The Glass Knight: The Glass Knight is the first Paladin Legendary we're getting in this expansion, and like the Blackhowl Gun Turret... from a flavour standpoint it honestly feels kinda generic. And Glass Knight feels a bit weird because that effect and statline doesn't really feel like they are special or powerful enough to put on a legendary minion. Sure, a 4/3 with Divine Shield with the potential to regain that Divine Shield is powerful. It's sort of comparable to something like Piloted Shredder, maybe? But at the same time, you also need to restore health, which means putting Glass Knight into a deck with all those stuff from Kobolds & Catacombs like Lesser Pearl Spellstone and the Benevolent Djinn, and neither of those ended up panning out. None of the new paladin cards revealed so far heal, and Paladins lose Ragnaros Lightlord, Ivory Knight and Forbidden Healing, some of their best healing cards. I guess they could go for Lifesteal minions? Glass Knight isn't a bad card, it's just a card that I don't think it's ever really going to find a place in current meta decks.Silver Sword: An interesting weapon. Silver Sword is an 8-mana 3/4 weapon that essentially buffs the entire board with +1/+1 every time you attack. And Paladins do love their board-buffs! It's a very late-game weapon, though it's honestly a pretty powerful effect. The problem is whether it's going to be too slow to run in either the Dude Paladin or Murloc Paladin variants, the two most powerful Paladin archetypes at the moment. Dude Paladin does end up being able to slot in Vinecleaver, so maybe they can fit in a Silver Sword as a backup to buff the tokens if they ever run out of Lightfused Stegodons? I dunno. A 3/4 for 8 is definitely crappy, but it's still a weapon that can hit for four times and thusly buff for four times. It's an okay card, I feel, and although I'm not sure whether it'll find a place immediately it's definitely going to be able to help out a deck or two in the future.
Bellringer Sentry: Oh, hey, Mysterious Challenger's smaller, furrier cousin. Bellringer Sentry's a 4-mana 3/4 with the battlecry and deathrattle similar to Mad Scientist, essentially giving two charges of the effect. Both Mad Scientist and Mysterious Challenger have shown how powerful this effect can be, and I do think that Paladin does have a fair amount of decent Secrets they want to play. You do still have to put all the 1-cost cards into your deck, though, and unlike the Challenger, you can't thin your entire deck at once, and rather the secrets are played one by one. As much as people try to hype Bellringer Sentry up, I think we're short a couple of cards for a proper secret paladin deck to pop up in modern standard. After all, right now the only secrets that see play are ones that are generated by Hydrologist.
Worgen Abomination: Great art! Not sure about the effect, though. It's like Baron Geddon and King Mosh had a weird baby. The Abomination is a 7-mana 6/6 that deals 2 damage to all damaged minions, being a shittier Sleep With The Fishes... but it's so expensive, and so situational, that I don't really think that any deck would want to run him over Geddon, and right now Geddon doesn't even see play outside of Elemental synergies. Warriors have enough ways to unleash damage, and Warlocks have the simply better Lord Godfrey. So.
Town Crier: Warriors get the Town Crier, hyped up to be one of the best cards in the expansion... and I agree! A 1-mana 1/2 is decent stats, and you tutor specifically a Rush minion from your deck. And that's really good! Yes, not all the Rush minions are great, but Darius Crowley, Militia Commander and Muck Hunter do look decent, especially if you can guarantee them on demand. Hopefully we'll get a couple more good Rush minions before the expansion is over, but honestly? It's still a pretty powerful effect. It's not even a understatted minion like Howling Commander was from KOTFT, too. It looks good.
Totem Cruncher: Yeah, I'm not feeling this card. Totem Cruncher is an adorable porcupine with a 4-mana 2/3 statline, and it has taunt and will eat all your totems, and gain +2/+2 for each totem destroyed. And someone will silence Totem Cruncher and you'll be sad. Lil' Exorcist never saw play, and while you can definitely muck around with your board to make sure Totem Cruncher gets value, I still don't think it's the sort of huge totem-synergy card in the way that Thing From Below was. Neat design for sure, but I don't think it's good.
Countess Ashmore: Oh man. Oh shit, this card. It's a 7-mana 6/6 that draws three cards. Better than that, it's a minion that tutors three cards. It's like the Curator, except instead of drawing a bunch of tribes, it draws a Rush, Lifesteal and Deathrattle minion. And one of the reasons why Curator sometimes was a bit hard to run is that murlocs tended to be so insular in their synergy that it's hard to fit murlocs into decks that doesn't necessarily plan to run beast or dragon synergy. In contrast, it's way, way easier to fit in Lifesteal, Rush and Deathrattle minions. It's cards, too, which means spells work with the good Countess. And that's a way to draw a bunch of minions to work with Dollmaster Dorian, assuming Dorian can survive a turn.
That said... Countess Ashmore's choices are looking somewhat limited at the moment. There are obviously a lot of powerful deathrattle minions in standard. It's the other two keywords that might give a slight headache. The obvious Lifesteal minions right now are Obsidian Statue, Amethyst Spellstone and maaaybe Chillblade Champion? (Corpsetaker and Leeching Poison 'gains' Lifesteal later on and so doesn't work) There's the neutral Pumpkin Peasant, but I'm not sure you run those. Rush, of course, is mostly found in Warrior and Hunter cards, unless you put in neutral ones -- I think Muck Hunter or Swift Messenger might actually be semi-decent to synergize with Countess Ashmore? We'll have to see the full complement of Witchwood cards to see if we get any new Lifesteal or Rush cards, because right now the classes with great Rush minions doesn't have great Lifesteal minions and vice versa, making Countess Ashmore maybe not that good... but with a bigger card pool? She's definitely going to be extremely powerful somewhere down the line.
Book of Specters: Oh, hey, another card that works well with Dollmaster Dorian! Book of Specters draws you three cards for two mana, which is insanely cheap especially compared to cards like Arcane Intellect and Cabalist's Tome. For two mana, you draw three secrets... but you discard any spells drawn. This means Book of Spells doesn't really work with burn-mage decks, but what it does work is Dollmaster Dorian -- and unlike Countess Ashmore, Book of Specters is cheap enough to feasibly combo with Dorian for a Turn 7 play. More realistically, Book of Specters seems like a great fit for a deck that runs mostly minions -- sort of like a Spiteful Summoner deck. Maybe you run just Pyroblast and Blizzard/Flamestrike in your deck, and then fill the rest with minions? Notably, Book of Specters doesn't discard either Frost Lich Jaina or Aluneth. Maybe you can play sort of a elemental package, which Mages can do somewhat well? Not sure if that's strong enough at the moment. I certainly really like this card. It's a neat deck-building challenge, and a neat little card that serves as a powerful but conditional card. Do like this.
Mossy Horror: Oh, hey, Shadow Word: Horror on a stick! This big mossy Grinch is a neutral Shadow Word: Horror, being a 6-mana 2/7 that essentially casts Shadow Word: Horror. Keep in mind that if you take the Horror effect as costing 4 mana like the spell, then you get a 2-mana 2/7 body... and that's pretty good! The problem is that Shadow Word: Horror itself as a card never saw play before the combo with Pint-Sized Potion, a card that rotates out of standard as well. Sure, Mossy Horror might, in a pinch, serve as a little bomb against things like Zoolock or Aggro Paladin decks, but at turn 6 it arrives when those decks are likely to have done their fancy buffs to make their little tokens have more than 2 attacks, and at that point you should probably run actual AoE's available to your class.
Festeroot Hulk: Festeroot Hulk is... a bit weird. He's a 5-mana 2/7 that gains +1 attack after a friendly minion attacks. He's sort of like a Variation of Darkshire Councilman or Frothing Berseker, except mass-summoning and mass-damaging is a fair bit easier than having fellow minions attack. Especially for a Warrior card. Festeroot Hulk's statline are defensive enough that he's likely to survive after the turn he's summoned, but at the same time unless you drop him into a full board and have your full board attack, and then have your full board attack again next turn... I dunno. It's a nice gimmick, but it doesn't look particularly practical.
Splitting Festeroot: Flavour-wise, this card is good. You get this monstrous two-headed haunted tree monster that has 4/4 stats. And then it splinters into two 2/2's as a deathrattle, and then into two 1/1's. And the 1/1's are even called Woodchips! Adorable, and I love it from a flavour standpoint. From a playability standpoint. Splitting Festeroot is a 8-mana 4/4 and that's such a huge tempo loss. So no. Cute effect, unplayable card.
Tess Greymane: Aw, shit, Rogue legendary! Tess Greymane is an 8-mana 6/6 that replays every card you've played from another class this turn, but with targets chosen randomly. I think it's a better, smaller Yogg-Saron, because you have a huge control over whether you play certain spells you obtain from another class. And one thing that makes Tess better better than Yogg is that she's cheaper and she plays all cards. Which means, yes, minions and potentially hero cards all get replayed when you drop this lady down onto the board. And that 'targets chosen randomly' bit doesn't seem to be that debilitating when you're doing things like summoning minions.
The problem, of course, is the cards that 'Burgle', for lack of a better word to call the mechanic. Currently, the only cards with reliable burgle effects in standard are Hallucination, Lilian Voss and the new cards Blink Fox and Pickpocket; since the previously most powerful ones with this effect -- Shaku, Swashburglar and Undercity Huckster -- are rotating to wild. And even then, I don't really see a deck that combines all those cards together. That said Tess Greymane's effect is interesting enough that someone's probably going to make a decent burgle deck just yet. But maybe it's enough of a shell to make a Tess deck? Worth noting that I still don't think Spectral Cutlass is good enough to play in a Tess Greymane deck, and you'll still probably run Obsidian Shard over that.
Blink Fox: Blink Fox is a simple card. It's a bigger 3-mana version of Swashburglar, except it's a beast. And it's going to be about as good as Swashburglar, which means that more streamlined Miracle or Kingsbane decks won't ever want Blink Fox, but Tempo ones would probably run it. Not much to say about Blink Fox -- it's perfectly decent, but whether it will see a place in decks depends on how viable cards like Tess Greymane are.
Archmage Arugal: The evil Archmage Arugal is Mage's second legendary card, the 'serious' legendary to offset Toki's more meme-y status. Arugal is a 2-mana 2/2 with Chromaggus's effect, but only for minions. Thank god, because doubling Frostbolts and Fireballs are a wee bit too powerful. And while Chromaggus wasn't played that much, it's also a very slow 8-mana 6/8, whereas Arugal is a cheaper, more well-statted 2-mana 2/2. You could play Arugal in the same turn with either Coutness Ashmore or Book of Specters, all of which likely draws you minions, and as long as your hand has enough space that's a lot of value generation. It's a good card, and if you can time it just right to draw your Sorcerer's Apprentices it might actually be pretty scary. Overall, a perfectly good card for combo decks... the problem is whether a combo that can utilize Arugal exists just yet.
Bonfire Elemental: A very solid Elemental card for elemental mage decks, which honestly haven't been on the cusp of being good. Bonfire Elemental is a 5-mana 5/5 that, if you played an elemental in the previous turn, you get to draw a card. You can relatively reliably get Servant of Kalimos, another 5-mana "if you played an elemental in the previous turn" card, to go off, so Bonfire Elemental's definitely around that same ballpark. Drawing a card, I feel, is far more powerful than discovering an elemental where you sometimes just whiff badly, so yeah. The only real problem is whether a Mage Elemental deck will actually work, and at the moment I really don't see it being more powerful than Control or Big-Spell mages.
Arcane Keysmith: Oh man, I do not look forward to meeting this bitch in wild. Arcane Keysmmith came out one expansion too late to have fun with all the mage secret synergy since Ice Block, Kabal Crystal Runner and Medivh's Valet are moving into wild, but god damn! Imagine if she was around during the previous expansion. Keysmith is a 4-mana 2/2 that discovers a secret and plays it for free, and that's pretty insane tempo -- you don't even spend a secret from your deck. And while she's still a good card, I don't really see her being that good. She could be a way to generate secrets in that aforementioned Arugal/Book of Specters big spell mage? I dunno about her place in standard. But she's a pretty neatly designed card, I think.
Witchwood Piper: Witchwood Piper's an interesting card. She's a 4-mana 3/3 that draws a card -- specifically, the lowest-costing minion in your deck. It's another part of a 'draw a minion' puzzle that involves the likes of Arugal, Book of Specters, Dollmaster Dorian and Countess Ashmore, and I'm genuinely interested how many other tools we're getting in the expansion. A 4-mana 3/3 that draws a specific card isn't the worst out there, and she might be a way to guarantee a combo piece. Maybe part of Quest Mage? It's interesting. Maybe you put her in a spell-heavy deck with a couple of specific combo minions? A very interesting card, even if I can't really think up of a specific usage for her right now.Druid of the Scythe: Druid of the Scythe is a druid 3-mana card that either becomes a 4/2 rush or a 2/4 taunt, both of which are beasts. It's a pretty standard druid of the X card that we've all come to somewhat expect to pop up every expansion, and... and it's pretty solid, I guess? The taunt version is essentially a shittier Tar Creeper, but sometimes you kind of need the taunt, whereas a 3-mana rush with 4 is... okay. Druid of the Scythe feels more of an 'okay' card to me, something you are happy to get in arena and not one that I think would ever be bad in a deck, but I also feel there are a lot of better cards out there for druid to use.
Bewitched Guardian: An... interesting card, I guess? The Bewitched Guardian is a 5-mana 4/1 with taunt that gains health depending on the cards you have in your hand. It's essentially a bigger Twilight Drake, but with Taunt, and... I don't think you really run this card even in hand druid (which I still am ambivalent about). Druids have access to a better taunt, I think, in Druid of the Claw. Maybe you run both? I guess? Not very excited about this one.Ferocious Howl: Another druid card. You draw a card for 3 mana, and then gain armour for every card in your hand. Again, another hand-druid card and not a bad one, this time around. The card draw's really important and I'm glad they included it, whereas gaining armour means that this is essentially a version of Oaken Summons that instead of recruiting a minion, you draw a card. And maybe you don't want to recruit a minion in exchange for far more armour. It's not the best card, I think, but I said the same thing about Oaken Summons and that card ended up being playable, so I can definitely see Ferocious Howl being playable.
Paragon of Light: A paladin minion, Paragon of Light is a 3-mana 2/5 with Taunt and Lifesteal if it has 3 or more attack... and I'm not sure if she's ever going to work. Meanstreet Marshall was another card from paladin who has an upside if you increase his attack by just one, and while it's a far better play to buff a more stable 2/5 minion as opposed to wasting it on a 1/2, and there certainly are ways to do that with cards like Fungalmancer, I'm not sure Paragon of Light has a particular place in the very aggro-centric paladin decks we have at the moment.
No comments:
Post a Comment