The Walking Dead S04E13 Review: Coincidence

The Walking Dead, Season 4, Episode 13: Alone

Welp, while I really liked the previous episode, this one doesn't feel anywhere as good as that. It really feels like a step in the way as the show tries to get a good chunk of its scattered cast all gathering at this Terminus place. 

A good chunk of why this episode felt particularly weak is the Maggie/Sasha/Bob storyline where the three of them split up because Sasha doesn't want to go to Terminus while Maggie thinks that Glenn would've gone to Terminus. All the while, Sasha's not-boyfriend Bob (were the two of them ever shown doing anything at all before? Can't remember) is super convinced that sticking together with Maggie is the right thing to do. All well and good, but did you need to take the entire episode to do that? Did Bob need to have that opening flashback? Also the sheer amount of coincidences is just honestly dumb. So Sasha happens to shack up in a building that's right next to where Maggie was sleeping, and happens to look out of the window just as zombies arrive to assault Maggie? And the two of them just happen to stumble upon Bob? It's honestly just kind of dumb, and all that for what? Just to get them on the way to Terminus? Why not just have them not disagree in the first place? It's a weird writing decision because none of the three actually get any sort of character development beyond 'oh no we have to stick together'. Bob and Sasha are still 'nice person' ciphers and Maggie has a one-track 'find Glenn' mind. 

So yeah, despite the very strong character moments for Michonne, Carl, Beth and Daryl over the past three or four episodes, this episode fails to do anything remotely approaching that for Team Maggie.

Daryl and Beth go through more of the same thing that they did last episode, only this time we don't really get much of a payoff. Daryl gets his faith in humanity restored, only to be seemingly abandoned by Beth, and this causes him to go on another emo bend until he apparently threw his lot in after being found by the same crew of jackasses that fought Rick two episodes ago. Come on, Daryl, you know Beth's probably not alone in that car -- you guys spent like five minutes noting how there were people hanging around your hideout until very recently, are you that genre blind?

Overall, a pretty weak episode. 

Superman TAS S01E06 Review: Enter the Parasite

Superman, Season 1, Episode 6: Feeding Time

Honesty time, Parasite is probably my favourite major recurring Superman villains. Discounting the amazingness of Luthor and Brainiac, I've always had a fondness for Parasite. I'm not sure why. Maybe it was his design -- purple skin with silver straps all over, and an extra lamprey-leech mouth in the modern comics. Maybe it was his tragic backstory. Maybe it was his cool powers. Maybe it was that one Hero-Clix figure I own as a kid and I liked very much because it's the only character I recognize from my meager collection.

But whatever the case, this episode brings us Parasite, and short of his brief moments of Kryptonite weakness, this is when Superman is actually put through the wringer. In the pilot Superman was able to more or less hold his own, and against the Toyman he was never truly in danger. Here? The Parasite is a bona fide powered human himself, and the Parasite's powers allows him to not only drain someone's powers, it also leaves Superman powerless temporarily... but more scarily, it also allows the Parasite to 'download' people's minds. Nothing is scarier than Clark hanging out in the safety of his apartment only for the Parasite to break the sanctity of a superhero's civilian identity and jump him, tying him up in a basement and feeding off of him periodically. Add that to various scenes of a powerless Clark just looking sick and miserable while other people talk about putting their faith in Superman is also well-done, making the scene when the heroic music swells as he tells Perry how Superman is 'probably going to come back' only for the Parasite to jump Clark and beat the shit out of him. 

The Parasite's just so awesome, and unlike the Toyman (whose origin story is told briefly through a book), we actually see the Parasite's origin story unfold on-screen. He's a pathetic janitor who ends up getting doused with some science-y chemicals, and transforms into a hideous purple creature that drains other living things, like mice and that unfortunate patrolwoman and Superman himself, to survive. The conflict with his partner in crime, Martin, isn't necessary but adds extra depth to Parasite being bullied pre-transformation and becoming the bully post-transformation. 

We also get some nice continuity bits with the previous episode, with Hamilton helping Superman to develop a lead anti-Kryptonite suit, which ends up helping Superman defeat the Parasite. That final conflict was pretty cool, too, and seeing Parasite drain too much Kryptonite and overload himself, being locked as a vegetable, before gaining a brief bit of sentience when he drains a passing cockroach, is well done. 

Oh, and I guess I have to mention that this is the first of the many Jimmy Olsen centric episodes here. He's... all right. I remembered him being very annoying back when I was a kid, but here he's just... well, he's Jimmy. A little irritating, a little over-eager, but honestly just a sidekick who wants to help. I can't really hate him for that -- he's mostly just bland. 

Overall, the Jimmy stuff is a little weak, and I thought the pacing of the episode could be framed better, but I really liked Parasite's origin story. Well, mostly I just like Parasite, but the episode's also relatively decent.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Parasite, real name Rudy Jones, is based on the Superman villain of the same name, and his transformation into the Parasite is more or less identical to his post-crisis origin story, though some versions of his backstory had Darkseid or Luthor be behind his transformation into the Parasite. There were other versions of the Parasite in DC comics' history (Raymond Jensen, the pre-Crisis Parasite who was retconned out of existence during the Crisis; dr. Torval Freeman, a scientist absorbed by Rudy Jones but was able to retain his ego; Alex and Alexandra Allston, a pair of twins who were transformed by the villain Ruin as new Parasites after Rudy Jones's presumed death; Joshua Allen, the New 52 Parasite, who was transformed due to an alien creature) but Rudy Jones is by far the most iconic. 

Superman TAS S01E05 Review: To Kill The Man of Tomorrow

Superman: The Animated Series, Season 1, Episode 5: A Little Piece of Home

It's another villain-of-the-week episode, and this time around Lex Luthor takes central stage. Luthor in Superman: TAS is unique in that we don't actually see the man brought down and arrested until Justice League, at least not to my knowledge, so he spends a good chunk of these episodes orchestrating events and getting away relatively without getting put into jail himself, which is interesting -- it sets up some kind of a status quo for the show, keeping Luthor's threat as this untouchable public figure while also letting him tangle with Superman.

The episode also features, more importantly, the debut of Superman's greatest nemesis -- Kryptonite, the titluar pieces of home. An attempt to foil a robbery by the honestly pathetic Caroli brothers turns into Superman struggling to walk as he gets near Kryptonite -- something Luthor catches on to and quickly weaponises. In a memorable scene from when I watched this episode from my childhood, Luthor contracts the hired gun named Joey (and Mercy totally emasculates him by kicking that beanbag -- I love Mercy) who then menaces Superman with a jetpack and leads him to Kryptonite.

Then begins a nice game of cat-and-mouse as the forces of Superman, Lois Lane and Professor Hamilton of STAR Labs (also low-key sneaking in Hamilton and the Labs, quickly establishing them as trustworthy allies), as well as Luthor's forces. There's also some nice bits of showing Clark Kent's attempts to hide his weakness to the sliver of Kryptonite that Lois has.

Again, Luthor tries to make a deal with Superman, who naturally refuses to cooperate, and this really shows a great deal about Luthor. Yes, Superman is doing the hero things we expect him to do and admire him for doing, but Luthor's a more complex beast. It's not enough to kill Superman, though that's not unwelcome -- he wants Superman to bend down to him, more than anything, and that's what makes Luthor's motivations so interesting.

Also, in a moment that went over my head when I watched this episode as a kid (which I remember mostly for the Mercy scene), Luthor catches on to Peterson colluding with Lois Lane and STAR labs, and the last we see of Peterson is Luthor closing the door and telling Peterson that Mercy will totally give him a ride home and 'deal' with him, while the man looks absolutely scared. The scary thing about this isn't the death threat, it's the implicit undertones that it's actually done. We never see Peterson again after this, there's no real way out for him from the situation and even if Superman could arrive fast enough, he's not even aware of what's happening. For a show that spent its previous episode dealing with Toyman and his giant duck, I'm genuinely surprised at how dark it gets in this episode.

And then we have Superman fighting a giant robot dinosaur that Lex controls via an old-timey SNES controller, while Lois Lane plays basketball with Kryptonite and a lead cup, and all is well with the world. Unless you're poor Peterson.

But while, once more, Luthor's actions cannot be tied back to him (though, I dunno, a giant dinosaur robot of death in his museum that moonlights as a display must be hard to explain) we get to see the final shot of the episode -- Luthor's men combing the Earth for more Kryptonite. He's found out how to hurt Superman, and while he has prevailed this day, it's not long before Luthor pulls off something scary. Maybe he'll make the Kryptonite not removable from his next robot. Eh? Eh?

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• First appearances of Emil Hamilton and Mercy Graves. Mercy, Luthor's bodyguard-chauffeur, is a character created from the show and later imported into mainstream comics similar to Harley Quinn and Rene Montoya. Professor Hamilton first appeared in the 80's, initially as a villain before becoming one of Superman's allies and a major character in STAR Labs. 
• Also the first acknowledged appearance of Superman's weakness of Kryptonite, though hardly will be the last. 

Hearthstone: Frozen Throne Reviews, Part 3

I waited a little longer this time aroudn in order to try and get these articles to be less spammy in my blog -- less frequent and with more cards within.

Snowflipper Penguin
So, there's a bit of a reveal stream a couple of days ago, and we start off that particular reveal with this adorable but very underwhelming card. The Snowflipper Penguin is basically the beast vesrion of the Murloc Tinyfin, an adorable baby that's a 0-mana 1/1. But it's a beast. It's definitely not going to be played, no way no how, unless they release a Anyfin-esque card for beasts (and even then it's hard to see him being picked over something like Alley Cat). The Penguin's biggest importance is then to act as a mini-nerf to cards that generate beasts like Jeweled Macaw, as was what Murloc Tinyfin did to Murloc Knight back in the day. It's also a 0-mana buff to anything created by Deathstalker Rexxar's Build-a-Beast hero power, which is pretty cool but not super-duper-relevant. Still, better a cute penguin than yet another worgen greaser, right?

Shadowblade
The Shadowblade is the first proper Rogue weapon we've gotten in years. Like, yeah, Obsidian Shard was a thing but did anyone ever play that? The jury's still out on whether Shadowblade's going to be great. On paper it's decent. 3-mana for Fiery War Axe stats with an additional effect is pretty fair, I think, and being immune for a single turn is definitely a pretty significant effect. Suddenly Envenom Weapon and Leeching Poison isn't going to deal damage to your hero when you clear a minion. Envenoming this on the first turn allows you to basically have a free removal... but then is it what you really want, when Rogues already have access to Vinespine Slayer and Assassinate? The Leeching Poison application is decent enough, but there's not enough cards in Rogue to benefit from the single-turn immunity, I feel. My verdict is that the card's a wait-and-see deal

Defile
Defile is our first Warlock spell, based on the Lich King's iconic ability in the final battle atop the Icecrown Citadel. In Hearthstone, Defile's a very, very interesting card. For 2 mana, Defile deals 1 damage to all minions, and if any die you unleash Defile again. So it basically gets rid of an opposing Warlock's Possessed Villager. It's going to have some really interesting setups with Spell Damage minions such as Thalnos and the Kobold Geomancer because it's going to be dealing 2 damage and then 1 continually. In wild I can actually see the genesis of a Patron Warlock deck with this card. Is it going to be an auto include? Perhaps not, but it's certainly a very interesting effect that's going to have multiple interesting interactions with things like the eggs and other deathrattle minions. Like Fatespinner in the last batch, Defile's a card with a very interesting effect that actually requires you to think hard about how advantageous it is to unleash it upon the board at that time. I've never been bothered by the amount of RNG in Hearthstone, but I equally embrace the addition of these smarter cards, so to speak.

Cryostasis
Cryostasis is a card that, on first glance, looks bad. It either has a brief interaction with Moorabi, otherwise it's this weird combination of a mini-Blessing of Kings and a Freeze effect. Which is just weird. But it's not as bad as some of the other cards in this set, I believe? Certainly not as bad as poor Icebreaker. Cryostasis can be cast on either an enemy minion or a friendly one. Obviously at the moment the only real non-Moorabi advantage with freezing an enemy minion is using Ice Breaker on it, which is stupid for two reasons -- you're putting Ice Breaker in your deck, and you're allowing three extra damage to be dealt to your face. Why not just hex the fucker? Yes, Moorabi-ing an Antonidas or Ragnaros Lightlord is amazing, but also, do you really want to give them a free +3/+3 buff? And if you use it on your own minion, you're going to have it miss an attack. Unless, of course, you're going to buff like a Mana Tide Totem or something which won't attack anyway so you're not missing a ton, and a 2-mana +3/+3 buff over two turns isn't the most horrible thing ever. And also, the way Freeze works is that the minion will skip its next attack, so freezing a minion before it attacks means that it'll un-freeze by the next turn, which isn't as bad as what Cryostasis initially was in my mind. But at the same time, unless we get some more powerful Freeze synergies, I don't see Cryostasis working out particularly well. Woe betide you if you decide to play a Cryostasis-self-buff Shaman, and you're facing a Freeze Mage with Chillwraiths and shit.


Moorabi
More trolls yay! I do hope we get a troll-themed expansion some time down the line. Moorabi has the continuous effect of adding a copy of any frozen minion into your hand, so cards like Voodoo Hexxer, Cryostasis, Frost Elemental, Glacial Shard and Frost Shock's going to basically be turned into free versions of Convert. What's Convert? Do you even remember Convert? It's that 2-mana spell that Priest had in... GvG? TGT? One of those. It's an interesting effect, and, yes, you might be able to get free copies of Antonidases, Ragnaroses, C'Thuns or whatever, but at the same time Moorabi has the laughably weak 6-mana 4/4 statline. Remember another Shaman elemental with such a weak statline? The Mistcaller. Who saw nearly no play, despite a theoretically powerful effect. Mind you, I tried like hell to make Mistcaller work -- I got two of the fucker from packs! And while like, one game out of three the Mistcaller gets some awesome value, the negative tempo from playing a 4/4 at turn 6 is just so punishing. Moorabi's part of a combo piece and not a 'drop and have his awesome battlecry activate' like Mistcaller, so I kind of feel like he's worse than Mistcaller? He's not a horrible effect, and a pretty cool-designed card, and admittedly making him any stronger would make him way too insane. I like my unplayable cards to at least be interesting like Moorabi and Mistcaller and not just poopy like Ticking Abomination.


Eternal Servitude
Huh. This one actually looks great as a late-game card. It's Resurrect, basically, but you can discover the minion you want to resurrect, suddenly making it insanely more powerful. It also costs double. Is two extra mana worth it for the choice of which minion to instantly bring into the field? I'd argue yes. Eternal Servitude (which in itself is a pretty cool concept, by the way, and fits well to the nightmare-eternally-screaming-shadow-wraith Anduin theme) is not going to be played on curve, but I can definitely see a spot for the spell in Quest Priest decks. Shit, now I really, really feel the need to craft the Priest Quest. Eternal Servitude seems good, but not crazy-good. Not much else I think needs to be said about it.


Doomed Apprentice
Doomed Apprentice is, well, Sorcerer's Apprentice's evil twin. She's has the exactly same statline, costs one mana more, and gives a reverse-discount of spells to your opponent. It's comparable to Nerubian Unraveler, but whereas the Unraveler might have some value in shutting down Miracle-Rogue combos or Quest Mage combos due to the not-insignificant 5 health and 2-mana price increase, Doomed Apprentice is so much more fragile, and the 1 extra cost doesn't feel like it's going to impact as much. A lot of talk is made about how Nerubian Unraveler isn't going to have anywhere as much of an impact to Loatheb's insane 5-mana price jack (and also the effect still staying for the turn no matter what), but at least the Unraveler seems semi-decent. Doomed Apprentice just seems... doomed either way due to her shit stats and marginal effect.


Prince Valanar
Out of the three princes, Valanar might be my least favourite. I mean, Taldaram felt pretty bad, what with being a cheaper Faceless Manipulator with fixed stats, but Valanar basically becomes a 4/4 version of Wickerflame Burnbristle if you eliminate all 4-cost cards from your deck. Granted, a 4/4 Wickerflame for 4 mana is amazing, but is it worth the price that Valanar asks? I can kind of see Valanar working in weird janky decks like the Quest Hunter, Zoo Warlock or Quest Rogue, or even Miracle Rogue (although you'll have to take Sherazin out, Valanar's capacity to heal maaaaybe ofsets it?). The thing is that Valanar isn't super-strong in of himself even if his effect gets triggered, and I'm honestly just frowning at this card and going 'eh, moving on'. Like, it's a cool effort to make a 2-mana 2/2, 3-mana 3/3 and 4-mana 4/4 that gains an effect if the deck's build to eliminate their specific number, but at the same time, jeez, their effects are just so... m'eh that I'm not even sure how to react beyond slight apathy. Like, yeah, sure, you could put in all three in a Quest Hunter deck and try to make that work, but none of them other than Keleseth will actually make the deck stronger.


Dead Man's Hand
Dead  Man's Hand is interesting, but ultimately I think is either going to be super-amazing and meta-defining... or a complete flop.  For 2 mana, you shuffle a copy of your hand into your deck. If you shuffle your second Dead Man's Hand into your deck, you potentially chain into infinite cards to prevent fatigue and give those Jade Druids a huge bird flip. The concept of reusing cards like, say, getting extra Brawls, Shield Blocks and whatnot is pretty cool, and the anti-fatigue utility is definitely the card's strongest suit. Control Warrior hasn't really been the same since Elise Starseeker rotated into wild and Jade Druid took the spootlight as Hearthstone's premier fatigue-war deck, and this could actually work very well for a replacement for Elise. Again, though, it requires a fair bit more setup than Jade Idol's automatic self-recycling, and if Gang Up is anything to go by, sometimes you'll find it hard to spend 2 mana to basically do something that'll only give you value in the long long run. Not a bad card by any means, though, it just needs to find a proper home.

Spreading Plague
Remember Unleash the Taunts Protect the King from karazhan? Well, Druids get a version of it, because Druids are all about the Taunt in this expansion apparently. Spreading Plague, in addition to having an awesome artwork, is a 5-mana card that summons a 1/5 Scarab with Taunt, and repeats it until you have the same number of minions as your opponent. This is important because unlike Unleash the Hounds or Protect the King, you can't suddenly have a mega-advantage over your opponent by summoning an equal number of tokens. But Spreading Plague is just great, right? A 1/5 Scarab with Taunt is basically a better Silverback Patriarch (the scarab's presumably a beast, considering the scarab summoned by Obsidian Destroyer), and 5 health is the same amount of health that one of the most popular early-game taunts, Tar Creeper, has. It gives you a crap-ton of tokens to play with whether with Mark of the Lotus or Savage Roar, although I don't think this will fit in the current iteration of Token Druid considering Spreading Plague favours you having a more losing board. It's going to put a gigantic wall in front of any Pirate Warrior deck, though. And while I'm not sure if I want Hadronox to be summoning 1/5 Scarabs instead of Dark Arakkoas and Twin Emperors, Spreading Plague seems good enough that I think it'll see play nonetheless. 1/5 Taunts are far, far better than the 1/1 Taunts that Protect the King summons in that they'll actually resist a lot of removals (Shadow Word: Horror notwithstanding) and actually buy you a turn.


Frost Lich Jaina
Our second hero! Frost Lich Jaina's card has been leaked since like last week, but not her hero power. The hero power she gets? Basically the 2-mana deal 1 damage, but like Bane of Doom, if she kills a minion with the hero power, she's going to summon a Water Elemental. Frost Lich Jaina has one of the most awesome artworks in the set (though the Frost Lich Jaina art in both promotional key arts and the trailers are all pretty boss as well) and it's a shame that she doesn't look super-awesome. Though I might be proven wrong -- she's certainly a card that looks a little bit weird. She comes down at a whooping 9 mana, which is far, far more than Deathstalker Rexxar. And unlike Deathstalker Rexxar, Jaina doesn't actually clear the board. Sure, she gets 5 armour, but all she does is summon a free Water Elemental and swap hero powers. The combination of the new hero power and the fact that all her elementals will have lifesteal permanently throughout the game makes Frost Lich Jaina a pretty hard-to-kill hero, though. I'm not sure if she actually needs an Elemental deck to play though it's going to understandably be better. The Water Elementals Jaina can summon indefinitely doesn't activate your Blazecallers and Servants, sure, but those cards can still be played independently and they'll still have Lifesteal. It's a different type of unkillable mage,  where instead of relying on Ice Blocks and Reno turns, Jaina's survivability is going to be based mostly on having her unstoppable army of Water Elementals freeze, trade and heal her up. The thing is whether Jaina's going to be able to actually use her hero power effectively, because your opponent is sure as hell not going to leave 1-health minion hanging around for you to kill. Which is where Sindragosa suddenly looks better, because Jaina's hero power will still trigger upon killing your own minions. Suddenly if Frost Lich Jaina's already activated, summoning Sindragosa ends up being a 10-turn play where you summon an 8/8 Sindragosa, kill one of the Frozen champions to summon a 3/6 Frost Elemental with Lifesteal, draw a free random legendary out of thin air, and have another Frozen Champion for next turn's hero power ping. Again, though, it looks like a long, control game and I'm not quite sure if the Frost Lich Jaina deck is going to emerge, but it certainly looks fun. We'll see.

Ice Walker
Oh man, this card. The Ice Walker's got sub-par stats, a 2-mana 1/3, but he's an Elemental in Mage (and I just spent a paragraph talking about how Elemental Mage might be super awesome). 2 mana is easy enough to slot into turns before you drop your Servants of Kalimos or Blazecallers, and the Walker is a minion with a continuous effect -- Jaina's hero power now freezes the target! Historically in TGT cards that passively affect the hero power hasn't been played that much -- cards like Fallen Hero, Coldarra Drake and a majority of the Inspire minions don't see play outside of Arena, but the combination of the Elemental synergy and the fact that Ice Walker's going to help to slow down the enemy to reach that insane Frost Lich Jaina turn means that Ice Walker certainly has potential -- moreso than stuff like Doomed Apprentice. I'm not saying that this is the new Pyros or Arcanologist, but it certainly seems like a decent enough card to see constructed play.


Meat Wagon
(Warcraft III references makes me happy!) Holy shit, a Mech! I thought those things were extinct. The last one we got was, what, that crappy burgle-bot from Gadgetzan? Meat Wagon's statted identically to fellow Warcraft III siege engine Demolisher, with 1/4 stats. It costs 4 mana, though, and as a deathrattle, it summons a minion with less attack than this minion. Which... which sounds horrible, to be honest. Sure, you can buff Meat Wagon up with Abusive Sergeant or Grimy Goons hand-buffs, but at the same time the unpredictability and generally weird and inconsistent setup means that I don't really see Meat Wagon being played at all. It's cute, though, and maybe there's a way to ensure that the Meat Wagon always summons like a 0-attack minion? Shaman's Mana Tide, Primalfin and Flametongue Totems are the only things I can think up of that fit this role, and Shamans kind of aren't hurting for options in their 30-card pool. The awesome rap that the reveal came with by J4ckie Chan suggests eggs, Validated Doomsayer and Lightspawn as possibilities, but again, not particularly amazing -- you'll probably want cards that's going to synergize well with the eggs or the Elementals in the first place and not the inconsistency of Meat Wagon. So unless some particularly awesome Mech deck in Wild can think up of something, poor Meat Wagon's just going to be a pretty sub-par, rarely-used epic. It's an interesting card that makes you really think of the amount of stuff you could do with it, though -- and if nothing else, you get to listen to a fun rap.


Necrotic Geist
The Necrotic Geist would be awesome if only it had better stats. The effect is similar to cards like Cult Master or Flesheating Ghoul, arguably better because the Geist puts a 2/2 token into the field immediately. Except its stats are absolutely pitiful at 5/3. Like the only real proper use I can see Necrotic Geist in is in a combo with Unleash the Hounds, but that's like a 9-mana combo for, what, a 5/3 and a board full of 2/2's? I'd rather play Call of the Wild, thank you very much. That said, though, the Necrotic Geist might, might see play in some token decks, but I highly doubt it. I do like his very undead-themed effect, though, and I kind of feel that if you're going to print filler cards, at least have them be like Necrotic Geist or Meat Wagon where they have relatively weird and unique effects and not just... y'know, bad cards like Ticking Abomination or Ice Breaker.


Cobalt Scalebane
Oooh ooooh ooooh new dragon! I've been playing a lot of Dragon Priest in Wild lately, and while Dragon Priest do already have an insanely powerful five-mana dragon, the addition of Cobalt Scalebane into the pool of cards that Netherspite Historian can discover is certainly welcome. The Cobalt Scalebane is like the old Master Swordsmith on steroids, where it gives a random friendly minion the very unsignificant +3 attack at the end of each turn. And the Scalebane has the pretty awesome statline of 5/5 for 5 mana, and he's a dragon, which means dragon synergy and Curator synergy. The Scalebane is just amazing, especially in Arena. Like, I'm not sure if constructed decks can actually make a spot for him, but he's certainly an interesting option to be slotted into board-centric decks or decks that feature the Curator in general. Definitely liking this card. Definitely will be trying to put him into all my Wild dragon decks, although honestly the biggest problem is that it competes with Azure Drake and Drakonid Operative for the 5-mana spot, and with that in consideration Scalebane might find it hard to find a home.

Gnomeferatu

Holy hell, what the fuck is this card! She has 2/3 vanilla stats, which is awesome enough, but she... removes a card from your opponent's deck? Seems like they realize that discarding your own cards is annoying and self-destructive half the time, so Warlocks now decide to discard their opponent's cards! It's obviously not as powerful as it initially seems, but the fact that Blizzard is printing cards that are disruptive to the opponent's hand or deck is actually pretty surprising considering their staunch stance on not doing such a thing. In any case, Gnomeferatu's effect is pretty tame, discarding a single card -- that's like milling them a card, and it's an effect that'll only happen twice throughout the game. It's also not an effect that's great against all decks, with it not mattering that much against aggro decks, but if you burn a Brawl? A Shadow Word?  A Twisting Nether? An Elise? Fandral? Ragnaros? Lord Jaraxxus? Lyra? And we're not even talking about big deck-clinching cards like Alexstrasza, Ice Block, Gadgetzan Auctioneer, Archmage Antonidas, and stuff like that. Some decks can survive having a couple of their cards get burned, but combo decks? Moreso than Dirty Rat (which always felt more like a risky play) the Gnomeferatu seems like a properly awesome anti-combo card. She's not as game-breaking as many people think she is, because against non-combo decks her effect might as well as read 'put the topmost card onto the bottom of the deck', but against combo decks? It's going to have, like, a 1/20, or 4/20 chance of discarding a combo piece, otherwise she's just a River Crocolisk. That's not to say that she's bad, but Gnomeferatu isn't as ultra-OP or consistent as she initially seems to be. She's definitely okay, though.

The Walking Dead S04E12 Review: Drinking Game

The Walking Dead, Season 4, Episode 12: Still

It's another bottle episode, focusing on Beth and Daryl's little misadventures without any stopping elsewhere, and for a moment I thought I was going to rant about what an annoying little shit Beth is, and how Daryl's gone from the interesting badass to an emo angry douche. But turns out that while the first... oh, twenty to twenty-five minutes of the episode is just following them doing generic survival things, creepy shit (how creepy are those zombies still hanging from their nooses?), Daryl rescuing Beth from stuff, playing 'have you or haven't you' games and talking about 'oh no we should survive' and stuff like that it turns out that they're both dealing with grief in their own way, and the confrontation with Daryl making such a huge ruckus and kind of forcing Beth to learn crossbowing is very raw and emotional. Helps that the rest of the episode ends up building up to the fact that the house they're shacking in is actually Daryl's old house. 

So Beth is just trying to keep up hope and distract herself from so much of the pain and death that had happened, trying to believe that they should be good people because what's the point of suffering and all that if they haven't? Meanwhile, Daryl feels responsible. If he had been stronger, if he had hunted down the Governor more aggressively, if he had shot the Governor before he hacked Hershel's head off... stuff like that. But at the same time, Beth is far more willing to let go of the past and just move on, because she knows there's no sense to wallow in the past, whereas Daryl is trapped in so much horrors both recent and past. What I get from his story is that the zombie apocalypse turned Daryl from a junkie without a purpose (who nearly got himself killed over an argument about a cartoon at one point) into one of the most badass members of their little group... only to absolutely fail at actually doing his job at being the badass guardian. 

It's probably a bit too slow of an episode for my liking, but the contrast between Beth's forced optimism and Daryl's cynical self-loathing is very well-done, and the two of them play off each other well. I'm not sure if the show's trying for the shipping route or not, but that final scene with them burning down Daryl's asshat father's house and flipping it off is pretty awesome. At the end of the episode both characters have grown somewhat, in a way that doesn't feel really unnatural. Beth grew somewhat stronger as being around Daryl has caused her to become more independent, while Daryl gets through his emo phase. 

So yeah, an episode that starts out very weak, but ends up actually making use of the weaker first half to make the last ten to fifteen minutes of the episode an absolute delight of character development. A filler episode that actually felt like one of the stronger entries in this season, which is not a thing I can say often about the Walking Dead.  

Superman TAS S01E04 Review: Dolls, Ducks and Gangsters

Superman: the Animated Series,  Season 1, Episode 4: Fun and Games

So this episode is your typical bad guy guest star episode, which was the norm for cartoons of the period. We get the first colourful villain of the series, the iconic villain Toyman. Or rather, the DCAU's absolutely sinister portrayal of the dude. The DCAU has never been a stranger of reinventing characters when it needs to (see: Mr. Freeze, Brainiac, the Question and many others) and its interpretation of the Toyman as a sociopathic manchild dressed up in an always-grinning porcelain doll is horrifyingly eerie. Because, jeez, look at that unblinking, creepy-ass grin. 

The plotline is really rather simple. Toyman's rampage is fueled by a hatred of vengeance towards the dirty politician Bruno Mannheim, who dabbles in gangster robberies on the sidelines. Lois's article on the psychiatric analysis of Toyman causes the man to kidnap Lois, and after dressing her up like a doll, Toyman basically wants Lois to write a flattering article about his assassination of Bruno Mannheim. There's the strange suspension of disbelief on how the son of a washed-out toymaker is able to get enough resources to create an unbreakable asphyxiation gel, a super-powerful bouncy ball, automated robot planes and a gigantic robot duck, but it's not something that distracts too much from the admittedly rather simple plot of Superman's fight against the Toyman.

It's a relatively simple yet enjoyable episode, painting Toyman as a sick psychopath that still deserves a sliver of sympathy due to his backstory. Like Batman: TAS, Superman doesn't waste any time in trying to build up a Rogues' Gallery of villains that it can work with, and Toyman is a nice, low-note adventure to start off with. Toyman himself is interesting enough of a gimmick villain to make me entertained. Also loved that final shot of Mannheim being shown the shattered Toyman mask and you can just see the man pissing himself with the thought of Toyman out there hunting for him.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Toyman is an adaptation of the comic-book villain Toyman, specifically the first, Winslow Schott. However, due to the liberties it takes with Toyman's appearance (the comic-book version of Toyman is just a dude in a suit and glasses) and making him a dude in a porcelain doll suit, this Toyman is identified as Winslow Schott Junior, whereas his father, who died in his backstory, bears a resemblance to the comic book version of the Toyman.
• Bruno Mannheim, a.k.a. "Ugly" Mannheim, is a leader of the Intergang in the comics. Not gonna say much about it here -- he's going to return with more plot significance, is all you need to know. 

The Walking Dead S04E11 Review: Zombie-Killing is Fun

The Walking Dead, Season 4, Episode 11: Claimed

This is a bit of an episode that was difficult for me to really pay attention mostly because I just... don't really care about what's going on? I'm not sure whether it's the new influx of flat, new characters, or the very boring Rick subplot that runs throughout the episode, the absolutely slow pacing, or simply just exhaustion from all the depressive themes that Walking Dead has been having for the past few episodes leading to a cathartic and meaningless action sequence... I dunno.

The thing is, there really isn't any real newness to what's going on in this episode. Things suck, people are horrible, and we repeat the same few strokes. Yes, we get Michonne being adorable and bonding with Carl, but their journey to look for resources and Michonne stumbling upon a child's room and freaking out are things we've already seen far more effectively in the previous episode, and Michonne's room-by-room backstory revelation is far, far more inelegant and boring than the classy flashback we had two episodes ago, with Carl's pushy 'omg are there any others?' falling flat and off.

Rick hides under a bed as a bunch of assholes literally come out of nowhere and ransack the house they're holed in, and we get a far-too-long sequence of Rick being exhausted, Rick hiding under the bed, Rick sneaking out of the house, and Rick meeting up with Carl and Michonne. Easily the weakest of the three storylines that run in this episode -- the tension doesn't really work, and it really could stand to be reduced to one-third of its runtime. Yes, we've got a roving band of anarchist jackasses, but it's nothing really new -- it's something we've already dealt with ever since season two. 

Meanwhile, Glenn's single-minded and wants to return to Maggie, and, um, that's all I can describe about his character, really, which is a shame. Glenn's been a favourite in seasons one through three, but ever since he became sick in season four he's either lovesick or sick-and-dying. And it's just boring and one-dimensional. Likewise, Tara is also a very flat character. She was indistinguishable from her sister back when she's hanging around the Governor, and now she's just kind of... around. I literally can't tell you a single thing about her character beyond the fact that she's slightly wracked by guilt. 

Honestly I'm far more interested in the new characters: Abraham (a.k.a. Colonel EpicBeard), Rosita (a.k.a. Badass Military Girl) and Eugene (a.k.a. Arrogant Scientist). Somehow in the middle of this all there are these three people, in a mission to escort Eugene to Washington and apparently find a way to cure the zombie plague.

Of course, they end up being idiots for forcing Glenn and Tara to come along with them, Glenn throws a tantrum, Abraham and Glenn fight and in the scuffle zombies attack and their military truck got shot up. It's honestly a bit irritating, really, how we're introduced to this very interesting subplot of possibly saving the world (or maybe they're just delusional?) but end up just being waylaid and sent off to wander the road again. 

It's a very uneven and honestly pretty bland episode. 

Superman TAS S01E01-03: You'll Believe A Man Can Fly

Superman: the Animated Series, Season 1, Episodes 1-3: The Last Son of Krypton

Truth & Justice.

Hello and welcome! I've never actually watched Superman: the Animated Series properly. I watched most of the first season, I watched a couple of other episodes here and there, and I read up plot summaries to prepare me for reviewing Justice League, but I've never actually watched the series properly. Now that Justice League Unlimited has been done with, I've decided to review Superman: TAS. It's hopefully not going to take as long as JLU and the upcoming Young Justice reviews in no small part because Superman: TAS is a lot less serialized and thus it's a lot easier to review.

That said, though, this first review is probably going to be a bit longer thanks to it being three episodes forming a mini-movie. Plotline wise, it's basically any Superman origin story, just done in the DCAU format, but thanks to the relatively long running time we get adequate pit-stops on every important point in Superman's origin story. There's Jor-El and Lara in Krypton, there's him discovering his powers in the town of Smallville, there's the brief conversation with the hologram of Jor-El, there's him as an adult arriving at the Daily Planet as we're quickly introduced to the Daily Planet supporting cast, there's the Superman-saves-a-plane, there's the interview with Lois Lane, there's the fight with the first villain. I'm pretty sure that anyone that's going to read these reviews know in full detail what Superman's origin story is, so I don't really have to say much about that beyond the fact that it's amazingly done, it's paced fast enough so that I don't get bored (unlike certain live-action adaptations) yet slow enough to let you absorb the journey from Clark Kent to Superman. 

However, even this early on there are a fair amount of signs that Superman: TAS is going to take a different stance compared to its predecessor, Batman: TAS. Working off the same model that Batman Beyond worked on, there's some seeds of buildup for main villains being done in the pilot -- two, in fact. Brainiac and Luthor both get a relatively large amount of buildup in the episode, hinting at their larger role later down the series and then through to Justice League and JLU, and despite being behind the Kaznian attack and being John Corben's employer, Luthor doesn't really get caught, merely inconvenienced. Brainiac, likewise, gets away scot-free and gets a brand-new backstory for being the very supercomputer that deluded the rest of Krypton, one of the most awesome backstories I've ever seen being done for the classic Superman villain.

Speaking of which, I'm a big fan of how the first part (the first episode of the three-parter, if you treat this as a three-parter episode instead of a TV movie) actually gave Jor-El a relatively large role. Jor-El has been elevated from just a figure in Superman's backstory since the iconic live-action portrayal of Jor-El by Marlon Brando in 1978, being portrayed post-humously as this super-advanced AI that gives Kal some advice that his human parents cannot. This version of Jor-El also gets a pretty cool plot point where he tries to prove his theories that Krypton is, in fact, doomed, and in one fall swoop quickly gives us a backstory about the Phantom Zone and Argo, the Kryptonian society and also has a nice little sub-plot where even Jor-El's wife and father-in-law start doubting him.

It turns out, though, that in the world of Superman: TAS things went a little more conspiratorial than normal. See, in this continuity, Krypton has its own Skynet, a supercomputer network that overviews everything and basically acts to confirm opinions. Like Google, but sentient, has a creepy monotone voice, and pretty much intent on covering up any mention of Krypton blowing up so that he can focus his efforts on uploading himself into a satellite and escape its destruction.

The first part is probably the part of the pilot that dragged on a little, and both the encounter with the Shoggoth (actually identified as such!) and the Brainiac security guards are obvious padding, but at the same time it actually builds Jor-El up into a character we relatively care about, and gives us enough information about Krypton so that it's not an abstract place that we're told where Superman comes from.

The other scenes after baby Kal-El lands on that farm in Smallville and the fateful encounter with a young Jonathan and Martha, and later him being confused as he discovers his powers in school (also a brief role by Lana Lang) and the amazing moments when he discovers his alien heritage and that he can fly... it's amazing stuff, going through the origin story of the Man of Steel once more. Being a longtime DC fan it has been one of the most unchanged constants of the lore, yet the way it's presented here is still exciting enough to hold my attention throughout it all.

And then comes the adult stuff, where Clark Kent end up showing up at the Daily Planet, meeting with the loud boss Perry White, the nebbish cameraman Jimmy Olsen (who actually doesn't do jack-all in this pilot) and the second lead of this show, Lois Lane. And while Tim Daly is an amazing pick for Superman, Dana Delany is even better for Lois Lane. While Lois still has to do double duty as a damsel in distress -- this is still a Superman show, after all -- she's also portrayed not as the dumb bimbo of the Golden Age comics but a far more shrewd and cunning reporter, but also a pleasant human being to be around. She and Clark quickly puts together some things about the reason Luthor would want his LexoSkel-5000 (really, Luthor? Lexo-Skel?) suit to be stolen, she's smart enough to have a contingency plan and the only reason it goes south is because Bibbo is too thirsty at that time, and while she does need rescuing, she has her share of fighting, including swinging a crane to whack one of Corben's mooks in the head. Lois also gets a warmer scene of bonding with both Clark and Superman, which is nice.

The big action sequences here are Superman fighting the Kaznian terrorists stealing Luthor's LexoSkel suit and the subsequent rescue of the airplane, and later the longer action sequence against John Corben riding said LexoSkel suit. Which are fine, I guess -- the huge explosions really sell that it's going to involve higher stakes compared to its brother show, Batman: TAS, and it displays the scale of what they're trying to accomplish, though the fact that it's still the first episodes of the show is relatively evident in the rather iffy action scenes.

Nothing is quite as awesome as Luthor, who we saw as nothing but unflappable from when we first saw him (Clancy Brown fits into that role like a fucking glove even this early on) and then he starts talking down to Superman, this man flying outside his window, being derisive, then putting out his businessman bargain charm, then trying intimidation tactics... and Superman is just this unflappable, arm-crossed mass of alien muscle that refuses to budge. To an egomaniac and control freak like Luthor, it's quite literally the biggest insult you could do to the man, and seeing Luthor completely lose it and lob things at Superman, who calmly crushes it, says a couple of simple lines: "I'll be watching", before flying off and ignoring Luthor's angry rants... yeah, badass.

So yeah, definitely an enjoyable opening set of episodes. Superman: The Animated Series hasn't been as fondly remembered as the goodness of Batman: The Animated Series or the epic scale of the Justice League cartoons, and the subject material might be to blame (Superman is just isn't as terribly interesting as Batman, and recent live-action attempts being relative flops don't help much either) but at the same time I find myself more interested than ever to really see a series revolving around the Man of Steel. The animation is great and crisp, the soundtrack is uplifting and dramatic (if a little repetitive around action scenes) and the scripting is great. Points for the best line in the episodes go to Pa Kent as he tries to explain that his son is an adopted alien. "You know some babies arrive in storks..."

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• I'm not going to go through the origin stories of our heroes and villains one by one, that'd take too much work, but most of the characters introduced here all hail from the Golden Age of Superman's comics, except for Bibbo Bibbowski who came in the 80's and 90's comics. As mentioned in my review, Brainiac's origins differs the most from the rest of the characters.
• Note that the El family on Krypton has a little white puppy. I'm not sure if Krypto the Superdog ever makes it into Superman: TAS, but this is definitely him. 
• The Phantom Zone and a planet called Argo are mentioned by the Kryptonians, which will both be important later on in the series. Also note the green rocks formed when Krypton explodes, which obviously is Kryptonite.
• Martha briefly mentions a caped freak in Gotham City, which, of course, is a reference to Batman, putting the adventures of Batman's earlier seasons earlier in the timeline compared to Superman: TAS. No worries, though, since they'll eventually meet and the rest would be history.
• Having watched Justice League relatively recently, I'm surprised that the fictional nation of Kaznia actually originates from Superman: The Animated Series.
• Jor-El identifies the green blob-tentacle monster that attacked him as a shoggoth, a reference to the works of H.P. Lovecraft -- the Cthulhu mythos. Fittingly, the shoggoth was first introduced in the story "At the Mountains of Madness", a story starring a group of explorers digging in the icy tundra and stumbling upon an unearthly civilization. 
• The 'Nice S' pun is actually cut out of some broadcasts. Considering the things they snuck into later seasons of Justice League and Batman: TAS, I'm actually surprised that this, of all things, got cut.

Hearthstone: Frozen Throne Card Reviews, Part 2

In addition to all these new cards, we also get the revelation that beating the Lich King Adventure/Mission single-player story mode thing once with every class is going to award you with a brand-new Paladin hero skin... young Prince Arthas! Well, shit, I love Uther and Liadrin, but man, the moment I get Arthas there's only going to be a single Paladin skin I ever use forever more. Soon we'll probably have enough alternate hero skins for a top ten Hearthstone hero skins list! (Meanwhile, Druid and Warlock really need some love)

So, anyway. Lots and lots of new cards. These are the reveals for the past... half-week, I think? Images will be edited in later 'cause I'm lazy.

Bring it On
When I first saw this card I laughed out loud. What a shit card! Ironhide was half of this card's effect, but with one less mana. Bring It On gives you 10 armour for 2 mana... and then gives a double-Thaurissan discount on all your opponent's minions? Is this an actual insult? Like, shit, I was actually pissed off when I first saw this card. Then I stopped and thought... putting double the armour gain into basically a half-Reno armour into a single card is convenient, if nothing else. But when is it worth it to do an effect comparable to Milhouse Manastorm, unarguably the worst legendary in the game? Obviously, when you're trying to set up the enemy for Brawl. Of course, if you're using Bring it On at all your opponent's probably going to guess that, 'hey, this dude's giving me free discounts to make me play into a Brawl' and withhold certain cards so... yeah. Probably fun to mind-game people with in lower ranks, but otherwise, a pretty shit card. Still, it got elevated in my mind from 'horrid insult to the playerbase' to 'shit but they're doing something interesting', which is... a bit more okay.

Coldwraith
Coldwraith is another freeze-synergy card, this time for Mages which will have a far easier of a time to freeze stuff than Shamans do. And unlike shitty ol' Shatter, or the sub-par-if-not-activated Cryomancer, Coldwraith has a very okay 3-mana 3/4 statline on a pinch. If an enemy happens to be frozen, you get a bonus card draw. It's a very decent card, it's just that decent probably doesn't quite cut it for constructed. It's definitely a cool card design, and I do like the concept behind it, I'm just sad that Mages have way, way too many multi-purpose cards for a card like Coldwraith to find a proper home in a high-ranking deck. Like, the card's okay. It's just not quite right for mages as they stand in Hearthstone.

Voodoo Hexxer
Everyone called for a freeze-synergy Shaman card to be revealed after the dire Ice Breaker was, and we got Voodoo Hexxer. Will it make Ice Breaker work? Hell no! But is Voodoo Hexxer a good card? Definitely. He's comparable to Alley Armorsmith, with the exact same stats (5-mana 2/7 Taunt) but instead of armouring up every time it attacks, Voodoo Hexxer simply just freezes the enemy. It's... a little underwhelming, to be honest, but it's still a decent card. As a 5-mana taunt it's okay in and of itself, although the ability to freeze probably only matters to hinder pirate warriors from hitting you the next turn. Unlike the Armorsmith it doesn't give you super-value, it just... freezes stuff, which, while a neat bonus, isn't super-impactful. It's a pretty balanced card all around, and a great freeze activator -- it just needs some extra oomph to get there, and Ice Breaker is definitely not it. In itself the Hexxer is a pretty great, solid card, it just needs to find a proper home, just like a good chunk of the cards reviewed here.

Bearshark
Hahahaha, this card! It's actually quite decent, too. I don't think it'll actually make its way into the already overcrowded three-mana slot for Hunters, what with Animal Companion, Eaglehorn Bow and Rat Pack having a bit of a monopoly on that mana slot, but it's actually different enough from them to be considered as an alternative. The Bearshark is a 4/3 for 3 mana with the Faerie Dragon effect (we really need to keyword that -- I've seen it be called spellproof or hexproof or untouchable or something along those lines), which renders it immune to a fair bit of early-game spell removal like Frostbolt... while the Hunters buff their beasts almost exclusively with minion battlecries (Houndmaster, Crackling Razormaw) so it doesn't matter for the Hunters themselves. Unfortunately, though, it's still a 4/3. If it was a 3/4 for 3 with the same ability, it would be insane. As it is, though, a 4/3 still dies to your Fiery War Axes, or to other 3/2 minions, and can't get rid of the ever-popular Tar Creeper. It's not a bad card, though -- if it survives to the next turn to get Houndmaster'd, it'd be a rampaging mountain of value. Historically minions with spellproof (or whatever you're calling it) have been relatively sparse, with only Faerie Dragon and Soggoth really seeing any kind of marginal play, and even then in first-tier decks they tend to be cut out for other chioces. Bearshark's a decent enough play, though probably not always better than Animal Companion's choices (though definitely more consistent). Definitely a card you want in arena, and a card you will be happy to make a zombeast out of. I actually hope this card's better than it looks the way Rat Pack was relatively underestimated, if only because the artwork's so, so damn silly and awesome and I want to see him everywhere.

Hadronox
Hadronox is the Druid legendary, and he's a big creepy demonic spider! He's like, the Nerubians' pet in Azjol-Nerub or something. I need to do a proper lore section for these cards. Perhaps I will. Hadronox is a huge Druid Beast, sitting at 9-mana... with the relatively piddly 3/7 statline. But it acts as a N'Zoth for taunts! Which I was super-excited for. Sure, Warriors have their Taunt Quest decks, but Druids actually have the best Taunt minions. Jade Behemoth, Druid of the Claw, Dark Arakkoa, Ancient of War (which doesn't get summoned by Hadronox, but still), Ironbark Protector... hell, he even works with Curator and vice versa! yet my heart sunk when I realized Hadronox's ability is a deathrattle instead of a battlecry. It does make Hadronox insanely scary if you don't have hex or polymorph, and in wild, with Sludge Belchers and shit he's going to be scarier. He also gets summoned by N'Zoth, allowing for infinite (well, if not infinite then a metric fuckton) amounts of Sludge Belchers. I'm not sure if Hadronox will actually see a lot of play because between his statline and his effect being a deathrattle instead of a battlecry, but he's certainly very exciting. You know what's great with Hadronox? C'Thun decks. Not sure if a Geomancer-taunted C'Thun is going to be summoned by Hadronox, but even then you can get Hadronox to summon both Twin Emperors and Dark Arakkoas, and that alone's going to be insane. I'm not sure if Hadronox will work, but a card that inspires me to make a deck is definitely great design in my books.

Abominable Bowman
Ha ha, get it, Abominable Snowman? I actually chuckled at this. The artwork's pretty dang cool-looking, too, with the Abomination's two smaller hands functioning together to hold the bowstring and to reload the arrows. That aside, though, it's actually a pretty underwhelming card. I won't say that it's bad, but I don't think this dude will see much play unless in very dedicated Deathrattle decks. He's a 7-mana 6/7 that summons a random beast that died this turn as a deathrattle. And therein lies the problem -- Hunters have a lot of weak beasts. Alleycat, and the cat it summons. The little 1/1 spiders, rats and 2/2 hyenas summoned by other common minions. If the Abominable Bowman actually rolls the actual Savannah Highmane or the Infested Wolf then it's actual insane value, but unless you dedicate a Deathrattle Hunter that does not feature weak beast tokens, the Bowman's going to find a hard place to fit in. Like, on paper a 6/7 that summons a 1/1 on Deathrattle gets vanilla stats... but vanilla statted minions aren't viable on the ladder. Mind you, it's not neccessarily a bad card. I can see a more Deathrattle oriented deck where you run N'Zoth, Terrorscale Stalker and Spiritsinger Umbra... but then you'd be sacrificing on so much of the mid-game and early game beast synergies hunters are good at. I don't necessarily see Abominable Bowman being great with the cards we have at the moment, but make no mistake, it's definitely an interesting card that might prove itself to be useful in the future.

Fatespinner
This is one of the more interesting cards of the expansion, and I really, really love it. A lot of the biggest complaints directed to Hearthstone as a game is how RNG it gets sometimes, a complaint that I think people hype out of proportion but definitely valid. Fatespinner is a card that isn't a simple bunch of stats and keywords, so it plays differently every time you play it, but it's dependent on you and not RNG. You pick a Deathrattle... secretly! It's a 5-mana 5/3 that either Hellfires the board (and Druids have been begging for AoE, by the way) or mass-buffs the board with +2/+2. And depending on the board state, either one can be great. Like, maybe your enemy is a simple spell mage with very few minions. Why not give your board a mini Savage-Roar? Most of the time the damage might be the right choice, but the addition of the guessing game and mind-games for your opponent is amazing card design, and the particularly popular Egg Druid archetype actually works well with either one of Fatespinner's abilities. It's probably not the most meta-defining card out there, but it's certainly one of the most interesting ones.

Bolvar,  Fireblood
Hey, new Bolvar! Bolvar Fordragon's greatest achievement in his life (well, in his death) was becoming the new Lich King after the fall of Arthas Menethil, the iconic second Lich King. He's cool, he's a fiery scary noble corpse. He did kind of have a shit card back in GvG, but since this is a Lich King expansion it's kind of appropriate for him to make an appearance, right? Sadly, though, he's not actually super-good. Which is fine. Unlike Lana'thel, New!Bolvar came out in a class that keeps getting great Legendaries for like four or five expansions straight. New!Bolvar isn't super-bad either, it's just that right now there's not many ways to properly play with Divine Shield synergy. We'll have to wait and see. Otherwise, a 5-mana 1/7 with Divine Shield that grows... isn't particularly good. Comparing him to Lana'thel, Lana'thel doesn't need to be on the board to gain buffs, but Bolvar Fireblood gains +2 instead of +1 per tic. He does require you to have a board set up, though, to either trade or Blood Knight up, so... I dunno. He doesn't seem too good, in my opinion. But that's okay. Arthas is the one true Lich King and we know that.

Light's Sorrow
Light's Sorrow has Bolvar's effect, but in weapon form. It's a 4-mana 1/4 weapon, pretty shit, that gains a single point of attack every time a Divine Shield is popped. It's not as bad as Ice Breaker, because it's easier for you to pop Divine Shields, but I really hope, again, that there are more ways to get Divine Shields onto the board otherwise this card's going to be really hard to even activate. Plus, just like most weapons, it dies to Oozes despite its powerful 4 durability. I'm more of a 'wait and see' mentality with Light's Sorrow, until we see all the Paladin cards, but as for now it seems bad.

Corpsetaker
What the hell. 'Winter is coming' indeed. The card honestly surprised me because I thought this was a legendary at first, before I realized I could put two of these into my deck. The Corpsetaker, other than being a cool Game of Thrones reference with her summoning quote, is herself an insane minion. She's a 4-mana 3/3... which honestly is insane for a card that can potentially become a life-stealing mini Al'Akir. Like, what the fuck! She copies the following four keywords if there's a card with them in your deck: Lifesteal, Taunt, Windfury and Divine Shield. So in paladins, all you need is Wickerflame Burnbristle in your deck and a single Windfury minion to get her full value. Even then, if it's only Wickerflame, you get a bigger Wickerflame himself! Shamans straight-up get a mini Al'Akir for the simple cost of putting an Al'Akir in your deck, which, chances are you're already doing anyway. If she gets her full value, if unanswered the Corpsetaker is going to just deal 6 damage while heal you for 6, and she has Divine Shield and Taunt to deal with! She's probably not going to be consistent all the time, but if you get three out of four of her keywords she's already pretty badass.

Bonemare
What the hell, this card! It's an insane heap of value. For the simple disadvantage of 'you need another minion in play' -- something that isn't that hard to actually do, especially for Paladins and Shamans -- you roll in together a 5/5 body, a Blessing of Kings and Taunt. It definitely costs a lot more than a total of 7 mana. And yes, if you're forced to play Bonemare alone you get a 7-mana 5/5 which is horrifyingly bad, but the upside is so good that I actually can see this thing run in an actual constructed deck. You basically get a 5/5 body, and a maximal of a charging 4/4 and a sudden taunt. Bonemare's going to be a nightmare (see what I did there) in Arena, and honestly I can see some Constructed lists fitting Bonemare in. Cool card, definitely.

Animated Berserker
This card's a bit weird. He's a Warrior one-drop with a 1/3 stat-line, with the continuous effect of dealing a damage to any minion you play while he's active. Which is insanely weak outside of a proper Enrage/Patron style deck. It's another Whirlwind-style activator similar to Whirlwing, Ravaging Ghoul, Death's Bite and Blood Razor, but at the same time there's not a lot of cards in Standard that really work well with the Enrage mechanic, what with Patron hanging out in wild (with no way to give them charge, too). Like, there's the obvious Bloodhoof Brave, Grommash Hellscream or Frothing Berserker synergies, but are those enough to justify putting the relatively weak Animated Berserker into your deck? It's a cool concept that I'm happy to be included as a card design, don't get me wrong, and I think it's cheap and harmless enough to be included in some lists. Has potential, I think? Certainly him + Grommash Hellscream's a pretty good play, and far more viable than, say, Grommash and then possibly wasting a Whirlwind to do nothing but enrage the Hellscream patriarch. Hey, Frozen Throne! Bring me more Enrage cards!

Sanguine Reveler
It's a pretty interesting card. A 1-mana 1/1 that becomes a 3/3 if you destroy a friendly minion? Obviously you want to play it in a Deathrattle deck. A zoo-y deathrattle deck. In wild I can easily see him being dropped next to Nerubian Eggs and Haunted Creepers and just getting value upon value, but in standard? Obviously we haven't seen all the Warlock cards yet, but for now he does kind of look unspectacular in standard. He could be an easy Devilsaur Egg activator, which is cool, but he's definitely going to need a fair bit more cheap early-game deathrattle minions to really work properly. The thing to probably watch out is that if you topdeck this while you don't have a target, you can't actually play him without sacrificing one of your minions, and if you drop him on an empty board he's just going to be a lowly 1/1... neither of which are very great at all. Still, in a proper deathrattle/zoo deck the Sanguine Reveler's definitely going to find a home. Is this time for Zoolock's return? We've been saying that since forever. Overall, a cool and interesting card. See, Blizzard, you don't actually have to lead with crap like Lana'thel and Ticking Abomination.

Howling Commander
FUS RO DAH! Come on, I'm not the only one thinking it, right? This little Dovahkiin cosplayer isn't the best card out there, but she's a tutor card and tutor cards have been historically played pretty well in other TCGs. In Hearthstone, the Curator is the most effective and honestly a bit of a sleeper hit. But is Howling Commander good? Obviously a 3-mana 2/2 is horrid, horrid stats, and drawing a Divine Shield card... isn't the best thing ever, especially since the Commander herself doesn't actually have Divine Shield himself so she doesn't actually try and work with the new Bolvar or whatever. She does allow you to draw Tirion Fordring (no, Wickerflame isn't good enough to warrant this, and definitely not New!Bolvar) on demand. Is that good enough to warrant a deck spot? Probably not. We'll need to see all the Divine Shield minions in this expansion, of course. Paladins do kind of need card draw, which is okay, so I guess?

Venomstrike Trap
Oh, hey, another new secret for Hunter! Putricide loves secrets, right? This one's actually great,  a combination of the Bear and Snake Traps. It gets activated similar to the Snake Trap, after a minion is attacked, but it summons a minion from the game itself, the 2/3 Emperor Cobra with Poisonous. Is it particularly good? Not really, since unlike the Ironfur Grizzly from the Bear Trap, Poisonous isn't super-relevant on your opponent's turn since they still control what trades into what, but at the same time it could completely screw up your opponent's turn. It looks okay, and certainly won't be bad if you get it free from a Putricide. The mere existence of Putricide means that this card's going to see play through him even if it's not in actual decks. Though honestly, why not? Free snakes!

Movie Review: Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade

Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade

As the title says, the Last Crusade is meant to be the last Indiana Jones, capping off a trio of fun adventure movies and capping the franchise at three movies until two decades later, with the honestly rather poorly received Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull. Back then, sequels aren't very common, and either franchises are driven to the ground with multiple identikit sequels that are just regurgitating relatively the same tired things over and over again, or they'll be happy to cap things off with three or four movies.

Throughout his first two adventures, the character of Indiana Jones has been a little bit of an enigma. We know he's a bit of a dick but ultimately a nice guy who cares about his friends and cares about putting archaeological findings in museums or returning them to the villages they come from. He teaches in a university, but goes around with a bullwhip and a fedora on daring adventures. We know he's afraid of snakes. But we don't really know just why he's like that. Temple of Doom gave us a brief character development by turning Indy from a 'fame and glory' mindset into respecting the archaeology profession and returning the plot device to the Indian village, but who is Indy as a person, really?

The movie opens very smartly with two children stumbling upon several men huddled around an archaeological dig, the leader among them wearing a fedora... only for one of the kid calling the other 'Indiana'. We go through one of Indiana's earlier adventures when he's a child, as he tries to 'rescue' a random artifact from a bunch of treasure hunters (the leader of whom ends up having a grudging respect for Indiana and helps to rescue him from the lion in the circus train and giving him his iconic fedora)... but a combination of Indy's own dispassionate father (who's tied in on his own research) and the fact that the white-hatted boss ends up seeing a failure.

We then cut to the present day, with the adult Harrison Ford Indiana Jones righting his past failure, going up against mr. white-hat on his ship, which is a pretty thrilling bit with items sliding back and forth on the ship with waves crashing here and there. It's a nice contrast compared to the bright colours that Young Indy had on the circus train. It's more zany, with Indy falling into crates of snakes (and getting his ophidiophobia from there) or trying to scare off a lion with a bullwhip (again, showing the origins of Harrison Ford's face scar and his affinity for whips). It's not that Indiana Jones' journey has become so jaded and dark, because the fight in the ship is still so much more fun, but it's definitely slightly darker, relatively speaking. People die and the stakes are higher.

And just as this movie looks to the past as inspiration, it also does so in a more meta sense, bringing back multiple characters and aspects from Raiders of the Lost Ark which was ignored in Temple of Doom. Once more, Nazis and the World War setting are back. Indiana Jones teaching in the university is seen once more. Characters like the hilarious local guide Sallah (John Rhys-Davies) and Indy's fellow professor,  Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliot) return for larger roles. And most importantly, the writers know that just another journey for a mysterious artifact isn't going to feel fresh. Like, yes, the Holy Grail is an iconic historical artifact, but what can make it different from finding the Ark of Covenant?

Well, they had the amazing idea of showing Indiana's estranged father, played amazingly well by James Bond himself, Sean Connery. And Henry Jones Senior is as different a person from Indy as can be. They are both archaeologists, sure, and they are both good guys, but Henry is very detached from the savviness that Indy shows. He panics when Indy shoots a couple of Nazi guards dead, he accidentally destroyed the tail fin of the biplane Indy commandeered, and most egregiously he doesn't really seem to care much for Indy beyond being a fellow archaeologist, being so, so obsessed with his search for the Grail.

The post-prologue scenes first began with Indy and his friend, Marcus Brody, going on a frantic search for Henry, who has gone missing after being contracted by big businessman Walter Donovan (who, of course, turns out to be the big bad of the movie though it really doesn't make that much effort to hide it). Indy's search leads to a pretty intense sequence of meeting the movie's female protagonist, dr. Elsa Schneider and fighting enemies on the riverways of Venice as well as in underground catacombs, before finally rescuing Henry Senior from the clutches of the Nazis only to find out that, shit, Henry is still being a detached father whose value of measuring Indy's self-worth depends on how useful he is in terms of his quest for the Holy Grail. Sean Connery is the perfect fit for a father that's both charismatic yet assholish, and plays off Indy very well.

The movie gets rid of most side characters relatively quickly, with the revelation that Elsa is actually a Nazi double-agent, while Marcus Brody gets sent off alongside another returning ally Sallah in order to hide another plot device, leaving Indy and Henry alone to go off on their adventure and it's amazingly done. Indy's angry confrontation with Henry while on the airship about how Henry's never there for him, with Henry's justification that he's a good father because 'hey, I never stopped you from doing anything you wanted', and Indy finding that now that Henry says 'fine, what do you want to talk about' that, well, there aren't much to talk about beyond their work. It's a very sobering scene, a surprising bit of melancholic disconnect between father and son in-between burning Nazi mansions or using a flock of seagulls to take down a Nazi plane.

The movie goes from scenes between Indy and Henry's awkward bonding to insane action scenes, and even three decades later the movie's action scenes still stand out, including the rather extended scenes in the climax with Indy and the Nazi general fighting on top of a moving tank, while Henry and Marcus, two old non-action guys, try their best to help out from the inside. It's a great scene and Henry's absolutely distraught reaction when he thought Indy bit the dust is amazingly acted.

Yes, at the end of the day it's just another action movie that goes from one exotic set to the next, but the journey is definitely fun to watch. The ending drags on a little, but the shock at seeing Donovan shoot Henry, causing Indy to rush his way into the temple of the Holy Grail (and then using the answer of the riddles that both of them figured out) to work past the traps of the temple to reach the Holy Grail's chamber. Indy's desperation to find the Grail to save his father, compared to Donovan and Elsa's greed, is well-contrasted, and in the end it's these greed that kills both villains. Donovan picks up the brightest, most ornate cup ("he chose...  poorly", as the immortal knight notes) and gets aged to death in a pretty spectacularly done effect of rotting away into a skeleton. Elsa, meanwhile, ignores all the warnings and tries to bring the Grail out of the temple, causing the temple to collapse and instead of grabbing Indy's hand she tries to reach for the Grail and falls to her death.

And Indy? Indy could try and reach for the Grail, to try and reach for the object of his father's lifelong dream... but it's Henry that tells Indy to "let it go", choosing his son over his obsession. Over their adventures, the two have bonded and it's definitely a great story that injects character and context that we care about compared to just 'adventurers hunting for treasure'. Add that to absolutely hilarious jokes between Indy and Henry's interactions, and both Brody and Sallah being amazingly hilarious in every scene they're in, and the Last Crusade is a pretty amazing movie that I enjoyed far more than I expected I would.

Hearthstone: Frozen Throne Card Reveals, Part 1

So we've finally reached the 24th of July, and we're starting the ticker-feed of Knights of the Frozen Throne card reveals. So bear with me for a little, because I'm going to try to review most of these cards strictly from a 'first impressions' standpoint. As usual, first impression reviews tend to be mistaken (whoever thought mr. Patches was going to be meta defining?) but hey, here goes!

[This got accidentally taken down yesterday. I've since updated it with the cards up to the Sindragosa reveal, so yep. Because I haven't reviewed the first five cards, I talk about them a little at the end of this.]

Ticking Abomination:
The first card revealed is this handsome dude, the Ticking Abomination. Pretty flavourful card, of course, lore-wise. Abominations are central to the undead armies ever since Warcraft III, and while World of Warcraft's Northrend content did add several upgraded vesions of the Abomination like the Flesh Giants, Flesh Titans and their kin, the abominations still are one of the more iconic designs of Warcraft's undead forces. Being a ticking time-bomb is also for the norm for abominations. The Ticking Abomination is cute, but probably not super-good. It's a 5/6 for 4 mana, a good one mana less than the statline deserves. But just like most highly-statted-for-its-cost fellows, its deathrattle deals 5 damage to all your minions. It's pretty damning because it Flamestrikes your own board (nay, even worse) so using this in aggro or midrange decks is definitely out. And I don't think even N'Zoth decks want this around because if it dies it kind of, y'know, nukes your own board. Like, there's obviously the ideal bit of you killing the Ticking Abomination and killing a Sylvannas Windrunner on your side, but then what about Standard? I don't think you want N'Zoth to bring this dude back, right? I dunno. Highly-statted minions will find a way to be used (look at Humongous Razorleaf!) so maybe some decks that don't use a lot of minions like Priest or Mage might use the Abomination? But then Priests and Mage have their share of minions and so I don't think a 4-mana 5/6 is going to make a huge difference. It's a cool-designed card, but I don't really think this dude's going to see a ton of play even in Arena. Not the best way to start your trickle-down reveal of cards, I'm afraid.


Plague Scientist:
Giving a friendly minion Poisonous is amazing. The thing with giving a friendly minion poisonous is that you essentially slap on a removal for free by, well, essentially giving the poisonous effect charge, if that makes sense. And it's got a kick-ass looking card art (as far as undead gnomes go) and it's in Rogue, so it's a neat flavour bit. And yeah, it's got a stat penalty, a 3-mana 2/3, but surely a 1-mana removal card is worth something? Well, in addition to requiring you to already have another minion on the field, Plague Scientist is also a Combo card. Which means that the setup you need for Plague Scientist to work -- a card to Combo with, plus a minion on the field that you then have to run to whatever you want to destroy -- is a bit too steep, perhaps. Out of the cards revealed on the first day Plague Scientist is certainly the best out of the bunch, but it's certainly not constructed-level viable, I don't think. Vilespine Slayer is a high-costed combo card, too, but it just straight-up murders a minion. Plague Scientist is perhaps comparable to Crackling Razormaw, who doesn't have a stat penalty but only works on beasts and only gives poisonous one out of three times. On the other hand, the Razormaw's flexibility and lack of setup or stat drops outweighs its unreliability for a poisonous effect. Plague Scientist is a very cool concept, don't get me wrong, but I just feel that he demands too much -- from the mana cost to the combo -- for something that's not that easy to deliver.


Ice Breaker
But that doesn't compare to Icce Breaker over here. It's a Shaman weapon, and, god, it's a shit weapon. It's a 3-mana 1/3, which is disastrous stats. A 1/3 weapon is barely decent for 1-mana, and even then 1/3 weapons usually come bundled with a body (N'Zoth's First Mate) or the possibility of raising its attack value (Spirit Claws) and costs far, far less than 3 mana. What does Ice Breaker's effect do? It destroys any minion. Cool, removal! Not really, because the minion in question has to be frozen to be destroyed by the weapon. Why in god's name would you rather use Ice Breaker rather than Hex to remove a minion, I can't say. Like, first, you have to freeze the minion in question, and Shaman's got, what, a grand total of one card, Frost Shock, to do it? Frost Elemental from the neutrals? And then you have to run your face towards that minion, and the whole point of removal is to avoid it killing your face. Sure, you can use, oh, Violet Illusionist to negate the damage to your face if you're that kind of super-convoluted player, but on the other hand that's one charge of the Ice Breaker used. How likely is it for the Ice Breaker's other two charges for removal to be triggered? How likely is it that you have both Frost Shocks and both Frost Elementals in your hand? Not very. And while this does mean that the expansion's probably going to feature a bunch of frost spells for Shaman, the Ice Breaker's still a pretty crap weapon. I mean, Envenom Weapon never saw play outside of Arena, and it's far, far easier to get the effect off compared to Ice Breaker. I dunno. Seems terrible, until proven otherwise.

Blood-Queen Lana'thel
Man, Warlocks can't catch a break, right? Unless the expansion gives us a hell lot of great discard synergy cards (and considering the pretty decent-on-paper Lakkari Felhound, Lakkari Sacrifice and Clutchmother Zavas turned out to be unplayable) Blood-Queen Lana'thel won't break Warlock's streak of crap legendaries since Wilfred Fizzlebang. It's not just me, right? Like, I took a look at the card, smiled when I saw the cool-looking vampire banshee blood elf that is Blood Queen Lana'thel, saw the effect and did a quick double-take. 5-mana with Lifesteal, okay, and she has... +1 Attack to her 1/6 statline for each card you've discarded this game? So assuming you wait until you discard, like, six cards -- the requirement for the Warlock quest -- Lana'thel is a mere 7/6 with lifesteal. Doesn't seem to be super exciting at all for the amount of work you put into her, especially considering that you might very well accidentally discard Lana'thel herself during the process of getting to the point of playing her. Yeah, you could play her earlier, but a 5-mana 3/6 or 4/6 Lifesteal doesn't seem to be super-insane at all. On top of that, Lana'thel isn't a demon, so she doesn't interact at all with any of the demon-buffing cards, leaving her entirely dependent on the discard mechanic (or the odd Abusive Sergeant) to make her work. Unlike Alley Armorsmith, it doesn't even have Taunt to force your enemies to trade into her. Like, sure, it maybe buys the Warlock a turn. Like... I dunno. I guess I'm just super-disillusioned with Warlock at this point? Especially with super-crap cards like Feeding Time and Bloodbloom in the last expansion? Here's hoping that if they do decide to go with Discard as a mechanic to promote this expansion, they'll introduce some cards to level the playing field. I mean, Mages get things like Primordial Glyphs and they're fine, right? Give Gul'dan some love! For now she's bad, but we haven't seen most of the expansion. So. Like Ice Breaker, Lana'thel is terrible until proven otherwise.

Blood Razor
What a cool card! Knights of the Frozen Throne is plagued with pretty underwhelming card reveals ever since its very first trailer, and Blood Razor is honestly the first card outside of Deathstalker Rexxar to make me go, 'huh, that's actually pretty cool and I can probably use it'. It's a 2/2 weapon lumped with two Whirlwind effects, and it costs 4 mana. In an ideal world it'd probably be a 3/2 weapon, but Warriors have enough 3/2's as it is already, and the relative convenience of having an effect be lumped in battlecry and deathrattle has long been proven by the likes of Aya Blackpaw and Toshley. And Warriors do like to deal 1 damage to all minions. I honestly just think of how this is Death's Bite on steroids, and how fun it would be to try and revive Grim Patron Warrior in Wild. In standard its applications thin a little, I think. Enrage Warrior isn't going to be a thing, but it certainly looks like it could be deccent paired with things like Bloodhoof Brave. Certainly a lot more usable than stuff like, oh, Ticking Abomination or Blood Queen Lana'thel.

Prince Taldaram
Taldaram is like, Keleseth's buddy, a fellow member of the darkfallen court or something. He's a neutral legendary, a 3-mana 3/3 that's another weird buildaround card. this time, Taldaram doesn't want you to play 3-cost cards, which I think is a lot more forgiving than Keleseth. But his effect isn't as game-breaking as Keleseth's Mistcaller-style deck-buffing effects,  but rather he simply... transforms into a copy of a minion? A 3/3 copy? Assuming it's a minion on the battlefield, it's honestly a fair bit impractical -- like a worse Faceless Manipulator, right? What do I want to turn him into? Like, sure, a 3/3 Tirion Fordring's cool, but I'd rather have the turtles that can produce more actual Tirion Fordrings. Or like a Malygos's cool, but Shadowcaster or Faceless Manipulator can make extra Malygoses without going through the hoops that Taldaram asks me to. Briefly mentally going through my heads, there are some classes that don't use a lot of 3-drops in standard, and honestly some others can have 3-drop cards wiggled out of them... but is it worth it? The condition might be easier to accomplish compared to Keleseth or the Reno gang, and some people are throwing out Blood of the Ancient One decks which sounds fun if nothing else, but at the same time... eh. Another disappointing legendary. Come on, Blizzard -- you're supposed to excite the customers early on to get them to pre-order!

Nerubian Unraveler
Nerubians! This one uses the artwork of Killix the Unraveler from the old WoW TCG, I believe. It's actually a pretty interesting card, and one that I'll probably experiment with. It's our first anti-spell card since... since motherfucking Loatheb, man. Such a great card, that Loatheb. The Nerubian Unraveler isn't as powerful as Loatheb in terms of spell-disabling, giving them a 2-mana mark-up compared to Loatheb's 5, but the Unraveler's effect is continuous as long as he's on the field. And unlike some of the other cards on this review, the downside... isn't that much of a downside. A 6-mana 5/5 is... fair-ish, I guess, for a non-legendary with this effect? Certainly could shut down some mages and priests that rely heavily on spells. Like, all classes could use spells, sure, but some less so than others. I've played some Hunter decks with only like two Kill Commands as spells, or Paladins with only Consecrations as spells. Unraveler does not look game-breaking, but it certainly looks playable. Just probably won't going to see as much as play as Loatheb did in the past.

Mountainfire Armor
Also definitely playable is Mountainfire Armor. He's a 3-mana 4/3, which is fine and dandy for a 3-mana card, and it's our next Deathrattle card. 4/3 with a deathrattle, gain 6 armour? Amazing value! Of course, there's the minor inconvenience that Mountainfire Armour has to die during your opponent's turn, which might cause you to lose value if you're forced to trade this away, but honestly it's a pretty neat card design and one that I can totally see being played. It's definitely great in arena, I can tell you that much, and in constructed... taunt and aggro warrior in their current forms don't need this card at all, but at the same time we haven't seen a lot of the Warrior kit, so whatever new deck is formed, Mountainfire Armor actually looks good enough to be put into a couple of them. N'Zoth Warrior perhaps? Like, I wouldn't mind having an extra 4/3 show up... It's a pretty cool card that's going to deter enemies from trading or removing it, and that allows for some extra flexibility on your part. Not a super-duper awesome card, I don't think, but another one that looks at least playable.

Professor Putricide
Huh, I wouldn't have pegged Putricide as a Hunter legendary. Like Lana'thel, Professor Putricide is one of the bosses of the Icecrown Citadel raid, which means that the rest of that bunch (Sindragosa, Marrowgar, Lady Deathwhisper, Deathbringer Saurfang) are going to be the other class legendaries. That's fine, I guess. And, I mean, can't think of a powerful Icecrown Citadel themed beast on the top of my head. Instead of adapting Putricide's WoW boss fight mechanics, though, Putricide copies his similar-looking minion Mad Scientist's effect. Except on steroids, becuase, y'know, Putricide's WoW model is the Mad Scientist model, but mutated horribly. Putricide's a 4-mana 5/4, again, fair stats, with the continuous effect of after you play a secret, Putricide puts one up for free. It suddenly makes Secret Hunter look so, so damn powerful. One of the biggest weakness back in Karazhan when I tried out Cloaked Huntress decks is that, sure, the Secrets are free, but then my hand's left with like one card for the next turn and that sucks. Putricide allows you to benefit from whether you'd like to put the secrets up one by one, or all at once -- whatever the case he simply doubles your value by summoning random secrets out of thin air and activating it. Is it going to be super-good? It's going to see play, is what I think, and honestly even without the other new Hunter cards (there gotta be a new secret in there, right?) Putricide looks pretty playable. Probably not OP, though.


Ghastly Conjurer
Awesome artwork! The Ghastly Conjurer is our first Mage card reveal, I think. She's a 4-mana 2/6... that adds a Mirror Image to your hand. It's not a bad card, just not quite constructed-level viable, I think. Like, a 2/6 for a 4-mana card that draws you a card from outside your deck isn't bad stats at all. Like, it's sort of comparable to Babbling Book... yet at the same time, instead of the versatility and randomness of Babbling Book (most of the time you kinda want burst damage) the Ghastly Conjurer only adds a mere mirror image. And do you really want that? It's thankfully not a Deathrattle like Rhonin was, which means the effect is immediate, but at the same time why would you want a Mirror Image? I guess it could be used to activate the Mage Quest reliably since it's a card that didn't start in your deck and also very cheap, or a card that can reliably trigger Archmage Antonidas without it having to start in your hand. It's kind of like a less conditional Steam Surger, except instead of the Flame Geyser it adds Mirror Image. Mind you, the Geyser deals actual damage, so I'm not sure how good this will be. My guess is that it's decent as an alternative card to put in quest-centric or control-centric mage decks, but probably won't see a lot of play outside arena unless there's some really cool shenanigans with upcoming cards.

Sindragosa
Another class legendary, another Icecrown Citadel raid. Sindragosa is the queen of the Frost Wyrms, former consort to Malygos, and that kickass giant Frost Wyrm that Arthas resurrected in the very awesome Wrath of the Lich King cinematic trailer released however many years ago (and still one of Blizzard's best cinematics IMO). Her Legendary card is given to Mage, and she's actually kind of like Mage's last Legendary card, Pyros, where it's just a general-utility great Legendary minion that doesn't actually need a specific deck like Putricide or Lana'thel or the two Darkfallen princes. Sindragosa is an 8-mana 8/8, a fair statline for a big minion, and as a battlecry she summons two 0/1 Frozen champions. Frozen champions are 0/1 that adds a random legendary to your hand as a deathrattle, which in mage is highly easy to do. Hero power's the obvious thing, of course, but also Volcanic Potion, a card that saw some marginal play for a cheap, smaller board-wipe. It also is a bit of a AoE deterrant in a sense, while still being fair because it doesn't just summon a random legendary minion but adds it to your hand. It's like a slower, less damage-spammy version of Dr. Boom in a sense. Before you ask, no, putting Ticking Abomination for the sole purpose of triggering the frozen champions is a stupid idea. Other full-board AoE cards like Primordial Drake, Wild Pyromaner or even regular Abomination is so, so much better. Also feel like I have to mention the N'Zoth interaction, even if it's not the best card to bring back with N'Zoth. Also Sindragosa is a dragon, which means it can be fetched by Curator -- though I personally don't really see Curator Mage decks happening. It's a slow card, that's for sure, which hurts her a fair bit. Overall probably not an auto-include card, but still actually a card I won't mind having or crafting. I dunno. I kinda have a soft spot for big, undead dragons, I guess? Chillmaw now has a buddy to hang out with.

Leeching Potion
2 mana, give your weapon lifesteal? For this, I'll be succinct and simple -- give us the strong weapons you promised when you nerfed Blade Flurry, Blizzard! What the hell am I supposed to lifesteal with, a 1/2 weapon? 2 mana deal restore 2 health over 2 turns? Yeah, I'd rather play that silly bartender tauren from Mean Streets of Gadgetzan, thank you very much. Sure, Rogue needs recovery because it's so damn fragile without Antique Healbot, but a lifesteal weapon? Come on. Warriors keep getting cool weapons, where's my cool super-speedy powerful rogue dagger? Plus, weapon-buff cards are kinda-sorta weak because an all-purpose anti-weapon counter card called the Acidic Swamp Ooze exists. Like, sure, you could make your Assassin's Blade have Lifesteal and Poisonous and be buffed to huge amounts -- doesn't matter, Ooze. Not a very impressive card, and also not very interseting to talk about.

Chillblade Champion
So I'm going to go through the first five cards revealed during the original reveal stream, which I felt were super-underwhelming, coupled with the first reviews in the 24th being relative crap like Ticking Abomination and Icebreaker.... Chillblade Champion isn't super bad, though. On paper, he's kind of like Truesilver Champion. 4-mana card that does immediate damage and heals. Except Chillblade Champion's a minion, so he doesn't acctually only have two charges, but can probably hit and heal for far more than that. As Wickerflame Burnbristle has proven, something that hits and heals is fully capable of healing your hero to full health if not removed, and Paladin has a crapton of healing effects at its fingertips in Standard at this point in time. Even as a card that trades immediately upon being summoned, Chillblade Champion still probably trades up and removes something while healing your hero for 3 health, which isn't that bad. Assuming it dies by direct trading in the following turn, you get an extra 3 health. If it survives, it can heal you for more. Chillblade Champion isn't the best card ever, but it's certainly a pretty cool common.


Deathstalker Rexxar
Deathstalker Rexxar is the first of our hero cards. Hero cards are cards that we play, and do like a Jaraxxus or Executus effect... except they aren't minions that can accidentally be pulled into the field. I think they're immune to crap like Counterspell as well? Regardless, though, Deathstalker Rexxar turns Rexxar into a zombie! It costs 6 mana to zombify Rexxar, and in addition to 5 extra armour, Deathstalker Rexxar deals 2 damage to all enemy minions as a battlecry. Which probably isn't super-great at turn 6, but at least that means you're doing something on turn 6 when you're just transforming -- you gain armour, and you deal damage. It's not a terrible battlecry considering one of Jaraxxus's biggest weakness is that the first turn that you turn into Jaraxxus you don't do anything but trade with the 3-attack weapon. You also get a brand-new hero power, the Build-a-Beast, where you make a new Zombeast card. It kinda works similarly to Kazakus, except you discover two beasts. I think the beasts you discover must be less than 5 mana, so no Savannah Highmanes here... and I think the pools are slightly different, with the first having more text and the second being filled with vanilla or single-keyword cards, but still... this means you can make things like a Vicious Fledgling with instant-charge by combining it with Stonetusk Boar. Hell, anything combined with Stonetusk Boar, or Young Dragonhawk, or Jungle Panther, simply just gets Charge, Windfury or Stealth for free and there are some pretty gross combinations out there. Of course, this hero power is absurdly slow, especially for a hunter, because you spend 2 mana to build the beast, and then you have to play the initial cost of summoning said beast (the theoretical Stonetusk Fledgling costs 4 mana, for example, which isn't bad, but that's if you strike gold). Ultimately I honestly don't think Deathstalker Rexxar is going to be the best hero card out there, but it does certainly look relatively fun.


Shallow Gravedigger
This card's... okay? It feels more like an arena card, and it's like a reverse-Netherspite Historian, but for deathrattles. It's a 3/1 for 3 mana, but it adds a card only upon dying. It's kind of like Journey Below slapped onto a body, except that a 3/1 isn't super-duper great. It's okay for a minion you're expecting to die, but at the same time you're just feeding 3 mana to get pinged down. It's not the worst thing ever becasue we've had cards like Shimmering Tempest whose function is only to die to add cards to your hand, but I honestly don't think this card is that good. It might see some play in like Quest/N'Zoth Priest thing, but outside of that I find it hard to think that this card's going to see much play. The fact that it's random makes it a lot less viable than other cards like, say, Netherspite Historian. Not a super-big fan, though certainly far better than crap like, well, Ice Breaker.

Spirit Lash
It's Arcane Explosion, but with Lifesteal! What makes the Lifesteal keyword different than, say, Holy Nova or Drain Life is that the life-stolen damage is boosted by Spell Damage. Which is pretty cool. Hallazeal-boosted spells are amazing if hard to pull off, and the reliability of that effect on a single card makes Spirit Lasha lot better than it initially seems. Maelstrom Portal, after all, sees a fair amount of play, but I'm just not sure if the lifesteal will matter all that much on the second turn. Boosted with Bloodmage Thalnos on a subsequent turn it might be decent, but I kind of think that the combination of Lifesteal and a low-cost, low-impact spell isn't the most exciting thing out there. Not a bad card to print, I must say, but not a very exciting one either.

Prince Keleseth
I actually think Prince Keleseth is better than his brother Taldaram, but not by a big margin. The thing is, though, instead of being a shittier Faceless Manipulator, Keleseth's effect of giving all minions in your deck +1/+1, basically Mistcaller's effect, is a lot more valuable than Taldaram. Keleseth himself isn't too badly undercosted like Mistcaller was, a 2-mana 2/2 that boosts cards in your deck isn't horrible, and hitting all minions gives so much more value compared to Hobart Grapplehammer's all weapons. The thing that makes me frown about Keleseth is that, well, what it asks for you is way, way too steep. The idea of not having a single card of a certain cost in your deck is interesting, but 2-mana is one of the most important costs in your deck, and there are some classes whose best cards are there. Druids cannot live without Wild Growth and Wrath. Warriors have Fiery War Axe and Execute. Shamans have Flametongue Totems, Maelstrom Portals, Jade Claws and Devolves. Mages have Primordial Glyphs, Pyros, Sorcerer's Apprentices and Frostbolts. Hunters have all their traps, plus some premium turn-2 beasts like Kindly Grandmother and Crackling Razormaw. Paladins have Hydrologists. Rogues have Eviscerate and Undercity Hucksters. Priests, despite its no-good-2-drop meme, have the all-essential Shadow Word: Pain and the new Radiant Elementals. Warlocks have Dark Peddlers. Admittedly, though, a lot of these are less essential than others. I cannot ever see Mages, Shamans or Druids play a keleseth deck, but you can kinda force Paladins, Rogues and Warlocks to try to live without their 2-mana cards. They're all pretty great with minion-based decks, too, though that does mean no Murlocs for Paladins, while Warlocks cannot run the traditional Zoolock style with Doomsayers and Dire Wolves. Some people suggested playing Keleseth in a Quest Hunter deck... which might actually work! Especially after Queen Carnassa gets dropped onto the field. A swarm of endless 4/3's is a lot scarier than 3/2's. If Blizzard wants to print a weird card, print more cards like Keleseth that gets my head thinking to build a deck, don't make things like Lana'thel or Taldaram where the effect isn't worth meeting the absurd requirements at all.