hand by one. He's cute, and a fun possible early-game card for mech decks, but Fire Plume Harbinger is a similar card for Elementals, and that card never really saw play outside of specific Shudderwock combo usage, so while Galvanizer isn't exactly bad, I don't think we're going to see a lot of him. Potentially powerful if we do get a powerful combo that involves a mech down the line, of course. Cute artwork, though!

Prismatic Lens: A paladin epic spell that costs 4, draws a minion and a spell, and then... swaps their costs? I'm just genuinely baffled at what this is meant to do. I guess you draw a secret and a huge minion like Tirion or Ysera, and then play them for one? But then you have a huge, expensive secret just taking up space in your hand. Not the worst play, and not a bad card, but it's still kind of bizarre. Maybe you go the other way around, and swap a Wisp's 0-mana cost for your Kangor's Endless Army or something? Still feels awkward and bizarre, though, because you can't just do something like the Curator or Oaken Summons where you guarantee only two or three of the specific 'wants' that a card tutors is in your deck -- your deck is going to be 90% spells and minions, so this is just a bit of a miss for me.

Dyn-o-matic: A Warrior mech, Dyn-o-matic is... kinda weird? He's like a mixture of Corrupted Seer and Goblin Blastmage, in a way. He's a 5-mana 3/4 that deals 5 damage spread randomly across non-mech minions. It's a decent effect, for sure, and you could take it like stapling a Cinderstorm to a 3/4 body. It's decent, and that's without the whole self-damage deal that Warriors like to do, like with Acolyte of Pain, Armorsmith or Frothing Berserker. It's admittedly on the weaker side, though -- a pretty fair card that I'm not sure really cuts it in constructed or not. It's a card that I won't be surprised to see fail, but not too surprised if it works either.

Boomsday Project Card Review/Reaction #5

 A chunk of new cards, most of them legendaries, and... interesting ones, I suppose?

Zerek, Master Cloner: We start off with the Priest legendary minion, Zerek. Zerek here is the leader of the Priests's cloning laboratories or something along those lines, and is an... interesting minion. He's a 6-mana 5/5, with a Deathrattle that reads "if you've cast any spells on this minion, resummon it". So he's sort of leaning towards a buff priest game? Currently Priest doesn't really have a lot of targeted spells other than Power Word: Shield, Unidentified Elixir, Divine Spirit and Inner Fire, and those last two tended to only be used in combos. You could theoretically cast damaging spells on Zerek, but that's just silly. We do have the new card Power Word: Replicate, which summons an additional copy of Zerek, meaning presumably both of those have a Deathrattle that resummons a 5/5... and there's also the question on whether Zerek returns to life with buffs still active or not. It's one way to play with Quest Priest too, I suppose, although playing Quest Priest as it is, or using Zerek's Cloning Gallery is far, far more efficient, I think, in actually completing the quest. Zerek might see a fair bit more usage in Wild, perhaps? With N'Zoth and Velen's Chosen, there's a fair bit more cards that synergizes with Zerek. Ultimately, though, neat effect, but we really need a fair amount of support to get him to work.

Power Word: Replicate: And one of said support is Power Word: Replicate, a 5-mana spell that summons a 5/5 copy of a friendly minion. This sort of "clone with exact stats is... interesting, which is why Prince Taldaram saw a brief bit of play in decks like Cubelock that really want the effect and not the statline. Oh, and since we're talking about Priest 5/5's, Shadow Essence also does a similar effect, albeit from the deck. While you could obviously use it for a Zerek combo, I'm unconvincced if this is that good -- what makes Shadow Essence so powerful is you cheat out the minion and their effect a couple of turns before your draw and play the actual card, whereas Power Word: Replicate has the rather huge ask of having the minion already on board. On paper, Replicate is a fair spell, but I'm not sure if it's actually good.

Voltaic Burst: A shaman spell that... honestly doesn't look that good? It's comparable to Lost in the Jungle, a 1-mana that summons two 1/1's. The difference is that Voltaic Burst's Sparks have Rush, which means instant board presence, but the spell also has Overload. It's not a card I see ever actually being put into a deck, because Shaman has so many better removal tools -- and their hero power makes bodies anyway. Maybe it's a spell printed just to muck around with Hagatha's consistency? E

Juicy Psychmelon: Druids get a very interesting tutor card, a 4-mana spell that draws, specifically, a 7, 8, 9 and 10 cost minion from your deck. We finally get that proactive C'Thun tutor card we've been begging for! In wild, I can actually see C'Thun decks running this, drawing C'Thun himself, Twin Emperor Vek'lor, Doomcaller and... Ysera or some 9-mana card, I dunno. Other than C'Thun, though, tutoring four cards at once -- four specific cards at that -- is definitely powerful. There's a Togwaggle druid list in Wild, and Juicy Pyschmelon can draw the four cards central to that combo -- Azalina Soulthief, King Togwaggle, Aviana and Kun. As far as standard is concerned, both Malygos and Hadronox are 9-mana minions, so this could just basically read "draw your win condition" for both Malygos Druid and Taunt Druid. Taunt Druid even gets the bonus of the Psychmelon drawing the Lich King or Primordial Drake, too. It's not going to be an easy card to use, and decks will have to probably be revamped to get the maximum value out of Psychmelon, but it's definitely an interesting card that I really am looking forward to see what it does.

Shrink Ray: Speaking of interesting cards, Shrink Ray here is... bizarre, but in a good way. It's a 5-mana spell that not only does Equality on the board, but also sets the attack of all minions to 1 as well. Everything is left as 1/1's, which is... interesting? The problem is that if you just want to clear the board, Equality (and Wild Pyromancer) is strictly better, costing less than half of Shrink Ray. And if you want to turn the board into an equal state, Sunkeeper Tarim is still in the rotation, and you get a 3/7 body with taunt, and if you are in the lead, you buff all your 1/1's into 3/3's that can hit face. I dunno. Shrink Ray on first glance looks neat, but after mulling it over I don't think it's actually all that good.

Myra Rotspring: Like Zerek, poor Myra looks like a card that's nowhere as practical as her associated legendary spell. That's not to say Myra is a bad card, though. Myra is a 5-mana 4/2, but she discovers a Deathrattle minion, which means you draw a card... and she gains its deathrattle. Does this really matter when you kind of have a huge tempo loss by playing a 5-mana 4/2 that draws a card? Maybe. We've seen 4-mana 3/2 that draws cards like Elven Minstrel and Xaril see play. But the problem is that Myra doesn't actually fit anywhere in the current Rogue decks. She's just an okay legendary card that sort of doesn't really have much synergy with anything Rogue does (Miracle, Aggro, Kingsbane and the potential wacky 'shuffle things into your deck' archetype that's still in the air). And the fact that there's a huge possibility that Myra discovers three pretty shitty deathrattles means that I'm unconvinced Myra is super-good of a card.


Necrium Blade: Rogues get a weapon to support the potential Deathrattle synergy with Necrium Blade, a 3-mana 3/2 weapon with the Deathrattle of basically casting Play Dead. But randomly. It's... it's all right? By virtue of being a 3-mana 3/2 weapon with an upside, the card's already semi-decent, but, jut like Myra, the problem is to build a proper Deathrattle deck that can capitalize on synergies from Myra and Necrium Blade. Maybe in wild you can do something with this? I dunno.

Augmented Elekk: It's a really interesting neutral minion, a 3-mana 3/4 Beast (which means hey Rexxar!) that has the passive effect of shuffling another copy of any card you shuffle into your deck. So that Rogue synergy is definitely there. Academic Espionage (although you shuffle copies of the generated cards, so if you whiff on Espionage, Augmented Elekk just makes it worse) and Lab Recruiter synergize well with this card, and Fal'dorei Strider suddenly shuffles six 4/4's into your deck. The Hunter Quest shuffles even more raptors into your deck, if you're still trying to make it work. Note that this is shuffle cards into a deck, by the way, so Weasel Tunneler effects trigger twice if that's your thing. More seriously, in Wild you double the effect of your Entomb, meaning you steal their Sylvanas twice. Forbidden Torch and Deck of Secrets also trigger twice, if that's your thing. Most interestingly, Jade Idol also shuffles a card into your deck, which means Augmented Elekk doubles the amount of Jade Idols you shuffle in -- not super powerful, of course, since Jade Druids doesn't actually have problem shuffling, it's drawing that tends to be the tense part. But definitely a very interesting card, and one that looks deceptively simple.

Boomsday Project Card Review/Reaction #4

 Another bunch of cards, this time around. Again, I genuinely didn't expect myself to be talking about these cards so frequently, but eh. It's the reveal season, and I don't really have a lot of TV shows to talk about recently. Might as well.

Pogo Hopper: First up is the Rogue minion, Pogo Hopper, who's a cute little robot bunny! Pogo Hopper, I think, plays off the Infinite Murloc/Infinite Wolf minions that were seen during the Taverns of Time limited Arena event, although far less good than them. You see, unlike, say, Jade Golems, Pogo-Hopper starts off as a 2-mana 1/1. Sure, it gains +2/+2 for each other copy you've played this game, and Rogues can certainly do so in multiple ways -- traditional Shadowstep/Quest bouncing into the hand (haha, bounce, pogos, get it?) or with the new Lab Recruiter that does the gang up effect. Some people have even noted a possible combo where you burn your deck with Myra's, and then throw in Lab Recruiters and Pogo-Hoppers to make sure that all you're getting are just huge jumping bunnies. And it's a well-designed card, don't get me wrong, but the initial Pogo-Hopper is just kind of such a tempo suicide and unlike Jade Idols, these things can actually be silenced back to a 1/1, and there are a fair amount of decks that run silence effects. Pogo-Hopper's not a card that I can see fitting into any current Rogue decks, but it's certainly interesting enough to potentially spawn some sort of fun combo down the line.


Academic Espionage: Far scarier, I believe, is the Rogue epic spell, Academic Espionage. How is this not a legendary spell? Academic Espionage is a 4-mana card that shuffles 10 burgled cards into your deck... but they all cost 1. And it's... well, it's random, so that tells me that it's probably going the way of Renounce Darkness. But the fact that the discount is all the way to one mana? Sure, sometimes you get 1-mana Redemptions, Totemic Might and Snap Freezes and you're sad, but are you really that sad when there's also the potential to get 1-mana Tirion Fordrings, Al'Akirs, Pyroblasts, Tyrantuses, Ultimate Infestations and King Krushs? Again, it's probably not quite as stable as your general Miracle Rogue game plan, because sometimes you whiff and you get ten Paladin Secrets or some shit like that. but the off-chance that you actually get something glorious from this is honestly so much fun! There's a lot of fun potential to abuse this even further, honestly. Gadgetzan Auctioneer is the obvious one, but you can get a fun mileage with Myra's Unstable Element, Witchwood Piper, and especially Tess Greymane. So basically you're just hoping for a lot of minions to get the tempo game, play Witchwood Piper to draw the discounted minions, and then replay them with Tess. Again, part of it is random, but you have two of these in your deck, so you can definitely try and try again. And, yes, it is four mana... but maybe you don't play it on turn four. Maybe you just wait to combo this with Preparation, or you wait until the late-game to drop this. I dunno. I don't think it's a particular game breaker, but holy shit it does look like a pretty fun card to play with. Worth noting that if you get a bunch of spells with this, it's extremely countered by Skulking Geist.

Crystology: A paladin spell that, at first glance, looks like a shittier version of Call to Arms or Small-Time Recruits... but it's drawing two one-attack minions from your deck, not one-cost. So like Master Oakheart, sort of. It's a way to specifically tutor for Lynessa Sunsorrow, which admittedly isn't that good. Or you could tutor for the new legendary, Kangor, which... is a bit better, but I also don't think is super good either. I'm not quite sure if there are currently any one-attack minion on Paladin's roster that you really want to tutor, because you're not really itching to just get Stonehill Defenders and Righteous Protectors -- there are far easier ways to just draw into them naturally or to cheap them out. It's not necessarily a bad card, it's just one that I don't think quite has a combo that works for it yet, and probably would feel more like Forge of Souls where the tutor effect is good on paper, but it won't really find a home in a deck.

Crystalsmith Kangor: This is a bit surprising! Considering the name of the legendary spell, I thought that the paladin's legendary, Crystal-smith Kangor, would be a mech-synergy card himself. I'm not sure how I feel about Kangor, honestly. He's a 2-mana 1/2 with Divine Shield and Lifesteal (and that statline makes him Crystology-able), and also has the effect of doubling all healing... and I'm just a little bit confused just what the combo is. Kangor's Lifesteal doesn't really matter due to his small attack statline, and even if you buff him, there are other better lifesteal minions to buff. The doubled healing is... is cute, but there's not a whole ton of healing synergy that Paladin has in Standard, unless we're getting some heal synergy. And no, Blackguard and the Spellstone don't count. In Wild, even, Forbidden Healing and Ragnaros Lightlord tended to heal a huge chunk of your health anyway so doubling it just feels too greedy, so I'm not quite sure just what Kangor is for. Very interesting effect, but the statline is honestly kind of bizarre. I am cautiously pessimistic, I guess, although if this does somehow lead to the genesis of a Control Paladin list (which I doubt would happen in this expansion, at least) I would certainly be quite pleased. Overall, it's not a bad card at all, despite my somewhat negative talk -- I'm just baffled what deck this fits in is all.

Eureka: Shamans get Eureka, a six-mana spell that allows them to summon a copy of a random minion from their hand. Wasn't it Priest that was supposed to be the 'clone' spell? Eureka reminds me of old GvG-era card Ancestor's Call, albeit Eureka's two mana cheaper, only summons from your hand instead of both players, and doesn't actually 'spend' the minion in your hand. Everyone's screaming Malygos again, but really, unlike Flobbidinous Floop or Gloop Sprayer, I don't really think that Eureka's good enough to really see meta play. It's too expansive, and I don't think Shamans can really stand to play a mostly-spell list. And even then, spending six mana just doesn't seem to be that practical of a combo-setup to me.

Gloop Sprayer: Speaking of Druid, we get the Gloop Sprayer, a very interesting card! For 8-mana you get 4/4, and you summon a copy of each adjacent minion. Described by many as "Fungalmancer meets Faceless Manipulator", it's actually a pretty damn scary card. You get to summon full copies of two minions on the board -- Malygos! Hadronox! Floop'd versions of those two! Cube! -- and suddenly you get even more game-ending combos and securing just how powerful your late-game is going to be. And you get an extra 4/4 body on top of it all. The only real problem this card has is that it's the definition of a 'win more' card, but honestly, in this mostly-control meta, it's probably one where Druids can actually afford to run Gloop Sprayer. It's a powerful effect, the problem that remains is just to find the right deck for it.


Omega Assembly: Omega Assembly, on first glance, doesn't look that good. Discover a mech for 1 mana is... decent, I guess. But if you have 10 mana crystals, you get all three Mechs for 1 mana! Not quite the huge tempo swing that the other Omega cards have been, but still a pretty fun and very efficient value generator. And then you remember that Warrior is getting the new Dr. Boom hero card, which means that, yes, it fits perfectly well with the Mech synergy that New Boom promotes, and both cards encourage the warrior to take things to the late-game. Definitely a powerful card that definitely fits in well with Mech Warrior.


Eternium Rover: And if you think Mech Warrior only gets late-game bombs, Eternium Rover here is an adorable 1-mana 1/3 mech that is just so much better than Warrior's previous 1-mana 1/3 mech, Warbot -- a card I am intimately familiar with thanks to it being part of Warrior's standard starter pack in Dungeon Runs. Eternium Rover has that same statline, but instead of a rather disappointing Enrage effect, Rover here has a variation of Armorsmith's effect, giving you 2 armour any time it takes damage. It's not the most exciting effect, admittedly, but it does help you survive to get to turn 10 and play your Omega Assemblys and your Dr. Boom hero and all sorts of mech shenanigans. Plus, you can magnetize things to Rover, which is probably why this card is actually pretty damn powerful. Definitely a great little buildaround mech, and I am really, really curious to have a look through all the available mechs in this expansion and GvG to see just what utterly wild decks I can build.

The Boomship: Any self-respecting supervillain needs a cool, ominous ship to hover over the heroes as he cackles madly, and Dr. Boom has the Boomship! A 9-mana legendary spell, the Boomship is certainly an interesting spell. It recruits three minions from your hand, and immediately gives them Rush, which is just pretty damn insane! One of the biggest weaknesses of a Recruit Warrior deck is that if you ever draw into your late-game big bombs, they just sit in your hand and you feel bad about not being able to play them. Well, with the Boomship, you can unload three of them in one huge tempo swing, and then they all Rush and slap your enemy's minions. And if that's not appealing enough, Charge supercedes rush, so if you happen to run cards like Charged Devilsaur and Grom Hellscream, you can very well find a way to slam them into your opponent's face as part of an OTK. It's not a particularly stable OTK, admittedly, but I dunno. I feel optimistic about this card, for sure.


Fireworks Tech: Hunter now, and the first card we're talking today is Fireworks Tech, a 2-mana 2/1 minion that buffs a friendly mech with +1/+1. And if it has deathrattle, Fireworks Tech triggers it. I'm not sure if it's that good, though -- it tries a bit too much and wants a bit too much. Admittedly, Hunter does seem to be receiving a fair amount of mechs, and at least some of them have deathrattles... but if you topdeck Fireworks Tech she's just a shitty 2-mana 2/1 and that feels absolutely bad. At the end of the day I'm not sure if you really want to play this over, say, Play Dead or Terrorscale Stalker if you're doing deathrattles. I guess the combined effect might prove to be the thing that makes Fireworks Tech good? Interesting effect, but with the current Hunter mechs (Spider Bomb and I guess Goblin Bomb), I remain unconvinced that Fireworks Tech, at least, is going to be good.

Boommaster Flark: Hunters' legendary card this time around is not a beast, but rather, a crazy goblin scientist. Boommaster Flark is a 7-mana 5/5 that summons four Goblin Bombs, making him somewhat comparable to... Onyxia, I guesss? Or the original Dr. Boom? Flark's Goblin Bombs basically allow you to go face, because they are 0/2 mechs that deal 2 damage to the face with deathrattle. And this is where things get interesting. In Wild, you can do some combo shenanigans with Feign Death, a hunter spell that casts all the Deathrattles on the board, and that's 8 immediate damage to the face. If you're particularly ambitious, maybe you even combo the four 0/2 mechs with Mimiron's Head and attempt to build Voltron. But in standard... yes, four 0/2 bodies can just be ignored by the enemy, but they are mechs, which mean they can be magnetized and forced to trade. You can use cards like Play Dead, Terrorscale Stalker and Fireworks Tech to trigger these deathrattles. I have been pleasantly surprised at just how functional this deathrattle/egg/cube Hunter list have been, and while Flark might just end up being a bit too impractical and too cute, Four times hero power, four bodies on the board and the potential to replicate face damage isn't anything to laugh at. I suppose we just have to wait to see what other deathrattle boosts Flark will have.

Goblin Bomb: Oh, and just like Stegodon back in Un'Goro, the Goblin Bomb token is actually collectible as a neutral card. I've nothing much to say about this one -- outside of Flark summoning four of these at once, Goblin Bomb isn't necessarily better of a smorcing tool than Leper Gnome, and I think there are a fair bit of better low-mana Mechs for any mech deck.

Missile Launcher: Missile Launcher is another neutral mech, a 6-mana 4/4 with Magnetic and an effect that's basically Baron Geddon, but one damage instead of two. The effect isn't terrible, especially if you're playing a deck that doesn't mind nuking the board (the traditional Warrior with Frothing Berserker, or maybe you magnetize this to Flark's bombs). And Magnetic means that the 4/4 stats tend to charge. But 4/4 for 6 mana is so damn expensive, and I am unconvinced that Missile Launcher's going to actually see  any sort of play outside of random card generation.

Mechanical Whelp: This one is actually quite interesting. A 6-mana 2/2 Mech, the Mechanical Dragon has the deathrattle of summoning a 7/7 mechanical dragon. Note that it's just straight-up deathrattle, none of the "on your opponent's turn" that Skelemancer has. Plus, both the Whelp and the Dragon are Mechs, meaning that you do get some Magnetic synergy thrown in for what it's worth. Where Mechanical Whelp gets interesting, though, is in Hunter and Priest. Forget Devilsaur Egg, combo-ing Mechanical Whelp with the new Priest minion, Reckless Experimenter, makes this basically a 3-mana 7/7! Move over, Flamewreathed Faceless.  And we've seen that Hunters are proven to be great with Deathrattle synergy, and they're getting some Mech synergy as well... I dunno. I might be overhyping Mechanical Whelp, but this feels like the interesting neutral minion that might just see a fair bit of play in multiple classes.

Cosmic Anomaly: These two were revealed around the same time that this review came up, so let me just cover them. The existence of Cosmic Anomaly basically makes Celestial Emissary look kinda bad, yeah? Sure, Cosmic Anomaly is twice as expensive, but the Spell Damage +2 is permanent, and a 4-mana 4/3 body is far, far more durable than a 2-mana 2/1. Evolved Kobold saw some fringe play in some mage lists a couple of expansions back, and Cosmic Anomaly honestly seems pretty good! If there's going to be a minion that's going to capitalize with the Spell  Damage synergy that Boomsday seem to be half-heartedly giving mage, it's Cosmic Anomaly. Plus, that artwork just looks quite boss.

Shooting Star: Basically a smaller Cone of Cold, Shooting Star is a dirt-cheap 1-mana card that deals 1 damage to three minions that are next to each other. And, of course, this just makes both Arcane Explosion and Cone of Cold look particularly bad, doesn't it? Sure, Shooting Star doesn't freeze, nor does it hit the entire board, but it's a pretty interesting tool to stack up with Spell Damage, as well as trigger any sort of Flamewaker-style effects. Particularly powerful against any Silver Hand Paladin decks that are still running around. It doesn't have the flexibility of hitting face, sadly, which is probably a reason this won't be run quite as much, but it's definitely an interesting, useful spell.

Lots of interesting cards, and I am just quite  hyped that we're getting a new expansion in less than a couple of weeks!

Boomsday Project Card Review/Reaction #3

 Bunch of new cards, so I'll talk  about them! Bit of a shorter segment this time around.

Astromancer: First up, we've got a mage minion that's 7-mana and has 5/5 in stats, which summons a random minion with a cost equal to the number of cards in your hand. It's comparable, of course, to Spiteful Summoner, with the added caveat that "not drawing one of your many big spells" is, in my opinion, fairly easier of an ask compared to having a huge hand. That said, Control Mages have been using Mountain Giant in a pretty decent capacity, and we've got a fair amount of draw mechanics (Aluneth) and card generation mechanics (Ruby Spellstone) so it's not that hard for control lists to at least gain some value with Astromancer. The problem is really whether it's worth it to run this card at all, especially since unlike Spiteful Summoner you can't really ever get a 10-drop with this effect. Ultimately interesting, but unless there's some huge synergy cards introduced for Astromancer, she's not one I suspect will see much play.

Celestial Emissary: Another elemental for mages, and this time it's another 2-mana 2/1 like Shimmering Tempest with a Battlecry effect of giving your next spell this turn Spell Damage +2. It's... it's bizarre, honestly, you have to cast that other spell this turn and it doesn't stack, and it's not a permanent effect. Throw in the fact that he's a 2-mana 2/1, and I genuinely find it hard to think of what play would be particularly good with Celestial Emissary that doesn't just involve me putting a Bloodmage Thalnos in my deck instead. I don't want to immediately bash a card without seeing the rest of the expansion, but this is one that I think I can safely say won't be that powerful.

Giggling Inventor: A neutral 5-mana 2/1 that summons two Annoy-o-trons. Giggling Inventor might very well be the new Saronite Chain Gang, the mid-game minion that splits apart stats into multiple extra bodies, and these Annoy-o-trons come with Divine Shields. Sure, the individual 2/1 and 1/2 bodies might not look that much, but these are still Divine Shielded bodies that honestly I think can play a fair bit of role in any deck that just wants to stall to a late-game. Shudderwock Shaman? Token Druid? It's a card that seems innocent, but has just enough stats to really feel like it could do a whole lot.

Cloning Device: Priests' theme in this expansion is apparently cloning, and Cloning Device allows you to discover a copy of a minion in your opponent's deck for 2 mana... which I think is just absurdly expensive. Sure, you do get the Discover bit added to it, but what makes cards like Shadow Visions and Primordial Glyph acceptable as a 2-mana discover card is that Visions gets you another spell from your deck which you likely want extra copies of, whereas Glyph gives you a bonus discount. A lot of the 1-mana Discover cards like I Know A Guy or Journey Below never really saw play, and Cloning Device costs double that. At that pooint, why aren't you just playing Thoughtsteal?

Zerek's Cloning Gallery: The legendary Priest Spell is definitely a far more exciting one. Standing at a humongous 9 mana, Zerek's Cloning Gallery fills your board with a 1/1 copy of each minion in your deck... which is pretty insane. The only real big problem is that this costs 9 mana, which might be a tad too much... but this basically guarantees that you complete your Priest Quest, and gets Barnes-style copies for any sort of Resurrect/Big Priest deck. Is this how Big Priest gets its groove back? Stall until turn nine, play Zerek's Cloning Gallery, then bring everything back with Spellstones and Eternal Servitude? Even if you don't go the Big Priest route, I can honestly think of a lot of great usage out of a huge ton of 1/1 copies of minions. Prophet Velen and Malygos is another set of 1/1 minions that could really, really fuck someone's day up. It's a crazy effect, and while I am hesitant to say that it's going to be the next, oh, Shadowreaper Anduin or whatever, Zerek's Cloning Gallery still looks like it's a card that can potentially wreak some huge, huge havoc sometime down the line.

Blightnozzle Crawler: A Rogue card this time around, and Rogues, if you couldn't already tell from the promotional blogs, videos and comics, are all about poison. Blightnozzle Crawler, in addition to having one of the cooler-looking artwork for mechs in this set, is an interesting minion. He's a 4-mana 2/4 mech, severely understatted, but as a deathrattle summons a 1/1 Rushing Poisonous Ooze. That Ooze will just murder anything it comes across, but on the other hand, if Blightnozzle dies on your opponent's turn they probably will remove the Ooze before you have a chance to properly utilize the Poisonous, whereas killing it on your turn might prove to be a bit of a challenge since Blightnozzle Crawler has the defensive spread of 2/4, and unless I'm missing something, Rogues don't have any way to reliably kill  their own dudes the way Warlocks do. Interesting design, but not one I expect to see much of.


Star Aligner: Kind of a bizarre neutral minion. Star Aligner is a 7-mana 7/7 that, if you control 3 other minions with 7 health, you deal 7 damage AoE to all enemies. And yes, that includes face. It's pretty damn hard, though -- I can't think of anything good that you can easily summon with 7 health save for Doomsayer, and that's obviously not sticking on the board. The text of Star Aligner also specifies 7 Health, not "7 Health or more", so you can't even rely on something like Lady in White to buff up your entire deck. Hell, you can't even, say, summon a couple of Violet Wurms and Charged Devilsaurs, because if they take damage they won't have 7 health and that sucks for you. It's such a bizarre effect and one that's honestly pretty fun, but ultimately feels more like a Blood of the Ancient One deal to me -- ultimately too impractical to see consistent play.

Cybertech Chip: A Hunter spell costing 2 mana that gives your minions "Deathrattle; add a random mech to your hand". It's a mech-flavoured version of the old card Infest, and costs one mana less. I'm... I'm genuinely unconvinced spending 2 mana to gain value is particularly good for a hunter, especially since there's the ask of having a board, and then having those minions die first. And it's not like Deathrattle Hunter is hurting for any good Deathrattles that can directly impact the board... and also, why not just play Deathstalker Rexxar if you want the extra card-generation? An interesting card nonetheless, and maybe one you play in a mech deck, but not one that I think is going to particularly see a lot of play.

Boomsday Project Card Review/Reaction #2

 A bunch of new Boomsday cards dropped last night with a stream! Here's my quick thoughts on them. Reveal season's begun, and I think I'll do them very intermittently. Not sure if I'll have as much to talk about as previous expansions -- I'm kind of busy IRL right now. Still, we've got a bunch of cards to talk about!

Dead Ringer: First up that I'm going to be talking about is Dead Ringer, a Priest minion. And Dead Ringer is a cute little 2-mana 2/1 Mech that, as a deathrattle, tutors a Deathrattle minion. Actually a pretty interesting card! His statline is sort of on the weaker side, but he does seem like a nice little fit for the Quest Priest. I'm not sure if Quest Priest wants mechs specifically, but this basically just replaces Loot Hoarder, doesn't it? Neat card, if not particularly a powerful one on first glancce.

Omega Medic: Another one from the "Omega" cycle whose effect only functions at turn 10, Omega Medic is a 3-mana 3/4 that, beyond turn 10, restores 10 health to your hero as a free action. It's a neat little card that I think will kind of be phased out eventually, although she's a neat little tech card. I mean, Darkshire Alchemist and Twilight Darkmender both didn't get played after the C'Thun hype died off. A fun card, but unless there's some huge synergy, I don't think Omega Medic is going to be a meta card.

Reckless Experimenter: This one, on the other hand, looks pretty damn scary. A 5-mana 4/6 with the continuous effect of discounting Deathrattle minions by 3 is insanely powerful, and the added caveat of them dying at the end of the turn doesn't really matter if you do play the minions with the express purpose of, say, cycling through your deck while playing your quest, or to make a Carnivorous Cube combo -- something that Priest wasn't able to reliably do before this card. And that's not to say how Devilsaur Egg have been used pretty powerfully by Hunters recently -- Reckless Experimenter basically  makes that card a 0-mana delayed 5/5! Certainly seems like a powerful build-around card.

Kandor's Endless Army: An... interesting card! I've been pretty hyped about Magnetic (whether rightfully or not, we'll see), and Kangor's Endless Army is a Magnetic-support Legendary Paladin spell, which resurrects three friendly mechs... and they keep Magnetic upgrades! That's honestly pretty dang powerful, sort of like a N'Zoth lite effect, as much as I have questions as to what happens to a silenced Magnetic minion. As cool as Zilliax is, I still think we need to see the rest of the Magnetic package to really say if Kandor's Army is going to be good in the metagame or just a neat little novelty. Neat, honestly, and most of us did scoff at Anyfin Can Happen.

Autodefense Matrix: A new Paladin secret, and it's... kinda neat? It's like Noble Sacrifice, but instead of summoning a 2/1 minion, you give it Divine Shield. The advantage, I guess, is that if the minion is a big one, you might get more substantial damage thrown into the attacking minion that's more than two damage? S'cool, I don't mind this one.

Demonic Project: This one, though, got me quite excited! Warlocks' Project spell... transforms a random minion in each player's hand into a Demon! It's a fun little counter to late-game combo decks like Malygos Druid and Shudderwock Shaman. A random demon is kind of a crap-shoot... you might give yourself a Succubus or a Blood Imp, and give the other guy a Voidlord or a Dreadlord, but when Warlocks have the best anti-Demon tools like Sacrificial Pact (not that you'd really run that, mind you)...  while Warlocks themselves tended to do like random Demons. most importantly, this acts as a Dirty Rat that polymorphs a minion in your opponent's hand. It doesn't quite kill combo decks that are reliant on a single minion because only Warlocks get this card, and they have to hit one of multiple minions in the opponent's hand. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don't, but a smart player that can read his opponent can really make a Shudderwock player's day bad. Overall, probably my favourite designed cards, honestly speaking.

Omega Agent: Another Omega card, Omega Agent is a shitty 5-mana 4/5. What's the catch, then, when both Omega Medic and Omega Defender are half-decent even without the Omega effect? Well, beyond turn ten, you pay 5 mana for three 4/5 bodies. Shame that these are just straight-up vanilla bodies, which is significantly less exciting... these aren't demons, or have any kind of keyword, and while a bunch of stats should never be scoffed at, I also kind of think that Warlocks have a lot of other late-game cards that do more than Omega Agent.

Lab Recruiter: It's Gang Up attached as a battlecry to a 2-mana 3/2. Gang Up was fun, but ended up basically being abused by Mill decks, so this is one on a minion that only acts on friendly minions, in a metagame without Coldlight Oracle. It's neat, I suppose, and the stream did point out some usage with Myra's Unstable Element. It's a solid card -- we'll see if it's going to turn out to be useful or not in this expansion.

Unexpected Results: A weird one! Unexpected Results is a 4-mana Mage spell that summons two random 2-cost minions. Not... not the best thing to do, really. You pay 4 mana for what's on average slightly lower than two 2/3's... kind of worse than, say, Force of Nature or old Call to Arms. Sometimes it's a Doomsayer, to boot. but the cost ends up being increased with Spell Damage, which is just such a novel way to interact with that mechanic, and with each Spell Damage on board, you basically Evolve the two minions summoned by Unexpected Results. It's fun... but I'm not sure just what deck can utilize Unexpected Results properly.

Weaponized Pinata: Pinata here has Piloted Shredder stats. A 4-mana 4/3 Mech that has a Deathrattle. Instead of immediately summoning a minion, though, the Pinata adds a random Legendary minion to your hand... which may be good or bad. It's not quite as polarizing as Toki, I guess, and looking at the Standard Legendaries... there's not that many bad or situational ones. Sure, Milhouse and Pagle are still there, and there are some weird build-around legendaries like Baku that won't really suit you that well... but I dunno. It's a fun effect, and if nothing else, the Pinata helps to give Mech decks some extra oomph to fill the void left by Shredder in an interesting way.


Faithful Lumi: Aww, he's adorable! Lumi's a simple card, a 1-mana 1/1 Mech that gives a friendly Mech +1/+1. Bigger midrange-style decks will probably drop Lumi, and only the aggro-iest of the aggro decks will play Lumi. He's cute, and a fun little addition to the mech pool, if nothing else. Not much to say about him.

Dr. Boom, Mad Scientist: And we'll close this with the new Warrior hero, Dr Boom, Mad Scientist. He costs 7 mana, gains 7 armour, and most importantly, his battlecry is a passive one -- your mechs gain rush. And that's it. No AoE, no board clear, no equipped weapon, no summoned minion... Dr. Boom just gets into his mech and doesn't actually impact the board like the rest of the existing hero cards. I guess that's why he gives you 7 armour instead of 5? If there was a class that could probably survive a turn without doing anything onto the board, it's probably Warrior, though.

And to nod with the spirit of Dr. Boom, apparently he presses a big red button in his mech suit that he isn't 100% sure how to operate, and ends up swapping hero powers every turn. It's random, of course, with the only real rule being that no two hero powers can repeat. And it's an interesting set of five hero powers. Sometimes you deal 3 damage, sometimes you gain 7 armour, sometimes you deal 1 damage to all enemy minions, sometimes you discover a mech and sometimes you summon three 1/1 Mechs (that rush!). He's obviously meant for a Control-style Mech deck, and giving everything in your deck Rush is a pretty big thing -- especially since one time out of five, you'll be able to discover a new Mech. He looks pretty great with a lot of powerful Hero Powers at the cost of an RNG element built in, and I wouldn't have a Dr. Boom card any other way. And honestly? After one of the most stable control metas with such a neat, structured set of decks that honestly got a bit boring, it's time to inject some madness into the game.

Overall, I am definitely hyped for the Boomsday expansion, and I know that this is the one expansion that I won't touch Standard at all and just go nosedive to Wild and mix up all these wacky cards with all the crazier cards from earlier expansions. Overall, kind of a fun batch to show off this time around, and I'm excited to see what's next.

Boomsday Project: Card Review/Reaction #1

 So I haven't actually been playing a lot on the ladder right now -- it's nearly the end of the month and I'm barely above rank 10, but that's mostly because I'm kind of bored of the Witchwood meta both pre- and post-nerf, and have been sort of dicking around playing with a lot of the non-meta legendaries I've gotten recently. Prince Liam, Geosculptor Yip, Archmage Arugal, Deathwing, Darius Crowley, Chameleos... I've gotten a lot of weird stuff that I'm just having a blast trying to... well, "meme" the hell out of, I guess, as much as I hate that term. I also got a Frost Lich Jaina recently and she's amazing, but it's a shame the control mage shell is insanely expensive to build around.

Oh, and I've finally completed Dungeon Run! Warrior's a bitch to finish due to the insanely large array of synergistic cards available.

Anyway, a bunch of new Boomsday card have been revealed, and I guess I'll talk about them a bit!

Stargazer Luna: Revealed in a glorious Wronchi-animated short is Stargazer Luna, who's pretty dang cool. The Mage Legendary is a pretty respectable 3-mana 2/4 that is kind of a godsend for aggro mage decks, a neat substitute for Aluneth that allows you to draw a card any time you cast a spell with the right-most card in your hand. Her statline doesn't actually work particularly well in aggro shells, but the effect is... neat, I guess? I fear she'll end up being more meme-fun in the same way like Arugal is instead of being a staple, although I hesitate in saying that. I mean, look at good old Aluneth!

Menacing Nimbus: A pretty basic card, really. A 2-mana 2/2 Elemental that as a battlecry adds a random elemental to your hand. Not much to say about here, a smaller elemental minion that's a neat, less reliable version of Servant of Kalimos. I do enjoy my elemental decks, though, and while this card probably won't be the most powerful card there, it's a neat one.

Wargear: The next couple of reveals tie in to the Magnetic mechanic (and the fact that all these robots are original to Hearthstone will make the upcoming "Lore of Hearthstone" segment easy to type up), and we're going to start off with Wargear, a simple neutral 5-mana 5/5 mech with magnetic. Again, these magnetic minions look pretty great because of their flexibility, as well as the whole fact that this dude is technically a buff spell, allowing the 5/5 stats to gain Charge if you slap them onto a mech. A simple card, but one that I suspect is going to see a fair amount of play.

Also, I think the Blizzard team straight-up stated that Warriors, Hunters and Paladins are the mech-synergy classes, and we're not getting a GvG repeat of "all classes get mechs?" It is certainly interesting. Maybe they're making up for the sad fate of hand-buff in Gadgetzan in giving the Grimy Goons trio this fancy magnetic stuff?

Upgradeable Framebot: This little dude is just a cheap 2-mana 1/5 mech. A standard vanilla card, but cheap enough for you to combo out and being health-oriented makes it very possible to survive for you to magnetize something onto it. A neat little support card, I think, although I'll refrain on calling these cards good yet until we actually see the full extent of the set.

Beryllium Nullifier: A Warrior-exclusive card,  Beryllium dude here is a 7-mana 3/8 with magnetic and spellproof... and I dunno. Pretty freaking expensive for a 3/8 spellproof card, yeah? Especially since magnetic minions can (presumably) be silenced. This sort of fells like Spectral Knight or Tyrantus are, because spellproof isn't justification enough to play even vanilla-level stats, and 7-mana 3/8 is not vanilla-level stats. Not a card I'm particularly enthused at, although not necessarily bad.

Annoy-o-Module: Revealed in the charming second part of the Boom Labs shorts, Annoy-o-Module is Annoy-o-Tron's cousin. HOWDY! HOWDY! HOWDY! He's basically a bigger, 4-mana 2/4 Annoy-o-Tron, but with Magnetic. I actually like this one. He's clearly a bit of a defensive tool, but definitely far better than Beryllium Nullifier. The statline's a bit on the low side for sure, but the combination of Taunt, Divine Shield and potentially Charge has been proven to be pretty neat. Probably not the best card out there, but definitely a neat one.

Zilliax: And that magnetic blog post closes off with Zilliax, a neutral  mech and Dr. Boom's bodyguard. And... he's what the M:TG crowd call a 'kitchen sink' design, where he has a whole bunch of keywords. Magnetic, Divine Shield, Taunt, Lifesteal and Rush. And a 5-mana 3/2 statline, which means that Zilliax is barely playable standalone, but just get one mech to survive, like Framebot up there, and suddenly you get a charging (or rushing if you play both in the same turn), mech that heals you, and also has the tried-and-true Annoy-o-tron set of taunt and divine shield. In addition to that, Zilliax also helps to activate two of Corpsetaker's three keywords, and synergizes with poor, overhyped Countess Ashmore. Looks good, and basically a shoo-in for any Magnetic-themed deck.

Mulchmuncher: So while Magnetic s a mechanic is limited to three classes, apparently at least Druid is getting a new mech -- this robot hippo Mulchmuncher ties in to a mechanic that ties into Treants. Interestingly, Treants aren't quite getting a tribe tag stapled on to them, but we're just considering any of the 2/2 Treant tokens as, well, Treants. Does Living Mana's Mana Treant count? In any case, Mulchmuncher is a 10-mana 8/8 with Rush that gets discounted for each friendly Treant that dies this game. It's potentially a 0-cost 8/8 Rush which is like old Corrider Creeper on steroids, but at the same time summoning treants and having them die is not quite as easy as just creating a bunch of tokens. We do have a bunch of new Treant-synergy cards in Witchwood, and at least two new ones here.... and the potentially scariest thing with Mulchmuncher is that while he doesn't have Magnetic, he is a mech. So he's a 8/8 with Rush that can easily grow bigger if you run Wargears and Zilliax in your deck. Very interesting card. We'll see if it and the Treant package is enough to make a deck as of yet.

Landscaping: Speaking of Treant synergy cards, Landscaping here is a 3-mana card that summons two 2/2 Treants. It's comparable to Force of Nature and Witching Hour -- Force of Nature summons three Treants but comes two turns late, whereas Witching Hour costs the same, but puts them into your hand. If the Treant synergy thing is going to work, we do need one of these that comes out early enough in the game to really start the 'dying treants' train early. We'll see if Mulchmuncher itself is the only end-game Treant-synergy card or not,  though, because as cool as Mulchmuncher is, I'm not sure if he's good enough to win the game.

Dendrologist: Dendrologist is an interesting support card for the Treant-synergy cards. He's a 2-mana 2/3 that discovers a spell if you control a Treant, which is kind of awkward -- unless there's a one mana or two mana card that summons a Treant Dendrologist is just going to sit in your hand until you get to your Witchwood Apples and Landscapings, and even then all it does is discover a spell, which isn't the most exciting thing out there. He could be good, but even moreso than Mulchmuncher and Landscaping, Dendrologist lives or dies depending on the Treant mechanic.

Supercollider: Supercollider is a Warrior weapon that costs 5, is a 1/3 mana, and basically casts a one-sided Betrayal whenever you attack a minion with it. The animation's cool, and on the off-chance that you get two Mountain Giants in play (as the reveal video shows) it's amazing... but, y'know, a 1/3 weapon for 5 mana? Plus it's not like Warrior is lacking removal. I dunno. This one doesn't seem super good to me -- though I love the flavour of this thing.

Whizbang the Wonderful: An interesting neutral  legendary that's really only useful for new accounts. Whizbang is a 4-mana 4/5 that during the deck-building process turns your deck into a Whizbang deck, which is one of the deck recipes selected at random. And the deck recipes are... certainly sub-optimal, to put it politely. They do let the newer players experiment with these cards that they might not have access to before, though, so it's definitely a fun little wacky card. Strictly one for newer players or if you want to kind of meme around.

Flobbidinous Floop: The Druid scientist Flobbidinous Floop is a humanoid Ooze scientist in a suit! And he's... he's a very terrifying creature! Floop transforms in your hand into a copy  of whatever last minion you played. And with Druid and its insane versatility, this means that Floop gives you an extra Hadronox, or an extra Malygos... it's pretty horrifying considering what Druid can already do in the recent meta. And in a pinch, having Floop become an extra, oh, Lich King or Ixlid or whatever isn't half-bad either. Floop is a huge win-more card, but god damn if it's going to make these combo druid decks be even more crazy.

In addition to new cards, we're getting more consistency changes! Ghostly Charger is no longer a beast since he's, y'know, a ghostly beast. Ixlid, meanwhile, is also no longer an elemental, because despite all the talk about him being a "rock elemental with plants growing on him", the whole title of him being a fungal lord and the flavour of his boss fight really makes it clera that he's more akin to the likes of Bog Creeper and Fen Creeper, which, while considered "elementals" in the WoW system, none of the plant creatures like Ancients, Treants and Bogbeasts are considered elementals in Hearthstone.

We also get clarification with Kindly Grandmother (not a worgen, but a worgen-esque beast, which I'll buy considering how the actual Karazhan fight was kinda vague), Arcane Giants/Golems/Curator (mana-controlled golems aren't counted as arcane elementals) and Bogshaper (they're handwaving this like Arfus as "we'll let this stay for now because the tag is part of why they're playable"). Really do think that they could've handwaved Bogshaper aside without much trouble, though -- it's not like it's Kindly Grandmother where the Beast Tag is super relevant in why it's so good.

We've also gotten a couple of clarifications on card-copying mechanics, particularly in how cards like Shifter Zerus and Shifting Scroll don't keep Thaurissan ticks anymore when they transform. We also get the expected nerf to Shadowboxer, because if you magnetize a Lifestealing minion like Zilliax to Shadowboxer you'll cause an endless loop of healing your hero, the Shadowboxer dealing damage, and then the lifesteal heals yourself, and Shadowboxer will just win you the game. Neat-o!

I, for one, am the most excited about the Magnetic gimmicks, although I have been known to really, really love tribal-themed synergy like mechs, murlocs and elementals. The blog posts on Blizzard's blog have also given hints on what the druid, shaman and mage legendary spells might be, too, which is fun.

Hearthstone: BOOMSDAY PROJECT

 Hahaha, so we've got the announcement of Hearthstone's next expansion last night, where basically everyone thought that it was going to be Netherstorm and Ethereals... and, well, it's set in the Netherstorm, at least, but the whole thing is a glorious love letter to everybody's favourite explosive mad scientist, DR. BOOM!

Yeah, pretty sure no one called this. Here's the trailer and announcement, including the game developers doing the obligatory silly skit in a lab... it's not quite as well-done as the recent Witchwood one, I think, but still kinda fun. But we did cut away to Dave Kosak being transported into a Wronchi Animation short, and Wronchi Animation is glorious, so yay for that.


We also had a patch drop shortly after the announcement, which is basically the tribal consistency update, as well as adding a couple of bug fixes, the return of the Ragnaros Midsummer Festival event, a bunch of card backs, and the pre-order that comes with a Mecha-Jaraxxus Warlock hero skin? That's... that's actually quite unexpected, and this might edge me towards actually spending money to purchase a pre-order for once. Maybe. We'll see.

Anyway, Dr. Boom's gotten a bit of a redesign and some extra swag that includes eyeliners, apparently, and built a big-ass mad scientist base in the Netherstorm! With lots of explosions and SCIENCE! The little preview shows us that we're getting another Hero card for Warriors with a new version of Dr. Boom, which I think is going to be a one-off, similar to Hagatha in Witchwood. It's... it's interesting, to say the least, especially the fact that they gave Dr. Boom to the Warrior class. I guess it makes as much sense as anything?

The preview shows off around a half-dozen new cards, showcasing some of the new mechanics. We'll go through these pretty quickly. Click here for the official Blizzard news post.


Spider Bomb: We're getting new Mechs! Time to dust off those old Goblins vs Gnomes robots, Wild players! And interestingly enough, Mechs are the new tribal synergy once more, with the new keyword, "Magnetic", allowing mechs to basically combine into one, Zombeast-style. So like Spider Bomb here, if you have another mech on board, the Spider Bomb gets transformed into a +2/+2 buff and the deathrattle gets transferred to the other mech. It gives the new minion's stats basically into a charging buff, although apparently you can choose to not have this effect depending on the positioning, which is neat!

Spider Bomb's Deathrattle is... interesting. It's sort of like a non-targetted Voodoo Doll effect, but a 3-mana 2/2 with tribal synergy is definitely better than a 3-mana 1/1. Plus Hunter's got that Play Dead card. A better way to put it is to compare Spider Bomb to a delayed Deadly Shot on a body, which,  again, is neat. The thing is I'm not quite sure is whether Spider Bomb or mechs in general is going to work in Hunter. Back in GvG they tried to force mech synergy on all the classes, and not all of them are able to use the mechs particularly well.

Electra Stormsurge is a 3-mana 3/3 Elemental, and she's the legendary minion for Shamans, with a battlecry that doubles the next spell cast this turn. Which... basically means that with 8 mana, you get a +6 attack Bloodlust. I'm sure there are a bunch of other applications for her, too, but jeez, the double-Bloodlust is just looking pretty dang great. It's definitely a fun, unique Legendary, and we'll see if she ends up being playable.

Myra's Unstable Element: We're getting legendary spells now! And they look pretty dang powerful. I think we're doing the Kobolds & Catacombs model where each class is getting a legendary spell and a legendary minion (or hero, in the case of Warrior)? Myra's Unstable Element seems to be a Rogue spell, in any case, and it's pretty dang insane. For 5 mana, draw your entire deck. Basically the ultimate card for any Miracle-style combo decks, but it has the potential to burn a huge chunk of your deck and to put you straight into fatigue, so I'm genuinely not quite sure if this one will be as usable as other greedy card-draw engines like Aluneth and Ultimate Infestation... but god damn, that looks like a pretty powerful card, for sure. We'll see if it finds a home.


Biology Project: Apparently a card cycle we're going to be seeing this time around are Projects, which are spells that benefit both heroes at once, kind of like some previous druid cards. Biology Project gives both players 2 mana crystals, although thankfully it's at least a full mana crystal like Nourish. You do help your opponent ramp, though, and while this is dirt-cheap for 1 mana, I'm not sure if this one is playable, honestly, but they hinted at other "Project" spells that might be interesting? I dunno.

Omega Defender: Another running theme is the "Omega" cards,  which is meant to be a super late-game bomb, with an effect that triggers at 10 mana. Which is neat in this definitely more control-heavy meta, but also HOLY SHIT DRUIDS. Omega Defender, the one they displayed, definitely looks like a pretty damn good card. Prior to turn 10, Omega Defender's a 4-mana 2/6 with taunt, basically a Stegodon, and that honestly isn't even that bad. You'd rather play cards like Saronite Chain Gang, sure, but it's not a bad card at all. But on turn ten, Omega Defender gains 10 extra health! "Enough to kill Deathwing", to quote Dave Kosak. Definitely a very interesting card for sure, and one I look forward to seeing more variations of.

Overall, I'm actually a fair bit more exited about this than I was for Witchwood initially, with a lot of fun crazy mechanics. The whole mech deal is also definitely unexpected and it's a tribal synergy that's near and dear to my heart. We'll see how soon we get the drip-feed of new cards!

HEARTHSTONE CARD GALLERY: The Boomsday Project

Last edited May 2019 for the Rise of the Mech card buffs]
Last edited September 2019 for the nerfs]

Last edited August 2020 for weapon borders

Last edited 3/2021, for The Big Spell Tag update. Uncollectible cards updated.    

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