Curio Collector
Curio Collector is a 5 Mana Cost Rare Mage Minion card from the The Witchwood set!
Card Text
Whenever you draw a card, gain +1/+1.
Flavor Text
Experts worry that curios are a gateway to face-collecting.- Mana Cost: 5
- Attack: 4
- Health: 4
- Crafting Cost: 100 / 800 (Golden)
- Arcane Dust Gained: 20 / 100 (Golden)
- Rarity: Rare
- Class: Mage
- Card Type: Minion
- Set: The Witchwood
Curio Collector Card Review
This is like a reverse Daring Reporter. Instead of growing when your opponent draws cards, it grows when you do. If neither your or your opponent plays any extra card draw, Daring Reporter is a 4/4 on your opponent’s turn – and so is this. However, this is clearly meant to be combo’d with some card draw immediately.
A deck that it could fit into is Minion Mage, with Book of Specters to be precise. Curio Collector + Book of Specters on Turn 7 is a 7/7 minion + 1 card advantage (since you use two cards and draw three in total). This is good, but the problem is that it’s bad if you don’t have it. The fact that if you don’t immediately combo it with a good draw, it starts as a 4/4 for 5 makes it almost unplayable. Such a minion will rarely survive unless you’re already far ahead.
Theoretically, for it to START getting value, you need to draw 2 cards – now it’s a 5 mana 6/6, which is above vanilla stats. But realistically, you wouldn’t put a 5 mana 6/6 into your deck. Maybe 7/7? 8/8? The point is that you need to play lots of card draw for this to be worth it, dropping it on Turn 5 is bad unless the board is empty AND you won’t always have a card draw to combo with him.
Oh yes, you COULD run it in the Aluneth deck, but that’s not a good idea, to be honest. First of all, Aluneth decks usually don’t run lots of card draw besides it (so you won’t draw a bunch of card draw after you’ve already played Aluneth) AND you want to empty your hand as quickly as possible after playing Aluneth, and 5 mana minion is not always the best one to do it.
Overall, it’s cool that they’re trying to push new stuff, but this one doesn’t look promising.
Card rating: 3/10
the first version of Secret Mage (Legend 1 Un’Goro by several pro players) used the Ethearl Arcanist+Spellbender (1x) and 2x of Counterspell (like now).
Curio Collector is only a variants of him, that works better with Aluneth, and have a similar result.
I comboed it with Aluneth, Gadgetzan Auctioneer, and the deck of wonders to get a 21/21 by the end of the turn. Mage has some very reliable draw and while it’s difficult to use it in an individual combo it’s a great addition to any deck with Aluneth and puts pressure on your opponent to remove it. It’s even better when there’s pressure to remove more than it alone on the field. It’s given me many win/win scenarios before. Its allowed me to set up combos that would have been easily avoided had my opponent taken aim at the more important Target. If my opponent does take aim at the important Target then the Collector quickly grows out of control and wins the game anyways. I’ve gotten it to get as large as 36/36 before (albeit I didn’t win because I drew my entire deck out and enough exhaust to kill my character). Still, it has its weak points. Without a reliable source of card draw outside of itself it relies on other cards to be effective and should only be taken in decks that include Aluneth, Deck of Wonders, Book of Specters, or Arcane Intellect to name a few. Completely by itself, I’d give it 2/5. With reliable card draw, I’d give it 3/5. With Aluneth and Deck of Wonders, I’d give it 4.5/5.
they trying to make more possible trash for flameland portal
at least its better than getting the 1/1 i guess
Firelands portal is rotating out
Even WITH all the new card draw and minion support, I still don’t think too much of this card.
Zoo Mage might be a Thing. Cool.
This Card is also not terrible for Standard Mage, either.
Daring Reporter didn’t see any play and I doubt a +1/+1 for 1 more version of it will either, especially when restricted to Mage.
The class may have gotten a couple nice tools for draw power as of late, but I don’t think they’ll make this seem any better since if you play with with Book of Specters and draw all 3 cards from it, it’ll just be a 7/7 you spent 7 mana to make. Outside of Shade of Naxx, there hasn’t really been any cards that buff themselves every turn that have seen too much play, and I don’t think this will either.
Sigh, I already miss Coldlight Oracle…(no, I’m not playing wild)
This is definitely a card designed for minion mage. It’s very similar to daring reporter, but I think it may just be too slow to run in minion mage.
This seems a bit too slow, but it can be crazy with Aluneth online. If you drop it on 5, your opponent will remove it at all costs, and for you to combo it with card draw you need to wait until turn 7 with book of Specters. You need to draw at least 2 cards for it to be worth it (vanilla 5 mana 4/4 or 5/5 would never be run on a deck). 2.5/5 stars. It’s definitely a good inclusion in spell-less Mage.
With all the card draw in what will clearly be minion mage, this card will be a big time minions that will always be accompanied by back up from having a full hand after playing it