Reviewing Magic: The Gathering #17 - Urza's Destiny

The final part of the Urza block, Urza's Destiny. Finally, we're done with the Urza block!

Again, this was originally written as a single article alongside its two previous sets, and was split into three due to length.

• Click here for the previous part, Urza's Legacy.
• Click here for the next part, Unglued.
• Click here for the index.

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The final expansion in the Urza block, and honestly, there are genuinely way too many cards in these three blocks that are just pretty generic stuff. If not for the Phyrexians, I probably wouldn't have much to say here. Destiny is particularly bad, I feel, because outside of Blue and Black I really don't have anything interesting to work with. I don't even find a single White card I feel is noteworthy.


Rayne, Academy Chancellor, is Barrin's wife! She sort of shows up as a minor character in this segment of the Urza saga, and I think Urza manipulated Barrin and Rayne to get together or something as part of his eugenics Bloodlines project? Design-wise she's kinda boring.

Bubbling Beebles shows off a different variation of beebles that aren't pink and fleshy, but are rather light blue. Apparently, according to the flavour text, there's an "annual Beeble roast", where they roast these things. Thankfully, Rayne is a nice lady that doesn't want to murder beebles for what I assume is going to taste like gnocchi, but apparently the beebles are hated enough by the other mages that Rayne's husband Barrin is all sad about it.


Methathran Elite is one of the Metathran, a race of unquestioning blue-skinned magic-soldiers created by Urza as part of his anti-Phyrexian war thing. We get a bunch of these Metathran peeps, and they're... they're kinda neat, I guess, for a funnily-coloured humanoid. The Metathran are so alien to most other non-Urza wizards, though, that they're apparently treated with fear and suspicion by everyone else.

Aura Thief is a pretty fun illusion! It seems that this is a muscle-man with massive bat wings and the lower body of a snake, and it can summon the lightning. I really love its flavour text, too, noting that it's an illusion that is somehow able to steal reality, whatever that means.


I think this is meant to depict Yawgmoth himself? The god-being that rules over the plane of Phyrexia? I could be wrong, though. And I really do like the fact that this is presented as some sort of a Faustine deal, but instead of a devilish dude with red skin and horns, the weird beaked dude on the left is dealing with a massive machine abomination. Yawgmoth's basically a god-like entity, though, so I assume he could appear in any machine-y shape that he wants to.

The Phyrexian Negator "exists to cease", and they're a more basic-looking creature that really do end up feeling like the 'deafult humanoid robot-demon-man. I do like just how oddly that face is stretched, though, and the bizarre metal goatee that he has. A pretty cool Phyrexian monster, actually!


My word that Body Snatcher is a nasty creature. It's this bizarre machine with what mainly seems to be a robotic body that seems to be replicating the goblin in the background, but sheesh, that mass of flesh ending with a fanged bird-mouth that just out from the Body Snatcher's dome-like 'head' is pretty creepy. I'm not sure what's going on, but when the Body Snatcher comes to play, you basically have to discard a creature from your hand, and when the Snatcher dies, said creature comes back to play. Is it like a bizarre sort of possession?

Phyrexian Monitor is a Skeleton creature, and I do like the fact that this hulking dude covered in rags seems to just have a reptilian snout and maw and no eyes. It's a very striking look, despite being pretty simple. I like it! There's also a lot of neat, wretched-looking creatures in the background of this art piece, too.


The Skittering Horror is pretty nasty, too, and I really do like the implication that this is basically a 'rough draft' made by the Phyrexian commander Davvol, because the moment you play any other creature spell from your hand, the Skittering Horror just gets 'replaced' and dies. It's like this bizarre insectoid creature with a massive head that looks kind of like a Ceratopsian dinosaur, and there's so many random features on its 'face'! There's the one lone asymmetrical eyeball on the crest, there's a tongue flopping out, there seems to be a mosquito-like stinger... yeah, this sure is a horrifying critter!

Slinking Skirge is another Skirge, and most of the Skirges, as I mention before, share the same look, but I do particularly like just how nasty the Slinking Skirge's arms look, with its techno-organic flesh showing from underneath ripped-up green skin. Apparently, the greater Phyrexians dine on Skirges, which is represented by a card draw.


Squirming Mass could've just been any old ooze, but holy shit, the fact that it seemingly goes from a giant jelly into a mass of tentacles that reach out and destroy all the trees around it... I'm not sure if the artist meant to sneak an almost human-like face in the midst of it all. Why do a race of techno-organic zombie-robot-demons need a giant blob monster, I don't know, but they have one!

Plague Dogs makes me think that it's the 'upgraded' version of the Hollow Hound above, with a more mean-looking pose, larger claws and a nastier-looking skull, and judging by its name, it also spreads the same plague that the other Phyrexians in Urza's Legacy does. It's a pretty cool looking skeleton-demon-dog-robot! Honestly, I do really like just how much all the Phyrexians across these three expansions do each have their own unique 'feel' to it, with the real unifying direction between them being that they're all mechanical while aping (or showing off) some organic parts. Like the Plague Dogs showing a bunch of random exposed ribcages that we're not quite sure are made up of bone or the same quasi-metallic substance the rest of it seems to be made up of. I think that's the whole 'theme' of Phyrexia, which is that everything fits as long as it's to some degree robotic or features nasty-looking mutilation.


We've got a bunch of goblins in Urza's Destiny, but the funniest one of them all is probably Goblin Gardener, who is shown to be such a horrible gardener that the crops end up withered and dead after he's done with it. That flavour text is also hilarious. "Save time: eat dirt!"

Marker Beetles is a pretty interesting fictional insect, where they appear to be a weird mixture of aphids and those honey-pot ants crawling along trees and waving their massive fat abdomens in the air. Apparently, I think they're meant to be some form of emergency rations, based on the flavour text and the fact that all of its abilities involve either it dying or being willingly sacrificed by its controller.


I'm indebted to include Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary, because he's a legendary creature. He's an elf leader boy prancing around in the jungle. Very elven. Very boring. He's Multani's successor, apparently. Why can't Multani pick another Maro crerature instead?

Plated Spider is honestly just a giant spider with thorns and spikes all over its body, but I do really love just how dynamic that artwork looks in making the jumping spider end up looking so dynamic and simultaneously somewhat confusing, like it's literally a mass of thorns and vines leaping into the air to chow down on that hapless dragon. Absolutely love the flavour text, too. "Most spiders aren't forty feet tall".


THron Elemental is a creature that's pretty cool, if simple. It's just a massive humanoid made entirely of brambles, and it shoots brambles and spikes at people. It's not until you see the birds in the bottom part of the art that you realize how utterly massive the Thorn Elemental is. No wonder the Phyrexians were beaten back by the elves, at least for a while!

Brass Secretary shouldn't be this interesting, since it's just some butler robot dude writing things on a scroll, but a combination of the scroll coming out of his own chest, as well as that hilarious combination of nose and chin shape, ends up really making the Brass Secretary have such a unique charm to him. He's probably called Jeeves or something along those lines.


Thran Golem is Karn's buffer, spikier cousin. I do like that apparently the Thran Golem constantly grows spikes, and required 'regular trimming'. Okay, then!

And we get the funniest card in this expansion, Fodder Cannon. It's black comedy hilarity enough that these goblin peasants are just calmly getting into the cannon, and I do love that they don't even have the same sort of maniacal expression that M:TG goblins usually have... but just read that flavour text! Find another cousin indeed. From the name to the art to the flavour text, this card's pretty neat!

That's it for now, folks! Click under the break for the story time.

Supergirl S05E10 Review: Post-Crisis Revisions

Supergirl, Season 5, Episode 10: The Bottle Episode

With the Crisis on Infinite Earths over and the creation of Earth-Prime and the merging of all the various CW/DC shows into one happy Earth, it's understandable that there are going to be some hiccups, in-universe and out-of-universe, of the adjustment that people are going to have to the fact that all of the history of these various characters and shows are basically rewritten and revised -- and we know it, and the main characters know it, but there's still something strange knowing intellectually that the events of season one throughout season five, episode eight of Supergirl played out slightly differently in this new, revised timeline. (All of the plotlines from earlier this season about Leviathan and Obsidian North and Rama Khan remain, except Leviathan's hidden once more, and it seems we're still going to be following those this season, although there apparently are some revelations that aren't exactly carried over -- Lena's doomsday plan was erased out of continuity by Lex, apparently, and William Dey's history and motivations are a bit altered although it still involves a dead Russell Rodgers.)

And the biggest among those changes would be the fact that Lex Luthor is now World Hero #1, is the boss of the DEO, and everyone loves him, thanks to his little bit of machination when Godliver Queen was rewriting history, and for the most part, the episode and the show seems to want to let this sink in to anyone who doesn't really quite understand the Crisis proper. Lex Luthor is the boss of the DEO, and we get a particularly painfully-written exposition conversation between Kara and Alex early in the episode, and if that's not enough, Lex re-explains it to Lena again later on when he brings her up to speed to recruit her to his cause. Basically, this is the new status quo -- Lex gives Kara and Alex a bit of a pitch, they can help protect the world from threats (that are not Lex), and they can keep an eye on each other. And with Lena, it's playing to her angry "rarr I will never trust friends ever again' mentality because Lex tells Lena that, well, she knows to not trust Lex, so Lex is a valuable ally that she'll never have the danger of becoming friends with. Lex does admittedly do a couple of things to earn Lena's trust, like revealing that his deal with the Monitor was that Lena survives the Crisis no matter what with her memories intact, and there's that speech with the Truth-Seeker that he doesn't want to be alone after experiencing death.

And, of course, we get the very nice little bit of manipulation from Lilian, who initially attempts to be advising Lena, but is actually also trying to get on Lex's good side. Okay. And also, Lex finally discovers that Leviathan actually exists or something. And Gemmamae is apparently part of Andrea Rojas's board of directors, and wants to turn this whole thing into some Sword Art Online VR stuff. Neat!

The main plot focuses on Brainiac-5. Five Brainiac-5's! We've got 'our' Brainy, Cheerful Brainy, Punk-ass Brainy, Girl Brainy (played by Jesse Rath's sister!) and Dead Eyepatch Brainy. Apparently Al's new bar has became a refugee bar for a bunch of random multiversal orphans who survived the merging of the various different Earths, which Crisis on Infinite Earths tries to gloss over but it's pretty fucking traumatic for these people to have all their Earths wiped out, all the history wiped out, in favour of what we consider to be the 'right' history.

Turns out that one of the Brainiacs is from one of these doomed Earths, but he managed to shrink his Earth into a bottle (well, a cylinder), Golden Age Brainiac style, and he plans to recruit the aid of the alternate-universe versions of the Kryptonian Witches from season 3 to bring it back to full size... which, thanks to multiversal mumbo-jumbo, will cause both Earths to blow up when they cancel each other out. The whole episode is just an excuse to give Jesse Rath some fun over-acting the various Brainiacs, and we get to see our Brainy go through some self-confidence issues as the other Brainiacs question why he isn't like the other Brainiacs... and turns out it's because the terrible-makeup Brainy we've seen in the past couple of seasons is the result of his personality inhibitors, and he's finally restored to his full glory, with yellow hair and green skin. At the end of the episode, all the extra doppelgangers are either returned into the bottled Earth, or merged with 'the Big Brain', the Coluan hive-mind thing. But Girl Brainy manages to convince Our Brainy that he has to work with Lex Luthor without the other Superfriends knowing, because things will fall apart if they don't work with Lex to fight Leviathan. Okay, that's... that's actually interesting, and I'm a huge fan of allowing Brainiac to do more than just be involved in socially-awkward romantic plots. Which is still going to happen, unfortunately, judging by the fact that the first thing Brainy does upon embarking on this logic trip is to break up with poor Nia.

Ultimately, it's a very uneven episode, and the character piece for Brainy doesn't quite work with the inconsistent tone of 'haha sci-fi zaniness' that the episode ges into at times, plus the whole exposition, while necessary, does get tiring at times. It's an okay, enjoyable episode, if nothing else just to look at Jesse Rath's fun acting. But everything else is just pretty dang messy.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• So basically this 'post-Crisis' universe with a lot of characters' histories being retroactively revamped and changed when the multiverse is merged into one is something that happened for the comics universe as well. And random multiversal 'oddities' and doppelgangers that weren't quite merged right are something that also happened in the comics as well, 
• Brainiac 5's new look, revealed to be his 'true' form (green skin, yellow hair), is far more accurate to the comics than his tacky silver skin makeup from the previous seasons. 
• The Anti-Life Equation is a major part of Superman's lore, being the thing that Darkseid is seeking for. It was the end-game for the final arc of the original DC continuity, Final Crisis, and in the comics, the Anti-Life Equation is a spoken formula that, when broadcasted and heard, will cause any sentient being in the universe to lose their free will and submit. In CW-land, it has been reimagined as a deadly virus. 
• Brainy asks his first doppelganger whether his 'face is made out of clay', a neatly stealthy nod to Batman villain Clayface. 
• Brainy's other theories is to accuse the doppelganger of being either a Martian or a Durlan, both shape-shifting species that have appeared on the show. 
• Brainiacs shrinking and putting shrunken cities (and sometimes worlds) into bottles has been part of the character's history ever since the original Brainiac debuted, with one of Brainiac's most memorable acts being the bottling of the City of Kandor prior to Krypton's destruction. For a good while, the status quo pre-Crisis was that Superman kept the Bottled City of Kandor and its population in the Fortress of Solitude, trying to find a way to safely restore it to its original size.

DC's Legends of Tomorrow S05E03-04 Review: Constantine's Ghosts

Legends of Tomorrow, Season 5, Episode 3: Slay Anything; Episode 4: A Head of Her Time

Episode 3:

This episode's theme ends up being a parody of serial killer shows, as our titular Encore ends up not being a historical figure, but a fictional one called Freddy Myers, a bit of an amalgamation and parody of a couple different slasher movies and also Carrie. And, again, it's a fun episode! The setup is done relatively well, with the cast being split up trying to stop the revived Freddy Myers' psychic rampage in 2004 while also trying to reform him and save him from bullies in 1989. Because when psychic killers are involved you can change history for your own good. As I keep saying, Legends really doesn't give a rat's ass about time travel rules other than as a setting and a story vehicle. There are some parts of it that worked out (Ava randomly being a gigantic serial killer mega-geek is so out of nowhere, but it works) and some that didn't (Mick being in school with Freddy felt like just a vehicle for a very bland side-plot), but ultimately it was a fun experience.

Nora and Zari end up taking relative center stage this episode as Sara, Ava and Mick do a lot of the slasher movie tropes while they run around in 2004 where Myers is controlling the school and causing brutal deaths, Ray and Nate get to be goofballs, Behrad is there to shoot wind blasts but ultimately it's Zari and Nora that get the bulk of the screentime. Nora's a bit less complicated, but it's nice, I guess, to see her settling into her role as fairy godmother and how she ends up being able to befriend and rehabilitate Freddy Myers. It goes exactly where you expect it to, and, again, there isn't much in terms of huge twists or whatever, but the scenes are well-executed and we know Nora comes from a real place when she talks about her shitty upbringing not defining who she is. Also, pony jokes. 

Zari, meanwhile... eh, she ends up making a lot of influencer girl jokes, gets into a bit of an argument with Behrad, gets super prissy (wouldn't you, if you're stuck on a spaceship against your will?) and then briefly regains part of her memory from the original timeline, ends up getting trapped in the 1989 Myers scene and gets to be part of the crowd attacked by the real masked killer, Kathy Myers, Freddy's possessive mom. The twist that the real killer is Kathy Myers is actually a nice one -- it's not too on-the-nose, but there's an enough amount of foreshadowing (Ava's ranting line about psychological profiles) to make me go 'oh yeah, that makes sense'. The mom's not quite as developed as she should be, if we're being nitpicky, but it's not like I'm going to call foul for a one-off Scooby Doo twist villain. 

The Constantine plot has him return to his old house with Gary and finding that a shapeshifting Charlie is squatting in it... and I'm not going to lie, I kind of forgot Charlie sort of escaped from the team in the season premiere. It leads to a bit of a drinking scene for Constantine, a bit of an exposition and confession, before Charlie talks Constantine into actually facing his demons and talking to one of the ghosts trapped in Constantine's house -- Astra's mom. This is more setup for the next episode than anything, really.

And this episode is... by god it's dorky and cheesy as hell, from the unashamed usage of high school prom tropes and slasher movie tropes, and there are a lot of 'cringey' moment, to borrow the slang of the more hip folk -- Zari's off-brand social media jokes barely get a reaction out of me, and I'm not the biggest fan of young Freddy's '90's dance or the little photograph montage at the end, but the actors and characters are having so much fun I can't really fault the show. The episode moves quick enough for the jokes that don't quite land to be left in the dust anyway. 

Episode 4:

"A Head of Her Time" is probably the first episode in this season that actually moves the serious Constantine story forwards instead of just dancing around the same old status quo, and it's... it's an interesting beast. As I keep mentioning, Legends of Tomorrow is a show that's about wacky zany crazy fun antics first and seriousness second, so it's pretty... interesting to watch an episode that jump back and forth between the very serious (other than Charlie's sarcastic jokes) bit of John Constantine being forced to confront his past and admit that the real reason of him attempting to bring Astra's mom back is to prove to her (who also happens to be his ex) that his study of magic isn't a waste of time. And then we cut to the hilariously over-accented Marie-Antoinette using perfume to get people eat cake while literally dropping her head on the floor.

And both storylines are all right. The Constantine stuff was a bit too information-dump-y for my tastes, but was handled well. Natalie the angry poltergeist tossing around memory flashbacks and writing "LIAR" all over the walls while Charlie and Gary try and get Constantine to tell the truth is a pretty bog-standard Constantine story. Turns out that John Constantine's an emotionally vulnerable piece of shit that did shitty things, that's pretty much par the course. We learn that John used to date Natalie, who left him because of the whole magic business and was approached by her husband to bring her back to life when she got hit by a car, and John did so... only to fuck up and lose Astra to the demons of hell.

Throughout the episode Natalie just wants Constantine to admit this, because she doesn't want Constantine going into hell half-cocked, driven by ego, when he tries to rescue Astra. And apparently the whole 'Crisis on Infinite Earths' thing is going to somewhat figure out into Charlie's story, because Natalie plans to use the Loom of Fate from Greek mythology to do something with Astra. And Charlie knew all about it, because as an immortal shapeshifter, she apparently encountered it and shattered it across the (now-nonexistent) multiverse. Plot device, okay, sure. Meanwhile, Astra ends up seeking out the help of some lady in hell, exchanging favours in order for her to speed up John Constantine's predetermined death-by-lung-cancer. It's a pretty fun scene that is very much steeped in Hellblazer vibes, while still fitting into the whole "fuck fate, fuck destiny" mentality that Legends of Tomorrow irreverently has. My biggest complaint, though, is that the episode just simply doesn't commit enough. We don't quite get enough of a mystery or a sense of conflict from Constantine, and by the time we do the exposition's already over and we're just going into talking about the magic McGuffin.

The time travel plot is... eh? New!Zari is kind of still unlikable and very basic, although like Constantine of course this is because she's actually secretly emotionally vulnerable and this leads her acting like a piece of shit. Of course, Zari being a total bitch to Ava isn't quite on the same ballpark as John "oops I got a kid's soul dragged off to hell" Constantine, but there's a vague thematic connection, I suppose. Sara skips out on the majority of this episode, leaving a very panicky Ava in charge. And poor Ava, of course, tries a bit too hard and tries a bit too much to act like the Time Bureau, and Zari knows all about this since she can read people well, and, well, acts like a total ass throughout the episode. Thanks to episodic-television rules, this means that Zari and Ava are the only two people unaffected by Marie-Antoinette charm spell, and they end up being buddies and working together.

The twist that the two of them aren't affected because Marie-Antoinette uses a perfume, and Zari's brand of social-media perfume or whatever (Dragon's Smell or something like that?) apparently destroys your olfactory senses is a far better twist that makes more sense than Fake Jason Voorhes's Mom last episode, although the conclusion is... again, pretty m'eh. I do like the story of New-Zari slowly realizing how flaky social media popularity really is, as she gets a glimpse into the future to see her career crashing and burning (leading to the aforementioned magic perfume theft). It's just that I find it so, so hard to relate or care about this socialite storyline. Anyway, bottom of the line, Zari apologizes and she's buddies with Ava, because they both learn a lesson about learning how you fit in and stuff.

Oh, also, Marie-Antoinette is played by Courtney Ford for no real goddamn reason other than for us to see Courtney Ford over-ham a hammy character with le French accent (oh, phoo!) and a sequence in the episode involves Mick and Ray trying to wrestle Marie-Antoinette's headless body who somehow got her hands on Mick's heat-gun. There's also the bizarre giant s'more-wearing DJ boyfriend of Zari's which may or may not be a parody of a celebrity but ended up just utterly falling flat for me humour-wise.

Y'know, I really don't want to be too hard on the wacky-time-travel part of this episode, because it sure is enjoyable, but I guess I just don't really find myself invested in the New-Zari storyline. Tala Ashe is fine, because the script calls for this version of her character to be annoying, but this does have the side-effect of me really not caring about New-Zari all that much. We're hopefully getting into the inevitable Zari-Convergence or whatever, though, so yay for that.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Various parts of Constantine's backstory in both the comics and CW canon (via the aborted show) is mentioned -- Mucous Membrane is John Constantine's old band, and his ridiculous punk hairdo is also straight from the comics. Natalie briefly mentions a "Lester" as part of Constantine's friends, which is definitely a reference to Gary Lester, Constantine's friend that he sacrificed to trap and kill the demon Mnemoth -- which happened in the episode "A Feast of Friends" in the Constantine TV show, as well as the iconic tone-setting first issue of Hellblazer. 
• Astra's father, while still sharing the name of his comic-book counterpart Alex, seems to just be a regular dad instead of the child-abusing satanist that he was in the comics. (Comics!Alex Logue probably would be way too dark for this show, anyway) Natalie, on the other hand, is completely original -- Astra's mother never showed up in the comics, and no member of the comics' Newcastle Crew fits an equivalent role, so this is the show just doing its own story. 
• John Constantine's death from lung cancer is taken from the iconic Hellblazer mini-arc, "Dangerous Habits", written by Garth Ennis.
• Apparently, Zari's Earth-Prime family name is now "Tarazi" instead of "Tomaz", further distancing her character from her original comic-book inspiration. Which is just as well, it's not like the two have anything really in common at this point.

Hearthstone: Ashes of Outland Card Reaction!

So a couple days back we have the huge card reveal from Hearthstone and it's basically the entire expansion! It's pretty interesting how Ashes of Outland is structured, really, with the additional ten basic cards for Demon Hunter and a couple of extra ones for the 'Initiate' set. With the sheer amount of cards they are giving us, I am actually pretty thankful, more than ever, for the whole duplicate protection thing.

Anyway, here is me reacting (and I guess reviewing, although I'm not the most qualified to do reviews at the moment, being kind of out of touch with the current meta) to the Hearthstone cards. Keep in mind that I'm primarily a Wild/Arena player, so, uh... yeah, I know absolutely nothing about what the Standard meta looks like nowadays.

I'll talk about the classes I find the most interesting first, then the neutrals and the ones I don't think will be super-interesting after the break.

Demon hunters first!

We have two cards from the Basic set that haven't been revealed when we first talked about Demon Hunters and I guess we'll get through those two first. Sightless Watcher is a 2-mana 3/2 that sort of casts a non-discard Tracking for your next turn? It's a solid two-drop, but I feel like it's sort of overrated since it doesn't immediately draw. A solid two-drop if you get him in, like, arena or from random effects, and one that wouldn't break your deck, but one that's easily replaced. Inner Demon's an 8-mana +8 attack for your hero, sort of like a super-overcosted mega-Heroic-Strike, which could be useful as a finisher with Kayn Sunfury, but it's a bit too expensive, I feel.


Immolation Aura is also a card I'm not super-impressed by, but one that's pretty practical, I feel. It's basically 2-mana for two castings of Whirlwind. It's all right, it can help deal with Divine Shield and Stealth minions very well, but it's not going to be a card you put into all DH decks. 


Everyone's getting two free legendaries with the Initiate set, and they're... eh? Nethrandamus is perhaps the least exciting one, a 9-mana big dragon that summons two 0-cost minions (Wisps) but upgrades the cost of the tokens he summons everytime a friendly minion dies. Which admittedly isn't the hardest thing to do in an Illidari rush-token deck, but you have to drawn Nethrandamus and hold him in your hand while doing all of this, and if you top-deck Nethrandamus he's just a shitty version of Onyxia, a card no one ever puts in decks nowadays. The upside if you get Nethrandamus to the 8-10 cost ballpark, I suppose, is equivalent to playing Dragonqueen Alexstrasza sans battlecries, but I dunno. A neat legendary to give to everyone, though!>

Altruis the Outcast is a bit more interesting, a relatively decently-statted 3-mana 3/2 that unleashes Arcane Missiles any time you 'Outcast' a card from your hand, which is another fun way to incorporate Outcast without actually tossing the keyword into every single card. Altruis is pretty solid, particularly if you're going to face off against a lot of token-y style decks. Not the most impressive legendary, but one that I wouldn't be sad putting into my deck.

The legendary everyone is talking about and losing their heads above is Kayn Sunfury, introduced in this hilarious video courtesy of Wronchi Animation. A 4-mana 3/5 Charge isn't impressive... but all friendly attacks ignore Taunt. This includes all minions you have on the field, this includes the Demon Hunter Hero, this includes any minion you recently play (Leeroy Jenkins can ignore taunt!) and Demon Hunter sure is a class that is relatively well-equipped for the aggro style. So many of the best and most troublesome minions in both Standard and Wild do have Taunt built into them somewhere, and Kayn just ignores everything. A very, very scary card, and one that I wouldn't be surprised to get hit with a nerf at some point down the line.


More great minions for Demon Hunter, as if the cards they already got aren't great enough already. Crimson Sigil Runner is a 1-mana 2/1 that draws a card as an outcast effect, comparable to Kobold Librarian, a card that practically every single Warlock deck runs. 1-mana draw a card is premium, and the fact that this is an Outcast effect honestly isn't going to be that hard. The moment you draw this card, where it's on the right-most part of your hand, just play it!

Priestess of Fury joins Imprisoned Antaen in another pretty fun huge demon that Demon Hunters have. A 7-mana 6/7 with the effect of unleashing a 6-mana Arcane Missiles at the end of the turn? She's honestly comparable to a multi-target Ragnaros that can still trade. The effect might not seem like much, but a guaranteed Cinderstorm at the end of each turn will rack up pretty quickly.

Coilfang Warlord might not make the cut in actual constructed decks, especially in Wild, but he's a very, very solid card that's going to dominate in Arena. An 8-mana 9/5 with Rush that summons a 5/9 with Taunt? Honestly, I do think that the Coilfang Warlord might even be good enough to play in Constructed, just the right amount of stats and keywords to be a removal that also helps to throw down a huge taunting presence afterwards.


Not all Demon Hunter cards can be winners, and these... aren't necessary bad cards, they're just ones that you'll probably take out of your deck once you start refining it or once newer cards show up. After all, Demon Hunter already get like 10 new basic cards, 10 Initiate cards and 15 cards from the expansion. Netherwalker is very solid, a simple 2-mana card-generator that lets you discover a demon. I think I like her a bit better than the Sightless Watcher as a 2-drop, if we're being honest.

Ashtongue Battlelord is a Sen'jin with the added caveat of having Lifesteal, which Demon Hunter does like, but I'm not sure if that's powerful enough to put into your deck. It's one of the better 4-mana taunts I've seen for sure, though, it's just that the rest of the DH cards are just so dang awesome-looking. Fel Summoner is a 6-mana 8/3 that basically acts like a Voidcaller... but she's so expensive. I guess that's a pretty good statline, forcing your enemy to kill it otherwise she smacks the enemy face for 8 damage, but I dunno, I don't think this one's going to work all that well. You'd rather play one of the big demons instead of the Fel Summoner.


We'll talk about Mage first, which has an interesting fun little archetype of no-minion mage decks. And I feel like we don't quite have enough cards that care about no-minions to really succeed, at least not in wild. Maybe Standard's meta is slow enough for them to muck around with this? Both Font of Power and Apexis Blast are basically the Mage equivalent to Animal Companion or To My Side, though, giving minions to a Mage deck with no minions. Font of Power basically allows you to keep 3 Mage minions (which might be a crap-shoot), and Apexis Blast is basically a Firelands Portal discounted by two mana if you have no minions. Which is good, right? But I'm not sure if it's enough incentive to forego your Sorcerer's Apprentices and whatnot.

Evocation, though, looks like it's going to be powerful whatever deck you put it in. For the low cost of one mana, you can fill your hand with a lot of random mage spells that get discarded at the end of turn. Like Soularium, but it doesn't fuck up your deck! You just get a bunch of random spells, and mage spells are pretty good, most of the time you get some measure of burn spells, and Evocation might very well allow you to just unleash a board clear or some face damage that you otherwise wouldn't have. It's a pretty dang powerful spell, and it's small wonder they classified this one as a legendary one.


Incanter's Flow is also a card that looks like it's going to be powerful whatever mage deck it finds itself in, for 2 mana you discount all the spells in your deck by one. I can already see the craziness this is going to do with Quest Mages in Wild, and I'm actually interested to see what sort of degenerate combos that we can pull off with this. Theoretically, you can discount your entire deck by 2 if your deck contains all spells, and that's pretty fucking awesome. Easily one of the scarier cards Mage gets this expansion for sure.

Not super-duper impressed with the next two -- Deep Freeze is neat, you get two Water Elementals and a Freezing Potion bundled into a 8-mana spell, which is good value. I'm just not sure what deck runs this. Likewise, Starscryer is a neat little Loot Hoarder-esque card that tutors a Spell from your deck specifically, but I'm not sure if that's useful enough unless your Mage deck has like, only a small amount of specific spells.


There are also a bunch of random Secret synergy cards. Apexis Smuggler is a 2-mana 2/3 that passes the vanilla test, and every time you play a secret, you get to discover a spell. Which is neat, I can see Wild Secret Mage cards actually running this card considering how easily Wild Secret Mages can cheat out secrets. Netherwind Portal is a new mage secret, summoning a 4-cost minion for 3 mana, comparable to Cat Trick, I suppose. Is it good? Yeah, sure, spending 3 mana for a 4-cost minion, particularly with all of the fun stuff mage can do with secrets (particularly, again, in wild) isn't terrible, but I dunno. Mages have a lot of better secrets in both Standard and Wild, I feel.


Next up is the Paladins, which has a very interesting "Libram" archetype. So far, we get three Libram spells. Wisdom, Justice and Hope. Libram of Wisdom is kind of overpriced, a 2-mana buff that gives +1/+1, but recycles itself when the minion dies. Like Reno's hat from League of Explorers, a card no one ever uses. Libram of Justice is basically 6-mana Light's Justice mixed with Equality exclusively for the enemy, which is pretty dang powerful, but perhaps a bit overpriced for 6 mana. And Libram of Hope gives us a mega Annoy-o-Tron (Taunt/Divine Shield 8/8) and restores 8 health.

One thing that all of these have in common? They're good effects, but a mite bit too expensive.


Which is where these two cards -- Aldor Attendant and Aldor Truthseeker -- come in. They basically permanently discount your Librams for the entire game. The Attendant is a 2-mana 2/3 that discounts all Librams by 1, and Truthseeker is a lower-statted minion (5-mana 4/6) that discounts the Librams by 2. Note that this is all your Librams, and that includes the new copies of Libram of Wisdom that you get from killing off your Wisdom-buffed minions. And suddenly you can easily envision that with a couple of decent draws, you could discount these powerful spells, and I do like that these are basically just a little package that you can insert into another deck. Your deck doesn't even have to be specifically tailored around Librams, you just have to insert the package into any Paladin deck. Will it work? Yeah, I do think so. Libram of Hope and Justice are very powerful control tools, and Wisdom, while minimal-impact, will be extremely frustrating to deal with when you have an endless way to +1/+1 your tokens and gain favourable trades.

And finally, we have Lady Liadrin, 7-mana 4/6 that adds a copy of all spells you casted on friendly characters to your hand. Not exactly specifically synergistic to Librams (again, another aspect I do like), but it's definitely going to add the Libram of Hope and Wisdom back to your hand. This presumably includes stuff like Blessing of Kings and whatnot, and it's basically Lynessa Sunsorrow only instead of casting all the spells on Lynessa, you get them back in your hand. Which, uh, probably means you don't want to play too many Librams of Wisdom if you want to get higher-impact spells back in your hand with Liadrin. A very fun effect, though!


Hand of A'dal is just a decent buff card, basically equivalent to the original Power Word: Shield, a buff and a draw. Not the most exciting card, but probably one that can see its way wedged into decks here and there.

We get a mini Murloc package alongside that one fishing rod weapon, and... it's not terribly impressive? Imprisoned Sungill goes dormant, but all you get is basically a slightly-stronger Murloc Tidehunter. Which isn't terrible, but it sure isn't good either. Murgur Murgurgle, though, is pretty fun, and I don't think you even have to run him in a Murloc Paladin deck necessarily. His base stats is 2-mana 2/1 with Divine Shield, making him a slightly weaker Shielded Minibot, but Murgurgle Prime is an 8-mana 6/3 Divine Shield that summons four random Murlocs with extra divine shields. Which could range the gamut from being crappy 2/1's to Warleaders and Amalgams, but the dbut it's a pretty decent board reload, I feel. It's just the problem of whether decks can find a slot for Murgurgle, and maybe he simply makes it into highlander lists for being a decent minion.


Hunters have... an interesting mix of weird cards, but easily the most interesting card is Beastmaster Leoroxx, an 8-mana 5/5 that summons 3 beasts from your hand. Now it's not exactly the Boomship, but you can definitely combo this with hand-buff cards (which Ashes gave a bunch of to Hunter, like Scavenger's Ingenuity) and huge charge minions (King Krush, Charged Devilsaur, etc) to absolutely get hilarious lethals. And even if you're not going for the meme Triple T-Rex Takedowns, Leoroxx summoning a bunch of Highmanes or whatever isn't that terrible either.

We get a hand-buff-beast card too in Helboar, a simple 1-mana 2/1 that buffs a beast in your hand by +1/+1. Not super-interesting, but will be a neat addition should the archetype be useful. Scrap Shot is also another beast-hand-buff card, comparable somewhat to Flanking Strike of K&C fame. For 3 mana, deal 3 damage and buff a beast in your hand with +3/+3. The buff is pretty great, but I feel like Hunters are such an aggro/tempo heavy class that the playstyle might be just a wee bit too slow for them. We'll see.


Another card that benefits from beast hand-buffing is the Augmented Porcupine, a 3-mana 2/4 that, as a deathrattle, unleashes its attack value as random damage distributed to all enemies. Not the most impressive card, but a solid one.

The Hunter Prime, though, is... it's pretty fun. Zixor, Apex Predator is kind of underwhelming,a 3-mana 2/4 Rush, but Zixor Prime is an 8-mana 4/4 Rush that summons three copies of itself. 8-mana for four rushing 4/4 beasts is pretty decent, but give Zixor Prime some buffs and... well, we're talking. I can totally see a deck with cards like Scrap Shot and Master's Call and Scavenger's Ingenuity that just focuses entirely on making just the biggest Zixor Primes you'll see.

Imprisoned Felmaw is the obligatory imprisoned demon for hunter. A 2-mana 5/4 that attacks a random enemy is... it's solid for arena, but definitely is too unpredictable and too much of a tempo loss for constructed.


Mok'nathal Lion is a pretty fun one, a 4-mana 5/2 with Rush that will copy a deathrattle from a friendly minion. The base stats is... it's all right, I suppose, 4-mana 5/2 rush isn't the worst thing in the world, but then you also get a fun deathrattle from an allied minion. Pretty great, particularly with the amount of crazy deathrattles in wild!

Pack Tactics is comparable to Wandering Monster, I suppose, a secret that triggers and summons a 3/3 copy of a minion that gets attacked. You can use this to duplicate a minion you have. Don't think it's strong enough to see much play, though.

Nagrand Slam is a bit too expensive, and the random factor of not being able to direct where the 3/5's attack isn't going to help matters either. In Wild, this is almost entirely outclassed by Call of the Wild. A fun card to have with Zul'jin, but Wild Spell Hunter decks have access to much better cards than Nagrand Slam. A solid one, though.


Darkglare is a pretty amazing card. It's got vanilla stats for a 3-drop, and every time your hero takes damage, you refresh 2 mana crystals. Basically means that your hero power ends up being free! Basically means that you ramp up by one if you play this with a Flame Imp! There are a lot of ways to abuse this, I feel, and it's probably one of the stronger Warlock cards in general from this set.

Kanrethad Ebonlocke is actually a pretty dang powerful card, and it's one that I feel that the base version might be stronger than the Prime version. A 2-mana 3/2 that discounts all demons by 1 is inherently powerful, particularly in a zoo demon deck. The Prime version is a 8-mana 7/6 that summons three demons that died this game. Which isn't exactly ideal for a zoo deck, but maybe the huge swing and board refill is just enough. Regardless, it's an interestingly versatile legendary. I'm a fan.

Speaking of versatile legendaries is Keli'dan the Breaker, which is a 6-mana 3/3 that destroys a minion, but then plays out similarly to M:TG's Miracle cards -- if you play it the turn it's drawn, you get a bonus effect, which is basically Twisting Nether. Which is awesome, assuming you draw this, and it's something you can perhaps manipulate into happening in a Plot Twist deck. At worst, Keli'dan is a Siphon Soul that comes with a 3/3 body, which honestly isn't even that bad. And then sometimes it's just a great board claer. I don't think you need to specifically play this in a Plot Twist deck, but it just gets so much better if you do.


Okay, Discard Warlock? I'm pretty sure there isn't enough Discard Warlock cards left in Standard, although Expired Merchant sure is and that's going to be useful. And in Wild there's certainly a lot of Discard Warlock cards -- both decent and terrible ones -- that's waiting for the day the archetype becomes good. Nightshade Matron itself is a pretty good card, a 4-mana 5/5 Rush. That's decent, and it also discards your highest cost card... Which, whether it be the Nightshade Matron or Expired Merchant, you want to try and get it to be the Hand of Gul'dan, a 6-mana card that lets you draw 3 cards whether you discard it or play it. Which is pretty great, actually! I don't think it's the sudden return of Discard Warlock, and maybe you just place exactly these two cards into a Zoo deck, but honestly, a pretty interesting duo of cards.


Enhanced Dreadlord is... it's a fair card, I suppose. 8 mana's hella expensive, but a 5/7 Taunt that summons a 5/5 Lifesteal upon death is... it's not the worst card you can get. It's not something you'll put in your deck, but one that you wouldn't be sad to get out of random effects or in arena. Unstable Felbolt is... you deal 3 damage to an enemy minion but also a friendly one. Useful if you don't have any minions, but otherwise Warlock's got better tools.


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