Witchwood Card Reviews, Part #2: Odd/Even Stuff & Anger Management

I think I'm going to do a brief recap of the brand-new cards revealed recently before we actually get the big dump on the 26th. There's also a bunch of other news to talk about, too, so... yeah.

First up, we've got some Arena changes, with the drop rates being based on card quality being put into place... and it ends up getting a fair bit of pushback due to the fact that everyone ends up with ridiculous amounts of Lich Kings and whatnot, so the drop rate offerings ended up being fixed. Yay for that!

We also get the announcement that among the changes that Witchwood will bring in addition to, y'know, standard rotation and hall of fame stuff, we're losing a keyword... specifically Enrage. And I've always thought that Enrage was a pretty under-utilized keyword, with a grand total of nine cards that have it... a pretty small amount for a mechanic that's been around since the beginning. And only a grand total of three new cards outside of expansions (Warbot, Aberrant Berserker and Bloodhoof Brave) really end up including Enrage. So they end up axing it, changing the wording to "has X while damaged". And honestly? I've always thought that "any time this minion is damaged" is a more suitable term to keyword anyway. But eh. It's a nice little streamlining, I suppose, and it's not like any enrage card is really seeing any sort of play at the moment.

Let's talk about a bunch of new cards revealed over the past week or so. We get four Odd/Even cards... and it turns out that these four cards, as well as Greymane and Baku, are the only Odd/Even synergy cards that we're going to get, and honestly? It doesn't look good. Sure, we might get good cards to synergize with these, but at the moment I don't think that the upside of either a 1-mana hero power or an upgraded one is worth the huge downside. That's what we said about Reno, yes, but at the same time... I dunno. This one really feels like a weird, niche mechanic that isn't quite broken enough to really warrant cutting out half of your collection for.

Gloom Stag: Gloom Stag is a druid minion, a 5-mana 2/6 Taunt who'll gain +2/+2 if your card is all odd-costed. Meaning that you play this in a Baku deck... but honestly? While a 5-mana 4/8 Taunt is powerful, It's honestly not that broken. It's a slightly cheaper Dark Arakkoa that ends up being insanely susceptible to silence, and even if an odd-cost Druid deck (which would be bereft of Wild Growth, Swipe, Ultimate Infestation, Wrath, Spreading Plague and many other powerful tools) does somehow work... I don't think Gloom Stag is ever better compared to the flexibility of Druid of the Claw. Dunno. Don't think this card's good.

Black Cat: Black Cat's probably the best of these odd/even cards, but at the same time... it's not that good. Black Cat's a 3-mana 3/3 with a Spell Damage +1. It's essentially a Soot Spewer from GvG, but a Beast (which doesn't matter for mages). And if you play an odd-cost deck, you... get an extra draw a card. Black Cat turns out to be pretty good if you're playing an odd-cost deck, and while an upgraded Fireblast is powerful, at the same time I don't think it's worth not playing Fireball and Frostbolt and Sorcerer's Apprentice and Blizzard. And, again, I'm rather pessimistic about these decks, honestly.

Glitter Moth: Glitter Moth's a Priest card, also working with the odd-cost number. The Glitter Moth isn't a straight-up tempo tool like the Stag or the Cat, but rather more of a combo deal, being a 5-mana 4/4 that doubles the health of your other minions. It's a mass Divine Spirit, making up for the fact that you can't run Divine Spirit in an odd-cost deck... but at the same time, an upgraded Priest hero power isn't the best thing out there, and while you still have Inner Fire and Power Word: Shield, the sort of combo shenanigans is a bit harder to pull off if your curve sucks. I dunno. Again, I don't see Glitter Moth being particularly good. Neat art, though.

Murkspark Eel: The only card in this bunch that works with an even deck, Murkspark Eel is a Shaman 2-mana 2/3 beast that deals 2 damage. Essentially a slightly weaker Medivh's Valet that doesn't need a Secret on board to activate. The problem, though, is that quite literally Shaman's entire list of good cards (minus Flametongue Totem) are odd. Like, yeah, you get one-mana totems and a 2/3 that pings, but at the same time, you can't really build a board and not have Bloodlust or Thrall Deathseer to end things, can you? It's not particularly exciting either, honestly, so all four of these odd/even beasts really feel like they're just there for people to try to mess around with, but I personally think that this whole even/odd stuff isn't going to pan out that well.

Warpath: Warpath's a very neat Echo card, design-wise... but I really feel it's best relegated to arena. Redundancy and flexibility is good, but there's also no denying that 2-mana for a Whirlwind effect is really expensive. It's a controllable Defile, yes, but by paying 2 mana for every Defile effect you really waste a lot of resources, and it's not like Warrior doesn't have a shortage of whirlwind effects -- not that the whirlwind package ended up really panning out during Frozen Throne. I realize you can't compare cards across classes, but at the same time, they really could've made Warpath a lot better. Warpath's a well-designed card, and a decent arena card... I just don't see it being particularly useful in constructed, honestly.

Face Collector: The Face Collector's one of the two Rogue legendaries, and my god, that artwork's morbid as all hell. He's an interesting card, a 3-mana 2/2 with echo that adds a random legendary minion to your hand. It's a Sindragosa effect that, if you spend 9 mana, ends up giving a slightly weaker board (three 2/2's as opposed to Sindragosa's 8/8) but you get the legendaries immediately in your hand as opposed to waiting to ping like Sindragosa. And, of course, the flexibility with the Echo stuff does allow you to make snap decisions... even if other than the Zola moment that they showcased in the reveal video, and maybe a cheap taunt or two, I don't think the flexibility's somewhat overrated. I do think Face Collector's a decent -- if not essential -- legendary in the same vein that Sherazin and Shaku are. And Shaku's actually a neat card to compare it to -- a card that just generates additional resources and possibly game-ending bombs. The big weakness is, I suppose, the fact that random legendaries sometimes just suck. As someone who's played with old Elise and Sindragosa a lot, there are going to be times that Face Collector will just whiff and give you like a Prince or Baku or Millhouse or Nat Pagle, and that's going to feel terrible. But still, I do think Face Collector's a neat little Echo card, and a fun harmless dude that might actually see a fair bit of play.

And that's all we have for today -- not that much hype or interest for this batch, I'll be honest. I guess I'll be back in a couple of days with hopefully a lot more significant and interesting cards.