Lone Champion: Lone Champion's a 3-mana 2/4 that gains the Taunt/Divine Shield Sunwalker combo if your side of the board is empty. It's... not horrible. Obviously, if the battlecry wasn't conditional it'd be absolutely bonkers. 2/4 with divine shield is certainly better than Tar Creeper's 3/5, since the divine shield's going to tank something, but overall I don't really see it replacing Tar Creeper or Stonehill Defender as a defensive 3-drop. More of an arena card than anything, I think.Silver Vanguard: Great card art, but kind of a shit effect. 8-cost minions are powerful, sure, but... wouldn't you just rather play a good 7-drop instead as opposed to a 3/3? And a deathrattle as opposed to a battlecry? It's definitely way too huge of a tempo loss, in my opinion, to become a card like Barnes or Kathrena. Don't think this is a good card at all.
Raven Familiar: A 2-mana 2/2 that basically acts like a King's Elekk for Mage spells? I'm definitely slightly surprised that they're bringing the Joust mechanic back. Drawing a spell from your deck is definitely good, as Arcanologist can attest, but Arcanologist tutors out a specific subset of a card in your deck, whereas Raven Familiar is a slightly-lower-statted card that draws only high-mana spells. It's definitely an interesting card, and might be a pretty neat alternate tech as opposed to Arcanologist if you're not going to play the secret package. Not a bad card, but I'm not sure if it's good enough to see play without some serious huge-mana spell support.
Unidentified Maul: Our second unidentified card is a 3-mana paladin weapon, with a base 2/2 stat. The possible extra identified effects are divine shield, taunt, +1 attack and summoning two 1/1 dudes. It's... I don't really see the Unidentified cards as being particularly good, although a weapon is definitely a lot better by default compared to the Priest's buff spell. The thing, though, is whether this card will ever be better than Rallying Blade's 3-mana 3/2 stat. I guess the Unidentified Maul's potential to buff the entire board is good enough for it to see play? Definitely not a card I'm pessimistic about, and like Raven Familiar I kind of see this showing up in play every now and then.
Grumble, World-Shaker: God dang, this dude. I really like the design of Grumble. He's an above-statted 6-mana 7/7 that... saps all your minions, but reduces them into 1-cost minions. They could've given Grumble a sub-par statline, the way Mistcaller or Hallazeal or Moorabi were... but they gave Grumble a higher statline, for the arguable disadvantage of reducing your board to nothing. But when all your minions get reduced to 1... I dunno. Grumble's be straight-up broken if he was in Rogues, but Shamans got it. Grumble's also an Elemental, which really makes me think that it could definitely work well in an elemental deck with Fire Elementals, Kalimos, Servants of Kalimoses and Blazecallers. There's a pretty huge amount of elementals with great battlecries, that honestly even bouncing two would be such a huge tempo play. And with Leeroy... hoo! After an expansion where Shaman got a grand total of one good card, it's definitely neat that they're getting a somewhat decent-looking legendary. Time will tell, though, if the elemental package will actually find a place in the meta. I certainly hope so -- the Elemental tribe is one that I really wished was more prevalent.
Benevolent Djinn: A 3-mana 2/4 that restores 3 health to your hero at the end of every turn. She's Paladin-exclusive and kind of a neat control tool the way that Friendly Bartender from Gadgetzan was... but a lot better. I'm not sure if she'll find a place in paladin decks, though. She's an elemental, but unlike Grumble, I don't really think that Paladins are the class that could work well with the elemental package the way mages or shamans can.
Temporus: A fucking crazy legendary, is what this dude is. He's like one of the infinite dragonflight or some boss or other in the Caverns of Time. He's a 7-mana 6/6 dragon... that has one of the crazier effects in Hearthstone ever. He allows your opponent two turns, before giving you two turns. It definitely allows priests to set up a two-turn KO -- the obvious for Priests being a Divine Spirit/Inner Fire combo, but there could easily be others. Of course, you're letting your enemy take two turns, which, even without the huge setup that Quest Mages do... is still two turns that you're spending sitting and allowing your opponent to take the incentive. It's ultimately a pretty crappy card, I think, one that's more meme-y than anything.... but I do like the existence of crazy cards.
Grizzled Guardian: A pretty impractical druid card, I think. An 8-mana 3/5 Taunt is horrible, but with a deathrattle effect? And even then the deathrattle is like recruiting two 4-mana-or-less minions... and I don't really see any really huge combos to muck around with. It's not a 'holy shit, this is impractical, but so awesome if I can pull it off' the way Hadronox's wall of taunts are. Grizzled Guardian's just kinda crap, honestly, unless there's some combo I'm missing or we haven't seen.
King Togwaggle: Challenging Temporus for the 'craziest legendary ever' is King Togwaggle, the big fat king kobold that's going to be the main villain of our new expansion. Togwaggle pulls a Rafaam and swaps the two decks! And... well, gives your opponent a Ransom spell that costs 5 mana that swaps the cards back. And, of course, Togwaggle is such a low-statted minion at 5/5 for 8 mana... and that's obviously a bad card. But Togwaggle's meme potential is definitely around. Between playing Togwaggle with like Keening Banshee or Fel Reaver and discarding cards from your opponent's deck before they play Ransom, or mill their hand full so they don't even get the Ransom spell... the thing, though, Togwaggle still leaves your enemy's hand intact, which more than likely allows your opponent to deal with Togwaggle even without playing the Ransom card.
Lesser Ruby Spellstone: If there is a card that really excites me to play elemental mage, it's not just Arcane Artificier or Arcane Tyrant. It's this card. It's a 2-mana spell that, as its 'lesser' effect, adds 1 random mage spell to your hand. It goes to 2 and 3 random mage spells, ending at basically a 2-mana Cabalist Tome, and the way you upgrade it is by playing 2 elementals in a turn. It's perhaps somewhat more impractical, but honestly even in the 'lesser' or base spellstone versions, it's just a slightly-worse Babbling Book, and it's really a spell that feels pretty dangerous since playing 2 elementals is pretty easy -- a single Fire Fly will do it.
Explosive Runes: A new mage secret! After your opponent plays a minion, Explosive Runes deals a 6 damage, and basically Tramples the hero with the damage, to use a Magic: The Gathering terminology. Which, well, basically means dealing excess damage to the enemy hero. It's... okay? It's a kind of a more expensive Snipe, and I don't think anyone ever plays Snipe. Plus, I don't see this card being played over Mirror Entity or Counterspell, really.
Lesser Pearl Spellstone: Not sure if this card's a good one or not. It's for Paladins, and also costs 2 mana. It summons a 2/2 Taunt minion, then a 4/4, then a 6/6. Obviously both the regular and the greater pearl spellstones are pretty damn powerful, basically being a 2-mana Thing From Below. Upgrading it isn't super difficult either, just by restoring 3 health. The 'Healadin' archetype hasn't been around a lot in recent metas, but with a simple Benevolent Djinn is enough to upgrade this twice. Maybe? It does seem decent and balanced, but not super-overpowered. Which works for me.
Sonya Shadowdancer: The Rogue legendary. Sonya is a 3-mana 2/2 with a passive effect that basically does the Shadowcaster effect every time a minion dies. It's definitely better than Shadowcaster. A 3-mana card is easier to combo out compared to a 6-mana card, and a 6-mana 4/4 has such a bigger stat penalty than a 3-mana 2/2. And, of course, Sonya's a continuous effect. The thing is that Sonya's effect happens when your minions die, which means it's not as immediate as the Shadowcaster's battlecry. So yeah. It's an interesting card, but I'm not sure if it's going to be good, or if it'll going to be another Lilian Voss.
Arcane Artificier: A 1-mana 1/2 elemental that gives you armour equal to the spell you just casted! It's... an interesting card, for sure. I'm not sure if Mages can slot the Artificier into their decks, and if 1-mana 1/2 elementals are tough enough to really stay on the board to matter worth a damn. I'm not sure if gaining armour is something that Mages want to do, although Arcane Artificier is certainly a pretty balanced and well-designed minion nonetheless. Still on the fence on Artificier, really. He's a decent-looking card, but one that I'm not sure is on the right class.
Grand Archivist: An 8-mana 4/7? It's pretty poop stats, although the effect is... strange. Casting random spells from your deck? It's like a controlled Yogg-Saron effect, and, similar to the Runespear, it does allow you to control what spells within your deck. Not sure if playing an 8-mana 4/7 really is practical at all, though. Interesting effect, but latched onto a pretty bad card. I'm not sure if there are enough spells that I want to cast for free without picking a target that I can put in a deck. I guess Druids with nothing but Ultimate Infestation, Nourish and Spreading Plague, maybe? I dunno.
Arcane Tyrant: A 5-mana 4/4 Elemental that costs 0 if you cast a spell that costs more than 5 this turn. Not reduced like Thing from Below, but straight-up free. And all classes have great expensive spells. Firelands Portal, Cabalist's Tome, Kazakus Potions, Ultimate Infestation, Meteor, Spikeridged Steed, Dragonfire Potion, Volcano... Warrior, Hunter and Rogue are perhaps the only ones that can't properly use Arcane Tyrant. But honestly? In an elemental deck, a random free 4/4 on top of the huge tempo play you'd do with casting a huge spell? It's good without being too much of a swing the way Thing From Below can be. I like this card -- I don't think it's super-good, but I think I'll try to make it work.
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