Boomsday Project Card Review/Reaction #2

A bunch of new Boomsday cards dropped last night with a stream! Here's my quick thoughts on them. Reveal season's begun, and I think I'll do them very intermittently. Not sure if I'll have as much to talk about as previous expansions -- I'm kind of busy IRL right now. Still, we've got a bunch of cards to talk about!

Dead Ringer: First up that I'm going to be talking about is Dead Ringer, a Priest minion. And Dead Ringer is a cute little 2-mana 2/1 Mech that, as a deathrattle, tutors a Deathrattle minion. Actually a pretty interesting card! His statline is sort of on the weaker side, but he does seem like a nice little fit for the Quest Priest. I'm not sure if Quest Priest wants mechs specifically, but this basically just replaces Loot Hoarder, doesn't it? Neat card, if not particularly a powerful one on first glancce.

Omega Medic: Another one from the "Omega" cycle whose effect only functions at turn 10, Omega Medic is a 3-mana 3/4 that, beyond turn 10, restores 10 health to your hero as a free action. It's a neat little card that I think will kind of be phased out eventually, although she's a neat little tech card. I mean, Darkshire Alchemist and Twilight Darkmender both didn't get played after the C'Thun hype died off. A fun card, but unless there's some huge synergy, I don't think Omega Medic is going to be a meta card.

Reckless Experimenter: This one, on the other hand, looks pretty damn scary. A 5-mana 4/6 with the continuous effect of discounting Deathrattle minions by 3 is insanely powerful, and the added caveat of them dying at the end of the turn doesn't really matter if you do play the minions with the express purpose of, say, cycling through your deck while playing your quest, or to make a Carnivorous Cube combo -- something that Priest wasn't able to reliably do before this card. And that's not to say how Devilsaur Egg have been used pretty powerfully by Hunters recently -- Reckless Experimenter basically  makes that card a 0-mana delayed 5/5! Certainly seems like a powerful build-around card.

Kandor's Endless Army: An... interesting card! I've been pretty hyped about Magnetic (whether rightfully or not, we'll see), and Kangor's Endless Army is a Magnetic-support Legendary Paladin spell, which resurrects three friendly mechs... and they keep Magnetic upgrades! That's honestly pretty dang powerful, sort of like a N'Zoth lite effect, as much as I have questions as to what happens to a silenced Magnetic minion. As cool as Zilliax is, I still think we need to see the rest of the Magnetic package to really say if Kandor's Army is going to be good in the metagame or just a neat little novelty. Neat, honestly, and most of us did scoff at Anyfin Can Happen.

Autodefense Matrix: A new Paladin secret, and it's... kinda neat? It's like Noble Sacrifice, but instead of summoning a 2/1 minion, you give it Divine Shield. The advantage, I guess, is that if the minion is a big one, you might get more substantial damage thrown into the attacking minion that's more than two damage? S'cool, I don't mind this one.

Demonic Project: This one, though, got me quite excited! Warlocks' Project spell... transforms a random minion in each player's hand into a Demon! It's a fun little counter to late-game combo decks like Malygos Druid and Shudderwock Shaman. A random demon is kind of a crap-shoot... you might give yourself a Succubus or a Blood Imp, and give the other guy a Voidlord or a Dreadlord, but when Warlocks have the best anti-Demon tools like Sacrificial Pact (not that you'd really run that, mind you)...  while Warlocks themselves tended to do like random Demons. most importantly, this acts as a Dirty Rat that polymorphs a minion in your opponent's hand. It doesn't quite kill combo decks that are reliant on a single minion because only Warlocks get this card, and they have to hit one of multiple minions in the opponent's hand. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don't, but a smart player that can read his opponent can really make a Shudderwock player's day bad. Overall, probably my favourite designed cards, honestly speaking.

Omega Agent: Another Omega card, Omega Agent is a shitty 5-mana 4/5. What's the catch, then, when both Omega Medic and Omega Defender are half-decent even without the Omega effect? Well, beyond turn ten, you pay 5 mana for three 4/5 bodies. Shame that these are just straight-up vanilla bodies, which is significantly less exciting... these aren't demons, or have any kind of keyword, and while a bunch of stats should never be scoffed at, I also kind of think that Warlocks have a lot of other late-game cards that do more than Omega Agent.

Lab Recruiter: It's Gang Up attached as a battlecry to a 2-mana 3/2. Gang Up was fun, but ended up basically being abused by Mill decks, so this is one on a minion that only acts on friendly minions, in a metagame without Coldlight Oracle. It's neat, I suppose, and the stream did point out some usage with Myra's Unstable Element. It's a solid card -- we'll see if it's going to turn out to be useful or not in this expansion.

Unexpected Results: A weird one! Unexpected Results is a 4-mana Mage spell that summons two random 2-cost minions. Not... not the best thing to do, really. You pay 4 mana for what's on average slightly lower than two 2/3's... kind of worse than, say, Force of Nature or old Call to Arms. Sometimes it's a Doomsayer, to boot. but the cost ends up being increased with Spell Damage, which is just such a novel way to interact with that mechanic, and with each Spell Damage on board, you basically Evolve the two minions summoned by Unexpected Results. It's fun... but I'm not sure just what deck can utilize Unexpected Results properly.

Weaponized Pinata: Pinata here has Piloted Shredder stats. A 4-mana 4/3 Mech that has a Deathrattle. Instead of immediately summoning a minion, though, the Pinata adds a random Legendary minion to your hand... which may be good or bad. It's not quite as polarizing as Toki, I guess, and looking at the Standard Legendaries... there's not that many bad or situational ones. Sure, Milhouse and Pagle are still there, and there are some weird build-around legendaries like Baku that won't really suit you that well... but I dunno. It's a fun effect, and if nothing else, the Pinata helps to give Mech decks some extra oomph to fill the void left by Shredder in an interesting way.


Faithful Lumi: Aww, he's adorable! Lumi's a simple card, a 1-mana 1/1 Mech that gives a friendly Mech +1/+1. Bigger midrange-style decks will probably drop Lumi, and only the aggro-iest of the aggro decks will play Lumi. He's cute, and a fun little addition to the mech pool, if nothing else. Not much to say about him.

Dr. Boom, Mad Scientist: And we'll close this with the new Warrior hero, Dr Boom, Mad Scientist. He costs 7 mana, gains 7 armour, and most importantly, his battlecry is a passive one -- your mechs gain rush. And that's it. No AoE, no board clear, no equipped weapon, no summoned minion... Dr. Boom just gets into his mech and doesn't actually impact the board like the rest of the existing hero cards. I guess that's why he gives you 7 armour instead of 5? If there was a class that could probably survive a turn without doing anything onto the board, it's probably Warrior, though.

And to nod with the spirit of Dr. Boom, apparently he presses a big red button in his mech suit that he isn't 100% sure how to operate, and ends up swapping hero powers every turn. It's random, of course, with the only real rule being that no two hero powers can repeat. And it's an interesting set of five hero powers. Sometimes you deal 3 damage, sometimes you gain 7 armour, sometimes you deal 1 damage to all enemy minions, sometimes you discover a mech and sometimes you summon three 1/1 Mechs (that rush!). He's obviously meant for a Control-style Mech deck, and giving everything in your deck Rush is a pretty big thing -- especially since one time out of five, you'll be able to discover a new Mech. He looks pretty great with a lot of powerful Hero Powers at the cost of an RNG element built in, and I wouldn't have a Dr. Boom card any other way. And honestly? After one of the most stable control metas with such a neat, structured set of decks that honestly got a bit boring, it's time to inject some madness into the game.

Overall, I am definitely hyped for the Boomsday expansion, and I know that this is the one expansion that I won't touch Standard at all and just go nosedive to Wild and mix up all these wacky cards with all the crazier cards from earlier expansions. Overall, kind of a fun batch to show off this time around, and I'm excited to see what's next.