

Academic Espionage: Far scarier, I believe, is the Rogue epic spell, Academic Espionage. How is this not a legendary spell? Academic Espionage is a 4-mana card that shuffles 10 burgled cards into your deck... but they all cost 1. And it's... well, it's random, so that tells me that it's probably going the way of Renounce Darkness. But the fact that the discount is all the way to one mana? Sure, sometimes you get 1-mana Redemptions, Totemic Might and Snap Freezes and you're sad, but are you really that sad when there's also the potential to get 1-mana Tirion Fordrings, Al'Akirs, Pyroblasts, Tyrantuses, Ultimate Infestations and King Krushs? Again, it's probably not quite as stable as your general Miracle Rogue game plan, because sometimes you whiff and you get ten Paladin Secrets or some shit like that. but the off-chance that you actually get something glorious from this is honestly so much fun! There's a lot of fun potential to abuse this even further, honestly. Gadgetzan Auctioneer is the obvious one, but you can get a fun mileage with Myra's Unstable Element, Witchwood Piper, and especially Tess Greymane. So basically you're just hoping for a lot of minions to get the tempo game, play Witchwood Piper to draw the discounted minions, and then replay them with Tess. Again, part of it is random, but you have two of these in your deck, so you can definitely try and try again. And, yes, it is four mana... but maybe you don't play it on turn four. Maybe you just wait to combo this with Preparation, or you wait until the late-game to drop this. I dunno. I don't think it's a particular game breaker, but holy shit it does look like a pretty fun card to play with. Worth noting that if you get a bunch of spells with this, it's extremely countered by Skulking Geist.
Crystology: A paladin spell that, at first glance, looks like a shittier version of Call to Arms or Small-Time Recruits... but it's drawing two one-attack minions from your deck, not one-cost. So like Master Oakheart, sort of. It's a way to specifically tutor for Lynessa Sunsorrow, which admittedly isn't that good. Or you could tutor for the new legendary, Kangor, which... is a bit better, but I also don't think is super good either. I'm not quite sure if there are currently any one-attack minion on Paladin's roster that you really want to tutor, because you're not really itching to just get Stonehill Defenders and Righteous Protectors -- there are far easier ways to just draw into them naturally or to cheap them out. It's not necessarily a bad card, it's just one that I don't think quite has a combo that works for it yet, and probably would feel more like Forge of Souls where the tutor effect is good on paper, but it won't really find a home in a deck.

Eureka: Shamans get Eureka, a six-mana spell that allows them to summon a copy of a random minion from their hand. Wasn't it Priest that was supposed to be the 'clone' spell? Eureka reminds me of old GvG-era card Ancestor's Call, albeit Eureka's two mana cheaper, only summons from your hand instead of both players, and doesn't actually 'spend' the minion in your hand. Everyone's screaming Malygos again, but really, unlike Flobbidinous Floop or Gloop Sprayer, I don't really think that Eureka's good enough to really see meta play. It's too expansive, and I don't think Shamans can really stand to play a mostly-spell list. And even then, spending six mana just doesn't seem to be that practical of a combo-setup to me.

Gloop Sprayer: Speaking of Druid, we get the Gloop Sprayer, a very interesting card! For 8-mana you get 4/4, and you summon a copy of each adjacent minion. Described by many as "Fungalmancer meets Faceless Manipulator", it's actually a pretty damn scary card. You get to summon full copies of two minions on the board -- Malygos! Hadronox! Floop'd versions of those two! Cube! -- and suddenly you get even more game-ending combos and securing just how powerful your late-game is going to be. And you get an extra 4/4 body on top of it all. The only real problem this card has is that it's the definition of a 'win more' card, but honestly, in this mostly-control meta, it's probably one where Druids can actually afford to run Gloop Sprayer. It's a powerful effect, the problem that remains is just to find the right deck for it.

Eternium Rover: And if you think Mech Warrior only gets late-game bombs, Eternium Rover here is an adorable 1-mana 1/3 mech that is just so much better than Warrior's previous 1-mana 1/3 mech, Warbot -- a card I am intimately familiar with thanks to it being part of Warrior's standard starter pack in Dungeon Runs. Eternium Rover has that same statline, but instead of a rather disappointing Enrage effect, Rover here has a variation of Armorsmith's effect, giving you 2 armour any time it takes damage. It's not the most exciting effect, admittedly, but it does help you survive to get to turn 10 and play your Omega Assemblys and your Dr. Boom hero and all sorts of mech shenanigans. Plus, you can magnetize things to Rover, which is probably why this card is actually pretty damn powerful. Definitely a great little buildaround mech, and I am really, really curious to have a look through all the available mechs in this expansion and GvG to see just what utterly wild decks I can build.

The Boomship: Any self-respecting supervillain needs a cool, ominous ship to hover over the heroes as he cackles madly, and Dr. Boom has the Boomship! A 9-mana legendary spell, the Boomship is certainly an interesting spell. It recruits three minions from your hand, and immediately gives them Rush, which is just pretty damn insane! One of the biggest weaknesses of a Recruit Warrior deck is that if you ever draw into your late-game big bombs, they just sit in your hand and you feel bad about not being able to play them. Well, with the Boomship, you can unload three of them in one huge tempo swing, and then they all Rush and slap your enemy's minions. And if that's not appealing enough, Charge supercedes rush, so if you happen to run cards like Charged Devilsaur and Grom Hellscream, you can very well find a way to slam them into your opponent's face as part of an OTK. It's not a particularly stable OTK, admittedly, but I dunno. I feel optimistic about this card, for sure.
Fireworks Tech: Hunter now, and the first card we're talking today is Fireworks Tech, a 2-mana 2/1 minion that buffs a friendly mech with +1/+1. And if it has deathrattle, Fireworks Tech triggers it. I'm not sure if it's that good, though -- it tries a bit too much and wants a bit too much. Admittedly, Hunter does seem to be receiving a fair amount of mechs, and at least some of them have deathrattles... but if you topdeck Fireworks Tech she's just a shitty 2-mana 2/1 and that feels absolutely bad. At the end of the day I'm not sure if you really want to play this over, say, Play Dead or Terrorscale Stalker if you're doing deathrattles. I guess the combined effect might prove to be the thing that makes Fireworks Tech good? Interesting effect, but with the current Hunter mechs (Spider Bomb and I guess Goblin Bomb), I remain unconvinced that Fireworks Tech, at least, is going to be good.

Goblin Bomb: Oh, and just like Stegodon back in Un'Goro, the Goblin Bomb token is actually collectible as a neutral card. I've nothing much to say about this one -- outside of Flark summoning four of these at once, Goblin Bomb isn't necessarily better of a smorcing tool than Leper Gnome, and I think there are a fair bit of better low-mana Mechs for any mech deck.
Missile Launcher: Missile Launcher is another neutral mech, a 6-mana 4/4 with Magnetic and an effect that's basically Baron Geddon, but one damage instead of two. The effect isn't terrible, especially if you're playing a deck that doesn't mind nuking the board (the traditional Warrior with Frothing Berserker, or maybe you magnetize this to Flark's bombs). And Magnetic means that the 4/4 stats tend to charge. But 4/4 for 6 mana is so damn expensive, and I am unconvinced that Missile Launcher's going to actually see any sort of play outside of random card generation.


Shooting Star: Basically a smaller Cone of Cold, Shooting Star is a dirt-cheap 1-mana card that deals 1 damage to three minions that are next to each other. And, of course, this just makes both Arcane Explosion and Cone of Cold look particularly bad, doesn't it? Sure, Shooting Star doesn't freeze, nor does it hit the entire board, but it's a pretty interesting tool to stack up with Spell Damage, as well as trigger any sort of Flamewaker-style effects. Particularly powerful against any Silver Hand Paladin decks that are still running around. It doesn't have the flexibility of hitting face, sadly, which is probably a reason this won't be run quite as much, but it's definitely an interesting, useful spell.
Lots of interesting cards, and I am just quite hyped that we're getting a new expansion in less than a couple of weeks!
No comments:
Post a Comment