Descent of Dragons Card Review #6 – Stormhammer, Kaahrj, Chronobreaker, Platebreaker, Embiggen, Goru, Dragonmaw Poacher, Murozond and more!

Descent of Dragons is the upcoming Hearthstone expansion, releasing on December 10th! Reveal season is in full force now, so it’s time to continue card reviews!

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 – it might be playable in some decks, but 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 with 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. 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!

Check out our other card reviews:

• Descent of Dragons Card Review #1 – Galakrond Hero Cards, Invoke Cards, Malygos, Nozdormu, Ysera, Deathwing, Waxadred and more!
• Descent of Dragons Card Review #2 – Breath Cards, Dragon Explorers, Dragonbane, Phase Stalker, Learn Draconic, Toxic Reinforcements and more!
• Descent of Dragons Card Review #3 – Talritha, Shu’ma, Galakrond, the Unbreakable, Nether Breath, Amber Watcher, Kronx Dragonhoof, Veranus, and more!
• Descent of Dragons Card Review #4 – Sanctuary, Flik Skyshiv, Valdris Felgorge, Chromatic Egg, Chenvaala, Dragonqueen Alexstrasza and more!
• Descent of Dragons Card Review #5 – Ancharr, Kobold Stickyfinger, Cumulo-Maximus, Zzeraku, Nithogg, Bandersmosh, Frizz Kindleroost and more!
• Descent of Dragons Card Review #7 – Wing Commander, Storm’s Wrath, Sky Claw, Galakrond the Tempest, Rolling Fireball, Mana Giant and more!
• Descent of Dragons Card Review #8 (Final) – Violet Spellwing, Elemental Allies, Skybarge, Aeroponics, Skyfin, Squallhunter, Tasty Flyfish and more!

Depth Charge

It’s Doombarrel! I have to say that I really like the card. In general, I think that Doomsayer is one of the best designed cards in Hearthstone, rewarding clever use, reading your opponent’s hand, timing and so on. Which means that I, naturally, like Depth Charge too.

Overall, the cards are very comparable, but they can be useful in slightly different metas. Depth Charge is better than Doomsayer, because it’s cheaper – Doomsayer is better, because it has more health and removes any minions, no matter how much health they have. “Cheaper” is the main argument going for Depth Charge, but it’s a good one – the difference between 1 and 2 mana is pretty big. Or let me rephrase that – it’s big in the early game. Later in the game, it honestly doesn’t matter that much. But in a very aggressive meta, Turn 2 Dooomsayer might actually be too slow, especially if you go second. T1 Depth Charge is much more difficult to remove, even when going second. And if we look at the early game, 5 damage is often as good as infinite damage (the only exception are Divine Shield minions, which only get their DS triggered with damage).

In theory, Depth Charge is not necessarily “one time” use like Doomsayer. If it survives damage, it can go off next turn too. But let’s be honest – that’s super rare. You don’t really want to waste buffs on a minion like that, and even if you let’s say play Priest and decide to throw in a Power Word: Shield, it’s unlikely that your opponent won’t have 2 damage. So while it might be useful from time to time, I don’t think that it will really make a big difference.

I could see Depth Charge being used instead of Doomsayer against really aggressive meta, or at least as the 3rd or 4th Doomsayer sometimes – also against early board flood meta. It’s not a bad card, but I feel like most of the time Doomsayer will be better. That 1 mana difference gets less and less relevant going into the mid and late game.

Card rating: 6/10 – worse than Doomsayer in general, but can come handy in some metas

Tentacled Menace

Eh, on the one hand I’m glad that we finally have some meme cards – it’s a nice break from the overpowered cards we’re seeing all the time from this expansion, but I’m not a big fan of this design.

This card is pretty weird in general. While yes, 6/5 is a decent stat-line for a 5-drop (you’d prefer 5/6, but it’s still vanilla stats), the effect is mirrored and way too random. You have no way to control what card you or your opponent will draw. The only way to gain some kind of advantage is to have, on average, higher cost cards than your opponent – so if you play it against let’s say an Aggro deck, then you will probably get a mana cost discount, while theirs will get increased. But that’s… not really very impactful? You’re still giving an Aggro deck a card, you’re still spending your Turn 5 not impacting board in any way and so on. Running it in combo decks to discount let’s say a Malygos (because let’s face it – it would nearly always get cheaper) is also inconsistent, because you never know when Malygos is the top card of your deck.

It’s a bit like Griftah, but even more swingy. Has some serious high-roll potential (you drawing some high cost minion and getting the mana cost switched with 1-drop), but on the other hand it can fail miserably (your opponent drawing a combo piece and you discounting it heavily).

Right now I fail to see any real world use for this card, the closest thing is playing a “big” deck, especially with Giants. E.g. Mountain Giant would most likely be 0 mana after you change its cost to something like 4-5, and your opponent’s card would be unplayable at 12 mana. If you run a lot of expensive cards, then you will very often get a solid discount. Maybe something like Big Paladin? But to be perfectly honest, I don’t think that’s what the deck needs, especially since it also runs cheap spells (so there’s a low-roll potential) and because it’s a low-roll for Duel! (which is one of the stronger cards in the deck). Maybe we’ll have a deck that wants to use it, but I’m not seeing it right now.

Card rating: 3/10

Stormhammer

Yep, I was really surprised that it’s a Hunter weapon. Probably just like most of you, I assumed Shaman – it’s a hammer, and a STORMhammer at that. The card art looks like Shaman’s, and while the effect is a bit more “neutral”, I could imagine it fitting Shaman too… But I guess that Stormhammer is the weapon used by Gryphon Riders, and Hunter is the class focused on Gryphons this expansion (maybe the last Legendary will be someone like Falstad? who knows?) Anyway, ignoring the flavor, this is just a really solid weapon.

This is, in fact, one of the closest things we ever had to an infinite weapon. The only better example would probably be Kingsbane, but it still lost durability and you still had to re-draw it (it wasn’t difficult, but that’s another story). We also had the infamous Tentacles for Arms, but the fact that you had to pay 5 mana for a 2/2 weapon every second turn pretty much disqualified it. Stormhammer, on the other hand, is infinite as long as you can drop Dragons on the board. So, you play it on T3 and swing – then next turn you play a Dragon and swing again for free, if it survives then you have another swing – if it doesn’t, then you play another Dragon and do it again. It is a pretty harsh requirement for a regular Hunter deck, since it doesn’t really play Dragons… but if you put it into a DRAGON Hunter deck, then everything comes together. In the end, Stormhammer will be that to Dragon Hunter decks what Eaglehorn Bow is to Secret Hunter decks. Eaglehorn Bow can also get up to 5+ charges quite easily in a dedicated Secret deck. Depending on the Dragon density in your build, Stormhammer might be even better than that.

Dealing 3 damage per turn is obviously very powerful. Even if you ignore board control, just swinging it at the opponent’s face can make a big difference in lots of matchups. If you play against decks that can’t gain health very easily, between weapon swing and HP you can deal 5 damage per turn, every turn – that’s A LOT. This weapon is another no-brainer card – if you run Dragon Hunter, you play two copies, just like that. It’s just too good to pass. That said, I’m still not convinced when it comes to Dragon Hunter. This is a good card, yes, but we’ve already seen all of the Hunter cards for this expansion and… Corrosive Breath is the only “Holding a Dragon” synergy for the class. And I’m not a big fan of it. Yes, it’s good to clear a minion early and still deal 3 face damage, but later in the game it doesn’t add any extra burn than a regular 3 damage for 2 mana card would, you can’t hit face twice. Then it’s a very aggressive card. You could say that so is Stormhammer, but the Legendary Dragon Hunter got – Veranus – is not an Aggro card. Things just don’t seem to fit together for the class…

So long story short, if Dragon Hunter will see play, this will be a staple. But at this point I don’t think that Dragon Hunter will be a strong meta deck. Even in a Highlander form, I feel like right now Secret package has more to offer than Dragon package and it will be very difficult to fit both.

Card rating: 9/10 in Dragon Hunter, but I don’t have that much faith in the deck, so 5/10 in general

Mindflayer Kaahrj

Kaahrj is a very, and I mean VERY powerful Tempo Priest card… but you probably already see the problem. Tempo Priest? What am I even talking about? Well, decks like that were attempted multiple times in the past, including last expansion, when Wretched Reclaimer and Psychopomp became solid additions. But it was quickly made obsolete by Combo version. But first, let me explain why it’s strong.

You get a 3 mana 3/3 as a base. That’s what it will be when you drop it on an empty board. Bad – but luckily, the requirement for it to be something better is not high. As long as your opponent has a minion, any minion, it will be much better. Of course – getting a 1/1 from Deathrattle is not good, I could see something like that as a Neutral Common pack filler. But as you go up, even to a stupid 2/3 or 3/2, now that’s more interesting. Let’s be fair – it won’t be hard to hit a 2-drop, any deck you face will play some minions like that. So you can easily count that as a floor. 3 mana 3/3 that summons a 2/3 on death is already solid in a tempo-oriented deck. And it only gets better. You hit a 5/5 minion? Well, you get a 5/5 on Deathrattle. You hit some strong Deathrattle minion? You also get that back when Kaahrj dies. This is simply so much stats for a 3-drop, and it has insane late game scaling. The later you’re into the game, the better it can be. Of course, later in the game the 3/3 body gets less meaningful, but at the same time, it’s still better to have than 99% of 3-drops if you can get a big minion out of its Deathrattle.

Now, the issue is – like I’ve said at the beginning – is that it fits into a very specific Priest build. It’s not a Combo Priest card. It’s not a Control Priest card. And it’s definitely not a Resurrect Priest card. So realistically, it fits into some kind of Tempo / Midrange archetype that cares about stats on the board, wants to get ahead and get those big tempo swings. So there are two options. Either Tempo Priest finally takes off… which probably won’t happen unless the last few cards Priest gets support this kind of archetype. Or it will be played in Dragon Priest. That’s something I can actually see. Dragon decks happen to fall somewhere in the “Midrange” range. So I could see it being played in Dragon Priest… unless the deck will already be packed with other synergies, and this card will fall not make a cut in the end. It’s hard to say without seeing all the cards, but it has some potential. And if Tempo Priest takes off at any point in the next year, I would expect this to be a staple (there’s a chance given how many strong card the deck already has from just this year).

Card rating: 8/10 in Tempo Priest, but that’s not a thing, so like 6/10 in Dragon Priest and 3/10 in anything else

Chronobreaker

Let me preface with the fact that I do think that Chronobreaker is a solid card. But I also think that it’s heavily overvalued by lots of players, compared to Duskbreaker, as if those two were on a similar power level. No, they aren’t – Chronobreaker is much, MUCH weaker. AoE clears that come on Deathrattle are way weaker than those that come out on Battlecry (or on Spells). Then, AoE clears on Deathrattles when minion has no Taunt are even worse. If you put a Taunt up (e.g. the oldschool Chillmaw), opponent at least can’t ignore it or first do the trades in a way that benefits him before triggering it. Since Priest has no cheap, reliable way to trigger it (there’s Wretched Reclaimer, but it costs 3 mana, bumping the total mana cost of the combo to 8 – that’s really late), it’s just not a consistent form of AoE.

Of course, like I’ve said at the beginning, it’s still not a bad card, but clearing the board is just not its main use, however weird it might sound. The idea is that you don’t play it reactively against opponent that already has a board (of course, you can do that, but it won’t always be great) – it can also be played PROACTIVELY, which can be good in a more Midrange build. In the end, it’s still a 4/5 Dragon for 5 mana – you’re paying 1 more mana (4/5 are vanilla stats for a 4-drop) for a pretty powerful Deathrattle. You drop it on curve and it makes things awkward for your opponent, because they know that you threaten 3 AoE damage once it dies. Plus, it doesn’t even need to be AoE damage – you can just use it to do a 1 on 1 trade against a bigger minion. Your opponent has a 7/7? You can attack it and it will die – the “AoE” part is wasted, but it’s still 3 extra damage.

It should still slot into Dragon Priest – not every card you play in a deck has to be overpowered. This is just a solid midrange Dragon. Might get even better if we get some way to trigger its Deathrattle more reliably among the Priest cards we haven’t seen yet.

Card rating: 6/10 in Dragon Priest, useless outside

Bronze Explorer

That’s pretty much something I’ve expected from Paladin’s Explorer Dragon. It’s not the best explorer we’ve seen so far, but it’s still okay. 3 mana 2/3 stats are obviously bad, it’s very unlikely to trade up. In fact, it will most likely die against other 3-drops without even killing them. It reminds me a bit of Vulpera Scoundrel, which was a popular pick in Highlander Mage decks. It’s a slow 3-drop that adds some extra value. But in case of Bronze Explorer, you also get a Dragon tag to synergize with the rest of your deck + Discover another Dragon which once again lets you trigger your synergies. In that context, the card is pretty solid. Lifesteal is a nice touch in a faster meta, but it’s going to be pretty useless against slower decks. Hunter’s Poisonous works much better most of the time, since it lets the 2/3 body trade into bigger stuff. On the upside, Dragon Paladin seems to be about handbuffs at least to a certain extent – so later in the game if it gets hit by +3/+3 from either Dragon Speaker or Dragonrider Talritha, the 5/6 body will be much more menacing than a measly 2/3. Yes, Lifesteal also stacks nicely with handbuffs, but a) it’s pretty slow against Aggro without Rush and such and b) more Lifesteal is still just as pointless against slow decks.

It will certainly slot in Highlander Dragon Paladin if that will be a thing, since it provides not one, but two Dragons in total, and Highlander decks are always struggling for tribe cards, since they can only put 1 of each. When it comes to regular Dragon Paladin, it will probably depends on the number of playable Dragons you have. With the card we know right now I’d say that you still want to play it, but if we get let’s say 2 more good Dragons, this might get pushed out of the base 30 list.

Honestly, not much else I can say about it – solid card in Dragon Paladin, but nothing impressive.

Card rating: 6/10

Cobalt Spellkin

I really like the design, it’s a very cool effect. It being Neutral means that you can fit it into a class that happens to have strongest 1 mana spells or cheap spell synergies at the time. 5 mana 3/5 is pretty slow, but you’re also essentially drawing “2 cards” – not impactful by themselves, but if they happen to synergize well with your deck, things might work out quite well.

Right now, the class I’m seeing it fitting most into is obviously Mage. Cyclone Mage shenanigans take a lot of 1 cost spells and put them into good use. Mana Cyclone and the new Chenvaala would love extra cheap spells, especially since there’s as solid chance that one of those spells will be Twinspell (Ray of Frost) or Discover another one (Arcane Breath, Magic Trick). In fact, between this card and Arcane Breath, it seems that some kind of Cyclone/Dragon Mage Hybrid might be something devs are aiming for.

All of that said, I don’t have high hopes for this kind of archetype. Cyclone Mage is in a really bad spot right now, and while it did get some synergies, it’s probably not enough yet. Other than Cyclone Mage, I’m not sure if Spellkin would really fit into other decks. Rogue likes cheap spells, but there aren’t many great, 1 mana spells available to the class right now. Maybe Priest? Getting Power Word: Shield is great, Embalming Ritual is also nice, so is Holy Smite and Inner Fire (some Dragons have high health and low attack, like Twilight Drake, so it might work well).

I honestly think that it would require a much longer analysis than just looking through a list of cards – what deck you want to play it in, whether it can afford to lose some tempo on T5, does it have good 1 mana spells, does it NEED those 1 mana spells and so on. In the end, it will probably just be tested in practice. I think that the card has potential, but I just can’t pin-point the exact deck it will be put into yet. The closest thing (other than that Cyclone Dragon Mage, but like I’ve said, I’m not convinced yet) are probably Highlander Dragon decks – especially classes that will be able to benefit from those 1 cost spells.

Card rating: 7/10

EVIL Quartermaster

Livewire Lance turned out to be a staple in Aggro / Tempo / Midrange Warrior (however you want to call it) simply because adding Lackeys to your hand is just good. This is only one mana more expensive than EVIL Cable Rat, while it has much better stats for the cost (1/1 for 2 vs 2/3 for 3) and adds +3 Armor on top of that. While Armor is not that useful in a faster decks, it’s still not bad – it’s always better to have it than not to have it, since it can come handy in aggressive mirrors. Especially if you put it into a more Midrange build – those often assume a Control role against Aggro, so Armor is good. I don’t think that a slower Warrior deck would want to play it, though.

If it was released in Saviors of Uldum, I would say that it will see play. However, the issue now is that Aggro / Tempo Warrior will MOST LIKELY be a Galakrond, the Unbreakable build. I honestly can’t imagine those kind of Warriors not running Galakrond package, it’s just so good. And those builds will be a bit tighter than what we’re seeing right now, because they will need to fit Invoke cards too. Between this and Livewire Lance, I think that Lance is still a slightly better for this kind of strategy (because you can attack immediately, deal face damage and you get 2 Lackeys in total). If that +3 Armor was some extra stats, or maybe Rush, then I’d rate it higher than Lance. So now the question is – will decks be able to fit it? That’s a a question we can’t answer yet, since we didn’t see all of the cards. But I have my doubts.

Still, it’s a good card and even if it won’t fit into that build, it will be just outside of the base 30. And it might see play next year after some cards rotate out and make space for it.

Card rating: 7/10, good card, but deck Aggro/Tempo Warrior lists might be too tight to fit it

Platebreaker

I’ll be honest, it’s a card I have never expected them to print. Removing a part of Armor? Sure. Removing Armor under some very specific conditions? Sure. Maybe even as a class card? Okay. But just straight up removing ALL of the Armor, with no condition, on a pretty solid 5 mana 5/5, as a Neutral Common… It’s just beyond what I have ever expected.

However, the general ratings for this card seem to be blown out of proportions. It’s a 10/10 card in very specific matchups – against decks that can gain a lot of Armor. Control Warrior, maybe slower Druid builds (especially in Wild). Or Paladin decks running High Priest Thekal. But against any other deck it’s just a 5 mana 5/5. Terrible card that you would never put into your deck. And it certainly WON’T make Control Warrior useless and so on, comments I’ve been reading ever since it was shown.

Imagine a meta in which Control Warrior is 10% of the decks you face, and let’s say any other Armor stacking decks are another 5%. That’s a fair assumption – even when Control Warrior was very strong this year, it rarely passed that 10% mark. Would you tech this card? You most likely would not. Yes, it would be amazing against 15% of the meta… but then it would be a dead weight against 85% of the meta. It means that, on average, it would be only useful against every 6.5th opponent you faced. That’s not good for a tech card. And that’s not even an average scenario. If all of the Armor-stacking decks, including Control Warrior, will be less than 10% of the meta, it will be even worse – it will only be useful in every 10th game. It would be the first card you would remove from your deck. In reality, tech cards are only good if the thing you’re teching against is really popular. Unlike weapons, which are WAY more common in every meta, Armor stacking is only something Warrior can naturally do, with classes like Druid being able to do it from time to time too (around KFT Druid was stacking Armor like crazy, but it’s no longer the case).

Another thing is that people are somehow assuming that using this against Control Warrior = winning the match. That’s not even close to being true. Sure, if you play a damage-based combo deck and Warrior stacked 20+ Armor, then getting rid of it will most likely win you the game, but… against Aggro, Warriors can rarely stack a lot of Armor anyway, because they’re shaving it off all the time. Where Warriors really stack Armor are Control mirrors, but it’s not like removing Armor in those is winning you the game immediately. If Warrior is still outvaluing you, it won’t matter. It only matters when going into a long, fatigue matchup, but most are minority.

Yes, this is a very strong tech card in a very specific meta – if a deck stacking Armor, like Control Warrior or some slow Druid build becomes Tier 1 and is all over the ladder. No, it won’t kill Control Warrior, because no one will play it unless the deck is absolutely dominating. It’s a very, very specific tech card, but in 95%+ of the metas we ever had, adding it to your deck would actually reduce your win rate instead of increasing it, and that’s not what you expect from a tech card. If you’re a Control Warrior player, don’t worry, your deck won’t be useless.

Card rating: 10/10… if every deck you faced was Control Warrior. In reality, a solid tech, but most likely won’t see play unless the meta absolutely demands it. I’m nearly sure that it won’t see play in the upcoming meta.

Wyrmrest Purifier

In general, this is a bad Constructed card. It’s not like you put Neutral cards into your deck because you can’t put Class cards. They are there for a reason – you don’t want to replace them, especially with RANDOM class cards. It makes your deck significantly worse, and that’s certainly not something you want to do.

The only realistic Constructed use for this card is to counter cards that are shuffled into your deck. Right now those cards are Bombs or Hakkar, the Soulflayer‘s Corrupted Blood. However, unless you’re really late into the game, “countering” those cards comes at a very high cost… the cost is, once again, making your deck worse, because you still get rid of all your good Neutral cards that you might want to draw and play. So using it early will indeed counter those, but also leave you with a much weaker deck. And when talking about late game scenario, we already have a counter card for those – Archivist Elysiana also gets rid of them. The downside of Elysiana is that you end up with 10 cards in your deck, and that’s not necessarily something you want. E.g. when you play Holy Wrath Paladin, you’re ready to do the combo and opponent shuffled blood into your deck… then you’d much rather get rid of it and turn it into a Neutral than get 10 more cards, since you would need to go through all of them before doing combo.

It might be niche tech card in some very specific matchups, especially in tournament play. Hakkar, for example, is more popular in tournaments when opponents expect to face combo decks, so a combo player might preemptively add this to counter the counter. But in regular Constructed play, this is definitely not a card you want to play – not only it doesn’t do anything positive most of the time, it also ruins your deck.

Card rating: 1/10 in regular deck, but a very niche tech card

Embiggen

I think that Embiggen is one of the strongest cards in the entire expansion, although it might not see that much play. Why? It’s simple – even the best card needs a good deck to put it into first. But first things first.

+2/+2 buff on every minion in your deck is insane. It’s like Prince Keleseth x2. You could say that +1 mana kind of balances that, but it’s not really true. Think about it this way – what would you rather play, a 1 mana 1/3 or a 2 mana 3/5? The first one is a regular 1-drop stat-line, the second one is absolutely broken even without any other effect. Same things for 2-drops – compare a 2 mana 2/3, which is okay, but nothing impressive, to a 3 mana 4/5, which would be auto-include in every faster deck because of stats alone. And it probably comes with some effect, because you don’t run vanilla 2-drops… Yeah, that’s exactly my point. You can do the same calculations with +4/+4 and +2 mana cost.

Another thing is that later in the game, the mana cost doesn’t matter that much, but stats do. Let’s say that you’ve played 2x Embiggen. If you draw 1-2 cards per turn and you’re at let’s say 8 mana, you don’t care if you draw a 1-drop and a 3-drop or a 3-drop and a 5-drop – you will be able to play both anyway. And in the latter case, your minions would be +4/+4, so you’d put +8/+8 stats in total compared to the first scenario. Yes, it’s just worth it, no matter how you look at it.

But now let’s talk about the issues. First of all – you need an Aggro Druid deck to run it. With Embiggen, you don’t want to play more expensive minions, because Embiggen will make them even more expensive. You want majority of your deck to cost 1-3 mana, so you could easily drop them after playing an early Embiggen. But not just any Aggro Druid – you need minion-based Aggro Druid, which is the main problem. Most of the faster Druid builds are based around Tokens. Dreamway Guardians, Landscaping, Wispering Woods, Soul of the Forest and all other good cards summoning tokens won’t get affected. In fact, actual minions are a minority on current Token Druid builds, and it would need to be the other way around. I think that a deck like that would need to run at least ~20 minions. Why? Because using a card early and then not drawing any minions for 4-5 turns would mean that you basically wasted that card for nothing. You want your first draw to be a buffed minion, preferably one you can play. But the problem is that this kind of Druid might not be viable. Quality of aggressive Druid minions (again, minions and not spells that summon minions) is not that high right now, so it would need to rely on Neutrals. So in the end it might not be worth it.

The card also has some potential in Midrange Dragon Druid of sorts. The deck should be minion-heavy and care about stats on the board, but with ramp from Breath of Dreams the extra mana cost might balance itself with extra mana crystal. But I will need to make some theorycrafts first, because for Embiggen to work, you need to run a lot of minions and not that many spells (I’ve already explained why above).

However, I’m pretty sure that the card will be problematic at one point before it rotates out. Heck, or maybe even after that in Wild format. The value of +2/+2, deck-wide buff at the cost of 1 extra cost of minions is just worth it, especially since it has no extra condition like Keleseth did.

Card rating: 9/10, but might not be playable yet

Goru the Mightree

At the very base, Goru is an Ancient of War with the Taunt option. Even better, because it doesn’t lose the extra 5 Health if silenced. That, of course, is a good thing – it’s a solid stat distribution with a Taunt. But it doesn’t make the card playable – you don’t see Druids running Ancient of War now, especially not Token / Treant Druids. So the effect needs to be strong enough for this to see play.

Is it strong enough? I do think that it is very good, but the effect doesn’t match the card it’s put onto. In general, Treant Druid is a Token deck. A pretty fast one at that. It wants to close out the games as soon as possible. While it does run The Forest's Aid, it’s more like a late game backup plan, ideally you don’t want the game to even last that long. Having +1/+1 on your Treants is good, but so late into the game it’s often pointless. Especially since regular Token Druid decks, which have proven time and time again that they’re better than all-in Treant Druids, don’t seem run enough Treants for this to be worth it.

The only thing that I like about Goru is your curve – dropping it on T7 into Forest’s Aid on T8 is a really solid play. Instead of 10, you’re adding 15 damage to the board. With any kind of buff, it should be easy lethal. And while it depends on the exact AoE clears played in the meta, 3 health puts them out of range of some of them, e.g. Starfall, Consecration or the new Priest’s Breath of the Infinite.

If I was running a full Treant Druid deck, I would still probably play it. But I don’t think that Goru is enough to make the deck playable. Even the regular Token Druid has fell out of favor in Saviors of Uldum, the Treant version was even worse. And Druid didn’t get any cards that would drastically change that yet. Goru won’t turn a mediocre / bad deck into a good deck – it’s one of those support cards that you already need a viable deck for in the first place (because not only it comes down on T7, but you might not even draw it in lots of games). We’ll see, but after being disappointed by Treant Druid time and time again, I’m not holding my breath.

Card rating: 4/10

Treenforcements

On the other hand, Treenfrocements is something I really like. Even though it summons a Treant, you aren’t forced to play it in a Treant deck. At the very base, it’s a 1 mana 2/2, which is playable. Well, probably not so much in Embiggen deck, because it’s a spell and not a minion… But still, it’s not bad. Token Druids will definitely like it. And then, you get some extra flexibility. If at any point you don’t need a 2/2, but you’d rather have +2 Health buff to let’s say trade up, or keep your minion alive going into AoE turn, or maybe you need a Taunt, then you can just do it.

Since it’s Choose One, you naturally have to think about it belonging into a Quest Druid deck. But in this case, I don’t think it does. It doesn’t really fit into the deck’s game plan, and it’s not powerful enough. Getting both options at once won’t make a big difference. Remember that Quest Druid only gets upgraded Hero Power in the mid game, so mana cost is not that big of an issue anymore.

It’s a flexible, solid card, but nothing too powerful. 1 mana 2/2 is clearly the first option, since +2 Health and Taunt for 1 mana is not the best deal ever (especially considering that decks that run it would gladly pass on Taunt for some extra stats, such as +1 Attack or another point of Health) but it will still come handy at times. I think that Token Druid might run it, both the regular and Treant version. As for the other decks – I don’t think so. Aggro Druid with Embiggen doesn’t want this because it’s a spell and for Midrange Druid decks it might not be impactful enough.

Card rating: 7/10

Blowtorch Saboteur

At first I somehow assumed that it ADDS 3 mana to the Hero Power’s cost and I thought that it’s actually a solid card, way better than Saboteur was. While I still think that it’s slightly better than Saboteur, my hype vanished when I realized that it increases the mana cost TO 3. So a regular 2 mana Hero Power would only get +1 mana cost increase and not the +3 I’ve initially assumed.

Because of that, I don’t think that it’s a good card. The effect is just not impactful enough. Sure, you might force your opponent to skip Hero Power… sometimes. If you play against a faster deck, it might not matter because they might be playing on curve anyway, with no time to Hero Power, so the card’s impact is severely delayed. And when you play against a slower deck, they tend to float mana on many turns, so the increased cost might not matter at all. Like, it doesn’t matter if your opponent is left with 2 mana at the end of their turn or 1 mana.

There are situations in which it might make things awkward. Like when you planned to let’s say play a 4 mana minion + Hero Power on T6, you can’t do that now. You have to skip Hero Power or play a 3 mana card instead, if you have one. But the problem is that you can’t really know what your opponent’s hand looks like, so it’s very easy to blow the effect for nothing. And while 3 mana 3/4 is not bad, vanilla statted 3-drops without a real upside are never good in Constructed.

It’s not a terrible card, but I just don’t see a reason why would you put into your deck. There are simply better and more impactful tech cards you could be playing instead.

Card rating: 3/10

Dragonmaw Poacher

I was 99% sure that we’ll get an anti-Dragon tech card in an expansion built around Dragons. I was just wondering whether it will be something like Hungry Crab – a great one, or something like E.M.P. Operative – useless one. As it turns out, we don’t get a “crab-like” card that just destroys a minion and potentially gains some extra stats. Which is something I approve – those kind of hate cards were getting boring. Instead, it’s a below-vanilla-statted card that becomes OP when there’s a Dragon on board. Because let’s face it – 4 mana 8/8 with Rush is crazy good. While we are used to see Mountain Giant on T4 against Warlocks, they have to skip T1-T3 and take some self-damage from Hero Power to do it. And it doesn’t even have Rush.

In other words, there’s absolutely no doubt that the card is nuts against Dragon decks. It won’t be hard to hit the requirement then and it will be an 8/8 with Rush basically every game. However, against any decks not running Dragons it will be a weak 4 mana 4/4 with no effect. That’s not as bad as it could have been (like the EMP Operative I’ve mentioned – it was a 5 mana 3/3 when it didn’t hit anything…), but far from good.

So there’s not much to think about. If you face Dragons = OP. If you don’t face dragons = bad. So you need to face a lot of Dragon decks for this card to payoff. It’s way too early to tell. But by the looks of it, I would say that Dragon decks are looking pretty solid, so I think that it should see at least some play.

Card rating: 10/10 against Dragon decks, but how much play it sees will depend on the number of Dragons in the meta (my guess it that it will see some play, but won’t be an auto-include).

Dark Skies

More Handlock support, why not! I didn’t like the card at first glance, it reminded me of Spreading Madness, which was a bad card. However, after doing some simple math, I realized that this is way, way better than Surrender Madness. Adding 2 targets in form of both faces made a big difference. Sure, if your opponent has a full board of small minions, then the chances of hitting either face were slim. But most of the time, with 1-3 minions on the board, it was just too much. That’s why in this case a better comparison would be a cheaper, but weaker Volcano. Volcano dealt 15 damage for 5 (+2) mana. This can deal, in theory up to 12 damage for 3 mana, but more realistically, without Valdris Felgorge played previously, it’s up to 10 damage for 3 mana. However, 9 damage is with full hand – you won’t be able to deal as much on curve, and especially not against Aggro.

Of course, Handlock is just about the only deck you want to put it into. Playing it with just a few cards in hand is bad. With only 4 cards, for example, 3 mana “deal 4 damage spread among all minions”, for example, is just straight up terrible. It only starts getting solid at 6-7 damage, and really starts to shine at 8+. And that requires a lot of cards in your hand.

What’s good about it is that, just like Volcano, you can use it both as a single target removal and AoE removal. If your opponent has one big minion – you can clear it. If he has a few 1-2 health minions, you should also be able to clear them. This kind of flexibility is a big advantage.

On the other hand, the thing I really don’t like about this card is that the damage is tied to your hand size. The issue is that when you face the decks you need it most against – Aggro – your hand size will usually be lower. You can’t tap that much, you have to play for the tempo and so on. In the mid/late game, you often only have only a few cards in your hand. On the other hand, against slower decks you very often have a full hand… but AoE damage is not that useful then. Of course, you can still use it as a single target removal against Control, but it’s just pretty weak as an AoE vs Aggro in the mid/late game.

Handlocks will obviously play this, because it’s not a bad card. But I’m not sure if that’s what they need either. Against Aggro it should be pretty good on T3, when you still have quite a lot of cards (e.g. if you skip T1 and tap on T2, you will have 6/7 cards in hand going first/second), but it might fall off pretty quickly once you stop tapping and play more than 1 card per turn. But I don’t think that’s exactly what Handlock needs to be brought back to the meta.

Card rating: 7/10

Faceless Corruptor

This is a really powerful card in any token strategy.. or well, any deck running a bunch of small minions. The best case scenario is having some 1/1 on the board, and transforming it into a 5/4 with Rush. In that case, you spent 5 mana to play a 5/4 Rush and give one of your minions +4/+3. Well, slightly worse, because you can’t attack face with the buffed minion (although you can go face with the 1/1 before transforming it). It’s almost like a Neutral Oasis Surger… almost. Even in the best case scenario, it summons 2x 5/4 and not 2x 5/5, and at the expense of a minion on board. Still amazing, don’t get me wrong, but even in the best case scenario it’s worse than Surger in Quest Druid.

However, now we have to look at some worse scenarios… If you have no minions on the board, it’s just a 5 mana 5/4 with Rush – bad. If you have only a bigger minion on the board, it’s pretty much unplayable, because you don’t want to debuff it just to play your weak 5-drop. But even if you have something like a 3/3 on the board, it’s suddenly not that impactful. Sure, you’re still upgrading your board a bit, but only by +2/+1.

In theory, you could run it in Paladin or Shaman to have a guaranteed target from Turn 7 forwards, but 2x 5/4 with Rush for 7 mana is only okay-ish, nothing impressive. Of course, you could still use it on curve in many scenarios, so it would naturally fit into those two classes anyway.

I feel like people overrate it a bit by calling it a second Corridor Creeper or one of the best cards from the set. You don’t always have a small token to buff, or even any other minions on the board. Best cards in aggressive strategies (and it would mostly fit into those) are those that you can always drop, no matter what your board looks like. This often won’t be playable on curve, which decreases its power level. But you will most likely want to run it in decks like Zoo Warlock, maybe Token Druid or some more aggressive Paladin or Shaman decks. Because the best case scenario will come up often enough for it to be worth it.

Card rating: 8/10

Murozond the Infinite

Oh. Uhmmm.. Okay. At this point you’ve probably heard it enough this expansion, but this is strong. 8 mana 8/8 with a very powerful effect. While it – obviously – depends on the cards your opponent dropped last turn, if you wait long enough, it should have a pretty good effect. It might summon a big minion, a few smaller minions, draw some cards and so on. And the best thing is that unlike random cards like Yogg, you’re the one in control. You see your opponent doing something you like? Drop Murozond. Now you do the same AND summon an 8/8 minion on top of that. I THINK that unlike minion Battlecries (which won’t be copied), it should copy Hero card Battlecries. So if your opponent has played Galakrond and you drop Murozond… you also get the same Galakrond he played but with an extra 8/8 on the board. Because why not?

The only real downside here is that you won’t likely have enough mana to both play this and answer a big threat, so it might not necessarily be good if your opponent has dropped a big minion that you want to kill. But if you don’t have a way to answer it, this might still be good. You also get the same big minion, but another 8/8 on top of that.

This will lead to some interesting plays. When facing Priest, players will have to think whether they can handle Priest replaying whatever they did this turn ON TOP of an 8/8 Dragon. But at the same time, it will also be pretty frustrating – you might have to hold back your good plays because Priest is holding this card.

Dragon Priest will love this. It will often sit in your hand for many turns while you wait for a perfect opportunity, but even then it will still provide a Dragon tag for the sake of your other synergies, so it’s not a completely dead card. I imagine Dragon Priest will be leaning towards a more Midrange build too, so it will love the tempo gain from this card. I’m not sure whether other decks will want this – theoretically you don’t have to run it in a Dragon deck, so maybe a regular Control Priest (if it will exist) will want this too? Hard to say, but it’s clear that the card has a lot of potential.

Card rating: 9/10