We also get the Part Two of Professor Doyle's journeys through Un'Goro, and really, it's just free, additional flavour content that Blizzard's not charging the fans for. Poor Doyle's still suffering from the lilyfeather venom from the first part, he and his long-suffering cameraman Eddie find themselves in the company of Murlocs (conveniently off-screen, with all we see are prop hands and dancing shadows) before being fed a cup of some hallucinogenic jungle vine extract before passing out. Moral: do not eat anything handed to you by Murlocs. More hints of the mysterious Paladin quest reward, Galvadon, is shown. It's a 5-mana 5/5, apparently, but we still don't know the effect.
That ties in with a blog that's the third part of Doyle's journals, and this time Eddie's journals actually have cards stuck to them! After their encounter with the Tortollan tribe (whose leader is called Umbra -- a possible Legendary?), they were handed to a tribe of Murlocs, which we see in the video. Eddie's totally convinced that they were being dressed up to be fed to the Murlocs' tribe leader, Megafin... who turns out to be a really, really nice bloke and he's now pen-pals with Eddie. The Murloc village is also on top of a dinosaur's back, and Megafin is this giant Murloc that leads the dinosaur around Un'Goro. The (actually quite long) journal page ends with Eddie and Doyle reaching the base of the volcano, where they part ways with the Tortollan/Murloc community to scale the volcano and seek 'the truth'.
Really like the lore. Just hope that the Un'Goro expansion is a fair bit more balanced with regards to the metagame.
Crystalline Oracle
Priests get a one-mana card that's basically a smaller Shifting Shade with the Elemental tag. It's a Deathrattle card, so it automatically is good for the Awaken-the-Makers style deck, and it's 1/1 statline makes is very comparable to Swashburglar and Babbling Book... except the Crystalline Oracle's a fair bit worse due to the fact that it gives you a card after it dies instead of immediately when it enters the board. The relatively narrower scope that the Oracle can draw form is either an advantage or disadvantage depending on the deck you're facing, and unlike Drakonid Operative, you can't choose. It raised a bit of controversy online, apparently, for being an RNG-fiesta card, and... I don't really understand why this card in particular made people angry compared to other random-effect cards. It's one mana, which means that it's perfect to combo with the 'play an Elemental the turn before' style effects that we'll talk about later below.
Sunkeeper Tarim
The Paladin's minion Legendary is revealed, and he's a cool-looking giant stone statue Tol'vir thing. Tarim is a 6-mana 3/7 that unleashes the Keeper of Uldaman effect (set a minion to 3/3) on every single minion on board. At first I was confused -- it's like a variation of Eadric the Pure, but instead of disabling everyone, it also potentially buffs your opponents' minions. I mean, sure, your little Silver Hand Recruits get buffed, but why would I want give my opponents a board full of 3/3's? What if they have a board of tiny pirates or totems or imps? Why would I want to buff them? Well, when my opponent's board is nothing but Jade Golems, of course! It's a pretty powerful card that's going to fuck up any Jade Golem board, and the fact that Tarim himself is a 3-attack Taunter means that it's literally going to eat up the weakened Jade Golems like breakfast. 3/7 Taunt is literally the perfect statline to go up against a board of 3/3's. Tarim is going to eat up at least two minions and force a third if the enemy doesn't have a ping. No, it's not the kind of hard counter that automatically makes Jade decks fall apart, not at all. But it's still a pretty cool card that does the double work of buffing your board (Stand Against Darkness? No?) and disables your enemy's heavy-hitters at the same time. On the other hand it also has the potential to really screw you over, especially if you are controlling big minions yourself like Tirions... I dunno. We'll see. I honestly am a bit more optimistic about Tarim, and he's probably a card that requires you to really read the board properly before playing him.Shadow Visions
Priest gets a weird epic spell. It's 2 mana, and it allows you to discover a copy of a spell in your deck... so, yeah, you get an extra copy of whatever spell, and theoretically you can rig it so your deck only contains several specific spells, but why would you want to spend a card slot and two mana instead of just putting the spell again? It's kind of a sneaky way to implement tutoring for spells, but at the same time Priest isn't exactly a class that wants multiples of spells that badly. In Mage or Rogue, Shadow Visions would be pretty awesome, but for the life of me I can't think of a Priest spell that justifies me putting a tempo-loss card and spend two mana to get a copy of it. Like, it's cute, but it's just 2-mana draw a card. And gaining a copy makes it better than Purify, obviously, but that's not a hard bar to clear. It's unique, I guess? Lots of people love this card, but I'm just underwhelmed.
Clutchmother Zavas
Oh hey, a Silithid! Very, very surprised to see a Silithid as a Warlock card of all things -- the Beast tag certainly doesn't matter here. So Zavas is a boss in the Silithid hives that are found in Un'Goro crater, and she synergizes very well with the discard mechanic. The only real cards that benefit from being discarded are Fist of Jaraxxus (which suck) and Silverware Golem (which rock), so adding another minion that benefits from being discarded is very good. One of the problems that fulfilling the quest has is that sometimes you just run out of cards in your hand to discard -- one of the best ways currently to play Soulfire or Doomguard certainly is to play them as the last card in your hand. But therein lies one of the big problems for the Lakkari Sacrifice quest. You run out of cards to discard at one point, and you're going to sacrifice a lot of life to life tap if you didn't manage to get the Malchezaar's Imp combo going. And since Lakkari Sacrifice counts the number of cards you discard instead of the number of discard-effect cards you play, that presents a problem.Zavas fixes that, both by being a card that benefits from being discarded, as well as keeping sure that there's a card to discard in your hand. Zavas just gets bigger and bigger, getting a not insignificant +2/+2 buff, basically growing and growing and growing, until it becomes like a 2-mana 8/8 or 10/10. And, sure, the Clutchmother is still a glorified beatstick that your opponent will see coming, and a single Shadow Word: Death will get rid of her, but if your opponent doesn't have an immediate answer then Zavas is free to destroy your opponent's face. Not to mention the combo between Clutchmother Zavas and the quest and the stream of 3/2 Imps... Yes, she's not a demon, but then there's not much demons in the Un'Goro crater. Zavas may be a wee bit too slow by virtue of its effect, but I do love that between Sherazin, Elise, King Dred and Zavas we're getting a lot of unique effects for legendaries in this expansion, which I love.
Ozruk
On Tuesday, Battlenet posted a post about Elementals. We get confirmation that eighteen old minions get to become Elementals (Water, Earth, Fire, Frost, Unbound and Rumbling Elementals; Magma and Ice Rager; Anomalus, the two Ragnaroses, Al'Akir, Neptulon, Lightspawn, Dust Devil, Fireguard Destroyer, Arcane Anomaly, and Baron Geddon) -- which is basically everything I guessed would become elementals. The Shades, Ancients and Bog Beasts don't count. But anyway, the gimmick is that Elemental cards get a bonus when you play an Elemental in the previous turn, which actually is a great way to make the older Elemental cards still retain their powerful effects but still interact with the new gimmick. So the Elemental tribe has two distinct cards: Elementals that are just strong minions to play, and newer ones that benefit from playing those other minions before. It makes cards lke Arcane Anomaly, a previously oft-overloooked minion, suddenly be useful because he's now a cheap one-mana minion that activates Elemental synergy. The new Crystalline Oracle and Pyros makes sense when you consider that they're also cheap Elementals to be played on an earlier turn. It's a pretty unique thing going on, instead of doing something similar to Pirates and Murlocs with a 'give +1/+1 to all!' style cards.Take Ozruk, for example. He's a legendary neural minion, this big-ass earth elemental with beards made up of fungal tendrils or something, a boss in the Deepholme raids in World of Warcraft. He's a 9-mana 5/5 with Taunt, which is obviously garbage stats, but he gets +5 Health for each elemental you played last turn. Which... well, still isn't super good. If you played a single Elemental, then Ozruk becomes a 9-mana Ancient of War. Still shit, because Ancient of War is 7 mana. But if you get to play, like, two or three Elementals, then Ozruk is a 9-mana 5/15 or 5/20, which is a lot better for 9 mana. On the other hand, though, Ozruk is just... a bigger Ancient of War that needs you to jump through some hoops to activate his effect. And even then he gets decimated with a single removal card -- unlike fellow 9-mana neutral taunt legendary Soggoth the Slitherer, a card dear to my heart. Soggoth has the spell-immunity ability which prevents it from being taken down with something as cheap as a Hex, and Ozruk just doesn't quite work that well. I mean, yeah, sure, it's going to be great if Elementals are great, as another weapon in their arsenal, but it's just good and not super-great. And if the effects don't pan out it sucks.
Stone Sentinel
The Stone Sentinel is a Shaman card, and he costs a whooping 7-mana, with a measly 4/4 statline. Eh? Eh? 7-mana 4/4? Cute, Blizzard. The Stone Sentinel requires you to play an Elemental in the previous turn to, well, basically do a free Feral Spirits, summoning two 2/3's with Taunt. Unlike Ozruk, it's an effect that happens once and doesn't stack. Doing the math, you get a 8/10 for seven mana, which is a decent amount of total stats even if the 2/3's are relatively easy to remove by turn seven. I don't think Stone Sentinel is going to be that good. Time will tell if I put my foot in my mouth, of course, but my impression of the Stone Sentinel is that it comes too slow, and it doesn't compare very favourably to Shaman's other seven-drop minion -- the Jade Chieftain, which also summons a creature with Taunt, except Jade is a lot easier to get running than Elementals. Again, there's a huge problem -- the Stone Sentinel is, in theory, a pretty good card, and even has a buddy in Shaman's classic minion the Fire Elemental, a powerful six-drop... but can the elementals outshine the jade? It's not a bad card, but it's not super-great either, and the fact that it's conditional means that if you can't manage to get its effect off it's just an absolutely crap 4/4 for 7 mana.
Fire Fly
Of course, the nature of the Elemental gimmick means that we really need more cheap Elementals, Which is where the next two cards come in. The Fire Fly's cool. He's a 1-mana 1/2 Elemental, so he'll trigger Elemental effects, but as a battlecry he adds a vanilla 1/2 Elemental to your hand, allowing you to have this 1/2 body you can just drop down whenever you get ready to summon an Elemental next turn. The Fire Fly is a minion whose purpose is only to activate larger, stronger Elementals, and it's the existence of cards like this that really make me somewhat confident that the 'play an Elemental the previous turn' gimmick might actually work. Again, I think the tribe needs a lot more support to really work, but cards like Fire Fly are well-designed token-generators that, while weak (1/2 isn't anything to write home about), with enough Elementals that benefit from this gimmick then the Elemental tribal synergy will really work well. Also, this is exactly the way to design a one-mana minion that works well with a synergy yet isn't absolutely overpowering and punishing the way Small-Time Buccaneer and Tunnel Trogg were. Otherwise, though, as cool as the design is, Fire Fly just doesn't cut it if you're not using it for Elemental combo purposes.Flame Geyser
Similar to Fire Fly, only instead of a 1/2 minion, it's a 2-mana spell that deals 2 damage. It's definitely sub-par value, especially when Tempo Mage loses one of its strongest tools in Flamewaker. It's a weaker card compared to Frostbolt, and while Jade Shuriken does a similar thing, it summons the jade idol immediately on the board. Still, it's kind of fair, being a 2-mana deal 2 damage and draw a (very specific) card. The 1/2 Elemental token's only going to be useful for activating other Elementals. That said, if the Elemental gimmick doesn't work for Mages, then this is a pretty sub-par card.
Primalfin Lookout
A neutral Murloc card that's going to help out in the below Shaman Quest, the Primalfin is a 2-mana 3/2 Murloc, which is nice. As someone who plays a swarm Shaman Murloc deck for a bit, we do need more 2-mana Murlocs. The Primalfin basically plays out similarly to Gorillabot A-3 from League of Explorers, except without a stat penalty. If you have another Murloc on the field, this allows you do discover a Murloc. Definitely a very powerful card for swarm Murloc-type decks, which really seems to be the only Murloc archetype that's going to be viable, considering Anyfin and Everyfin are both rotating out before Un'Goro. We'll see if the Murloc archetype will continue surviving without those two finisher spells, but if they do then Primalfin Lookout looks to be one of the more powerful Murloc cards out there. One of the weakness of Murloc decks (that aren't in Warlocks) is that you tend to run out of cards in your hand, and only Coldlight Oracle is both a Murloc and draws cards (and it draws for your opponent, too) so having a card like this is definitely a great, great boon especially since it's a Discover effect, which is almost always more powerful than just adding a random Murloc -- you get to choose those Warleaders and Finjas. The fact that Murloc Tinyfin and Sir Finley are moving out means that the only real bad, low-statted Murloc left is the 1-mana 2/1 Murloc Raider.Unite the Murlocs
Sir Finley Mrrglton might not be featured in this expansion as either a card or in the trailers, but he sure shows up in the artwork for this card! It's the Shamans' quest, and it's definitely nowhere as easily to build around as the Priest or the Warlock quests, because it's tied to a specific tribe -- the Murlocs. But that's okay, because everyone will agree that Shaman has had its time to shine as the unshakeable dominator of the meta for an entire year. If the quest revolved around summoning totems or casting overload cards then it's just going to encourage the same spamming of Flamewreathed Faceless and Thing from Below that Shamans did during the Old Gods meta. Having them turn to Murlocs, while probably not the most popular thing to do, is something I like. Mostly because I like Murlocs, so I might just be a little more biased.Anyway, the quest wants you to summon ten Murlocs. Like Awaken the Makers, it's summon, so Murloc Tiderunner counts as two, and the Shamans' Call the Finishers counts as four. Finja gets you through this quest remarkably quickly too. Ten Murlocs aren't that easy on first glance, but Call the Finishers definitely makes up for it. As mentioned above, Murloc decks tend to play multiple cards in one turn, so having an empty hand is definitely a possibility. Unite the Murlocs rewards this gameplay by giving you Megafin, a mammoth of a Murloc. He's 5-mana 8/8, larger than Flamewreathed, and in addition to being a gigantic beatstick himself he fills your hand with random Murlocs -- which tend to be good if you're playing a Murloc deck. More chances to get Murloc Warleaders, and in the current standard, again, the only 'bad' Murloc in your hand is the 2/1 Murloc Raider. There are problems inherent with this, though, namely because you'll start with one less hand thanks to playing the 'Unite the Murlocs' card on turn one, and Murloc Shaman decks tend to run out of cards really quickly. Sure, Megafin replenishes it, but then it'll be a wee bit more reliant on Coldlight Oracles and Finja to really survive, and if you don't draw into them you're liable to run out of steam before you reach ten. Still, the payoff, the big grand poobah of all Murlocs, is just amazing.
Kalimos, Primal LordSo lore-wise, Kalimos is absolutely cool. He's a Primal Elemental, which is an Elemental formed out of all four primary elements -- fire, earth, air and water. It's an existence only hinted at in the old RPG sourcebooks, and so far in World of Warcraft only Animus, who's artificially created by the Twilight's Hammer Clan, can claim to be such a type. As an extra bonus, Kalimos's name is definitely derived from Kalimag, the name of the Elementals' language, again, from the old WOW-RPG sourcebooks. But as a card? Kalimos falls into the same category that made Stone Sentinel and Ozruk kind of disappointing. He's a 8-mana 7/7 with a pretty powerful battlecry, and the ability to choose between multiple effects gives him a degree of flexibility. Again, he's a good card, but he's not super-broken the way the Jade cards are and it's still hard to justify running Elemental Shaman over Jade Shaman -- which was, I think, one of the problems with TGT and Karazhan where the newly introduced gimmicks simply aren't powerful enough to compete with the previous toys. Kalimos allows you to choose only one from 6 damage to the enemy hero's face, 3-damage AOE, filling your board with 1/1's, and heal your hero for 12. I guess in an ideal curve-stone world you go from Fire Elemental on turn 6 to Stone Sentinel on turn 7 to Kalimos on turn 8? Turn 8's definitely not a time when you want to fill your board with 1/1's I don't think, but the other three effects definitely pay for Kalimos's below-average statline and the pre-requisite. Like, the invocation of air choice is basically a free, guaranteed Lightning Storm that always hits for 3, which costs a total of 4-5 mana depending on how you rank Overload. The invocation of fire likewise is a free Lava Burst. But on the other hand... I just don't think Kalimos is honestly that powerful to be the endgame in an Elemental deck, though he's by no means a bad card.
Tol'vir Stoneshaper
It's another card that benefits from playing an Elemental last turn, except the Tol'vir Stoneshaper isn't an Elemental himself. He's a 4-mana 3/5, which is kind of m'eh stats -- one point less than a Yeti -- and he gains Taunt and Divine Shield, essentially becoming a bulkier Psych-o-Tron (who normally costs 5 mana) when you get the effect off. It's a pretty solid card all around, possibly an even better anti-aggro Taunter than Tar Creeper. On the other hand, you're not always guaranteed to get Taunt with him, so while he's not a bad card, he's also a bit more inconsistent which makes up for his pretty nice total value when he does go off. Don't think I have much to say about it -- the Taunt/Divine Shield combo is a pretty awesome wall, and so if you're playing an Elemental deck you'll probably want this dude in it. Again, at the risk of sounding like a broken record -- I'm not sure how viable it'll be.
Hydrologist
A Paladin minion, a 2-mana 2/2. She's a Murloc, too, with an adorable piece of artwork. So what's her gimmick? Well, as a battlecry, you discover a Secret. And unless we get something with a power level comparable to Avenge, Hydrologist's probably not going to see much play. Paladins don't really do Murlocs that well without Anyfin, and hasn't been. So I dunno. Maybe they're getting more cards that'll make Secrets or Murlocs good? As it is, though, I don't really see this card being super playable. Jeweled Scarab was powerful because it gave you a card on-tempo for the next turn, so despite its low stats it's still played. Paladin Secrets tend to be bad, so yeah, it's a filler card. A lot more interesting than Worgen Greaser, mind you, but filler nonetheless.
The Caverns Below
I don't think the Caverns Below is going to be a top-tier quest, but damn if it isn't a wonderfully designed quest. The other three quests revealed so far have all been relatively simple ones that don't require much thought. Summon X number of Y, trigger X keyword Y times. The Caverns Below wants you to play a minion with the same name four times. And it's play, not summon, so no Doppelgangster shenanigans. Obviously you can only get two copies of a minion in your hand, so how do you do this quest? Shadowsteps, Shadowcasters, Thistle Tea, various 'bounce back to hand' cards (Gadgtezan Ferryman anyone? No? Brewmasters then), hell, even Vanish! It's a deck that requires a lot more thought put into it, and honestly I'm a little baffled as to what deck can run with this gimmick and be awesome with it. Of course, the reward isn't super-exciting mostly because I haven't quite figured it out yet. Basically, it's a 5-mana spell and it makes all your minions summoned or played from then onwards be 5/5's. It's big, sure, but at the same time it means a lot of plays like C'Thun or Edwin VanCleef or Jade end up being crap since they can't grow beyond 5/5. On the other hand, cheaper, smaller minions get to be absolutely powerful. Defias Ringleader and Murloc Tidehunter become 2-mana 10/10's split over two bodies. Harvest Golem is a 3-mana 5/5 that summons a 5/5 after it dies. It's still a very curious gimmick, though again it's going to take some thought to think of a deck that can reliably Shadowstep a minion three times and still benefit from the 5-mana card. Maybe something with a draw effect? Novice Engineer is a cheap card with a drawing battlecry effect, and when Crystal Core comes into play she gets turned from 1/1 to 5/5.
Mimic Pod
Old Gods introduced Thistle Tea, a card that see almost no play at all due to the unpredictability of its effect. It's a very unique card, but at 5 mana for something that's unreliable isn't that awesome. Mimic Pod is just the same card, shrunk down into a more manageable 3-mana card, drawing a card and adding another copy of it to your hand. Spending 3 mana to draw a card and get a second one is definitely a lot easier to justify when you accidentally draw like an Assassinate or something -- think of the difference between Arcane Blast and Flame Lance. A cheaper spell with a similar but scaled-down effect tends to be a lot better, especially in Rogue. And it definitely works really well with the Caverns Below.
Tol'vir Warden
Revealed a short while after I posted this post, this is a Hunter card, a 5-mana 3/5 minion that draws 2 1-mana minions as a battlecry. It's another tutor card on the same vein as the Paladin's Small-Time Recruits from the previous expansion, except it comes stuck to a body. A 5-mana 3/5 that draws two cards is pretty great! It's an Azure Drake with stats swapped around and exchanging a Spell Damage for a draw effect. But it draws two one-mana minions. And Hunters tend to not want their one-mana minions on turn 5 or 6. Looking at the current cards, post-rotation, Hunter will still have Fiery Bat, Timber Wolf and Alleycat available to them. Timber Wolf isn't really played a lot, and I don't see any of the neutral 1-manas except maybe (that's a huge maybe) Argent Squire make it into a Hunter deck. So that leaves four cards, if you're running two Bats and two Cats. Maybe you run pirates? Southsea Deckhand and Eaglehorn Bow isn't the best thing out there, but it's something, I guess? Thing is, it's not really that good to play either of them on turn six, and the Warden himself not being a Beast means that it's one less activator for Houndmaster, Kill Command, etc which tends to be Hunter's bread and butter. And the Tol'vir's effect doesn't go off every time, and a 5-mana 3/5 that does nothing is really bad. And I'm honestly unconvinced that drawing any two 1-mana minions would be worth slotting this card into your deck, unless the set gives us some great synergy -- either via strong 1-mana minions or something that'll make Pirate Hunter work. Also, why does this particular Tol'vir seem to keep pet dogs?
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