If you’re anything like me, then reveal season is your favorite time of the year (alongside the first days of a new expansion). With nothing figured out, new cards coming every day, wild theories and early deck builds (which most likely won’t work) popping up everywhere, and that surprise when you look at some card and think to yourself – “what were they thinking when they’ve designed it?”
Even though the reveal season is officially starting next week, quite a few of the new cards were revealed early, so there is a lot to talk about. I’ll take a closer look at each one of them, review it and rate it from 1 to 10. The scale itself should be quite obvious, but just to quickly explain how I see it: A card rated 5 is average – it might be playable in some decks, but it’s nothing special. Cards rated 3-4 might see some play in off-meta decks, or as obscure techs, but the closer we get to 1, the lower that chance is. When I rate card 1 or 2, I don’t believe that it will see any Constructed, non-meme play at all. On the other hand, going above 5 means that I see this card as something with a lot of potential. While I can’t guarantee that it will work out in the end, I believe that the cards with 6-8 are likely to see at least some Constructed play, while cards rated 9 or 10 are, in my mind, nearly sure hits – even if not right after the expansion’s release. 1 and 10 are reserved to the worst or best cards I can imagine, meaning that they won’t be used very often.
Remember that with only a handful of cards seen, it’s incredibly hard to review them accurately, since we have no clue what synergies will be printed or which themes will be pushed. I advise you to pay more attention to the description than the rating itself – I will try to explore some of the potential synergies and reasons why a given card might or might not work. I also encourage you to share your own predictions and reviews in the comment section. Even if you aren’t sure, don’t worry, no one is! There is nothing wrong about being wrong, I have never seen anyone who nailed most of the card ratings before the release. But, without further ado, let’s proceed with the reviews!
PREVIOUS CARD REVIEWS
Menacing Nimbus
Menacing Nimbus is just about the most obvious card you can make to help Elemental Shaman. It’s a solid on-curve play, gives you extra value and has Elemental tag. Generally, early cards that have an okay-ish body and give you some value tend to be solid. The reason is that they can be dropped on the first turns, but also have some sort of late game scaling. You are generally pretty sad about topdecking let’s say Fire Fly on Turn 10. But this one? Not that much. Of course, it still depends on what random Elemental you get, but even if you get the Fire Fly, that’s an extra 2/2 body you have on the board. And then, there are lots of big and/or strong Elementals in the pool, including the new Electra Stormsurge.
There is no doubt that this card would see play in Elemental Shaman. Not only the deck has no good Elemental 2-drops at this point (Fire Plume Harbinger is very low tempo, and Murmuring Elemental is not really a 2-drop), but this is just really solid. Shimmering Tempest sees play in Elemental Mage, and Nimbus is just better – 1 more health, Battlecry instead of Deathrattle, and probably a slightly worse effect, but only slightly, because Elementals are always good to have in, well, an Elemental deck. The main issue right now is that there is no good 3-drop that needs Elemental synergy, so Elemental tag on Turn 2 doesn’t have that much value. Yes, we have a Thunder Lizard, but the card is really mediocre
So the card is above average, I’d say that it’s like 7/10 in Elemental Shaman… but the problem is that Elemental Shaman is just a bad deck. Unless it gets some strong synergies this expansion, or in the next one, it’s going to be the next pre-Un’Goro Taunt Warrior. Remember how Blizzard was adding more Taunt synergy to Warrior, all the way from TGT to Gadgetzan? And it never really worked, the deck was mediocre at best. Same thing with Elemental Shaman. It’s just too… fair. Fair decks aren’t great in Constructed, because they get beaten by unfair decks. By the decks that can cheat the mana curve, drop big minions early, flood the board time and time again, combo you down etc. Playing okay minions on the curve was a solid strategy back in the Classic, but not now. And so, Elemental Shaman needs some great synergies to make this card work.
That said, we also have another deck that might want to run it. It’s Even Shaman. Given that the deck has no 3-drops, 2-drop + Hero Power is your Turn 3 play. That’s why you want to run as many 2-drops as possible. And while the deck does have some solid 2-drops already, having another one to choose from wouldn’t hurt. Given that it comes with an extra value, you could even replace one of the higher cost cards to fit it in. After all, you CAN drop it on T2/T3, but it can also replace itself with something bigger, so you won’t run out of steam that quickly. Also, Even Shaman runs Earthen Might without any early game Elementals to play it on. This could be the one – putting a 4/4 on the board and adding two random Elementals to your hand is not the worst T4 play ever. Of course, whether it will see play still depends on other Even cards we see this expansion, but it’s a possibility. It wouldn’t be a deckchanger, like let’s say a Flametongue Totem. But it would be something like a Blink Fox in Odd Rogue. An okay on-curve play that gives you extra resources, not always great, but sometimes potentially game-winning (like, in this case, getting an Al'Akir the Windlord, or Kalimos, Primal Lord or even a simple Blazecaller can be huge).
All in all, if Elemental Shaman sees play, this card should see play. Assuming the deck won’t go Prince Keleseth route, of course. Other than that, might see some play in Even Shaman. But since Elemental Shaman doesn’t look great right now, and this card is not AMAZING in Even Shaman, I’d say that right now it looks right about average. Rating would increase with some high potential Elemental synergies, of course.
Card rating: 5/10
Upgradeable Framebot
Usually, a vanilla minion with no interesting effect is just a pack filler. Just a variation on already existing stuff, just with another stat distribution. This, however, is a bit different. Not only it has above vanilla stats (vanilla 2-drops have 5 stats in total, this has 6), but the distribution makes it incredibly durable. 5 health is very hard to take down so early in the game, meaning that this minion will stick most of the time when dropped on the curve.
I’ve seen a lot of players comparing it to the Dire Mole of a new set, and it’s somewhat true. Vanilla early, Neutral minion with low Attack, high Health and a tribal tag. Dire Mole was a Beast, which mostly benefited Hunter (and Druid while Mark of Y'Shaarj was still in Standard). This has a Mech tag, which is really hard to judge yet, as we don’t know many cards from the set. But I’d argue that if we ignore the tribe synergies, as a standalone card, it is weaker than Dire Mole. 1 attack on Turn 1 is much better than 1 attack on Turn 2, as it trades favorably into lots of other 1-drops. 1/5 stats, however, don’t work that well against the 2-drops. Let’s say a common 2/3 stat-line (such as Plated Beetle or Arcanologist) – while they would trade with each other, it would take 3 entire turns to do it.
That said, the stats of this card basically scream “buff magnet”. Even simple attack buffs such as Blessing of Might (4/5) or Cold Blood (5/5) can turn this minion into a deadly force. On top of that, that’s where the Mech tag comes handy. It’s clear that the main purpose of this card was to be a strong body to buff with Magnetic Mechs. 1/5 isn’t that scary, but if if you turn it into a 3/7 with Deathrattle after using Spider Bomb on it, now that’s a strong minion to have on Turn 3.
The card would be amazing in a Prince Keleseth deck, but you can’t play both of those for obvious reasons. That’s one of the reasons why I don’t think that it will necessarily find its way into lots of Aggro decks. Keleseth is a pretty big deal in lots of those. On the other hand, other Aggro decks such as Odd Paladin or Odd Rogue (which would play the Attack buffs I’ve mentioned above) can’t play it for another reason – it’s even-costed. So while it MIGHT see some play in Aggro decks, it’s probably not going to be a staple you will see in every build. 1 attack on Turn 2 just doesn’t put enough pressure if you can’t capitalize on it with buffs, and most of the Aggro decks can’t. Maybe after Keleseth is gone and non-Odd Aggro decks will look for ways to fill the 2-drop slot. Or maybe if some more buff-oriented Zoo-like deck pops out. But it doesn’t look like a Dire Mole or Fire Fly 2.0 for me.
On the other hand, it will definitely find its way into Mech decks. Okay standalone card, Mech tag for the potential synergies and solid body to drop Magnetic minions onto. Very good card in Mech decks, possibly okay in other Aggro builds if they can consistently buff its attack.
Card rating: 8/10
Wargear
I like the entire Magnetic mechanic. Just like with any other Magnetic card, you can look at this one in two ways. It’s a 5 mana 5/5 Mech minion, or a 5 mana spell that gives your Mech +5/+5. Either of those would be underwhelming by itself. However, let’s not forget how strong flexibility is. “Choose One” cards usually have two sub-optimal options, and yet they have seen a solid share of play, simply because they can do two things.
Wargear definitely won’t see any play outside of Mech decks. If you can’t utilize its Magnetic mechanic, then it’s just a vanilla 5/5 for 5, even worse than Pit Fighter, which obviously has seen zero Constructed play. However, if you play a dedicated Mech deck, most of your minions are Mechs and you can utilize the Magnetic part, then that’s another story.
In Hearthstone, buff cards have their obvious upsides and downsides. The upside is that if you buff a minion that can attack immediately, the extra stats gain a sort of “charge” – you can utilize them immediately, to trade up or to deal more damage. However, one of the biggest downsides is that they often end up being clunky if you can’t stick a minion. Sure, you can play a small body and buff it immediately, but then you get 2 for 1’d if it gets removed, and the minions is susceptible to Silence. And that’s where a card like that comes into action. If you have a minion, which can attack immediately, you can use it as a +5/+5 buff. But if you don’t – nothing prevents you from dropping it as a 5/5 minion. Sure, it’s not great, but it’s better than being a dead card in hand.
This card’s playability completely depends on how strong the Mech decks will be. If a Midrange/Tempo Mech builds pop out, there is a solid chance that this will be played. Of course, unless other, better options pop out by the time expansion is released. The card also looks juicy in any Mech deck that wants to run Spiteful Summoner. Minions that can “imitate” spells are way better if you can’t play the regular spells. I feel like even after the nerf, Spiteful is not completely out of the game yet and we might see it making a comeback.
Card rating: 6/10
Beryllium Nullifier
I feel like in order for a Magnetic minion to be good enough, both the regular minion and the buff needs to be at least okay when played on the curve. Not necessarily flashy, amazing and game-winning, but okay. A 3/8 body for 7 mana does not seem okay, even if it has a Mech tag and Magnetic. 3/8 is just not enough to contest most of the stuff in the late game, and not enough to put any serious pressure on the opponent. It’s slow and clunky. What this card desperately needs is Taunt – without it, it can be easily ignored. Sure, it can’t be removed by the spell removals, but it doesn’t really need to be most of the time. It can just be ignored and out-tempo’d.
If not for the Magnetic part, it’s almost on the same level as the good old Spectral Knight, which has seen some play. But it costed 5 mana, which is a huge difference.
As a buff, it looks a bit better. +3/+8 buff is still not great for 7 mana, but the “Can’t be targeted” part is where it might shine in certain situations. One of the biggest issues of buffs is putting all of your eggs into one basket. If you play two buffs on a single minion, if enemy decides to Polymorph it, you lose three cards, not one. When buffing with this one, most of the removals will be useless. It can still be Silenced, though, so that’s a big issue. Silence is very popular right now (Spellbreaker is the 4th most common card on the ladder according to HSReplay, and Ironbeak Owl is also pretty high up there), and I don’t think that it will get less popular if Magnetize mechanic will turn out to be viable.
I’d say that the buff part is comparable to Spikeridged Steed – it gives more Stats and “Can’t be targeted”, as opposed to Taunt and Deathrattle into another Taunt. However, it also costs 1 more mana, and Taunt part was HUGE when it comes to Steed – it’s what made it so good in Aggro matchups. This one looks okay against Control, but not against Aggro.
With the current information we have, this card seems weak. Of course, we still don’t know most of the Mechs, and what the Warrior’s Hero card will do, so that’s that. But with the current information, I can’t rate it too highly. To be fair, the card would need A LOT of support/synergies to work, so I don’t think it’s really going to happen.
Card rating: 3/10
Zilliax
Very hard to rate, but also incredibly interesting. It’s like a Chillblade Champion on steroids (you pay 1 mana for Taunt, Divine Shield and a Mech tag with Magnetize, but it has Rush instead of Charge – which honestly is not that big of a deal, since most of the time you want to trade because of the Divine Shield anyway), or a mini-Al'Akir the Windlord given how many keywords it does have.
I’ve mentioned before that both of the options (standalone card and Magnetize) need to be at least okay by themselves in order to see play in Constructed, thanks to the added flexibility. And this card seems to pass that test. By itself, it’s a 3/2 minion with Divine Shield, Lifesteal, Rush and Taunt. Which means that you can play it, clear some small minion (like a 2/3 or 3/3), get some healing and force an answer. It will often be a 2 for 1 which also heals you.
If Deathstalker Rexxar has taught me anything, then Lifesteal and Rush is a powerful combination in lots of matchups. Having the ability to immediately heal and still leave a minion that can heal you further on the board is massive. After the initial heal, your opponent still has to deal with it if he doesn’t want you to heal more. Silence is the best option, but not always available. Given that it has Taunt, it can’t just be ignored. It will often eat another removal, or possibly a minion trade and thus heal again. So I’d say that it’s okay card to drop by itself, even if you don’t Magnetize. It’s not amazing, but there are situations in which it will be a good T5 play even without a Mech on the board.
But the Magnetize part is the biggest selling point of this card. Imagine a 5 mana spell which would read “Give a minion +3/+2, Divine Shield, Lifesteal, Rush and Taunt”. It would be nuts. This one works only on Mechs, since it’s Magnetize, but if you play a Mech deck, then it’s not a big deal anyway. If you have even a mid-sized Mech body on the board already (and if you play a Mech deck, you should often have one), you can buff it, give it a free trade thanks to the Divine Shield, heal yourself up and then end up with a big Taunt on the board.
Thanks to the Rush part, it’s also perfectly viable to play a mid-range Mech and Magnetize Zilliax into it immediately, because it will gain Rush. Normally that kind of combo is too slow, because you can’t do anything immediately. But let’s even say that a 7 mana Upgradeable Framebot + this guy is a 4/7 minion with Lifesteal, Rush, Divine Shield and Taunt. It immediately heals for 4, takes no damage from the trade and then leaves a 4/7 Taunt with Lifesteal behind. That can be an immediate win in some aggressive matchups, and it’s not even that hard to pull off.
While Silence and single target removals would still be good against it, no matter what you buff, you can always guarantee some initial value. So even if the Magnetized buff gets Silenced after you already killed something, well, at least it wasn’t useless.
On top of everything, it’s a massive Corpsetaker activator if you’d want to play Corpsetakers in your Mech deck. Honestly, I don’t think that it would go into a non-Mech deck just to buff the Corpsetaker, but then again, people have played Stormwatcher just to give it Windfury, so that’s that. Still, the only deck running Corpsetaker right now is Even Shaman, and Even Shaman can’t run this one. But the synergy is there if you want to try it out. It also synergizes with Countess Ashmore for what it’s worth, a card that I suspect might see more play in the Boomsday or third expansion of the Standard year (because there will be more good cards to pull out with her).
So all in all, I think that this will be a great card in Midrange and slower Mech decks. Playable by itself (only okay, but that should be enough) and a great Magnetic buff. It has multiple synergies with other cards too. If Mechs will go full Aggro, though, I think that it will be too slow and clunky. Lifesteal is a big part of this card in slower decks, but not as useful in Aggro. Outside of Mech decks, it might also see some play in non-Even Corpsetaker deck, if that thing will exist. Oh, and maybe Rush Warrior? Even without Mechs, it might be okay thanks to the Rush synergies of the deck. But the deck would need some more support first.
Card rating: 8/10
P.S. In the Wild format, you can do some crazy combos with this card. Since it’s possible to play Glinda Crowskin + 5x Mechwarper on the same turn, you can make this card free, while giving it Echo. Then you can buff your Mechs as many times you can, which results in basically a full board clear (because you give all of them Rush and lots of stats) and a MASSIVE board. While Glinda + Mechwarpers was a combo already, there was really no way to abuse it to that extent, since you would run out of board space very quickly. But with buffs, you should be able to buff all of your Mechs twice or even three times before your turn timer runs out, creating a board that is impossible to clear without a massive AoE such as Twisting Nether, Psychic Scream etc. Of course, you can do the same thing with other Magnetize mechs, but the fact that this will heal you to full and clear the board + put Divine Shield and Taunt on everything likely makes it the best candidate.
Annoy-o-Module
It seems like this expansion is going to have quite a few Magnetic cards, for better or for worse. And this is another one. Annoy-o-Module is basically Annoy-o-Tron x2. Double Attack, double Health, double Cost, with an extra Magnetic.
2/4 with Divine Shield on Turn 4 is comparable to Saronite Chain Gang. Does it make a good card? Definitely not. Chain Gang is not a great 4-drop by any means. It’s played mostly in the decks that run Prince Keleseth (like Zoo), need it for the combo (like Shudderwock) or have some extra synergies (like Taunt Warrior). 2 bodies are slightly better, but this is more resistant to AoE, so I’d say they’re about even. Alternatively, it’s a Lone Champion without a condition, but with +1 mana. Lone Champion is good when you proc it, but it costs 3 mana, and that’s a big difference. Playing it on Turn 4 is not really great. So all in all, the minion is mediocre at best. It can be okay in some situations, but it won’t be amazing.
But, here’s when the Magnetic comes into action. +2/+4, Divine Shield and Taunt are really good for a 4 mana spell. The direct comparison would probably be Blessing of Kings. While 2 less attack sure hurts, I think that DS and Taunt make up for it quite nicely. Vs aggressive decks, it creates a big obstacle in their way, and against slower decks it makes it harder to remove with direct damage, both of which are good.
Now, the problem is that we need something good to curve into it. Right now, the only 3-drop Mechs in Standard you can consider playing are Harvest Golem and Nightmare Amalgam. If Amalgam sticks on T3, then buffing it on T4 creates a 5/8 minion with Taunt and Divine Shield, which is massive, it’s like having a 7-drop or 8-drop on T4. On coin, you can also play Upgradeable Framebot on T2 into Coin + this on T3, for a 3/9 minion with Taunt + DS. Unless Silenced, that’s enough of a wall vs Aggro. It would sometimes just win the game, since you will be dropping more Mechs behind it every turn, or buffing it, and it would take 2-3 turns for the Aggro deck to get through so early in the game.
One thing that’s important is that dropping it on T4, especially into small board / no board, can also be a serious consideration. It’s a sticky Mech, so it’s quite likely that it will survive, so you can buff it with Wargear (7/9 with DS and Taunt in the best case scenario) or Zilliax, although the Zilliax is a bit redundant if you have DS + Taunt on this already.
Of course, this card is just bad in any deck besides Mech Paladin. Without Magnetic synergies, this is comparable to Saronite Chain Gang, which is not really played in Paladin, or a 4 mana Lone Champion without requirement, which would also be pretty bad. And while it’s way too early to judge, I feel like Paladin might have what it takes to make a high tier Mech deck. And I’d say that this is a solid card in such a deck, especially since 4-drop slot in Paladin is pretty barren after Call to Arms nerf. In a deck full of Mechs, I would take it over Blessing of Kings any day, and we all know that BoK is a really solid card in Midrange Paladin decks.
Card rating: 7/10
Supercollider
Very cool concept, but seems a little bit too expensive for what it does. Let’s start with the upsides, before proceeding to the downsides.
A weapon can clear up to 6 big minions over 3 turns, which is massive for a 5 mana weapon. It works like 3x Sudden Betrayal on demand. A minion attacking minion means that BOTH take damage, so if your opponent has two 5/5’s and you hit one, both die. That’s really good.
It has some neat synergies. Like, if your opponent has Poisonous minion and you attack it, it can kill anything. On top of that, you can also GIVE your opponent a poisonous minion through Marsh Drake – have a 5/4 yourself and give them a small Poisonous. That said, I don’t believe you will be able to ATTACK the 2/1 and get value, since it will just die and the weapon triggers AFTER attack. But if he has only a single minion on the board, you can guarantee that both are cleared. Maybe we’ll see more synergies in this expansion too.
First of all, the attack value. Yes, it’s pretty irrelevant when you attack minions, but it means that you can’t really use it to push some face damage, which is important even in Control decks. Gorehowl is a Control card, but it can still be used to deal 7 if necessary.
Second, your opponent needs to have at least two minions on the board. Against a single minion, it just doesn’t work – it deals 1 damage and it has nothing to attack. If you’re playing let’s say a Control vs Midrange matchup, your opponent will commonly have only 1 minion on the board, since you’re actively trying to remove them.
Third, in order to get maximum value, you want to use it against mid-sized and/or big minions to attack other mid-sized and/or big minions. Not only that kind of board won’t happen that often, but it will cost you lots of life to hit those minions.
Fourth, it’s random. If you attack a minion, which has two minions next to it, it will be a 50/50 – a very common 50/50 and often a big one.
Fifth, your opponent will be able to play around it with positioning, let’s say by putting a small minion between big minions. You might still be able to go around that by first removing the small minion with another spell, but such positioning tricks might be harder to play around on a slightly bigger boards (like putting biggest minions on the sides, with 2-3 smaller ones in the middle).
So, as you can see, the weapon seems to have more downsides than upsides. I really don’t think that a regular Warrior deck will want to run it. It might be tried out in an Odd Warrior, since the deck can overcome some of the issues more easily and it has a lower bar for what a good card is (since it doesn’t have access to some solid options). But overall, it looks rather weak. Not completely unplayable, but I doubt that we will see it very often.
Card rating: 3/10
Flobbidinous Floop
This. Card. Is. Insane. It seriously is. I mean, it will honestly be bad in lots of the Druid builds, but the combo potential behind it is just massive. What is important and I think some people aren’t reading into correctly is “last minion you played”. It’s not “you played this turn” or anything – if you play a minion one turn, then it sticks as its copy for the next turn. It takes what would be an okay card to another level, assuring its place in any deck built around some kind of combo.
Let’s start with the most obvious case – Malygos Druid. In your average game, it can act as an extra, 4 mana Faceless Manipulator. You play Maly, hit with your Twig of the World Tree to regain all of the mana, drop this, maybe another Faceless and shoot those Swipes and Moonfires. But, things rarely look so perfect. Let’s say that your Twig is destroyed, or you didn’t draw it, or you just drew it and have no time to go through all of the charges, because you will die before that. With this card in your hand, you can just drop your Malygos. If it sticks, that’s great, you probably win the game. But if it dies (more common scenario), next turn you can drop a 4 mana copy of it and either Faceless it + shoot 2x 11 damage Moonfire, or just drop Swipe (9 damage + 6 AoE) and 2x 6 damage Moonfire. Either way, you have 20+ damage combo even after BOTH your Twig and your Malygos get countered. That’s one of the best backup plans you can have.
Maybe another deck, then? Taunt Druid. When you drop Hadronox and it turns out that your opponent has Hex, Polymorph or even Silence to answer it, it sucks, slows you down a lot or even means that you’ve lost the game. Not with Floop. Hadronox was the last minion you played? You just drop it next turn and immediately Carnivorous Cube it. Heck, for maximum absurdness, if you played on-curve Master Oakheart, you can use it to play it again the next turn if somehow it was answered and you still have at least that second Dragonhatcher in your deck. That said, he also has some anti-synergy with Oakheart, since he can get recruited. It’s still not that bad, because when you drop Oakheart you pretty much win the game anyway, and it would only be 1 in 4 in the current list.
You can even use it in Big Druid to just get another copy of your big guy. A 4 mana 3/4 The Lich King ain’t bad at all. In the ideal scenario, you can even try using Carnivorous Cube – I’d assume that the two guys you will get back will have full stats and not 3/4. And I won’t even start talking about its potential in the Wild format.
So, not onto the downsides. Since it’s a 4-drop, it messes up with your Oaken Summons. The truth is, it’s still not a terrible pull – 4 mana 3/4 + 6 Armor would be see lots of play. However, the thing is that you DON’T want to pull it onto the board, since you want to use it for your combos. I mean, Malygos Druid builds have already dropped Oaken Summons, so it’s not that big of a deal in that deck, but in Taunt Druid, having to get rid of one of the better cards in your deck does suck.
It’s not a card that will universally fit into every deck, but it’s basically nuts in the right deck. I really think that it might lead to lots of broken combos and some of the cards around it, or itself, will be nerfed/hall of famed. Druid is already in a great position, with a few different viable decks, and this will just push some of the strategies even further. It WILL break something. It’s the first card I’m rating 10/10 in a long while.
Card rating: 10/10
Whizbang the Wonderful
Wonderful card, I just love it. I will quickly talk about the competitive aspect, but it’s not really important when it comes to that kind of effect. This card will be lots and lots of fun for any new player or player with a small collection. People without many cards will be able to enjoy the game, and that’s great!
About the competitive aspect. There is none. The card just sucks when it comes to competitive side of the game. Not only deck recipes are generally worse than the actual meta decks (some of them are really close, but others are just meh), but getting a random one means that you can’t really account for the current meta, common tech choices etc. Picking a Tier 1 deck to climb will always be better than picking a random Tier 2-4 deck every single game.
But, that’s not the point of this card. The point is to let new players enjoy actual, “meta” decks – EIGHTEEN different ones – instead of playing with the Basic cards and some Classic commons they’ve just opened. It’s a great card for casual players, who don’t feel like following the current meta trends or build their own decks and just want to jump straight into the game. It will let people play with lots of cards they would normally have no access to.
Deck recipes should easily be good enough for a new player to hit R15, maybe even R10. And that’s way more than they could do with their homebrew, random decks they have to play, because they have no cards. Better players could easily hit R5. I think that Legend COULD be possible, with enough skill and persistence, but it will be more like a challenge for the best players than a viable strategy.
And all of that, 18 different decks and tens of hours of fun for a price of a single Legendary – 1600 Dust. That’s a huge bargain if I’ve ever seen one. I’m honestly surprised that the idea passed. Then again, those new/casual players would be more likely to get frustrated with the game and quit rather than decide to drop money on the packs, so maybe it won’t impact the pack sales that much.
We still don’t know what deck recipes will be available in Boomsday, and how strong they will be, but I can guarantee that they will still be better than random, self-made decks from new players.
Card rating: 1/10 in competitive, 10/10 for new players experience.
Dendrologist
A new Druid’s theme this expansion seems to be Treants. Which is pretty cool, that’s something I’ve been thinking about (extra Treant synergies) when I first saw the Witchwood Apple card. It turned out to be a Hand Druid synergy, but as it appears right now, it has another use (that said, Witchwood Apple is still terrible, even with synergies).
The card is actually looking really good IF we assume that Treants synergies will work. 2 mana 2/3 are vanilla stats, so even if you can’t proc its effect in the early game, it’s not the worst move. And then, it has really nice mid/late game scaling. Druid is known for pretty powerful spells. Remember how Raven Idol was used in lots of Druid builds? And now with cards like Branching Paths, Spreading Plague or Ultimate Infestation, it’s more true than ever – Druid’s spells are nice, so we shouldn’t undervalue this effect. If it could be triggered quite consistently, a 2 mana 2/3 that Discovers a spell would be nuts.
That said, in order to judge this card, we need to look at the whole Treant generation thing.
I honestly think that it looks quite alright overall. What we would need to make it a viable strategy is a 1 mana 2/2 Treant, something like the Enchanted Raven. Without a Beast tag, but with Treant synergies. Curving with Treant into Dendrologist would be quite insane. Right now, there is simply no way to activate this on the curve, and that hurts a bit. When it comes to good cards that give you Treants, there are some of them – the new Landscaping, Soul of the Forest, Living Mana, even Force of Nature is okay-ish in such strategy, if you’d have more synergies. Not sure if the Living Mana would count, as it summons Mana Treants not regular Treants.
It seems like Blizzard wants to open more early game strategies in Druid, and disincentive players from putting Oaken Summons + Ironwood Golem into pretty much every build. Which is great, in my opinion, because most of the Druid builds share basically the same early-mid game core and just have different late game win conditions.
This is a really hard call. It basically looks that way – if the Treant strategy works out, this card will be great. If it won’t – it will suck. It’s too early to tell at this point, but I have to leave some rating anyway.
Card rating: 7/10 if they print more Treants/synergies (such as 1 mana 2/2 Treant), 3/10 if they won’t
Landscaping
Another Treant synergy, but unlike Dendrologist, I think that it has a chance to see play as a standalone card, even outside of a Treants deck, in a regular Token Druid. There is a significant chance that Token Druid won’t want to go all-in on the Treant strategies. Not only Drendologist means that you have to drop Oaken Summons, but it might also just not be good enough. But this seems solid even in the current Token Druid decks. First of all, it fixes a significant problem Druid faces – lack of Turn 3 play. Yes, you have some great T4 plays, so if you Wild Growth on T2, you often ride your curve until the end of the game. But if you don’t, you’re usually forced to skip BOTH Turn 2 and Turn 3.
2x 2/2 is not an amazing Turn 3 play, but it’s not that bad either. Against Aggro, it gives two bodies to trade with. It works better if 3/2’s or 2/2’s will be more common, as opposed to 2/3’s, but that’s up to the meta. Against Control, two bodies can also deal some early damage and might not be that easy to remove at once. Later in the game it’s another way to summon some more tokens. Druid is often at a desperate need to summon Tokens and just doesn’t have Wispering Woods in the hand. While two extra tokens is not much, if you have something on the board already, you can get a nice Soul of the Forest. Look, this card is not great, but it’s not bad too.
It might also be interesting in the Un’Goro-style Token Druid, not the one we have right now. The Aggro build that wants to flood the board. However, Mark of the Lotus rotating out has weakened that deck quite significantly and we’d probably need another AoE buff to bring it back again.
And of course, if a Treant Druid deck becomes a thing, it will be an auto-include. You can follow it up with Dendrologist and it reduces the cost of Mulchmuncher. It would be one of the basic cards in that kind of deck. But again, whether it sees play heavily depends on such a deck getting some extra card and becoming playable.
Card rating: 9/10 if Treant Druid will be a thing, 6/10 if it won’t
Mulchmuncher
A little surprised that it’s not a Giant, as it fits the Giants category quite well – high initial mana cost, 8/8 stats, get cheaper when something happens. That said, I like how it looks thematically, so I don’t mind it at all.
This card is really interesting. A 10 mana 8/8 Rush is obviously bad, but cards that get discounted over time need to be looked out for. Remember Arcane Giant? That card has played a big role in many decks, because 0 mana (or at least cheap) 8/8’s are great. If you give it an extra Rush, it becomes even better – an already big tempo swing of dropping a cheap, big minion becomes even bigger.
Realistically, in order for this to be great, you’d want to reduce it to around 4-5 mana. Sure, it would be playable even at 6-7, but remember that it starts as a basically unplayable card, so you want to get as much out of it as you can in order to make up for that. So, basically, all it takes is one Wispering Woods (or Spreading Plague vs Aggro) + Soul of the Forest, or Living Mana board to make it good. Which is actually not that difficult. And the more ways to summon Treants you have, the better it becomes. I’d imagine that in a full Treant deck, you could get it down to 0 mana quite easily.
One more thing to talk about is the Mech tag. And in this case, I feel like it’s quite irrelevant. It might even be a net negative if they decide to print an anti-Mech tech. I don’t phantom being able to pack BOTH Treant and Mech synergies into a single deck, so that’s that.
Mulchmuncher would be really nuts if you could take a Treant deck and make it work. You would probably be able to play it for cheap around the mid game quite commonly, so even if the deck will be slightly sub-optimal, free 8/8’s with Rush might make up for that fact.
But assuming that the whole Treant thing doesn’t work out – would you still want to play it in Token Druid? It’s a very difficult question. First of all, you need to cut something, and it’s not as easy as it might seem. The deck is already packed and it might be difficult to make some cuts. Then, Soul of the Forest alone is most likely not enough – you need to play both of them and both of the Treant boards need to die before you can play this for free (which is obviously the goal). Maybe, maybe if you also play Landscaping – then that’s 4 extra Treants, so a Landscaping or two and a big Soul of the Forest would be enough to get it down to really cheap. It could serve as a back-up plan after your board got completely removed. You could also play it on your Savage Roar / Branching Paths turn in order to get through a big Taunt. You obviously can’t attack face, but let’s say that your opponent has Sleepy Dragon or even The Lich King on the board. Normally you’d have to run lots of damage into it, damage that would otherwise go face. With this card, you might be able to get some unexpected lethals by basically getting rid of a Taunt in your way.
Overall, I think that we should not underestimate this card. 8/8 with Rush that you can potentially get down to 0 mana can be big in the right deck. It will be an auto-include into a Treant Druid, obviously, but it might also see play in the Token Druid deck. Like I’ve mentioned when reviewing two other Treant Druid cards – what this archetype desperately needs is another synergy or a Treant, even a 1 mana 2/2 Treant would go a long way to make all of those card work more consistently.
Card rating: 9/10 if Treant Druid will be a thing, 5/10 if it won’t
