Hearthstone: Boomsday Project - A Card Review Retrospective

 It's that time of the Hearthstone year again where I do a brief look back to how I had rated the cards in an expansion... and I don't believe we're going to be here for too long. I've been playing Wild for the most part in the Boomsday project meta, trying to get a break from the genuinely bland Standard metagame that has clenched the Hearthstone year of 2018 -- it's basically the same meta as Witchwood as far as Standard goes, except with maybe one or two deck variations... and Witchwood was mostly refining previous iterations of decks by adding Genn and Baku into them. Which was why I jumped over to Wild to at least experience a wider variety of decks.

And, as something that I really kind of wish would've happened, that the wacky mech cards would at least make more of an impact in Wild.  After the original experimentation phase petered out, basically the entire expansion petered out, with maybe two or three cards entering new decks. So for the most part, a lot of these are just going to be very, very 'ummm okay' negative reviews.

Druid:
Biology Project and Juicy Psychmelon basically pushed the Aviana/Kun/Togwaggle/Azalina combo in Wild over the edge. Juicy Psychmelon allows you to tutor all parts of this ridiculously dumb combo, and later on it's refined to replace Togwaggle and Azalina with an even more obnoxious Star Aligner combo. Even outside of wild, though, Biology Project's easily one of the more powerful cards in Druid's arsenal of all time, while Psychmelon facilitated Malygos decks. Those two are so bad that Aviana got nerfed for Wild's meta.

All the treant stuff basically died. The rest of Druid's stuff...  Floop's okay, I guess, seen in some iterations of Malygos or Star Aligner decks. Gloop Sprayer's seen as a weird tech choice in some Malygos decks, but I don't think it's honestly all that good. I don't think I've really seen any of the rest. My biggest miss was definitely Dreampetal Florist, who I rated way too highly.

• 5: Biology Project, Juicy Psychmelon
• 4: N/A
• 3: Flobbidinous Floop (down from 5), Gloop Sprayer (down from 4)
• 2: N/A
• 1: Dreampetal Florist (down from 4), Mulchmuncher (down from 3), Floop's Glorious Gloop (down from 3), Tending Tauren (down from 2), Dendrologist (down from 2), Landscaping (down from 2). 

Hunter:
I also really got Hunter off by a huge margin, huh? Necromechanic saw no play, although at least I'm right in that the whole Fireworks Tech/Bomb Toss/Cybertech Chip stuff didn't pan out either. There's a neat little aggro mech list in Wild, although it's not the best one out there it at least functions. Flark is okay. Flark's Boomzooka... I'm not sure why I ranked it so high, actually. I've seen Secret Plana actually been somewhat used here and there, but in my experience secret hunter decks without Secret Plans tended to perform better. Kind of a sorry expansion for Hunter, although they at least manage to scrape by with their old decks.

• 5: N/A
• 4: N/A
• 3: Venomizer, Spider Bomb, Boommaster Flark
• 2: Secret Plan
• 1: Cybertech Chip, Fireworks Tech (down from 2), Bomb Toss (down from 2), Flark's Boomzooka (down from 3), Goblin Prank (down from 3), Necromechanic (down from 4)

Mage:
The hand-mage synergies don't work as all, which is what I predicted. And... honestly, none of the new cards in Mage really saw a whole lot of play. Mostly Stargazer Luna, Astral Rift and Shooting Star are used for relatively weak tech options in control mage, but they tended to be cut out as well. Luna's Pocket Galaxy... spell damage... none of it really ended up working out, honestly, although admittedly Cosmic Anomaly did see some experimentation. I did rate the mage cards pretty lowly when I reviewed them, though, so score one for me, I guess. Hopefully with the Mana Wyrm nerf they can print more powerful cards.

• 5: N/A
• 4: N/A 
• 3: Stargazer Luna
• 2: Astral Rift, Cosmic Anomaly (down from 2), Shooting Star (down from 3)
• 1: Meteorologist, Research Project, Luna's Pocket Galaxy (down from 3), Celestial Emissary (down from 2), Astromancer (down from 2), Unexpected Results (down from 2)

Paladin

"Mech Paladin looks great", I said a couple of months ago. Haha no. I mean, there's a fun little following for Kangor's Endless Army out there, but for the most part Paladin decks are even worse than Dragon Paladin decks, I think. They're like this wacky fringe deck in both Standard and Wild, and most of them don't really even play around with Kangor's Army or Glow-tron, but just tended to rely on buffing Mechano-Egg. The rest of Paladin's cards in this expansion are really underwhelming, too, and I genuinely forgot a lot of them existed. The sad part is, even cards that I sort of gave a chance that "maybe someone will think of something wacky with this" like Crystology or Prismatic Lens don't even see a lot of experimentation. 

• 5: N/A
• 4: N/A
• 3: N/A
• 2: Crystalsmith Kangor, Mechano-Egg (down from 3), Glow-Tron (down from 4), Kangor's Endless Amry (down from 3)
• 1: Autodefense Matrix, Glowstone Technician, Annoy-o-Module (down from 3), Crystology (down from 2), Prismatic Lens (down from 2), Shrink Ray (down from 2)

Priest:
There are a bunch of interesting usages of Priest's cards, at least. Topsy Turvy and Test Subject ended up being the subject of a ridiculously convoluted way to win, which is... it's neat! I like seeing people do that, as ridiculously bizarre as it is. Dead Ringer saw usage in some Quest Priest lists, although, surprisingly, not Reckless Experimenter, which is a card that I was way overhyped on. The Zerek cloning stuff ended up being pretty weak, as I guessed it would, whereas the Cloning Gallery saw some play in Wild in Big Priest lists, although it's hardly the most stable one there. Man, I really overrated some of these cards, huh.

• 5: N/A
• 4: N/A
• 3: Dead Ringer (down from 4)
• 2: Zerek's Cloning Gallery (down from 3), Test Subject (down from 4), Topsy Turvy (down from 4)
• 1: Cloning Device, Reckless Experimenter (down from 5), Omega Medic (down from 3), Zerek Master Cloner (down from 2), Extra Arms (down from 2), Power Word: Replicate (down from 2)

Rogue:

Rogue basically went back to the same Odd Rogue and Quest Rogue lists (and Kingsbane in Wild). We did get to see Lab Recruiter be included in a fair amount of Kingsbane lists in Wild, though to shuffle in those Coldlight Oracles. And Myra's Unstable Element is a genuinely legitimate tech card in Odd Rogue.

But most interestingly, we did get to see decks based around Necrium Blade and Pogo-Hopper respectively in both Wild and Standard, which is something that I genuinely liked! No, they aren't particularly strong, but they're pretty fun little wacky decks that do see some decent winrates. Academic Espionage sadly doesn't end up being good, which is a shame, although I still see people dicking around with it every now and then for fun. Ditto for Myra. 

• 5: N/A
• 4: Lab Recruiter (down from 5)
• 3: Myra's Unstable Element (down from 4), Necrium Blade, Pogo-Hopper
• 2: Myra Rotspring (down from 3), Academic Espionage (down from 5)
• 1: Blightnozzle Crawler, Necrium Vial, Violet Haze, Crazed Chemist (down from 2)

Shaman:
Shaman basically went back to its Odd/Even Shaman stuff, and other than some experimental tech choices with Electra Stormsurge and Menacing Nimbus, I genuinely never saw much of these cards in the meta. Storm Bringer and Eureka decks disappeared basically after the first two or three days of Boomsday.

• 5: N/A
• 4: N/A
• 3: Electra Stormsurge (down from 4)
• 2: Menacing Nimbus (down from 3)
• 1: Beakered Lightning, Storm Chaser (down from 2), Thunderhead (down from 2), Voltaic Burst (down from 2), Omega Mind (down from 3), Eureka (down from 3), Elementary Reaction (down from 3), Storm Bringer (down from 3)

Warlock:

Turns out the Soularium hype ended up being pretty poopy! It's the Soul Infusion/Doubling Imp combo that ended up empowering Zoo Warlock, and it's a genuinely pretty powerful combo! Especially since it actually fits in Odd Warlock. Warlock's basically stuck in the same Odd/Even/Zoo mentality as it did before, though, and... and I take a look at the list of cards on Hearthstone's wiki and wow, I've never seen any of these cards in ladder. 

The only real one I've seen here and there is Demonic Project during the heydays of Aviana/Kun, and that's just there alongside Dirty Rat and Gnomeferatu to give you a chance. Otherwise, though, after the Aviana nerf, Demonic Project's kind of useless.

• 5: N/A
• 4: Soul Infusion (up from 3)
• 3: Doubling Imp (up from 2), Demonic Project (up from 2)
• 2: N/A
• 1: Dr. Morrigan, The Soularium (down from 5), Spirit Bomb (down from 3), Void Analyst (down from 3), Ectomancy (down from 2), Omega Agent (down from 2), Nethersoul Buster (down from 2)

Warrior:

Control Warrior gets a lot of great tech cards from here. Dr. Boom is a far more proactive, if random, value-oriented hero card than Scourgelord Garrosh, and has basically replaced Garrosh in many control warrior lists. Omega Assembly and Weapons Project also turn out to be decent. Supercollider, much to my surprise and genuine shock, ended up not only being playable, but actually being straight-up good in control matchups. Turns out that having mini-Brawls are actually useful! After trashing Supercollider so much back on, I'm actually surprised and happy to see Supercollider do great. 

Mech Warrior survives mostly in Wild, but that's on a very broad term of survival. It does have the best new mechs in the set, but when the dust and meta settles, admittedly the only real mech that sees consistent play is Zilliax and any other mech from Dr. Boom. I'll rank most of the mechs in 2, though, because they're not completely a failure. (Boomship is, though)

• 5: N/A
• 4: Dr Boom Mad Genius, Omega Project
• 3: Weapons Project, Supercollider (up from 1), Eternium Rover (down from 4)
• 2: Dyn-o-matic, Security Rover (down from 3), Beryllium Nullifier (down from 3)
• 1: Rocket Boots, The Boomship (down from 4)

Neutral:

Everyone sort of really wanted to play around with Mechs, but, again, after the dust settled, none of the mech decks really survived at all. Aggro Hunter and Control Warrior are tier 3 decks at best in Wild, and those are the best mech cards I can think up of at the moment. Out of the mechs, Explodinator and Missile Launcher are probably the only surprising one that turned out to be viable, although that may just be a Wild thing with Metaltooth Leaper for Hunters.

Obviously, the biggest hurrah from Boomsday Project is the ever-present Giggling Inventor, who is practically everywhere in the meta that required a savage two-mana nerf. She would've gotten a 7 on this list, easily, pre-nerf. Now she's just unplayable.

Three notable stars of the show, though, are Mecha'thun, Subject Nine and Star Aligner. Star Aligner led to an insane combo deck in Wild that's not only viable, but also scarily consistent, although that has understandably petered out now. Subject Nine is a surprisingly and completely viable highlight in Secret Hunter decks. Mecha'Thun (and Galvanizer) is also a surprisingly okay combo deck, as far as combo decks go. Overall, though... yeah, I really overrated a lot of these Mechs. Hell, in my revised look-back, I think I'm being awfully generous putting Zilliax and Mecha'thun as 4's here.

And, yeah, it is harsh to rate so many of these cards 1-star, but at the same time a vast majority of the cards from Boomsday are straight-up unplayable, with even playable mechs being relatively hard to find. That's not to say that they're all horrid cards,  because some of the mechs are genuinely decent to find in Arena or as part of a discover mechanic... but for the most part, Boomsday's kind of bland if we're being honest.

• 5: N/A (Star Aligner and Giggling Inventor would've fit here pre-nerf)
• 4: Zilliax, Mecha'thun (up from 2!)
• 3: Galvanizer, Subject 9 (up from 2), Mecharoo (down from 4), Wargear (down from 4)
• 2: Weaponized Pinata, Missile Launcher, Explodinator (up from 1), Upgradeable Framebot (down from 4), Mechanical Whelp (down from 3), Bronze Gatekeeper (down from 4)
• 1: Harbinger Celestia, Crystallizer, Spark Engine, Unpowered Mauler, Whirliglider, Brainstormer, Electrowright, Piloted Reaper, Holomancer, Damaged Stegotron, Omega Defender (down from 4), Post-nerf Giggling Inventor (down from 4), Faithful Lumi (down from 3), Skaterbot (down from 3), Toxicologist (down from 3), Augmented Elekk (down from 3), Spring Rocket (down from 3), Coppertail Imposter (down from 3), Rusty Recycler (down from 3), Bull  Dozer (down from 3), Goblin Bomb (down from 2), Cloakscale Chemist (down from 2), Kaboom Bot (down from 2), Microtech Controller (down from 2), Replicating Menace (down from 2), Steel Rager (down from 2), EMP Operative (down from 2), Loose Specimen (down from 2), Seaforium Bomber (down from 2), Arcane Dynamo (down from 2), Spark Drill (down from 2)
• Whizzbang out of Whizzbang: Whizzbang the Wonderful

Anyway, as much as I do love the theme of Boomsday Project, it really ended up being kind of an explosive whiff of an expansion. I do hope Rastakhan's Rumble do end up with some more powerful cards, or at least cards that are genuine tech choices in decks. Or new decks. Or something.