Hearthstone: Frozen Throne Card Review, Part 6

 I was about to publish this a bit earlier, but then they announced that on Monday they'll be revealing the rest of the set and I thought, oh, well, there's still like 35+ cards left in the final stream, so I guess I'll dole these -- every single card before the final Monday stream -- first..

Rattling Rascal
Rattling Rascal is, at first glance, a pretty balanced card. It's a 4-mana 7/7 (oh, the memery!), split into a 2/2 and a 5/5... but when the 2/2 dies, it summons a 5/5 for your opponent as well. It's a bit comparable to Bomb Squad, which deals damage to the opponent as a battlecry and deals some to you as a deathrattle, except a 5/5 body is, arguably, a lot more flexible and something you'd want so much more than dealing 5 damage. It's a neutral, too, but I honestly see more use of the Rattling Rascal in Warlock and Shaman. In Warlock you could put Treachery on the Rascal so both 5/5's get to you, but that's a two-card combo and you probably want to do it in the same turn so your enemy doesn't get the chance to kill the Rascal themselves, but that's not very practical. In Shaman, however, presuming that the 5/5 Skeleton is also a 4-mana drop, this and Evolve gives you two 5-drops for 5 mana, plus whatever minions you have on the board prior. Also a pretty great target for the Thrall Deathseer hero power or for the Master of Evolution, because you suddenly get a ton of value on your side while cheating the deathrattle. Realistically it's a lot less flexible than Evolve Shaman's go-to multi-value card, Doppelgangster, since you probably won't want to drop the Rattling Rascal without the combo pieces in your hand, but still an adorable and very interesting card.

Frost Clone
Frost Clone is a card that... is not really that good, I think. It's another Mage secret, tying in to the Glacial Mysteries card they got earlier. It's similar to Mirror Entity, however, in that your opponent checks for it by playing a worthless minion, and instead of getting the body immediately on the board like Mirror Entity does, you... get two copies of it into your hand. It's decent, I guess, if pulled from a Glyph or a Babbling Book, but it doesn't look like a card you'd want to put in your deck at all. Because, sure, yeah, the dream is that your opponent plays like a high-value low-statted minion with great battlecries like... like Babbling Book, but how often will that work out? Nah, don't think this is going to see constructed play.


Howlfiend
Howlfiend (what creature is this? I'm not familiar with demons introduced in WoW's later expansions) is... is a card that's fast becoming a meme. People in the internet say that the only good thing Howlfiend will do is in a combo with Treachery and Spreading Madness, which is impractical and silly. But it does come one turn earlier than Lakkari Felhound (3/8 with Taunt, in case you need a refresher) and the discard might maybe-sorta not come into play... but a 3/6 is made for trading, and you're definitely going to be discarding a couple of cards with this. Like, if you wanted to cheat out stats, why not play something safer like, oh, Tar Creeper or most other popular 3-mana drops? Howlfiend is bad in the same way that Bittertide Hydra is bad, and losing cards is a lot, lot more damaging than getting 3 damage whacked into the face. Unless the Warlock Death Knight has some ultra-insane discard synergy, I don't see Howlfiend being good at all. It's too gimmicky at best, and a gigantic liability at worst. It's definitely good for the Warlock quest, and if the only card in your hand is Clutchmother Zavas then it could actually buff Zavas into an insane amount... but don't really bank on that ever happening.

Shadow Essence
I'm not sure how good this is. For 6 mana, you summon a 5/5 copy of a random minion in your deck. And the addition of the randomness and the pretty poor 5/5 statline for 6 mana makes this relatively weak, I think. 5/5 for 6 mana is pretty shit stats. Hell, 5/5 for 5 mana would be shit stats if it didn't come with a powerful continuous or deathrattle effect. And sure, a 5/5 copy of value minions like Y'Shaarj or Lyra the Sunshard would be awesome, but would you really want to pay 6 mana for it? If you want to do things like Mirage Caller shenanigans, consider that Barnes, a 4-mana card that has an identical effect, except the minion is smaller, can't be relied on to reliably summon minions you want. The fact that Priest tends to use a decent amount of smaller minions makes this a bit suspect, too. Sure, a 5/5 Northshire Cleric or Priest of the Feast or Radiant Elemental aren't the worst things out there, but would you want to play 6 mana to get that? And if your goal is to recycle Deathrattles, part of what makes Shifting Shade or Crystalline Oracle so strong is how fragile and easy they are to trade off. A 5/5's pretty scary, sure, but at 6 mana? Maybe not. And if you're putting this in a deathrattle priest deck, there's always the chance that you whiff and you Shadow Essence your N'Zoth, which means all you get is a 5/5 vanilla. It also adds a rather crap pile into the pool of spells that Lyra can generate for you, which makes me sad.

Breath of Sindragosa
I think a bunch of the Mage spells are intentionally made expensive and situational (Simulacrum, Glacial Mysteries) in order to rein in the power of cards like Babbling Book and Primordial Glyph. Breath of Sindragosa is a relatively weak, cheap spell that I'm pretty sure no one will put into their deck, for the simple reason of 'why don't I just run Frostbolt?' It's arguably more efficient, sure, 1-mana and you get 2 damage plus the freeze effect... but at the same time, the effect goes to a random enemy minion, so it can't help you push face damage, and 2 damage is relatively awkward in guaranteeing minion murders. Comparing this to Flamecannon, the Flamecannon's 4 damage almost guarantees you to murder whatever minions it hits in turn 2 or 3, giving it a brief advantage over Frostbolt due to its slightly larger reach. Breath of Sindragosa freezes the enemy minion, sure, and it activates your Coldwraiths and Shatters and whatnot, but I honestly don't think it's super good. Is it fair? Definitely. But I'm pretty sure this card isn't really going to find a spot anywhere.

Rotface
Oh, man, back when I was talking about Benedictus a while back, I bemoaned his 7-mana 4/6 statline, because that's pretty weak despite the potential value he has. Rotface is also a 4/6... but he costs 8 mana. And with that atrocious statline, he gets this effect: "whenever this minion survives damage, summon a random legendary minion", an effect comparable to Confessor Paletress. I was iffy about Sindragosa's effect due to the fact that, shit, there has been so many situational and crappy legendaries over the many expansions that Hearthstone has stood. Like, what are you going to do with a C'Thun in a deck without any way to buff him? Or one of the three Darkfallen Princes? Or Hobart Grapplehammer in a deck with no weapons, or Hemet Jungle Hunter in a deck that doesn't work with him, or Milhouse Manastorm... anywhere? Rotface does have the advantage of summoning the minions directly to the field, which makes a lot of the bad battlecries not take effect and also makes you not pay the price to summon said legendaries, but that also means that you kind of whiff on the effects of cards like, say, Elise the Trailblazer. Sure, when you luck out and Rotface rolls one of those great deathrattle minions (Cairne, Hadronox) or a continuous-effect minion (Y'Shaarj, Ysera, Ragnaros Lightlord) it's just amazing and he might win you the game from thereon out, but this is a pretty weird card, isn't it? Warrior does have a lot of ways to trigger Rotface, though -- Whirlwind, Blood Razor, Animated Berserker, Cruel Taskmaster, Inner Rage, Ravaging Ghoul... it's just that I'm not sure Rotface will survive long enough to do much with his statline. One thing that makes Rotface better than Paletress, though, is that you can actually set up a board-state that can damage Rotface before he comes onto the board. Have an Animated Berserker up, have a Blood Razor ready to be detonated, allowing for two instant tics on Rotface without using other combos. But I dunno. Rotface potentially has some really powerful plays but at the same time his inconsistency makes it rather iffy for me to play with him.


Bone Drake
Oh, hey, another dragon! I do love that they're adding more dragons into the meta, to keep dragon decks alive even with Blackrock Mountain rotated into wild. Bone Drake's a pretty fair minion, I think. He's a 6-mana 6/5, which is pretty m'eh stats, but as a deathrattle he adds a random drgaon into your hand. I don't think dragon decks actually have a proper 6-drop minion other than Dragonfire Potion (Scaled Nightmare exists, but she's too slow). And if Netherspite Historian is any indication, cards that generate other dragons tend to be good because, shit, dragons tend to be good! A random dragon might not be as powerful as Netherspite Historian or Drakonid Operative's discover effects, but Bone Drake comes in as you're hitting the late game (and most standard rotation dragons are late-game cards anyway with the exception of Faerie Dragon), and by the time the Bone Drake dies, you'll probably be wanting late-game tools, and Bone Drake helps to add more cards out of your deck.

Webweave

Webweave is weird. It's just kinda bad, isn't it? For 5 mana, you summon two 1/2 poisonous spiders. Which, obviously, is disastrous stat allocation. Post-nerf Force of Nature summons three 2/2's, nearly triple the stats that Webweave gives you, and that never saw any play. Ever. I suppose you could then think about the cost of the poisonous spiders themselves... and considering that we actually have a similar minion, the Stubborn Gastropod, who is 1/2 with poisonous and taunt, there's actually precedent. Except that the Stubborn Gastropod costs 2 mana, and summoning two taunt-less versions of the Stubborn Gastropod costs... more than double of the Gastropod? I'm sorry. Like, I know Druid needs removal, but if poisonous minions are the way to go, the Gastropod or the other new card, the Druid of the Swarm, would be far, far better options to go. This is just kinda crap.

Saronite Chain Gang
Huh. This card seems simple, but probably has the potential to snowball really wildly. For 4 mana, the Saronite Chain Gang basically summons two 2/3 with taunt. Feral Spirit, except more expensive... and without overload! I'd actually go as far to say that mana-for-mana, Saronite Chain Gang is far more efficient than Feral Spirit... because there are ways to abuse the Saronite Chain Gang to get more value than just two 2/3 with Taunt. Evolve Shaman can obviously evolve it into two 5/5's (Feral Spirit wolves, in comparison, are 2-mana minions). In wild he can be Brann'd to get three 2/3's instead. There are ways for decks with hand-buff mechanics to make the Saronite Chain Gang summon larger versions of itself. It's like a smaller, weaker Doppelgangster, sure, but on the other hand the Saronite Chain Gang does have taunt. I dunno. This card looks pretty good, if only in certain situational decks.

Happy Ghoul
Look at this ghoul, he's so happy! What a happy little ghoul. The Happy Ghoul is a 3-mana 3/3, which is pretty sub-par stats... but he costs 0 if your hero was healed this turn! Obviously, Priests can make great use of this, being able to heal their own face on demand. Shamans and Paladins can get healing relatively easily too, but until then the Happy Ghoul stays a relatively dead card in their hand. So is a 0-mana 3/3 (or, more realistically, a 2-mana 3/3 that also heals your face for 2, if we're using Priset as the example) good? I'd say it's okay, but I'm not sure if constructed lists would be able to clear space in their 30-card list to make space for the Happy Ghoul. Which is fine -- he's great in arena, and until then the Happy Ghoul seems just so happy and content making snow angels.

Despicable Dreadlord
Holy shit, a Warlock minion that... has no bad side-effects to yourself! No face damage, no discarding card, no weird triggered effect that fucks you over... What is this? What mad, mad world do we live in? (I'm also 90% certain that Despicable Dreadlord is our first Dreadlord since all the way back to Mal'Ganis) Despicable Dreadlord isn't as despicable as his name implies. The Dreadlord's a 4/5 for 5 mana, which is, obviously, sub-par statline, but with that sub-par statline the Dreadlord adds the continuous effect of dealing 1 damage to all your enemy minions at the end of your turn. Not all minions, just the enemy's side of the board. Cards like Dreadscale saw marginal play despite it dealing damage to your side of the board as well. Despicable Dreadlord would be actually awful in some matchups, like those enrage Warrior cards we've been seeing a lot of in this expansion, but against a relatively decent chunk of the meta, the Dreadlord's actually a pretty decent board control tool. He would definitely be pretty insane in arena, and if you can keep him alive he can actually shut down some murloc and token decks. I dunno if I'm just overrating him because he doesn't have any side effects, but the Despicable Dreadlord actually looks relatively decent even in constructed.


Malfurion, the Pestilent
Malfurion the Pestilent is going to be the first hero card we talk about today. It's the druid one! And Malfurion actually looks more like woodland-Santa than a Death Knight, but okay. So Malfurion the Pestilent costs 7 mana, gains the requisite 5 armour... and as a battlecry, Malfurion the Pestilent will allow you to summon either two poisonous spiders, or two scarabs with taunt. Presuming that these are similar cards to the Druid of the Swarm tokens, it's actually not much of a battlecry, I think, just a way to either stall the game with taunts. 7 mana isn't super bad, though, and Malfurion's hero power is actually pretty damn impressive. For 2 mana, you either have 3 attack for the turn, or gain 3 armour. This gives Malfurion the Pestilent a recovery and control hero power that is far superior than Warrior's Armour Up, and when added to other strong control tools that druid has like Moonglade Portal and Ultimate Infestation... Malfurion the Pestilent can also just push damage to either the face or minions with a weaker version of Warrior's Heroic Strike every turn. It's pretty good, but on the other hand, do you really want to spend 7 mana to turn into that? I have the feeling that Malfurion the Pestilent might be one of the weaker Death Knight cards, or maybe that's simply because his hero power is relatively boring. Stat-to-stat it's a pretty scary thing if it's allowed to run out of control, though, so maybe by sheer virtue of how guaranteed Malfurion's hero power is as compared to the more difficult-to-pull-off hero powers that Jaina, Valeera, Uther or Anduin have, Malfurion the Pestilent might actually be one of the better Death Knight heroes? The simple fact that Malfurion the Pestilent embodies what makes the Druid class so powerful -- the choice between two hero powers depending on the situation -- is definitely a huge, huge factor in making Malfurion's new hero power so powerful. One thing's certain, though. I'm busting out my Fandral Staghelm and he's going to be good buddies with Malfurion now.

Druid of the Swarm
See, this is what I'm talking about when I was talking about the Webweave card on top. The Druid of the Swarm is the latest in Druid's arsenal of Druid of the X series, taking the place of the Druid of the Saber as the resident low-cost minion. You either get a 1/2 with poisonous (a crappier Stubborn Gastropod) or a 1/5 with taunt (a better, cheaper Silverback Patriarch, who with every expansion grows more and more worse). Druid of the Swarm is okay, I think. Obviously most of the time in turn 2 you'd probably go for the taunt because poisonous isn't that worth it in the early game, but in the late game the Druid of the Swarm can switch gears and be a potential removal tool with her keyword. Not sure, again, if she'll see play, but definitely an interesting design and a very neat and more usable Choose One card than last expansion's Shellshifter, I think.

Uther of the Ebon Blade
Oh man, oh man, oh man, this card. Paladin might whiff out in their minion legendary with the pretty sub-par Bolvar Fireblood, but god damn if they didn't get one helluva cool Death Knight. In addition to some pretty cool artwork, Uther of the Ebon Blade is a 9-mana hero card that instantly equips you with Evil!Ashbringer, a 5/3 weapon with Lifesteal and you don't even have to wait until your Tirion dies to get it. Oh, and five mana as a bonus! How good is a 5/3 weapon with lifesteal? I'd honestly rate it at around 5 mana-ish if it is a single card, but that's not all Uther gets. His hero power gets upgraded into 'the Four Horsemen', which summons a 2/2 token with each push of the button. Like Malfurion, that's a full upgrade of Uther's standard hero power, albeit doubled as opposed to Malfurion's tripled. Which would be okay in and of itself, but the hero power upgrade and evil Ashbringer still probably wouldn't justify the 9-mana tag given to Uther... until you read the hero power's other effect. If you get four of these 2/2 tokens on the board, you win. You just win, Exodia style. Of course that's only ever going to happen once in a blue moon, since keeping 2/2's that you can only summon one of every turn is going to be hard as hell, but shit, the fact that Uther has an alternate win condition built into him is just scary in and of itself, especially considering the range of powerful buffing tools (Spikeridged Steed!) and late-game minions available to Paladins. It's such a weird hero card and while I'm not sure if he's actually super-good, I'm certainly highly intrigued to try and make a Death Knight Paladin deck. Pretty cool effect.

Blackguard
Blackguard is an interesting card. He's a 6-mana 3/9, which is pretty lopsided stats. It's still only a single point off of the stat total of a Boulderfist Ogre, but Blackguard has the very interesting effect of dealing damage onto a random enemy minion every time your hero heals himself. Paladins do have a fair amount of ways to heal itself, most prominent being Truesilver Champion. But with Forbidden Healing, Lay on Hands, lifesteal minions, Ragnaros Lightlord and other stuff, there certainly are a lot of ways for the Paladin hero to heal himself. Blackguard helps the Paladin to control the board even further by shooting like 2-damage bombs or whatever every time you heal, like a Heal Juggler or some shit. It only goes to minions, thank god, otherwise it'd be way too easy to abuse it for face damage, but the Blackguard's own high health means that he's very likely to survive on the board for a relatively longer time than usual and allowing any Paladin deck with heal abilities some extra greedy plays to help control the board.

Forge of Souls
Shit, a tutor card for weapons? Forge of Souls looks pretty great, actually. Warriors doesn't have a shortage of drawing tools with Acolyte of Pain, Shield Block, Battle Rage and all that jazz, but Forge of Souls makes sure that by turn two, you will have a weapon in hand. It's a pretty powerful card, but it's going to be a pretty horrible card to draw after you've drawn all your other weapons. Like, it thins your deck out of weapons which is great, and ensures your Fiery War Axe is in your hand by turn two... but, again, as with many of these 'seems good' card, I'm not sure if it'll deserve a spot on your 30-card deck. Better to have a Forge of Souls than something like, oh, Bring it On, definitely. It seems pretty good, but the fact that weapons by their nature are kind of a longer investment as you need to wait for the weapon to finish up its durability before you can play the second one. Still pretty good nonetheless, though.

Snowfury Giant
Huh, a class giant? Okay then. Snowfury Giant is actually a card that, when I first saw it in untranslated Korean, I thought was going to be another freeze shaman card (which is a deck which IMO won't work at all, not this expansion at least). Instead, it's an Overload-synergy card... which came in a wee bit too late considering overload's best friends, Lava Shock and Tunnel Trogg, have moved on to wild. Snowfury Giant's a 11-mana 8/8 that costs less for each mana crystal you've overloaded... and honestly, it takes some time to overload mana crystals especially when you don't have Tunnel Troggs to offset the overload. Realistically you'll probably consider Snowfury Giant super-value by the time he costs like 5 or less mana, which means you're going to have to overload a minimum of 6 crystals in the game. Which is definitely doable, but I'm not sure if it's worth the risk of a card that's dead in your hand for a good chunk of the game instead of putting in the far-easier-discounted Thing From Below or Flamewreathed Faceless. It does mean that you can evolve 10-mana minions now... something that's not going to have a whole ton of application, but hey, worth mentioning, I guess?

Hearthstone: Frozen Throne Card Reviews, Part 5

 More cards! Probably going to be the final batch I do before the inevitable final-stream-dump from Blizzard on Monday. Looking at the outstanding cards there's actually not a lot left, mostly just like a dozen neutral commons that's no doubt going to frustrate me as I open packs. Knights of the Frozen Throne releases next week at August 10th, so you don't have to listen to me talk about Hearthstone cards for that often after that. (Also as I was writing this article I cracked open an Anomalus out of an Old Gods pack, and a Gazlowe out of the five GvG packs I have been saving and kind of deem worthless now that Wild cards are in the store).

Ultimate Infestation
Ultimate Infestation is... lots of 5! People describe this as a 'value overload', which makes sense. The first and last effects that Ultimate Infestation does, 'Deal 5 damage, summon a 5/5 Ghoul', is a more consistent version of the very played Firelands Portal, which is one of the better cards in Mage's arsenal particularly in arena. So for three extra mana, you... gain five armour, and draw five cards. Which is pretty insane.  That's equivalent to stapling Sprint (Draw 4 cards; 7 mana) and Shield Block (5 Armor, 1 card; 3 mana) onto Firelands Portal, but only increasing the cost by a piddling 3 mana. It's insane value! It's ten mana, though, so it takes up your whole turn, but it does multiple things at once. It deals damage, builds up your board, refills your hand and heals you, so honestly I wouldn't even call this wasting your turn ten the way, say, plaing Glacial Secrets would. And this is a Druid spell, which means they can probably cheat out Ultimate Infestation with Innervates and shit. The card is  going to be too slow for some decks, but at the same time it's such a powerful value bomb and late-game draw that it might very well find a place in more control-y style druid. Jade decks would definitely love to draw five Jade Idols at once, though the jury's still out on whether Jade Druid will still be viable after Frozen Throne rotates in. Most likely an auto-pick in Arena, though, right?


Desperate Stand
It's a buff spell that basically puts in the Paladin secret Redemption onto a minion, which means you can control which minion gets brought back and not leave it to your opponent to dictate the trades. Whether this card will actually be worth a slot in your 30-card deck is a wholly different thing altogether, however. The card, like many others in Frozen Throne, seems absolutely fair and a pretty balanced effect, but I'm not entirely sure if that makes Desperate Stand playable in constructed. Redemption certainly wasn't, and only saw play thanks to Mysterious Challenger or when it's generated out of a Hydrologist. so I'm not sure if a more expensive (albeit targetted) version of redemption is going to be enough to see play in constructed ladder.

Shadow Ascendant
The Shadow Ascendant works on the same principle as many other cards that never saw play in constructed. Young Priestess, Master Swordsmith... the expansion's also going to have Cobalt Scalebane who adds +3 Attack at the end of turn, which seems a lot better than a mere +1/+1 buff. Granted, Shadow Ascendant does have a pretty decent statline with 2/2, and it buffs other minions on the board, but it suffers from you kind of needing to have other minions on the board. It is true that Priest historically never got any properly decent two-drops until Radiant Elemental (Wyrmrest Agent's awesome but can only be played in Dragon decks; Mana Geode is too impracticcal) but I am not convinced that Shadow Ascendant is going to be good enough to find a place in most priest decks out there, simply because there's way too many other Priest toys you probably want to slot into your deck. Not a bad card by any stretch, but probably not one that's going to see widespread constructed play. I dunno, though. Maybe if she adds +2 Health at the end of turn she would be a continuous Kabal Talon-priest and that'd be scary as fuck, but we got a +1/+1 buff and that doesn't seem as strong in Priest.


Skulking Geist
Ring the bells, the Jade decks have fallen! The Jade decks have fallen! That's the reaction of the Hearthstone community when the Skulking Geist was revealed. It's an amazing hate card in the vein of the Eater of Secrets, Black Knight or the crabs towards Jade decks, with the added benefit of sometimes fucking up other types of decks as well. Mind you, I can't really think of any other 1-cost spell that's as crucial as Jade Idols. This is a far more drastic 'deck-fuckery' card compared to the earlier-revealed Gnomeferatu, and I'm pretty sure that while it's not going to be an auto-include in every deck, the presence of Skulking Geist in the meta is going to stem the tide of the Jade Druids. He's a 6-mana 4/6 that just wrecks any future Jade plays, because it fucks up not only the deck, but also the hand, making it absolutely impossible for Jade Idol to be re-shuffled into the deck. Which I'd argue really should've had a cap or a mana cost increase in the first place, but this is actually not that horrid of a counter. Skulking Geist's biggest problem is its poor statline, 4/6 for 6 mana, which, while probably going to win you games against Jade Druids, isn't going to do much against most other classes. Like, sure, in other matchups maybe you burn a Warrior's Upgrade (unlikely to be significant against pirate warriors since Skulking Geist comes in at turn 6) or Whirlwind, Shaman's Evolve, or an Egg Druid's Mark of the Lotus, or a Warlock's Mortal Coil... like, yeah, maybe you burn like a couple of Power Word Shields, Arcane Missiles and Mirror Images, but honestly at turn 6 those are probably inconveniences to the Mage or Priest. And Paladins don't actually run secrets in their deck, relying on Hydrologists to produce them. So Skulking Geist is probably only really good in a single type of matchup, being an under-statted annoyance against most other decks... but maybe you can use him to thin out your deck like Hemet Jungle Hunter, with the Jade counter as a bonus? That's woefully impractical, though. It's not going to be a meta-defining card that everyone runs the way BGH or the owl used to be, but at the same time the presence of Skulking Geist will really fuck up Jade Druid decks, and honestly that deck's so hard to counter that this card's presence, while a little childish, is kind of a neat counter card more in like with the Black Knight.

Ice Fishing
For two mana, you draw 2 Murlocs from your deck. It's a tutor card, and it's even a discount from the Arcane Intellect standard of '3-mana draw-2-cards'. Tutoring is a pretty powerful effect, but do you really need it in a Murloc Shaman deck? The Quest Murloc does need draw, and Ice Fishin is pretty much premium draw, though I'm not entirely sure just how desperate they need to run two of these. Primalfin Lookout does usually help to bulk up my hand before Megafin gets summoned. Still, I think I'm severely underestimating Ice Fishing, because drawing 2 cards from your deck -- two specific cards to boot -- is a pretty powerful effect. So I dunno. It's a card that does fix the Quest Murloc's biggest weakness -- lack of steam -- but can you really fit this card into a Murloc Quest's gameplay? Definitely an interesting card, perhaps it'll be far, far more powerful than my underestimation of it.

Roll the Bones
I'm not sure how good this is. Unless you're absolutely sure that your deck is, like, around 50% Deathrattle cards, this card will either whiff (if your deck doesn't have that much deathrattles) and be a way-overpriced two-mana-draw-a-card, or you'll mill yourself (if your entire deck is deathrattles). It's an interesting card, though, because deathrattle rogues (and lord knows I experimented with it thanks to really loving Unearthed Raptor) doesn't actually use that much deathrattles. There's N'Zoth, of course, and the Wild-only Unearthed Raptor, but I'm pretty sure Rogues still want to play cards like Eviscerate and SI:7 Agents even in a deathrattle deck. Alternatively, you could put this into a Jade Rogue deck that also features a bunch of deathrattle minions (Jade Swarmer and Aya are both deathrattle minions, after all). It's honestly a bit of a bizarre card to evaluate, and certainly seems a lot less consistent compared to Ice Fishing, a completely different drawing tool.

Acolyte of Agony
Ah, a stream of less exciting commons. Still, these cards are a lot cooler than the stuff they revealed early in the expansion run, simply because I can imagine myself using them in Arena and stuff.  Acolyte of Agony has nothing to do with Acolyte of pain. She's a 3-mana 3/3 with Lifesteal, which is a totally fair, if unimpressive, card. Blizzard apparently values Lifesteal at around 1 mana, if the stat reduction is any indication. Which is fair, I guess. The Acolyte of Agony seems similar to Earthen Ring Farseer, except the 'heal 3' portion happens when she attacks next turn instead of immediately, with the added bonus of constantly healing 3 for the next few turns as she goes through her life and eventual death. She's a perfectly fine minion, and having a passive effect means that she's more valuable when you bring her back from the dead with things like Resurrect and Eternal Servitude. The problem, again, is whether you even want to run this card, because there's no real situation where this is better than Kabal Talonpriest or even Curious Glimmerroot, right? An okay, if slightly underwhelming, card.

Drakkari Defender
Drakkari Defender is an insane 2/8 Taunt for 3 mana, a statline that Wild or long-running players will be familiar with -- the Deathlord from Naxxramas. Deathlord has a huge disadvantage in that as a deathrattle your opponent gets a random minion from their deck summoned for free... which can sometimes lose you the game if they pull like a Ragnaros or a Ysera. Sometimes it wins you the game because the Deathlord denies their Reno Jackson battlecry. Sometimes it whiffs and pulls out like a Leper Gnome or something. Drakkari Defender? He borrows the Earth Elemental's "overstatted cheap Shaman Taunt minion" trick and gets Overload. THREE Overload. That's honestly a bit too much, and a 2/8 statline is nowhere as good as the Earth Elemental's insane pile of stats. Add that to the lack of actual synergies that the Drakkari Defender can do, Susceptibility to Shadow Word: Pain, Potion of Madness and stuff like that... and I'm afraid this is kind of just a bad card. Why do you need such a huge body in turn 3, when Shaman have far, far more efficient Taunt minions like Thing from Below or Earth Elemental? Or even White Eyes and the upcoming Voodoo Hexxer, who does other things while taunting. I dunno. Cool troll (literally cool, he's an ice troll, hur hur) but he's probably pretty crap as a card.


Fallen Sun Cleric
Shattered Sun Cleric's smaller undead cousin, the Fallen Sun Cleric has exactly the same effect, except scaled down immensely. Do I really want a 2-mana 2/1 that buffs a minion by +1/+1, though? I guess she can find her way into zoo warlock decks or seomthing, but even there I don't think you'd ever want to run Fallen Sun Cleric over things like Dire Wolf Alpha. I dunno. It's not even like the Sunborne Val'kyr or Defender of Argus where their buffs can be pretty significant. Fallen Sun Cleric seems pretty weak, and definitely feels like nothing more than a simple pack filler. Her cheapness is cool, and she's a very decent pick in Arena, but I don't think we'll see much of her on the ladder.

Deathspeaker
This is actually pretty awesome, isn't it? The Deathspeaker is a 3-mana 2/4, so a mere 1-stat penalty. But you can give a friendly minion immune for the turn, which means that, shit, suddenly trading minions gets to be super-advantageous for you. The Deathstpeaker is awesome for both trading in the early game and later on in the late game when you can get your larger drops to survive while trading. It's pretty great especially in Arena, I think, where board control is king. A pretty powerful control card, in my opinion, but still relatively fair and balanced considering his relatively below-average statline. I really like cards with interesting effects like this or the Mindbreaker that don't cripple the statline so much like, say, the Nerubian Unraveller who suffers a pretty hefty stat penalty. Plus I really like Nerubians in general, so having another Nerubian prophet hang out with us is definitely welcome.

Play Dead
D'awww look at that cute widdle buds. Cute widdle undead buds. Play Dead allows you to trigger a friendly minion's deathrattle, essentially a cheaper version of Feign Death from way back in GvG... but Feign Death saw minimal play and it costs a mere 2 mana to trigger all your friendly minions' Deathrattle. Mind you, when Feign Death was released Deathrattle Hunter wasn't a big thing. I'm not sure if Play Dead is going to make it into the Hunter lists, though -- wouldn't you just rather play cards like Huhuran or Terrorscale Stalker? It is the repetition of an effect in your deck to make sure it's more constant, though, so I dunno. The card seems fair, seems appropriate for the set and has one of the cutest artwork. So.

Shadowreaper Anduin
Hooo the artwork for this card. I think I still prefer the Shadowreaper  Anduin, the barely-holding-itself-together wraith from the promotional artwork, but shit, dude, undeath does not do you well. Shadowreaper Anduin is a pretty expensive card to cast, 8 mana (and you get the requisite 5 armour). At this point we've seen all but one of the Priest cards, which means that Shadowreaper Anduin's battlecry -- mass Shadow Word: Death the board -- is actually beneficial if you're playing cards like Archbishop Benedictus or Obsidian Statue with their 4-health. Also, Ysera, Primordial Drake and a bunch of other 4-attack high quality minions. The hero power is what's important, though, and it's... Voidform. Anduin was one of the heroes who had the ability to change his hero power from the early pre-expansion days of Hearthstone with Shadowform, and dealing 2 (or 3) damage for 2 mana is honestly pretty OP if it can last. Many people speculated what evil Anduin's hero power would be. Would the hero power be Shadowform with Lifesteal? Would the hero power deal 4 damage? That'd  be too  overpowered. Shadowreaper Anduin's power now reads 2 mana, deal 2 damage... every time you play a card, refresh this. Which means that Anduin will synergize with the last three Priest legendaries. Benedictus will supply Anduin with a deck's worth of cards to refresh his hero power with (yeaaaah Benedictus is still kinda shite though), Lyra is a far better card generator that will just infinitely recycle your spells if you can keep her on board, and most importantly... Raza the Chained's effects last the entire game. As someone who got Raza from a pack and played a lot of him, I can tell you for certain that Raza's 0-mana hero power is maintained even when you play Shadowform or Finley's the hero power, but the biggest problem is that Anduin never had a way to refresh his hero power without playing some weak card like Garrison Commander. At first glance Shadowreaper Anduin is kind of weak, but when you start putting the deck together in your head... Raza, Kazakus, Lyra and Shadowreaper Anduin... an instantly-refreshing hero power is so infinitely more dangerous when you don't have to pay 2 mana to cast it, making Raza's effect amount fo like a 6-mana discount per turn instead of a 2-mana discount per turn. Alone, it's pretty underwhelming but holy hell, I think this may be the one Death Knight I'm the most excited about.

Hearthstone: Frozen Throne Reviews, Part 4

 Also, pack changes are live relatively recently! If you're like me, and have been saving up all those Classic packs from Tavern Brawl and Un'Goro packs from Arena, open them now with the knowledge that you'll never be getting a duplicate legendary ever again.  Hear that, Hobart fucking Grapplehammer? Leave me the HELL alone. I got a Clutchmother Zavas and a Finja from my pile of packs, and a helluva ton of dust. I think they increased the drop rate of golden cards or some such?

Anyway, lots more cards.

Val'kyr Soulclaimer
More cards! Can I just say that the Val'kyr got some of the best artwork in the set? Hopefully these new Val'kyr would prove to be more useful and playable than their TGT predecessors. The Soulclaimer looks like a card that you can play with cards like Blood Razor and Animated Berserker, being a token-generator in vein of Grim Patron, albeit she can't go infinite. She's a 3-mana 1/4 that summons a 2/2 Ghoul every time she gets damaged, which... isn't terrible, but probably not good enough for constructed unless, again, we get more enrage effects. There's probably enough to properly make a deck in standard, though -- we have enough activators (Cruel Taskmaster, Whirlwind, Ravaging Ghoul, Blood Razor, Animated Berseker) and enough good enrage cards (Bloodhoof Brave, Val'kyr Soulclaimer, Frothing Berserker, Amani Berserker, Grommash Hellscream), it's just whether the cards are good enough on their own to be made into a deck. If she has more buddies to synergize with, the Val'kyr Soulclaimer has the potential to be good. Otherwise, she's going to be a pretty m'eh card. The biggest drawback to Val'kyr Soulclaimer right now is her shitty Silverback Patriarch statline. If she was 2 mana, or if she had like 5 health she would've been amazing. As it is, even if the card read "1/3 that summons a 2/2" for 3 mana, would you play it? And that's if you're assuming you have an Animated Berserker to trigger the first ping for free. I dunno. She seems m'eh. 

Stitched Tracker
Stitched Tracker tries to fix one of Hunter's problems -- which is its lack of draw. So he's a weird Frankenstein's monster thing going on, a 3-mana 2/2 that discovers a copy of a card in your deck. The discover effect is double-edged. On one hand, you don't actually thin your deck, and you can only pick minions. On the other hand, the Tracker means that you can replicate valuable minions like Savannah Highmane, or you can just play something that's suitable for your situation, as most discover effects tend to be. The thing about Stitched Tracker is that his statline is pretty bad, especially for a more agressive archetype like Hunters. Likewise, the Stitched Tracker faces the same problem that Bearshark faces in that it competes for the all-valuable three-mana spot that's so, so dang valuable in Hunters, fighting against Animal Companion, Rat Pack and Eaglehorn Bow. To top it off, the Tracker isn't a beast! I'm not sure whether Stitched Tracker or Bearshark will ever make it into ladder Hunter decks, but the presence of another card-draw ability for Hunter other than the crappy Buzzard is certainly welcome. Not the best card in the set, but a pretty decent filler card who might be teched in sometimes.


Sunborne Val'kyr
Sunborne Val'kyr is a minion that, at long last, cares for the positioning of the board. I don't really think that we've gotten many cards outside the Classic set that have effects that care about the position of the board, and Sunborne Val'kyr's pretty cool. She gives a permanent buff, so she isn't as transient as Flametongue Totem, but unfortunately this also does mean that the Sunborne Val'kyr requires wto minions already on the board to actually get maximum value, otherwise she's a 5-mana 5/4, which is pretty bad. Giving two +2 Health bonuses is definitely great, but the setup required might not be that easy, and in classes like Druid, Paladin or Shaman that can swarm the board quickly, I'm not sure if they want a +2 Health bonus as badly as more control-oriented classes like Priest or Warrior. If she gave +1/+1 it would be different, but as it is, she looks like a weaker version of Defender of Argus so despite the kickass-looking artwork she's probably not going to be super playable.

Archbishop Benedictus
I actually legitimately thought this card was an April Fool's Joke! So my reaction when I saw Benedictus was "OMG WHAT A CRAZY CARD" to "oh, an April Fool's Joke, you got me Blizzard!" to "OMG IT'S REAL?!" Now that I've calmed down somewhat, Benedictus is... well, he's a cool lore character, but the card itself isn't super-duper amazing as I initially thought. It definitely shits all over Dead Man's Hand, being a far, far superior anti-fatigue tool especially in a class that already has the inherent ability to heal itself. But 7-mana 4/6 is a steep, steep cost as far as the body is concerned. 4/6 is a familiar statline -- Reno Jackson -- but whereas Reno gives you a fuckton of tempo by healing you completely, Benedictus's effect is insanely long term and he costs a full mana more than Reno. He's going to require a deck that can properly support him to really shine. At a glance we can compare him to Malchezzar, who shuffles 5 random legendaries into your deck and ended up to be relative crap outside of arena... but Benedictus shuffles your opponent's deck. It's their deck at the time that Benedictus hits the field, mind you, so if it's a combo deck some combo pieces may be missing. But at the same time, shuffling your opponent's deck tends to mean that it's going to have synergy with the cards within the opponent's deck, and not just a random scattering of stuff that Malchezzar puts into your deck. Mind you, whether you're going to be able to use those cards is going to be a whole different story altogether. Adding 15-20 cards into your deck is going to dilute your deck significantly... but Benedictus can be treated as a more Elise kind of effect because unlike Malchezzar, you can control when Benedictus's effect hits the board. Especially against control decks, Benedictus is going to be insane. He's not going to do much against aggro or combo decks, or jade druids, though I could be proven wrong. Benedictus's effect is so insanely weird that he's definitely going to be a card that either sinks or swims -- either a Malchezzar or an Elise Starseeker. Either way, though, he looks to be insanely fun and I cannot wait to experiment with him, whether he's good or not.

Embrace Darkness
Embrace Darkness kind of feels bad, yeah? I mean, like, the old 6-mana standard was Sylvannas Windrunner, and she was kinda-sorta 'steal your opponent's minion later'. Embrace Darkness is a targetted spell, but happens like Corruption where it happens at the start of your next turn, allowing the enemy to trade the minion away or at least do a face trade. The only point where Embrace Darkness is great is when you don't have a board of your own for them to trade into, but chances are you're losing anyway. Embrace Darkness isn't a card like Entomb or Sylvannas, other 6-mana cards Priest liked in the past, where the former deals with a card immediately and the latter challenges the board. If nothing else, the biggest impact Embrace Darkness is going to cause is to fuck up Lyra chains because it's such a big fat expensive unplayable spell.


Phantom Freebooter
And we thought we were free from pirates! The Phantom Freebooter works on the reverse of most recent weapon-buffing pirates, and rather receives buffs from the weapon itself. She's a not-inconsiderable 4-mana 3/3 that gains... your weapon's stats. Yeah. No Bloodsail Raider's "fixed-3-health" thing going on here. It looks pretty good! With a Fiery War Axe, Phantom Freebooter gets to become a 6/5 for 4 mana. Like, it's just stats, but Bloodsail Raider manages to be a huge pain in the ass with simple attack buffs. With Arcanite Reaper, she bethe comes a whooping 8/5 (or a 8/4 if you already swung once with the Reaper). And that's without counting the buffs you're pouring onto your weapons with Naga Corsairs, Upgrades and Bloodsail Cultists. The Freebooter's only fair saving grace is her relatively huge mana cost, which isn't something that aggro pirate decks like -- but honestly, the Freebooter may very well be their version of a late-game card. Even then, some people pointed out that this card would be amazing with Doomhammer and Jaraxxus's 3/8 weapon, turning her into a gigantic beatstick. The card honestly looks quite good in pirate decks, and I'm kinda hoping it doesn't work out that well? Looks good, though.

Mindbreaker
In TGT they printed a card called Saboteur, which was a 3-mana 4/3 that Loathebs your opponent's hero power. Mindbreaker is a far more favourable 3-mana 2/5 that... disables both hero powers. I'm not sure what deck he's going to hang out in. Traditionally cards that fuck up both sides of the board like Mana Wraith and Nerub'ar Web-lord (and the new Nerubian Unraveler, although you can play a deck without spells) tend to not be popular. But I guess they put in Mindbreaker into the set just to keep all those fancy Death Knight powers in check? I'm not quite sure if he'll actually see play, mind you -- 2/5 isn't the best statline out there. He shuts down hero powers hard, though, so maybe as a one-off to tech against late-game hero powers? I dunno -- he's kinda weird and to be honest I have no real idea how good Mindbreaker's going to be.

Crypt Lord
Another Druid card, the Crypt Lord is a 3-mana 1/6 Taunt. Higher stats than Tar Creeper! Except there's no way to make it able to actually gain more attack, especially in Druid. The Crypt Lord's effect reads as it gaining +1 Health whenever you summon a minion, and while the expansion is pushing Druid towards a Taunt druid archetype, this doesn't seem like a card that you would ever want in that deck. You'd almost always rather run the Tar Creeper, right? Like, a 1/6 is a bit of an annoyance. In other classes like Priest or Shaman, Crypt Lord would've been a bit more powerful, but in Druid? Nah. It's kind of like Deathlord, except reducing the Deathlord's attack from 2 to 1 is probably not that good. The enemy might lose some one-health minions, sure, but I dunno. Again, you can buff it, but the question will always remain as to why don't you just play Tar Creeper as your 3-mana Taunt drop? The extra health might be annoying, but what makes Tar Creeper good is that it forces trades if your enemy has to trade into it. Crypt Lord doesn't. I don't think it's good, otherwise Mogu'shan Warden would've seen more play. Cool artwork, though.


Tomb Lurker
The Tomb Lurker is another five-mana neutral epic, and another geist in the expansion. The Tomb Lurker is a relatively weak five-mana 5/3. Tomb Lurker is a cheaper card than the identically-statted Necrotic Geist, so the downside isn't that bad, but on the other hand the Tomb Lurker's ability isn't continuous. He does give you a free card, but is it really worth it to add a random Deathrattle minion that died earlier to your hand? I don't honestly think that a 5/3 for 5 that draws a card, even a specific card, isn't all that good, even if you can reuse cards that died earlier. The deathrattle minion that you get isn't always to be the one that came from your deck, though I'm pretty sure your opponent won't be running crap like, say, Bomb Squad or Ticking Abomination just to counter Tomb Lurker. It does mean that you'll probably get some common deathrattle minions that you don't necessarily want like, say, a Mistress of Mixtures or some shit. I dunno. He feels pretty bad at the end of the day, and whether you're playing a N'Zoth-style deck or a quest priest or the like, I don't think that Tomb Lurker will ever make it into those lists.

Thrall, Deathseer
Thrall, the Deathseer! Thrall's original class in Warcraft III was a Farseer, get it? Eh? Eh? Whatever the case, though, Thrall Deathseer costs 5 mana, a fair bit cheaper compared to Death Knight versions of Jaina or Rexxar, and as such adds a more piddly five armour. Thrall, Deathseer is very, very involved with the evolution mechanic, which isn't exactly what I would choose for a Death Knight Shaman, but I really enjoy the evolve mechanic so I just kind of love it. The battlecry does a gigantic double evolution, and Thrall's hero power allows you to evolve any minion for 2 mana. It does allow for a gigantic turn ten Doppelgangster - Thrall Deathseer combo play where you basically summon three seven-mana drops for ten mana, plus whatever value you get from evolving what you have on the board. The initial double evolution means that you actually don't have to be scared of turning your totems into Doomsayers, something that is irritating for the many, many times that I played with evolve shaman decks. Not that you'll be having totems for the rest of the game, mind you. Thrall Deathseer's ability doesn't look super amazing at first glance, but the fact that it's indefinite and not limited to four cards like how normal evolve shaman works... I dunno about you, but even if Thrall Deathseer doesn't get to be a meta-defining card he sure as hell looks fun!

Also, RIP anyone who was expecting Freeze Shaman Death Knight. I may be proven wrong on that front, but pretty sure that the archetype's probably not going to live that well.


Righteous Defender
Righteous Defender is a tiny version of Annoy-o-tron, and she's... okay, I guess. If the set didn't come with Divine Shield synergies like the new Bolvar and the Light's Sorrow weapon, this card would've been kind of trash. I guess the biggest appeal that Righteous Defender has would be the fact that he's so freaking cheap, allowing for combos with Blood Knight or whatever. I dunno, though, because I don't think the new Bolvar or the weapon wouldn't be a great synergy. Another way to think about her is that she's a stronger Argent Squire, which is definitely fine for a class card -- the fact that Divine Shield Paladins are going to run both Argent Squire and Righteous Defender means that their early game's pretty much secure. She's okay for a common, I guess, but she won't break the game. Just kind of boring, is all.

Runeforge Haunter
The Runeforge Haunter is a new Rogue card, a 4-mana 5/3 that... causes your weapon to not lose durability. This is the type of card that's going to help make Rogue weapon synergies really viable, because so far a lot of the Rogue's weapon synergies are just kinda crap outside of arena. Weapons are just so hard to protect. If they don't run out of charges, the Ooze will destroy them, and so it's really hard for you to ask me to waste mana and card resources to buff a weapon -- especially when in rogues it doesn't necessarily help in ending the enemy quicker the way the Warriors' Upgrade cards work. Runeforge Haunter perhaps isn't going to be the card that makes weapon rogue work, and unless we get some more insane cards I don't think it'll work this expansion, but it's certainly a lot better-looking than something like Shadowblade or Leeching Poison. Keeping your weapon around indefinitely is pretty good.  And at worst, the Haunter will keep your weapon from losing a durability for at least a turn -- the 5/3 statline's a bit too fragile, I'm afraid.


Corpse Raiser
So, for 5-mana, you get a 3/3 body and an Ancestral Spirit. Which is more or less fair, since Ancestral Spirit is valued at 2 mana. The Corpse Raiser is neutral, though, so other classes outside of Shaman can use this. Generally I kind of feel that it's a bit slow, although I don't think the card's super bad. The ability to recycle some of your best and most valuable minions -- your Tirions and Antonidases and Doomguards and Highmanes -- is always good. The thing is whether you're going to waste slots in your deck putting Corpse Raiser in instead of, say, a second Doomguard. Certainly not a bad card, in my opinion, and while probably won't be making huge constructed waves, I'd be surprised if some decks didn't at least try to tech this in as an extra greedy value play.

Corpse Widow
Oh, hey, a Ravager at least! The Corpse Widow has the effect of discounting your deathrattles by 2 mana, making her yet another great choice for a deathrattle hunter deck. The Widow is also a beast, which is great. The five slot in Hunter's always a bit awkward to fill in, and Widow might actually fill it in relatively well. Her 4/6 statline isn't horrible for a five-drop, especially a dfive-drop with discount. Discounting cards is always powerful, and discounting 2? This means that you could go into turn 5 with Corpse Widow, and then in turn 6 you play a 4-mana Savannah Highmane and either Hero Power or play a 2-cost card. That's pretty sick, and even if they remove Corpse Widow you'll still be able to play the Highmane as regular. Corpse Widow looks pretty decent, really. She would be amazing in Quest Priest (which is why I guessed they printed this effect for the Hunter class) but she feels pretty solid enough that I think she's going to see some play as well. Hunter's really weird in that they get lots of cards that are great on paper, but I'm not exactly sure how they'll fit into existing Hunter archetypes.


Devour Mind
Oh, hey, look, mega-Mind Vision! I guess it's okay? For 5 mana, you draw 3 cards and that tends to be good. You're definitely putting this into Randuin Priest decks and not, y'know, a less insane deck. Like, replicating stuff is great, and it's just another tool in Priest's arsenal that adds cards to your hand like Mind Vision, Crystalline Oracle, Curious Glimmerroot and Shifting Shade. Oh, and Archbishop Benedictus. Ultimately I'm not sure if this card will really play that much of a role in Randuin Wrynn lists, but stealing three cards is by the par for a decent 5-mana drop (RE: Nourish). And if your game plan does revolve around stealing cards from your opponent, then Devour Mind is a pretty decent mid-game spell. Definitely pretty great in arena, I think, because card draw and advantage is pretty great in arena.

Glacial Mysteries
Is this really the first Mage spell card we've gotten this expansion? I'm surprised at the sheer amount of minions that Mage is getting this time around. Well, Glacial Mysteries brings back flashbacks of the TGT era. "Who am I? None of your business." Glacial Mysteries does what Mysterious Challenger does for Paladin, but it doesn't seem to be that insane, actually. Sure, Mages have more expensive secrets, but Glacial Mysteries both comes in at turn 8, and doesn't come with a 6/6 body. Maeg secrets tend to be more or less passive anyway, with none of them actively disrupting the enemy turn other than Counterspell and maybe Vaporize. Plus, Mages have no trouble drawing into their most important secret, Ice Block, with Un'Goro's Arcanologist. I'm grossly underestimating this card, though, and it might very well turn to be as broken as Mysterious Challenger ever was. As a late-game to guarantee that Ice Block and Ice Barrier gets played for free is amazing. But to get this card after you've drawn all your secrets, or all-but-one of your secrets means that Glacial Mysteries ends up being a 8-mana spell that just whiffs, and that's just bad, right?

Obsidian Statue
Hey, another Warcraft III unit! Soon we'll be moving to full WCIII unit completion and I'll be a very very happy Warcraft III fanboy. Obsidian Statue, in Warcraft III, is the 'sealed' version of the Obsidian Destroyer (who we saw being printed into a card in Warrior a couple of years ago). The Obsidian Destroyer back in Wacraft III was an insane thing that auto-heals your units' health and mana constantly, so it's appropriate that it's given to Priest. In Hearthstone the Obsidian Statue gets Taunt and Lifesteal, and a relatively respectable 4/8 statline for a 9-mana drop. 9-mana has been kind of a tenuous spot, because most cards there are combo pieces (Malygos, Alexstrasza) or just plain don't work. Ysera and Soggoth the Slitherer are the only two cards that I can feasibly see being played as a multi-purpose control card, but by and by Soggoth doesn't see much play due to being a simple beatstick, and Ysera doesn't fit in every deck. Obsidian Statue, though? I won't say that it fits in every Priest deck, but it certainly looks like it's a pretty great multi-purpose late game stalling card. It's a Deathrattle card so it comes back with N'Zoth and helps the Amara Quest. It's Taunt so it slows down things going to your face, and it has Lifesteal to get that extra healing Priest needs. Add to the gigantic, insane 'destroy a random enemy minion' deathrattle, and, god, even if this doesn't hit the most epic target, unlike Unwilling Sacrifice below, chances are the Statue has done a fair bit enough with its Taunt and Lifesteal keywords that the destruction is a bonus at worst and a game-winning RNG play at best.


Simulacrum
It's kind of like Duplicate or Sudden Genesis where you add a copy of a minion to your hand, but the Mages' new spell, Simulacrum, costs 3 mana and always copies the lowest-cost minion in your hand. So if Antonidas is the only minion in your hand, you get him. It helps to get more Sorcerer's Apprentices for your quest mage combo. But I  can't help  but feeling that this card, while potentially being insane in a deck crafted to maximize its use, will end up being dead most of the time, and dead cards in your hand isn't very effective. I mean, you're probably going to want to be copying the value minions like Antonidas, Alexstrasza, Sindragosa, or Arcane Giant right? It could be used to like gain copies of cheaper minions, sure, but other than Sorcerer's Apprentice I don't really see a great use for this. I dunno. Again, it's interesting enough and I may be very well be proven wrong.

Lilian Voss
Lilian's not going to be super-insane. A 4-mana 4/5 (a Yeti, basically) who switches the spells in your hand with other spells? That's not the kind of play you want in your normal Auctioneer Miracle Rogue deck, since Rogue spells are super-efficient and awesome. You want to put Lilian into a Burgle-style deck, as a backup plan in case your Shakus and Swashburglars get you unplayable spells like, oh, Explore Un'Goro or Glacial Mysteries or stuff like that. She helps to reshuffle your stuff, basically. And, well, you could have a hand full of both burgled and rogue spells, drop Lilian, then drop Ethereal Peddler for extra value, but I'm not sure if that's going to be good or just needlessly convoluted. Pretty cool to see Lilian, though -- I remembered playing through the Forsaken opening zones in World of Warcraft, and I remember Lilian Voss and her struggles with the Scarlet Crusade and her dickwad father from that. I'm not 100% sure what she has to do with the Frozen Throne/Icecrown area, but hey.


Unwilling Sacrifice
So, in Gadgetzan, Warlock got the Blastcrystal Potion, which sacrificed a mana crystal for a similar effect to this -- insant enemy minion destruction. That card saw some marginal play, I think, but proved pretty unpopular. Why have the chance of crippling yourself early in the game when you can pay two more mana and Siphon Soul? Well, the mana price, for one. Unwilling Sacrifice is a bit more interesting. It doesn't have the targetted ability that Blastcrystal or Siphon Soul have, which hurts it a fair bit, but it's a lot cheaper at 3 mana... as long as you sacrifice one of your minions. EDIT: Back when I first reviewed this card, I forgot Deadly Shot existed! Yeah, this card is basically similar to the Hunter's Deadly Shot, except that you have to destroy a friendly minion to do it. While there are cards in Warlock that seem to want to push the 'destroy a friendly minion to do a positive thing' like the Ravenous Pterrordax, Shadowflame or the Sanguine Reveler, Unwilling Sacrifice's status as a pretty much shittier Deadly Shot means that it's honestly probably not going to see much play. Yes, I'm comparing cross-class, but honestly at the same time I don't think even if Warlock's super-starved for removal they'll pick Unwilling Sacrifice over things like Siphon Soul or Doomsayer.

Brrrlock
Hahaha, the name! Well, we get our obligatory murloc, and it's a Shaman minion. It's... it's not a super-good minion. Sure, it's another freeze effect, but do you really want a 2-mana 2/2 to do that? If the Brrrloc saw play, I honestly think that it'll do so in Murloc Shaman decks -- be it the quest variant or the Anyfin variant in wild. Again, I'm super-unconvinced that with the tools available right now that Freeze Shaman will really emerge to be a powerful deck. It'll be interesting to try out, that's for sure, and Brrrloc is a cheap variant that still impacts the board, something that Frost Shock doesn't do... but honestly, Glacial Shard's never played solely for its Freeze effect -- it's played because it's a cheap minion that happens to be an elemental. So I dunno. I don't think Moorabi alone is going to be enough to gain value from Freeze, that's for sure, and we've made it clear that I have a pretty low opinion of Ice Breaker. In Murloc decks? It... might be a thing? Not sure, though.

Treachery
Huh, you can give your Ticking Abomination to your opponent! All jokes aside, though, Treachery looks like it's a pretty bad card. For 3 mana, you give your opponent one of your friendly minions. Mostly because most of the bad-deathrattle minions like Zombie Chow or Deathlord have moved to wild. I suppose you can play Corrupted Healbot or Bomb Squad, cast Corruption on it and then and give that to your opponent, but that sounds insanely convoluted. I do love the pretty weird and unique effect that Treachery is promising us, though, and if nothing else it gets points for creativity. I'm not saying that Treachery is an unplayable card, but I do kind of want to see the rest of the expansion and the deathrattle cards in the set before I make my full judgment on Treachery.

Valeera the Hollow
Rogue hero card! And what a strange card she is. Valeera the Hollow costs 9 whooping mana, gains 5 armour... and the hero gains Stealth until your next turn! So unless you have like a Ragnaros or Holy Nova effect or something that deals damage while ignoring targets, Valeera can essentially cheat death for a single turn, which is awesome. Her hero power, however, disappears and beccomes absoltuely passsive -- something I didn't expect because I thought Death Knight Valeera's going to get like a weapon-based hero power. Valeera the Hollow gets the first-ever playable passive hero power,  however. At the start of your turn, she gets this no-mana card that'll transform into a copy of whatever card you first play that turn. Which, while initially sounding like a slower version of Duplicate or whatever... makes me realize that things like Shadowcaster copies, or Preparation, or Malygos, or honestly any kind of value card in your deck can be copied almost infinitely. Which is actually pretty fucking awesome. I honestly am a little baffled at the insanity of Death Knight Valeera's ability, and unlike the other three Death Knights we've already gotten before her, I genuinely have no idea what to think of her. She looks awesome, but difficult to use. We'll see. Definitely looks exciting.