Darkmoon Faire Card Review #2 – Maxima Blastenheimer, Hammer of the Naaru, Il’gynoth, Ring Toss, Petting Zoo, Revenant Rascal, Ticket Master, The Nameless One and more!

Madness at the Darkmoon Faire’s reveal season has started. The expansion is actually releasing quite sooner than we have all expected. Usually, the third expansion of a year launches early in December, but this time it will be November 17. Frankly I’m really happy about that, because despite it being the busiest time for me, I just LOVE reveal seasons and expansion launches, the hype around everything, rating cards, theorycrafting, then testing all the new decks on Day 1 (well… I usually get maybe 1 or 2 hours of play on Day 1, but at least I watch the streamers all the time while I add new decks).

Darkmoon Faire’s new mechanic is Corrupt. Corrupt cards start really weak, but they get upgraded after you play a card that’s more expensive. For example, if you have a 3 mana Corrupt card, playing a 4+ mana card will upgrade it to its Corrupted version. While the Corrupted ones are incredibly powerful, the fact that you can’t play them on the curve is a big downside.

In this article, I’ll take a closer look at the newly revealed cards, reviewing them and rating from 1 to 10. The scale itself should be quite obvious, but just to quickly explain how do I see it: A card rated 5 is average – but average does not mean bad. It might be playable in some decks, especially as a filler, but in my mind it’s nothing special. Cards below 5 might see some play in off-meta decks, or as obscure techs, but the closer we get to 1, the lower chance it is that they will see play. 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 the card as something with more 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. 1 and 10 are reserved to the worst or best cards I can imagine, meaning that they won’t be used often.

Remember that without seeing all the cards, it’s incredibly hard to review them accurately, since we have no clue what synergies will be printed or which themes will be pushed. Even after knowing all of them, theory is very different from practice, and it’s hard to predict how the meta will look like. A card that’s great in theory might end up seeing no play whatsoever, because the most popular meta deck simply counters it. It might also be useless because it doesn’t have enough support, but once it gets it, it suddenly becomes overpowered. 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!

All Of Our Darkmoon Faire Card Reviews:

• Darkmoon Faire Card Review #1 – Old Gods, Silas, Darkmoon Rabbit, Day at the Faire, Dunk Tank, Fleethoof Pearltusk, Fortune Teller, Kiri, Eclipses, Guess the Weight!
• Darkmoon Faire Card Review #2 – Maxima Blastenheimer, Hammer of the Naaru, Il’gynoth, Ring Toss, Petting Zoo, Revenant Rascal, Ticket Master, The Nameless One and more!
  
• Darkmoon Faire Card Review #3 – E.T.C., God of Metal, Ringmaster Whatley, Yrel, Occult Conjurer, Grand Empress Shek’zara, Bladed Lady, Fire Breather and more!
• Darkmoon Faire Card Review #4 – Zai, Lothraxion, Deck of Chaos, Rinling’s Rifle, Tengu, Deck of Lunacy, Eys’or, Shadow Clone, Jewel of N’Zoth, Tickatus, Strongman and more!
• Darkmoon Faire Card Review #5 – Palm Reading, Inara Stormcrash, Nazmani Bloodweaver, Inconspicuous Rider, Acrobatics, Swindle, Foxy Fraud and more!

Darkmoon Tonk

By itself? Probably a pack filler. It’s just way, way too slow. 7 mana is a lot in Hunter, and spending it to drop an 8/5 minion with no immediate effect isn’t enough. Deathrattle is okay, but it’s not anything game-winning, especially if your opponent has some board. Case closed? Not yet!

What Darkmoon Tonk has going for it is… Oblivitron. For a moment I thought that this card has rotated out (I misremembered it being from Boomsday Project), but no, it’s still there. And that combo is GREAT. Oblivitron is all about Mechs and Deathrattles, and this is both a big Mech and a solid Deathrattle. Oblivitron dying would summon this on the board and immediately deal 4x 2 damage. It also has good synergy with Nine Lives –  it becomes 3 mana 4x 2 damage (which is already nice), and you get this in your hand (which is slow, but it’s always some extra value).

All of that said, I don’t think it’s enough. We would need to see a bit more – some more Deathrattle / Mech synergies, and this kind of Hunter build might actually be viable. But, we need them THIS EXPANSION – both Oblivitron and Nine Lives rotates out in a few months. Will it happen? Hard to say. (It also has synergy with Maxima, but I’ll talk about it below.)

But like I’ve said, by itself it’s weak – too slow, Deathrattle is nice, but can be dealt with or played around, 5 health is quite easy to clear. But if they go all in on synergies, which is something we HAVE seen before, I can see it being quite strong. That said, I can’t rate card based on synergies that don’t exist yet and might not exist at all, so I’ll go pretty low on it.

Card Rating: 3/10

Maxima Blastenheimer

It’s… interesting? At the very base level, it’s a 6 mana 4/4 with some face damage attached to it – depending on the amount of attack on the minion that you pull. Realistically, I wouldn’t play it for anything below 5-6 damage and mostly use it as a finisher, because otherwise the card is really slow. If you aren’t killing your opponent or at least putting them in a dangerous position, playing a 6 mana 4/4 puts you behind on the board, possibly to a position from which you will not come back (Hunter isn’t known for board come backs).

But, one of the main upsides of this card is that it’s not pure damage – you also summon a minion. Yes, it dies at the end of the turn, but if the minion has Deathrattle or Reborn… you still get something extra. The best example would be this with Darkmoon Tonk – it’s 8 damage + 4x 2 damage. On empty board, that’s 4/4 + 16 damage for 6 mana. Or – even better – pull out Oblivitron, which then dies and summons Tonk from your hand. So now you have 6 mana for 4/4 + 16 damage + summoning a 7-drop out of your hand. Yes – that’s absolutely nuts, but also kind of the best case scenario that will happen quite rarely. With Maxima being one-of and without an easy way to tutor her, you can’t really build the entire deck around such a combo.

Another thing is that you can’t look at the best case scenarios. For this kind of card to realistically work, you need to get rid of the low cost minions from your deck, and that’s a big sacrifice. Even Midrange decks run some low attack 1-3 mana minions, it’s really hard to get around that. Some of that can be “fixed” with spells, like Demon Companion, Animal Companion etc. but that’s clearly not enough.

If we have a working Deathrattle deck that can drop some early game minions in favor of spells, then I think that we have a winner. Alternatively, there MIGHT be some combo built around this card, but Hunter is a terrible Combo class. However, I can’t see putting it in a regular Face / Midrange / Highlander Hunter build. It has way too high chance of a low-roll and without many Deathrattles little to no chance to high roll… So I really think that, at least right now, it’s Deathrattles or bust. Same thing as Tonk – you need to put it into a very specific deck and that deck doesn’t exist yet, so I just can’t rate it highly right now (but things might change by the end of this reveal season).

P.S. In case you’re wondering – it does not work with The Darkness in Wild. Darkness would be summoned Dormant and wouldn’t attack at all.

Card Rating: 4/10

Expendable Performers

Ok, so first of all – Celestalon has confirmed that you don’t need to summon all of them to get the effect. For example, if you summon four, only THOSE FOUR need to die for you to resummon them. It adds some more flexibility to the card – because the wording might suggest (and that’s how I understood it at first) that you need to summon seven, and they all need to die. But in reality, you simply need to kill off all of the ones you summoned.

Still, even in the very best case scenario, this card is basically 14 minion damage for 7 mana. Which is… meh. The fact that you can target exactly which ones you damage is good – e.g. you might want to leave a single big, but low attack minion alive and kill the rest of the board – that’s fine. But for 7 mana, it’s really not impressive enough. If you face a low health board, any AoE will do. Like, Immolation Aura can deal up to 14 damage for just 2 mana (of course, it’s not as flexible, but it costs 5 mana less).

So realistically, for this card to work, you need to play a Token Demon Hunter deck and have some extra synergies. For example – Wrathscale Naga on the board. Well, that’s a cute combo – yes, you can only get the effect off with 12 instead of 14 minions, but it’s still… pretty big. That’s basically a guaranteed board clear AND a lot of face damage, maybe even enough face damage to kill opponent if you get lucky. But it’s a 10 mana combo – that’s way too expensive and relies on your opponent to have enough minions to sacrifice into (+if he has multiple minions, the damage will mostly hit minions, so you won’t get AS MUCH face damage if you don’t get really lucky). And honestly – if the Combo would be overpowered, we would already see a lot of Naga + Command the Illidari builds, which yes, doesn’t resummon the six 1/1’s, but is 2 mana cheaper and still deals tons of damage (6 + 18).

Expendable Performers also works really well with Feast of Souls – you can easily draw 10 cards with it, but realistically you want to play it at the time you wouldn’t overdraw. Again, the issue is that it’s a 9 mana combo. DH can already cycle quite easily with Skull of Gul'dan and such, and Feast of Souls already works well enough with cheaper cards like aforementioned Command the Illidari (you rarely want to draw more than 6 anyway). So maybe Fel Guardians? Again, Command the Illidari does basically the same job. Oh, and you can make a huge Blood Herald… which is again way too late for that, and the card is just bad.

See, those are my main two problems. You clearly want to combo the card with something, but at 7 mana it’s pretty damn hard to combo it – you need to wait until T9-T10 for that. And second – you can already achieve similar results with cheaper cards, this is often an overkill. Realistically, the card will just clog your hand way too often. Maybe if we get some really, SERIOUSLY strong synergy, but right now I don’t think that this card is what Token DH needs.

Card Rating: 4/10

Renowned Performer

Renowned Perofmer is a bit like a 4 mana spell – something akin to Flanking Strike. The thing you will do with it most often is rush it into something, clear it while Performer dies, and then you get 2x 1/1 with Taunt back. Of course, it being a minion has some upsides, but also downsides. For example, you can play it on T4 without any target, even though you waste Rush and a 3/3 for 4 is pretty weak. You can also clear a 1/3 or 2/3 and still have a small leftover body. On the other hand, it can’t pass through Taunts, which is quite a major downside. Overall, being a minion is probably an advantage (in case you really have nothing to do on T4, it’s so much better than just Hero Powering).

3 damage for 4 mana is quite low, but it does line up okay against your opponent’s 2-drops and 3-drops. So you can clear them while still leaving something behind. 2x 1/1 is not much, but… Honestly, the biggest saving grace of this card seems to be the fact that those 1/1’s have Taunt. Small Taunts are really, really annoying and can be very useful in many cases. Against Aggro, they might buy some time and against slower decks they might protect a valuable minion from a trade or weapon swing.

Overall, it seems… okay? It’s not flashy, it’s not extremely powerful, but I feel like it will do its job of being a small removal + a small wall in a single card. Can get some extra points in Token DH, because it’s 3 bodies in a single card in total, but I think that even other DH decks might use it as a filler. Won’t break the meta, though.

Card Rating: 6/10

Hammer of the Naaru

6 mana for a 6/6 Taunt + 3/3 weapon. Just like lots of Paladin cards lately, this feels “fair”, but the overall effect is definitely above average given its cost. You can’t do any crazy plays with this card, your opponent won’t suddenly lose because you played it, but you’re getting a lot for your mana. 6/6 Taunt is worth around 5 mana (but realistically it still most likely wouldn’t be played), 3/3 weapon with no effect is… probably around 3.5 mana. And you’re getting both for 6 mana. Math checks out, it’s worth it.

Pure Paladin might want at least one copy. Libram – eh, hard to say. The problem is that because of Libram package, both of those builds are pretty packed already. But any other Midrange / Control build (like Highlander)? Definitely. 6/6 Taunt is both a big threat and a solid wall, while 3/3 weapon can either be used as a removal vs smaller minions or for 9 damage in total. The latter is especially tempting – just hit face three times and you’ve got yourself an almost-Pyroblast. It works very well in a Midrange vs Control matchup.

What’s worth mentioning is that the  6/6 is an Elemental, so – in theory – you could run it in a N'Zoth, God of the Deep deck. Reviving a 6/6 Taunt is a huge deal, because not only it’s a big threat vs slow decks, it adds some defense to a N’Zoth board. Add another Taunt or something with Rush and N’Zoth suddenly has enough impact to even be useful in faster matchups. Of course, it’s too early to say, we need to see some other cards first, but the original N’Zoth used to be a good finisher in slower Paladin builds, so I can see this one too.

I think that Hammer of the Naaru should see play, even if not as a 2-of staple. It’s tiny bit too “fair”, but Paladin has been doing quite well with “fair” cards lately. Oh! And it’s an interesting option in Big / Duel Paladin, because you can play it without disrupting your Duel! / Commencement pool.

Card Rating: 7/10

Il’gynoth

Oh my, this is quite an interesting card in Soul Demon Hunter. Aldrachi Warblades is already a staple card, and this turns it up to 11. Or let me rephrase it – turns it up to 11 in CERTAIN MATCHUPS. But I’ll get to that later.

First of all – in case you’re wondering, this effect will work when Lifesteal wouldn’t – so if you’re at max health and you wouldn’t gain any health, it will still deal damage.

Turning any Lifesteal to damage is a massive effect, because it doubles any damage dealt by Aldrachi Warblades. A simple Il’gynoth + Twin Slice + Second Slice with Warblades already equipped will now be not 6, but 12 damage. And if it survives, you can just most likely finish the game off with something like Soulshard Lapidary, because it turns 8 damage (with Hero Power) into 16. But most likely it won’t survive. The upside is that if it gets traded off, even in a single blow, it’s 2 extra damage because it also has Lifesteal.

This card is really nuts in any matchup in which you don’t need the extra healing that comes from Warblades. You can set up something like 2x Twin Slice turn and burst your opponent for 20, very often just winning you the game on Turn 8. Heck, if you draw it (or something like Lapidary) with Skull of Gul'dan and get a discount, you can even OTK.

HOWEVER, before I call this card OP, I will get back to my point about “certain matchups”. Because this is definitely not a card that works in every matchup. There are many decks against which you really, and I mean REALLY need Lifesteal. For example, when you play against Face Hunter, this is basically a dead card, because unless you’re killing them, you’d rather heal for 7 and deal 7 damage than deal 14 damage. It’s also questionable in mirror matchups – again, unless you’re straight up killing your opponent, if you skip healing, you set yourself up for a counter-lethal. Warblades is one of the best cards in the mirror.

So while this card has insane potential in Soul Demon Hunter, it will mostly depend on the meta. If the meta is fast and you face a lot of Aggro decks – then it will be a dead card way too often. I mean, you CAN Drop it as a 4 mana 2/6, but that’s really bad. Technically it has Lifesteal, but it will only damage the opponent, because of its effect, and extra damage vs Face Hunter on curve is quite irrelevant to be honest. On the other hand, in any slower meta, when you face Control decks, especially ones that can gain a lot of life, this will be an absolute must-have. So while it might not see play right away if the meta is too fast, I expect it to be an amazing tech against slower builds.

Oh, and I honestly don’t see it in any other deck right now. POSSIBLY some OTK Demon Hunter build, but we would need more tools, because right now you need some mana discounts to pull off the OTK.

Card Rating: 9/10

Prize Plunderer

An interesting concept, but I’m not sure how good it is. In theory, it can work really well during those long, Questing Adventurer / Edwin VanCleef turns in a deck like Secret (Miracle) Rogue. It can be some serious tempo swing. For example, drop Questing, Backstab, this (deal 2 damage), Shadowstep it, play it again (deal 4 damage) and end up with 7/7 Questing + 2/1 + 8 minion damage spread between up to 3 minions for just 4 mana in total.

On the other hand, those “crazy” swing tuns are quite rare, and you already have some good cards to drop during them. Most of your early/mid game turns are still 2-3 cards at most, because you simply don’t have enough mana to play more. For that reason, this won’t be able to deal too much damage. Another downside is that in the early game, it’s hard to trigger the Combo, so you often have to hold it or play it for just 0-1 damage. At 1 damage, it’s honestly worse than something like Guardian Augmerchant. At 0, it’s just a vanila 2/1. Oh, and – of course – it can’t go face, which is a bummer – it would be very powerful if it could.

It has a Pirate tag, but I don’t think that part is relevant in Rogue, at least not right now.

I can maybe see it in Secret (Miracle) Rogue, like I’ve already said, but I’m still not sure, because outside of those big combo turns, it’s mediocre. Maybe if we get some extra synergies, like Pirate synergies or something. Right now, it feels pretty average.

Card Rating: 5/10

Ring Toss

Just like other Corrupted cards – it sucks as the base version, and it’s quite insane when your Corrupt it. However, luckily, this is not a card that you need to play on curve anyway, since Secrets scale pretty well in the late game. In fact, some of them are even better in the late game.

But let’s look at the base level card. Mage Secrets cost 3 mana. And… they’re usually unplayable at 3 without any extra synergies. You’re paying one more mana to have a little bit of choice, but you might also not get the ones you want, so you can pay 4 mana to not even do what you wanted to do. That’s bad, and I mean BAD. We already had a minion that could do it – Arcane Keysmith, which was an okay card, but it also had a 2/2 body – that’s a massive difference. I wouldn’t even touch the uncorrupted version of Ring Toss unless you need to prevent lethal or something and that’s your only option.

Now, if you Corrupt it, you get to pick 2 Secrets. That’s getting much better for two different reasons. You’re still playing 4 mana, but what you’re doing would normally cost you 6. Since you’re technically getting 2 cards, it’s also giving you more value. And, finally, with two Discover options you will have a much higher chance to find what you need, even more so since the first Secret you pick will disappear from the pool. Mage has 7 Secrets right now, so the first pick will be 3/7 (~43%) to get a specific one, and then the second one will be 3/6 (50%). The odds to get what you want are high enough.

Now, how easy it is to Corrupt it? In a slower build like Highlander Mage – pretty easy. A big part of your deck costs 5 or more. In fact, some of the best plays in your deck like Ras Frostwhisper, Jandice Barov, Malygos, Aspect of Magic or (when you’re behind) a Rolling Fireball cost 5. Then you can play it on T6 while pinging something or with a 2 mana card… or you can wait and just keep playing on the curve and save it for when you actually need it. Because that’s the thing about this card – Secrets are good in specific scenarios, usually either when you’re really behind and need to find something defensive (like AoE from Flame Ward or Armor from Ice Barrier) or ahead and seal your position (e.g. with Counterspell against AoEs and Mirror Entity, which works well against big Taunts).

And notably – the card has a great Y'Shaarj, The Defiler synergy. While every Corrupted card so far works nicely with Y’Shaarj, this one is probably the best right now. Why? Because your Y’Shaarj turns will most likely be big swing turns – you will play a 10/10 and a bunch of other free cards. This will have a pretty high chance to find Counterspell to protect your newly created board. The downside is that Y’Shaarj requires you to play quite a lot of Corrupt cards, so it seems that the best slow Mage build – Highlander – might not be the best fit. Maybe Spell Mage? The one that doesn’t play any minions? It’s certainly an option, especially because it will be much easier to play after getting discounted by Incanter's Flow, but Spell Mage is not really a great deck in the first place.

Overall, the card has a lot of potential, but it’s also pretty clunky. I think that it can be quite powerful if you find the right deck, but that’s the hard part. Oh, and I don’t count for any new Secrets – I honestly expect that a new one will be printed alongside this card, maybe even more Secret synergies… but that’s not something I can account for yet.

Card Rating: 6/10

Don’t Feed the Animals

Honestly, it seems really meh. The base version is really, really bad. I mean REALLY BAD. +1/+1 handbuff for 2 mana is already terrible (that’s priced at 1 – Smuggler's Run, I know, different classes and all, but still). Now, +2/+2 handbuff for 2 mana is much better, but here’s the problem – you can’t play it on Turn 2. You first need to play a 3+ mana card and then drop it. So at the earliest you can play it on T4 – and that’s only if you have a 3-drop. E.g. if you wanted to play a 2 + 1 mana card on T3, that wouldn’t work. And even then, it only works on the Beasts. That’s my biggest issue right now.

Yes, it’s Hunter, and Hunter plays Beasts. But frankly, not THAT many. Unless you want to start playing a Beast-heavy build, Scavenger's Ingenuity honestly just works better. You don’t need to be holding anything back, you don’t need to wait until at least Turn 4, and you get a card back. Yes, you only buff a single minion, but even in a Beast-heavy Hunter build you realistically wouldn’t be holding THAT many Beasts by the time you play this.

Now, the thing about handbuffs is that they’re pretty slow. They haven no immediate impact, and you need to be holding onto cards to actually get any value out of them. For example – if Wolpertinger is your only 1-drop, you can’t afford to just keep it around and wait for it to get buffed. You have to play it. As a Hunter, you already have some serious issues coming from behind – if you skip your early game, it’s even worse. So yeah – maybe you could run it in a Beast-heavy Midrange Hunter, but even then I’m honestly not sure. This card definitely won’t activate the deck. I seriously think that Shan'do Wildclaw is much better, because you can drop it proactively with a 3/3 body and you don’t need to hold anything back – and it didn’t make Beast Hunter viable.

Technically, there are probably some OTKs involving Tundra Rhino that you can do thanks to this card. But I won’t even bother – there are some new Tundra Rhino OTKs every single expansion, and they never work, because Hunter is not a good Combo class (like I’ve already when reviewing Maxima).

Card Rating: 3/10

Petting Zoo

Now that’s a completely different story. This is one of the strongest cards Hunter has got in a while. It’s a card that starts off as a 3 mana 3/3 Beast, which yeah, is quite weak, but that’s just the floor. It has INSANE scaling, and it scales really quickly. With just a single Secret up – that’s a 2x 3/3 for 3 mana. Drop that on T3 and it’s game-winning in many scenarios. The dream is to curve out with Tour Guide into Phase Stalker (opponent will be too busy dealing with Stalker to even worry about Secret) into this. But honestly, even a T2 Secret that you know won’t be triggered (like… Freezing / Explosive when your opponent has no board, or Snake / Pack Tactics when you have no board) and then this on T3 is really good. Even a T5 Secret + this is quite good tempo play.

And that’s just with a single Secret. If you manage to have 2-3 up at the same time, this will be really scary even in the mid game. It kind of reminds me of Lesser Emerald Spellstone – both are Secret-related and both summon 3/3 Beasts. Spellstone is probably stronger, because you don’t need to have Secrets up at the time you play it, but on the other hand, this has more potential – not only you can summon more minions in total, but you also can drop it earlier.

I feel like it will be a staple in any Hunter deck running Secrets. And if we get some more Secret synergies… maybe a full Secret Hunter build will be back on the menu.

Card Rating: 9/10

Revenant Rascal

Mirrored disruption effects were rarely playable – yes, they usually provide a slightly smaller disadvantage to you than your opponent if you time them right, but given that they also come with pretty weak stats, they’re rarely worth it. And I feel like this one is the same.

3 mana 3/3 is pretty bad if we’re talking about Aggro deck, which wants to really tempo out in the early game. Because let’s be honest – a low curve Zoo-like deck is the only deck I can see it seeing play in. If you play the slow deck, you actually want to get to higher mana quickly, because a lot of your impactful cards are quite expensive. On the other hand, if most of your curve is within the 1-3 mana range, then having one less mana to work with won’t hurt you that much. But, back to the stats – they don’t seem to be good enough for the cost.

The reason why I don’t like it so much is simply because I think that it isn’t better than Cult Neophyte. Most of the time, when you want to stop a big play for your opponent, it’s a spell, usually an AoE spell. And if your opponent wants to play multiple spells, it actually. Yes, it’s only for a single turn, but assuming that you play it just before the turn they want to drop something, they will be able to do it next turn anyway.

Maybe in the right meta, when there will be some opponents with minion swing turns (I don’t know, a big Taunt or Rush minion that you want to delay if possible), destroying Mana Crystals for both players will be good enough to warrant running it. But I still think that most of the time Cult Neophyte is a better disruption option (mostly because it’s 1 mana cheaper and has better stats for the cost, which is quite important in faster decks).

Card Rating: 5/10

Horrendous Growth

I didn’t really think about it, but it makes sense – a card that can keep getting Corrupted over and over again, but each Corruption is a much smaller gain. If it was a regular Corrupted card, it would probably become a 4/4 after getting Corrupted, but it couldn’t get buffed any further. And honestly, I think that it would be better than this.

2 mana 2/2 with no other effect is really bad on curve. But the issue is that, unlike other Corrupted cards, it’s not even that great right after you Corrupt it. For example, you can play a 3-drop, then drop it on T4 as a 2 mana 3/3… which isn’t even that great. Like sure, it’s SLIGHTLY above average, but you also need another 2 mana play to fill the curve… or you can keep it and keep playing on curve. Eventually it will grow and become let’s say a 2 mana 6/6 by the mid game. That’s great tempo swing – sure, but it also means that you had a dead card in your hand ever since the early game. It can work with the right hand – like if you have another 2-drop and then a solid curve. But a dead card means that the chance of having a solid curve is much lower.

I see that some people compare it to Argent Braggart, but I completely disagree. Braggart is way more flexible – you can draw it and then play it on the same turn if there’s something big on the board, you don’t need to get it early and keep in your hand for at least 3-4 turns before it grows enough to be a big threat. The card is too greedy for something that doesn’t give you anything else than just stats.

And another thing – what deck do you really want to play it in? Aggro decks don’t play enough 3+ mana cards and they don’t want to hold onto their 2-drop for many turns. Control/Combo decks don’t really need anything like that. So it really leaves us with Midrange builds. And I guess it’s not the WORST card in some Midrange decks, but it still feels too clunky.

Right now, I don’t think that it will see any serious meta play. Like, it’s not TERRIBLE, but I don’t think that any deck needs it either. Maybe if we get some more Corrupt synergies – but it’s hard to tell. One thing is sure – it’s not even good with the new Y’Shaarj, because all you’re getting is a second pile of stats on top of a 10/10, but those turns will already have plenty of stats – what you need instead is some immediate board swing.

Card Rating: 4/10

Ticket Master

Fal'dorei Strider is back on the menu! The card used to be a Rogue staple, played in nearly every build at the time, and a great example of “delayed tempo” card. At first, dropping a 4 mana 4/4 was really slow, especially in a class like Rogue, which loves tempo. It gave opponent some time to catch up… but on the other hand, as the game went by, some extra 4/4’s popped up out of nowhere and made the same opponent’s life miserable. The card was my worst nightmare when playing Control deck – the initial 4/4 body was big enough that I had to deal with it (which wasn’t even that easy e.g. with Priest), and then I knew that more 4/4 will get summoned.

Now, Ticket Master is A BIT different than Strider, but that’s a given – they don’t want to print the same card twice basically. First of all – the stats for mana cost are better. 3 mana 4/3 is way better than 4 mana 4/4. 1 health gain is not worth 1 mana. Strider summoned 4/4’s, this summons 3/3, which is quite a big upside for Strider. Strider was Battlecry and not a Deathrattle. This is kind of a complicated thing – which one is better? Usually, you’d rather have the same effect on Battlecry, because it’s immediate and can’t get Silenced / Transformed. In case of Rogue, you can also bounce it with Shadowstep. So Battlecry was better, unless… unless there’s some way to trigger Deathrattle more than once. Rogue had those in the past – such as Necrium Blade, but as far as I’m aware, there’s no way to get them now. Yes, you can technically draw it with Necrium Apothecary to gain an extra copy of this Deathrattle, but it doesn’t seem worth it without other synergies.

That said, I don’t think that Deathrattle is a big downside in this case – Silence / Transform effects aren’t exactly common, and as a Rogue you won’t cry if this gets dealt with this way instead of Edwin VanCleef for example. But given that it’s a minion you can easily drop on Turn 3 without really losing tempo AND then it will pay itself off in the future. “The future” might also sound like you need to wait a long time for the payoff, but in reality it’s usually not the case. Given how much Rogue draws, unless you get really unlucky, it won’t be uncommon to see the first 3/3’s popping up after a turn or two.

The card looks promising – even without any extra synergies (because the ones we have right now are… meh – like Stowaway, it’s not bad, but doesn’t feel worth it either). I can imagine just slotting it into some Rogue builds just as it is – but probably the Tempo-oriented ones like Secret (Miracle) or Galakrond, not really the all-in Aggro versions. Plus, if some Deathrattle synergies get released, which is not unprecedent, it might become even better. Having an easy way to trigger it an extra time or two would really fill the deck with free 3/3’s, making it a serious win condition.

Card Rating: 7/10

Stiltstepper

I’m not a big fan of this card. A lot of people are talking about Demon Hunter getting even more damage… but realistically, it’s not that easy to trigger the extra damage. In fact, I think that most of the time this will be a 3 mana 4/1 that draws a card, which isn’t great. But let’s start with the basics – why isn’t it great?

Well, 1 health minions in general are quite weak. They’re very easy to clear – any 1-drop just trades into it, it can get pinged, any AoE also gets rid of it and so on. Yes, it cycles itself, so it’s not the end of the world, but a 4/1 that draws would be like 3/10. Compare it to Diving Gryphon, which was a Beast (a big advantage in Hunter), drew from a specific pool of minions (that you WANTED to draw quickly – e.g. Zixor, Apex Predator)… and it had Rush. I played it a bunch and dropping it on 3 without anything to run into felt bad. Dropping it on 4 when opponent had a 1/1 on the board felt even worse. Like yes, you got some value back, but neither Hunter, nor Demon Hunter decks that would consider running it need value – they first and foremost need tempo, value comes second.

Now, the effect itself. I just don’t get why, but some people reacted to it as if it was a guaranteed +4 damage. Which is absolutely not the case. When played on curve – you never get any extra damage. It becomes guaranteed damage only in the late game, or in the mid game if you run a REALLY low curved deck. For example, if 1/3 of your deck are 1 mana cards, then you still only have a less than 1/3 chance (because you’re also mulliganing heavily for your 1-drops, so the chances of them still being in the deck is lower than exactly 1/3) to get the effect off.

And what’s important to note is that you need to play the card you draw even if you don’t really want it. Let’s say that you play it on Turn 4 and you draw Twin Slice. Normally you might have no reason to play it, you’d rather drop a minion to get more board presence. But if you draw it, you basically have to play it, because otherwise you lose damage. Of course, the extra 4 damage is still worth it and you’d gladly play a sub-optimal card to get it, but my point is that it’s not like you always draw a perfect card for the situation and get that damage “for free” – even if you draw a card you can actually play, there’s a hidden cost of reducing your options available for the turn.

Soul Demon Hunter would love extra damage and cycle in a single card, it would probably replace something like Manafeeder Panthara, but again, the issue is that you will rarely see that damage. There are so many cards that cost 3+ mana in the deck that I can’t see it. I also THINK that it wouldn’t work with Soul Fragments – like if you draw one, then the effect is gone, but I would need a dev confirmation first. So Aggro / Tempo DH is the only option, but again, I don’t think that it’s good enough. 3 mana 4/1 that draws a card is just not good when it misses the extra damage, especially in a deck that wants to have as much tempo on the board as possible. And realistically, even though you have a low curve, you will still miss most of the time until like Turn 5-6, which is quite late for that deck. So maybe I’m missing something, but I just don’t see it as being great. It will probably be tested out, especially in super low-curve builds, but I don’t believe it will be impressive.

Card Rating: 4/10

The Nameless One

So… let me get this straight. This is a Spellbreaker, with better stats (one more health), that also gets the effect of the minion you’re Silencing. If it was a Neutral card, I would call it one of the strongest cards ever released – seriously. In Priest, it loses some power, because the class doesn’t need Silence THAT much, but it’s still really, REALLY powerful.

The reason is that you aren’t Silencing minions just because. You’re doing it to get rid of some sort of effect. For example, very often it’s a Deathrattle effect. Even if you’re targeting small minions, it’s still a great swing. A simple Loot Hoarder – your opponent isn’t getting a draw, but you are. Astromancer Solarian? Well, you’re the one shuffling Prime, not your opponent (it applies to any other Prime, but this one was most prevelant). And the biggest the better! Teacher's Pet, randomly generated Waxadred, Rattlegore, I don’t know, even the new Rogue’s Ticket Master. Ongoing effects like “End of turn”? Same thing! Ras Frostwhisper, Troublemaker and so on. Even Silencing a Taunt will be some kind of advantage, because this minion will get it instead. Oh, and it often just wins the Libram Paladin matchup by stealing their Libram of Wisdom if they don’t spread them among few minions (they can’t always do it). I also forgot about Divine Shield – Libram of Hope would also be a solid target (stealing Divine Shield & Taunt from it).

There are tons of Silence targets in every meta, but like I’ve said at the start, Priest doesn’t really need Silence. Most of the time, the class can deal with the minion by removing it or stealing it (sometimes even copying it and running them into each other – Soul Mirror). But it doesn’t mean that Silence is useless. You will find some ways to utilize it in basically every matchup. And since it has okay stats AND if you add in basically any Deathrattle etc. effect it suddenly becomes a good minion… Silence is just one part of its power.

Like I’ve said, if it was Neutral, I would give it 10/10 – because honestly, there are classes that would need it way more than Priest. But given that they HoF’d Spellbreaker because it was too popular and they didn’t want a widespread Silence option… I can understand why it’s in Priest, possibly the worst class for this kind of effect. Even that considered, it’s still a very good card.

Card Rating: 8/10

Wicked Whispers

I’m a big fan of those “targeted” Discard cards that you have much more control of. Discard mechanic by itself is really random, which is not a bad thing in moderate amounts, but when you build your entire deck around it and hope for a high roll every single turn, it just sucks. Targeting the lowest, highest or whatever cost card in your hand heavily narrows the pool of cards you will discard from, often even to just a single one – so Discarding becomes much more consistent now that you know what will be gone from your hand and you can plan for that.

As for the card… I mean, sure, you could compare it to Mark of the Lotus and say that the card is bad – which doesn’t count the fact that Mark was really overpowered for its cost, so being worse than it doesn’t automatically make the card bad. I mean, look at another Warlock option, which as rotated out this Spring – Grim Rally. It’s also +1/+1 board-wide buff, but you need to sacrifice a minion on the board. Power level of those cards honestly seems quite similar. On the one hand, you could use Grim Rally on a Deathrattle minion or something and still get value, but it left your board with 1 less minion to buff. This drops a card from your hand, but at the same time, your entire board gets way stronger. And let’s just say that Warlock doesn’t really have drawing issues (especially with Hand of Gul'dan).

So I already think that the card is solid – not “it will make Zoo a T1 deck” solid, but would be good enough to slot in. But wait, there’s more. You see, Discarding is not always a bad thing. Just like in case of Hand of Gul’dan, which you’re playing only to Discard it, there are also some other cards WANT to Discard. Sadly, in case of Warlock, the only other card right now is Boneweb Egg – which honestly is a pretty good target for it (since it costs 2 it’s not that hard to make it the lowest card), but it’s not enough to make a full “Discard Warlock”. Yes, yes, this thing again. But current Zoo builds already successfuly run Discard synergies, so I don’t think that it would be a stretch to add another one if a good Discard target gets revealed this expansion.

And even if not, this card is already okay. Just like previous cards, I’m rating it with an assumption that no Discard synergies will get released, because frankly it’s hard to say whether we will get any and even if we don, “Discard Warlock” is sort of a meme that hasn’t truly worked in YEARS (single Discard cards / synergies – yes, full deck built around them – no).

Card Rating: 7/10