Baku the Mooneater

When looking at Baku, we need to understand how it will affect tempo. When we have only odd cost cards, we are only looking at 1-drops and 3-drops and maybe 5-drops and/or board clears of those costs, with the hero power compensating for at worst: Turn 2, Two one-drops on Turn 4, something like that.

Also I don’t know where 0 cost cards fall here.

We also have to realize that for most decks, drawing him early is like drawing an unplayble Patches, and it’s not like he has taunt either.

But let me breakdown how I see it affecting each class:

Druid: In terms of consistency, we lose wild growth, but we can compensate with greedy sprite. Aggro would lose single target buffs, power of the wild, and druid of the swarm. It would also remove all of druid’s methods of dealing with the opponent’s board, aka Swipe, Doomsayer, and Spreading Plague.

Additionally, the druid hero would interfere with this. Even though it is draftable, it’s going to be a waste of one effect. Though each one is situationally better, only putting down the poisonous or the taunts isn’t quite worth being able to change out that hero power. The tempo loss would be too great most of the time.

Big druid wouldn’t work without those board things (also losing Deathwing Dragonlord to rotation and cannot draft 8-drop taunts) and aggro would be less consistent for only a taunt affected hunter hero power. Even recruit druid requires 4-drops (namely taunts and Astral Tiger). Maybe the rest of the set will those first two work, but considering how things are now, I wouldn’t count on druid using Baku.

Hunter: Hunter would lose key beasts like Scavenging Hyena and Crackling Razormaw. Hunter’s secrets also cost 2-mana, so no secrets. Recruit/Big Hunter’s cards wouldn’t work without the Charged Devilsaurs and Kathrena Winterwisp. But note that the deathrattle triggering cards of Big Hunter would stick around, like Play Dead and the 3/3 Terrorscale Stalker. Plus, Hunter is known for it’s strong 3-drops, and quest hunter is made of 1-drops.

If we see strong enough deathrattles, we may see an aggro deathrattle hunter. If we find something to replace the strong 2-drop beasts, we may also see an aggro Quest Hunter. But we’ll have to wait and see.

Mage: Somewhat worth the upgrade in terms of power level as it’s pretty flexible and good, and it is consistent removal and allows for Secrets. But it’s just not going to work for many decks. Current quest mages wouldn’t work as we lose all the key cards to either even costs or rotation. Burn-Secret Mage loses 2-drop Secret synergy minions. Plus, we lose Frostbolt, Fireball, Polymorph, Primordial Glyph, etc. Big Spell loses some of the big spells and Spiteful Summoner. While the Deathknight would be lost. Many elementals and the Tol’vir with Taunt-Divine Shield that synergizes would be lost. Above all, RIP Ice Block in standard.

If you skipped to here, Mage is a 90% chance of nope.

Paladin: Summoning more dudes will defintely help with tempo. But unless we see some new cards to replace what I’m about to list, this is a nope too. Call to Arms (and almost all the things people summon with it), Equality/Wild Pryomancer/Consecration, Hydrologist, most of the spell buffs, Lightfused Stegodon, Truesilver Stegodon, too many of the murloc synergy stuff, Truesilver Champion, Spikeridged Steed, and most of the class’s legendaries.

It may work in OTK Paladin in wild, the dudes helping to maintain the board, but losing Equality and the things it combos with will be rough. I’m going to say a 90% nope as it’s still pretty early to judge.

Priest: It’s a good hero power and allows Raza tp work again in a Heal Priest/Lyra Miracle Archetype, albeit it will be harder than making a Genn-Shadowreaper deck work. We lose many powerful 2-cost cards, and it’s not like Dragon Soul is going to shine without them. Plus, dragons and big spells alike just won’t work.

We’re going to have to look to Genn Graymane or Wild for this one.

Rouge: I don’t know if 0-cost works or not, but in no case is this worth it. The hero power won’t synergize with Kingsbane, and losing 2-cost spells won’t help miracle. It’s not like Mill is going to get any particular upside in any format and rouge’s pirates and innate weapon synergies are generally even-cost cards anyways.

100% nope.

Shaman: Hero power is not worth it, period. The ability to secure either a 0/2 Taunt or Spell Damage +1 that stack isn’t going to work out when you consider that they’re squishy and won’t help control the opponent’s board by themselves.

200% nope.

Warlock: You lose every board clear spell except Demonwrath in wild, so let’s look only at zoo. We lose Darkshire Councilman, Crystalweaver, Abyssal Enforcerer, and Silverware Golem to rotation. Commonly used even costs that aren’t board clears include the Spellstone, Hooked Reaver, Ravenous Pterrodax, Gnomeferatu, Drain Soul, Vulgar Homonculus, Siphon Soul, Saronite Chain Gang, Knife Juggler, and the Warlock Hero. Warlock has plenty of 1-drops and we still have Doomguard and Despcibale Dreadlord though. Still, even with the new 2/4 4/2 transforming lifesteal and such, the Spellstone helped mitigate the damage you were causing to yourself and provide single target removal at the same time.

Here, we have a new Warlock that doesn’t really require healing, but also loses all these powerful tools for a constant draw without penalty. Zoo is also a common budget deck and people may actually scrape the bottom of the barrel for Stormwind Champion in the basic set to make this work. I wouldn’t count on Warlock either, I’d like to see people try.

Warrior: Let’s be honest, Tank Up is the best of all of them, but we lose a lot of spells that give warrior draw and board control, as well as our Execute Single Target. You’d imagine that recruiting out Baku as a body would at least be alright, but Warrior’s recruit mechanics are also all even cards, so we can’t count on that either. Above all, fatigue warrior with Coldlight Oracle will be wild now and Dead Man’s hand wouldn’t work anyways. In short, it cuts all the wrong cards at the same time it loses all the good ones. And again, in every format, the pirate thing would be incomplete.

300% nope.

Conclusion: Baku actually makes Genn and Justicar look better. One new set likely won’t change too much on this, so we can only be sure of his future in a few expansions, but I’d give this card a tentative 2/5 stars. Hunter is the only one to stand to gain anything particularly signifigant, and even that depends on the rest of the expansion. As is, look forward to Genn Graymane instead for standard. Justicar’s upgrades might just continue to remain a Wild thing.

Let me know what you think! What cards did I not factor in?

Bye!

JasonSan #11203