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!

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!

Carousel Gryphon

Carousel Gryphon is a really straightforward, Midrange, defensive tool. Without Corrupting it, it’s not the WORST card ever, but let’s be honest – it’s weak. 5 mana 5/5 with Divine Shield is pretty sticky, but it’s also very slow. It’s okay to drop when you’re pushing your opponent in a Control matchup, but definitely not something you want when you’re playing against Aggro. However, things get way better after you Corrupt it. It becomes a 5 mana 8/8 with Taunt and Divine Shield. Sounds familar? Yeah, in a way it’s similar to Libram of Hope. You usually drop those at a similar time (Turn 7), both are exactly the same kind of big wall, but Libram gets 8 extra healing, which is a HUGE deal. On the other hand, you don’t need a Libram discount cards to play Gryphon… But 8 healing still makes it worth it to run the package. Yeah, 8/8 Taunt with DS is huge, and a great defensive tool as Libram has proven, but I don’t think that you have spece to run both… Or wait.

I would probably call the card “meh”, mostly dismiss it as okay, but nothing impressive, if not for one thing. Mech tag. Despite having no real Mech synergies in Standard right now, this part makes the card way, way stronger. Why? Because it gets revived by N'Zoth, God of the Deep. This kind of archetype is shaping up to be quite interesting. Between Elemental Taunt from Hammer of the Naaru and this Mech, N’Zoth gets exactly what it needs – a wall which lets you play it from behind. Because that’s the thing – those massive board swings are great, but only if they include some kind of board clear or Taunt, otherwise they’re really awkward to play in many scenarios.  Heck, Hammer even curves nicely into this. Drop Hammer on 6, this with some 2 mana play on 7, then play some removal, another Taunt, whatever, then revive those on T10 with N’Zoth. That’s a wall most of the Aggro decks won’t be able to pass through, while the same curve will provide a stream of threats vs slower decks.

I’m really excited to test out this Midrange Paladin archetype with N’Zoth as a finisher, even though we haven’t seen that many of the cards yet. By itself, this card is like a 5/10, but with N’Zoth (and possibly Y’Shaarj – those two also have great synergy) in mind I have to rate it a bit higher.

Card Rating: 7/10

E.T.C., Gold of Metal

That’s… I have to say that the card has caught me off-guard, I haven’t expected something like that. It adds +2 face damage whenever a minion with Rush attacks. By itself, however, it has no Rush, so you need to combo it with other minions. And while yes, Warrior has some solid Rush options (I don’t know, Restless Mummy or Bloodboil Brute), I think that it will be pretty hard to make the new E.T.C. work.

First of all, you need a deck with tons of Rush cards. Which doesn’t exist right now, even though we have some incentive to play it. For example – last expansion’s Playmaker. The card seems perfect to play with Rush minions, and yet no deck was created around it. There’s just not enough good Rush minions or Rush synergies to make it work.

Like sure, you can drop it on the same turn you drop a Rush minion and… deal extra 2 damage. Or let’s even say 4 damage. 2 mana 1/4 that deals 4 damage seems alright, but if that damage can only be dealt under a specific set of circumstances, it’s suddenly way worse and you’d rather just play Heroic Strike.

Celestalon has confirmed that it will work with Animated Broomstick, which is a glimmer of hope. Since Broomstick gives Rush to all of your minions, when any minion attacks, it will deal 2 face damage. So the combo adds up to 14 face damage – but the real damage will likely be higher, because the minions that are already on the board can just go face (they still have Rush, so that will count). But… 14 damage is the best case scenario, with full board, and it’s a 2 cards combo for something that works like Savage Roar in a class that isn’t necessarily known for flooding the board.

Overall, I don’t see a single deck that would want to play it right now. It has weak stats, it doesn’t do anything by itself, it’s just a waste of slot… unless you have a full-fledged Combo deck that’s built around it. That’s honestly the only way I see it. You can, for example, play it, then ping it with Pen Flinger, then copy it 2x with Bloodsworn Mercenary, then drop Animated Broomstick and attack with all of them. IF all of them will be able to attack AND E.T.C.’s won’t die, then in the best case scenario this can deal 3x 12 = 36 damage. That’s a lot, yeah. But that’s a 5 cards combo with a lot of requirements – not only you need minions to run into (if your opponent has an empty board then it’s just useless, so Control decks might be able to play around it this way). And I feel like it’s kind of redundant, because there’s nothing wrong with the current Kor'kron Elite finisher combo, which yes, deals a bit less damage, but is still easily 20+ burst and you don’t need to run any otherwise bad cards (like this).

Maybe I’m missing something and there will be another combo built around it. Or maybe we’ll have an Aggro Rush deck that will love it. But as of right now, I can’t see any good use for it.

Card Rating: 2/10

Ringmaster Whatley

The Curator, is that you?! To be honest, this effect is even better. Curator drew Murloc and a Beast (on top of a Dragon), which are way, way less popular in Warrior than Mechs & Pirates that Whatley draws. And Dragons – Dragons are always good, most of the meta decks can put some Dragons without a problem.

So here’s the thing. In order for Whatley to be good enough, it needs to draw at least 2 cards. 5 mana 3/5 that tutors 2 cards is a solid deal. At 3 it’s amazing, but at 1 it’s no longer good. So if you manage to build a deck where it draws 2 on average, I think that it might see play. Now, how hard is building such a deck?

So let’s recap. Dragons – Warrior already runs Deathwing, Mad Aspect, and I imagine that teching another Dragon wouldn’t be a problem if that one is not enough (plus Galakrond builds run Scion of Ruin, but we haven’t seen those in a while).

Pirates – that’s not a problem at all, after all there’s a reason why Ancharrr is so popular in Warrior. Risky Skipper is the class staple, and lots of builds also run Sky Raider or Kobold Stickyfinger.

Now, Mechs haven’t seen much play in Warrior in a while. Most of the really STAPLE ones were from Boomsday Project and rotated out earlier in 2020. But there are still options. Pirate Warrior runs Skybarge, but I’m not sure if Pirate Warrior would want this card (especially since it would also need to tech in Dragon for maximum value). Other builds can run cards like Omega Devastator (it was actually great when the meta was very slow), there’s also Clockwork Goblin for Bomb Warrior (especially if there was a more tempo-oriented version of the deck), Scrap Golem (which isn’t very exciting, but it’s okay), Tomb Warden  (but it really needs some extra Taunt buffers) and – of course – The Boom Reaver (but Big Warrior definitely doesn’t want to run Whatley). There are some options, but it will be harder to pick a g ood one for your deck.

Assuming that we get a solid Mech for Warrior, possibly even another Dragon, this might be a real Warrior staple. Slower decks will be easier to build with this card in mind, and they can also run N'Zoth, God of the Deep as a big finisher – reviving Deathwing & Scrap Golem, for example, would be a solid deal already, and I bet that the deck could be built in a way to include even more tribes. And more tempo-oriented decks love mixing tempo with value – in this case, you get a 3/5 body AND up to 3 cards drawn. Stats / mana cost are much better than they were in case of Curator – here you’re paying ~1.5 mana more (3/5 is ~3.5 mana) for the draw, in case of Curator you were playing ~2.5 mana more (4/6 is ~4.5 mana). Yes, Curator had Taunt, which was a pretty big deal, but it needed something to be viable at 7 mana.

All in all, Whatley looks like a really solid card and I do believe that even without more “menagerie” synergies, it should see play already.

Card Rating: 8/10

Ringmaster’s Baton

While I do believe that Whatley is a good card, I don’t share the same sentiment about his baton. Here’s the issue. With Whatley, having just 2-3 of each Tribe is enough – you can even have a single minion from a certain tribe and it should still be good enough. 50% of time you will draw it before Whatley, but it happens. However, in case of Baton, things are quite different. You need to be already HOLDING cards from 3 different tribes to get a maximum value on it. Or well, at least 2 tribes – that could be good enough. Since the weapon costs 2, the ideal scenario is having those minions already in your hand on T2 when you play Baton. And – given how delayed the tempo from handbuffs is – you kind of need the ideal scenario.

See, and that’s the problem. If you run just 2-3 of each tribe to support Whatley, that’s not enough for a Baton. The chances are that you won’t have even a single of those minions in your hand in the early game. Yes, you could theoretically wait until you draw them, but then a) you’re holding a dead card (Baton) and b) you can’t play the minions immediately if you want to get the handbuff value – you need to keep them in your hand for all 3 swings, which creates even more dead cards.

A slight upside is that you can draw the card with Corsair Cache for another round of buffs, or buff it with Upgrade! for the same thing… but that upside might be a downside in disguise. Because I honestly don’t think it’s a good play unless you really want to buff specific minions. Keeping your cards around for 3 rounds of attacks is already long enough, 4 or more is just way, way too greedy. Given that handbuffs work best in tempo-oriented decks, you’re doing exactly the opposite of tempoing out when you don’t play anything.

Right now, I absolutely don’t see a reason to play Baton. Unless you build a deck around it, you won’t get nearly enough value – 1/3 weapon for 2 is really bad, and you will get some odd buff here and there. The effect is not nearly strong enough to build a deck around. Of course, things still MIGHT change, because we have a lot of cards to reveal. If there will be a working Warrior menagerie build that plays at least 3-4 minions of each of those tribes and comes with other synergies too, then Baton will be a nice addition. But that’s it – addition, not a card you build your deck around.

Card Rating: 2/10, but can be viable if Menagerie Warrior gets more synergies

Balloon Merchant

So… Silver Hand Recruit synergy, after all? You might remember that I’ve talked about it when reviewing Day at the Faire. I said that the card is solid, but not great, I rated it 6/10, but said that it can get better with some Silver Hand Recruit synergies… and now we have it. Of course, in order to actually run Silver Hand Recruit synergies, we need to reach a certain amount of both cards that summon them and cards that synergize with them. Sure, you can always summon them with Hero Power, but that’s way too slow – most of the opponents are constantly clearing them, so it’s difficult to have more than 1-2 on the board at the same time. Luckily, between Air Raid and Day at the Faire, we might actually have enough ways to summon them. Both of those cards are okay – nothing impressive, BUT if we get some ways to buff Recruits, things get better.

And here comes Balloon Merchant. While it ain’t no Quartermaster, the buff is good enough. Or well, sometimes even better. While +1 Attack and Divine Shield has less offensive potential than +2/+2, the Divine Shield part is quite key. Board full of Divine Shields are often a nightmare to deal with, because they’re resistant to the regular AoEs. Yes, they still die to some removals like Brawl and yes, opponent can just use two AoEs, but that’s a big deal. If you play a deck based on Silver Hand Recruit synergies, you will keep flooding the board time and time again, so AoEs are your biggest enemy. Forcing your opponent to “waste” two AoEs on clearing your board is amazing. Wile +1 Attack on a board of 1/1’s doesn’t seem that strong, think about it for a moment. Let’s say that you summoned 5x Recruit with upgraded Day at the Faire and then dropped Balloon Merchant. That’s 13 damage on the board, spread between 6 bodies, 5 of which have Divine Shield. That’s a lot of damage, and your opponent is absolutely forced to deal with it. Divine Shields also have nice synergy with

Oh, and it’s important to mention that Balloon Merchant simply has solid stats for the cost. 3/5 for 4 is good for a card with such a powerful effect. Quartermaster came with 1 less attack for 1 more mana. This means that you don’t even have to get THAT much value out of Balloon Merchant – hitting 1-2 minions will often be good enough tempo play to just drop it, even on curve. While I’m not a fan of playing Corrupt cards without Corrupting them first, non-upgraded Day at the Faire on 3 if you know that your opponent can’t clear your Recruits easily into this on 4 is also a huge play.

THAT SAID, I think that we need something more to really build a deck around Silver Hand Recruits. Not necessarily a card that synergizes with Recruits specifically, but some board flood synergy. For example, Sunkeeper Tarim was one of the best Silver Hand Recruit synergies despite not benefiting them specifically. Some AoE buffs, some card that gets cheaper / more powerful the more minions you have etc. But I think that we’re on the right track.

Card Rating: 8/10

High Exarch Yrel

Well honestly, this one is really simple. If you play Pure Paladin – add Yrel. That’s it, end of review. No, but seriously – this is one of those cards designed specifically for a single archetype, and it won’t work outside of it. Like yeah, you COULD play a regular Paladin build with a few Neutrals, wait until you draw them before playing this card… but it doesn’t work well, people have tried it.

You see, Pure Paladin is already a strong archetype. Honestly, it’s been underestimated throughout the entire expansion. While yes, Libram Paladin is BETTER, especially at higher ranks, even before Libram build (with Pen Flingers, Animated Broomsticks and such) was discovered and optimized, people have kind of forgotten about Pure version. Possibly because it’s, frankly, kind of boring. Even right now, when Libram Paladin is arguably #1 deck in the current meta, Pure Paladin is not falling behind by that much. It’s generally around Tier 2 deck – low or high Tier 2 depending on the rank (it’s better in low ranks and worse in high ranks, probably because it’s easy to play). It’s just solid, and now it’s getting more support.

But wait, is Yrel actually worth it? Hell yeah! She’s a bigger version of Zilliax, basically. And while 8 mana cost might look scary compared to Zilliax’s 5, I actually think that Yrel might be even better than Zilliax. Because you see – Zilliax was a 5 mana 3/2 minion and it was still amazing. Stats scale amazingly well with all of those keywords – bigger Divine Shield minions can use the “free hit” to deal more damage, bigger Lifesteal minions heal you for more, bigger Rush minions can clear higher statted things, while bigger Taunt = bigger wall. All four keywords scale incredibly well and that’s why Zilliax was only a 3/2. In case of Yrel, you’re getting +4/+3 for 3 mana. It might not seem like a big deal, but that’s over twice the Zilliax’s stats for only 60% more mana. Zilliax, in the average scenario, cleared two small minions and healed you for 6 for 5 mana. In a similar scenario, Yrel will clear two mid-sized / big minions and heal you for 14 for 8 mana. The difference is quite massive.

Another thing is  that 3/2 Taunt was way easier to clear than a 7/5 Taunt. If you face deck running mostly small minions, Zilliax often died in a single hit back. Yrel might take 2-3 minion hits in some cases, basically healing Paladin to full. Yes, in other scenarios it will get removed with a spell, like Hunter can Kill Command it, but that’s a KC down, which you also don’t mind.

The only downside is that 8 mana is a lot vs Aggro. But the thing is, it’s not like it’s the only Pure Paladin’s defensive tool. The deck has Lightforged Zealot, which gives Truesilver Champion, which is a removal + heal in one. It has Taunts – Aldor Truthseeker / Devout Pupil. It has some removal like Consecration. And – of course – it has Libram of Hope. While you sometimes draw poorly and die early, no card can help against that. But if you darw okay, it’s not uncommon to survive until Turn 8 even against the most aggressive builds. And then there are decks like Soul Demon Hunter, which won’t likely kill you that quickly, and against which Yrel would be an MVP. Not to mention that she will be a quite annoying threat vs slower decks too. Like let’s say they Taunt up – you can play Yrel, run it into the Taunt, kill it, and then attack with the rest of your board. You’ve dealt with a minion and put a 7/5 body on the board that needs to be dealt with, giving you a nice tempo swing. But yes, this is the card’s biggest downside – 8 mana cost is still a lot to swallow vs faster decks, even in a deck with a solid defensive toolkit.

Overall, Yrel looks like an easy auto-include in Pure Paladin. Now, the question is – will it make Pure Paladin better than Libram version? Hard to say. I think that things might look like this expansion, where both of those decks compete with each other. But unless Libram version gets some really nice Neutral synergies, Yrel might give an edge to Pure version.

Card Rating: 9/10 (but obviously only in Pure Paladin)

Rigged Faire Game

The card is quite interesting. The best comparison would obviously be Arcane Intellect, the most basic form of card draw. Rigged Faire Game draws 1 more card, which is a big deal, but the draw is ALWAYS delayed by at least one turn. At least – because if you take damage, then it might get pushed even further. One turn is good enough – like, if you could always play it on one turn and draw on another, I would call the card amazing. But with the limitation, I have to say that it will mostly be meta dependant.

See, here’s the thing. If you play against slower decks, then it will trigger easily. I mean, why wouldn’t it? They’re focused on clearing your board, not damaging you (outside of some cases like Bomb Warrior, but even they swing Wrenchcalibur at minions very often). So you get efficient card draw with this.

On the other hand, if you play against Aggro, they WILL damage you. Yes, sometimes you will be so ahead that they won’t deal any damage, as they will struggle to fight for the board control. But lots of decks, such as Face Hunter, will most likely deal some damage to you every single turn, making it basically a dead card. Same thing goes for a deck like Soul Demon Hunter, even though it’s not exactly “Aggro”. Or let’s say Libram Paladin – they will ping you to death with Pen Flinger before this card triggers.

That said, if you play some Secret synergies, it being a “dead” card might actually not be completely useless. Here’s the thing – having a Secret up activates cards like Cloud Prince, Sunreaver Spy (not great in Mage), or the new Occult Conjurer. And that’s quite important too. Those cards give you a lot of extra tempo, so might let you come back into the game after having to “waste” a Secret that didn’t get triggered quickly.

That’s why I honestly don’t see Rigged Faire Game over Arcane Intellect in decks like Tempo Mage, or any sort of Control Mage. It just doesn’t seem like a good idea, the risk of it never triggering (or at least not triggering for many turns) is too high to justify the upside of drawing 1 more. HOWEVER, if you build a Secret Mage build, I think that it will be a part of it, same way how Ice Block worked really well with all the Secret synergies. If your opponent doesn’t damage you and it triggers – great! You drew 3 cards for 3 mana. If it doesn’t – still okay, because now your Secret synergies are active.

Card Rating: 7/10, but only if Secret Mage will be a thing

Occult Conjurer

Secret Mage is back? Of course, it’s too early to say yet, but if it does, Occult Conjurer might be the reason why. The card looks quite promising – the potential of dropping 2x 4/4 on Turn 4 is a huge deal. That kind of tempo move is often game-winning. Not only they’re quite hard to clear, they can trade quite well against early minions, but they also are a big threat against slower decks. However, as Cloud Prince has already proven, having a Secret active is not always that easy. Most of the time, your opponent will try to play around it and actually trigger your Secrets. Even if they aren’t specifically trying to, the ones that trigger on Spell / Minion play are, well, really easy to trigger. So while that’s a good thing for the tempo, it’s not a good thing for those cards that require you to have them in play.

There are three main ways to approach this problem. First – playing the Secret on the same turn as the synergy minion. Given that Mage Secrets cost 3, that’s quite hard – for example, you need 7 mana to play Secret + Conjurer. Luckily, Ancient Mysteries is still in Standard, so a good play would be to keep the 0 mana Secret from Mysteries, play it on T4 and then drop Conjurer. Second way is to play a Secret that isn’t likely getting triggered. It might be Flame Ward against Control with no board, or Rigged Faire Game against Aggro deck with board. In this case, the Secret should stay around long enough for you to play your synergies (often more than one). And finally – you can also play enough Secrets that some of them will stick. Even 2 at the same time might be enough – and that’s where Ring Toss might come handy.

So I feel like Occult Conjurer is actually pretty playable. Both Cloud Prince and Ancient Mysteries are in Standard until next expansion, so it might be the best time to attempt this kind of strategy. I’m not sure if we’ve reached the critical amount of Secret synergies in Mage, but the ones we have right now are pretty good. I’m sure that players will at least attempt to play Secret Mage – and I believe that with one or two more synergies, we might have a solid meta deck.

Card Rating: 8/10

Grand Empress Shek’zara

While the card is quite strong without a doubt, I first must debunk some of the most popular ideas surronding it (involving meme Rogue combos). Yes, I’m sure that you can build a lot of cool combos around it thanks to the Togwaggle's Scheme. The first one that comes to mind is – of course – Mogu Cultist. Play one, shuffle 7 with Scheme, draw them all, then play them all and have 20/20 that deals 20 damage to everything. Will it work competitively? No, of course not. Will it be fun? Hell yeah! Another cool combo you can do is with Shadow of Death. Play some minion, Shadow of Death it, then draw all 3 copies with Shek’zara. You can do a Malygos combo that way even – but you need some extra Coins / mana discounts. After Malygos is “Shadowed”, you can summon three copies with Shek’zara, have +15 Spell Damage and then just kill your opponent with pretty much anything.

But as my experience has proven time and time again, such Rogue builds simply don’t work. Rogue is not a great combo class, because it doesn’t have enough defensive tools to stay alive long enough to pull off whatever it wants to pull off. Another thing is that even though it Discovers, Shek’zara doesn’t GUARANTEE that you get the card you want, unless there are only those cards left in your deck (which is at least a tiny bit inconvenient). You might set up an amazing combo just to not get the card you want from Discover and it will be ruined.

We really need to look at it assuming that you don’t want to do any crazy combos. So, does Rogue want a 6 mana 5/7 that draws 1-2 cards? Because that’s what it will be most of the time. And it’s not a bad deal, AT ALL, the stats are nearly vanilla, you often get 2 cards, and you Discover it, so you can pick what you want at any given time. But it’s quite expensive and – let’s be honest – Rogue doesn’t really struggle with value right now. Aggro definitely doesn’t want to play this, and “slower” decks like Secret (Miracle) or Galakrond definitely don’t run out of cards that easily. However, they might still want to play it if the meta is more greedy.

But we also need to take some combos into account. Not those clunky OTKs that I’ve mentioned earlier, but stuff that you can pull off easily. Ticket Master, for example. If you Discover the shuffled ticket, you now summon all three 3/3’s AND draw 3 random cards on top of that. Now that’s not only a huge value gain, but also tons of board tempo – you create a board that your opponent just has to get rid of, plus add more gas to your hand. It’s stuff like that that we truly need to make Shek’zara playable. If it was in another class, I would just say that it’s great right away, but Rogue really loves some tempo and this card is more value-focused. Right now I’m not 100% sold that it will see play RIGHT NOW, but given its power level, I would say that it should see some play in the future.

Card Rating: 7/10

Tent Trasher

While the obvious idea behind this card is to support “menagerie” / N'Zoth, God of the Deep decks, I honestly think that this is good enough even without building your entire deck around those synergies. In the absolutely worst case scenario, a 5 mana 5/5 Dragon with Rush (and keep in mind that you do want to play a Dragon or two if you also run Ringmaster Whatley) is kind of good enough. Not great or anything, but playable. And all it takes is a single mana discount for it to become viable. So as long as you have a minion of any Tribe – like a Pirate, a Mech, another Dragon, whatever – this is a 4 mana 5/5 with Rush, which is already much superior to already solid Militia Commander (5 Attack is permanent, has Dragon tag). 5/5 is a really solid stat-line for Rush minion, because it can clear most of the early-mid game stuff while usually surviving the crash.

Obviously, if you play any kind of full Menagerie deck, if you play a deck that wants to get a big N’Zoth revive turn, you DO play this. With multiple minion types in your deck, it’s very easy to discount and it also makes for a great revive target – I mean, you DO want to have some immediate board impact on your N’zoth turn, and reviving a 5/5 with Rush is certainly solid (in many cases better than 12/12 Deathwing).

But I honestly wonder whether you might just put a small Whatley package into most of Warrior decks. Like, many of them run a Pirate package despite not being full Pirate decks. Just play 2-3 minions from each of the three types (Dragon, Mech and Pirate), have a great mid game card draw (Whatley) and then make then some extra synergies like this one. I really like the card and I think that this approach might work. I think that Tent Trasher should see play.

Card Rating: 7/10

Bladed Lady

Alright, I got hyped about what is often a 3-4 mana 5/5 with Rush in the last review… and now we’ve got a 1 mana 6/6 Rush, hahah. Okay, technically Bladed Lady is harder to discount than Tent Trasher, BUT when you discount it, it doesn’t go down by 1 mana – it goes down TO 1 mana.

I’ve played a lot of Soul Demon Hunter and let me tell you this – it’s not that hard to get to 6 Attack. Of course, it rarely happens in the early game – like theoretically you can play 2x Twin Slice + Second Slice and then drop it for 1 mana on Turn 6, but that’s rare, and often not something you want to do anyway. But as long as you have Marrowslicer equipped, come on, getting 2 extra attack is incredibly simple. Twin Slice or Chaos Strike and you’re up to 6. It’s even easier on Soulshard Lapidary turns – all you need is to press Hero Power. Of course, that’s a 7 mana play (5 for Lapidary, 1 for HP, 1 for Bladed Lady), but you’re dealing 6 damage, dropping a 5/5 and a 6/6 with Rush – that’s a big deal and an amazing tempo turn anyway.

Of course, things aren’t as simple as they might seem. I’ve seen some people calling it 1 mana 6/6 with no downsides, but that’s not really true. In many matchups you don’t stack that much attack unless you have Aldrachi Warblades equipped, because you’re focused on board control and you don’t need 6+ damage to kill small minions (e.g. against Aggro). In other matchups you’re not dealing much damage, and then come up with 2-3 huge burst turns back to back so your opponent doesn’t have chance to heal up (e.g. against Priest). Sometimes you don’t have mana to push up to 6 attack, because you can get up to 4-5 (Marrowslicer, Lapidary) and you need to spend the rest on something else (Blade Dance, Shardshatter Mystic).

And don’t get me wrong, I think that it’s a great card (which is reflected by my rating). I’m just saying that we shouldn’t just look at the best case scenario. Because let’s be honest – 6 mana 6/6 with Rush is pretty bad, you wouldn’t want to put that into your deck. So you really want it only if you can discount it, and you can’t realistically discount it any time you need it. So while I believe that it’s good, it might not be AS overpowered as it looks like – unless Demon Hunter gets even more good ways to gain extra attack, that is.

Card Rating: 9/10

Fire Breather

Remember Demonwrath? This is it now. Feeling old yet?

The baseline for a 2 damage AoE that affects the entire board is 3 mana. This, for just 1 more mana, gets a 4/3 body. And that’s really, really SICK. Removal on a stick are always strong, because the biggest downside of removals is that you’re usually not developing anything at the same time, so while you catch up on the board, you still leave your opponent with initiative – and the cycle continues. Cards like that let you catch up on the board while also developing something at the same time. So next turn instead of being forced to drop another AoE, you might for example be able to play a 5-drop, because the 4/3 will deal with one of your opponent’s minions and relieve some pressure from the board.

Now, the main issue with the card is that 2 damage AoE is not what it used to be a long time ago. When 1/3 is the most popular stat line for 1-drops and 2/3 for 2-drops, things don’t really look that bright for 2 damage AoEs. Of course, the card still hits A LOT of small minions in the meta. Wandmaker, Intrepid Initiate, Cult Neophyte, Spymistress/Sneaky Delinquent, Wand Thief, Sorcerer's Apprentice – just to name a few.

And yeah – not being able to hit Demons might be an upside sometimes (e.g. in Galakrond Warlock), but it can also be a downside. If there’s a popular deck that plays small Demon, like I don’t know, Zoo Warlock with Flame Imp, not hitting it is a big downside. Or let’s say if Aggro/Tempo Demon Hunter would become popular again – not being able to clear off Battlefiend, Umberwing (2x 1/1) or Satyr Overseer is a huge, huge deal – they’re all in range, but also are all Demons.

So here’s the thing. In theory, it’s powerful. And I mean REALLY powerful. But whether it does see play will mostly be a meta call. In a meta with lots of 2 health minions and not many Demons, this card is nuts. Also, right now Warlock has other AoE options such as Dark Skies or Crazed Netherwing, but keep in mind that both of those rotate out in next expansion, so the value of Fire Breather will go through the roof unless we get some better AoEs. And of course, ultimately whether it sees play depends on whether slow Warlock decks see play (the only alternative is some kind of Demon Zoo, but I don’t think that’s a great idea unless we get some serious synergies). Right now Control Warlock is in a rather poor spot, and to be completely honest, Fire Breather is not a card it needs to come back into the meta. But in case it does come back, it should be a really good addition as long as there are good 1-2 health targets.

Card Rating: 9/10 potential, but mostly a meta call – realistically might not see any play if there aren’t enough good targets