Darkmoon Faire Card Review #4 – Zai, Lothraxion, Deck of Chaos, Rinling’s Rifle, Tenwu, Deck of Lunacy, Eys’or, Shadow Clone, Jewel of N’Zoth, Tickatus, Strongman 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!

Zai, the Incredible

I have to say that I have mixed feelings about this card. On the one hand – 5 mana 5/3 that “draws” 2 cards is not bad. I say “draws”, because copying cards from your hand is comparable to draw. On the one hand, it’s a bit worse, because you don’t cycle through your deck (which is what you usually want to do) and you can’t use it to “find” a certain card you don’t already have. On the other hand, it’s better, because you have some degree of control over what you get and you create extra value, which might be a good thing in certain matchups.

But here’s the thing – does Demon Hunter struggle with value? I wouldn’t say so. While yes, this is not pure value, since it leaves a 5/3 body on the board, let’s be honest – a 5/3 is not amazing, it will get cleared really easily and it will be hard to swallow if you weren’t ahead in terms of tempo. Aggro builds don’t really want it, because it’s too slow. But do slower builds need it?

For example, Soul Demon Hunter. Yes, the card could come handy… but only if you manipulate your hand in the way for it to give you more damage. Because sure – getting two extra copies of Twin Slice is a dream, but it means that you already need to have both in your hand and first play all the cards to make them right-most and left-most. Which is insanely hard. Copying something like Soulshard Lapidary is also high-rolly, but only in slow matchups, because otherwise you will run into issues of having them, but not being able to play them until it’s too late. And then, you really DON’T want to get extra copies of cards like Skull of Gul'dan or Manafeeder Panthara, because they are really clunky, especially after you just gained extra cards with a slow tempo play.

So I’m not really sold on this card. I don’t think that it’s bad bad – in fact, I think that it could come handy in some scenarios, in slower matchups. Especially if you play a slow deck yourself and you have a specific card you want to get an extra copy of. The card itself I would rate 8/10, but given the class context, I need to lower down the score a bit – I just don’t think that Demon Hunter NEEDS the card. It might see some play, but I don’t expect it to be that impactful.

Card Rating: 6/10

Lothraxion the Redeemed

Oh. My. God. Yeah, I imagined that Silver Hand Recruits will get some more support, but I have never thought about THAT. And oh boy, I have to say that the effect is really strong. Even in the worst case scenario, where you don’t have any Recruit-summoning card, it just upgrades your Hero Power. 1/1 with Divine Shield might not seem that powerful, but they’re really, really annoying to deal with. Slower decks will suffer a stream of constant poking, because they can’t possibly clear every 1/1 with DS without wasting tons of resources. And against faster decks, they will trade much better. But, of course, if you add cards that summon Recruits, it becomes even better.

Air Raid will probably the an MVP with Lothraxion. While 5 mana 5/5 is not completely unplayable, it’s definitely not a card you want to drop – it’s slow, it’s a tempo loss, it’s bad. Your opponent will often use that opportunity to push the tempo against you. And here’s why Air Raid is so good – it comes with a save. A single Air Raid is 4 mana to summon 4x 1/1 with Divine Shield and Taunt. That’s a MASSIVE wall that your opponent has to go through. Not massive in terms of power, but in terms of how difficult it is to pass. Since faster decks rarely run AoE cards, it might take 8 hits to clear them all, and that gives you more than enough time to catch up. Of course, it also has amazing synergy with Day at the Faire. Assuming you had it in hand, playing Lothraxion will Corrupt it. And then you summon 5x 1/1 with Divine Shield for 3 mana. That’s a nightmare to deal with, even though they’re not that threatening. Still, it means that any attack buff will turn them into monsters.

The only thing I don’t really like about it is the lack of synergy with Balloon Merchant. If all your Silver Hand Recruits have Divine Shield anyway, giving them Divine Shield will be a much weaker effect. Of course, there will be scenarios like you trading with your DS Silver Hand Recruits, or them taking some accidental AoE damage, for you to drop Merchant and re-apply Divine Shield. But very often it will be a simple +1 Attack buff.

Notably, Lothraxion is also a Demon, so if you’re playing N'Zoth, God of the Deep deck – you’ve got yourself another revive target. That’s why I think that a Midrange Silver Hand Recruit / N’Zoth Paladin might be the way to go. You can naturally put a bunch of those cards from different minion types into your deck and get a slow Midrange build, and then you fill the rest of the build with Silver Hand Recruit synergies. Or maybe they will be two separate decks? Either way, this expansion looks REALLY interesting for Paladin, a class that didn’t really have many choices for a long time before Scholomance.

And then, there are also Odd Paladin implications in Wild… But I honestly think that it won’t be THAT strong in Odd Paladin. Like yeah, it can make into the deck and be impactful, but it won’t be OP. Why? Because it’s too slow for the deck. You won’t take advantage of the effect until Turn 6 at the very earliest, and it will take 1-2 more turns to recoup the fact that you played a vanilla 5 mana 5/5. Around Turn 5-6, you want to be pushing tempo and trying to finish the game with stuff like Quartermaster or Loatheb to protect your board. The only way I could see it making a massive impact is if some slower Odd Paladin deck would be built around it. Because in long term, the card is great. But I don’t think there’s a place for such a deck in Wild. One of the powers of Odd Paladin is that it can deal with all the Combo-based decks before they, well, get their combos, so you don’t really want to slow down.  Still, I have to say that it scared me for a good minute before I started thinking about it.

Sorry for a REALLY long review, but this card is really interesting. And quite strong. I’m rating it for Standard and not for Wild in case you aren’t aware – but like I’ve mentioned above, for Wild I would probably rate it even lower. The card is already really good in Standard, but in case we get even more Silver Hand Recruit synergies, they might completely push it over the edge. It’s also important to say that it gets way, WAY better in a slower meta, where you get to take advantage of its effect over the longer games. Because against Aggro, it’s frankly quite useless. You’d rather be doing something else on T5 than building a long-term gameplay advantage – unless you follow it up with Air Raid immediately.

Card Rating: 9/10

Deck of Chaos

Okay, this is one of those crazy, build-around cards that you really need to test first to see how strong it is. Or even more – the best deck builders have to put a lot of thought into making Deck of Chaos builds before we can tell how good it is.

First things first. For this card to be good, you want to play a deck with low-attack, high-cost minions. A great example would be Malygos – after switching, the card will become a 4 mana 9/12 Dragon with +5 Spell Damage. And that – obviously – should let you OTK your opponent quite easily. But, of course, that’s only a finisher. You probably need more similar cards. A good example of card that you can normally put into your deck without it sucking hard, but one that will become overpowered after you play this is Ruststeed Raider – it will be a 1 mana 5/8 Taunt with Rush (9/8 on the first turn). Notably, Plot Twist will also be quite important in those decks – keep in mind that it only changes cards in your DECK, not your HAND, so you still need to draw them. And Plot Twist replaces your hand with a hand full of those strong cards.

Okay, so this is broken, right? You just build a deck around it and then win the game with incredibly strong cards after you play it. Well… not exactly. The issue is that you need to find it and play it first, and this is one-of. It kind of reminds me of Lady in White decks. I played them a bit and IF you drew and played Lady in White on curve, they were quite strong. But the issue was that, most of the time you did not play her on curve. She was often stuck near to the bottom of the deck, being basically useless, while your entire deck was built around her. Deck of Chaos is a bit similar. Granted, Warlock is a much better class for this kind of effect because of amazing cycling capabilities, but still. Many times, this card will be near the bottom of your deck and it will take you a while to find it. And while you do look for it, your deck will suck. And I mean it – even if you try to pick cards that are somewhat good even without Deck of Chaos synergy, they will still be subpar to ones that you would normally run in those slots. So, in the end, you will end up losing lots of games before you even get to see the effect of this card.

It’s also worth addressing an elephant in the room. It’s a 6 mana do nothing card. That’s like… slow. REALLY slow. Aggro decks exist, and they will punish you for playing that. Yes, you could say that Luna's Pocket Galaxy was similar… but it didn’t see much play until it got buffed to 5 mana, and then Mage & Warlock are a bit different (Mage has more defensive & stall tools than Warlock).

So ultimately I don’t know, but I’m not sold on this yet. The effect is absolutely crazy, but I think it’s kind of a bait. THAT SAID, the potential is there, and if someone builds a really good deck around it (one that doesn’t suck when the card is not played) and the meta is right… it can become a game changer for Warlock. I will approach the card with caution while I wait for better deck builders to figure it out.

P.S. Oh, and it has some interesting Wild combos too, but I won’t go down that rabbit hole.

Card Rating: 3/10

Malevolent Strike

It’s not like Assassinate was useful before, but now it’s official – the card is dead. We’ve got an Assassinate with a clear upside, one that’s never worse than the original, but can get much better.

As for the Malevolent Strike… honestly, it’s quite simple – it’s a card that depends on you shuffling stuff into your deck. If you play a deck that does it a lot – you want to include it. If not – not. Shuffling even a single card already makes it playable at 4 mana – not the best card ever, but not something you mind to have. Shuffle 2-3 cards and this is amazing – 2-3 mana hard removal, what’s there not to love? I certainly don’t mind killing minions instead of Sapping them. Even more shuffles? Yeah, you get my point. For example, in Wild, if you play an Academic Espionage deck, you love this card – after Espionage, it becomes 0 mana removal. Of course, it’s not like Espionage decks are anything more than meme, but you get my point.

In Standard, Rogue doesn’t have THAT many ways to shuffle stuff into the deck, let alone good ways. There’s – of course – Togwaggle's Scheme, which could make it cost 0, but Scheme is not a great card (I mean… there’s the new Grand Empress Shek'zara synergy, but I don’t think that Scheme will see play outside of some wonky combos anyway). We’ve got Shadow of Death and Waxadred, but both of them turned out to be too clunky to play in Rogue. And yeah, Neutral options like Portal Keeper aren’t amazing either. But the card is not necessarily useless. First of all – we’ve got the new Ticket Master. It dying reduces the cost of Strike to 2 mana, which is more than enough. But I honestly think that we would need more than 2x Ticket Master in the deck to consider running this card.

THAT SAID, there’s one more card that’s interesting – C'thun, the Shattered. You see, all 4 pieces of C’Thun get shuffled into your deck at the start, so this would automatically cost 1 mana – from Turn 1. Of course, the cost would go up as you draw more pieces, but you can also afford to pay more in the mid-late game (plus you might be able to shuffle some other things). Now, the question is – would Rogue want to play C’Thun in the first place? Technically, it might not be as stupid as it sounds. Thanks to Stowaway, the class can draw the pieces quite easily. But I think that it’s more of a meme than an actual deck, at least with the tools that we currently know about. Rogue doesn’t have nearly enough control / stall tools, no access to life gain, and even with Stowaways it would still take until the late game to draw all the pieces, play them, draw C’Thun and play it.

Overall, Malevolent Strike is not a card you put into any deck – it goes into specific builds, but those specific builds don’t exist right now. It’s not strong enough for you to add Shuffle cards only to be able to play it, but it’s strong enough to add into an already working Shuffle deck to make it better. If we get more synergies (or – to be more specific – more good ways to shuffle cards into your deck that you want to run) – I can see it working. Right now – it looks pretty weak.

Card Rating: 4/10 (but it can become much better with more synergies)

Rinling’s Rifle

Pretty simple card, nothing crazy, but it just packs a lot of value into a single card. For 4 mana, you get two Hunter Secrets, which are worth 4 mana. You could argue that “random” Secrets are worth less, but they aren’t exactly random. Thanks to Discover, you can pick whatever you need in a given situation. Then, the 2/2 weapon is virtually free. All of that packed into a single card. That’s… really good. The only downside really is that it’s a bit “slow”, in a way that you don’t get both Secrets immediately, but you need to attack twice. Plus, tying Secrets to attacks is clunky at times, e.g. if you face a Taunt minion that you don’t want to swing into. But barring those details, it’s a quite strong card. It might even be strong enough to run ina Midrange/Highlander builds that don’t play other Secret synergies.

But, of course, it gets even better if you DO run Secret synergies. For now, it’s the new Petting Zoo. You can drop Rifle on T4, swing, then play a Secret from your hand, swing again and drop Petting Zoo. In the worst case scenario, this play will end up summoning 3x 3/3, but possibly even 4 if the Secret from previous turn will still be up (and you’ll also have 2-3 Secrets in play). That’s a pretty amazing Turn 5. You could also swing and play Hyena Alpha on T5, but then you’re floating 1 mana if you can’t fill it with something else. Honestly, that already might be enough of a reason to build a more Secret-heavy Midrange Hunter build, and I guess that we might see another Secret synergy or two this expansion.

Oh, and the card obviously synergizes with extra attacks, but it’s not like Hunter has an easy way to give it more Durability like Warrior. I mean, there’s Captain Greenskin, which MIGHT be a consideration honestly (because in a Secret Hunter build you’d also run Eaglehorn Bow, which can also be buffed with Greenskin), but it will need to be tested first. Either way, it will obviously be an auto-include in a Secret Hunter build, but can also find its way into non-Secret builds (although Midrange, not Aggro).

Card Rating: 8/10

Tenwu of the Red Smoke

Alright, this card looks really good. As proven by Shadowstep, bouncing minions back and replaying them in Rogue is a great play. And for any minion that costs 3 mana, that’s a Shadowstep on a stick. If the minion costs more – it gets even better. Yeah, the downside is that the discount doesn’t stay between turns, but then it would probably lead to some broken combos.

For example, a 6 mana minion bounced back with this will get a 5 mana discount. And you know what costs 6? Flik Skyshiv. Heistbaron Togwaggle. Kronx Dragonhoof. Shadowstepping those is already a really nice play most of the time. How about playing them for 1 mana, with full stats?

Oh, and you know what card synergizes with Shadowstep? This. For example, in the late game, you can go for Kronx, Tenwu to bounce it back, Kronx again, Shadowstep Tenwu, bounce Kronx back, play it for the third time. 15 burst damage with 3 cards (yes, and 10 mana, but that’s not THAT big of a problem for Galakrond Rogue vs a slower deck).

Okay, but hold on, hold on. As much as I like this card, it’s not an auto-include. Faster Rogue decks have no reason to play it. It’s more of a Midrange/Tempo card. It will fit decks like Galakrond Rogue or Highlander Rogue, but not any kind of Aggro build. But in the right deck, if you have right targets to bounce (and let’s just say that Rogue has at least a few of those), this card is nuts. I expect it to see tons of play over its time in Standard.

Card Rating: 9/10

Sayge, Seer of Darkmoon

More Secret Mage synergy. It seems that we might end up with two Secret decks this expansion – Mage & Hunter. To be completely honest, this one is a pretty nice pay-off for playing Secrets. Note that it’s any Secret that triggered, not any Secret that you played, so it will also work on Secrets you get from Ring Toss.

Secret Mage NEEDS card draw. That’s the reason why Aluneth was the key card in the build. Yes, you can do a lot of cool plays. Yes, you can gain some crazy tempo. But you also run out of steam pretty quickly. And since Secret Mage is heavily burn-based, you rarely win games when you can’t draw cards.

I suspect that this should draw 3-4 cards on average when you play it on curve in Secret Mage (rememeber that it draws 1 at the base level, so you only need 2-3 Secrets to draw that many). Probably more if you play it later in the game, but even 3-4 cards ain’t bad at all in a deck that wants to cycle, wants to find the burn. Yeah, the card is slow, because you spend 6 mana on playing a 5/5 that’s pure value. But given how nice the deck’s tempo is, slowing down for a turn shouldn’t matter that much, because you might be able to catch up quickly. Additionally, since your curve will be low (I don’t expect that you will play any other 6+ mana cards), you can also “tutor” it with Lorekeeper Polkelt and then draw your burn cards like Cloud Prince and Fireball. This combo can make for a really great finisher.

Sayge is a very narrow synergy card – whether it sees play or not completely depends on whether Secret Mage is good enough. If no – then drawing a bunch of cards in a bad deck won’t change a thing. If yes, then it will supplement the deck really well. Overall, it seems that Team 5 is pushing Secret Mage pretty hard, so I think that it should see at least some play.

Card Rating: 8/10 in Secret Mage (but obviously sucks outside of it).

Deck of Lunacy

This is lunacy! I have absolutely no clue what to think about it. On the one one hand, the effect is really powerful. Having spells that cost 3 mana less is great, even if they’re random. Getting 1 mana Swipes or Blessing of Kings, 2 mana Psyche Split or Starfall etc. is just so good. On the other hand, Deck of Lunacy feels… wrong. Kind of reminds me of Renounce Darkness – but of course what is essentially a 3 mana discount is way more powerful than 1 mana discount.

The biggest upside of playing it is that all the spells you have in your deck now will be incredibly efficient tempo-wise. Even meh spells will become AMAZING at 3 mana discount. Let’s say that Ray of Frost turns into Multi-Shot. Or Mindgames. Or maybe Unsleeping Soul. They’re pretty bad cards, but if you make them cost 1, they’re now good – much better than the original one. If you take a spell that was already good, it will be completely overpowered. For that reason, I’m not dismissing the card and I think that it might actually be decent.

At the same time, randomness of this card is HORRIBLE. First of all – you have no clue what’s in your deck, so you don’t know what to expect, you can’t make any real plans. You’ve decided to go for the aggressive plays, push your opponent and hope to find some burn… and it turns out that your deck is full of slow, value cards. Not to mention that there are many cards which will simply be useless. And I don’t mean bad – useless. How about Blade Flurry without a weapon? Soul Split without Demons? Hunting Party without Beasts? And so on, and so on. There are lots of cards with very specific synergies in mind, and getting them randomly won’t be good in nearly any situation.

Someone will need to do serious math – or even better – the card will need to be extensively playtested in different builds, with different mana distribution of spells. If anything, the deck I think it might see play in is some kind of Tempo / Small Spell Mage. “Small spell” part is pretty key. 4-6 mana spells discounted to 1-3 mana give you much more tempo than let’s say a 10 cost spell discounted to 7. Seven is still a lot, yeah, it’s much better than 10, but you can’t really make any insane tempo plays with those. While in case of 1-3 mana spells, you could go for your usual Tempo Mage gameplay, but (hopefully) use stronger cheap spells.

I’m leaning more towards a meme card that has its moments and creates some really cool clips for Trolden video. I feel like there might be a deck built around it, but it will be T3 or something. I feel like having more expensive spells that are consistent and a deck with coherent game plan will still be more powerful than having stronger (for the mana cost), but random spells. That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m wrong and it turns out to be completely broken – that’s why take this rating with a grain of salt, because I’m really guessing here.

Card Rating: 4/10

Grand Totem Eys’or

I have to say that it FEELS strong… especially since it buffs everything – board, hand and deck. But feels strong doesn’t mean is strong. Let me explain why.

Of course, buffing every minion of a given type is a good effect, but you need to run that type in the first place. And I think that’s the biggest problem with this card right now – Totem Shaman doesn’t really run that many Totems. Totem Goliath and EVIL Totem are staples, but that’s only 4 cards. Even if you throw in Mana Tide Totem AND Trick Totem (which I hate), that’s still only 8. Giving 8 cards in your deck +1/+1 each, because let’s be honest – it won’t likely survive for longer than a single turn – is not great. Additionally, in case of Totem Goliath, 5/5 vs 6/6 doesn’t make such a big difference. It of course does more for smaller totems. Turning EVIL Totem into a 1/3, for example, is a big deal. Not only it’s harder to remove (2 AoE is easier to get than 3, for example), but it also punches back against the trades. 0/2 can be cleared by a 2/1 minion, 1/3 can’t and it would kill the minion too.

So yeah, the effect is okay, but it’s on a 3 mana 0/4 minion. That’s a big tempo loss, and unless you have some totem already on the board, you might not get any kind of advantage from it until a turn or two later.

In order for this card to make any serious impact, it either needs to buff more than once (e.g. if you copy it with Totemic Reflection and it sticks to the board) or you need to run more Totems… But making it trigger multiple times is hard (you need to wait until T6 to copy it, or let’s say Lightning Bloom it out on T1 so opponent won’t be able to clear it). And there are no more good Totems you want to run – right now you run 4-6 Totems, 2 of which are Goliaths, which like I’ve said aren’t the best buff targets.

Like… if you wait until very late game, then play this + Totemic Reflection + Splitting Axe… You get 4x 5/9 Totem on board and all of the Totems in your hand/deck have +4/+4. But that’s a 10 mana, 3 cards play, it’s not something you can easily pull off in Totem Shaman. Both Reflection and Splitting Axe are key cards that you can’t just save.

So I’m not sold on this card. I think that for it to see serious play, we would need to be able to fill like half of our decks with solid Totems. Is there a chance for that? Of course, but I doubt that it will happen this expansion.

Card Rating: 3/10

Shadow Clone

New Rogue Secret! I’m really happy that they’re pushing the theme after all, Rogue is the class in which Secrets make most sense IMO. They got some in Kobolds & Catacombs, but then Blizzard didn’t push more of them all the way until Ashes of Outland – and now it seems that they’re getting some new ones every expansion. But back to the card itself.

This is… kind of like a combination of like a Mirror Entity, but for minions that are already on the board? With Stealth? Stealth is a big advantage, but to be perfectly honest, I’m not a big fan of it. It’s easier to play around than Mirror Entity and Mirror Entity is already quite easy to play around. See, here’s the thing. If you face Aggro – they will likely have some small minions on the board. They can just attack face and give you one of them, then you played 2 mana for some 2/1 with Stealth. That’s… pretty bad. Mirror Entity is at least more awkward against Control decks. For example, if they are forced to play a big Taunt and then you also get a copy. It doesn’t work like that with Shadow Clone. Since it triggers on face attack, they can just not attack your face. Heck, a lot of time they won’t even want to – if they manage to stick a minion in the first place, they will most likely prioritize board control.

I feel like it will be most powerful against Midrange decks that managed to finally stick some pretty good minion. On the one hand, they really don’t want to give it to you, but on the other, they have to attack face, or else they might not be able to win. That kind of dillema is what makes the card strong at times. But “at times” is not enough IMO. Other playable Rogue Secrets trigger much more consistently – be it when your opponent PLAYS a minion (Ambush), plays a spell (Dirty Tricks) or… plays any cards (Plagiarize). This is sometimes really, really strong, but it’s a bit too situational. Maybe it will see some play in the right meta, but I don’t see it as a card that’s just a Rogue staple.

That said, even though I don’t think it’s great, having access to more Secrets is always a good thing. The more playable Secrets there are, the harder it is for your opponent to play around them. Like, even if it didn’t see common meta play, your opponent will still need to have it in mind before attacking your face – because he doesn’t want to lose in the off chance you actually play it. That will make him sometimes play around it even if you don’t run it.

Card Rating: 4/10

Cenarion Ward

By itself, without other synergies, you probably don’t want to put it into your deck. Yes, there aren’t many low-rolls (Natalie Seline is the worst one I think) and you can sometimes high roll, plus you get 8 extra Armor, but the randomness just doesn’t seem worth it. It’s not terrible, but… meh. However, luckily, there are some ways to make the card work.

First and most importantly – Kael'thas Sunstrider. It’s another big pay-off card for Kael. Playing it for just 1 mana is a exactly what you want to be doing with Kael. It’s defensive because you gain some Armor, so it’s not bad against faster decks. You create another body, so even if Kael dies, you will still have something up. It’s just good.

And it’s getting even better with Solar Eclipse. Yeah – when revieving the card, I’ve said that the more solid, high cost cards we get, the better it becomes. So, for 8 mana you can summon a single 8-drop and gain 8 Armor… but for 10 mana you can summon two 8-drops and gain 16 Armor. That’s a big difference for just 2 mana – and we all know that it’s not hard to get 2 mana with Druid (Lightning Bloom comes to mind).

Now, the question is – do you want to run it over Guardian Animals? Guardian Animals are certainly better, especially during Kael’Thas turn (because you can clear the board and protect Kael), but you need to build a deck around them with all the 5-Cost Beasts. And it doesn’t work nearly as well with Eclipse, because you often won’t have enough minions to pull.

The card has some cool synergies, but late game in Druid is already highly contested. It will be hard to fit both Guardian Animals and this, but maybe people will try. The card by itself is meh, but it certainly has potential because of synergies.

Card Rating: 5/10

Deathmatch Pavilion

It’s simple – if you activate the effect, it’s a great card. And if you don’t – it’s terrible.

Let’s start with the second scenario. While 2 mana 3/2 is not the worst thing you can drop ever, it’s… not good. Like, you wouldn’t play Bloodfen Raptor, would you? That will seriously hinder your win rate.

But going back to the first one. The perfect case scenario is equipping a weapon on Turn 1, then dropping this on T2. Summoning 2x 3/2 on T2 is AMAZING. It’s a lot of pressure vs slower decks and outside of some rare cases, with a small weapon + 2x 3/2 you establish board control vs faster decks. That said… we don’t have any 1 mana weapon. And even if we did – you wouldn’t always draw it on T1. Later in the game, it’s still a solid play, but it’s no longer as good as on curve.

We still have to wait for the rest of Shaman reveals. If a 1 mana weapon gets released, this card will make much more sense. Overall, if Shaman will get more incentive to swing with weapons, I’m quite sure that it will be playable. If not – well… not really. I think it has potential, but I can’t rate it too highly without knowing exactly how the synergies will turn out.

Card Rating: 6/10

Insatiable Felhound

Insatiable Felhound is a pretty solid card, but I’m not sure if any DH deck would really want to play it.

What I like about it most is that even at the very base level it’s a 3 mana 2/5 with Taunt, which is playable, unlike some of the Corrupt cards. It’s important to note that Demon Hunter doesn’t have a ton of great T3 plays, so if that’s the only thing you can do, it’s not bad. Then, after it’s upgraded, it’s a 3 mana 3/6 Taunt with Lifesteal. A better Ashtongue Battlelord for 3 mana. Of course, you can’t actually play it on Turn 3, when it would be strongest, but Taunt + Lifesteal combo is solid against faster decks even on T5 if you can use the other 2 mana points in some nice way.

So the card is not bad. In fact, it’s quite good. But what Demon Hunter decks would want it? Soul? Probably not. Aggro? Definitely not. Token? Still not. Control DH also doesn’t really rely on minions that much, it’s mostly focused on removal SPELLS. The best I can think of is some slow Midrange build. It’s a Demon, so maybe a deck with Demon synergies? I think that we’ll need to see all the cards to figure it out. So while it’s a good card, I’m honestly not sure if any DH deck will run it.

Card Rating: 7/10

Felsteel Executioner

Interesting, I didn’t think about that. It’s a minion that turns into weapon… which might seem a bit weird, but it gives the card a lot of flexibility. Like yeah, a 3 mana 4/3 is not good, but if you really don’t need a weapon or have no other play (and like I’ve said – DH doesn’t have many good Turn 3 plays anyway), you can just play it instead.

4/3 weapon for 3 mana is AMAZING. While you obviously can’t drop it on curve, it’s still tons of damage for cheap. In Soul DH, you could probably replace Hoard Pillager with it. Hoard Pillager has a big downside of being useless unless you already had a weapon equipped – this can BE a weapon, but it can also be a minion when you don’t need it. Like, if you already have Aldrachi Warblades and Marrowslicer in your hand and it will take you a long time to get through both, you can just drop it as a minion. But if you don’t get other weapons, wait until T5 and get a 4/3 one. Similarly in Aggro DH – but this time it’s often more about whether you have a way to Corrupt it. If you do, you can keep it and play other small stuff instead. If you don’t, then you can still use it as a 4/3.

And there’s also Bladed Lady synergy – running more high attack weapons is not a bad idea to make activating her easier. You still need to play something other than your Hero Power (Twin Slice etc.) but having a weapon up for 3-4 turns should make it quite easy to activate her.

Overall, seems like a really good card. I expect it to see a bunch of play.

Card Rating: 8/10

Cascading Disaster

That looks like a really good Control Warlock card. For a few reasons. Even at the very base, it’s not that bad. Yes, it’s a worse Deadly Shot, but context is important. Warlock SUCKS when it comes to single target removal. The class has access to many good AoE ones, but really nothing in the single target department. Like, even strong, slow Warlock decks were forced to play Siphon Soul, which is a bad card, just because there were no other options.

So yes, it won’t be good, but it will sometimes be what you need. However, things get much better ever after a single upgrade. Control Warlock taps a lot, so the deck can actually hold some “dead” cards without having to worry about them too much. So by the time you would normally be able to play Siphon Soul, so Turn 6, assuming you played a 5-drop, this card will now clear 2 targets. For 4 mana as opposed to 6 (so you can also tap or play something else for 1-2). And that’s great. Of course, you lose the ability to target, which might suck against certain board states (like 3-4 small minions and one big minion), but overall destroying random 2 minions for 4 is really solid, especially in Warlock.

But that’s not it – you can upgrade it again! Now, destroying 3 minions for 4 is straight up OP. Of course, you have to do some work to get there, but once you do it’s going to be a massive swing.

The card also has AMAZING synergy with Y'Shaarj, The Defiler. If you run it as a big finisher, it’s exactly what you need. Now you will be able to drop Y’Shaarj from behind and play this to destroy 2-3 minions. Or if you play Y’Shaarj on an empty board, as a proactive play, you simply don’t play and save it for later.

If you play a Control Warlock, you most likely want this card. How good Control Warlock will be? Hard to say. As always, one of the biggest issues with the build is access to healing. Because Hero Powering (and some other effects) cost Health, you always need some way to regain it. We’ll see how it ultimately works, but between Old Gods (and the new Tickatus) serving as a late game win condition, and the class getting some more Control tools, it might be pretty good.

Card Rating: 8/10

Jewel of N’Zoth

Yeeaaaah… Seems too expensive, to be honest. Like yes, reviving 3 minions for 8 mana is not a bad deal, but only if you run big minions that are worth reviving. Like in Priest, when you played Mass Resurrection, you didn’t want to pollut your deck with any small minions. Jewel of N’Zoth is a bit more flexible in that matter, since it only targets Deathrattle minions. Which means that you THEORETICALLY can limit your deck to only running big Deathrattles… but I don’t think that will fly in Hunter.

Deathrattle decks are already slow for Hunter, running only big Deathrattles would be way, way too clunky. You need to start getting your synergies much earlier. Like, Mok'Nathal Lion is one of your Deathrattle synergies, but you can’t have it as a dead card until late game. Same goes for Nine Lives – yes, it works best with big Deathrattles, but you want the flexibility to play it on something like Bloated Python for tempo.

For this card to really work, you’d need to play a bunch of those big Deathrattle minions – be it Darkmoon Tonk, Savannah Highmane or maybe Neutral options like Plagued Protodrake or Khartut Defender. Then this card would be amazing. But a Hunter deck can’t really go that top-heavy or it will just collapse under itself.

I have to say that for now I’m not seeing a Big Deathrattle Hunter deck. For this kind of deck to work, Hunter needs a) way more synergies and b) some good way to get through the early / mid game without losing tempo despite holding a bunch of high cost dead cards, because you simply won’t come back once you fall far behind. Like, I would love a big revive card like that in another class, a class that can actually go for a really slow and greedy Midrange deck without dying to any Aggro deck on the way there. Maybe other reveals will change it, I don’t know. So far I’m not that excited. I give it 4 because it has potential, but unless some really good synergies that push this kind of archetype get released, I’m not seeing it.

Card Rating: 4/10

Tickatus

Control Warlock is back on the menu? Because this certianly looks like a solid win condition for the deck. But first things first – if you think about running it in something like Zoo, don’t bother. 6 mana 8/8 isn’t THAT good anyway (yeah, it’s solid, but won’t win you the game) and you will never upgrade it. Yes, burning 5 cards from your deck isn’t THAT scary in Zoo, but it matters with how much the deck cycles. And yeah – it will disrupt your cycling, because now Nightshade Matron might hit it instead of Hand of Gul'dan. Not a good deal.

But Control Warlock… Oh my. While yes, this is HARD to Corrupt, and you will never want to drop an uncorrupted verison, this is your win condition against Control, so it’s not like you have to drop it as soon as possible or anything. Even if you run just a few cards that upgrade it, that’s okay, that’s enough. Then you drop it and burn 5 cards from your opponent’s deck while putting a big threat. That’s already solid, but imagine running Y'Shaarj, The Defiler as your top end and getting it again, then dropping for 0 mana during big Y’Shaarj turn. Huge board swing, 5 more cards gone. Even considering that you will draw more than your opponent as a Warlock, burning 10 cards from their deck will likely put you ahead in the fatigue war. It also has a very high chance of burning some of their key cards. Against Combo decks, if they don’t get there fast enough, you might get rid of their combo piece (like Malygos). And against regular Control decks… I don’t know there’s honestly a lot. Maybe a Galakrond, maybe their big threat (like Rattlegore against Warrior). There’s plenty of stuff you can get rid of.

I mean, theoretically you could also run Felosophy to burn up to 20 cards, but I think that’s getting too greedy. By the point you draw Tickatus, Corrupt it, play it, then play Y’Shaarj, your opponent won’t likely have more than 10 cards to burn anyway.

And the best thing is that it’s not some huge package – you can still optimize your deck to deal with Aggro and run this, Y’Shaarj and a few higher cost cards to destroy some slower decks. I might be overhyping it, but I think that it’s one of the best cards from this expansion, if not THE best one. Of course, whether it sees play still depends on whether Control Warlock sees play… So despite it being nuts, it might not even be playable. How funny would that be?

Card Rating: 10/10

Auspicious Spirits

Meh. Just meh. When not upgraded, it’s a trash card. You never want to pay 4 mana to summon a random 4-Cost minion. The pool is ful of some small, irrelevant minions, it’s a tempo loss. Of course, if the Corrupted version would be amazing, then the card might be redeemed. But is it?

No, it’s not. Honestly, it’s not BAD, like you would play it if you could, but not as something that you can play on Turn 6 at the earliest. Like okay, there are some high-rolls – like if you get Archmage Antonidas and play a few spells on T10… Or you get Winged Guardian. Sure, that will be amazing. But then again, there are so many low rolls. And I mean low rolls – Barrens Stablehand, Dinotamer Brann, Dragoncaster, Lady Liadrin, Silas Darkmoon, Soulciologist Malicia, Valdris Felgorge… Like, those are just stats with no effect – and stats that you wouldn’t even play for 4 mana without all the upgrading shenanigans. But let’s even say an average outcome – you get something like War Golem. Great, right? Well, not really. Sure, 4 mana 7/7 is good, but ON TURN 7. Against faster decks, it’s way too slow. And slower decks won’t really care in the late game, they will just remove it.

If it was DISCOVER a 7-Cost minion, so you could just avoid the low-rolls, it would be a different story. Even then I’m not sure if it would be good enough to see play, but you could consider it. Right now, absolutely not. I guess you will still play it from time to time, since Priest generates so many random spells, and then if you have it for free it won’t be useless in slower matchups, but I would never put it into my deck. EVEN with Y'Shaarj, The Defiler (random 7-Cost minion is not what you need on your Y’Shaarj turn).

Card Rating: 2/10

Strongman

Interesting card. It kind of reminds me of a bigger version of Arcane Tyrant (or Druid’s Anubisath Defender). Those cards are bad, nearly unplayable by themselves… But they become free if you make an expensive play, allowing you to push extra tempo during that turn.

Yes, there are some differences. Those only activated from spells and they had worse stats… but a 5 mana spell would be enough. In case of Strongman, you need to play an 8 mana card first. And honestly that’s quite a lot to ask for. Many decks don’t even play 8 mana cards, or don’t play enough of them to be able to consistently discount it. It’s not a card that most of decks will ever consider running… BUT, it can be really powerful in certain decks.

One example would be Control Warlock. Twisting Nether + this or even two copies of this is a huge play. Against Aggro it’s basically game over unless they can kill you with burn – you clear the board and put a huge wall, you will never lose board control anymore. And against Control decks, it’s a big swing, letting you completely regain initiative. Similar story in Control Shaman – Tidal Wave / Walking Fountain + this is also pretty big play. 0 mana 6/6 Taunt is amazing in those situations. Maybe Highlander Mage? The deck plays a bunch of 8+ mana cards like Deep Freeze, Power of Creation, Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron, The Amazing Reno…

And of course, it has great synergy with Y'Shaarj, The Defiler. The best thing about it is that if you need to Taunt up on the same turn you play Y’Shaarj – you can do it. But if you’re already ahead and you don’t need to, you can save it and have a 0 mana 6/6 Taunt for later.

Definitely not many decks will run it – it’s too slow for most of them. But those that will should quite appreciate it.

Card Rating: 7/10

Optimistic Ogre

Nice meme.

Card Rating: 10/10