Oh hey, there's a new Hearthstone expansion up on the horizon and we're getting another one of those rapid-fire card reveals! I didn't even realize it was reveal season, so much stuff is going on at the moment. Real-life stuff, the Pokemon DLC, Final Fantasy XIII... and also it's been a while since I've actually sat down and seriously played Hearthstone instead of just logging in, speeding through the dailies and logging out. The meta's... a bit stale, I guess, and the game keeps requiring me to download huge files for the new Roguelike-Arena mode or whatever. That seems to be a bit more up to my speed than Battlegrounds is, for sure, but I just don't care for it.
I did craft Polkelt and a bunch of other cards like Darkglare recently, so I've been having more fun playing with new decks -- I think a lot of my un-fun comes from me forcing myself to use some older decks in the new meta.
Again, a preface to anyone who hasn't seen these sort of articles in the past year or so, I'm primarily a Wild and Arena player, so my idea of a 'meta' card will be pretty different from the majority of you that play only the Standard ladder. And even then, I've been pretty casual across the past couple of months because... Scholomance got a bit more stale than I expected. So, without further ado, here's my reaction!
All four Old Gods return to rampage in the Darkmoon Faire, and finally we get to see N'Zoth and Y'Shaarj in a fuller form than they have been in the past. I love the little easter egg of them all having the same stats as their original Whispers of the Old Gods versions. Yogg-Saron, Master of Fate is... an interesting one. You need to cast a fixed amount of 10 spells, which... isn't that hard if the Quest Mage decks in Wild are anything to go by. Here is the breakdown of the six potential results, and... it's chaotic, but at the same time there's a bit more of a method to New Yogg's madness? It's kinda-sorta more like the Lich King in that there's a set amount of things that might happen? 5% of the time you get the ultimate yolo and Pyroblasts happen until something dies, and 19% of the time you get the old Yogg effect. But the other four are actually relatively decent catch-up mechanics, with you either stealing your opponent's board (you can whiff), a free Evocation (you can also whiff, but a lot less worse), a bunch of random Rush minions (very whiffable, but also very winnable) or just get a board clear and a huge Yogg (one SW: Death and you're out). The competitives will bitch about this card (just ban it, dudes), and I hope it doesn't get banned like Old Yogg... but in Wild, I feel New Yogg will find a decent place. 10 spells is kind of a huge ask, and not all decks can do that, but the payoff is pretty great! If nothing else, New Yogg will be stupid fun and I am 100% up for a 'get out of jail' free card.
C'Thun the Shattered is cool in concept, but far, far more impractical than Mecha'thun, I feel. Instead of dedicating half your deck slots into C'Thun buffing vanilla cards, New C'Thun will break itself up into four 5-mana cards that you must cast, and they're not very good for their cost (essentially, a non-face Hellfire, an Assassinate, a 6/6 Taunt and a mini Avenging Wrath) and then you shuffle C'Thun and then you play him for 10 mana for a 30 damage burst. Unless there's a combo to get all of these out cheaply, I don't see him being anywhere as meta as the old C'Thun was back in the day. Hell of a cool concept, though.
These two... I dunno. Y'Shaarj, the Defiled is cool. Hearthstone seems to like the sort of 'add a lot of cards to your hand, they cost 0 this turn' which adds a neat dimension of maybe you want to forego the discount to keep the effect for a later turn. The Corrupted cards we've seen are neat, I'm just not sure if we have seen enough for everyone to go 'yep, all of this make a deck.
N'Zoth, God of the Deep is... a resurrection card that resurrects things in a menagerie deck, making a friendly minion of each type rise from the grave. Interesting, and this set does give us a decent amount of menagerie support. I'm unconvinced it's going to be better than Old N'Zoth (who's not even played all that much in Wild except for maybe Cube Warlock) but it's another 'wait and see'. I personally don't think this one is going to be good in Wild, but it's an interesting variant on the N'Zoth formula for sure.
We'll briefly touch the neutrals, then. Darkmoon Rabbit is a 10-mana 1/1 with rush, poisonous and cleave. It's a 10-mana board clear that kills three things. Maybe. It gets royally fucked by Divine Shield and Deathrattles. It's a meme, and in Wild you've got much, much better board clears for pretty much every class. Cute, though.
Silas Darkmoon is the free legendary everyone gets before the expansion, and it's basically the carousel gryphon from the single-player adventures. 7-mana 4/4, and you rotate the board, theoretically giving the enemy a token and stealing a huge minion away from them. On one hand, it's hilarious if it works. On the other, it's so hard to get it to go off and 7-mana 4/4 is a terrible statline. I say it's a meme, but a funnier meme.
The new keyword is Corrupt, which upgrades a card to its corrupted version when you play a higher-cost card with the corrupt-able card in your hand. Which of course wreaks havoc with your curve, and I kind of feel that it might just be a bit too slow most of the time, but some of the Corrupt effects are pretty damn powerful! Fleethoof Pearltusk is the perfect showcase of this new keyword, being simple enough. 5-mana 4/4 Rush? Kinda lame. That's half of a Faceless Corrupter, really. But corrupt this (so play it at turn 7 in the earliest) and you get a 5-mana 8/8 Rush, a far more significant cost-to-value ratio. And... it's not good enough for Wild for sure, but a fun keyword for arena for sure. And as usual, the class cards are a far better showcase of this gimmick.
Horrendous Growth is an interesting card that my gut feeling says is impractical, but a pretty cool effect. Costing 2 mana, it's cheap enough that a good proportion of your deck's going to be able to trigger the corrupt. And it can be corrupted endlessly, so it can grow larger and larger. But... that's it. All you get at the end of the day is just a huge vanilla body. So probably not that good. A cool effect, though.
Il'gynoth is such an interesting card! 4-mana 2/6 Lifesteal, which isn't good, of course, but Il'gynoth will cause all Lifesteal effects to, instead of healing the DH, damage the enemy. More aggression? I actually can see this working amazingly well with an Aldrachi Warblade (which doesn't need to be played on the same turn) and a bunch of buffs. I did underrate Kayn Sunfury a lot, and he turned out to be good, and Il'gynoth honestly feels like he's going to be able to facilitate similar bursts of damage. Not sure if it's good enough for Wild, but what an interesting effect!
Expendable Performers is... it's interesting. Summon seven 1/1 rushers, and if they all die, you get seven more. Seven mana for potentially 14 rushing damage? That's cool, but that's also conditional and depends on your own state of the board as well as the enemy's. Rush-token Demon Hunter with Wrathscale Naga and whatnot is something that everyone tried to work on day one with Demon Hunter but simple aggro is always better, so despite the cool effect of this one, I honestly think that it's not going to do well. It's at seven mana, too, which is such an expensive card.
Renowned Performer is a great arena card, a 4-mana 3/3 Rush that summons two 1/1 Taunts. That's maybe just enough to make it playable? Demon Hunters have fallen out a lot in Wild, and this one is certainly too low on the power level for Wild.
Bladed Lady is a 6-mana 6/6 Rush, which is kinda bad for the stat cost. It costs 1 if your hero has 6 or more attack, which... isn't that easy? It isn't hard, though, so I wouldn't be surprised if a weapon-heavy DH deck decides to put this one in. Twin Slice and Marrow Slicer exists, after all, and a 1-mana 6/6 Rush is a pretty decent tempo tool even in the mid-game. I'm just not sure if it's practical enough, particularly in wild.
Stiltstepper is perhaps the most impractical one among these new DH cards, though. 3-mana 4/1 is terrible. You draw a card? Sure. If you play it in the same turn, your hero gets +4 Attack, a free Heroic Strike. You're still spending 3-mana to summon a crap body and draw a card, though. Too weak in Wild, I feel, and probably for Standard as well. Damn it, print better Demon Hunter cards, I need to rack up those wins to get the alternate Illidan portrait!
Two 'Eclipse' card for Druid, both being pretty interesting. Lunar Eclipse deals 3 damage to a minion and discounts the next spell in the turn by 2 mana, which is... pretty huge. It basically pays for itself, a free 3 damage if you play a second spell in the turn. Mostly I'm seeing this in cheating Malygos decks, but at the same time Wild Druids are up to a lot wilder shenanigans, so I don't think this one will be particularly good there.
Solar Eclipse is also cool, 2 mana and the next spell in the turn casts twice. Great for ramping quickly, and maybe Malygos-Moonfires. My gut feeling says it's impractical, but I refuse to dismiss any card that allows spells to be cast twice.
Kiri, Chosen of Elune is... a decent one. Maybe you don't put the Eclipses into your deck and just put Kiri in, a 4-mana 2/2 that adds the two spells to your hand. That's... interesting, and I suppose the cost isn't that terrible, but I think that if there's going to be a deck that uses the druid eclipses for a combo, they'll not bother with Kiri and just play with the Eclipse cards themselves.
Guess the Weight is very flavourful, but especially in Wild, Druid has much better and reliable draw cards. Hilarious, though, and 2-mana-potentially-draw-2 is actually a pretty good value. An easy 'not gonna see play' in Wild, though.
Hunter's Don't Feed the Animals is a cute flavour, too, but it's specific handbuff. It's a handbuff card that can be buffed, but it's nowhere strong enough for Wild for sure.
Petting Zoo is... interesting. This one, I can actually see play, and if nothing else might jostle for Hyena Alpha or Emerald Spellstone for that 'secret rewards' card. It's cheaper than Emerald Spellstone and you might roll really high with it and get like five or six 3/3 Striders. Secret Hunter isn't particularly good in Wild, and even then Hyena Alpha and Emerald Spellstone, I feel, are better for their reliability as opposed to Petting Zoo's potential high-roll chance.
Maxima Blastenheimer is... 6-mana 4/4, launch a minion from the deck at the enemy then dies? It's a better Flark's Boom spell thing, but you really need to build your deck around it and have lots of deathrattles and stuff. Not impossible to make, but also probably impractical. If Maxima like, draws one of your early-game cards? I guess the idea is to have your early synergy be full of Secret stuff and have Maxima and a bunch of high-value deathrattles in the end, but I dunno. I just don't see that deck succeeding in wild.
Darkmoon Tonk is a very solid one to play with Maxima, though. 7-mana 8/5, and it's a mech? And when it dies, it deals 4 x 2 damage at any enemy? Shooting the Tonk and having it explode deals a total of 16 damage at the expense of the Tonk's death, and that's cool and all... but I don't think that's going to be your win condition unless there's more of this synergy in Hunter. Tonk's a great standalone card in Arena or something, though.
Jumping around to Warrior for a bit. E.T.C. God of Metal is... huh. It's like... it's sort of reminds me of Axe Flinger? Any time a Rush minion attacks, deal 2 damage to the enemy hero? There are ways to get multiple rush minions on the field, especially Warrior, with Scion of Ruin, Restless Mummy or a windfury Siamat... but I dunno. I kinda feel like this would actually kinda see play as a fringe slot in Galakrond Warrior decks, but probably not going to be like some sort of a huge meta-breaker.
Menagerie support! Ringmaster Whatley is a 5-mana 3/5 version of the Curator, except with three different tribes -- mech, dragon and pirate. Three tribes that, in Wild, have all been successful with Warrior to some degree. Again, it's clearly only going to work if there's enough of them running around for New N'Zoth to summon while not being crap themselves. And I feel like in Wild, it's actually a deck that might construct itself.
Tent Trasher is a 5-mana 5/5 Rush dragon that costs 1 less for each unique enemy minion type. And... it's all right for a menagerie deck if you can get some of the cheaper tribes on the board. Plus a huge rusher is going to be something you would love to summon back with N'Zoth. I'm just not sure if it's enough to be a 'menagerie matters' card.
Ringmaster's Baton is a 2-mana 1/3 that hand-buffs three specific minions in your hand. My gut instinct is that this is a cool effect, but way too small of a weapon stats and way too specific for you to get the full boost. Hand-buffing, it's never as good as it seems. It'd be super-cool if we see more of these. If not in this expansion, then in the next couple ones.
Secret Mage is already a deck that's one of the stronger Aggro options in Wild. All of these are great in Standard, I suppose, but Occult Conjurer only gets you two vanilla 4/4's? Wild has way better tempo payoffs in Kabal Crystalrunner, Cloud Prince and Medivh's Valet. Ring Toss? The Corrupt's cool, but you have to wait to get two secrets and pay 4 mana? I feel like it's too slow and too expensive for Wild.
Rigged Faire Game is a secret that counts on the enemy not hitting your face, to draw 3 cards? Not bad, I suppose, but probably not one you'll put in your deck voluntarily in Wild. A fun secret because simply by existing, it's basically opposite-synergy with Flame Ward, and that might lead to interesting games. Draw three is nothing to sneeze at, and I'm actually going back and looking at this card and going 'hmm, but maybe...'
High Exarch Yrel! She's a cool lady from WoW. It's part of the pure paladin deck, a deck that admittedly didn't see much traction in Wild. She basically becomes Shirvallah on steroids, though, with Rush, Lifesteal, Taunt and Divine Shield. You can't discount her, but she's always 8 mana with all the effects near-almost-always activated. A very cool card for the pure paladin deck, and a huge, huge tempo swing Mega-Zilliax card. Again, though, more on the fault of the meta than the card itself, not gonna see play in wild.
Balloon Merchant isn't terrible, but it isn't an odd card so its value as a Silver Hand support card in Wild is basically null and void since all the other Silver Hand support cards in Wild are odd. Day at the Faire is... interesting. It's either a shittier Muster or Battle, or if you manage to corrupt it, it's a far cheaper Stand Against Darkness. Don't think it'll replace Muster in Wild, but I actually would give it a fair chance of experimentation in greedier lists.
Simpler cards. Carousel Gryphon is a 5-mana 5/5 Divine Shield, sort of comparable to a bigger Silvermoon Guardian (and therefore pretty crap) but the corrupted version makes it a bigger and cheaper Sunwalker. Not for Wild, but I would draft this in any Arena deck for sure.
Ditto for Hammer of the Naaru. 6-mana 3/3 weapon and a 6/6 Taunt body? That's actually pretty great value. Almost Wild-playable, but I feel like it doesn't quite do enough other than give you a bit of value at turn six, y'know? It's just good enough that if it has some sort of synergy with something I might actually see this being playable, but as it is, it's a cool, balanced card. Cool, balanced cards don't see the Wild meta.
Fortune Teller's cute, I guess. It's a taunt that gets bigger with spells in your hand. Priests can do that, but Priests also have far, far better synergies than just making a big Taunt boy. I feel like such a dick for saying this all the time, but we just have so many better cards in Wild, like Convincing Infiltrator or Faceless Manipulator or Loatheb or something, y'know? And I don't even think this is good enough in Standard as it is.
The Nameless One, on the other hand, will definitely see play in Standard since it doesn't have Spellbreaker. And Nameless One is a better Spellbreaker! It not only silences an enemy minion, it also copies its effects before silencing! That's pretty badass! A pretty cool tech and removal card, and one that I feel would be a great, great choice to slot into Priest decks even in Wild. I wouldn't say he suddenly becomes the new Loatheb or something, but I would definitely run this over a regular Spellbreaker!
Dunk Tank is a crappy Lava Burst, but corrupt it and it becomes a mini-Earthquake. It's all right, and the combination of single target free damage and small-damage AoE might actually make it flexible enough to see play. I'm still unconvinced about Corrupt, but Shaman, I feel, is a class that might be able to pull it off.
Ticket Master is kind of redundant in Wild, since we have Fal'Dorei Strider, which works off of a battlecry. Other than deathrattle-triggering synergies, I don't really see much of a point in running this over that card. Neat that this exists, I suppose. Prize Plunderer is... it's all right. I feel like it's a bit too impractical in Wild, and there are much better Combo-payoff cards than this one.
Grand Empress Shek'zara, on the other hand! 6-mana 5/7, and you discover a card in your deck and draw all copies on it? On a regular deck, you basically just discover a card and maybe draw two of them out of your deck. In a deck that cares about shuffling things into your deck, though? Pogo-hopper decks? Fal'dorei or Ticket Master decks? Shadow of Death? Not to mention that Wild has a lot more options for shuffling things into decks. This might not see play now, but the fact that this exists scares me.
Closing things with Warlock. Fire Breather is a 4-mana 4/3 demon that casts Demonwrath on the board. That's... that's not terrible. Warlock also has way too many good Demons that this one ends up feeling weak in comparison. Plus, it's a battlecry, which is always weak in Wild, what with Skull of Gul'dan, Voidcaller, Bloodreaver Gul'dan and a bunch of others having negative synergy with battlecry demons.
Revenant Rascal looks like a cute way to disrupt the enemy by destroying an enemy crystal for both players... and is completely useless past turn 9, which is when you actually need disruption for the turn 10 combos anyway. In Wild, at least, this is going to be completely impractical.
Wicked Whispers looks weak, but don't laugh! Discard Warlock somehow, over the past couple of years, got enough tools to surprisingly be a pretty awesome monster in Wild, and I respect Discard Warlock a lot. A cheap discard card that also buffs the minions already on board? This could basically be slotted in for a more zoo-esque list, yeah? I think this will see play, if not experimentation, in wild. Respect for all these 'no, wait, this actually fits a wild archetype' cards.
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