I was about to publish this a bit earlier, but then they announced that on Monday they'll be revealing the rest of the set and I thought, oh, well, there's still like 35+ cards left in the final stream, so I guess I'll dole these -- every single card before the final Monday stream -- first..
Rattling Rascal
Rattling Rascal is, at first glance, a pretty balanced card. It's a 4-mana 7/7 (oh, the memery!), split into a 2/2 and a 5/5... but when the 2/2 dies, it summons a 5/5 for your opponent as well. It's a bit comparable to Bomb Squad, which deals damage to the opponent as a battlecry and deals some to you as a deathrattle, except a 5/5 body is, arguably, a lot more flexible and something you'd want so much more than dealing 5 damage. It's a neutral, too, but I honestly see more use of the Rattling Rascal in Warlock and Shaman. In Warlock you could put Treachery on the Rascal so both 5/5's get to you, but that's a two-card combo and you probably want to do it in the same turn so your enemy doesn't get the chance to kill the Rascal themselves, but that's not very practical. In Shaman, however, presuming that the 5/5 Skeleton is also a 4-mana drop, this and Evolve gives you two 5-drops for 5 mana, plus whatever minions you have on the board prior. Also a pretty great target for the Thrall Deathseer hero power or for the Master of Evolution, because you suddenly get a ton of value on your side while cheating the deathrattle. Realistically it's a lot less flexible than Evolve Shaman's go-to multi-value card, Doppelgangster, since you probably won't want to drop the Rattling Rascal without the combo pieces in your hand, but still an adorable and very interesting card.
Frost Clone
Frost Clone is a card that... is not really that good, I think. It's another Mage secret, tying in to the Glacial Mysteries card they got earlier. It's similar to Mirror Entity, however, in that your opponent checks for it by playing a worthless minion, and instead of getting the body immediately on the board like Mirror Entity does, you... get two copies of it into your hand. It's decent, I guess, if pulled from a Glyph or a Babbling Book, but it doesn't look like a card you'd want to put in your deck at all. Because, sure, yeah, the dream is that your opponent plays like a high-value low-statted minion with great battlecries like... like Babbling Book, but how often will that work out? Nah, don't think this is going to see constructed play.
HowlfiendHowlfiend (what creature is this? I'm not familiar with demons introduced in WoW's later expansions) is... is a card that's fast becoming a meme. People in the internet say that the only good thing Howlfiend will do is in a combo with Treachery and Spreading Madness, which is impractical and silly. But it
does come one turn earlier than Lakkari Felhound (3/8 with Taunt, in case you need a refresher) and the discard might maybe-sorta not come into play... but a 3/6 is made for trading, and you're definitely going to be discarding a couple of cards with this. Like, if you wanted to cheat out stats, why not play something safer like, oh, Tar Creeper or most other popular 3-mana drops? Howlfiend is bad in the same way that Bittertide Hydra is bad, and losing cards is a lot, lot more damaging than getting 3 damage whacked into the face. Unless the Warlock Death Knight has some ultra-insane discard synergy, I don't see Howlfiend being good at all. It's too gimmicky at best, and a gigantic liability at worst. It's definitely good for the Warlock quest, and if the only card in your hand is Clutchmother Zavas then it could actually buff Zavas into an insane amount... but don't really bank on that ever happening.
Shadow EssenceI'm not sure how good this is. For 6 mana, you summon a 5/5 copy of a random minion in your deck. And the addition of the randomness and the pretty poor 5/5 statline for 6 mana makes this relatively weak, I think. 5/5 for 6 mana is pretty shit stats. Hell, 5/5 for 5 mana would be shit stats if it didn't come with a powerful continuous or deathrattle effect. And sure, a 5/5 copy of value minions like Y'Shaarj or Lyra the Sunshard would be awesome, but would you really want to pay 6 mana for it? If you want to do things like Mirage Caller shenanigans, consider that Barnes, a 4-mana card that has an identical effect, except the minion is smaller, can't be relied on to reliably summon minions you want. The fact that Priest tends to use a decent amount of smaller minions makes this a bit suspect, too. Sure, a 5/5 Northshire Cleric or Priest of the Feast or Radiant Elemental aren't the worst things out there, but would you want to play 6 mana to get that? And if your goal is to recycle Deathrattles, part of what makes Shifting Shade or Crystalline Oracle so strong is how fragile and easy they are to trade off. A 5/5's pretty scary, sure, but at 6 mana? Maybe not. And if you're putting this in a deathrattle priest deck, there's always the chance that you whiff and you Shadow Essence your N'Zoth, which means all you get is a 5/5 vanilla. It also adds a rather crap pile into the pool of spells that Lyra can generate for you, which makes me sad.
Breath of SindragosaI think a bunch of the Mage spells are intentionally made expensive and situational (Simulacrum, Glacial Mysteries) in order to rein in the power of cards like Babbling Book and Primordial Glyph. Breath of Sindragosa is a relatively weak, cheap spell that I'm pretty sure no one will put into their deck, for the simple reason of 'why don't I just run Frostbolt?' It's arguably more efficient, sure, 1-mana and you get 2 damage plus the freeze effect... but at the same time, the effect goes to a random enemy minion, so it can't help you push face damage, and 2 damage is relatively awkward in guaranteeing minion murders. Comparing this to Flamecannon, the Flamecannon's 4 damage almost guarantees you to murder whatever minions it hits in turn 2 or 3, giving it a brief advantage over Frostbolt due to its slightly larger reach. Breath of Sindragosa freezes the enemy minion, sure, and it activates your Coldwraiths and Shatters and whatnot, but I honestly don't think it's super good. Is it fair? Definitely. But I'm pretty sure this card isn't really going to find a spot anywhere.
RotfaceOh, man, back when I was talking about Benedictus a while back, I bemoaned his 7-mana 4/6 statline, because that's pretty weak despite the potential value he has. Rotface is also a 4/6... but he costs 8 mana. And with that atrocious statline, he gets this effect: "whenever this minion survives damage, summon a random legendary minion", an effect comparable to Confessor Paletress. I was iffy about Sindragosa's effect due to the fact that, shit, there has been so many situational and crappy legendaries over the many expansions that Hearthstone has stood. Like, what are you going to do with a C'Thun in a deck without any way to buff him? Or one of the three Darkfallen Princes? Or Hobart Grapplehammer in a deck with no weapons, or Hemet Jungle Hunter in a deck that doesn't work with him, or Milhouse Manastorm... anywhere? Rotface does have the advantage of summoning the minions directly to the field, which makes a lot of the bad battlecries not take effect and also makes you not pay the price to summon said legendaries, but that also means that you kind of whiff on the effects of cards like, say, Elise the Trailblazer. Sure, when you luck out and Rotface rolls one of those great deathrattle minions (Cairne, Hadronox) or a continuous-effect minion (Y'Shaarj, Ysera, Ragnaros Lightlord) it's just amazing and he might win you the game from thereon out, but this is a pretty weird card, isn't it? Warrior does have a lot of ways to trigger Rotface, though -- Whirlwind, Blood Razor, Animated Berserker, Cruel Taskmaster, Inner Rage, Ravaging Ghoul... it's just that I'm not sure Rotface will survive long enough to do much with his statline. One thing that makes Rotface better than Paletress, though, is that you can actually set up a board-state that can damage Rotface before he comes onto the board. Have an Animated Berserker up, have a Blood Razor ready to be detonated, allowing for two instant tics on Rotface without using other combos. But I dunno. Rotface potentially has some really powerful plays but at the same time his inconsistency makes it rather iffy for me to play with him.
Bone DrakeOh, hey, another dragon! I do love that they're adding more dragons into the meta, to keep dragon decks alive even with Blackrock Mountain rotated into wild. Bone Drake's a pretty fair minion, I think. He's a 6-mana 6/5, which is pretty m'eh stats, but as a deathrattle he adds a random drgaon into your hand. I don't think dragon decks actually have a proper 6-drop minion other than Dragonfire Potion (Scaled Nightmare exists, but she's too slow). And if Netherspite Historian is any indication, cards that generate other dragons tend to be good because, shit, dragons tend to be good! A random dragon might not be as powerful as Netherspite Historian or Drakonid Operative's discover effects, but Bone Drake comes in as you're hitting the late game (and most standard rotation dragons are late-game cards anyway with the exception of Faerie Dragon), and by the time the Bone Drake dies, you'll probably be wanting late-game tools, and Bone Drake helps to add more cards out of your deck.
WebweaveWebweave is weird. It's just kinda bad, isn't it? For 5 mana, you summon two 1/2 poisonous spiders. Which, obviously, is disastrous stat allocation. Post-nerf Force of Nature summons three 2/2's, nearly triple the stats that Webweave gives you, and that never saw any play. Ever. I suppose you could then think about the cost of the poisonous spiders themselves... and considering that we actually have a similar minion, the Stubborn Gastropod, who is 1/2 with poisonous and taunt, there's actually precedent. Except that the Stubborn Gastropod costs 2 mana, and summoning two taunt-less versions of the Stubborn Gastropod costs... more than double of the Gastropod? I'm sorry. Like, I know Druid needs removal, but if poisonous minions are the way to go, the Gastropod or the other new card, the Druid of the Swarm, would be far, far better options to go. This is just kinda crap.
Saronite Chain Gang
Huh. This card seems simple, but probably has the potential to snowball really wildly. For 4 mana, the Saronite Chain Gang basically summons two 2/3 with taunt. Feral Spirit, except more expensive... and without overload! I'd actually go as far to say that mana-for-mana, Saronite Chain Gang is far more efficient than Feral Spirit... because there are ways to abuse the Saronite Chain Gang to get more value than just two 2/3 with Taunt. Evolve Shaman can obviously evolve it into two 5/5's (Feral Spirit wolves, in comparison, are 2-mana minions). In wild he can be Brann'd to get three 2/3's instead. There are ways for decks with hand-buff mechanics to make the Saronite Chain Gang summon larger versions of itself. It's like a smaller, weaker Doppelgangster, sure, but on the other hand the Saronite Chain Gang does have taunt. I dunno. This card looks pretty good, if only in certain situational decks.
Happy GhoulLook at this ghoul, he's so happy! What a happy little ghoul. The Happy Ghoul is a 3-mana 3/3, which is pretty sub-par stats... but he costs 0 if your hero was healed this turn! Obviously, Priests can make great use of this, being able to heal their own face on demand. Shamans and Paladins can get healing relatively easily too, but until then the Happy Ghoul stays a relatively dead card in their hand. So is a 0-mana 3/3 (or, more realistically, a 2-mana 3/3 that also heals your face for 2, if we're using Priset as the example) good? I'd say it's okay, but I'm not sure if constructed lists would be able to clear space in their 30-card list to make space for the Happy Ghoul. Which is fine -- he's great in arena, and until then the Happy Ghoul seems just so happy and content making snow angels.
Despicable Dreadlord
Holy shit, a Warlock minion that... has no bad side-effects to yourself! No face damage, no discarding card, no weird triggered effect that fucks you over... What is this? What mad, mad world do we live in? (I'm also 90% certain that Despicable Dreadlord is our first Dreadlord since all the way back to Mal'Ganis) Despicable Dreadlord isn't as despicable as his name implies. The Dreadlord's a 4/5 for 5 mana, which is, obviously, sub-par statline, but with that sub-par statline the Dreadlord adds the continuous effect of dealing 1 damage to all your enemy minions at the end of your turn. Not all minions, just the enemy's side of the board. Cards like Dreadscale saw marginal play despite it dealing damage to your side of the board as well. Despicable Dreadlord would be actually awful in some matchups, like those enrage Warrior cards we've been seeing a lot of in this expansion, but against a relatively decent chunk of the meta, the Dreadlord's actually a pretty decent board control tool. He would definitely be pretty insane in arena, and if you can keep him alive he can actually shut down some murloc and token decks. I dunno if I'm just overrating him because he doesn't have any side effects, but the Despicable Dreadlord actually looks relatively decent even in constructed.
Malfurion, the Pestilent
Malfurion the Pestilent is going to be the first hero card we talk about today. It's the druid one! And Malfurion actually looks more like woodland-Santa than a Death Knight, but okay. So Malfurion the Pestilent costs 7 mana, gains the requisite 5 armour... and as a battlecry, Malfurion the Pestilent will allow you to summon either two poisonous spiders, or two scarabs with taunt. Presuming that these are similar cards to the Druid of the Swarm tokens, it's actually not much of a battlecry, I think, just a way to either stall the game with taunts. 7 mana isn't super bad, though, and Malfurion's hero power is actually pretty damn impressive. For 2 mana, you either have 3 attack for the turn, or gain 3 armour. This gives Malfurion the Pestilent a recovery and control hero power that is far superior than Warrior's Armour Up, and when added to other strong control tools that druid has like Moonglade Portal and Ultimate Infestation... Malfurion the Pestilent can also just push damage to either the face or minions with a weaker version of Warrior's Heroic Strike every turn. It's pretty good, but on the other hand, do you really want to spend 7 mana to turn into that? I have the feeling that Malfurion the Pestilent might be one of the weaker Death Knight cards, or maybe that's simply because his hero power is relatively boring. Stat-to-stat it's a pretty scary thing if it's allowed to run out of control, though, so maybe by sheer virtue of how guaranteed Malfurion's hero power is as compared to the more difficult-to-pull-off hero powers that Jaina, Valeera, Uther or Anduin have, Malfurion the Pestilent might actually be one of the better Death Knight heroes? The simple fact that Malfurion the Pestilent embodies what makes the Druid class so powerful -- the choice between two hero powers depending on the situation -- is definitely a huge, huge factor in making Malfurion's new hero power so powerful. One thing's certain, though. I'm busting out my Fandral Staghelm and he's going to be good buddies with Malfurion now.
Druid of the Swarm
See, this is what I'm talking about when I was talking about the Webweave card on top. The Druid of the Swarm is the latest in Druid's arsenal of Druid of the X series, taking the place of the Druid of the Saber as the resident low-cost minion. You either get a 1/2 with poisonous (a crappier Stubborn Gastropod) or a 1/5 with taunt (a better, cheaper Silverback Patriarch, who with every expansion grows more and more worse). Druid of the Swarm is okay, I think. Obviously most of the time in turn 2 you'd probably go for the taunt because poisonous isn't that worth it in the early game, but in the late game the Druid of the Swarm can switch gears and be a potential removal tool with her keyword. Not sure, again, if she'll see play, but definitely an interesting design and a very neat and more usable Choose One card than last expansion's Shellshifter, I think.
Uther of the Ebon Blade
Oh man, oh man, oh man, this card. Paladin might whiff out in their minion legendary with the pretty sub-par Bolvar Fireblood, but god damn if they didn't get one helluva cool Death Knight. In addition to some pretty cool artwork, Uther of the Ebon Blade is a 9-mana hero card that instantly equips you with Evil!Ashbringer, a 5/3 weapon with Lifesteal and you don't even have to wait until your Tirion dies to get it. Oh, and five mana as a bonus! How good is a 5/3 weapon with lifesteal? I'd honestly rate it at around 5 mana-ish if it is a single card, but that's not all Uther gets. His hero power gets upgraded into 'the Four Horsemen', which summons a 2/2 token with each push of the button. Like Malfurion, that's a full upgrade of Uther's standard hero power, albeit doubled as opposed to Malfurion's tripled. Which would be okay in and of itself, but the hero power upgrade and evil Ashbringer still probably wouldn't justify the 9-mana tag given to Uther... until you read the hero power's other effect. If you get four of these 2/2 tokens on the board, you
win. You just win, Exodia style. Of course that's only ever going to happen once in a blue moon, since keeping 2/2's that you can only summon one of every turn is going to be hard as hell, but shit, the fact that Uther has an alternate win condition built into him is just scary in and of itself, especially considering the range of powerful buffing tools (Spikeridged Steed!) and late-game minions available to Paladins. It's such a weird hero card and while I'm not sure if he's actually super-good, I'm certainly highly intrigued to try and make a Death Knight Paladin deck. Pretty cool effect.
Blackguard
Blackguard is an interesting card. He's a 6-mana 3/9, which is pretty lopsided stats. It's still only a single point off of the stat total of a Boulderfist Ogre, but Blackguard has the very interesting effect of dealing damage onto a random enemy minion every time your hero heals himself. Paladins do have a fair amount of ways to heal itself, most prominent being Truesilver Champion. But with Forbidden Healing, Lay on Hands, lifesteal minions, Ragnaros Lightlord and other stuff, there certainly are a lot of ways for the Paladin hero to heal himself. Blackguard helps the Paladin to control the board even further by shooting like 2-damage bombs or whatever every time you heal, like a Heal Juggler or some shit. It only goes to minions, thank god, otherwise it'd be way too easy to abuse it for face damage, but the Blackguard's own high health means that he's very likely to survive on the board for a relatively longer time than usual and allowing any Paladin deck with heal abilities some extra greedy plays to help control the board.
Forge of Souls
Shit, a tutor card for weapons? Forge of Souls looks pretty great, actually. Warriors doesn't have a shortage of drawing tools with Acolyte of Pain, Shield Block, Battle Rage and all that jazz, but Forge of Souls makes sure that by turn two, you
will have a weapon in hand. It's a pretty powerful card, but it's going to be a pretty horrible card to draw after you've drawn all your other weapons. Like, it thins your deck out of weapons which is great, and ensures your Fiery War Axe is in your hand by turn two... but, again, as with many of these 'seems good' card, I'm not sure if it'll deserve a spot on your 30-card deck. Better to have a Forge of Souls than something like, oh, Bring it On, definitely. It seems pretty good, but the fact that weapons by their nature are kind of a longer investment as you need to wait for the weapon to finish up its durability before you can play the second one. Still pretty good nonetheless, though.
Snowfury Giant
Huh, a class giant? Okay then. Snowfury Giant is actually a card that, when I first saw it in untranslated Korean, I thought was going to be another freeze shaman card (which is a deck which IMO won't work at all, not this expansion at least). Instead, it's an Overload-synergy card... which came in a wee bit too late considering overload's best friends, Lava Shock and Tunnel Trogg, have moved on to wild. Snowfury Giant's a 11-mana 8/8 that costs less for each mana crystal you've overloaded... and honestly, it takes some time to overload mana crystals especially when you don't have Tunnel Troggs to offset the overload. Realistically you'll probably consider Snowfury Giant super-value by the time he costs like 5 or less mana, which means you're going to have to overload a minimum of 6 crystals in the game. Which is definitely doable, but I'm not sure if it's worth the risk of a card that's dead in your hand for a good chunk of the game instead of putting in the far-easier-discounted Thing From Below or Flamewreathed Faceless. It does mean that you can evolve 10-mana minions now... something that's not going to have a whole ton of application, but hey, worth mentioning, I guess?
