Galakrond’s Awakening has officially launched two weeks ago. Chapter 1 has brought 11 new cards, which actually already had some impact on the meta. Winged Guardian is by far the most popular new card and it has brought Ramp / Embiggen / Dragon Druid (however you call it) to the new heights. From an off-meta / relatively unknown deck, it suddenly entered a rising trend, becoming one of the most popular (and honestly one of the stronger) decks. Last week’s chapter 2 brought 8 more cards, although none of them had THAT big of an impact. Rising Winds, Fiendish Servant and Skyvateer see some play in meta decks, but didn’t shake the meta as much as Winged Guardian. Chapter 3, which launches tomorrow, will bring 8 new cards to the mix. Will they make a big impact on the meta? And, more importantly, what new strategies / decks we might expect? Find more information below!
Check out our full Galakrond’s Awakening guides with all of the cards here.
Cards Released This Week:
Unlike Week 1, no content is free this time around. You have to buy everything. Keep in mind that you DON’T have to pay 700g or $7.99 per side – buying it once will give you both sides.
League of E.V.I.L. Side:
League of Explorers Side:
Potential New & Buffed Decks / Strategies
- Quest Hunter (mostly, but also other Quest decks) – While Sky Gen'ral Kragg will – in theory – boost all the Quest decks, some of them will benefit from them more and some of them less. Quest Hunter is probably the best example of a deck that will get buffed by this card. The card is over the top for a 4-drop and has only positive synergies with your deck. It summons two bodies, so adds +2 to the Quest’s completion. It lets you remove something immediately and add a small Taunt to the board, making it good catch up card – it might let you preserve your Unleash the Hounds, which is much better after you finish the Quest. And finally – using it with upgraded Hero Power lets you deal 6 damage with Parrot and create a 4/3 Taunt instead of a 2/3 – a solid boost. Importantly, Quest Hunter is already a solid deck, and it should just get better. Other than Hunter, Shaman will probably be the Quest deck benefiting most. If you get Kragg early, you add +1 to the Quest because of Battlecry. And if you get him later, you can summon 2x 4/2 instead thanks to the Hero Power. The problem is, however, that Quest Shaman isn’t really doing very well right now. Kragg will be huge boost, but will it bring it back to the meta? Hard to say. Quest Resurrect Priest will definitely not play it, while Quest Druid… I’m not sure, to be honest – the card is good, but I think that you’d rather just play a strong Choose One card instead, which should be better after you finish the Quest (and you obviously can’t drop it on curve because you won’t complete the Quest). Other Quest decks don’t really see play right now, but I can imagine that ones like Quest Warrior or Quest Warlock would also like the card.
- Dragon Priest – The deck has seen some experimentation last week thanks to Cleric of Scales – both a slower, Control build and a Combo version. Aeon Reaver does not have a Dragon synergy, but it is a Dragon. I don’t think that it will fit into Combo version, but it might actually be playable in the slower version, mostly from the lack of better Dragons and the fact that you want to activate Dragon synergies. Highlander Priest might also see some more experimentation – Meati already hit #8 Legend with the deck last week, although it wasn’t a Dragon version.
- Dragon Hunter – Dragon Hunter has already seen some experimentation, especially in Highlander builds (e.g. FAST44’s #5 Legend Highlander Dragon Hunter) and more aggressive builds (such as Ruby’s #7 Legend Aggro Dragon Hunter). And I think that Rotnest Drake will absolutely benefit this archetype. It has premium 5-drop stats (5/6 would be slightly better, but can’t complain about 6/5), Dragon tag and a pretty strong effect. If you’re holding a Dragon – and when you build a Dragon deck it means most of the time – you cast a Deadly Shot when you drop it. Given that Deadly Shot itself is a really solid card that costs 3… yeah, it’s A LOT of value and tempo packed into a single card.
- Murloc Paladin or Hybrid Paladin – Scalelord is an obvious boost to Murloc Paladin deck. Not only it has a vanilla stats, but also a very powerful effect. Remember Gentle Megasaur? I feel like it’s on a similar level, and Megasaur was an auto-include into any Murloc build. On the one hand, Adapting meant that you could pick whatever you needed at the time. Sometimes Poisonous was the best, other times it was Attack, or you could high roll Windfury for lethal. On the other hand, Adapting wasn’t always consistent. You often got 3 options that you didn’t particularly need at the time. Between the fact that Divine Shield is a pretty strong effect + it’s consistent, it will have less high rolls, but also less low rolls than Megasaur, pretty much averaging out. However, since it’s a Dragon itself, players could also try a Dragon/Murloc Hybrid deck. I’m not entirely sure whether it will work, but between Tasty Flyfish, Skyfin and now this card – we’re getting some cool synergies.
- Mech Hunter – This one is interesting, because Mech Hunter is a playable deck right now. It’s not a high tier one – but I think that it’s underplayed for how strong it is. And I don’t really blame people, it’s really boring at this point, since its play style hasn’t really changed over this Standard year. But Chopshop Copter is a solid Mech you might try out in the deck. I’m kind on the fence about it – on the one hand, it gives you a very necessary refill and you can heavily benefit from all those Tokens you’re generating (1/1’s and Goblin Bombs). On the other hand, when you play Mech Hunter you rarely want to trade, since every bit of face damage is important. We’ll see how it works – I expect Chopshop Copter to see play in the deck, but I don’t think that it will start dominating the meta.
- I’m not sure whether Waxmancy and Risky Skipper will find their place in any deck. Maybe Highlander Rogue will want Waxmancy? Not sure, it just doesn’t really fit into any archetype in particular. Risky Skipper is similar – in theory some kind of “Enrage” Warrior that benefits from damaging own minions at the same time as doing AoEs could be good. But then, since it happens after EVERY minion you drop, you have little control over it. Very often you don’t actually want to AoE the board, and then you might be forced to not play anything, which is bad. It reminds me a bit of Animated Berserker from KoFT, but even more extreme. Control Warrior could use it to turn their small minions into AoE damage, but I think you’d rather just run Warpath. And finally, Boompistol Bully is a card with A LOT of potential in certain metas. It’s like a Loatheb, but for Battlecries. But there’s not really one deck that would benefit from it – it’s just a tech card that can find play in many archetypes if the meta demands it (e.g. there are lots of decks that rely on Battlecries to do something – then you could block their entire turn). In the current meta, it works very well against Galakrond decks, which are pretty popular – most of Invoke cards and synergies are Battlecries, Kronx Dragonhoof is a Battlecry and – of course – Galakronds are also Battlecry cards. So given the popularity of Galakrond decks, I think that people will at least experiment with the card in many different builds.
Bosses / Encounters This Week
League of E.V.I.L.
League of Explorers
Once again Mecha’Thun Warlock can be used to defeat basically every encounter. I didn’t try to use it for the dragons as I figured it might not last long enough and the win condition would be pointless so I used a wild Reno paladin for that encounter. Kind of boring to just keep using the same deck for every boss but if it ain’t broke don’t fix it they always say.
Waxamancy, Risky Skipper, Boompistol Bully and Rotnest Drake looks really promising.