Boomsday Project: Card Review/Reaction #1

So I haven't actually been playing a lot on the ladder right now -- it's nearly the end of the month and I'm barely above rank 10, but that's mostly because I'm kind of bored of the Witchwood meta both pre- and post-nerf, and have been sort of dicking around playing with a lot of the non-meta legendaries I've gotten recently. Prince Liam, Geosculptor Yip, Archmage Arugal, Deathwing, Darius Crowley, Chameleos... I've gotten a lot of weird stuff that I'm just having a blast trying to... well, "meme" the hell out of, I guess, as much as I hate that term. I also got a Frost Lich Jaina recently and she's amazing, but it's a shame the control mage shell is insanely expensive to build around.

Oh, and I've finally completed Dungeon Run! Warrior's a bitch to finish due to the insanely large array of synergistic cards available.

Anyway, a bunch of new Boomsday card have been revealed, and I guess I'll talk about them a bit!

Stargazer Luna: Revealed in a glorious Wronchi-animated short is Stargazer Luna, who's pretty dang cool. The Mage Legendary is a pretty respectable 3-mana 2/4 that is kind of a godsend for aggro mage decks, a neat substitute for Aluneth that allows you to draw a card any time you cast a spell with the right-most card in your hand. Her statline doesn't actually work particularly well in aggro shells, but the effect is... neat, I guess? I fear she'll end up being more meme-fun in the same way like Arugal is instead of being a staple, although I hesitate in saying that. I mean, look at good old Aluneth!

Menacing Nimbus: A pretty basic card, really. A 2-mana 2/2 Elemental that as a battlecry adds a random elemental to your hand. Not much to say about here, a smaller elemental minion that's a neat, less reliable version of Servant of Kalimos. I do enjoy my elemental decks, though, and while this card probably won't be the most powerful card there, it's a neat one.

Wargear: The next couple of reveals tie in to the Magnetic mechanic (and the fact that all these robots are original to Hearthstone will make the upcoming "Lore of Hearthstone" segment easy to type up), and we're going to start off with Wargear, a simple neutral 5-mana 5/5 mech with magnetic. Again, these magnetic minions look pretty great because of their flexibility, as well as the whole fact that this dude is technically a buff spell, allowing the 5/5 stats to gain Charge if you slap them onto a mech. A simple card, but one that I suspect is going to see a fair amount of play.

Also, I think the Blizzard team straight-up stated that Warriors, Hunters and Paladins are the mech-synergy classes, and we're not getting a GvG repeat of "all classes get mechs?" It is certainly interesting. Maybe they're making up for the sad fate of hand-buff in Gadgetzan in giving the Grimy Goons trio this fancy magnetic stuff?

Upgradeable Framebot: This little dude is just a cheap 2-mana 1/5 mech. A standard vanilla card, but cheap enough for you to combo out and being health-oriented makes it very possible to survive for you to magnetize something onto it. A neat little support card, I think, although I'll refrain on calling these cards good yet until we actually see the full extent of the set.

Beryllium Nullifier: A Warrior-exclusive card,  Beryllium dude here is a 7-mana 3/8 with magnetic and spellproof... and I dunno. Pretty freaking expensive for a 3/8 spellproof card, yeah? Especially since magnetic minions can (presumably) be silenced. This sort of fells like Spectral Knight or Tyrantus are, because spellproof isn't justification enough to play even vanilla-level stats, and 7-mana 3/8 is not vanilla-level stats. Not a card I'm particularly enthused at, although not necessarily bad.

Annoy-o-Module: Revealed in the charming second part of the Boom Labs shorts, Annoy-o-Module is Annoy-o-Tron's cousin. HOWDY! HOWDY! HOWDY! He's basically a bigger, 4-mana 2/4 Annoy-o-Tron, but with Magnetic. I actually like this one. He's clearly a bit of a defensive tool, but definitely far better than Beryllium Nullifier. The statline's a bit on the low side for sure, but the combination of Taunt, Divine Shield and potentially Charge has been proven to be pretty neat. Probably not the best card out there, but definitely a neat one.

Zilliax: And that magnetic blog post closes off with Zilliax, a neutral  mech and Dr. Boom's bodyguard. And... he's what the M:TG crowd call a 'kitchen sink' design, where he has a whole bunch of keywords. Magnetic, Divine Shield, Taunt, Lifesteal and Rush. And a 5-mana 3/2 statline, which means that Zilliax is barely playable standalone, but just get one mech to survive, like Framebot up there, and suddenly you get a charging (or rushing if you play both in the same turn), mech that heals you, and also has the tried-and-true Annoy-o-tron set of taunt and divine shield. In addition to that, Zilliax also helps to activate two of Corpsetaker's three keywords, and synergizes with poor, overhyped Countess Ashmore. Looks good, and basically a shoo-in for any Magnetic-themed deck.

Mulchmuncher: So while Magnetic s a mechanic is limited to three classes, apparently at least Druid is getting a new mech -- this robot hippo Mulchmuncher ties in to a mechanic that ties into Treants. Interestingly, Treants aren't quite getting a tribe tag stapled on to them, but we're just considering any of the 2/2 Treant tokens as, well, Treants. Does Living Mana's Mana Treant count? In any case, Mulchmuncher is a 10-mana 8/8 with Rush that gets discounted for each friendly Treant that dies this game. It's potentially a 0-cost 8/8 Rush which is like old Corrider Creeper on steroids, but at the same time summoning treants and having them die is not quite as easy as just creating a bunch of tokens. We do have a bunch of new Treant-synergy cards in Witchwood, and at least two new ones here.... and the potentially scariest thing with Mulchmuncher is that while he doesn't have Magnetic, he is a mech. So he's a 8/8 with Rush that can easily grow bigger if you run Wargears and Zilliax in your deck. Very interesting card. We'll see if it and the Treant package is enough to make a deck as of yet.

Landscaping: Speaking of Treant synergy cards, Landscaping here is a 3-mana card that summons two 2/2 Treants. It's comparable to Force of Nature and Witching Hour -- Force of Nature summons three Treants but comes two turns late, whereas Witching Hour costs the same, but puts them into your hand. If the Treant synergy thing is going to work, we do need one of these that comes out early enough in the game to really start the 'dying treants' train early. We'll see if Mulchmuncher itself is the only end-game Treant-synergy card or not,  though, because as cool as Mulchmuncher is, I'm not sure if he's good enough to win the game.

Dendrologist: Dendrologist is an interesting support card for the Treant-synergy cards. He's a 2-mana 2/3 that discovers a spell if you control a Treant, which is kind of awkward -- unless there's a one mana or two mana card that summons a Treant Dendrologist is just going to sit in your hand until you get to your Witchwood Apples and Landscapings, and even then all it does is discover a spell, which isn't the most exciting thing out there. He could be good, but even moreso than Mulchmuncher and Landscaping, Dendrologist lives or dies depending on the Treant mechanic.

Supercollider: Supercollider is a Warrior weapon that costs 5, is a 1/3 mana, and basically casts a one-sided Betrayal whenever you attack a minion with it. The animation's cool, and on the off-chance that you get two Mountain Giants in play (as the reveal video shows) it's amazing... but, y'know, a 1/3 weapon for 5 mana? Plus it's not like Warrior is lacking removal. I dunno. This one doesn't seem super good to me -- though I love the flavour of this thing.

Whizbang the Wonderful: An interesting neutral  legendary that's really only useful for new accounts. Whizbang is a 4-mana 4/5 that during the deck-building process turns your deck into a Whizbang deck, which is one of the deck recipes selected at random. And the deck recipes are... certainly sub-optimal, to put it politely. They do let the newer players experiment with these cards that they might not have access to before, though, so it's definitely a fun little wacky card. Strictly one for newer players or if you want to kind of meme around.

Flobbidinous Floop: The Druid scientist Flobbidinous Floop is a humanoid Ooze scientist in a suit! And he's... he's a very terrifying creature! Floop transforms in your hand into a copy  of whatever last minion you played. And with Druid and its insane versatility, this means that Floop gives you an extra Hadronox, or an extra Malygos... it's pretty horrifying considering what Druid can already do in the recent meta. And in a pinch, having Floop become an extra, oh, Lich King or Ixlid or whatever isn't half-bad either. Floop is a huge win-more card, but god damn if it's going to make these combo druid decks be even more crazy.

In addition to new cards, we're getting more consistency changes! Ghostly Charger is no longer a beast since he's, y'know, a ghostly beast. Ixlid, meanwhile, is also no longer an elemental, because despite all the talk about him being a "rock elemental with plants growing on him", the whole title of him being a fungal lord and the flavour of his boss fight really makes it clera that he's more akin to the likes of Bog Creeper and Fen Creeper, which, while considered "elementals" in the WoW system, none of the plant creatures like Ancients, Treants and Bogbeasts are considered elementals in Hearthstone.

We also get clarification with Kindly Grandmother (not a worgen, but a worgen-esque beast, which I'll buy considering how the actual Karazhan fight was kinda vague), Arcane Giants/Golems/Curator (mana-controlled golems aren't counted as arcane elementals) and Bogshaper (they're handwaving this like Arfus as "we'll let this stay for now because the tag is part of why they're playable"). Really do think that they could've handwaved Bogshaper aside without much trouble, though -- it's not like it's Kindly Grandmother where the Beast Tag is super relevant in why it's so good.

We've also gotten a couple of clarifications on card-copying mechanics, particularly in how cards like Shifter Zerus and Shifting Scroll don't keep Thaurissan ticks anymore when they transform. We also get the expected nerf to Shadowboxer, because if you magnetize a Lifestealing minion like Zilliax to Shadowboxer you'll cause an endless loop of healing your hero, the Shadowboxer dealing damage, and then the lifesteal heals yourself, and Shadowboxer will just win you the game. Neat-o!

I, for one, am the most excited about the Magnetic gimmicks, although I have been known to really, really love tribal-themed synergy like mechs, murlocs and elementals. The blog posts on Blizzard's blog have also given hints on what the druid, shaman and mage legendary spells might be, too, which is fun.