Mean Streets of Gadgetzan First Impressions and Card Review (Part One)

Stonekeep gives his first impressions and takes a look at the first half of the newly revealed cards from Mean Streets of Gadgetzan!

More Card Reviews

• Mean Streets of Gadgetzan Card Review Part Three
• Mean Streets of Gadgetzan Card Review Part Two

More Information

• Mean Streets of Gadgetzan Guide and Information
• Mean Streets of Gadgetzan Card List

Introduction

New expansion – the Mean Streets of Gadgetzan – was just revealed. It revolves around Gadgetzan – which is now a big city, not a desert outpost – and the gangs that shake up its underground. While the general theme was very expected for a while, no one really expected that they would decide to take such a big step forward and give us the Tri-Class cards or a way to brew our own spell during a game.

In this article, I want to share my first impressions. As someone who was there for every expansion release so far, I find this one probably the most exciting. I love both the theme and the cards they’ve shown so far. Talking about cards, I’ll do the quick reviews of the cards that were already showcased – but that’s not all, you can expect more reviews coming soon as they reveal the new cards. But let’s start!

General Theme

I really like it. It reminds me of the 30’s style Chicago streets, lively both during the day and the night. In the Mean Streets of Gadgetzan, we have three gangs fighting for the power in the city’s underground world. What I love about this is that every each of those gangs has their unique identity. You don’t even have to read the card’s name, you can tell where each minion belongs just by looking at its art.

The Grimy Goons are classic mobsters – focusing on brute strength, and taking everything by force. They look like gangsters from the 30’s I’ve already mentioned.

The Jade Lotus is the eastern organization that lives in the shadows. Instead of brute force, they prefer more subtle methods – they’re ninja-style assassins.

The Kabal are the scientists. But not your usual, intelligent scientists with white coats and protective glasses. They’re MAD scientist, brewing dangerous elixirs and definitely not using their magical abilities for good.

It really seems that the Blizzard has put a lot of thought into these designs. We already see that the art in this expansion is flawless – let’s just hope that they will keep those themes going with the card abilities too.

In the end, you will “join” one of the three organizations depending on which class you play, which leads us to the next section…

Tri-Class Cards

After seeing the multi-color cards in MtG, I’ve waited for a similar thing in Hearthstone for a while. And so far I’m not disappointed at all. Each of the classes will belong to one of the three gangs I’ve mentioned above. And so, those classes are going to share some of the cards. Before getting deeper into this, I’ll list the gangs with their respective classes:

• The Grimy Goons: Hunter, Paladin, Warrior
• The Jade Lotus: Druid, Rogue, Shaman
• The Kabal: Mage, Priest, Warlock

We only know a few Tri-Class cards so far, but they create new opportunities. First of all – more deck building challenges. Figuring out which of the cards will work best in each of the classes will be a challenge. For example – the Kabal Courier (Mage) we’ve already seen. Discovering a card from each of the 3 classes (it’s confirmed that discover cards will always get you 1 card from each of the 3 classes) might work better in some decks than the others. For example – spell synergies. Warlock has access to Cho'Gall, which is a strong card, but it’s not played, because Warlock doesn’t really have a lot of spells that can combo with it. But how about discovering a Priest’s Holy Fire and playing it with Cho’Gall? Kabal Courier might give RenoLock access to a few new spells from Mage or Priest, which might push the card into the viable territory.

Another cool synergy that I’d love to explore is playing multi-class discover cards in Rogue, alongside Ethereal Peddler. If you play the new Lotus Agents (Rogue), discover a Druid or Shaman card, you can now play the Peddler and make them 2 mana cheaper. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I’m sure that the best deck builders will figure the best ways to use the cards. All I know is that it adds a new depth to the game and makes it more interesting.

On the other hand, it adds one big problem. Balance. When you give the same card to 3 different classes, it might be hard to balance. Some cards are clearly stronger in one class than the other. So if you want to make a card strong in all 3 classes, it’s very easy to go over the edge in one of them. It’s also very easy to be too careful about the cross-class balance and make the card too weak overall. So making such cards is a great challenge and I really hope that it worked out fine this time.

Card Reviews

In this section, I’ll review all the cards showcased so far. There are more and more cards coming, so if I miss something, don’t worry – I’ll cover it next time!

I will focus on how good the cards will be in Constructed, because that’s my main field of expertise. However, I will also talk about Arena from time to time when rating the cards, I will also include an Arena rating.

Piranha Launcher

A new Hunter weapon. And a pretty fun one on top of that. But not as strong as you’d expect from a 5 mana weapon. We all know that Hunter is an aggressive class. Sure, people have tried to make a Control Hunter decks work time and time again, but it never really happened. And for a class that plays Aggro & Midrange style, having a 2 attack weapon that costs 5 mana is just too slow. To get a full value out of it, you’d need 4 turns. It’s too weak against removals, it’s hard to play it alongside Eaglehorn Bow in decks with Secrets (because it already has a lot of charges) and the minions it spawns are just vanilla 1/1 Beasts. I could maybe see it being played in some Reno Hunter if that would become a thing this expansion. But I’m saying it time and time again that I doubt it. This weapon is in a similar spot to the Shaman’s Charged Hammer. It’s a great value weapon over time, but you usually don’t have much time to use it to its full extent.

• Constructed Rating: Bad (2/5)
• Arena rating: Good (4/5)

Lotus Assassin

Rogue’s Epic card. And I have to say that the card itself is really strong. The reason why Stranglethorn Tiger is used from time to time is that it’s very hard to interact with cards in Stealth. So when you drop it, you can be (almost) sure that you will get to attack with it next turn. This card is like an upgraded Tiger – not only does it start in Stealth, but every time it trades into something and kills it, it gets back to Stealth again. After you trade into something relatively small, instead of your opponent finishing your minions off with a weapon, small removal or even Hero Power, you most likely get to attack with it again. Sure, the enemy might expend AoE to kill it, but you don’t really mind that most of the time. If they use their AoE to kill your 5/2 minion that already killed something, so be it. It can get a lot of value over time and act as a proactive removal. You set it up on the board and whenever you need to use it, you kill something and it gets back into Stealth. Repeat until it dies or until the enemy gets mad and plays that AoE.

The only problem with the card is that Miracle Rogue is THE Rogue right now. Whether it’s the Leeroy Jenkins version or the Malygos version, those decks aren’t really minion focused. They mostly run spells and minions that either cycle or have spell synergy (or both). I’m not sure whether this would fit well into Miracle Rogue. Come to think about it – I doubt it would. So there would need to be some other deck, possibly a more minion-focused, Midrange Rogue deck, then it might find a place in Constructed. The card has potential, especially in the matchups like Zoo or Shaman where dictating the trades is a big advantage. But it might just not find the right deck, outside of the more gimmicky ones like Reno Rogue.

• Constructed rating: Average (3/5)
• Arena rating: Good (4/5)

Kabal Talonpriest

Will Priest become the next Shaman? You might think I’m joking, but I’m super serious right now. It seems like they are giving Priest the Shaman treatment – give the class a few broken cards and see how it goes. Repeat every expansion until it’s top tier. It’s too early to tell, but so far Priest has been getting quite strong cards. And this is the first of them.

It’s basically a new version of Dark Cultist, which was arguably one of the best 3-drops in the game. This one is slightly weaker as a 3-drop, because you don’t always have a minion up on turn 3 as a Priest, so the Battlecry is much easier to waste on curve. But then, it has amazing mid/late game scaling. One of the best among 3-drops. It’s a great tempo move AND a great value move. You don’t really lose anything. In the worst case scenario, it’s just a 3/4 for 3. And in the best case scenario, it might give you a free trade, it might buff your minion out of removal range, it might keep your win condition alive etc.

I love this card and we’re definitely going to see it in the Priest decks. But not only Control Priest – I think it might have even bigger potential in Dragon Priest. While not being a Dragon by itself, landing a buff on a t2 Wyrmrest Agent makes it a 2/7 Taunt. Deathlord flashbacks, anyone?

• Constructed rating: Great (5/5)
• Arena rating: Great (5/5)

Kabal Courier

It’s the first Tri-Class card shown that I’ve mentioned before. Since it’s a Kabal card, it can be played in Mage, Priest and Warlock. First of all – I love Discover cards and I wish they would release as much of them as they can. Not every Discover card is amazing, but generally they’re on the strong side. This one seems similar – it’s not great, but it’s a solid card draw. Discover is always fine, because you get to pick a card that will fit the current matchup and situation best, as opposed to drawing the random cards from your deck. In the mid game you might pick some removal if you need it. Against Aggro you might pick some AoE (and since you choose between Mage, Priest and Warlock, it’s pretty likely to get one). Against Control you might pick the highest value card. And so on and so on. The only thing that I don’t like are the stats. No matter how you look at it, 2/2 for 3 mana is weak. With no immediate effect or strong stats, it might mean that you fall down on tempo before you get to take advantage of the extra card. Still, it’s not a bad card and I think that it might see some play. If not in standard decks, it might be played in Reno decks, because it’s harder to fill all 30 slots with good cards there.

• Constructed rating: Average (3/5)
• Arena rating: Good (4/5)

Kazakus

New Reno-like card. And while I have to say that Reno’s effect is clearly stronger, this one won’t likely make the Highlander archetype stay in the 2017 meta, but it’s a great addition to the existing Reno decks so far. And as it turns out, since it’s a Kabal card, it can be played in both RenoLock and Reno Mage, probably the two strongest Reno decks out there.

The mechanic itself is also very interesting. You get to brew your own potion, create your own spell. When you play Kazakus, you end up with 3 sets of “discover-like” interfaces. First you pick the spell’s mana cost – 1, 5 or 10. Then you pick two effects back to back. Effects vary a lot – it can be drawing cards, dealing AoE damage, drawing Demons, turning minions into 1/1 Sheeps (Polymorph) or even resummoning random minions that died this game. The higher cost you pick, the better the spell is. Of course, 10 mana spells is not 10 times better than a 1 mana one. It’s mostly to balance the tempo vs value. 1 mana spells will still have okay effects, but much higher tempo – so you will more likely pick it when you need to fill your curve or in high tempo matchups where you don’t need too much value anyway. And so, for example, a 1 mana spell will draw 1 card, 5 mana will draw 2 and 10 mana will draw 3. So in the end, you can either make a strong tempo tool or a powerful, late game spell, similarly to the Arch-Thief Rafaam (but with more diversity).

The card is very powerful, but requires you to build a Highlander deck. So it will definitely find a place in already existing Reno decks, maybe even push Priest to make its own Reno deck.

• Constructed rating: Good (4/5)
• Arena rating: Good (4/5) – but heavily depends on the number of duplicates in the deck (can go as low as 1/5 if you have a lot of duplicates)

I Know A Guy

Warrior spell akin to the Rogue’s Journey Below. They are still trying to push a Taunt Warrior. But hey, Journey Below fit more decks than just the Deathrattle Rogue. Right, but there are few things that don’t work in this spell’s favor. First of all – Deathrattle minions are generally stronger than Taunt minions. You don’t have a lot of weak neutral Deathrattles and you have a lot of insane ones – e.g. Sylvanas Windrunner. When it comes to the Taunts, however, there are quite a lot of bad Taunts. And I mean it. Booty Bay Bodyguard, Frostwolf Grunt, Goldshire Footman, Lord of the Arena, Mogu'shan Warden, Twin Emperor Vek'lor (outside of the C’Thun decks) or Silverback Patriarch are just a few of the minions you wouldn’t want to pick. Second problem is that Warrior doesn’t really have a great synergy with a cheap spell. The main reason Rogue runs Journey Below isn’t the effect itself. It’s the fact that the effect comes from a 1 mana spell, which you can use to activate Combos or draw a card with Gadgetzan Auctioneer. So I don’t think that this is going to see any Constructed play. Unless Warrior somehow fits the Auctioneer or other spell synergies into the deck.

• Constructed rating: Bad (2/5)
• Arena rating: Average (3/5)

Big-Time Racketeer

At first glance, this card is pretty terrible. I mean, it’s probably a slight improvement over the Boulderfist Ogre, because it’s 7/7 across 2 bodies, but that’s it. You wouldn’t want to play it in any serious deck. But then I’ve started thinking about it and it actually might not be that bad. The 6/6 is spawned from the Battlecry, so to make it work, we need to find a way to abuse it. And there are in fact a few ways to do that. Shadowstep and Shadowcaster are one of those. With Shadowstep, you can spawn a second 6/6 for 4 mana, which is much better value. Still not amazing, though. Shadowcaster is even better – now you get a 1 mana 1/1 + 6/6 in your hand. That’s great. But what I like even more is Brann Bronzebeard. For 9 mana and 2 cards, you can get a 2/4, 1/1 and two 6/6 on the board. That’s a lot of tempo and value. Now your enemy has 3 targets he wants to kill – 6/6’s and the Brann. Plus it doesn’t require any weird plays or discounts, you can just play for 9 mana.

There might be more ways to combo it in the future. Right now, even those combos seem pretty gimmicky. The only deck I would see this fit into right now is the Reno Rogue. It’s not worth it to run it with just the Brann, because well, you don’t always draw Brann and you might need it for something else. But if more cards that synergize with Battlecries will be released this expansion, this one might work.

• Constructed rating: Bad (2/5) – maybe more if they give us more Battlecry synergies
• Arena rating: Good (4/5)

Second-Rate Bruiser

We’ve asked for Anti-Aggro cards and we’ve received one right here. It’s clearly an anti-flood tech. It sucks at the base – 5 mana is too much for a 4/5 Taunt. But then, if the enemy has 3 or more minions, it’s very strong – 3 mana is great for such a stat line. It’s more of a tech card, so it’s hard to review it right now. In a Shaman or Zoo-heavy meta, this might be good. Not so much against stuff like Malygos Druid or Miracle Rogue.

It kinda reminds me of the Cyclopian Horror from WotG. Another anti-flood Taunt. But I think it might actually be a little stronger. You rarely get to see a full board of minions on the opponent’s side, and if you do, you want AoE, not a Taunt. In the scenario when opponent has exactly 3 minions – which is probably the most likely one, this one is a 3 mana 4/5 Taunt, while Cyclopian Horror is a 4 mana 3/6 Taunt. Similar statlines, maybe the 3/6 is even better, but the 1 mana difference is important when you fight for the tempo. That’s why I think it’s slightly stronger than it’s WoG counterpart.

One thing I know for sure is that Shamans won’t run it, because Thing from Below is way more powerful.

• Constructed rating: Can vary from the “terrible” to “good” depending on the meta
• Arena rating: Average (3/5)

Patches the Pirate

Another new mechanic that might be potentially broken. Luckily, it’s “just” a 1/1 with Charge, and it’s a Pirate, so probably no big harm will be done… probably. The thing is, this will be auto-include into any Pirate deck because of two things. First – in most of the games it’s a free 1/1 with Charge for basically no cost. No card, no mana, no anything. And the second thing is that it thins your deck – Pirate decks are aggressive and you want your aggressive deck to be as thin as possible.

The only downside of this little guy is drawing it in your opening hand. If you draw him before you play any other Pirate, that’s too bad, you have a Pirate Stonetusk Boar in your hand. Which isn’t the worst thing if you think about it, but it’s definitely sub-optimal. However, since there is only one copy and whenever you get the opportunity, you are going to mulligan it away, I think it’s still worth it.

Right now the only viable semi-Pirate deck is Aggro/Pirate Warrior and we’ll definitely see this guy there. As for the other decks, Pirate Rogue is probably close to being a viable Pirate deck, but this expansion would need to give it an extra push besides this guy.

• Constructed rating: Great (5/5) in Pirate decks, sucks in everything else
• Arena rating: Bad (2/5) with 0 Pirates, better with each Pirate you draft

Getaway Kodo

This card is very interesting and will require a lot of playtesting before you can call it good or bad. Unlike other Secrets, this one would be played in slower Paladin decks. As the only Secret. So it wouldn’t really be a Secret – everyone would know exactly what it was. But you would still be able to use it to your advantage.

The trick would be casting it before playing a minion with a strong Battlecry or ongoing effect. For example – cast it after clearing the board and before playing Emperor Thaurissan or either of the Ragnabros – Ragnaros the Firelord or Ragnaros, Lightlord. You see, on the one hand, your enemy really wants to kill those. He can’t let them live, because they give you more and more value over time. But on the other, he knows that if he spends their removal to kill them, they will just bounce back to your hand instead of dying. And you will be able to replay them. So it’s like paying 1 mana to either discourage the opponent from killing your important minion or to create a copy of it once it dies. A pretty good value it you ask me.

The problem is that when you have your strong minion and Secret on the board, you wouldn’t want to play other minions (unless they are also good to bounce). I mean, you wouldn’t want to play a Murloc (in Anyfin Paladin) or a Loot Hoarder. And you DEFINITELY wouldn’t want to play your Hero Power. So with this Secret in play, the game hits a weird spot. Your opponent doesn’t want to remove your important stuff and you can’t play anything else.

So in the end, this might be too situational and too easy to mess up. Plus it loses a lot of strength when the enemy knows what is it. I mean, some Secrets are still strong even when enemy knows them – e.g. Freeze Mage running Ice Block or the old Mech Mage using Mirror Entity. The fact that you know what those are doesn’t mean that you can always play around them. Like I’ve said at the beginning, this one would require extensive playtesting before determining whether it’s good or not. So my final rating is just a guess at this point.

• Constructed rating: Average (3/5)
• Arena rating: Bad (2/5) – you rarely can set up a good board state for this Secret

That’s all folks. I hope that so far you’ve enjoyed the expansion as much as I did. Interesting mechanics, Tri-Class cards, no unnecessary RNG. Has Blizzard finally listened to our prayers?

If you’ve enjoyed my card reviews so far, you’re going to see more soon! This is just the first batch and we’ve already got many more cards revealed. I will be covering them in another article.

If you want to be up to date with my articles, you can follow me on Twitter.

Good luck on the ladder and until next time!