I'm sorry. I've not been super excited about Hearthstone for a while. Descent of Dragons was fun because of all the dragons, but at that point I was kind of sort of burnt out on the game and sort of just made random wacky unrefined decks because not a lot of the dragon cards are honestly all that great and that sort of upset me a bit because I wanted to play with all the cool dragons. And then Battlegrounds came out and everyone hailed it as this second coming and the best thing ever in the whole wide world and I really couldn't care less about that game mode. It's just not my cup of tea. So I haven't really been doing a lot of Hearthstone for the past couple of months -- it's just solo adventures (mostly grinding the Rise of Shadows and Saviors of Uldum heroic modes, because I wasn't saving enough gold to even play Galakrond's Ascent) and just jumping in, doing my daily quests every three days or so and jumping back out. Throw in that terrible login bug that menaced the game for the past month, and I was seriously ready to maybe actually uninstall the game for good.
...and then this happened.
Insert your own "you are not prepared" joke here.
Okay, I'm a huge, huge sucker for World of Warcraft lore characters, and Illidan Stormrage specifically, so the theme for this expansion is certainly one that appeals to me very, very much. For all my love for Hearthstone's original content and characters, what drew me into the game in the first place was the Warcraft characters, and after a full year of adventuring with Rafaam and Reno and Finley and Lazul, it's nice to finally stop making entire 'Lore of Hearthstone' articles where 80% of what I talk about is 'original to Hearthstone'. We're going to Outland, and most importantly... we're getting a tenth hero class.It's sufficient to say that I'm back in the Hearthstone groove, baby.
Hearthstone has needed an adrenaline boost to keep it going. Battlegrounds was it for a huge part of the community, but it wasn't that for me... but a tenth hero class, one that came with a bunch of fun new twists, a whole new core basic set, and a whole expansion dedicated to it? That's cool.
We're going to talk about the huge changes coming first, and then we'll talk about the cool new cards and Demon Hunters and Priest changes after the break!
LADDER CHANGES! DUPLICATE PROTECTION! HALL OF FAME!
But it's not just a new expansion and a new class, because this year we're getting a whole lot of brand-new revamps to aspects of the game. Two of the most important ones? Ladder Rework and Duplicate Protection. Which are just massive. Playing the Standard/Wild ladder gets absolutely meaningless after you reach Legend once or twice, and at that point you're just playing to maintain a rank and if you're not into the competition, why bother? Well, now the rewards are structured a lot better -- I won't go into the full details, go to PlayHearthstone's own post for that, but basically you're actually getting card packs and better rewards. Also, the ladder's not that punishing anymore, making it easier for you to climb with win-streaks and whatnot. The description makes it look a bit more complex than it should, but I'm sure it's going to be easily understood once you play it. There's also an MMR thing going on, which they don't really explain in full detail, but it sounds like it's going to make playing the ladder a lot less frustrating.We're also getting a roadmap to what we're going to get this Standard year, which is nice to see some transparency. Everyone's getting hyped about the new game mode or whatever, so we'll see.
Also equally important? Duplicate protection, not just for legendaries, but for all rarities. Everyone's been saying for a while how insanely expensive Hearthstone is starting to get, and how frustrating it is to play the game when you're starting from scratch -- particularly when new expansions come out. Even as a longtime player, I can get overwhelmed whenever new expansions come out and I just maybe have enough gold to buy like a couple dozen packs and that's nowhere the amount needed to get even the commons and rares I want. This is amazing.There are also a bunch of Hall of Fame cards -- Leeroy Jenkins, Spellbreaker, MCT, Mountain Giant and Acolyte of Pain. As a primarily Wild player, this doesn't affect me although I am genuinely surprised it took them this long to rotate out Leeroy. In general, though, I guess they're taking out basically any card that has a decent amount of inclusion in the Classic set, including some very common utility ones. Everyone is kind of praising this for making Standard less stale and all, but I am kind of sad that this means that less experienced (or less-spending, or newer) players don't quite get access to the counter tools... but what do I know, I'm a Wild player.
New players that haven't played in four months are also apparently getting a brand-new meta deck. Doesn't affect me, but okay, sure, that's cool! Battlegrounds is also getting a lot of updates, but to be honest I don't really care and they seem to be getting updates almost every other week anyway. Less of a good news is that they're going to start monetizing Battlegrounds, something that seems to get the Battlegrounds players up in a huff, and that kinda sucks. I think one of the biggest appeals that Battlegrounds has to people is that it's a free game mode, really, although I don't know enough about the game mode to think of a better, more palatable way to monetize it.
UN-NERFING CARDS!
Perhaps one of the most exciting news to me. Everyone online seems to be salivating over the Battlegrounds changes and whatnot (more power to you if you like that game mode, but I don't care) because there are a lot of cards that were nerfed due to a different meta, or are nerfed specifically just because Standard can't deal with it. I've always thought that it's bizarrely arbitrary how some cards like Genn and Baku get Hall of Fame'd, while Dr. Boom Mad Genius gets nerfed, so it's nice to know that the development team is now definitely willing to revert cards back to their original power level once they rotate back to wild, where higher power-level cards are a bit more of the norm. Unless you're Naga Sea Witch.
Getting reverted to their original forms are Sludge Slurper (which is neat!), Raza (hooray, highlander priest!), Spiteful Summoner (which TBH isn't going to be that good), Call of the Wild, Emerald Spellstone (neat, could be the edge that Spell Hunters need to crawl back up), and, most importantly, our lord and savior, Yogg-Saron, who took the most unfair nerf of all because tournament organizers are too chickenshit to simply ban him. I'll be enjoying playing with these unnerfed cards this week for sure, let me boot up, like, oh, I dunno, a spell quest mage with Yogg, or rebuilding my old spell hunter and highlander priest decks.
We're waiting for the rotation before other cards are nerfed, but Dr. Boom Mad Genius, Giggling Inventor, Raiding Party and Reckless Experimenter are getting their nerfs reverted. Boomsday Project has been really volatile as far as buffs and nerfs go, huh? Mad Genius is going to be very fun to play with again since he's basically became unviable ever sine the huge nerf.
Anyway.... Demon Hunters! Priest changes! Kael'thas Sunstrider and Lady Vashj! More after the break!
Fair warning... I haven't been the most active of players for the past couple of months, and throughout the past expansion I really haven't been playing as frequently as I have been, focusing more on collecting cards and playing through arena and solo adventures more than ladder. Thus this certainly isn't going to be the most meta-heavy commentary you'll see. But hey, Demon Hunters! They're cool, they're awesome, they're edgy and emo as fuck and I love them.
DEMON HUNTERS! YOU ARE NOT PREPARED!
So we're all going to get a the tenth hero class for free, and Demon Hunters are here to stay -- they'll get a batch of Basic cards, presumably the same amount that all the other classes do. They'll get a bunch of cards for the upcoming Ashes of Outland expansion, but also like a set of mini-expansion (like how Galakrond's Awakening was handled) that's the 20-card "Demon Hunter Initiate" that's going to function as essentially their Classic set. The story mode is going to be Illidan Stormrage's prologue, for you to get used to playing Illidan and getting a significant amount of the new Demon Hunter cards -- all the Basic and Initiate cards, basically -- for free. It's not going to affect me, the exclusively-Wild player, but apparently we're operating on a 'wait and see' as far as how the Demon Hunter cards will play out set rotation wise. (Will we be getting Monk somewhere down the line, and maybe even a proper Death Knight? One can only hope...)
Most importantly and interestingly is Illidan's hero power. It gives you +1 attack this turn, sort of like half of Druid's hero power... but it costs one. Which doesn't seem like that huge of a deal, and it's something that's been pretty common in adventure modes or whatever, but as a playable class in ladder and arena and all the rest? It's a pretty huge deal, especially since Demon Hunter has a lot of synergy cards that deal with the hero power. Needing to spend half of the mana cost needed is kind of a huge deal.
I'm not sure where to start with the Demon Hunter cards, so let's just go through an arbitrary order.
One of the main things for Demon Hunter that people will be gravitating towards is how interesting it will be to play with a class whose hero power costs half of what hero powers usually do, and we do get a fair amount of Demon Hunter cards that just help to buff Illidan and give him more ways to murder people with his hero power, and we have a fair amount of cards that synergize with Illidan attacking.
Battlefiend is a simple, powerful one-mana drop. A 1-mana 2/2 is great, and that's without counting the Demon tag (presumably Demon Hunters have a fair bit of demon synergy, too) but it's also a growing 1-mana minion with premium stats. It gains attack and snowballs any time Illidan attacks, which could honestly lead to a situation comparable to old Undertaker if you can (and you should) abuse Illidan's 1-mana hero power.
Glaivebound Adept isn't the most exciting card. 5-mana 7/4, deal 4 damage if your hero attacked this turn. It's like a better Fire Elemental in terms of cost and stats-for-cost, except it's conditional and wants your hero to attack. S'not bad, but probably wouldn't make the cut.
Blur is probably another card that's going to see a lot of experimentation with. Being a hero that attacks without gaining armour (unlike Warrior or Druid) Illidan's going to need some defensive tools. Sure, Lifesteal is sort of a mini-theme in Demon Hunter, but Blur is going to let you just straight-up negate damage for a single turn for zero mana. Which probably is most useful if you're using Illidan to clear the board, but there are ways (and weapons) with which you could help buff Illidan's attack a fair bit. I was super-excited about Blur, and then a bit less so when I thought about it a little more, but it's still a cool card.
Warglaives of Azzinoth is why I might be considering Blur a bit more seriously. One of the little combos people used back in the days of Karazhan was Fool's Bane + Violet Illusionist for a Warrior to clear an entire board of minions with a weapon without taking damage. Warglaives of Azzinoth is statted similarly, but has the benefit of being able to go face if you want to, goes to a hero that can more easily buff his attack, and also has cards that benefits from the hero attacking multiple times. So long as you keep attacking minions, you could just go wham-wham-wham to clear a token board while not taking damage with Blur, while also buffing up your Battlefiend. Neat!
Flamereaper is another card that theoretically benefits your hero power, but at 7 mana with the relatively mundane 'cleave' style effect that hasn't really been super pratical in Hearthstone, I don't think Flamereaper will make the cut. Blade Dance, on the other hand, looks relatively good -- for two mana, you cast a spell akin to Rogue's old Blade Flurry, dealing your hero's attack as damage to 3 random enemy minions. With a weapon equipped while your hero power is active, that could be upwards to like somewhere around a 4-6 AoE... and while it's "three random enemy minions", it's only random if there are more than three minions. I foresee Blade Danec being actually pretty decent.
We have seen a card like Satyr Overseer back in Rastakhan's Rumble with that orc dude that summons pirate buddies whenever your hero attacks. Satyr Overseer doesn't have the most durable statline with 4/2, but it summons 2/2 Satyrs any time your hero attacks. It could snowball pretty quickly, and Demon Hunters do have a fair bit of synergy with demon minions and tokens. It doesn't look super flashy, but I think the Overseer might be a decent card to put into DH decks.
Ur'zul Horror is pretty solid either way, though, basically acting like a slower Fire Fly, a one-mana minion that adds another one-mana minion to your hand. It's a demon, which might matter and it's got a disturbing artwork. Decent enough to play, I suppose.
Chaos Strike is just neat, isn't it? 2-mana, buff your hero with +2 attack. Also, draw a card. It's just the right amount of card draw, cheapness and synergy with the hero attack value that I feel like it's a shoo-in for DH decks, at least until we see something stronger.
"Outcast" is the class-specific keyword for Demon Hunter, and it's a very interesting mechanic. Apparently, because Illidan and his Demon Hunter ilk are super-duper emo (no, really), they like to brood and make deep monologues about their ten thousand years of imprisonment and how unfair the world is to them and stuff. So cards with Outcast gain an extra effect if they're being emo on the edge of your hand, either the left-most (cards you keep in your hand and wait as they move to the left) or the right-most (your topdeck).
Most powerful among these Outcast cards is perhaps the Skull of Gul'dan. 5-mana draw 3 cards is pretty powerful. It's basically Nourish. But casting it with the Outcast effect? Each of the cards get a 3-mana discount, which is insane. It's Nourish on steroids! No wonder Illidan abandoned his mage ways in favour for this power! Spectral Sight is a bit more boring, a cheap version that's a slightly shittier Novice Engineer, but becomes a discounted Arcane Intellect with Outcast. It's neat, although I think it does get a bit edged out by Chaos Strike and Consume Magic.
Eye Beam is a 3-mana deal 3 damage with Lifesteal, comparable to Warlock's Drain Life or whatever, but it becomes free if you cast it with Outcast. And sure, Eye Beam isn't like the most expensive spell ever, it's not like it's going to win you games, but a free 3-damage lifesteal spell isn't anything to sneeze at.
Consume Magic is pretty cool. One mana silence a minion is a bit expensive, but with a free card draw, it suddenly becomes pretty great. Remember that people run PW: Shield just for the card draw! Ultimately I think this is going to end more as a tech choice, but it's going to be great that Demon Hunters' own flavour of silencing minions is going to benefit them a fair bit more.
Mana Burn is... it's just pretty cool. A lot of disruption effects in Hearthstone tend to not really work because sometimes you just want to just do what you do best instead of wasting time fucking around with maaaaybe disrupting your enemy, but a one-mana spell to disable two mana crystals? It could lock down one of the crucial early game turns, or it could just ruin a end-game winning combo. I do think that while Demon Hunter might not be the anti-combo class, this is a pretty cool card to have in the Demon Hunter arsenal.
Coordinated Strike and Command the Illidari are perhaps two of the cards that I am the most excited for. They're basically similar to the druid bee/locust spells we've had over the past couple of expansions, spending mana to summon 1/1 Rushing tokens. They don't all have to attack and die, but there is a fair amount of cards in the Demon Hunter arsenal that benefit from having minions that die, and I honestly could see this be something akin to the old-school Force of Nature/Savage Roar combo.
Feast of Souls is a card that you want to play in combination with one of the two rushing Illidari cards, and you might very well just junk Spectral Sight in favour for this -- use your tokens to help clear the board, then just reload. It's pretty good value! But then you get a card like Wrathscale Naga, a relatively cheap (if fragile) 3-mana 3/1... that deals 3 damage to a random enemy any time a friendly minion dies. It's like Flamewaker on steroids! So in theory, you could play Command the Illidari and Wrathscale Naga, sacrifice the six tokens and deal a total of 18 damage, some of which might go face. All for 8 mana, which may or may not be discounted by any of the Demon Hunter's other tools. And then you play Feast of Souls to draw 6 more cards. That's a good theoretical turn, and the synergy is fun. Not sure if it's feasible to match up to Wild's power level, but it sure looks fun!
Another one of the cooler cards in this set is Metamorphosis, a reference to original Warcraft III Illidan's ultimate ability. Illidan's hero power temporarily becomes "deal 5 damage". One mana, deal five damage, and it can go wherever you want. Theoretically, this is a total of seven mana, deal 10 damage in two increments, and it could go face. Best of all, it's after two uses, not two turns, which means you could save up your Metamorphosis chaos-blast thing until you really need to use it, which is awesome.
Chaos Nova is... interesting. It's a 5-mana 4-damage hellfire to all minions, which is equivalent to some of the various 'all minions/all characters' spells Warlock has had over the years. It's nice to see that DH has at least a decent AoE option, though, because so many of its kit revolves around other stuff. Chaos Nova is all right.
Umberwing is another pretty damn awesome card. It's basically a miniature Muster for Battle, a 2-mana 1/2 weapon that summons two 1/1 demon tokens. It's just great tempo for its turn, and Demon Hunters can definitely make great use of weapons! Out of all the cards here, I feel Umberwing's going to be the most playable.
Twin Slice is a 0-mana spell that is basically a simple +1 attack buff to your hero, and it has what's essentially Twinspell without the keyword. It's not that powerful and I don't think it'll make it into lists, but I dunno, maybe the 0-mana cost is just strong enough? Furious Felfin, featured prominently in the trailer, is a 2-mana 3/2 that becomes a 4/2 rush if you used your hero power. Not the most exciting or powerful card, but I guess it's a neat showcase of one of the class's synergies.
Illidari Felblade is a decent card! Another one that uses the Outcast mechanic, a 4-mana 5/3 with rush isn't spectacular. It's like that shifting 2/6 6/2 Worgen lady from Witchwood, a bit too fragile... but when it's all emo and outcasted, it's immune, making it comparable to cards with Reborn, I guess. It's pretty good when you think about it that way!
Lifesteal's a bit of a mini-theme for the Demon Hunters. Aldrachi Warblades is a simple weapon that I think you just include because they're not that bad? 3-mana 2/3 with lifesteal, and sometimes your hero just spams his cheap hero power and makes it a 3-attack weapon with lifesteal? I think despite its simplicity it might be a relatively decent tool, if not a flashy one. Soul Cleave is exactly like Warrior's Cleave spell, but with Lifesteal, and it's... it's decent, it's all right, but I don't think it makes meta lists.
Shadowhoof Slayer theoretically synergizes with the hero power stuff I hyped up on the top of the segment, but as a single battlecry effect, I don't think it does quite enough. It's a decent card on its own, but I feel DH has a lot of stronger cards that's going to edge this satyr and his massive deltoids out.
The last bit is about demon synergy, and.... I'm not too impressed? There are a couple of cool demons here but I'm not sure if the synergy works as well as the hero-power-attack or other cool stuff like Metamorphosis or the rushing-Illidari-combo stuff. Raging Felscreamer is a typical support card for an archetype, a 4-mana 4/4 that helps to discount the cool demons you're going to play, while she herself is kind of a dud vanilla card. A 2-mana discount to the next demon you play (doesn't have to be on the same turn) is pretty cool, but, again, you kind of need the right demon.
One of the demons in this set is the Hulking Overfiend, a huge 8-mana 5/10 that can keep attacking as long as it keeps killing minions. It has Rush, whcih is cool. Was it Batterhead or something that could do something like this? A pretty interesting combination of stats, Rush and cost, but I'm not sure it's going to be powerful enough. Very cool art, though.
Imprisoned Antaen lies dormant for two turns, is a respectable 10/6 body, and deals a 10-damage Arcane Missiles upon awakening, which isn't anything to sneeze at! At the same time spending five mana doing nothing for a potential 10-damage burst is kind of opposite with the tempo-heavy rest of the class... but the card itself is pretty dang good, so unlike the other imprisoned demons, I feel like Antaen is actually one of the more solid cards in the set.
The other demons are... all right. Pit Commander is a 9-mana 7/9 with Taunt that keeps summoning/recruiting demons from your deck. It's like a mini Y'Shaarj that tutors, and having it summon, like, the 5/10 Overfiend or the 10/6 Antaen might be neat, but I'm not all that convinced that this huge-demons Demon Hunter deck is going to work out. It's cool, and I hope it does, but I feel like it's missing a couple more good demons, something equivalent to the Voidlords and Doomguards and Mal'Ganises to make it really be impressive.
Wrathspike Brute certainly isn't that. A 5-mana 2/6 Taunt that explodes with 1-damage AoE anytime it's attacked (not when it attacks) is decent, but not that spectacular. It feels more like an arena card, or one you put in a Demon-synergy DH deck while you're waiting for better cards to appear in the next expansion. Soul Split clones a friendly demon.... which is all right, I suppose. It's a cheaper Faceless Manipulator with a larger restriction, and when you put it that way wouldn't you rather run Faceless Manipulator?
ASHES OF OUTLAND!
Demon Hunters aren't the only thing we're getting, though, because we have a full expansion of cards out there -- and I guess it's a damn good thing we're getting the duplicate protection since now we're getting a whole new extra class to farm cards for! Without going in any particular order, let me talk about the cards that have been revealed.
One of the themes for this set are "Prime" cards, where legendaries start off as just okay cards, but they shuffle a much stronger, game-breaking version of themselves into the deck. I don't like the term 'Prime', I don't think, but it reminds me of White-Eyes from Gadgetzan, a card that isn't necessarily the strongest but one that I do love the concept of. So far we've seen three Prime legendaries, and they all lean more towards a control-style deck-building mentality, I feel.
The first is Archspore Msshi'fin, and presumably that name is pronounced similarly to you sneezing. A 3-mana 3/4 Taunt is very basic, and isn't even that good for Druid. But you shuffle Msshi'fin Prime into your deck, which is a 10-mana 9/9 Taunt that summons a second 9/9 that either has Taunt or Rush. Two 9/9 Taunts for 10 mana is decent enough, but the extra flexibilityis pretty great. Kargath Bladefist, a classic WCII character, is a very below-average 4-mana 4/4 Rush. Compare this dude to Scion of Ruin or Reckless Mummy and he's kinda sad. But Kargath Prime is a 8-mana 10/10 Rush that also adds 10 armour to you any time it slays a minion, which is actually pretty dang good! In Wild you can even tutor this dude with Town Crier, which is awesome. I'm unconvinced he's going to be super-great, but eh.
Lady Vashj, an iconic WCIII character, is a 3-mana 4/3 character with Spell Damage +1. Decent, but not great. Vashj Prime, on the other hand, is a 7-mana 5/4 with Spell Damage +1... but tutors three spells and discounts their costs by 3. I could think of some decks that probably could use Vashj Prime pretty well, but honestly, even without the spell damage to the face implications, the simple act of discounting three huge spells by 3 mana each could be simply the reason why you run her.
Astromancer Solarian is... interesting. The base body is also a Spell Damage +1 with vanilla stats, not too different from Vashj, but her Prime form is a 7/7 with Spell Damage +1, and also a demon (flavourful, but doesn't do anything in Mage) and basically does what Yogg-Saron does... but with a limitation! She only casts five spells, but whenever possible she targets enemies. Which means all of Mage's damaging spells will go towards the enemy, and anything that's beneficial (secrets, draw, card generation) go to you. Not sure what deck she'll find herself in, but she sure looks like a solid card.
Kael'thas Sunstrider, the third member of Illidan's Warcraft III Outland Buddy Squad, is the legendary card we all get for free, and he's... he's neat. He's not quite as easily slotted into decks like Archmage Vargoth was, but a 6-mana 4/7 that discounts every third spell in a given turn is... it's interesting. You can theoretically play him, play two cheap spells and then free Pyroblast to the face or something... but my feeling is that he's just too dang impractical to play with. Kalecgos was great because it was the first spell in your turn, but Kael'thas sort of wants you to have the mana and cards to play two cards (and sometimes Kael himself) before unleashing that sweet sweet huge big bomb spell you're saving up. There are better ways to do that, but in Wild, I feel like there's enough variety of cheap and expensive spells in most classes that Kael will probably see some great use here and there.
Kael's iconic phoenix pet, Al'ar is... also not super impressive. It works exactly how it did in Warcraft III, dying and turning into an egg that hatches back into Al'ar if you left it alone, but unlike Warcraft III, actual real-life opponents can very much easily deal with a 0/3. Granted, Al'ar is a pretty cool card and it's not like completely useless, but they really could've fiddled with the numbers of either its phoenix or egg form and made it more durable.
Another theme we're getting is 'imprisoned' demons, where each class is getting a demon that goes dormant like Sherazin, Lucentbark or The Darkness, except this time they'll always go dormant for two turns before awakening and unleashing a huge effect. Which means... you just wasted the mana whenever you summon them. Imprisoned Observer in particular is pretty bad. Sure, you get a slightly larger-than-average body, but your opponent's going to be able to play around the 2-damage AoE that they'll see coming. Sure, it might make a token deck's life a bit more annoying, but ultimately they can see it coming and it's not going to work that well. Imprisoned Satyr is a bit better, since it's a 5-mana discount to a card in your hand, but it's way too slow and there are better minion-discount cards available that doesn't require you to play an understatted minion with a delayed effect. Imprisoned Scrap Imp is Warlock's dormant demon, and it's a delayed hand-buff. It's a huge hand-buff, but I really don't think it's going to prove to be particularly useful.
Underlight Angling Rod is a Paladin weapon? It's a 3-mana 3/2 that basically allows you to gain a random Murloc into your hand. Murloc paladin isn't a huge thing in either Standard or Wild at the moment, but even the existing decks probably wouldn't use this.
Another neutral legendary is Teron Gorefiend, another huge lore character from WCII, and he's a fun fun fun neutral card. 3-mana 3/4 that destroys all friendly minions, then resummons them all buffed when he himself dies? This is a board-wide variation of the Carnivorous Cube effect. You don't get double the minion, but you do get to resummon them with a buff, and as with Cube, you're going to want to do this on Deathrattle minions. It's going to be pretty fun to experiment with for sure. Pretty cool effect.
Mo'arg Artificer is... it's effect of doubling spell damage on minions interesting. I'm not sure if it's going to be constructed deck worthy, though. If it doubles spell damage period it'd be insane broken, but just on minions? Cute, but probably not that good.
Fungal Fortunes is like Mages' Book of Specters. I feel like a fully-Spell druid is feasible, but probably not that practical, and Fungal Fortunes alone isn't going to be enough to justify it. If we do get more spell druid support, though...
Marsh Hydra, I think, is pretty decent. On first glance he looks like the Ironhide Direhorn that Druid got in Rastakhan, but this one has Rush, so at the very least you're guaranteed a single 8-cost minion. I'm not sure what deck this Hydra fits in, but it sure is a neat card, especially for arena!
Scavenger's Ingenuity is boring, but it's a tutor card that also buffs a beast you draw. It's not as powerful as Master's Call, but it fits in a similar style of deck and it's certainly one that's going to see experimentation.
Rogues get more secrets with Ambush, which basically just summons an Emperor Cobra whenever your opponent plays a minion. 2/3 is just annoying enough for your opponent to have to deal with, although this is going to depend on just how playable the other Rogue Secrets are. We do get a lot of Secret-buddies, though!
Blackjack Stunner is a secret-synergy card for Rogues, because they know secrets alone isn't going to make people play them. It's a 1-mana 1/2 that basically casts Freezing Trap onto your opponent's minion... but you choose which one. You could straight up prevent your opponent from ever playing a huge minion as long as you control a secret! It's a pretty cool little removal tool. Shadowjeweler Hanar is another good Secret support, a legendary 2-mana 1/5 that allows you to discover Secrets from a different class any time you play a Secret. Burgle and Secret Synergy! Shame about the cost, though, if only he was one mana so you could go straight from Hanar to a Secret... but then that'd probably be a bit too powerful. I'm unconvinced Secret Rogue's going to be a thing, but these sure look fun!
Torrent is... it's Flame Lance, but for Shaman, but sometimes you get to cast it for two mana, which is pretty insane. Shamans casting spells isn't a huge ask, so you basically get Crushing Hand without the Overload cost. Pretty neat spell!
Shamans get more evolve cards, and these are of a whole new power level compared to a lot of other Evolve cards. Bogstrok Clacker is Master of Evolution done right, a 3-mana 3/3 that evolves two minions. It also cares about positioning, since it evolves adjacent minions. Only going to be decent if there are enough cards like Doppelgangster or Desert Hare, though. Boggspine Knuckles, meanwhile, is a 5-mana 4/2 weapon that casts Evolve onto your whole board every time you attack. The weapon's a bit too expensive even with the 4/2 bundled in, but I do like it!
Shadow Council is cute. It's like, Renounce Darkness or some shit, and probably a mite bit more playable since you don't sacrifice your entire deck and you get an instant handbuff. It could be playable,but my guess it's a bit cute. Dark Portal is... a 5-mana discount on a minion is neat, and I guess a 8-card hand isn't the biggest ask, but if you don't manage to get that condition Dark Portal's just kind of a shitty tutor.
Dragonmaw Overseer is... it's kind of like Shadow Ascendant. Costs 1 more mana, but buffs an extra +1/+1 per turn. It's decent, although I think I like Shadow Ascendant better for a zoo-priest style deck.
Bulwark of Azzinoth is probably the coolest card, concept-wise, in this set. We've had custom-made 'shield' or 'wand' style weapons among Hearthstone's fandom since forever, and we even had some shield-style weapons in adventure modes with that Aegis of something-or-other. And while we did get wands like Aluneth and other bauble-style items like Skull of Man'ari and Dragon Soul in K&C, we never quite got a shield, and it's so, so interesting that the shield doesn't actually interact with armour... instead, it's just a 1/4 item that negates any single instance of damage in exchange for durability. Your hero attacks? Sure, it deals 1 damage with the weapon's damage, but you don't take any damage in turn for one durability. A Deathwing bops your hero in the face? Bulwark loses one durability. This is awesome if you can manage to buff it up, or to just simply use it to tank like a Big Priest board... but then it is just straight-up useless against something like Arcane Missiles or the gatling gun Reno minion. A very, very cool card, even if I don't think it's playable.
PRIEST CHANGES!
Priest is also getting severely revamped, because for too long the Priest Basic/Classic set has been a bit too all over the place, and thus we're getting an unprecedented Hall of Faming of six Basic/Classic Priest cards, changing seven of Basic/Classic Priest cards, and adding six more to replace those that are Hall of Famed.Those that are moving to Wild are cards that do direct damage (Holy Fire, Shadowform, Auchenai Soulpriest), the ever-present Northshire Cleric, and the combo-enabling Prophet Velen and Divine Spirit. With Divine Spirit and Northshire Cleric I can't say I'm super surprised to see them move to Wild, and considering how they butchered poor Power Word: Shield, I'm happy that some of Priest's more powerful tools and combo enablers will remain for us to muck around with in Wild.
The changes to Priest cards are... interesting. Power Word: Shield gets straight-up nerfed, losing the draw effect and being reduced to a 0-cost spell, but then it's just kind of reduced to a useless spell unless you're like, playing a deck that wants to cycle through spells. Holy Smite gets changed to deal 3 damage to a minion, which is decent but limits the amount of burst damage that a Velen deck in Wild can do. Holy Nova gets reduced in cost by one (it's always been a bit too expensive) but also doesn't hit face anymore. Shadow Madness and Thoughtsteal both get buffed with a one-mana discount, which is nice because they've always been too weak. SW: Death gets buffed with a single mana discount, which is great! Temple Enforcer, a card no one uses, gets buffed with a one-mana discount, and also loses a single attack. Doubt we'll still see it, but Temple Enforcer is consistently one of the more forgotten cards, so it's nice to see a buff to this unexpected old grandpa.
The new cards replacing the rotating cards are... they're not exciting to a Wild player like me, to be honest, just like the past couple dozen Basic/Classic card replacements. They're more here to set the tone of what the base kit for Priest is meant to do. Psychic Conjurer is just a fragile little mini-Thoughtsteal on a body, probably not going to see play. Scarlet Subjugator is basically the same thing as Shrinkmeister from GvG, flavourful but probably won't see much play. Power Infusion is just a straight-up better version of Power Word: Tentacles or whatever it was from Old Gods, and is basically going to be a poor man's Divine Shield, just like how PW: Tentacles was. Natalie Seline, the new Legendary, makes poor Vol'jin look embarrassing by just being straight-up better, stealing the enemy's health and destroying it in the same breath. Not the best legendary, but definitely a good one. Shadow Word: Ruin is a 4-mana kill everything with 5 attack or more, which isn't the most exciting thing for a Wild player but does address the ridiculousness of each standard year being obligated to give Priest a huge board clear. It's decently statted, too. Kul Tiran Champion is a similar style of health-adding card as many other cards we've had over the various expansions (Dark Cultist, Kabal Talonpriest, et cetera), and it's pretty cheap at 2 mana with a 2/3 body. Now Standard players just need a replacement for Northshire Cleric for the ideal turn 1 play to combo with this.
GALAKROND'S AWAKENING
And, well... I haven't been actively talking about Hearthstone at all during the Galakrond's Awakening mini-expansion, mostly because... well, Amazing Reno, Rotnest Drake and Frenzied Felwing aside, none of the cards are super-duper interesting to me? Shotbot, Winged Guardian, Bomb Wrangler and Boompistol Bully apparently saw a decent amount of play in Standard, so it's nice to see that at least Standard got a fair influx of fun cards to muck around with, but compared to other Adventure-style content in Hearthstone, the amount of interesting cards in this mini-set is pretty poor. They were fun to muck around with in Arena, and the Adventure Mode was pretty top-notch, but the sheer grind I needed to get to unlocking all of the wings, and the relatively simple adventure segments really made me kind of feel like maybe they need to rethink the prices of the old-school adventure modes, y'know? Like, I've got a fair bit of gold hoarded so I could barrel my way through the wings pretty quickly, but eight wings at 700 gold a pop? Not a lot of the cards are super-duper meta either, and other than maybe the gunship battle and the final Galakrond battles, none of the fights are honestly all that great. And after the far more repeatable content of the rogue-like single player modes, I kind of wish that if they ever do single-player modes in the future, they do so and monetize it similarly to Saviors of Uldum.
It's particularly frustrating, too, because while I do know that this is Hearthstone and I don't expect, like, novel-quality storytelling from it, both Rise of Shadows and Saviors of Uldum delivered relatively decent and well-paced stories, whereas Galakrond's Awakening is kind of all over the place. The twist with Reno is neat, the George/Karl stuff is great, the airship battles and the Galakrond fights are great, but... I dunno. It just feels ultimately kind of underwhelming. All the buildup of "oh, the League of EVIL is fighting the League of Explorers for real!" and we barely get any fights between the two. Galakrond also only really shows up at the end of both storylines, while basically everyone else in EVIL bar Rafaam sort of got the short end of the stick, being reduced to just a single flanderized boss fight. The Explorers are maybe a bit better, with Elise getting a fair bit of dialogue and Finley and Brann showing up every now and then, but the supposed gathering of Dalaran characters and the dragon aspects felt more like an afterthought.
Is that asking too much? I dunno. I really felt like they could've had a couple more extra stages to pace things out a bit better, or recorded a bunch of extra lines of dialogue. If they didn't monetize Galakrond's Awakening so much or built it up for an entire year, maybe I wouldn't have complained all that much, but they did. So.
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