Dragonqueen Alexstrasza
Dragonqueen Alexstrasza is a 9 Mana Cost Legendary Neutral Minion Dragon card from the Descent of Dragons set!
Card Text
Battlecry: If your deck has no duplicates, add 2 random Dragons to your hand. They cost (0).
Flavor Text
Givin' lives and takin' names.- Mana Cost: 9
- Attack: 8
- Health: 8
- Crafting Cost: 1600 / 3200 (Golden)
- Arcane Dust Gained: 400 / 1600 (Golden)
- Rarity: Legendary
- Class: Neutral
- Card Type: Minion
- Minion Type: Dragon
- Set: Descent of Dragons
- Mechanics: Add to Hand, Battlecry, Change Cost, Highlander
Gamechanger. 8/8 body for 9 mana and two free dragons which are in most cases not useless, very very good card 5/5 stars!
5/5! Must-craft from day 1 for anyone who has at least 1 highlander deck. After recently pulling Alextrasza from a Classic pack, I have no choice. 1,600 of my dust is spoken for. Next card that comes close could be Frizz.
Okay now my Highlander dragon hunter is completed
Yeah, we really needed this, didn’t we?
Sure, yay, more Highlander support I guess. Granted, with stuff like Quest Druid already playing Zephrys the Great because it can, it’ll also see play in those sorts of decks, and we really needed that deck, Nomi decks, and Warlock combo stuff to have another fall-back option.
Of course it’s a good card. It’s just a card I had the design of at this point in time seeing how Zephrys is often played.
It also really doesn’t help out the average cost of constructing a Wild Highlander decks since now there’s another legendary card you have no reason not to play for each of them.
Good card but I have a high intolerance for these powerful possibly nuts RNG outcomes. Please blizzard, don’t let a loss or a win feel like a dice roll.
Given the average result of this is two 5/8s with some sort of battlecry, the average case itself will often be enough to win games against limping opponents.
This should’ve been for explorer classes exclusively, E.V.I.L. classes are getting way too much this expansion
But this is for explorer classes exclusively.
Is it really? Are they doing what they did in Gadgetzan and certain Neutral cards are for certain classes only?
It’s neutral and thus available to all classes. What Tuscarora87 ment was that explorer classes have extra synergies with highlander decks due to all 4 explorers in SoU. Thus, in theory this card should push those 4 explorer classes. In practice however, we have seen highlander warrior and warlock have quite some success and those are EVIL classes.
Yeah but E.V.I.L. classes can run this with Zephyrs so I find it kinda unfair to all the people who mained explorer classes, they got a free legendary with a new keyword that this expansion is built around, while we get rip-off spells that are useless if you get them to late
Evil classes better play Galakrond. There’re no many invoke cards, so they hardly can go highlander.
Given decks like Quest Druid, Nomi Priest, and other decks that can just churn through their decks already play Zephrys, anything that can play that will also be playing this.
Highlander Shaman with Zephris, Alex and Shudderwock
Bandersmosh maybe?
I really love slower Highlander decks, so I love this card.
One thing that makes me sad is the anti-synergy with the new Ysera (shuffling in dream cards turns this off), seeing as druid is a Highlander class
Then gotta think of all the bull crap that can occur from Specific classes running this for the class dragons. Mage pull a kalecgos get free 4/12 then a free spell or say Hunter pulls Emeris. Then you have possibility for a Highlander warrior play this and follow it up with say Boone get 4 0 cost dragons and if lived could use the 2/3 get a copy to hand then clone for 2 more alextraza and 4 0 cost dragons…….
Ok I talked myself into it I’m making a Highlander warrior.
Voone*
Yeah, and it’s nice since it’s not discover, you could get dragons from any class! A lot of cool combos and interactions
Play this, get Ysera and the new Deathwing, play Ysera and make Deathwing kill them. Why? Because you can!
Next level plays
This is the optimal play.
Now we just pray for no 1 cost dragons to be printed
I like the design, although the results will vary a lot. I can definitely see some kind of highlander dragon decks seeing play.
It’s actually pretty nice. Even if you get 2 Faerie Dragons at worst. That’s still a 9 Mana 14/12. 5 Stars.
I really cant see any reason why a Highlander deck would choose not to include this card. unless they print some really bad dragons, the outcome of playing this should usually be quite strong. I get that 9 mana is a lot, but its not that rare to have a few high cost cards in a highlander deck (Zul Jin, Kalegos, etc)
Worst case scenario i guess is getting farie dragon or primordial explorer + deathwing in a situation where you cant play DW. But that would be some extreme bad luck. Even an average to low roll on a hunter could give you for example Carrion Drake (3/7) and Twilight Drake (lets say 4/5) so you would be paying 9 mana for a 8/8 + 3/7 + 4/5 (35 stat points) to compare, Onyxia gives you 8/8 + 6x 1/1 (28) , Ultrasaur (1more mana) is a 7/14 (21 stats) and Voidlord gives you 3/9 + 3×1/3 = 24. Not only that, but many Dragons also have powerfull Battlecries, and since this gives you the dragons at 0 mana instead of summoning them, you can get a strong battecry in the process as well.
Now, if you are lucky, you could end up with a big dragon like Emeris or twin tyrant or if you are playing mage Kalegos and Malygos, so all in all, i think 90% of the time, this card more than pulls its own weight in any highlander deck even if it doesnt run any other dragon for the sake of synergies. its only problem i guess, is its cost. but i think that even reducing her stats, making her cost less would probably make her broken.
a reason to not run it is when you’re highlander zoo and your curve stops at 5
Whoa, more Highlander Support! On top of the fact that a new expansion counts as highlander support by itself, since it introduces more cards to the pool.
The thing that gives me pause is the cost, though… do highlander decks want a 9 cost payoff card? The only Highlander deck that likes taking things slow right now is Mage, and for sure this’ll fit into that deck, especially if Luna’s Pocket Galaxy can still fit in there. Maybe Paladin and Hunter can pivot to a Dragon-based Highlander build – they’re both kinda itching for something new since Mysterious Challenger will leave for Paladin, and the secret package is starting to crap out for Highlander Hunter.
There’s also the possibility to use this in decks that cycle themselves quickly, the way Quest Druid, Murloc Paladin, Myra’s Rogue, and Miracle Priest run Zephrys and Chef Nomi right now. I can see this as a replacement for Phaoris in Quest Druid, and slotted into Miracle Priest. Otherwise Nomi seems better, since he’s cheaper and makes a bigger/more consistent board. But unlike Nomi, you can drop this before you’ve fully gone into fatigue so it’s worth experimenting.
OMG I love this it’s an auto include for Highlander mage even if you don’t run any other dragons because even if you low-ball the dragons this can put 3 minions on the board with one guaranteed to be big. If it survives you can use the 2 cost 2/3 to add a second one to your hand and do it again.
true, I hope highlander becomes a thing in next meta for the sake of this card’s use. Cause it’s just pure value 🙂
By the way: someone has to pull two copies of this card from it’s battlecry… If you do, you most likely won your game…
Strong highlander card, almost exactly what singleton is looking for in this expansion. But it’s just a bit expensive and unreliable, you could get two fairy dragons or, say, two Yseras.
still good though, 4/5