Holy shit that was a busy Blizzcon, huh?
I do admit that the new progression system, as much as it came under flak early in its life, was pretty great. If nothing else it looked a lot better than the previous quest banner, and I do like the sheer amount of single-player content, as well as random cosmetic rewards from hero skins and card backs we've been getting in the past couple of months.
Anyway, in addition to Mercenaries (I don't know what it is, but Valeera and Ragnaros look badass) mode and Classic mode (I honestly just want to pop in and do an old-school Savage Roar combo at least once), we get not only a brand-new expansion, but also a Core set for Standard. Yeah, we're doing M:TG, with the Classic and Basic cards rotating to Wild -- there's a lot of asterisks on how card packs and how old Hall of Fame cards will settle down, but I think for the most part all players will be getting new free cards. Best of all, the Core set is given to all players free for the duration of the year, which I heartily approve of.
I've been primarily a Wild player, but maybe I'll broach Standard for the first time since Witchwood or something? Mostly I'm glad that (hopefully) the attempt to balance Standard will stop them from banhammering every single Basic/Classic card to oblivion.
Most importantly, after so many years of 'lol with a Hearthstone twist' expansions -- which gets a bit tiresome as much as I live for the zaniness of funnel cakes -- I am very appreciative that we're seemingly dropping a lot of the OG characters and going back to something a lot more rooted in classic World of Warcraft. WHOOPS JK we're getting like 10 new original Mercenary characters and stuff. Oh well. We're getting Horde this year (FOR THE HORDE), and presumably we'll get Alliance as the second expansion, then Horde-vs-Alliance at the end. It's frankly about god damn time.
Also, Shaman gets a buff? Which I assume is going to apply in Standard, Wild, Arena, Duels and basically all modes except for the new Classic mode? It's kind of confusing juggling 'Classic' and 'Legacy' and all these new terms. Part of me weep for the spell damage synergy that will be torn asunder now that Shaman no longer has 25% chance to make a spell damage totem... but the replacement, Strength Totem, is... well, I can't lie, this thing suddenly makes a totem-swarming Shaman deck, aggro and midrange all kind of better, wouldn't it? It's basically like Micro Mummy or the Swordsmith guy from Classic, but essentially free. I think it's better.
Most importantly, we're getting Spell tribe tags. How awesome is that? And I know it's kind of like, something that I fervently wished we'd get -- Spell 'element damage' and that they'll retroactively add tribe tags to every single Hearthstone minion... but I'll take my Spell tags, which will be retroactively added to every single applicable spell in the game. Nice. We're going to get seven spell tags (Arcane, Fel, Fire, Frost, Holy, Nature, Shadow), which, again, hopefully will give us some more variety in spells.
Desperate Prayer from the Barrens expansion is pretty basic, as far as Priest spells go. Both heroes get 5 health restored. But maybe the Holy tag will mean something? Maybe there's a minion or something that causes Holy spells to deal damage instead, or something? Again, I'm just hyperfixating on these spell tags, and I hope they do something cool. Spirit Healer is the one they showcase as an example for these synergy, where she casts Power Word: Shield randomly on a random friendly minion every time you cast a Holy spell. Probably not the best synergy, but it does make me get excited to see what's to come.
The new Shaman legendary, Bru'kan, is a 4-mana 5/4 with Nature Spell Damage +3, which is a nice showcase of how they can get flavour and balance with these new spell tags. You really need to select your spells in your deck properly, otherwise Bru'kan ends up being a pretty bland vanilla card. Nature spells, as we've been shown, seem to just be Shamans' Lightning spells, so in wild, at least, you'll get high-damage Lightning Bolts and stuff. In Standard, though... who knows what's going to stick around in Core 2021?
After Spellstones and Schemes, we get yet another kind of upgradable spells... but these just upgrade automatically at certain turns -- turn 5 and 10. Sort of like Omega cards. It's a lot more predictable, I feel, but at the same time the feels-bad feeling of topdecking your Scheme or Spellstone is gone. Imp Swarm is pretty terrible at rank 1, summoning a 3/2 Imp for 2 mana. It goes up to two and three Imps and... I don't think it's good enough for Wild, since it's only good at the second rank but it sure is a nice showcase of the Rank spells. And this is a Fel spell, note that! We have spell tags! Chain Lightning is basically better Forked Lightning, except you can sort of direct it more since you can guarantee at least one of the target. It goes from 2 damage to 3 and 4. A lot better, I feel, and a lot more useful in Shaman. Especially since we know we've got at least one card synergizing with Nature damage spells!
The classic Barrens meme from WoW, Mankrik arrives as a Rin/Elise-style 'shuffle a card into your deck, it does something awesome' card. He's a vanilla-statted minion, and if you find the corpse of his wife in your deck, you summon an angry 3/10 Mankrik that's guaranteed to at least attack the enemy hero once. Feels extremely meme-y for Wild's power level (but then, I am actually interested in checking out Standard for once), at least in its current iteration. I do like the flavour for sure.
These three are a bit more fun! Sunscale Raptor is our newest Pogo style minion that can potentially shuffle itself into your deck again and again, each getting more and more powerful. In Wild, Jade Idols and Pogos are going to be infinitely more successful, and at least we get a nice 1/3 statline. In Standard... sometimes Hunters just need a Dire Mole, y'know? Blademaster Samuro has Rush! That means you can almost guarantee that his Frenzy effect will happen! Which... frankly isn't that good -- you do a 1 damage AoE. Unless you combo him with like, Inner Rage or Abusive Sergeant or something. Still, at least I can see this guy being part of a fun board clear combo. Also, yay at seeing actual Warcraft characters I recognize.
Druid of the Plains is another pretty powerful Rush/Frenzy combo. You go from a 7/6 Rush and transform, healing all damage, into a 6/7 Taunt. How fucking cool is that? That's such an awesome take on the Druid of the X formula in Arena. I actually really like the design of this one, simply from a design standpoint.
Core cards now! To my understanding, we all get one year to play with these cards, but then Blizzard takes them back and gives us a new Core set in 2022. Wild players who really like them, presumably, can craft them. Kinda complex, I feel, but okay, sure. I sure will craft at least two of these Dragon Aspects when they leave Core, but man, again, I'm so glad that they recognize the iconic characters in Warcraft and what drew people into Hearthstone in the first place.
Ysera the Dreamer has her usual stats, but instead of shuffling things into your deck or giving you a card every turn, she just... adds her five dream cards to your hand. Again, a nice little huge value bomb, and if nothing else I think you can just immediately Dream New!Ysera back into your hand and just 'save' her for next turn? A 0-mana sap, a 2-mana board nuke, two decently-statted minions and a free Power Overwhelming? Not bad.
Malygos the Spellweaver just draws all your spells until your hand is full. A very powerful tutor effect, and one I can see people abusing, but nowhere as hard to design spells around as the original Malygos was (who, I am surprised, dodged being hall of famed for so many years). A bit more boring than the other two on first glance, probably the most powerful of them.
Deathwing the Destroyer still destroys the board, but not your hand -- he just discards a random card for each minion destroyed. In wild, he's going to be a terrifying finisher for Discard Warlocks! Not much to say, a genuinely playable Deathwing is going to make me very happy.
With everyone hating Edwin so much he got nerfed (and I think it's confirmed Edwin will get un-nerfed once he goes to play in Wild), his daughter Vanessa VanCleef (another character I know!) shows up as the new Rogue legendary. She's... a weird one, like a mini Muruzond, but she specifically steals the last card your opponent plays and adds it to your hand. Weird. She looks neat, if nothing else, even if I think she's not as powerful as her card text suggests.
Overlord Runthak is not a character I know, but he's apparently one of Garrosh's goons. He's... a decent hand-buff card? I keep seeing these new hand-buff cards and going 'oh, this is better than the last ones'. Runthak, I feel, is extra-powerful because he can theoretically indefinitely buff every turn, he hits all the minions in your hand, and you're guaranteed to get at least one trigger since he's got Rush. Not super excited, but not terrible for a free neutral legendary everyone gets, I guess.
Core is meant to be 'new Basic/Classic', so a lot of the power level is going to be skewed more towards the lower side, particularly since I am so used to Wild. Still, very neat to see what they're doing with the, well, core of the next Standard year. Novice Zapper is kind of a replacement for Shaman in getting a cheap spell damage minion, and I do like that he's got a big body for 1 mana. He's a cheap 1-mana overload minion, I do think those need to be pretty powerful. Sort of reminds me of Totem Golem, but a tempo swing in a different way? A neat one.
Thrive in the Shadows is just crappier Shadow Visions for Priest, since you don't Discover a copy of your spell. That card tutors and generates a new card. This one just tutors. Pretty nice card in, again, a Core set, nonetheless. Felsoul Jailer is also a pretty simple card, basically Discard-Maiev where you 'lock' a minion in your opponent's hand. There might be something here with silencing or transforming or bouncing this minion back to your hand or something, but I doubt that it's going to worth it since you can't see what you burn... and in Wild, there sure are a lot better opponent-resource-denial cards. Extremely cool from a flavour standpoint, though.
We're also getting a bunch of buffs to cards entering the Core set, and... and I kinda hope this is permanent to Wild as well? Again, I'm not 100% certain, but the wording seems to imply that the reworks for a lot of the newly-reforged cards will be universal. And the original versions of these cards will stick around in the new Classic ladder anyway, right? I definitely hope that in Wild, a lot of the cards that got hit hard with the nerf-hammer -- the Power Word: Shields, Blade Flurrys, Force of Natures and the Mana Wyrms -- get reverted back to, if not their original state, then a more balanced one.
Anyway, Shaman seems to get a lot of buffs. Lightning Storm now deals consistent 3 damage (it's a Nature spell, too); while both Earth Elemental and Feral Spirit overloads for 1 mana less. Assassinate also gets buffed by 1 mana, and of all things, Karazhan's Menagerie Warden gets buffed with a 1 mana (and -1/-1 stat reduction) discount. Again, a lot of these seem to be directed at cards currently in Classic-Basic, but if Menagerie Warden is anything to go by, I do look forward to the buffs being done to a lot of seemingly forgotten cards in Hearthstone's history. I could make a list of cards I want to see buffed, but I'm too lazy.
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EDIT: Okay, the full list of Core set cards are out and... well, it's interesting? Obviously, as a primarily Wild player a lot of the cards feel kind of underwhelming from a power-level standpoint, but I certainly appreciate that they're trying real hard to preserve class identity and class fantasy. Not that I dislike the flavour of any of the expansions in Hearthstone, but I do kind of like that a vast, vast majority of Core is still mostly confined to their WoW inspirations. There are a lot of people out there that could probably make a better analysis of the cards and what the implication to the Standard meta is (i.e. someone who actually plays more than 10 Standard games in the past six months) but since I don't really have a whole ton to say I'm just going to talk quickly about the new cards.
In regards to Standard, I -- and most people -- do think that it's the removal of so many of the original Basic and Classic cards that are going to impact the Standard meta most. As a Wild player, I mostly think am giddier about the fact that hopefully a lot of these changes will be reverted back to Wild... maybe Demon Hunter will actually be playable beyond third-rate garbage now with some of their many, many nerfs reverted? I am definitely looking forward to see just which ones of the nerfs get reverted.
Somewhat surprisingly, Demon Hunter gets three new cards? I don't think they're all quite that powerful. Kor'vas Bloodthorn is one of the few Charge minions left in Core, and she's got Lifesteal to boot. But I'm not sure if the Pen Flinger style trick with Outcast is really going to work all that well with her. She's interesting if nothing else. Gan'arg Glaivesmith is a bit too impractical for Wild for hero-attack boosts, but maybe with so many cards leaving Core, maybe Standard DH will be forced to use this one? Illidari Inquisitor seems to replace Priestess of Fury in terms of being a big demon, which historically DH don't really use a lot... but having Rush and getting essentially Windfury if your hero attacks? That's honestly pretty damn powerful since it means that when the Demon Hunter hits the opponent's face, Inquisitor here smashes it for 8 more damage, too. Though... is coming in at 8 mana going to be worth it?
It is interesting to see what cards are kept and what card leaves, for sure! Among DH's stronger cards (as far as I can tell), Battlefiend, Crimson Sigil Runner, Eye Beam, Chaos Strike, Spectral Sight, and Aldrachi Warblades are notably staying; and it's interesting that Warglaives of Azzinoth got rebalanced yet again. It's kind of hard to remember which cards come from 'Basic', and I think the Initiate set rotates too? Glaivebound Adept, Satyr Overseer, Altruis, Blade Dance, Consume Magic and especially Twin Slice are the big losses here. Wonder if they'll revert the nerf to Twin Slice.
Druids get a new card with Nordrassil Druid, who discounts their next spell? Eh, we've seen stronger Druid discount cards, but this one is pretty solid. Again, most interesting is to see what cards get buffed and what card leaves. Among the ones that get buffed is Cenarius (one mana cheaper) and Druid of the Claw (loses Charge, but gets +1 attack all around). Force of Nature is regretably still terrible; you'd think they'd buff the card with Rush? This would have been the perfect opportunity! Among other returning cards, Druid gets a couple that really seem to be trying to push Treant and Beast synergy, and it's neat to see some classics like Enchanted Raven, Menagerie Warden and Landscaping back.
Major cards leaving Druid? All their removal and spell combo cards. They still get to keep ramp, but Swipe? Savage Roar? Moonfire? Wrath? Board buffs like Power of the Wild and Gift of the Wild are also gone. Standard Druid is going to look so different, and I approve.
No, yeah, Hunter's only got this new card -- Selective Breeder, which is a pretty simple tutor effect. I think it's not that good, though at the same time tutoring a Zixor or something to prepare your Dire Frenzies (which is in Core) is going to be fun. Oh, and Tracking gets changed from the whole 'thin your deck out' to just plain old Shadow Visions but with any card. Very boring, honestly.
Hunter's selection of cards are utterly changed, though. The infamous 'Hunter's super-great Turn 3' package? Eaglehorn Bow, Animal Companion, Kill Command and to a lesser degree Unleash the Hounds? All gone. Even Houndmaster, another quintessential beast-synergy card? Gone. Flare (which is a funny tech card) is also gone, and so are relatively iconic cards like Hunter's Mark and Tundra Rhino. The latter isn't a surprise; Blizzard is understandably purging Standard of most of its Charge cards.
It is interesting to see what they left Core Hunter with -- Webspinner and Ball of Spiders are... interesting. I've always liked Quick Shot and Dire Frenzy; Lock and Load's probably good fun; and Headhunter's Hatchet is going to be able to shine in a meta without Eaglehorn. I do find it interesting to note that after half a decade, Starving Buzzard is finally going to be a playable card.
Mage mage mage. The first one since Velen to replace its Classic legendary, Aegwynn, Medivh's mom, is... the card's flavourful. If I read it correctly then Aegwynn not only leaves behind her Spell Damage +2, but also the Deathrattle. I don't think Mage particularly needs a minion like this, and she's way too slow in Wild, but it's certainly flavourful for sure. Again, though I haven't been mentioning it in the previous one, it's so much fun to see the tags like Frost and Fire applied to so many spells. Cone of Cold and Flamestrike both get buffed -- by mana and damage respectively. Neat! While they aren't altered, it's interesting that Fireball and Arcane Intellect managed to stick around.
It's so interesting to see what leaves Mage. Most of the strongest Frost spells, as everyone predicted, leaves -- Frostbolt, Frost Nova, Blizzard -- replaced with the less-powerful Snap Freeze and Cone of Cold. Sorcerer's Apprentice and Mana Wyrm also leaves, and hopefully the worm gets reverted back to its original 1-mana glory. Apprentice isn't surprising, frankly I'm surprised she has dodged Hall of Fame for so long. Another notable removal? Polymorph, which I guess just makes Hex extra unique. The abusable cheap spell Arcane Missiles and the big endgame bomb Pyroblast also laeve.
Surprisingly, we're getting Babbling Book back. Doesn't the Standard community hate this guy? I love him, though. As someone who's fought a lot of Secret Mages in wild, it's interesting to see Arcanologist tossed into Core, but they're losing Kirin Tor Mage, so... shrug? Two TGT cards that are dear to my heart but have been kind of underwhelming -- Fallen Hero and Coldarra Drake -- are included in Core, and they deal with hero power shenanigans. Curious if we'll see more of them.
Paladin's got two cards. Reckoning is a new secret that destroys any huge-power minion that attacks your face. In most cases I think this won't really see play in Wild, though the flavour is really fun -- and it's probably a neat bit to fuck with your enemy's mind between Avenge and Reckoning. To give a Silver Hand Recruit synergy into Core, Pursuit of Justice just gives a permanent +1 Attack buff to dudes. And it's almost scary in Wild... until I remember that this is an even card. So probably won't see play in the Dude Paladin deck there.
Where Mage and Hunter both have really huge swathes of good cards leaving, the cards in Paladin that are leaving are mostly the crappy ones. Man, Paladin's Basic and Classic set aren't... that great, huh? Standard loses... maybe Blessing of Might among the cards that are leaving? Lay of Hands?
I do love the buffs that they did here. Argent Protector and Warhorse Trainer gets a stat bump, the now-unplayable Equality gets put into a halfway point of 3 mana (which is nice) and Guardian of Kings gets Taunt, which might actually make it decently playable.
I don't think there's anything particularly significant in Paladin that leaves? Which, again, speaks more to the quality of Basic/Classic Paladin cards. We get a lot of great cards tossed in -- Avenge, a.k.a. one of the best Paladin Secrets. Righteous Proector, a.k.a. the best Paladin 1-drop. And both Warhorse Trainer (who gets buffed!) and Stand Against Darkness are really pushing for a Dude Paladin in Standard, too.
Surprisingly, despite already getting a somewhat extensive Classic/Basic card rework last year, Priest got a huge revamp again. Crimson Clergy is basically a better Lightwarden (who's leaving Core), Focused Will is a combination of old Power Word: Shield and Silence (I don't think it's good) and Shadowed Spirit, bizarrely, is just a bigger Leper Gnome, which doesn't feel particularly Priest-like to me. A lot of the 'neo-Classic' cards from the earlier revamp like Shadow Word: Ruin, Power Infusion and Natalie Seline all stick around. Lightspawn gets buffed by 1 mana, that's cute.
Priest loses... what did it lose? Shadow Word: Pain (but not Death!) and Mass Dispel are both leaving. Inner Fire or Divine Spirit, whichever one is in Standard, have also been banished to Wild. Mind Control and Cabal Shadow Priest are also gone, so I guess Priest no longer mind-controls you? Power Word: Shield and Northshire Cleric are gone, too, and... yeah, Priest is going to be kind of weirdly different. Hopefully we get to see Shield's nerf get reverted. Thoughtsteal and Mind Visions are also gone, which is interesting because they keep the minion that does that as a battlecry.
Notable inclusions from Wild is Flash Heal (I approve, it's always a 'Core'-esque card) and Shadowform (who can no longer access the 3 damage double-Shadowform, shame).
Rogue gets one new card, Vanessa, who we covered above. It's also got a couple of buffs -- Assassin's Blade is more durable but less powerful, and Assassinate goes down by 1 mana, hilariously powercreeping Walk the Plank and other Rogue single-target removal cards in other expansions. Sprint also gets discounted by 1 mana, which still makes it unplayable compared to the Sprint-for-1-mana, Secret Passage.
Rogue's going to feel so different in Standard for sure. It's losing Edwin VanCleef for good, but it's also losing Eviscerate and Sap, two pretty core cards in Rogue. Particularly Evis, which means they can't do burst damage anymore. Fan of Knives, another pretty common inclusion as a draw engine, is also gone, as is Blade Flurry.
I feel that they could've done more, because Rogue, interestingly, still keeps its array of powerful low-mana spells like Backstab, Shadowstep and most damningly Preparation. I thought Prep would be a shoo-in for being Legacied. I don't really have much to say for Rogue, though two of the inclusions from Wild are two of my all-time favourite Rogue cards, Tomb Pillager and Swashburglar (who gets buffed with the new 'card from another class' instead of 'card from your opponent's class).
We talked a lot about Shaman's buffs up above, and in addition to the fact that its hero power got changed to roll a different totem instead of the spell damage one, so many of the cards that stay got buffed. All the Overloads get reduced, Al'Akir gets 1 extra health, and two of the Wild-returning cards get buffed... Tidal Surge now has Lifesteal so the healing scales, a minor but fun buff; while Draenei Totemcarver gets 1 extra health. Totemcarver has actually been pretty memorable from the 'shamanstone' era, though she's never been the powerhouse of that deck, just a win-more big stat bomb. Fun to see it back. Fire Elemental also deals 4 damage now, which is kind of negligible but nice.
It's, again, interesting to see what gets to stay and what leaves. Flametongue Totem leaves and hopefully gets returned to 2 mana where it'd be playable, and Shaman's super-powerful Bloodlust finisher have also gone to wild. Other powerful tools in Shaman's kit? Far Sight and Lava Burst. But for the most part, I think a good chunk of the flavour here is overload synergies being a lot less detrimental and some attempts at totem synergy. Shaman keeps a lot of their best cards, and many of them rebalanced for modern times -- Lightning Bolt, Lightning Storm, Feral Spirit, Hex, Doomhammer, Rockbiter, Mana Tide... it's going to be interesting to see how the new sets play with Shaman's new core set.
In addition to Felsoul Jailer above, Warlock gets two new cards! Ritual of Doom replaces Bane of Doom but only works on a wide board. It's so flavourful and I love everything about this card other than its power level. I guess some zoo-swarm decks can play it? And Fiendish Circle returns to give this card a bit of a boost? But otherwise it's too impractical. Enslaved Fel Lord replaces that Annihilan guy that replaced Doomguard, and it's a big Taunt boy that cleaves. S'cool, but both Wild and Standard have better big-mana demons.
Core Warlock loses a bunch of cards, though. Turn-1 standby Voidwalker is gone (though Flame Imp remains) and is replaced by fan-favourite Possessed Pillager. Soulfire and Shadow Bolt are gone. I haven't seen it in a while, but Shadowflame's also gone. I can approve of a lot of the cards that remain (Flame Imp, Hellfire, Siphon Soul, Infernal, Mortal Coil, Twisting Nether) and the cards that get re-introduced from wild (Drain Soul, Possessed Villager, Tiny Knight of Eeevil, Lakkari Felhound). A fun mixture of discard synergies and quasi-zoo? Lakkari Felhound even gets buffed to actually discard your lowest-cost cards, which is going to be interesting in Wild too, since Discard Warlock is actually not bad in Wild right now. One of my favourite cards, Void Terror, gets a minor buff and sticks around, too.
Best of all? YOU FACE JARAXXUS, EREDAR LORD OF THE BURNING LEGION is back, and he's a straight-up hero card. It retains his uniqueness back among the Classic legendaries, and it's always a change that I wished they would do. Jaraxxus (and Executus)'s biggest weakness is that he basically Alexstraszas your own face, and so many classes can murder you from 15 health down to 0. With this change, Jaraxxus rewards you playing safely and honestly is going to feel so balanced and powerful and awesome. I wonder if Wild decks are going to include this in addition to Bloodreaver Gul'dan? You would, wouldn't you? Best change ever.
Most importantly, though, Warsong Commander is finally no longer terrible! Long decried as the card that Blizzard straight-up just murdered in cold blood while nerfing, I really have always hoped that poor Warsong Commander was given something good, but she's always been a terrible understatted minion that had a crap effect after her nerf. She now has something resembling her original incarnation's power, but with Rush instead of Charge. Actually makes her a better Houndmaster Shaw!
Warrior gets Shieldmaiden (one of the best GvG cards) back, and keeps a lot of their classic tools (Brawl, Frothing Berserker, Armorsmith, Execute, Fiery War Axe, Shield Slam, regular Slam) but also loses most significantly their best card draw engines, Battle Rage and Shield Block. Other notable disappearances that get replacements include aggro staples Kor'kron Elite, Heroic Strike and Arcanite Reaper.
Neutrals now! In addition to Runthak, we get a couple new cards -- Fogsail Freebooter is honestly a pretty simple pirate that deals damage if you have a weapon, and I actually do think it's a card on the cusp of playability in more aggressive pirate decks. Not going to be a powerhouse, but I think it's a pretty cool card. Taelan Fordring is... an interesting card. It's a tutor for a high-cost minion, while being a mini Sunwalker. The exact sort of legendary I'd expect to see in a Core set, actually, kind of a multipurpose card but not too overpowered.
We have the rest of our dragons, and, surprisingly, Onyxia also gets an update! I suppose she is part of the Classic legendary dragons despite not being an aspect. They kept the flavour of most of these cards which I enjoy. Alexstrasza the Lifebinder is a bit more... flexible, while not as combo-winning as the original. She either deals 8 damage or heals 8 health. Not good enough to be put into your deck, but definitely a fine card you'd love to get out of random effects. Nozdormu the Eternal is still honestly a meme, but now you can consensually meme to have your entire game consist of speed 15-second long Hearthstone. That's cute.
Onyxia the Broodmother is probably one of the bigger buffs, where at the end of each turn she respawns her 1/1 whelps. It's better than Shu'ma, actually, since Shu'ma only does so at the end of your turn. The original Onyxia was already not playable compared to the other 9-mana dragons from Classic, and now I actually think she's one of the better ones. Still too low of a power level for Wild, but I approve of this change!
Among the neutral set there's a gigantic amount of cards that are leaving, and on a brief glance I can see some of the most notable exclusions include all-time classics that have pretty fun interactions like Doomsayer, Knife Juggler and Wild Pyromancer. Other notable cards include quintessential draw engine Novice Engineer. Two of the more notable 'tribal' cards, Dread Corsair and the ever-powerful Murloc Warleader are also leaving, which I think opens up a lot of design space in Standard. Secretkeeper is also another card that often sneaks her way into Secret-synergy decks.
Most of the neutral Charges -- Southsea Deckhand and Argent Commander -- are also rotated out. Some controversy have arisen because Stonetusk Boar and Bluegill Warrior are turned into Rush instead, which have gotten a fair bit of flak from Wild players since this invalidates some of their combo decks. I haven't seen Anyfin Paladin in a while, but yeah, considering that they replaced Kor'kron Elite with a new Rush card and stuff, I would certainly prefer them to replace Bluegill Warrior and Southsea Deckhand with alternate cards and rotate the original chargers to wild.
Other good ol' classic cards that also got rotated out but I don't think have seen play in a while? Wisp, Hungry Crab, Angry Chicken, Leper Gnome, Sea Giant (finally joining his giant brethren), Lorewalker Cho, Nat Pagle, Harrison Jones, Millhouse Manastorm, Harvest Golem, Questing Adventurer, Twilight Drake, Stampeding Kodo, Hogger, Black Knight, Captain Greenskin, Magma Rager (replaced, hilariously, by Ice Rager) and Gruul.
Most notably... Gadgetzan Auctioneer didn't get rotated out. What? How? Didn't everyone complain about this one?
Most interestingly are the cards that got swapped in from Wild. Murloc Tinyfin replaces Wisp but being a tribal card probably has more use. Clockwork Giant becomes the new giant, becuase I guess there must always be a giant in the classic set. Cogmaster returns for mech hijinks, and so does ever-popular Annoy-o-Tron (who's going to stay in Wild forever and ever, I bet), Humongous Razorleaf replaces Ancient Statue, Lone Champion comes back (everyone expected Tar Creeper!), Spider Tank, Sleepy Dragon, Stoneskin Basilisk (all having pretty 'core' vibes), Baron Rivendare, Nerubian Egg (they love Naxx), Stormwatcher and Grim Necromancer (both pretty obscure cards that I'm extremely fond of).
We get a bunch of minor buffs and... and I actually hoped that they would buff a bit more of the Core set, but I guess they didn't want to powercreep the expansions out. Obviously, a lot of the neutral 'Neo-Classic' cards remain, but they've been pretty crap so it's nice that they're buffing them a bit. Arcane Devourer gets a much more modest statline for an 8 drop and Barrens Stablehand gets buffed a bit. Neither are good, but neither are pure garbage now. Big Game Hunter gets the Equality treatment of being put between 'pre-nerf unfair' and 'post-nerf unplayable' mana slots, which is nice. Ysera's dream cards are also apparently getting rebalanced, too.
Cairne Bloodhoof, Defender of Argus, Gurubashi Berserker, Flesheating Ghoul, Raid Leader and Stormwind Champion all get minor stat bumps, none of which are going to make them suddenly powerful, but that makes them... more decent?
Oh, and there's also adding spell schools, too -- there aren't any new synergy cards in the Core set, so I'm going to assume it's going to be expansion-dependent. All the spell school divisions seem to be relatively what we expected. Demon Hunters get primarily Fel spells (Feast of Souls is Shadow, though); Druid primarily get Nature spells (in Core it's mostly buff or draw ones); Hunter get a combination of everything for their traps; Mage's three schools of Arcane, Fire and Frost are all represented (not too many offensive Frost ones in Core); Paladin has Holy; Priest gets around half Holy and half Shadow; Rogue's only Core spell with a school is Shadowstep; Shaman is exclusively Nature; Warlock is mostly Shadow with a little Fel and Fire; and Warriors just don't give a shit. Again, I'm interested to see that when we retroactively see all the spell schools added to previous spells, just how much synergy there will be, particularly in Wild.
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Oh well, since I've been talking about Core anyway, let's talk about the fact that all the cards in Year of the Dragon and a huge chunk of Classic/Basic are moving to Wild... and I do hope a lot of the cards that do move there get their nerfs reverted. Some of them that are remaining in Core (BGH, Warsong Commander, Equality) have found a fun medium between being unplayable and playable. Other cards that, after glancing through Blizzard's surprisingly extensive nerf list, that I wish would get unnerfed in Wild. Not only is it going to make Wild a bit fresher, it's also going to make things like Tavern Brawls, Single-player modes and whatnot feel a lot more fun.
I think so far the only one confirmed to be getting unnerfed are Edwin VanCleef, Saronite Chain Gang and Dinotamer Brann. But here's my little wishlist as a Wild player. Not every nerfed card is here, but a significant amount of them are -- Blizz has been pretty consistent with reverting many of the nerfs in Standard when the cards go to wild (so only rotating Basic/Classic sets and Year of the Dragon cards), so I really do hope these get reverted back to their glory:
- Keeper of the Grove: A 2/4 that got nerfed into 2/2 and unplayability. It's been a long while and he's been basically ignored, he wouldn't be broken as a 2/4 in Standard.
- Ancient of Lore: Used to draw 2 cards, got nerfed into 1. Again, Druid's draw mechanics are so powerful that Lore could draw 2 cards again and still see no play.
- Flare: Apparently early on this went from 1 to 2? Yeah, Flare can go back to 1 without really being too broken -- lord knows we need better anti-Secret cards than SI:7 Infiltrator and Eater of Secrets.
- Hunter's Mark: Used to be 0 then 1 then 2. Like Equality, I think reverting it back to 1 would work, particularly in Wild.
- Starving Buzzard: One of the earliest changes, went from 2 mana to 5 mana. One of the more murderous changes, changing it back to 2 or 3 mana would be fine, honestly.
- Mana Wyrm: Mage is pretty strong in Wild, but on the other hand Mana Wyrm feels wrong at 2 mana. Turn it back to 1 mana! Make it a 1/2 if you have to.
- Conjurer's Calling: Went from 3 mana to 4. Could still be very easily be 3 mana in Wild.
- Dragoncaster: Also an easy reversion from 7 mana to 6. Actually wasn't sure why this card was changed, was it that powerful in Standard?
- Tortollan Pilgrim: I'm a little cautious about this one, but on the other hand I don't think we've seen too much of the 'Turtle Mage' (is that even a thing in Standard? Wow, I'm kind of out of touch with Standard) in Wild, so yeah, why not?
- Power Word: Shield: YES PLEASE. Make it draw a card again.
- Extra Arms: Went from 3 mana to 2 mana then back to 3 mana, all in Standard. In Wild, Extra Arms could be 2 mana and might actually see some play?
- Blade Flurry: Went from 2 to 4 mana, and can hit face? Maybe could go to 3 mana; when Illidan's Blade Dance is 2 mana and still sees no play in Wild...
- Galakrond the Nightmare: I don't think Rogue's Galakrond would be broken at all with turning cards in its deck to 0. On the contrary, it would probably make the card borderline playable for once.
- Flametongue Totem: Kind of useless at 3 mana with 0/3 statline, reverting it back to 2 would make it maybe playable again?
- Mogu Fleshshaper: At the risk of being scary with Evolve cards... yeah, this one wouldn't be that terrible if it went back to 7 from 9 mana.
- Corrupt Elementalist: Galakrond Shaman was oppressive in Standard, but in Wild it barely made a blip when the nerfs fell. Making Corrupt Elementalist 5 mana again wouldn't be unbalanced.
- Invocation of Frost: Another Galakrond Shaman card, turn it back to 1 mana!
- Dragon's Pack: Yet another Galakrond Shaman card, used to give its wolves +3/+3, again, won't be broken if it reads that again.
- Possessed Lackey: In K&C he was a bit oppressive at 5 mana, which was why he went to 6. Wild Warlock has way better tools to cheat demons out, he'd be all right going back to 5.
- Fiendish Rites: I don't think I really saw Galakrond Warlock a lot in Wild even back in the day, and even then making this go back from 4 to 3 wouldn't hurt the meta.
- Scion of Ruin: Used to be 3 mana, then went to 4. I'm not sure if it'll be broken at 3, but hey, why not? Let Galakrond actually feel awesome again.
- Bloodsworn Mercenary: At 2/2 she's just a liability. Back as a 3/3, maybe someone will actually do something cool with her.
- Twin Slice: ...very hesitant about this one among the rotating cards, but, yeah, why not revert this back to 0-mana +1 attack? Though that might actually ruin one of the only decent Demon Hunter archetypes in wild, Odd Demon Hunter? I don't know.
- Blade Dance: This one, on the other hand, could very easily go back to 2 without much of a change, I feel.
- Glaivebound Adept: Could have the attack be reverted back from 6 to 7 without much change to the meta, if we're being honest.
- Patches the Pirate: let him be in CHAAAARRRRGE again!
- Leper Gnome: Was a 2/1, turned into 1/1. We've got better aggro cards, this one can be unnerfed harmlessly, I think.
- Necrium Apothecary: She went from 4 mana to 5. I've never actually seen this card at all in Wild, and forgot it even exists.
- Knife Juggler: He's rotating out of Standard, making him go back to 3/2 would make him maybe see inclusion in aggro decks? It's been a while since I've tossed daggers at apples.
- Arcane Golem: Used to be 4/2 Charge, became a 4/4 vanilla minion and one of the crappiest cards out there. A 4/2 Charge for 3 mana would admittedly be kind of annoying, but I could see this one going halfway and turning him into a 3/2 Charge or a 4/3 Rush or something, though frankly it's probably all right in Wild as a 4/2 Charge.
- Bonemare: He's been in Wild for a while, but apparently he got nerfed from 7 to 8 mana? I forgot about this. He's honestly probably fine at 7 now.
- Bad Luck Albatross: A little hesitant about this one, because the bird actually saw play in Wild back in the day, but since it's actually useful to combat Raza Priest, I actually wouldn't mind seeing Albatross go back from 4 mana to 3 mana.
- Frenzied Felwing: This one surely isn't that oppressive? I think reverting the health from 2 back to 3 wouldn't be too broken. One of the iffier ones.
- Archivist Elysiana: Went from 8 to 9. Could easily be back to 8 mana in Wild with no problems.
- Dragonqueen Alexstrasza: Used to make 0-mana dragons, now she makes 1-mana dragons. Honestly, she's unplayable in Wild with 1-mana dragons and she's nowhere as powerful as a lot of Wild's most powerful archetypes, making her give 0-mana dragons would be certainly welcome.
Honestly, I'm looking at some of the beta nerfs as well and wonder if some of those wouldn't actually be all right in Wild. 8-mana Pyroblast? Eaglehorn Bow that triggers off of all secrets? 5-mana Sylvanas? 5-mana Blizzard? 4/3 Argent Commander? 8-mana Mind Control? 3/3 Shattered Sun Cleric? 1/4 Lorewalker Cho? 2/3 Defias Ringleader? Hell, I would honestly go as far as to go through a lot of the older expansions and give minor stat buffs here and there, but we'll not talk too much about it.
Honestly, this long look through Hearthstone's history of buffed/nerfed cards does end up inspiring me to maybe make an article in the near future about my favourite and least favourite cards over the past expansions...
Overall, I am very, very happy! If nothing else, just seeing a huge shakeup to the card collection in general is scary but also very exciting!
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