Hearthstone: A Look Back - One Night in Karazhan

Part two of my look back onto the Year of the Kraken, the expansions that are going to rotate out as the Year of the Raven arrives soon. Not much to really say here -- Karazhan's the last Adventure-style release and the last content to be introduced into the game that's not a 100+ cards expansion, and while initially it's an expansion that really failed to shake up the meta too much, Karazhan's cards are the sort that really didn't manage to shine until subsequent expansions added tools to make the cards work.

Again, as with my Old Gods retrospective review, the rankings here are done based on the performance of the cards and how much they saw play over the two years they're in Standard format. So cards that were great for a long period of time but don't see play currently (like Babbling Book, to use an example from this expansion), or vice versa (like Barnes), will all get around 4/5's or 5/5's. Also, it's not particularly an in-depth review, and I'll try to keep each card review within a couple of sentences.

Druid:

• Enchanted Raven: 4/5. The good Raven here isn't a card that really made the waves when it was first introduced since we're all "haha beast druid", but eventually became a strong monster particularly during the Frozen Throne era. It's always seen some fringe play as a solid one-drop to replace Living Roots, but with the advent of powerful cards during Un'Goro and Frozen Throne, Enchanted Raven easily became one of Druid's more powerful openers. 
• Menagerie Warden: 1/5. Everyone tried to make beast druid work. It didn't happen, even though on paper Menagerie Warden's a pretty powerful and well-statted card.
• Moonglade Portal: 2/5. Saw some amount of play as a defensive tool for Druid, but eventually got phased out and ultimately replaced by Malfurion the Pestilent.

Hunter:

• Kindly Grandmother: 5/5. Kindly Grandmother is probably one of the stronger 2-mana cards Hunter's gotten, and it's definitely one of the cards that helped to keep Hunter playable during the times when it was floundering. Great deathrattle, great in aggro and not half-bad in midrange. 
• Cloaked Huntress: 4/5. Although admittedly the resurgence of Cloaked Huntress into a powerhouse for Secret Hunter decks really didn't happen until Kobolds & Catacombs. Everyone tried Cloaked Huntress back when it was new and it was... decent, but Secret Hunter was just over-eclipsed by everything else. It's not until the addition of Wandering Monster and Lesser Emerald Spellstone that the deck really works. 
• Cat Trick: 4/5. Pretty great secret -- summoning a stealthed beast? Triggers on spells, making it another thing that could potentially bamboozle the opponent? Yeah, Cat Trick's a pretty good card for hunters. Just solid all around. 

Mage:

• Medivh's Valet: 5/5. Wow, Karazhan introduces a lot of Secret synergy, huh? Medivh's Valet isn't particularly good during the Karazhan and Gadgetzan era due to the fact that while the effect and stats were amazing, there just wasn't a natural progression to using it. It's not until Arcanologist came along in Un'Goro that the Secret Mage archetype really works, and Medivh's Valet is a core card in that deck. Especially powerful when it evolved into an Aluneth burn mage deck in K&C. 
• Firelands Portal: 4/5. A monster in arena so much that they had to nerf Firelands Portal's appearance rate in arena twice. In constructed, it sort of replaced and later co-existed alongside Pyroblast as the only big finisher spells Mage runs. Burst damage, and a huge body? Yeah, It's pretty strong. 
• Babbling Book: 5/5. Deceptively powerful. While it's since fallen out of favour as Mages gravitated from just generating a load of value to either fine-tuned Quest and Secret archetypes, Babbling Book has a one-up over cards like Journey Below or I Know A Guy in that it comes with a 1/1 body... which doesn't seem much, but matters a lot especially during the Patches meta. Particularly the fact that Mage spells are freaking good. Balancing this humble dude, I think, was the genesis for the creation of some of the unwieldier spells in the Year of the Mammoth. 

Paladin:

• Nightbane Templar: 1/5. A slightly better Razorfen Hunter, but it's conditional. And extremely fragile. Tried out briefly, but never saw play.
• Silvermoon Portal: 1/5. Never saw play either, with Blessing of Kings really outclassing it although it's worth noting that it's recently tried out in Lynessa Sunsorrow decks... but ends up just not being good enough. 
• Ivory Knight: 2/5. Sort of replaces Forbidden Healing for the Control Paladin archetype during this period, and a genuinely good card... but honestly ends up way too slow for the metagame, and Paladins have way too many 1-mana secrets that really gimped Ivory Knight sometimes. 

Priest:

• Purify: 2/5. While right now we're just fresh off a Priest-dominated metagame (at the time of writing, it's at the end of the K&C expansion), back in Old Gods and Karazhan Priest is honestly a bit of the underdog and a joke, which is why the release of Purify angered the entire community to lead into one of the swiftest responses and apologies from Blizzard, removing Purify from arena and rethinking their release schedule as to not upset the fans of the current 'bad class'. Purify's honestly useless back in the meta back then, since a 2-mana card draw's just kinda bad, but ended up finding a legitimate usage during Un'Goro with the release of Humongous Razorleaf, forming a legitimate Silence Priest deck. So it's a happy ending for Purify after all!
• Priest of the Feast: 3/5. One of the most solid and most powerful four-drops in the game, and a huge staple for Priest decks during the Year of the Mammoth. A powerful potentially continuous effect, and a very solid body at that? Yeah. 
• Onyx Bishop: 1/5. Interesting effect, but the randomness sort of makes the good Bishop very unreliable and a huge risk. The cute thing was to bring back an un-Injured Blademaster, but that turned out to not be that good, and the resurrect mechanic is essentially revamped with the Big Priest deck which never wants to run Onyx Bishop which would dilute the graveyeard with a weak 3/4 body. 

Rogue:

• Swashburglar: 5/5. The humble Swashburglar was ridiculed when it was first revealed. Essentially the same with Babbling Book, the 'Burgle' mechanic was fun but not necessarily powerful. And a random spell from the enemy's class  isn't as good as a Mage spell... but turns out that a combination of Swashburglar's decent effect and the fact that he's a Pirate made Swashburglar the Rogue equivalent to N'Zoth's First Mate for Rogues, giving value and building a board in the Gadgetzan meta. Of course, back when Karazhan was the newest expansion everyone was doom-saying about the Burgle mechanic being a flop. And it kinda is... but Swashburglar's just that good .
• Deadly Fork: 1/5. Too slow. Never saw play. 
• Ethereal Peddler: 1/5. Likewise, too slow, never saw play, and there's just not that much burgle synergy to really go around to make this that good of a play. 

Shaman:

• Spirit Claws: 5/5 [pre-nerf] 1/5 [post-nerf]. Yep, this motherfucker was the bane of the meta during the Karazhan era. Shaman got a fuck-ton of powerful tools in TGT and Old Gods, and a very powerful Face Shaman ended up being one of the most powerful decks during the Old Gods/Karazhan era, essentially turning the game into "Shaman's Tier 1, everything else is lower". And, as you probably saw in my reviews above... a lot of the good cards for other class didn't see a home in a deck until later expansions. Spirit Claws turns out to work too well with Totems, is a more powerful Fiery War Axe that can come out at turn 1 and just is such a powerful aggro tool. It got nerfed by a full mana point, and never saw play afterwards. 
• Wicked Witchdoctor: 1/5. Never saw play -- the better Violet Teacher never saw play either, so I'm genuinely baffled that they printed this card and thought statline was playable.
• Maelstrom Portal: 5/5. Yet another reason Shaman's so good. It doesn't need the spell damage synergy to be good, but it's so easy for Shaman to land a spell damage totem on the board. Maelstrom Portal deals less damage than Lightning Storm, but it adds an extra body to oppress the board and doesn't overload you. It's easily one of the most powerful early game tools in Shaman's arsenal for sure. Alongside Spirit Claws, Totem Golem, Tunnel Trogg and Flametongue Totem, this is the reason Shaman was so powerful during this era. 

Warlock:

• Malchezaar's Imp: 3/5. Discard Warlock is sort of a joke now, but during Karazhan it actually ended up revitalizing Zoo Warlock. It's not a particularly top-tier deck, but Malchezaar's Imp is easily one of the most powerful catch-up mechanics in that deck, helping you to cycle the cards discarded by your Doomguards and everything. Decent card, shame the discard mechanic never really got itself together, with subsequent expansions not really giving it that much proper tools. 
• Kara Kazham: 1/5. Too slow and edxpensive. Never saw play. 
• Silverware Golem: 3/5. We needed more cards like Silverware Golem to really make Discard Warlock good, honestly. It's a great play -- a Darkshire Councilman on turn 2, summoning a 3/2 that draws a card and a 3/3 Silverware Golem from your hand, and potentially drawing a card from Malchezaar's Imp... and it's great! But as the power levels of the cards increases with new expansions, this sort of discard zoo warlock is just plain unable to catch up. 

Warrior:

• Fool's Bane: 1/5. Too slow and impractical, and can't go face. Never saw play. 
• Ironforge Portal: 3/5. Ironforge Portal saw a fair amount of use in the Control Warrior archetype that was pretty solid during the Old Gods and Karazhan meta, but eventually just got outclassed by other more powerful tools that Warrior receives in subsequent expansions, especially when Pirate Warrior became the de facto warrior deck. 
• Protect the King: 1/5. Funny, but too expensive for what you get, and way too susceptible to Maesltrom Portal and Ravaging Ghoul even if you manage to get it off 

Neutral:

• Moroes: 1/5. Too weak, the effect isn't necessarily that powerful. Also see: Maelstrom Portal.  
• Barnes: 5/5. Six out of five, nowadays. Barnes is a solid "hey, maybe this dude can get some value yuk yuk yuk" multi-purpose turn 4 card in the same way that Loatheb, Sylvanas, Dr. Boom and Ragnaros are just multi-purpose happy times for their mana slots. But it's not until Frozen Throne when the Big Priest archetype really ended up abusing Barnes by summoning cheap 1/1 copies of Y'Shaarj, Lich King, Ysera and Obsidian Statue, killing the copy off and then cheating it back with Eternal Servitude. That's just Big Priest -- some Spell-only Hunters put in Barnes and Y'Shaarj for the potential tempo swing of having a 10/10 by turn 4 would be. And thus Barnes became one of the biggest powerhouses despite his humble effect, and easily the most powerful card to come out of this metagame. 
• Prince Malchezaar: 1/5. Very flashy effects, but the restrictions and the sheer amount of build-around legendaries that might not even fit your deck's playstyle just ends up diluting the hell out of your deck. AMAZING in Arena, though. I got a 12-win run once thanks to a Malchezaar deck. 
• The Curator: 3/5. Never super-powerful, but always a very fun card to build around. It's a versatile card that tutors out cards of a specific tribe, drawing up to three, and its stats isn't that bad thanks to the Taunt it comes with. Curator's never going to win you games, and back in Karazhan people are sort of tunnel-visioned into putting Curator with the other menagerie cards, but in practice it saw the most play in things like Quest Warrior and slower Murloc Paladin, especially when Un'Goro introduces a lot of new beasts and dragons. 
• Medivh, the Guardian: 4/5. Medivh was always around, but was sort of overshadowed by the likes of Ragnaros and other big-name cards. He really came out to be a very solid late-game value generator during the Frozen Throne era, where he's a powerful win-more addition to Jade Druid, synergizing well with Ultimate Infestation and Druid's other expensive cards. And even outside of Jade Druid, Medivh really works well in a fair amount of other decks as well. 
• Arcane Giant: 2/5. Not seen that much currently, but Arcane Giant decks are legitimately powerful in decks that spam a lot of spells like Mage, and was briefly the finisher for Quest Mage until someone perfected the Apprentice/Molten Reflection/Archmage Antonidas combo. 
• Avian Watcher: 1/5. A Secret-synergy card that's just ultimately a slightly-bigger Taunt, and is too weak to find a home anywhere. 
• Book Wyrm: 2/5. Book Wyrm's an interesting tech choice to put into Dragon Priest decks, a Shadow Word: Pain with a decent body, but it honestly gets choked out by other, better dragons that while it's still a legitimate tech card, better dragons would eventually take over Book Wyrm's slot as the mid-game dragon. 
• Moat Lurker: 1/5. Neat effect, but too expensive to make work. 
• Arcane Anomaly: 1/5. Never really saw play -- doesn't do that much, and not even a new elemental tag really helped it out. 
• Runic Egg: 1/5. Never really saw play -- there are lots of better eggs out there. 
• Netherspite Historian: 4/5. A key card in what makes Dragon Priest so powerful. A 2-mana play is very good for Priests, and the ability to choose dragons and potentially discover a late-game bomb or a dragon that's just suitable for your situation is amazing. Hell, it got most Dragon Priest decks to actually cut out things like Deathwing, Ysera and Alexstrasza with the justification of streamlining the deck because you can relatively reliably get big end-game dragons from Historian. 
• Pompous Thespian: 1/5. Haha Thespian. Neat in arena, but never saw play in constructed. 
• Pantry Spider: 1/5. Poor stat distribution, not even aggro hunters and druids want to play this little dude. 
• Violet Illusionist: 1/5. Neat concept, but never actually saw play anywhere in a serious deck. 
• Zoobot: 3/5. Its stats is good enough and it's cheap enough to see play in Token Druid and Murloc Paladin decks. It very rarely hits more than one minion since the murloc-dragon-beast deck didn't really work, but sometimes giving a single murloc or Enchanted Raven a +1/+1 bonus is good enough.
• Arcanosmith: 1/5. Okay in arena, I think, but positively bad and very unwieldy in constructed. 
• Menagerie Magician: 1/5. Unlike Zoobot, the Magician's too expensive and poorly statted to ever see play.