Hearthstone: More Kabal Cards! [Card Review]

Even more cards have been revealed. This week we get a lot of Kabal cards, almost all of them, and that makes next week the Jade Lotus's turn.

Last week we've got the Heroic Tavern Brawl thing going on, which seemed to be a mild success? I don't particularly care if it swung either way but there are a lot of people that are so passionate about tournament modes and all this working out, so I'm excited for their sake if nothing else.

Oddly, unlike the Grimy Goons, we barely saw a lot of new Kabal cards throughout this week. We saw like, oh, eight? Nine? Certainly we didn't see even half of the Warlock cards before switching to the Jade Lotus on Sunday. That's interesting...

• Bloodfury Potion: Warlocks get a potion, too, a 3-mana buff that gives a minion +3 Attack. Which is shit, considering Paladins have a one-mana spell that does the same thing. But on a demon, it's a +3/+3 buff, so you're almost always going to use the Bloodfury Potion on a Demon... but it's flexible enough that it becomes an inefficient but still playable buff when obtained by Mages, Priests or non-Demon Warlock decks. It's still pretty bad if you're not playing demons, though, and if anything it's a bit of a nerf to Kabal Cultist. I think Demonfire is better thanks to the flexibility of casting damage.
• Fellfire Potion: Another Warlock potion, this is yet another Hellfire effect similar to the Abyssal Enforcer. Fellfire Potion deals a whopping five damage to all characters for five mana... which compared to Priests' Dragonfire Potion just looks pitiful in comparison. Dealing 5 damage to every one of your minions and your face isn't a cheap effect to pay for an AoE, and unlike the Abyssal you don't even get a 6/6 left over as your board, and unlike Demonwrath and Dragonfire Potion you don't get selective sparing. It's not an unplayable card for sure, but unless Warlocks have some Violet Illusionist shenanigans this is going to be a card that rarely sees play... because if you need that kind of clear why not spare your poor soultapped face the pain and just run Twisting Nether?

  

  Azeroth's version of a
  drug dealer.

• Kabal Crystal Runner: Well, clearly Blizzard is trying to work on the logic that, hey, if Thing from Below made Totem decks work, clearly Mage Secret decks can be pushed with free 5/5's! The Crystal Runner is a 6-mana 5/5 that gets discounted by 2 for every secret played. And yeah, you have ways to cheapen Secrets like with Sorcerer's Apprentice and the new Kabal Lackey, but again... Mage Secrets are just so darn expensive and easy to play around, unlike Hunter's very variable secrets. The fact that the Crystal Runner is a vanilla 5/5 without Taunt (or the obvious Spell Damage) makes her far worse than Thing from Below. And mages tend to focus on spells instead of minions anyway. So yeah, I don't think people will really run this.
• Toxic Sewer Ooze: Did this dude get lost when they were rounding up the 'twisted version of older cards' theme for Whispers of the Old Gods? It feels so weird and out of place considering how cohesive the rest of the Gadgetzan block has been. Toxic Sewer Ooze (who looks like Alolan Muk in cherry flavour) has more in common with Bloodsail Corsair than it does with Acidic Swamp Ooze, though -- and Bloodsail Corsair saw no play elsewhere. Granted, a 3-mana 4/3 is somewhat better than a 1-mana 1/2, but the fact that all it does is remove a piece of durability instead of destroy it outright like his Acidic counterpart (and keep in mind Acidic Swamp Ooze doesn't even have a stat penalty) makes this a pretty bad card unless you're playing Arena, and even then he's just in the 'you could do worse than this' category. 
• Raza the Chained: Well this just makes Inkmaster Solia look...

  

  HE LOOKS SO AWESOME

   somewhat underwhelming in comparison. What a card! First of all, Raza the Chained looked awesome as all hell, but his effect is awesome. Raza drops in at turn 5, and he's a 5/5 so it isn't even a big stat penalty like Mistcaller or Volazj or whatever... and his effect? If you're running a Reno-style highlander deck, your hero power costs zero permanently. It's not while Raza is in play, it's not for this turn only. Permanently. And holy shit, this might just be the legendary that Priests need for their hero power to be a less-good version of Armor Up. Basically every turn you get two free mana that you have to use on your hero power, which is awesome. The fact that this wasn't tied to a minion the way Maiden of the Lake was is what makes Raza so powerful. And, man, the sheer power that you can abuse if you have Shadowform in play in addition to cards like Garrison Commander and Auctionmaster Beardo in play. Lo and behold if you manage to sneak yourself in a Coldarra Drake from the tri-class cards, you literally can use your hero power as much as you want. It's a good thing that Priest is the one that gets this card, because if this was given to Hunter or Warrior then it's just going to be abused to all hell since Warriors don't have an Armor cap. If Mages or Warlocks get Raza it's not bad either. Warlocks might have to think when to push the button due to the life loss, but Mages are perfectly happy with pinging things all day long. Also, Inspire minions are perfectly in love with Raza. Nexus-Champion Saraad is one that is dear to my heart and might just find a home in a Reno deck. And cards that simply benefit whenever something is healed, like Holy Champion? Or just straight-up beat Warriors in their own game with Sir Finley? Or Shadowform twice and just deal 3 damage every turn? Holy shit, what an awesome legendary Raza is. I don't want to prematurely call this overpowered, but... this is a very good card. 
• Jade Blossoms: We start off the Jade Lotus week with this Druid spell card. It lets us summon a 'Jade Golem' and gain an empty mana crystal for 3 mana. Which is yet another ramping tool. 3-mana is a mana spot in Druid that doesn't yet have a mana-ramp tool associated with it (2 has Wild Growth and Darnassus Aspirant, 4 has Mire Keeper and 5 has Nourish) and it's one mana more expensive... but we get a Jade Golem. Whatever the hell that is. We now know what the Jade Golem is! Next post we'll be covering the Jade Lotus cards, which are all extremely interesting. See you guys in a bit when we start covering the Jade Lotus.