Saturday, 25 July 2020

Hearthstone: Scholomance Academy Card Reaction/Review #1

Yeah, we haven't done one of these in a while. Why not. It's not like we have a whole ton to really talk about nowadays, y'know?

Again, my usual disclaimer -- this is basically just a first-impression thing. I'm also a primarily Wild player, and haven't touched Standard in close to a year, so some of my perceptions of these cards might be extremely clouded due to that. So, without further ado...

Headmaster Kel'ThuzadInfiltrator LilianMozaki, Master Duelist
We're going to basically go randomly from whichever card I decide to pick from the pile of currently-revealed cards. Headmaster Kel'thuzad is kind of the 'star' of the expansion, and one of the stars of this live-action trailer. And the effect is... decent? The body is great for 5 mana, but on the other hand, Headmaster Kel'thuzad's effect only really works if you can pair him with a destructive spell. The trailer shows him with Brawl, but that's only a fringe case. Most of the time I guess it's more of a Kel'thuzad + Shadow Word: Death or Execute or some sort of reliable single-removal spell to essentially make it a mind-control effect that comes with a 4/6. Most only-the-enemy-board AoE's are too expensive to combo with Kel'thuzad. It's not terrible, but not particularly exciting. Notable that this works with spells that kill your own minion, so in Wild's Cube Warlock this might have a bit of a chance working alongside something like Dark Pact? Neat.

Infiltrator Lilian is a very solid card. Tier 1 in arena, it's Piloted Shredder but better since it has Stealth, and its deathrattle'd minion basically has uncontrollable Charge. Even if the undead Lilian bops the enemy in the face it's still not terrible. Picture it as a Piloted Shredder with Stealth that always summons like a modified Kobold barbarian, I guess? Nowhere near powerful enough for Wild constructed, but she's solid and won't really hurt most decks that decide to include her.

Mozaki, Master Duelist has... has a lot of potential. She's a mage legendary, a very defensive statline as a 5-mana 3/8 and every time you cast a spell, she gains Spell Damage +1. Absolutely scary in conjunction with some cards, I know Wild's crazy quest mage decks can cast a whole ton of spells in one go. You only need five spells for Mozaki to become a Malygos, which probably sounds a lot... but I dunno. In the right deck with the right spell-discount and cheap-spell-generating cards, I can totally see Mozaki be pretty damn powerful.

GlideCycle of HatredMagehunter
Being the new kid on the block, the Demon Hunter class is perhaps one of the most interesting to see what they get and if Demon Hunters will still be hearthstone's premier aggro card. And interestingly, most of the currently-revealed new cards are... interestingly not quite aggro? Glide is perhaps my favourite card in this batch, a 4-mana spell that allows you to shuffle your hand and reload with 4 cards. Sort of similar to Divine Favour, particularly if you only have one or two cards left in your hand. But with Outcast, Glide can suddenly be one of the most damaging disruptive tools, particularly against control decks! Suddenly, their full hand of combo pieces or control answers gets reduced to four cards. That's honestly probably the most disruptive Hearthstone has ever gotten with any cards, and I totally see Glide being super good. It's such a powerful anti-Combo and anti-Control card and it works as a reload mechanic for aggro... y'know, I might not have the pulse on the meta or anything, but this looks like this is going to be there in DH's next nerf batch.

Cycle of Hatred is... interesting. It's a great control spell, a huge full-board AOE that can summon a bunch of extra 3/3's. It's like a mass version of that Baited Arrow card Hunter has. It's just kind of a shame it's in Demon Hunter, and whether it be Standard or Wild, any control card in DH just don't see play outside of arena. Magehunter is actually not a bad card! 3-mana 2/3 Rush with an additional effect is fair, and it's a continuous effect. Mostly it's just going to help Demon Hunters silence annoying Taunts or cards like Obsidian Destroyer, Annoy-o-Tron and Zilliax that have Taunt and some extra effects. I'm not sure if it's enough to see play, but I can see people switching out Drain Magic for this one? It's at 3 cost, too, so Odd Demon Hunter in Wild can certainly use this.

Star Student StelinaAce Hunter KreenFelosophy
Speaking of disruption, we have Star Student Stelina, who is a somewhat lower-costed minion (4-mana 4/3) that only has an effect if you play her as an Outcast. And you can discover and shuffle a card from your opponent's hand into their deck. Very disruptive, but I don't think it's anywhere quite as good as Glide in terms of really disrupting your opponent's game plan. On the other hand, it's not that Stelina is bad or anything. She's pretty great, but unlike Glide (which has a reload mechanic built in) I'm not sure if Demon Hunter decks can even make space for her.

A dual-class card now, with Ace Hunter Kreen. The dual-class cards feel a bit less exciting to me once the hype of the new expansions have settled in, since they're not going to allow an actual mix-and-match feature like, say, dual-colour cards in M:TG... but the flavour and the vibe is still cool. And Ace Hunter Kreen looks positively insane. 3-mana 2/4 isn't terrible, but the effect! Your other characters are immune while attacking. It's decent for Hunter, but it's going to be amazing in Demon Hunter. It's like a mass Deathspeaker effect that's going to last as long as Kreen is on board, and Demon Hunter still has Warglaives of Azzinoth! And all the cards that rush! It seems kind of like a too-good-to-be-true trap, sort of like Kayn Sunfury was, but on the other hand I dunno. This one looks really really powerful.

On the other Demon Hunter spectrum is the Warlock/DH card Felosophy, where you copy the lowest cost demon in your hand, and then hand-buff both of them with +1/+1 if the card is outcasted. Comparable to Simulacrum, I suppose, which costed 3 mana but allowed some degenerate combos for Mage. As neat as it is to duplicate and buff a Battlefiend, I really do think that in wild this card might be a tech card for Cube and Reno Warlocks. Copying your Voidlords, your Kanrethad Primes, your Doomguards... the buff is nice, but adding an extra value that Wild Warlocks can certainly cheat out of their hands very easily is neat. I don't think Felosophy is so powerful that it's going to be an auto-include, but from an effects standpoint it's neat.

Brittlebone DestroyerFlesh GiantDisciplinarian Gandling
Speaking of Warlocks, we have all the Warlock/Priest cards out because I think we're getting 3 for each multi-class combination. Brittlebone Destroyer is basically Vilespine Slayer, but instead of a combo piece, you basically have to change your hero's health this turn, and both Warlock and Priest have hero powers that do exactly that. I don't think Priest is hurting for single-target removal, but Warlocks might make better use of this. Not terrible.

Flesh Giant is an 8/8 giant card which means that Warlocks in Wild will love this fucker. I don't think Priests particularly need a vanilla 8/8, but on the other hand any class could use a 0-mana 8/8. It's just that whether Flesh Giant's going to be consistent enough. I mean, I scoffed at Mana Giant before, but that thing is an essential component in Quest Mage now.

Disciplinarian Gandling is an interesting one. 4-mana 3/6, and any time you play a minion you destroy it and turn it into a 4/4 vanilla minion. Which means this is best with either deathrattle minions like eggs, or cheap battlecry minions like lackeys. I'm not sure how well the deck itself is going to work out, though -- lackeys are huge in Standard, but even then you don't see Warlocks playing with Dark Pharaoh Tekahn too much. Still a very interesting card for sure!

SteeldancerDoctor KrastinovCeremonial Maul
Let's get all the dual-class cards out of the way. We've got two Rogue/Warrior cards, and obviously they all revolve around weapons. Steeldancer is pretty basic, a 4-mana 4/4 that will summon a random minion with a cost equal to your weapon's attack. I don't think Rogue or Warrior have any particularly huge weapons they're playing at the same time since you really want Steeldancer to trigger off of a buffed Kingsbane or Gorehowl, but at the same time as long as you're playing a weapon-buff deck anyway, if you hit like, anything above 4 you're happy. Ultimately I don't think Steeldancer is gonna be practical enough to see play in decks, though the effects are great.

Dr. Krastinov is a 4/4 Rush that buffs your weapon with +1/+1 every time it attacks. So unless you're facing an empty board, Dr. Krastinov is guaranteed to be a Captain Greenskin. And if he survives, he's gonna keep buffing that weapon. Seems potentially powerful, I can totally see this being included in many decks.

Ceremonial Maul is a Warrior/Paladin card, the other weapon-class connection. Look at that pretty weapon border! the Ceremonial Maul is a 3-mana 2/2 that will summon a vanilla minion with Taunt with a spellburst effect. It's a solid arena card, and maybe Standard will have this fill in a 3-mana slot, but I don't think it's particularly powerful.

Boneweb EggArchwitch WillowCabal Acolyte
Boneweb Egg is an egg that summons two 2/1 Spiders upon death. We've had a bunch of eggs over the past couple of expansions... but Boneweb Egg can also be triggered by discarding. Not very useful in Standard since most of the newer Discard cards all focus on discarding the highest-cost card in your hand. But I'm always happy to see a Discard-themed card showing up every now and then. Very cool artwork, in any case.

Archwitch Willow is interesting. 9-mana 7/7 isn't terrible, especially since she cheats out a minion from your hand and deck. Boomsday Project had this terrible card, Dr. Morrigan, who cheats out a minion in your deck via deathrattle and that's so dang slow. There was also Possessed Lackey, which was a lot cheaper and also came from a deathrattle. This one summons not only from your hand, but also from your deck, potentially getting three minions out. Of course, sometimes you just don't have a big demon in your hand, or sometimes you've drawn out all the demons in your deck. While a very cool effect, I don't think any of the current 'big demon' warlock decks in Wild is going to want the unpredictability that Archwitch Willow has, and their own ways of cheating out demons. Very cool effect, though.

Cabal Acolyte is honestly just a shittier Cabal Shadow Priest, I feel. Sure, it's got taunt and it's kind of cheaper, but the fact that you need a Spellburst to make this work? I dunno. That might be just enough to get him to see some play, but at the same time I don't think it's anywhere as good as Cabal Shadow Priest's immediate, guaranteed effect and Cabal Shadow Priest itself doesn't even see play nowadays.

CombustionTotem GoliathPlaymaker
Combustion is fun. The card effect and flavour is fun. Deal 4 damage to a minion, and the excess just falls aside to both neighbours. Any card that has positioning effects is a-okay by me, and I assume this will work on Rolling Fireball rules? Somewhat useful against DH token decks. Pretty playable, I feel. Totem Goliath is... interesting? Apparently Totem Shaman is having a resurgence in Standard, but even then this is pretty playable. 4/5 for 5 mana isn't bad, and you summon four baby totems after the Goliath dies, which you can hopefully immediately buff with your 0-mana totem buffing spells. Overload 2 is a bit of an ouch, but honestly I think this can see some play.

Playmaker is very interesting. After you play a Rush minion, you get a copy with 1 health remaining? Dr. Krastinov and Kargath would be the first to rush into your mind. Maybe Restless Mummy; you can get four 3-attack rushing bodies. Also, the 4-cost Galakrond cultist, that's decent. However, I am a wild player, and this will see play for the simple virtue that Zilliax is a rush card. Two Zilliaxes for the low, low price of having a 3-mana 4/3? This is going to see experimentation just for that.

Sphere of SapienceLorekeeper PolkeltPen Flinger
Two interesting neutral cards. We have our first neutral weapon! Sphere of Sapience basically allows you to mulligan a draw every turn for four times, you can look at your top card and say 'fuck it' and shuffle it into the bottom of your deck. This is the sort of effect that I feel shows up a lot in like, M:TG or Pokemon TCG or whatever, but the closest Hearthstone's gotten to reordering cards you draw is probably... Sightless Watcher? I'm not convinced this effect is powerful enough to see play... but it is one cost, and that one cost basically allows you to have a passive effect indefinitely until you decide to shuffle 4 times. I don't personally see what deck is going to utilize it, but if this didn't get into a meta deck in the year, I'd be surprised.

Lorekeeper Polkelt is a weird card. It re-orders your deck so the highest cost card is at the top, and the lowest cost card is at the bottom? It's sort of a late-game deck where you want to re-order your deck so every draw from then on is the big late-game bomb you're going to want at that point. Very useful for any deck that wants Malygos, and, as the videos accompanying this card demonstrated, giants and Shiravallah will not be discounted while in your deck, and the discount only applies when you're in your hand. That application alone, for Holy Wrath Paladin or for any giant-centric Warlock deck, is going to make Polkelt an interesting late-game guarantee card. And that's not counting cards like guaranteeing the death knight Malfurion in jade druid; guaranteeing Bloodreaver Gul'dan, N'Zoth, Dr. Boom Mad Genius, both versions of Alexstrasza, Galakrond or Shadowreaper Anduin on-command... forcing all five of Ysera's dream portals on top... I don't think this will see widespread play and will mostly be limited to combo and control decks... but it sure as hell is going to be a powerful tool.

Pen Flinger is cute, potentially being an Elven Archer you can always recycle. It's also a card that's not going to see play outside of arena, being one of the filler neutral cards.

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