Hearthstone: Kobolds & Catacombs - A Card Review Retrospective

 Back last year, I reviewed Kobolds and Catacombs, the soon-to-be-dethroned newest expansion of Hearthstone. As with what I've done through the Year of the Mammoth, I end up giving a rating for every card from 1 to 5 based on how viable I think the card is going to be in Standard meta, found at the end of my final card review for K&C. Now since we're going to get the announcement for whatever first expansion is going to be, I'm going to take a look back at my ratings for each class and see how right or wrong I end up being, and how viable the cards end up being.

I've personally been ranking up and try-harding with a combination of a Cube Warlock that utilizes the weapon and Prince Taldaram, as well as Big Priest... and the unexpected C'Thun Druid. Nobody expects the C'Thun Druid. Oh, and I opened a golden Deathwing in this week's tavern brawl! Good week for me in Hearthstone.

My overall impressions with Kobolds & Catacombs is... decidedly mixed. I actually took a relatively long break from Hearthstone in this period, only coming in to spam casual games to get my daily gold, but it is also an expansion where I really thought that they struck a great chord on balance on not trying to build everything around the mascot card of the expansion (quests and death knight heroes, for the previous two), and definitely after the nerf to Raza, Patches and the horrifying Corridor Creeper, it's actually turned out to be relatively fun to return into the game. Corridor Creeper, I think, is one of the biggest parts of the game that just makes it un-fun, where every single goddamned deck has an excuse to put Creeper in, making nearly every game turn out to be "who has the better draw". Of course, thankfully, the nerfs have arrived and the meta is a much happier place now.

Also a huge fan of the Dungeon Run game mode, not just because of what it represents (and the fact that I get to play with some really old cards) but because it's an offline game I can muck around with at work and put my phone down without any consequence when a customer comes in. With a new yearly rotation coming in, I'll also briefly discuss about just what big-name cards the classes will be losing. In addition to, y'know, Patches, who's already lost to us via nerfs.
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DRUID:

• 5: N/A
• 4: Branching Paths
• 3: Greedy Sprite, Lesser Jasper Spellstone (down from 4), Ironwood Golem (up from 1), Oaken Summons (up from 2)
• 2: Astral Tiger, Grizzled Guardian (up from 1)
• 1: Twig of the World Tree (down from 3), Ixlid Fungal Lord (down from 2), Barkskin (down from 2)

Druids, as a whole, were already one of the stronger classes from Knights of the Frozen Throne thanks to the sheer power of the Jade Druid deck, so much that druid had warranted the dual nerfs to Innervate and Spreading Plague, which kept the power level of the deck relatively well in check. Right now I'm not really seeing much druid other than Jade, but they've definitely adapted a lot to really making use of the tools given to them by K&C. While a lot of them feel more like tech cards more than anything, they really end up helping to make the Jade Druid gravitate into a more stable gradual-building-up game instead of 'ramp like crazy and cheat things out with Innnervate'.

Token Druid was a monster back when Patches and Creeper were a thing, but right now they're far more of a fringe deck. I've seen some variations of Spiteful Summoner Druid, which is neat but I don't think anyone's got to a version that is as stable as the Spiteful Priest decks.

Going through the cards quickly, Branching Paths was as useful and flexible as I expected it to be. Greedy Sprite might not be that good now, but I bet it's going to be better in Standard once Mire Keeper rotates out. I over-estimated Lesser Jasper Spellstone a fair bit, and under-estimated Ironwood Golem. Turns out a 3/6 Taunt is good enough for Ironwood Golem to be played over Sen'jin Shieldmasta, especially with Branching Paths and Malfurion the Pestilent offsetting the golem's drawbacks well. Oaken Summons is perhaps the biggest piece of the puzzle that makes the Golem combo be a very great turn 4 play, though. Grizzled Guardian is neat to work with Ironwood Golem, but druid recruit decks tend to be fringe, mostly. Druid's other cards aren't particularly spectacular, though -- both the legendary minion and weapon are more fun novelties than anything, and while the concept of Astral Tiger and Barkskin are great, as of the moment they're not particularly useful. Definitely easy for them to all find a home with the right new cards in the future, though.

I don't really have much to say about druid. They're perhaps the most stable and un-rattled class among the nine classes, being the only one that just assimilated the new tools they are given but without really altering much of their old strategies.

What are Druids losing with the rotation? 

• The Jade Package. Yep, next year, we're going to live in a Standard world without Jade Druid or jade anything. It's going to be weird. 
• Fandral Staghelm! No more mega-Nourish or insane values with Choose One cards.
• Mire Keeper! Probably replaced with Greedy Sprite, but the Mire Keeper's battlecry effect is definitely a far more stable ramping effect than the Sprite. 
• The C'Thun package. Druids are the only class that can still play with C'Thun nowadays, and while C'Thun hasn't reared its eyeball head once Brann rotated out, well, they're definitely out now. 
• Kun the Forbidden King is a card that didn't see much play back when he was introduced, but has been a pretty neat card in various Jade decks since. 
• Medivh the Guardian, which is a card used by multiple classes, but I think Jade Druids have been one of the best users of it. 
• Enchanted Raven, one of the more stable early-game cards for Druid. Maybe replaced by Dire Mole in the future? 

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HUNTER

• 5: Lesser Emerald Spellstone (up from 3)
• 4: Flanking Strike, Rhok'delar (up from 1), Wandering Monster (up from 2)
• 3: Kathrena Winterwisp, Candleshot (up from 2), 
• 2: Cave Hydra (down from 4), To My Side (up from 1)
• 1: Crushing Walls, Seeping Oozeling (down from 2)

Oh man, Hunter was joked as the 'unplayable' deck during Un'Goro and Frozen Throne, as fun as the Death Knight hero that Blizzard gave them. And I was so, so wrong about a lot of these cards. As of the moment, the big Hunter archetypes are variants of controlling hunter (which, after cracking open Kathrena Winterwisp, I was genuinely surprised by how well it works), secret hunter and the fact that, yes, Spell Hunter actually works! None of these are actually Tier 1 decks, but the fact that these cards single-handedly punted Hunter back to relevance is definitely extremely well-done.

Pretty much the only card I guessed right was Flanking Strike. I severely under-estimated the power of Lesser Emerald Spellstone. Turns out that, yeah, while a bunch of 3/3's might be susceptible to Duskbreaker, they are still a goddamn pack of 3/3 tokens, and upgrading the spellstone is actually relatively easy considering that Secret Hunter works amazingly well with existing cards like Eaglehorn Bow and Cloaked Huntress (no, Putricide, sadly you still suck). Lesser Emerald Spellstone gets the 5-star slot simply because it's the only card here that truly ends up showing up in nearly every single hunter deck that has an excuse to slot it in. 

Wandering Monster is also actually a great enough secret to be played in conjunction with Cloaked Huntress and Lesser Emerald Spellstone, as it turns out that more ways to bamboozle your opponent and get bodies on the board is pretty neat. Candleshot, the 1-mana weapon, turns out to also be particularly well-done, finding its way to slot into Hunter's arsenal. Candleshot's more of a tech card for Hunter decks with a more spell-heavy or secret-heavy basis that want to control the board early, but oh boy, I truly under-estimated how useful that would be. Kathrena Winterwisp is a neat little tech card and a great, great way to build around bigger beasts, and I am truly happy about the fact that I have a deck featuring fucking King Krush and it actually has a positive winrate. 

The Spell Hunter cards Rhok'delar and To My Side are... are actually great. I was among the legions who scoffed at spell hunter and said that it wouldn't work. And while it's not a top-tier deck, nor is it the easiest to pilot (I've met way too many spell hunter decks that panic and splurge their spells without thinking) it certainly proves to be definitely viable. I don't think To My Side is the best card in that deck, because some versions of Spell Hunter even drops To My Side or use it as a mere one off. Rhok'delar, on the other hand, is actually pretty damn good if you can get it to work properly, because, hey, reloading your hand in a deck that already has the game plan to overwhelm the board? 

I'm not sure why I rated Cave Hydra a 4 back when reviewing this. I guess it's because I was fresh off the Patches meta? But even when Patches was running rampant over everything Cave Hydra was never really seen anywhere. I was pretty much right about Crushing Walls, though, which is crappy, and Seeping Oozeling is a neat and balanced card, but outclassed by every other way to cheat out cards early like Barnes and Kathrena. 

What are Hunters losing with the rotation?

• Cloaked Huntress and Cat Trick, two of the more powerful cards in the secret archetype. Whether the loss of Cloaked Huntress would cause the entire Secret synergy to crumble down into nothingness, or if Blizzard will print new secret-synergy cards in the Year of the Raven, will be a question to Hunter's continued viability as it is in K&C. 
• Kindly Grandmother, one of Hunter's best two-drops.
• Alley Cat, one of Hunter's best one-drops.
• Call of the Wild, one of Hunter's best finishers and the end-game spell in Spell Hunter decks. 

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MAGE:

• 5: Aluneth (up from 4), Explosive Runes (up from 3)
• 4: Arcane Artificier (up from 3)
• 3: Dragon's Fury Dragoncaller Alanna (down from 4), Raven Familiar (down from 4)
• 2: Deck of Wonders, Leyline Manipulator (down from 5)
• 1: Shifting Scroll, Lesser Ruby Spellstone (down from 5)

Mage was... all right in Frozen Throne, but shot up to be one of the more powerful and frankly oppressive decks in K&C. They just got so much tools to fuel a burn-based deck, and perhaps the card that's single-handedly responsible for doing this is the legendary weapon Aluneth, which is a delightfully difficult card to utilize, and one that sometimes backfires, but one that allows burn and secret mage decks to just draw through the deck like crazy to get to all the Fireballs and Firelands Portals and finish off their enemies.

Explosive Runes is also an amazing card who I wholly underestimated. I ranked Explosive Runes at a 3, which tends to be decent, but it turns out to be amazing in Secret Mage decks and also in the burn decks because, hey, free damage to the face that sometimes takes out a minion? And activates all secret synergies? And thanks to Kirin Tor Mage and Kabal Lackey, sometimes you just get for free? Yeah. 

While burn/secret mage is the most popular deck right now, control mages are actually very neat, too, Dragoncaller Alanna turns out to be amazing, and once Priest moved away from Shadowreaper Anduin highlander decks, it turns out that neither Psychic Scream nor Dragonfire Potion is adequate to really deal with a swarm of 5/5 dragons. Dragon's Fury also turns out to be pretty powerful in decks that can utilize it, and while the 'Big Spell Mage' decks might need just a little bit more to properly work, Dragon's Fury is definitely a worthy addition to mage's arsenal.

Raven Familiar is an okay card in Big Spell Mage decks, but it's nowhere as powerful as I thought it would be. Arcane Artificier is a neat little card who sees a lot more mileage in a tournament setting, but that's not really a negative. It allows Mage a way to recover more readily than Ice Barrier, and it's going to be particularly important once Ice Block rotates out. Deck of Wonders and Shifting Scroll are both as bleh as everyone expected. 

In fact, perhaps my biggest mis-read in this entire review was the elemental package, with Leyline Manipulator and Ruby Spellstone flopping particularly badly. Quest Mage still exists, and there's a variant that uses Leyline Manipulator, but they're definitely not working quite as well as I envisioned them to be with my initial 5-star rating. It's really quite surprising, but poor elementals just can't catch a break, huh?

What are Mages losing with the rotation?

• ICE BLOCK! Yes. Ice Block is one of the most powerful tools and most assholish tools that Mages have in their arsenal, and I'm so happy it's being hall of famed. 
• Kabal Courier, Kabal Crystal Runner and Medivh's Valet are three core Secret-synergy cards that's going to leave, and while Secret Mage isn't completely out of tools, it's still going to be interesting to see how it'll work in the future.
• Firelands Portal, one of Mage's high-end explosive burn spells. They still have the gamut of Frostbolt/Fireball/Pyroblast from Classic, though, so they can still do the burn stuff... just probably not as good. 
• Babbling Book,  and Cabalist's Tome. Two ways to gain random spells, particularly key cards in Quest Mage and neat tech choices elsewhere.
• Medivh the Guardian, the only reliable way to 'break' Aluneth in some decks, while still being able to synergize with Mage decks. Not really that big of a loss, mind you, in my opinion. 

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PALADIN:

• 5: Call to Arms (up from 3), Unidentified Maul (up from 2)
• 4: Crystal Lion (up from 1), Drygulch Jailor (up from 1)
• 3: Potion of Heroism, Lynessa Sunsorrow (down from 4), Val'anyr (down from 4), Level Up (up from 1)
• 2: Lesser Pearl Spellstone, Benevolent Djinn (down from 3)
• 1: N/A

One of the biggest winners in this expansion is undoubtedly paladin. Whether it's Murloc Paladin, Silver Hand Recruit Paladin or just a more generic aggro deck, the different flavours of aggro Paladin is undoubtedly one of the most stable and powerful decks in the meta right now. And in no small part it's due to the sheer power level of Call to Arms -- easily one of the most powerful cards in the set, recruiting three tiny minions into the battlefield, and it could be anything from Knife Jugglers to Righteous Defenders to Argent Squires to murlocs... it's just one of the most powerful cards, and a way for Paladin to instantly reload without having to waste mana drawing and playing the minions. What was I thinking, rating Call to Arms a 3? Definitely another egregious mis-read from me. 

Unidentified Maul is also a card that I misread, but I feel a bit more justified for the simple fact that I thought that Paladins will pick Rallying Blade most of the time -- it's just that with Call to Arms making it so easy for Paladins to swarm the board, Unidentified Maul ends up being so much better as a result, with the 'give all your minions X' abilities having targets to hit almost all the time. Most aggro paladin decks tend to run both Rallying Blade and Unidentified Maul, and Unidentified Maul's definitely one of the neater surprises in the set for me, being a devastatingly powerful weapon on the right board. 

But best of all? The fact that Dude Paladin (or Silver Hand Recruit Paladin, its proper, mouthier title) actually fucking works. Part of it is because of Call to Arms and one of the four results of Unidentified Maul summoning more dudes, but it single-handedly brought Light-fused Stegodon back from being a meme card, and this once-laughable archetype has recently found its footing. Once Patches got nerfed,  people that experimented with Aggro Paladin realized that, hey, a free 5/5 with Divine Shield is actually pretty fucking powerful. Crystal Lion is powerful, and Drygulch Jailor's ability to be recruited by Call to Arms and the flexibility of spamming the board with dudes when you're ready to buff them is amazingly well done. Level Up isn't quite as good as the other two cards that makes the Dude Paladin deck work, but definitely all three cards rank higher than the 1-mark I gave them. 

Control paladin doesn't work as well as I thought it would, being unseen during the pre-nerf era, but it's definitely a more viable deck to use at this point. Lynessa Sunsorrow is positively devastating if dropped after your opponent's exhausted their Spellbreakers, Val'anyr takes a long while to go on  but is definitely a card that still sees fringe play. Both Lynessa and Val'anyr really need to be careful of Spellbreakers, though, which, thanks to Cube Warlock, is seeing relatively universal play. Potion of Heroism synergizes well enough with a midrange deck and Lynessa to see a fair amount of play, meaning the only 'losers' as far as this list is concerned are Benevolent Djinn and Lesser Pearl Spellstone, neither of which are objectively bad cards, but see very little play. Overall, paladin's probably one of the biggest winners here. 

What are Paladins losing with the rotation?

• Murloc Paladins are also losing Finja the Flying Star and Corrupted Seer, although both have since been replaced by smaller Murlocs in K&C thanks to the whole Call to Arms deal. The Curator is also a card that older versions of Murloc Paladin ran, and they're losing it too.
• A bigger loss is definitely Vilefin Inquisitor and Grimscale Chum, two of the best one-drops in Murloc Paladins. 
• Rallying Blade, one of the best weapons Paladins have and used in practically every Paladin deck ever. Of course, as I mentioned above, Unidentified Maul is happy to pick up the slack. 
• Steward of Darkshire, one of the more powerful and annoying cards that ensures Dude Paladins will have Dudes to do Dude buffs to. 
• N'Zoth! No more extra Tirions, although control paladins aren't really that big nowadays. Control paladins are also losing Ragnaros Lightlord, thoguh.

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PRIEST:

• 5: Psychic Scream, Lesser Diamond Spellstone (up from 3)
• 4: Duskbreaker
• 3: Twilight Acolyte (down from 4)
• 2: N/A
• 1: Temporus, Psionic Probe, Dragon Soul (down from 2), Twilight's Call (down from 2), Gilded Gargoyle (down from 2), Unidentified Elixir (down from 2)

Priest! Priest is undoubtedly one of the powerhouses in K&C, dominating the metagame with the highlander deck that also dominated Frozen Throne previously, laughing and reveling in righteous schadenfreude after being nothing but a mockery back in the Year of the Kraken. Even with Raza the Chained nerfed, Priest is still one of the more powerful archetypes out there, probably the second-most-powerful class after Warlock, and that's a title that's debatable considering how high Paladin and Mage rank as well. Big Priest in particular is an amazingly monstrous deck.

Another deck that has ended up rising in the ranks is not the pure-dragon deck everyone expected to appear, but a variation that mixes dragon early game with Spiteful Summoner and Priest's big spells, which turns out to be pretty dang stable and amazing to play. And yet another flavour of Priest popularized recently with some big tournament or whatever is the Inner Fire combo priest, which is such a classic combo mechanic that I can't help but love it. With Highlander Priest taking a backseat at this moment, Spiteful, Inner Fire and Big Priests tend to be the most popular flavours out there.  

The biggest success of Big Priest is undoubtedly the Lesser Diamond Spellstone. The addition of Shadow Essence, Obsidian Statue and Eternal Servitude in Knights of the Frozen Throne has single-handedly made the archetype stable enough to reliably cheat out huge Obsidian Statues, Lich Kings and Y'Shaarjs, but Lesser Diamond Spellstone takes this and runs it up to eleven, allowing you to resurrect up to four minions with the disadvantage that you need to cast many spells with this card in your hand... something that the minion-light Big Priest actually does very, very well. Hell, it even got some Big Priest lists to cut out Potion of Madness so as not to dilute the pool of dead minions so that Diamond Spellstone will always bring out big minions.

Psychic Scream is another powerful card in Priest's arsenal, whatever flavour you use -- it's a 7-mana board clear that is simultaneously better and worse than Twisting Nether. It's better since no deathrattles pop out and it's cheaper, and sometimes it just bloats up your enemy's deck with useless tokens (Shamans and their totems hate this, and if you get to do this to a Warlock with 1/3 tokens out it's almost a guaranteed win), but it doesn't do a particularly good job at actually eliminating the threats. It buys time, though, and sometimes that extra couple of turns is just what you need to slam down your huge threats and murder the enemy. Psychic Scream is just one of the most powerful cards hands-down that Priest has ever gotten. 

Duskbreaker is about as good as I expected her to be, that cool little mini-AoE in the mid-game to help Dragon Priests stabilize against aggro and token decks, and she's really fun to play with. Twilight Acolyte isn't as good -- it's more of a tech card in Dragon Priest decks, although it's a damned good tech card.

Practically everything else ended up to be unplayable, which is just fine -- Priest doesn't need more help! I just over-estimated how some of these cards might see their way into decks. Twilight's Call isn't powerful enough or stable enough to really see play in N'Zoth or Big Priests, Gilded Gargoyle's not useful enough to even help Highlander Priest, whereas Unidentified Elixir and Psionic Probe are only great in Arena. Dragon Soul and Temporus are both really just kinda bad, though, and Temporus, I think, mostly exists to dilute the Netherspite Historian pool to make it less consistently good that you draw into Drakonid Operatives and Duskbreakers. Overall, Priest definitely continues into K&C and into the Year of the Raven with a strong backbone, even if a lot of their tools will rotate out soon. 

What are Priests losing with the rotation?

• Dragonfire Potion, one of Priest's best board clears.
• A lot of dragons! Drakonid Operative and Netherspite Historian are the two big ones to lose, so that really brings the continued viability of dragon synergies to question. To a lesser extent, they're also losing Book Wyrm. 
• Barnes and Y'Shaarj are two of the core cards for Big Priest, and while I'm sure that Big Priest might be able to somewhat survive in a way, it's never going to be as efficient as it is now. 
• Kazakus and Raza are rotating out as well, signalling the final nail in the coffin for standard highlander decks. 
• Kabal Talonpriest, one of the best utility cards in Priest.
• Potion of Madness, yet another great utility card in Priest. Year of the Mammoth is kind to Priests, huh?
• N'Zoth! Also a key card in many Priest decks that use the deathrattle theme.
• Shadow Word: Horror and Pint-Sized Potion, a combo that practically every other Priest decks use and a way to mass-murder early board-flooding decks. Quite legitimately curious what the next expansion will bring to help replace this, to be honest. 

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ROGUE

• 5: Fal'dorei Strider, Kingsbane (up from 1)
• 4: Elven Minstrel (up from 3), Cavern Shinyfinder (up from 3)
• 3: N/A
• 2: Sonya Shadowdancer (down from 3)
• 1: Sudden Betrayal, Kobold Illusionist, Lesser Onyx Spellstone (down from 4), Cheat Death (down from 2), Evasion (down from 2)

Tempo Rogue was one of the best decks to play prior to the Corridor Creeper nerf, but even now after Patches and Creeper are essentially unplayable, Rogues still move strongly into the new year with a whole lot of powerful tools. Different flavours of Miracle Rogue and the likewise newly-stable Kingsbane/Mill deck ends up being one of the more interesting decks out there. It truly ends up being polarizing, as far as my old ratings are concerned, how wrong I was about Kingsbane. Turns out that if you can draw quickly enough and stabilize with cards like Fal'dorei Strider (which is a dang good card),  the fact that you can end up swinging Kingsbane for 14+ damage at the end-game with Lifesteal is honestly quite good. I rated Kingsbane 1 before and, boy, I was insanely wrong.

I was right about Fal'dorei Strider being amazing, though, because 4 mana for an immediate 4/4 body, and three more 4/4's later down the line? And the fact that Rogues draw like crazy through their deck? Yeah. Rogues' two tutor cards, Elven Minstrel and Cavern Shinyfinder, help to thin out the deck and just help to get through Rogue's game plan, whether it be accumulating the specific cards for a Miracle finish, or to just thin out the deck to draw Kingsbane's buff cards. 

The rest of Rogue's arsenal isn't really great, though. I knew the Secrets wouldn't work out, I just didn't realize how bad they would be. Sonya Shadowdancer is a neat novelty, but she isn't much more stable than the Kingsbane and Miracle flavours of Rogue. Lesser Onyx Spellstone turns out to be way too slow, and Deathrattle Rogue isn't viable that much, and I was definitely being way too optimistic to rate it a 4, because even in Wild, Lesser Onyx Spellstone asks way, way too much for a glorified board clear that Vanish and Vilespine Slayer turns out to do far more stably. 

What are Rogues losing with the rotation?

• Counterfeit Coin, one of the best cards in a Rogue's arsenal, particularly the miracle variants. 
• Coldlight Oracle, which, while a powerful tool in Kingsbane decks, isn't particularly that integral to the rogue's game plan, if we're being completely honest. 
• Southsea Squidface, one of the better cards to buff your Kingsbane.
• Swashburglar, although it's not seen that much play since Patches was nerfed.

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SHAMAN:

• 5: N/A
• 4: N/A
• 3: Unstable Evolution (down from 4)
• 2: Grumble Worldshaker (down from 4),  Murmuring Elemental (down from 3)
• 1: The Runespear, Primal Talismans, Lesser Sapphire Spellstone (down from 2), Windshear Stormcaller (down from 2), Crushing Hand (down from 3), Kobold Hermit (down from 3), Healing Rain (down from 4)

Poor, poor Shaman. I knew it was going to be a bad expansion for Shaman, I just under-estimated how bad the cards are this expansion. At this point, poor Shaman is a sad cry from the dominant single-deck that it was during the Old Gods meta, because the only real archetype you can muck around with Shaman is Evolve Shaman, and even that is hit hard by the nerf to Corridor Creeper and Patches. Elementals don't work, and the Freeze package given to Shamans in the previous expansion hurts it even more. 

Like, I don't think there's a single card here that really deserves a rating above 2. Unstable Evolution's the only one, and even then it's a highly volatile card and more of a tech choice in an evolve shaman deck more than anything. Sure, it's neat to have another card to help to evolve your Doppelgangsters and Saronite Chain Gangs, but at the same time, it's not that good. 

Let's go through quickly the cards this set, yeah? The Totem synergies with Kobold Hermit, Windshear Stormcaller and Primal Talismans all just flat-out don't work, because the thing that Windshear Stormcaller gives you -- Al'Akir -- doesn't even reliably win you the game. And Kobold Hermit is just so woefully under-statted that it can't even work as a board-flooder the way Tuskarr Totemic did before. The Runespear is just flat-out bad and unpredictable. Crushing Hands is too  expensive compared to just playing things like Hex or Lightning Bolt. Lesser Sapphire Spellstone is a neat overload synergy card, but it's just way too slow and demands too much to really work well. Murmuring Elemental, Grumble and Healing Rain are actually well-designed cards, and I can see them be powerful somewhere down the line, but at this moment none of them actually work anywhere. So yeah. Shamans are undoubtedly the losers of this expansion. 

What are Shamans losing with the rotation?

• Evolve and Doppelgangster, the two strongest combos Evolve Shaman has. Which really doesn't speak well to Shaman's fate, huh?
• Maelstrom Portal, one of Shaman's best early-game AoE's, is also leaving. Devolve, another one of Shaman's best tools, is also leaving.
• Thing From Below, one of Shaman's best cards, is also leaving. Not a good year for Shaman, huh? 
• The Jade Package, the only other stable Shaman archetype (often mixed with Evolve). Shaman just can't catch a break,  huh?
• 4-mana 7/7, even if we haven't seen it in a while.

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WARLOCK:

• 5: Voidlord, Kobold Librarian, Lesser Amethyst Spellstone (up from 4), Skull of the Man'ari (up from 3), Dark Pact (up from 1), Possessed Lackey (up from 2)
• 4: Vulgar Homonculus, Rin the First Disciple (up from 1)
• 3: N/A
• 2: Hooked Reaver (down from 3)
• 1: Cataclysm (down from 2)

And the undoubted winner of this expansion? Warlock. Oh boy, Warlock. I don't really have to go through this, really, because out of every single card Warlock got, only Cataclysm is straight-up bad (I tried Discard Warlock early in the expansion and it actually worked better without Cataclysm than with). Everything else is amazing, including the cards that I thought was cute-but-unplayable. Like Rin! Who the hell thought Rin would be playable, but also one of the straight-up most dangerous cards in Warlock's arsenal? Turns out being a taunt is good enough, and spending 5 mana every turn in the late-game as you build up to Azari is just damn doable when there are so many ways Warlock can do to make a board stable by cheating out the big demons in their deck. Whether it's using Possessed Lackey, Skull of the Man'ari or Krul the Unshackled, Warlocks have so many way to cheat out Doomguards and Voidlords, leaving the Warlock actually free to dick around and play Rin's seals and ultimately slam down a win condition that straight-up eliminates the enemy's deck. Rin is definitely one of the biggest surprises in the set, and when I got her as my first K&C legendary, I was like "oh, cute, the meme card", and was legitimately blown away by how amazing she ended up being. Suddenly summoning Azari isn't just a cute thing to work towards like, say, Galvadon, but a legitimate strategy that fucks up your enemy. 

Part of the reason Warlock is so strong is Bloodreaver Gul'dan from the previous expansion, able to summon every single demon that died earlier this game, and, of course, none are better to summon than Voidlords and Doomguards. Voidlords are just one of the best cards to come out of the expansion, a 3/9 demon with taunt that summons three Voidwalkers, and the fact that you can actually cheat out Voidlords means that it's child's play to guarantee that when you play Gul'dan and N'Zoth in the late game, you're going to get a literal wall of Voidlords to defend you. 

Throw in the neutral card Carnivorous Cube, and suddenly the defensive Voidlords and offensive Doomguards end up being an endless swarm of either undying walls or charging monsters that you can reliably guarantee with the one-mana card Dark Pact... that doesn't just destroy a friendly minion, but also heals your hero by 8. Dark Pact is amazingly well executed with Carnivorous Cube, and it's an actual archetype to have a Possessed Lackey or Skull of the Man'ari summon Doomguards, and then for the Warlock to immediately Cube and subsequently Dark Pact the Doomguard, striking for 15 damage, and 15 more later when you re-summon the Doomguards with Bloodreaver Gul'dan.

And none of this would work without Possessed Lackey and Skull of the Man'ari. The Skull is the free weapon I got from the K&C quest, and I was also surprised by how well it worked. I thought it was going to be decent, ranking it a 3 back in the day, but it was way, way better than that. Cheating out demons? Bypassing their negative battlecries and getting them for free? Hell yeah, it's worth wasting 5 mana! Possessed Lackey being a 2/2 that dies easily (and a great target for Dark Pact, too, as if the synergies aren't enough) and able to summon Voidlords and Doomguards from your deck also makes Warlock's abilities to cheat out demons insanely powerful.

That's not all, folks, because we still have one of the most powerful cards, the humble Kobold Librarian, which I predicted would be 5-stars. A 1-mana 2/1 that gives a free hero power? My god it's powerful. It builds the board while drawing a card, and the damage to your hero helps to activate the Amethyst Spellstone. It's a price that I'll gladly pay, especially with Dark Pact available to Warlocks. Amethyst Spellstone itself is also a hideously amazing way to just deal 7 damage sometimes to a minion, murder them and heal your face, drawing out the game and helping you to stabilize before the huge Doomguard/Cube or Bloodreaver Gul'dan or N'Zoth turns. My god, when did Warlock end up being able to heal better than Priest? 

And that's just the Control/Cube Warlock archetype! Because I'm not going to downplay how well-done Vulgar Homunculus and Hooked Reaver are. Hooked Reaver isn't that spectacular, but he's definitely a pretty powerful card to stall in the late-game... it's just one that doesn't work as well with Skull of the Man'ari, Possessed Lackey or Bloodreaver Gul'dan, all of which bypass the battlecry,making it a weird case of being good, but kind of unplayable. Vulgar Homunculus is actually a stable enough card to activate the Amethyst Spellstone, and has caused zoo Warlock decks to actually ditch Keleseth (especially after the Patches nerf) in favour for a more Demon-oriented deck. Yes, zoo warlocks actually think the Homunculus is far more reliable and stable than a deck-wide +1/+1 buff!

Yeah, Warlocks are dominating. They get only one bad card, and all their good cards aren't just neat little tech choices, they actually define the archetype and are some of the most powerful cards that synergize amazingly well with each other. As sick as I am with seeing Warlocks on the ladder, I am legit happy that I actually got both my Voidlords and my two warlock legendaries without crafting them, and that it's actually an elegantly designed set of cards that synergize amazingly with each other. 

What are Warlocks losing with the rotation?

• N'Zoth! One of the big bombs in Warlock's end-game, although some Cube/Control Warlock decks already cut out N'Zoth anyway, so I don't think Warlock will be that affected by it. 
• Kazakus and Krul. Highlander Warlock players are out there, mostly because Kazakus is so damn good, but yeah, everyone's favourite potion maker is rotating to Standard to hang out with Reno.
• Silverware Golem and Malchezaar's Imp, two of the stronger Discard Warlock cards, are leaving, signalling the doom of the Discard Warlock archetype in Standard, at least. 
• Mistress of Mixtures! I think Warlock makes use of the Mistress more than any other class, as one of the better one-mana drops (it's essentially replaced Possessed Villager, itself also rotating out), and while Warlocks do have other one-mana drops, Mistress of Mixtures is going to make the Control archetype as we know it today somewhat less stable. 
• Crystalweaver, Bloodfury Potion and Abyssal Enforcer are three cards that some demon-centric Warlock decks use, and they, too, are leaving. Not that big of a loss now, though.

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WARRIOR:

• 5: N/A
• 4: N/A
• 3: Gather Your Party (down from 4)
• 2: Woecleaver, Unidentified Shield, Drywhisker Armorer (down from 4)
• 1: Kobold Barbarian, Bladed Gauntlet (down from 3), Reckless Flurry (down from 3), Gemstudded Golem (down from 3), Lesser Mithril Spellstone (down from 2), Geosculptor Yip (down from 3)

Warriors... warriors aren't hit as hard as Shaman this expansion, but at the same time you hardly see them on the ladder anymore either. Used to be that they could fall into the Pirate package standby, but with the nerf to Patches, and the earlier nerf to Fiery War Axe, poor Warrior has barely got a leg to stand up on. Add that to a frankly unimpressive set of cards this expansion? I actually over-rated a lot of the cards, too, because turns out just simply gaining armour for advantageous cards that don't really have a win condition just doesn't really work. Lesser Mithril Spellstone, Drywhisker Armorer, Bladed Gauntlet, Reckless Flurry, Unidentified Shield, Gemstudded Golem and Geosculptor Yip all try to work with the amount of armour that Warrior has, but none of them really provide any sort of win condition, all just relying relatively weakly on stabilizing the board (and unreliable RNG in Yip's case). Like the enrage/whirlwind theme from Frozen Throne, it's the design team putting way too many cards to work with a theme, but it doesn't work. And honestly, without some sort of stable early game and a proper late game finisher, Warrior's in that weird spot where it's really hard to even build a proper deck.

The recruit theme they got with Gather the Party and Woecleaver is decent fun for a meme deck, and sometimes it just manages to steamroll the enemy extremely hard, especially if Woecleaver manages to roll a Y'Shaarj... but at the same time, it really doesn't end up being particularly good. Recruit as a mechanic didn't really work out that well, yeah? Paladin's Call To Arms and Warlock's Possessed Lackey are amazingly great, but the rest of the recruit mechanic just sort of fell flat.

And then there's Kobold Barbarian, a card that's so outclassed by everything in the game that I'm genuinely flummoxed why it's printed as a class card to boot. 

What are Warriors losing with the rotation?

• N'Zoth's First Mate and Bloodsail Cultist, two of the best pirates. Also Naga Corsair, too. Not that pirates are the same since Patches (who's also leaving!) was nerfed, but the two of them in particular is probably the death knell for Pirate Warrior decks as we know them today. 
• Sleep With the Fishes, one of Warrior's more reliable AoE clears. 
• Ravaging Ghoul, one of Warrior's better whirlwind effects that also helps to build the board.
• Bloodhoof Brave and Alley Armorsmith are actually two of the better taunts that Warriors have access to, and one of the essential cards in the odd quest warrior decks you see. 

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NEUTRAL:

• 5: Spiteful Summoner (up from 4), Carnivorous Cube (up from 3), Corridor Creeper (pre-nerf, up from 2)
• 4: Fungalmancer (up from 2), Grand Archivist (up from 1)
• 3: Master Oakheart, Violet Wurm, Plated Beetle, Zola the Gorgon (up from 3), Arcane Tyrant (down from 4), Dire Mole (down from 4)
• 2: Post-Nerf Corridor Creeper, Marin the Fox, Guild Recruiter, Shroom Brewer (down from 4), Shimmering Courser (down from 3), Hungry Ettin (down from 3), Kobold Monk (down from 3), Sleepy Dragon (down from 3), Dragonslayer (down from 3), Fungal Enchanter (down from 3), Silver Vanguard (up from 1)
• 1: King Togwgagle, Dragonhatcher, Rummaging Kobold, Scorp-o-Matic, Gravelsnout Knight, Feral Gibberer, Trogg Gloomeater, Corrosive Sludge, Cursed Disciple, Hoarding Dragon, Kobold Apprentice, Toothy Chest, Wax Elemental, Furbolg Mossbinder (down from 3), Lone Champion (down from 3), Green Jelly (down from 3), The Darkness (down from 2), Void Ripper (down from 2), Ebon Dragonsmith (down from 2), Shrieking Shroom (down from 2), Sneaky Devil (down from 2), Boisterous Bard (down from 2), Sewer Crawler (down from 2), Stoneskin Basilisk (down from 2)

Neutrals now!

And boy, there are a lot of bad cards, huh? Let's go through the good ones, though, because, hoo boy, there's a lot of ones that I genuinely missed. Obviously, the biggest winner in this set is Corridor Creeper, a neutral epic that ravaged the metagame so hard that if I was able to give Creeper a 6, I would've. Creeper has since been nerfed from a free 5/5 to a free 2/5, and has seen little to no play afterwards. Currently, it's probably a 2-star card since some Shaman decks try to use it. But, y'know, Shaman.

The other two big winners are Carnivorous Cube, which we've covered in Warlock as enabling one of the most powerful decks in the metagame right now, and it's a card that I thought was just going to be a weird, wacky meme card. How wrong I was! Cube's gone from being a 3-star to a 5-star. Spiteful Summoner is the other 5-star, although I predicted that it's going to be good. I just didn't expect it to be this good. The best user of Spiteful Summoner is Priest decks, who are able to run a minion-centric deck with just Free From Amber and Mind Control in their deck, and then muck around with Grand Archivist (a card I actually rated 1) since targeting doesn't matter with either of those spells. Druids are also able to use the Spiteful Summoner/Grand Archivist combo with Ultimate Infestation (and Spreading Plague sometimes for a more defensive but less greedy version). It's particularly amazing, for me -- Spiteful Summoner's value is apparent. A 4/4 for 6 mana that summons a huge minion? Grand Archivist's synergy with this is what really a pleasant surprise, because, yeah, if you only have a couple of big spells that always don't require a target, and you've spent your Spiteful Summoners, Grand Archivist can help you cast those expensive spells for free. 

Fungalmancer is a card that seems to have replaced Bonemare as the cheap, neutral buffing card. Obviously without giving taunt and being a shittier body and requiring two targets for its full value, Fungalmancer isn't quite as stable as Bonemare, but a lot of token decks -- Paladins and Warlocks in particular -- have managed to utilize Fungalmancer to a relatively great extent. I still don't think it's as good as people think it is, but it's definitely seeing a lot of play on the ladder. 

That's all the 4-star and 5-star neutrals, so let's talk about the ones I ranked 3. Plated Beetle is a very stable 2-mana drop for N'Zoth decks, helping you to buy some time, and is a legitimate tech choice in N'Zoth Warlock and Priest decks. Master Oakheart is amazingly weird, and I've opened one in a pack, and its ability to recruit Voidlord should never be underestimated. Ultimately it's way less stable than the likes of Possessed Lackey, but I've had a lot of fun trying to make Oakheart work with different classes, and it's actually seeing some decent play for what could have easily been a meme legendary. Violet Wurm is a card that the Kathrena decks play as one of the big beasts Kathrena can summon, and I'm actually surprised that I called it right as a 3-star card. Arcane Tyrant isn't as good as I thought he would be, but he's seeing some legitimate usage in Druid and Mage decks. Tyrant's good in Mage in particular thanks to his synergy with Frost Lich Jaina, but at the same time the Frost Lich version of control mage isn't the best mage archetype out there. Dire Mole has lost a lot of favour after the Patches nerf, causing the cheap-token style of druid and hunter to be a bit less popular, but still a relatively stable card.

And the rest of the cards are 2-star and 1-star cards, and a lot of those I had ranked 3 previously. We'll discuss the ones I got really wrong, yeah? I'm not sure why I was convinced Shroom Brewer was a 4-star card, but I guess I looked at Earthen Ring Far-seer and thought that Shroom Brewer would simply be a better Earthen Ring Farseer... without realizing that, hey, Warlock has way more efficient healing tools. Hungry Ettin actually saw a fair bit of play early on in K&C, but fell out of favour for more stable cards. Or Voidlords. Dragon synergies didn't run as rampant as I expected it to be, so neither Sleepy Dragon and Dragonslayer really worked. Silver Vanguard is actually somewhat neat, being used in some fringe control Paladin decks as a card to cheat out with Barnes or Oakheart, but it's more of a meme than anything.

Worth noting that some cards like Green Jelly, Shrieking Shroom, Trogg Gloom-eater and Hungry Ettin are actually pretty damn good in arena, but are next to worthless in constructed. 

What else? Everything else ended up more or less where I expected them to end. Kinda sad that Shimmering Courser didn't turn out to be good. But I had been pessimistic about many of the other cards like Dragonslayer, Guild Recruiter, Darkness and Gibberer from the get-go -- neat concepts, but way too unreliable to pull off. Of course, a fair amount of these cards are decent in Arena, which actually makes the neutral batch here somewhat akin to TGT in that it adds a lot of stable, decent neutral minions to the card pool. Except Toothy Chest. Toothy Chest just sucks bad. 

Notable losses that doesn't fit anywhere specifically:

• N'Zoth, which I already mentioned in Priest and Warlock, but N'Zoth is one of the most powerful, most balanced and most most interesting cards to act as a big end-game bomb. 
• Yogg-Saron, who hasn't been a meta card for the longest time, but is a fun little finisher in some spell-heavy decks that can sometimes, y'know, win you the game. 
• Eater of Secrets. Granted, both Hunter and Mage are losing a lot of Secret-synergy cards, but the big counter to secrets is also rotating out.
• Dirty Rat. No one's used Dirty Rat that much since Raza got nerfed and big-value Warlock decks are running rampant, but there's that. 
• Patches the Pirate. I mean, he's nerfed now, but he deserves an honourable mention, surely?

So yeah, overall, in terms of card quality, the expansion actually works pretty neatly. A bit shame that they really dropped the ball on balance issues, and while back in the pre-nerf era there's a huge variation of decks and classes... they all worked alongside the same Patches early game with Corridor Creepers being dropped somewhere down the line, so I'm definitely glad that the much-needed nerfs end up being implemented. Overall, though, I'm definitely excited to see what the new Hearthstone expansion will bring us, be it Emerald Dream or Duskwood or something else entirely. 

Hearthstone: Year of the Raven!

 And, of course, as someone playing on the European server, I can't actually play the new-and-revamped ladder because Blizzard made a boo-boo. Whoops! More Wild Arena for me, then, which is a good thing as far as I'm concerned. Not sure how I feel about the new ladder -- it theoretically sounds awesome and a lot less doable for people to actually grind to Legend rank over a longer period of time, but we'll see.

But hey, the next Hearthstone year is announced, and it's the Year of the Raven. It really means nothing, because we do know that the sets are rotating out (Old Gods, Karazhan and Gadgetzan are the ones moving to Wild now).

We also get a bit of a tease for the three expansions of the Year of the Raven, but honestly? It feels gloriously vague. The first one looks kind of... Emerald Dream-y? Or maybe something to do with sunken Naga cities? The second one is definitely something to do with Voids and Ethereal portals, because the aesthetic is apparently pretty similar to a lot of the newer content in Legion. The third one looks... just weird. Something kind of tiki-y or troll-y? Could be anything.

We're also getting a fair amount of cards being Hall of Fame'd, which is neat. Ice Block is the card Blizzard has been none-too-subtly hinting that it's going to be dealt with by nerf or by the hall of fame, and it's definitely the one everyone saw coming. But something I thought was absolutely shocking is Coldlight Oracle -- especially since barely anyone plays with Coldlight Oracle anymore other than maybe Kingsbane Rogues and some really bizarre versions of Murloc Paladin (Divine Favour's almost always better anyway). I guess it's just pre-emptively trying to prevent too much abuse with Coldlight Oracle? Definitely feels that a design space deal is going on. Molten Giant is the third inductee, which is hinted at but not something I took seriously. But it's being reverted to its pre-Old-Gods-era Zoolock 20-mana Molten Giant form, and moved to Wild. Considering how rampant the Naga Sea Witch + Giants deck is in Wild... they probably need to nerf how Naga Sea Witch interacts with giant decks, otherwise it's Wild that is going to have fucked-up balance. It'd be two steps forwards, one step back if they nerfed Patches and Raza for Wild's sake, but left Naga Sea Witch unchanged.

So I guess I have to craft two Molten Giants now to receive the full dust refund when Raven Expansion Numero Uno shows up, huh.

There's a bunch of new extra stuff -- Lunara from Heroes of the Storm is showing up as the Druid alternate hero, who's going to be earned in the same way that you earn Maiev Shadowsong at the beginning of Year of the Mammoth. Quests are being changed to reward slightly more gold... but the big thing that doesn't really matter to me (but matters a lot to a significant portion of the fanbase) is the addition of a Tournament Mode. Neat, but not my deal, because I'm far more interested in the shiny new druid portrait than this huge, entirely brand-new mode with huge ramifications to how we play Hearthstone.

Overall, though, it's a neat bit of announcement. The Hall of Fame stuff and speculating on the Raven Year's expansions are definitely the highlights of the announcements. I'm definitely not a big fan of how Kobolds and Catacombs have turned out to be, finding the metagame excruciatingly boring pre-nerf, and not even feeling particularly revitalized post-nerf since we just reverted back to the pre-Shadowreaper-Razakus decks, while retaining the Voidlord Warlock decks. Eh. Overall, though, definitely a shot in the arm Hearthstone desperately needs.

Kobolds & Catacombs - Final Card Review

 The entirety of the Kobolds & Catacombs expansion was revealed yesterday and the entire expansion will be released some time tomorrow (give or take a region or two) and here we are for an express choo-choo version of card reviews. Some of these are, well... good-in-arena cards that I won't really be discussing that much. Overall the set really looks nice, though, both flavour and power-level wise. Certainly am excited for Mage and Priest myself... Hunter looks like it probably got the shaft this time around (again)? We'll see.

We'll go with class cards first before neutrals, and then, just like Knights of the Frozen Throne, I'll put a prospective ranking of all the cards for Standard Constructed in the bottom.

Astral Tiger: A druid 4-mana 3/5 that shuffles itself into the deck when it dies. It's definitely a cool anti-fatigue tool, but seems more likely to be useful when Jade Idol rotates out. You could argue that you can draw the tiger out with recruit mechanics or whatever, but I don't see it happening very well. Cool design, probably not that playable.

Barkskin: One mana spell that gives a minion +3 health and you gain 3 armour. It's a cheap spell that will activate your Spellstone, and far more flexible to fit into your curve than Oaken Summons. Any druid deck can use minion buffs, whereas not all druid decks can afford to play a recruit-tiny-minions deck. But really -- most of the time, Earthen Scales is strictly better. So yeah, don't see this being particularly good outside of arena.

Rhok'delar: Rhok'delar is the hunter's legendary weapon, and perhaps rather sadly in my opinion, is a weapon to synergize with the all-spells deck that To My Side belongs in. It's perhaps not doable at the moment, although the archetype is a somewhat... interesting one in wild or with future expansions, perhaps? Hunters do get a crapton of spells in this expansion, which is neat, but even with all the spells they have in standard at the moment I don't see it working out. Rhok'delar is a 7-mana 4/2 that generates and fills up your hand with Hunter spells, which is definitely good value if your hand is empty... but on the other hand, you do have to build an all-spell deck... which I personally don't think we quite have the required support for yet. I'm not saying that it's bad, but I mostly think that it's for an archetype that doesn't quite have enough support just yet.

Candleshot: Great art! It's a 1-mana 1/3 weapon that makes the hunter immune while attacking. It's essentially three free pings, and another option for hunter's 1-mana drop (which, at this point, is basically just Alleycat and the new Dire Mole) so yay for that! Notably with Hunter's Mark you can kill anything. Not much to say about Candleshot beyond that, though. It's a cool design, I suppose, and very balanced. I do like it, although I don't think it quite makes it into constructed viability, though.

Flanking Strike: A bigger On the Hunt. For 4 mana, you deal 3 damage (can't go face, sadly), and you summon a 3/3 wolf. Another way to look at it is that it's a strictly better beast version of Fire Plume Phoenix, but in spell version. Definitely playable, even in non-spell-only decks. It's a very solid card in arena and might be constructed viable, because it's one of the many ways to simply control the board and build it in a minion-less deck. Even if the all-spells only archetype ends up not working out (and I don't think it will), Flanking Strike  looks like a decent spell nonetheless.

Cave Hydra: The mechanic unofficially called 'cleave' by many fanmade cards, which is the same ability that Foe Reaper and Scourgelord Garrosh's weapon has, now has made its way to Hunter! Cave Hydra is a very solid minion. It's a 3-mana 2/4 beast, only one attack less than the gold standard for a 3-drop, and it damages minions next to whomever it attacks! It's just a shame that it's not a 4-costed minion because god dang, Hunters have a fuck-ton of cards in the 3-drop slot (Animal Companion, Bearshark and Eaglehorn Bow all being premier cards in that slot). Still, it is a neat little way to perhaps swap around with Bearshark if you're building a deck that wants to control the board more than be aggressive.

Shifting Scroll: The last mage card to be released is another 'random mage spells' card, but I do like that it's actually... not that good! Shifting Scroll is essentially Shifter Zerus in card form, which means it's shit, but it doesn't have a cost. Which is very important, because if you get it out of, say, Cabalist's Tome or Ruby Spellstone, it's a spell that actually takes a turn to transform into a random, playable mage spell. And when it does transform, a random mage spell is certainly better than a random minion like Zerus does. So it's not a good card, but it's definitely a well-designed one in my opinion.

Potion of Heroism: A 2-mana spell that gives a minion Divine Shield, and draws a card? It's a more expensive Hand of Protection (which never sees play) but with card draw built in. And if Iron Hide versus Shield Block is any indication, card draw is definitely a very valid way to make a card go from 'maybe I'll take this in arena' to 'yeah I'll put it into my deck'. It's a neat card for sure, and perhaps goes into the mega-buff deck that they showed off on stream, but ultimately it's perhaps lives and dies depending on Paladin itself.

Gilded Gargoyle: Ah, a weaker Tomb Pillager! That's not to say that Gilded Gargoyle is bad, though. It's just... weaker! And in a class that already has a fuckton of great cards and great deathrattle synergy, Priest really is a class that can afford plopping down a 3-mana 2/2. And even then, a 3-mana 2/2 that gives you a coin isn't necessarily that bad. The thing with Gilded Gargoyle is that, well, most Priests already have 30 good cards so even in Razakus Priest decks that would benefit the most from coins, I don't see Gilded Gargoyle being played. Maybe in a Razakus deck that uses the N'Zoth package?

Psionic Probe: Kind of a shittier Mind Vision, I think, because unlike Mind Vision, Psionic probe can whiff if your opponent's deck just doesn't have any more spells. But it does draw from a narrower subset of cards than Mind Vision -- a random spell triggers your Lyra if nothing else. I dunno. Seems balanced, if not particularly good.

Twilight Acolyte: I don't think I talked about Twilight Acolyte before? I don't feel like I have. In either case, though, I think he's an actually pretty decent card. A 3-mana 2/4 isn't bad, but it's a card that is part of the dragon package, and allows to swap the Acolyte's 2 health with another minion... allowing Priest to finally deal with 4-attack minions at last. And turning an enemy minion to have 2 health? That just makes it susceptible to Potion of Madness, Shadow Word: Death and Cabal Shadow Priest, which makes the Twilight Acolyte perhaps one of the more formidable, if slightly fancier, weapons in the priest's arsenal.

Cavern Shinyfinder: And here's the missing puzzle in Kingsbane decks -- a weapon tutor card. Cavern Shinyfinder is not that bad as a 2-mana 3/1, losing one stat point from the vanilla test of 3/2.  It's fragile as all hell and susceptible to pings, but as a battlecry it draws a weapon from your deck. If the only weapon in your deck is Kingsbane (and it likely is since the only other weapon card played by Rogues is Shadowblade, which isn't super-duper necessary) and that means you kind of guarantee the Kingsbane draw a lot better, because in mulligans there are three cards that you basically means Kingsbane. Shinyfinder lives or dies on Kingsbane's back, so we'll see if Kingsbane is good.

Healing Rain: God I love this card. Such a cool design! Shaman used to have Healing Wave, one of my favourite cards, and it's about damn time that Shamans get another good healing card. Healing Rain costs 3 mana, and restores 12 health among all friendly characters, which means that you might very well heal your entire board. If you have no damaged minions, you essentially heal 12 to your face for 3 mana. And if your enemy has a Northshire Cleric you might very well mill the Priest dry! Pretty cool control tool, although I'm not 100% sure it'll see standard play.

Crushing Hand: A bigger Stormcrack! It is costed exactly the same at 2, except it deals 8 damage and overloads for 3. Overload works with the Sapphire Spellstone, and cheating out huge amounts of damage is far more palatable than Stormcrack's measly 4 damage. And 8 damage is a lot! I'm not sure which Shaman deck can use it, but I do like the design of Crushing Hand.

Dark Pact: You destroy a friendly minion, and restore 8 health to your hero. It's bad, I think, in the way that Unwilling Sacrifice is bad -- you still lose a minion. And while Dark Pact is a cheap heal, and Warlocks do tend to have cheap minions... you still probably won't play this. The fringe application of activating deathrattles probably won't matter either.

Hooked Reaver: A 4-mana 7/7 demon! With Taunt! It only becomes that if your Warlock has 15 or less health, and it's a measly vanilla 3/3 if you bring him back with Bloodreaver Gul'dan or Krul or recruit it with the Lackey, though, so it's not as ideal as it seems. Hooked Reaver does feel like a pretty cool finisher card the way that the Dragonkin 9/9 from Blackrock Mountain is, though. It's definitely another good demons in an expansion that gives Warlock a lot of good demons, and one with enough limitations that it doesn't make demon decks too overpowered. I like it.

Kobold Barbarian: It's just bad, right? The identically-statted Ogre Brute never saw constructed play, and Ogre Brute always has a 50% chance of hitting the target you want. Unless there's one minion, in which case the Barbarian is just as good as the Ogre Brute, Kobold Barbarian always attacks with less than 50% accuracy all the time. So yeah, probably one of the duds in this expansion.

Woecleaver: Warrior's legendary weapon is a Recruit-synergy weapon, an 8-mana 3/3 that Recruits a minion after the hero attacks. I think it's honestly a bit too expensive, because it comes down at least on turn 8. I'm still on the fence about the relative power level of Recruit, and just how powerful it is... and I'm not sure if I want to use an 8-mana 3/3 weapon. It's definitely balanced, though, and I definitely can see enough cards to properly build a Recruit Warrior deck... I'm just not entirely sure that it's going to be that viable. More of a wait-and-see card for me, honestly.

Gemstudded Golem: It's like Ironwood Protector in druid, in that it's a taunt that can only attack with 5 or more armour. Except Warriors gain armour a lot faster than druids, and a 6-mana 5/9 is so much better than a 4-mana 3/6. Gemstudded Golem's 5/9 is comparable to Hungry Ettin's 4/10, and temporarily not being able to attack is certainly a lot better than the Ettin's maybe-summon-a-Gastropod-to-fuck-up-your-day drawback. The Golem's also a neat target for recruit decks that has lots of stats as well. Neat card, I say.

Master Oakheart: What a bizarre card! Oakheart is a 9-mana 5/5, but it recruits three minions -- each with 1, 2 and 3 attack. Not cost, mind you, attack. I'm just scratching my head thinking of just what insane combos I can cheat out with this. Bolvar Fireblood is a candidate, that's for sure. Hadronox or Lord Jaraxxus would be a fun one. Tar Lord, Tar Creeper and Tar Lurker for sure. Pyros? Finja? Maexxna? Ixlid? It's a card that gives a fair amount of deckbuilding challenges, and it's either going to be very bad or very good. At the moment I can only think of a Taunt druid list, because they have 1-attack (Crypt Lord, Druid of the Swarm), 2-attack (Saronite Chain Gang) and 3-attack (Ironwood Golem, Hadronox, Grizzled Guardian). Oakheart is a well-designed card, and while I'm genuinely baffled on how good this card is, I do look forward to the decks that try to make this work in the future.

The Darkness: I cast magic missile upon the darkness! It's... it's a cool card! It's probably not good, though. It's a 4-mana 20/20 that starts off dormant like Sherazin, and it shuffles three candles into the enemy deck. It''s actually a neat stealth counter towards Highlander decks, although by no means is will playing the Darkness just fuck over a highlander priest the way that Skulking Geist was towards Jade Druids. It does delay the Raza turn, although the highlander priest can just Shadowreaper the Darkness all to hell. And while having a big 20/20 that you have no way of killing until it awakens is pretty scary, it's, well, just ultimately a big body and the opposing player will be able to save a removal to deal with it. It also is a play that absolutely does nothing on turn 4, so you do get a huge tempo loss in playing this card. So yeah, a fancy card that's more fun than competitive,  I think.

Corridor Creeper: A 7-mana 5/5 beast that costs 1 less every time a minion dies while this is in your hand? At least it's a minion, not just friendly minions, but even then I don't think it's playable enough even in beast-synergy decks. It's not as rapid a discount as other potential 0-costed minions like Kabal Crystalrunner, Thing From Below or Arcane Tyrant. Definitely a cool card in arena, though.

Shimmering Courser: A 4-mana 3/3 beast that only you can target with spells and hero powers? She definitely won't see play in Hunter because Bearshark is almost always better than her, but it'll perhaps be able to see some play in buff decks. I'm not sure Buff Paladin will be as good as the reveal stream makes it out to be, but I've always loved these 'can't be targeted' mechanics and wished we had more synergy with them. Courser is a cool design, I think, that perhaps finds a great place in Paladin. Spikeridged Steed this and your enemy has no option but to run minions to trade with it. Pretty neat and balanced card, IMO.

Void Ripper: Remember Confuse? From... TGT, I think? Now it's attacked to a 3-mana 3/3 demon! That's neutral! Confuse's a wacky meme card, and Void Ripper is a strictly better version of it. I'm not sure what deck or even class Void Ripper fits in, to be honest.

Ebon Dragonsmith: This card is a dragon! Yay dragons! It's a 4-mana 3/4 that discounts the cost of a weapon in your hand by 2. I don't think warriors or hunters play this, and since priest is probably the only proper class with dragon synergies in standard (and I don't see them playing Dragon Soul in a dragon deck, name notwithstanding) I don't see Ebon Dragonsmith's dragon tag mattering that much. It's probably decent in wild, perhaps? I'm not sure, though, because cards like that Blackwater Pirate from Old Gods never saw play either, so I don't see Ebon Dragonsmith making too many waves.

Kobold Monk: Cool art, huh? It's a neat card, a 4-mana 3/6, which means it's actually a decent vanilla statline, that gives your hero spellproof. It perhaps doesn't work against Quest Mages when they've completed it, but it definitely absorbs at least 6 damage or a removal from spell-heavy decks like Mages and Priests. A cool design, even if I think current constructed decks are too optimized to afford a card like this.

Shrieking Shroom: D'awww he's adorable. Also, a Myconid! D&D references ahoy! The Shroom is perhaps not good at all, though, being a 3-mana 1/2 that summons a random 1-cost minion. Two 1/2's for 3 mana isn't particularly good, even if you protect the Shrieking Shroom, and sometimes you just whiff and get like 1/1's or whatever. It's been compared to Primalfin Totem, but it's like one whole mana more expensive for exchanging the 0/3 into a 1/2... which makes it look super bad.

Scorp-o-matic: 2-mana 1/2 mech that destroys a minion with 1 or less attack? Sure, it kills, like, Crypt Lords and Doomsayers, but why wouldn't I just play a Stampeding Kodo? Cool card, but perhaps not constructed viable. Worth noting is that it could be combo'd with Aldor Peacekeeper to murder anything, and it's not random like the Kodo, so it might perhaps be a neat removal... but I'm not sure if it beats out other types of removal.

Gravelsnout Knight: I love the card art! But it's pretty crappy, to be honest. A 1-mana 2/3, but you summon a random 1-cost for your opponent? When Hungry Dragon, a far more sizable 4-mana 5/6, doesn't see play, I don't think Gravelsnout Knight would, especially since it's in turn 1 where you're trying to maximize as much tempo as possible.

Sleepy Dragon: Hey, here's a candidate for those big recruit decks! Obviously, a 9-mana 4/12 vanilla with taunt isn't good enough to put in decks, but recruited out it's great, and it's another big dragon to put in any big decks that try to synergize with dragons. I think it's just shy of being placed in actual, proper dragon decks, though.

Violet Wurm: Purple Worm! More D&D references! It's a strictly better Sated Threshadon. For a single mana point more, you get 3 more attack, and the 1/1 tokens you get are beasts (as I assume grubs are) instead of murlocs. Definitely great in arena, although I don't think it's quite broken enough for Constructed unless you're trying to make a Recruit Hunter deck -- which I don't think is viable.

Fungalmancer: A shittier Defender of Argus! It's one mana more, but has one less health, and doesn't give taunt? Sure, the stat boost is a lot more than Argus, but I do think it's a lot crappier. It does allow you to go a bit more aggro since it's like a mini-Bonemare buff spread over two bodies... but you need two bodies for Fungalmancer to work. So no.

Green Jelly: A shittier Hogger, as much as I love the card art. Jelly's got less stats than Hogger (3/3 vs 4/4) and the taunts it summons are weaker (1/2 vs 2/2). Hogger doesn't see play, so Jelly probably won't. Definitely a card I'll be mostly happy to see in arena, though.

Trogg Gloomeater: A 5-mana 1/5 taunt/poisonous? Pay 3 less mana and play Stubborn Gastropod instead. Where Venomancer doesn't see play, Trogg Gloomeater is just strictly worse.

Corrosive Sludge: A bigger Acidic Swamp Ooze, with less optimized stats. Acidic Swamp Ooze or Gluttonous Ooze are both strictly better (even though Corrosive Sludge's art looks cool as hell), but I think Sludge's inclusion is more of an arena thing so that the weapon-filled arena also has a common weapon-counter card with a high incidence appearance rating. In constructed, you're better off running either Gluttonous or Acidic Swamp Ooze, or Harrison Jones.

Cursed Disciple: Two Magma Ragers, for only one mana more... isn't much better than a Magma Rager. Cute, and definitely annoying in arena... but I don't see it having any place in constructed.

Shroom Brewer: It's basically a bigger Earthen Ring Farseer, with all the 3's turned into 4's. Definitely great in arena, and maybe usable in control warlock decks? It's definitely a neat design, and maybe replaces Earthen Ring Farseer in Warlock decks.

Sneaky Devil: A 4-mana 2/2 demon with stealth and the Raid Leader effect. It's a strictly better Raid Leader, costing 1 more mana but getting stealth and the demon tag. Ultimately I still think it's a bit too understatted for most zoo or aggro decks, and you'd rather play cards with decent stats like Dire Wolf Alpha or Flametongue Totem or Crystalweaver instead. Cool design, though.

Boisterous Bard: A 3-mana 3/2 that gives all your minions +1 Health! Cool design, but, like Sneaky Devil, probably not that relevant outside of arena.


Stoneskin Basilisk: A 3-mana 1/1 with divine shield and poisonous? It's a bit too fragile for my tastes, although divine shield and poisonous together is a pretty scary combination. The best I can see for this card is as part of a Zombeast, which honestly isn't even that bad.

Sewer Crawler: A Razorfen Hunter with the stats reversed! It's better than Razorfen Hunter because it's the beast that gets the 2/3 body, and beasts tend to have more synergy... but eh, it's still crap.

Kobold Apprentice: You staple an Arcane Missiles onto a 2/1 body and give it a 3 mana cost? That's honestly a bit too much, and I think that Apprentice would be more balanced (and unplayed) if it costed 2 mana. Compare it to cards like Mad Bomber (2-mana 3/2, but can lob everywhere) or Disciple of C'Thun (same stats, but you target 2 damage)... yeah, it's pretty bad.

Dragonslayer: a 3-mana 4/3 that deals 6 damage to a dragon. So we're pre-emptively putting the 'crab' card in the same expansion that they're making huge dragons? I do like that it's not an obnoxious tempo swing the way that Golakka Crawler is, though, and that it's not an instant-destroy effect (oh god, if Dragonslayer just instant-destroys a 9-cost dragon it'd be Big Game Hunter all over again). Pretty cool card design, and will see play, I think, if dragon priests become popular. If nothing else, you kill Cobalt Scalebanes as a neat little counter.

Toothy Chest: Mimics! A crappier Validated Doomsayer -- the effect is exactly the same, but where Validated Doomsayer is a delayed 7/7 for 5 mana, which is a huge tempo gain if he survives, Toothy Chest is at max a 3-mana 4/4. Which is crap.

Fungal Enchanter: More fungus people! It's a smaller Darkscale Healer -- lots of variations on Basic/Classic cards in this final batch of cards -- which is just fine, isn't it? It'll probably find a home mostly in priest decks, I think? It's probably not quite strong enough to be constructed-viable, but it's more well-statted than Darkscale Healer.

Plated Beetle: A River Crocolisk with the deathrattle that gives you 3 armour. It's perhaps not good enough to be put into Warrior decks, I think, even with all the armour synergies, but perhaps in Druid, which has armour synergies and beast synergies? A cool design, I think, and perhaps a card we're somewhat sleeping on.

Wax Elemental: It's a 1-mana elemental with a cool-looking artwork, but it's just a Target Dummy with a divine shield. And, yeah, you probably attack Wax Elemental twice to break the shield, but at 0 attack it's going to be more of a nuisance than anything.


Dire Mole: The humble Dire Mole closes off this humongous review piece, but it's actually a good card! Hell, perhaps out of the slew of more boring neutral cards, Dire Mole is perhaps one of the most viable one, being a very viable 1-drop beast for hunters (they have, what, a grand total of Alleycat in 1-mana?) and aggro druid (which only has Enchanted Raven). A 1/3 for 1 isn't horrible for decks that can buff up Dire Mole with buffs on turn 2 (Crackling Razormaw and Mark of Y'Shaarj respectively), and a 1/3 is definitely a lot harder to kill than the Alleycat's two 1/1's. Definitely a card that I say might be more powerful than it looks.

That's all for the K&C card reviews, and until tomorrow... well met! I know I'm Dungeon Running the first moment I get the expansion, and am most likely going to try out mage, priest and warlock, all of which just looks fun.
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So yeah, here's my quick ranking from 1 to 5, with 1 being unplayable, 2 being maaaaybe unplayable, 3 being average, 4 being good and 5 being the auto-includes. Like what I did for Knights of the Frozen Throne, when we're deep enough into the K&C meta I'll look back at how I rated these cards and see how much I got right.

Keep  in mind, though, that this ranking is strictly for standard constructed, so while there are some cards that may look awesome in wild (Level Up!) or when the rotation hits (Greedy Sprite) or in arena (Unidentified Elixir) they're perhaps too weak in the standard meta. We'll come back in a couple of months to see how accurate I am in my predictions.

Druid:

• 5: N/A
• 4: Branching Paths, Lesser Jasper Spellstone
• 3: Twig of the World Tree, Greedy Sprite
• 2: Ixlid Fungal Lord, Astral Tiger, Oaken Summons, Barkskin
• 1: Grizzled Guardian, Ironwood Golem

Hunter:

• 5: N/A
• 4: Flanking Strike, Cave Hydra
• 3: Kathrena Winterwisp, Lesser Emerald Spellstone
• 2: Seeping Oozeling, Candleshot, Wandering Monster
• 1: Rhok'delar, To My Side, Crushing Walls

Mage:

• 5: Leyline Manipulator, Lesser Ruby Spellstone
• 4: Dragoncaller Alanna, Aluneth, Raven Familiar
• 3: Dragon's Fury, Explosive Runes, Arcane Artificier
• 2: Deck of Wonders
• 1: Shifting Scroll

Paladin:

• 5: N/A
• 4: Lynessa Sunsorrow, Val'anyr
• 3: Benevolent Djinn, Call to Arms, Potion of Heroism
• 2: Lesser Pearl Spellstone, Unidentified Maul
• 1: Level Up, Drygulch Jailor, Crystal Lion

Priest: 

• 5: Psychic Scream
• 4: Twilight Acolyte, Duskbreaker
• 3: Lesser Diamond Spellstone
• 2: Dragon Soul, Twilight's Call, Unidentified Elixir, Gilded Gargoyle
• 1: Temporus, Psionic Probe

Rogue:

• 5: Fal'dorei Strider
• 4: Kingsbane, Lesser Onyx Spellstone
• 3: Sonya Shadowdancer, Elven Minstrel, Cavern Shinyfinder
• 2: Cheat Death, Evasion
• 1: Sudden Betrayal, Kobold Ilusionist

Shaman:

• 5: N/A
• 4: Grumble Worldshaker, Unstable Evolution, Healing Rain
• 3: Murmuring Elemental, Crushing Hand, Kobold Hermit
• 2: Lesser Sapphire Spellstone, Windshear Stormcaller
• 1: The Runespear, Primal Talismans

Warlock:

• 5: Voidlord, Kobold Librarian
• 4: Lesser Amethyst Spellstone, Vulgar Homonculus
• 3: Skull of the Man'ari, Hooked Reaver
• 2: Cataclysm, Possessed Lackey
• 1: Rin the First Disciple, Dark Pact

Warrior:

• 5: N/A
• 4: Gather Your Party, Drywhisker Armorer
• 3: Geosculptor Yip, Reckless Flurry, Bladed Gauntlet, Gemstudded Golem
• 2: Woecleaver, Lesser Mithril Spellstone, Unidentified Shield
• 1: Kobold Barbarian

Neutral:

• 5: N/A
• 4: Spiteful Summoner, Arcane Tyrant, Shroom Brewer, Dire Mole
• 3: Master Oakheart, Carnivorous Cube, Shimmering Courser, Hungry Ettin, Furbolg Mossbinder, Kobold Monk, Lone Champion, Sleepy Dragon, Violet Wurm, Green Jelly, Dragonslayer, Fungal Enchanter, Plated Beetle
• 2: Marin the Fox, The Darkness, Zola the Gorgon, Corridor Creeper, Void Ripper, Ebon Drgaonsmith, Shrieking Shroom, Guild Recruiter, Fungalmancer, Sneaky Devil, Boisterous Bard, Sewer Crawler, Stoneskin Basilisk
• 1: King Togwaggle, Dragonhatcher, Grand Archivist, Rummaging Kobold, Scorp-o-matic, Gravelsnout Knight, Feral Gibberer, Silver Vanguard, Trogg Gloomeater, Corrosive Sludge, Cursed Disciple, Hoarding Dragon, Kobold Apprentice, Toothy Chest, Wax Elemental 

Kobolds & Catacombs Card Reviews - Part #5

 I've been kind of behind on this, haven't I? Well, we're having the big final stream on Monday and the acctual expansion to be released on the 7th of December, which makes this a particularly short reveal season, huh? I expected another week or two, but I'm definitely excited that we're getting a new expansion so soon. I'll try to get through these cards a lot faster than I normally do, and to list them per class.

Ironwood Golem: Kinda bad, honestly. It's only got one health over Sen'jin Shieldmasta, and it can't attack unless you have 3 or more armour? There's literally no reason to play this over Sen'jin or Tar Creeper, honestly. This one's fast and simple.

Oaken Summons: For 4 mana, you gain 6 armour and recruit a four or less minion. I mean, you can recruit Ironwood Golem with this, but honestly there's a lot of better cards to recruit than it. It's a very balanced card, and you can guarantee, say, Fandral Staghelm, Greedy Sprite or Crypt Lord (honestly the only non-battlecry minion that costs 4 or less used by any druid list now) with it. On paper it's a good card... but it's too slow for  aggro lists, and control-style druids, be it Big or Jade variations, don't really play a lot of low-cost minions. So it's a good card in a class that can't make use for it, I'd say.

Greedy Sprite: As if Druid didn't already need help ramping... at the moment, druids have four main ramp tools -- Wild Growth at 2, Jade Blossom at 3, Mire Keeper at 4 and Nourish at 5. As someone who faces and plays a decent amount of druid, I can confirm that barring a particularly nasty draw where you draw like Ultimate Infestations and Jade Idols and nothing else, it's child's play to accelerate your ramp as a druid. Greedy Sprite is... a bit too greedy, perhaps. She's a 3-mana 3/1, but instead of giving you a mana crystal as a battlecry the way Mire Keeper does (it's Choose One, but still, the effect happens when the Keeper comes into play) Greedy Sprite does it as a deathrattle.  Is it really worth playing a weak 3-mana 3/1 with a delayed effect, though? I really don't think so... for Jade and Big druid, anyway. And aggro isn't one that wants to ramp up that much... but I dunno. The existence of this card makes cards like Grizzled Guardian and Oaken Summons not that crappy. I do like the card, though I don't think it's going to make as much waves among druid lists as I hope it will. It's more of a pre-emptive inclusion for when Mire Keeper and Blossom rotates out, methinks, which leads me into thinking why don't they just revise the Basic/Classic set? In which case, Greedy Sprite makes for a far, far less of an auto-include compared to the Mire Keeper or Jade Blossom, both which have some uses in the late game to actually build your board. That's a conversation for another day, though.

Ixlid, Fungal Lord: Druid legendary! For 5 mana, you get a 2/4 elemental body that... duplicates any minion you play, as long as he's on board. It's a very powerful effect, and thankfully Ixlid's body is small. And it's only when you play a minion that you summon a copy of it. But considering druid can fuck around with mana, you can get some really weird stuff with Ixlid. You could, like, break your Twig of the World Tree after playing Ixlid, play Kun to refresh your mana and get a second Kun, then play another 9/10 drop and get two of those. Overall, Ixlid is a fun but hard to utilize legendary, I think, which is perfect for Druid because lord knows druid doesn't actually need that much help. Probably not a super-good meta card, but one whose design I like quite a bit.

Lesser Emerald Spellstone: Hunter's spellstone costs 5 mana, and summons two 3/3 wolves,  which is... okay but not great value. Perhaps the thing that kind of kills it for me is the way to upgrade is to play a Secret, then it summons 3 and 4 wolf tokens. It's perhaps thankful that you only have to play a single secret to upgrade, and summoning three or four 3/3 beast bodies is a pretty powerful play. The thing is, though, Secret hunter isn't a particularly good deck, otherwise cards like Cloaked Huntress and Professor Putricide would see more play. Playing in the ladder currently, I honestly see Secret Hunter as a free with with a vast majority of my deck. So yeah. It's a good card, but not one that's going to bring Secret Huner out of its funk, IMO. (Also, Duskbreaker kills all of the wolfies. Just saying)

To My Side: So To My Side is an... interesting card. Obviously, 6 mana for a single animal companion is absolutely shit, but 6 mana for 2 is... maybe decent? It doesn't come too late the way Call of the Wild sometimes does, and animal companions are pretty good. But is it worth it for this card to play an all-spell hunter deck? No. All the strongest Hunter cards are those that interact with minions, or are minions themselves. Even secret decks do need minions like your Huntresses and your Putricides to support it. So yeah, definitely a bad card.

Leyline Manipulator: At this point we've seen all but one of the mage cards, and howdy doy, they're doubling down on both 'random spells' and elemental mage a fuck-ton. And out of all the new cards, Leyline Manipulator is one that scares me the most. He's a 4/5 for 4 mana, which is Yeti stats. He's also an Elemental, which triggers Elemental synergy cards and Lesser Ruby Spellstone and gains lifesteal with Frost Lich Jaina. It also has the Ethereal Peddler effect, which... reduces every single card in your hand that didn't start out in your deck by 2. As if Primordial Glyph, Cabalist's Tome and Babbling Book aren't powerful enough! This is such a monster of a card, really. The effect's immediate, too! And it's cards that didn't start in your hand, so Simulacrum-created Sorcerer's Apprentices, the upgraded versions of Ruby Spellstone, Antonidas Fireballs, Pyros's transformed versions... it's just an insanely powerful card for all types of mages, but particularly Quest Mage. And honestly, it doesn't even get any stat discounts! Whether you're playing Frost Lich Jaina, or Quest Mage, or Elemental Mage, all Mage decks can afford to throw Leyline Manipulator, a couple of Primordial Glyphs and just make great use of 5-mana Flamestrikes and shit. Holy crap, man, this card. And mage doesn't just get one good card, either! Lesser Ruby Spellstone, Explosive Runes and Aluneth are all very strong, and cards like Raven Familiar and Arcane Artificier may very well be good options as well.

Dragoncaller Alanna: Dragoncaller Alanna is the mage legendary and she's... not that good, I think. Alanna is a 9-mana 3/3 that summons a 5/5 dragon token for each spell you cast this game that costs 5 or more. And I really find it hard to justify putting her in. I mean, casting spells that cost more than 5 mana isn't a hard thing to do. Flamestrike, Meteor, Blizzard, Cabalist's Tome... there are no shortage of expensive spells in Mage you want to cast. But I honestly don't think changing your game plan to suddenly swarm the board with dragons is something you want, although Alanna is certainly a better card than others who do that like, say, Onyxia or Sindragosa. (Also, this card gives a big middle finger to Dragonfire Potion) Ultimately, though, while Alanna is a very solid card, I don't really see her making any more waves in the meta than Sindragosa did -- both very solid legendaries that maybe pop up once every twenty mages you face.

Deck of Wonders: I really wish mages got more expensive, crappy spells just in order to make random-mage-spell generating cards weaker. And this expansion gave us two 5-cost mage spells. Deck of Wonders is a fun, if pretty crappy card. For 5 mana, you do nothing! You shuffle five 'Scroll' cards into your deck that, when drawn, casts a random spell the way that Beneath the Grounds or Fal'dorei Strider does. And while the concept (and D&D reference) is cool,  Deck of Grounds essentially acts like a delayed Yogg-Saron that you can't control unless your deck is empty or near-empty. Yogg's biggest strength is that you can control when to bomb the board with a crapton of random spells, and the sheer amount of spells that go off tend to be in your favour. Deck of Wonders doesn't do this, and while perhaps one of the more fun effects in the game, it's not one that I think will be very meta-defining. Which is fun.

Dragon's Fury: Another card in the theoretical 'big spell mage' archetype that Dragoncaller Alanna, Raven Familiar and Arcane Artificier seem to be promoting (I say it won't work, but who knows?) Dragon's Fury is a weird card that reveals (not draws) a spell from your deck and deals its damage to all minions. And for 5 mana, you want at least a 5-damage AoE, I think, and I'm pretty sure you don't want to take out Frostbolts and Fireballs (otherwise Dragon's Fury will be an overcosted Volcanic Potion/Hellfire) for Dragon's Fury to go off. And even then, you damage your own board? Nah, I don't think this is a good card. At least it's not another face mage spell, though.

Val'anyr: The paladin's legendary weapon, Val'anyr, which is definitely a pretty cool card as a weapon that doesn't give a shit if it's destroyed. And I really like how at least three of the weapons in this expansion (Val'anyr, Twig and Kingsbane) all act against weapon removal, which is one of my bigger worries about this expansion. Val'anyr is an overcosted weapon, a 6-mana 4/2... that, when it breaks, buffs a minion in your hand with 4/2 (so they just hold Val'anyr) and also gives the minion the deathrattle to re-equip Val'anyr onto your hero immediately after its death. It's a very funky weapon, for sure. A 4/2 buff isn't ignorable, and dealing 4 damage, and then buffing any minion in your hand with 4/2, and upon their death, Val'anyr gets re-equipped? Sure, you could whiff and have no minion in your hand, but that only happens when you topdeck Val'anyr or play really poorly. Val'anyr is a great twist on the handbuff mechanic, and a very powerful control tool. You're not afraid of losing Val'anyr when you play Tirion or Uther of the Ebon Blade either, which was a problem when those two cards were played, that Ashbringer and Uther's hammer will overwrite each other. Great design, and while the initial 6-mana-for-4/2 is a bit steep to play, I do like the card and I think it's going to be pretty decent.

Crystal Lion: Ah, the Paladins have their own Thing From Below. The thing is, though, it's a mere 5/5 with Divine Shield. Sure, it gets discounted with each Silver Hand Recruit... that's on the board, not summoned throughout the game the way Thing From Below worked. Although Paladins do have Stand Against Darkness, allowing you, on turn 6, to play Stand and Crystal Lion and get five 1/1's and one 5/5 Divine Shield.... but ultimately I feel Crystal Lion's too situational even in a dude-buff deck. I can see cards like Level Up be used in Wild dude-buff decks, but even there I don't see Crystal Lion being used.

Lesser Diamond Spellstone: Lesser Diamond Spellstone is pretty good, and I'm glad it's costed expensively at 7. Unlike Dragon Soul, Diamond Spellstone asks you to cast 4 different spells, and I don't think you have to do it in a single turn. And casting 8 spells over the course of a game isn't that hard for either highlander or big priest. On its base form, Lesser Diamond Spellstone resurrects two different friendly minions. It then goes up to three and four, basically making it a mini-N'Zoth. It's definitely quite decent in Big Priest, and even if you whiff and get a Barnes or a Potion-of-Madness'd minion, you still get two or three of your big dudes. And since the Big Priest deck is like 80% spells anyway, Lesser Diamond Spellstone just looks like a card built for that deck. Again, the only real problem is perhaps the cost, and even then, it's balanced more than prohibitive.

Twilight's Call: Another resurrect card, for 3 mana, Twilight's Call resurrects two different deathrattle minions... but 1/1 copies. It's great in Quest Priest, but I don't think I use it in Big Priest lists. Sure, Obsidian Statue's a great minion to have back, but when you Eternal Servitude an Obsidian Statue and get the full 4/8-Taunt body it's just so much better than a single 1/1 body. And Twilight's Call explicitly says different, so you don't get two tiny Obsidian Statues. It's definitely great in a Quest Priest list, though, and whether it brings back to powerful minions or just two minions that draw cards (Loot Hoarder and the Crystalline Oracle for instance) it's still neat for 3 mana. Ultimately, I'm not sure if it's good enough to see play, but it's good. Not OP, which is certainly not something Priest needs considering the sheer power it has now.


Kingsbane: (Blade Flurry died for you...) Oh man, Rogue's legendary weapon. Is this the Rogue weapon we've all been waiting for? I believe so. Kingsbane isn't bad by itself, a 1-mana 1/3, making it a weaker Light's Justice. but it has an effect. A deathrattle -- shuffling it into its deck, and it remembers all enchantments. Let me remind you that there is no way to silence off weapons. Harrison and Oozes can destroy the Kingsbane, sure,  but all the Rogue needs to do is to re-draw Kingsbane and replay it for the cheap cost of 1 mana. Deadly Poison, Leeching Poison, Envenom Weapon... Tinker's Sharpsword Oil in Wild... Yeah, there are ways to buff up your Kingsbane, and even with a single Deadly Poison, equipping a 4/3 weapon for 1 mana is still insane value. And you know what else? You can get extra Kingsbanes from Rummaging Kobold. You can stop fatigue with Kingsbane returning to your deck all the time. You can even duplicate Kingsbane itself and the weapon-buff spells with Valeera the Hollow. Sadly, we only have one Rogue common left unrevealed so there doesn't seem to be a lot of weapon-buffing love in this expansion, but holy hell, Kingsbane just looks so great. I don't see Kingsbane decks overtaking the current Tempo lists, but damn Kingsbane is the type of weapon I really wish Rogues have more of.

Evasion: The final Rogue secret, Evasion makes your hero immune after its next damage. Which... just makes it a shitty version of Ice Block. It doesn't wait until you become lethal, and you actually do take the initial damage. It's not a bad card if you can activate it properly, but I think Evasion ends up being a bit too tricky and situational to see play.

Elven Minstrel: Hee hee, a bard class. Elven Minstrel is a 4-mana 3/2 that, as a combo, draws 2 minions from your deck. Tutoring is a very powerful ability in any card game, and you can make it so that your deck only has, like, Elven Minstrels, Malygoses and, like, Gadgetzan Auctioneers or something? The stat penalty isn't even that horrible for drawing 2 cards, with the only real problem maybe being the Combo... but it's not that hard to activate for Rogues, to be honest. Overall, Elven Minstrel is a well-designed card, and has the potential to be a pretty powerful draw engine for Rogues.

Lesser Onyx Spellstone: Onyx Spellstone is a pretty cool design, because Vilespine Slayers aren't enough. It destroys enemy minions randomly! For 5 mana, you go from 1 to 2 to 3 random enemy minions. Obviously the Lesser Onyx Spellstone is shit, making it a shittier, overcosted Multi-Shot. But both the regular and the Greater Onyx Spellstone are powerful tools that might just clear your enemy's entire board, and all those big priests and big druids will cry at the sight of this card. The problem is the activation, which wants you to play three Deathrattle cards, so you have to play this in a deathrattle rogue deck, and can't just slip this into an existing deck. I'm certainly going to wild with my old Unearthed Raptor deck (Raptor is, incidentally, easily one of my all-time favourite rogue cards) where it's going to be child's play to upgrade Lesser Onyx Spellstone, but it's a pretty neat design that locks the powerful effect behind a hard but doable quest, so to speak.

Unstable Evolution: Unstable Evolution is a cool card. For 1 mana, you evolve a minion, and the spell returns back into your hand after doing so for the duration of a turn. It helps you to control and stop yourself from getting shit evolutions, which is particularly relevant in this expansion due to the huge amount of shit-stats-for-their-cost minions. Dragoncaller Alanna, Lynessa Sunsorrow, Possessed Lackey, King Togwaggle, Dragonhatcher, Furbolg Mossbinder... there's a lot of crappily-statted minions out there that may just tilt the scales of Evolve Shaman's RNG too much in the failure direction. Which is a bit of a shame, since Shaman doesn't actually have a lot of great cards from this expansion. Unstable Evolution is one of them, though, and definitely fits in well into current Evolve Shaman lists.

Murmuring Elemental: Murmuring Elemental is an interesting card. He's a temporary Brann, and also an elemental... but the fact that it's a 2-mana 1/1, and it's a 'next battlecry this turn' kind of kills it somewhat for me. It's not bad, of course, but part of what made Brann quite good is his very respectable 3-mana 2/4 statline for a permanent effect. Murmuring Elemental is a card you can put two of in your deck, and maybe through some miracle works well in that weird Grumble/Elemental deck. In evolve Shaman... I guess you could double the battlecries of your Saronite and Doppelgangster, with the huge highroll being Murmuring Elemental and Thrall Deathseer in the same turn, and in that miracle scenario you get a 4x mana cost upgrade to your board, and instead of being a 2-mana 1/1 Murmuring Elemental becomes a mighty six-drop... it sounds cool on the off chance that you can get it off with Thrall Deathseer, but otherwise... I don't really see Murmuring Elemental be played, to be honest.

Possessed Lackey: Possessed Lackey is kind of shit. It's a 5-mana 2/2, and as a deathrattle, it recruits a demon. The thing with the Lackey is that it's so... overcosted. Sure, a 5-mana 2/2 that draws a Despicable Dreadlord or Doomguard or Voidlord and plays it for free is amazing. But how often do you get that? What if Lackey draws a Flame Imp instead? (Which, admittedly, you won't put Lackey in a deck with Flame Imps and Voidwalkers). What if you draw your Doomguards and Voidlords before Lackey? Comparing Possessed Lackey to Voidcaller from Naxxramas is just such a piss-poor comparison, with Voidcaller also having a deathrattle that cheats out a demon from your hand. Pretty bad card. 

Skull of the Man'ari: Skull of the Man'ari is an... interesting card. Wow, you summon a random demon from your hand every turn? Amazing! You get to bypass the heavily painful battlecries of Doomguard, Pit Lord, Lakkari Felhound and all that jazz! But the thing that makes Skull of the Man'ari a lot worse than Aluneth is that, well, the Skull is a 5-mana investment that doesn't do anything on the turn it is played, and that makes it a full win-more card. And its effect happens on the start of your turn, which means that the summoned demon can't attack (unless it's a Doomguard). It's not a bad card, though, and between Skull, Krul the Unshackled and Bloodreaver Gul'dan, Warlock has a lot of great demon synergy, and with Doomguard, Voidlord and Despicable Dreadlord it has great big-value demons. Skull of the Man'ari is potentially a powerful card if it manages to not be removed, but it's one that ends up with such a huge tempo loss if your enemy Oozes this. Overall, a card that might not be good after all.

Unidentified Shield: While the Elixir and the Maul are 'okay, but not good', Unidentified Shield is just kinda... poop, I think. It's a 6-mana card that gives you 5 armour and a bonus effect via the 'identify' mechanic. And the possible effects? Gain 10 more armour, deal 5 damage, summon a 5/5 and equip a 5/2 weapon. Out of those, only two are decent, with the Runed Shield option essentially making this a Shieldbearer, and the Spiked Shield option making this an Arcanite Reaper and an Iron Hide strung together. And even then, those aren't particularly amazing. The deal-5-damage-gain-5-armour and especially gain 15 armour are insanely overcosted at 6 mana. Dealing damage is at least decent because it can go face, but all the effects are just so underwhelming. It's perhaps a decent arena card, and the artwork for the shield variations are pretty cool, but it's ultimately a card that I don't think is good.

Reckless Flurry: Armour Flurry! It's not actually as good as it looks like once you think about it. Warriors often have an excess of armour, and spending all of them to AoE the board isn't particularly good, to be honest, not when Warriors have access to Brawl or Shield Slam or Sleep With The Fishes, all far superior board clears and removal options. And you lose all your armour? Yeah, Reckless Flurry is particularly reckless, and it's not a card I think is good at all.

Drywhisker Armorer: Drywhisker Armorer is cool, though. It's a better version of the Worgen Apothecary dude from Old Gods, only instead of health, it gives you armour. Which, as you can see, synergizes with a lot of the new cards, and is just better than health anyway. Armourer is also cheaper, a 2-mana 2/2 as opposed to the Apothecary's far more penalized statline of 5-mana 4/4. It's perhaps not as good or stable as Armorsmiths and the like, but it's definitely a decent card.

Geosculptor Yip: Somewhat better than Rotface, I think? But Geosculptor Yip is a weird legendary. Severely under-statted at 4/8 for 8 mana, Yip summons a random minion equal to your armour, which is nice if Yip gets to summon a free 10-cost minion every turn. As cards like Evolve, Forbidden Shaping and Free From Amber have shown, high-costed minions are pretty good, and 10-cost is one of those slots where you don't have any particularly bad minions in it. The worst is, like, C'Thun or N'Zoth, but a 6/6 or a 5/7 isn't the worst outcome, unlike Rotface who can truly backfire and give you like Nat Pagle or some shit. Geosculptor Yip is a cool card, and you can do a 10-mana combo with Bring It On and Yip to guarantee the 10-mana train to be started. It's a card that I'm perhaps a bit more optimistic about than I should, but Yip does look like a cool, if somewhat impractical, legendary.

Bladed Gauntlet: A very interesting card. It's a warrior weapon, a 2-mana 0/2 that has the same attack as your arrmour... but can't attack heroes. It's definitely a control weapon, but the price of not being able to attack the hero is perhaps a bit too harsh, else Fool's Bane would see more play. Bladed Gauntlet is a lot cheaper than Fool's Bane, though, and Warriors gain armour pretty quickly. With a simple Shield Block, Bladed Gauntlet becomes an Arcanite Reaper... and it's a pretty cool weapon in design. It's definitely really good for Control Warrior if the stars align and we get it back, that's for sure.

Furbolg Mossbinder: A very... interesting card. He's a 1/1 that transforms a friendly minion into a 6/6 elemental (and the tag doesn't really matter since it's not played). And it's pretty hard to have a minion you're happy to turn into a 6/6. I guess Shamans and Paladins can use it pretty well, since they generate tokens, and in that aspect it's neat. But even then all you're getting is a +5/+5 buff at the most, and you still waste 2 mana pushing the hero power button on the previous turn. It's a very interestingly designed card, and you can use Furbolg Mossbinder to transform minions with shit deathrattles (like Rattling Rascal) and you can do some weird Evolve shenanigans with it, but it really feels like a worse Rattling Rascal to me, and Rascal got cut out of Evolve decks pretty quickly. A very cool-looking card, but ultimately not one that I see making its way into meta decks too much.


Dragonhatcher: A 9-mana 2/4 that recruits a dragon at the end of your turn? Yeaaaah, spend one more mana, and play Y'Shaarj instead. Playing Dragonhatcher means that you only want to put big-mana dragons in your deck... and that, by default, eliminates a lot of dragons that cost a little or have powerful battlecries, leaving, what, Ysera and the two Deathwings as the only possible target? And if you draw Dragonhatcher after you draw the two dragons... yeah, this is a crap card. There are lots of better ways to cheat out your dragons, and Dragonhatcher isn't one of them. Cool art, though.