Kobolds and Catacombs Card Review – First Reveals

With the Monday card reveal stream just around the corner, we wanted to take a final thorough look at the cards already revealed and give you our opinion on them as Spoiler Season kicks off!

For this review, we dissect the cards and look at how good they are in a vacuum, as well as what decks they could go in. It’s worth mentioning that we are operating under the assumption that the metagame will change, but not by much and most of the best decks right now will continue to be at least competitive, if not exactly where they are. The truth is that Kobolds & Catacombs is not likely to create a very big impact on the meta as other sets before it have done. The reason for this is that unfortunately, it’s in a unique sweet spot of circumstance – being the last set of the year, it will always exist with at least the card pool of the other two sets released in the same year – Un’Goro and Knights of the Frozen Throne, both of which introduced incredibly powerful class-specific build around cards (Quests and Death Knights) and powerful neutral cards (Bonemare springs to mind). Additionally, it is also the last set of this Standard rotation, which encompasses all sets from Whispers of the Old Gods to Kobolds & Catacombs – the largest card pool Standard has ever had, even when compared to the pre-Standard era. With all of that in mind, we are anticipating for K&C to keep things fresh and shake up the meta a bit, but not to actually have a great impact and completely shift the current (im?)balance of power.

More Kobolds and Catacombs Card Reviews

• K&C Card Reviews First Week, Part 1

As a final foreword, I’m including a bold prediction for each reviewed card, just to keep the stakes high throughout the article. It’s very easy to simply list all of the pros and cons of a new card, however we are trying our best to actually evaluate them and how they will shape up the new metagame. This is very, very hard without the context of a full set, but I will try my best. Additionally, bold predictions are implied for competitive constructed Standard/Wild decks only.

Kobolds and Catacombs First Reveals Card Reviews

Now here are the cards, sorted alphabetically:

Aluneth

The legendary Mage weapon! The staff of Aegwynn, Medivh’s mother, the… nevermind. There are many important things to be said about this card, least of which is its lore. Obviously, we have to start with the card text. Featuring one of the most broken lines of text to ever see the light of day on a card in a card game, this card has the effect “Draw 3 cards”. Now that it has our attention, how good is it really? Well, for starters, it comes at the whopping cost of 6 mana. Not only does that happen as late as turn 6, it also means that when played on a turn between 6 and 9, this is all you will be doing for that turn. In layman’s terms, you are passing your turn over to the opponent… and sure, drawing 3 cards in the process, though that might as well happen at the beginning of your next turn, because you can’t use them before that.

Then comes the part of the weapon’s stats, specifically it’s lack of attack power. At a value of 0, that means your character can’t attack with it, meaning it can’t naturally lose durability, meaning you are always going to draw 4 cards per turn for the rest of the game. And as any Miracle Rogue player is well aware, never ever go full Gadgetzan Auctioneer. Fatigue is a thing and it will kill you far more efficiently than the enemy player. The only way to prevent decking yourself to death is to either win the game before that point or destroy the weapon – currently the only way to do that is to equip another weapon, which in Mage’s case means playing exactly Medivh, the Guardian.

If you want to end the game before fatigue, one sure proof way to do so is to kill your opponent. If you are drawing lots of cards, that means you want them to not be expensive cards, because otherwise you simply can’t play them all. What’s cheap and good at killing the opponent? Damage spells! Sitting comfortably behind an Ice Block, the Mage has plenty of freedom to Fireball away the enemy’s face with a constant refill from Aluneth. Like many others, I feel like this card will fit into exactly one deck – Aggro/Tempo Mage, though it might finally be a fitting deck for the name Burn Mage.

Bold Prediction – This will either make the Burn Mage deck a thing or won’t see play at all.

Carnivorous Cube

Now there’s an interesting card! And quite powerful, too. It’s costed at the magical 5 mana, which means you can often play it alongside other cards in the same turn and it comes with a decent body. It’s not great, but it’s alright. Obviously, the real power comes from the card’s text box. First off, to get the obvious out of the way, it has amazing synergy with Deathrattle cards. It interacts with them two times – once serving as an on-demand trigger and the second time, when it dies, it doubles the value of your Deathrattle minion, getting up to three potential deathrattle triggers! Needless to say how powerful that can be, especially as more good deathrattles enter Standard… or in Wild, with cards like Sylvanas Windrunner or Sneed's Old Shredder. While on the topic of Deathrattles, it’s worth mentioning the interactions with N'Zoth, The Corruptor – it will summon all copies of Carnivorous Cube‘s meal that have managed to die, however it will also summon the Cube itself and while its Deathrattle won’t be active this time around, it is a very solid minion to get for free, especially in Standard where N’Zoth makes board states more centered on value rather than stats.

Aside from Deathrattle cards, the Cube has other interesting applications. It’s an extremely slow card, do not fool yourselves, however it provides amazing value just about anyway you use it. First of all, it’s a form of card advantage, essentially duplicating a minion you have on the board. It works similarly with End-of-Turn (EoT) effects and static auras in almost the same way it works with Deathrattles, so there are those cards to look out for. In addition to that, it can be used as a way to make messy board states for those minion-centric battles that the zoo-style and arena decks tend to find themselves in – value trading a minion and having it eaten by the Cube can be pretty good, especially when Carnivorous Cube itself can’t be left unkilled because at 4/6 it is a threatening card.

All of that being said, it is a bit of a double-edged sword of a card. The amazing potential it holds comes at the price of being extremely slow and keeping the card minion it ate inside itself. Firstly, if the meta isn’t the holy control meta you can hear reddit talk about all the time (and let’s face it, that never happens, and for good reason), most often when you play Cube you will die very shortly after, unless you are hitting one of its prime targets. Second, if the meta is at a place where Carnivorous Cube is at its best, that means the meta is slow. And in a slow meta, the hard removal you barely see these days will come back – the Saps, Hexes, Polymorphs and Entombs (Wild) of the world are lying in wait. Most of the time if your Cube gets Polymorphed you will lose the game.

Bold Prediction – After initial experimentation, it will only see fringe play in that one deck that can use it best. Best Cube target – probably Cairne Bloodhoof.

Crushing Walls

Another Control Hunter card. But… could it be… actually good? To be fair to the card, it is pretty good in a vacuum. Seven mana is a tall order, however at the end of the day it does destroy two minions, regardless of how hard they are to kill. It can slay two of The Ancient One, Divine Shield minions, Immune minions, etc. Crushing Walls has clear strengths and weaknesses, the primary of the latter being vulnerability to wide boards. At the same time, it makes positioning matter, which is a skill testing mechanic for both players, so that’s always a nice thing to have in the game. A lot of that can also be mitigated by the Hunter player with the use of cheap removal for the small minions (Toxic Arrow, anyone?), so there is some potential. Despite all that, it’s still extremely expensive and unreliable.

Bold Prediction – Won’t see play.

Dragon Soul

The first ever legendary weapon and wow, what a powerhouse of a card it is! At 3 mana, it is extremely easy to play. More importantly, it’s yet another “spell activator” for Priest, akin to Lyra. It looks like Spell Priest is getting more and more support and Kobolds & Catacombs might be the peak of that archetype. Currently, Highlander Priest is very heavy on cheap spells and multiple payoff cards – from the win condition of Shadowreaper Anduin to value generators such as Lyra the Sunshard, draw engines like Gadgetzan Auctioneer, Priest of the Feast, Wild Pyromancer, etc. I feel that Dragon Soul slots effortlessly into that deck (among a potential new Priest archetype that might come out from K&C) and is primed with potential for greatness. As far as we are currently aware, it activates for every three spells you cast, including multiple times per turn. 5/5s are relatively big minions and even if they don’t measure up well against your average Deathwing, they are still a threat that must be answered. There is something to be said about utilizing the power of cheap spells (that do very little on their own) to generate extra resources. Adding on top of their value, however more or less it may be, and turning the downside of filling your deck with them into the upside of also generating threats is a powerful and scary thing.

It could also be a completely separate build around card, together with some of the already mentioned, that doesn’t want to be in a highlander style of deck. The added consistency of two copies of all of the cheap spells, multiple Shadow Visions and activators does sound like a deck, and if that deck is churning out 5/5s like crazy, then maybe it’s even a good deck! Time will tell, but it’s certainly an option worth exploring.

Bold Prediction – Auto-include in Highlander Priest.

Drygulch Jailor

On the surface this card looks really bad – not only because Kobolds are not surface dwellers and prefer dungeons, but also because it’s just so slow. We have to be realistic – this is one of Hearthstone’s worst cards that you can play. The body is extremely weak, it costs way too much and it’s effect is behind a Deathrattle! However, we have to also be fair to the card – there is a reason this effect is gated so heavily that you would barely consider playing it, if at all. First off, Silver Hand Recruits do things. They have many synergies, starting from the obvious Lightfused Stegodon and Quartermaster (Wild), to things that care about 1/1s, such as Steward of Darkshire and Hobgoblin (Wild). While we are not currently seeing competitive Paladin decks in Standard that are not Murloc Paladin, we have to recognize that “Dude Paladin” is considered one of the best Wild decks at the moment. It has managed to reach a critical mass of synergistic cards that work off one another and while the power level of Drygulch Jailor is not up there with the Ultimate Infestations of Hearthstone, it adds to that Silver Hand Recruit-matters theme in its own way.

Another thing that it does is work well with is the handbuff mechanic from Mean Streets of Gadgetzan. It’s doubtful whether 1 mana 1/1s are exactly what you want to be buffing, given that after investing in playing handbuffs they become 1 mana 2/2s or 3/3s approaching the mid- to late-game… yay. Still, it’s something that can happen and just about any way you can extract value from the Jailor makes it somewhat scary because at the end of the day, it does generate a lot of extra cards for you to play. Keep in mind that, even if they didn’t do anything, those recruits are three more cards in your hand that you can now suddenly do things with – activating from “whenever a minion is summoned” to “when you play a card” effects and abilities, having those extra cheap resources could be very useful. Imagine a Highlander Priest using Potion of Madness on Drygulch Jailor – well, they have taken one of Hearthstone’s weakest cards and are now going to kill you with it. If any similar effect becomes available to Paladin, this could turn out to be a playable constructed card, especially if an Auctionmaster Beardo-like effect comes along, but one that cares about minions – suddenly you realize that three 1-cost dudes is exactly the amount necessary to summon all four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Despite all that, it’s unlikely for the Drygulch Jailor to see the light of day. It simply feels like a card that was made because they couldn’t miss the opportunity to make Silver Hand Recruits for the Recruit set and all of that sweet potential is locked behind some heavily locked doors. This minion does not trade with anything in its mana cost range and thus does not impact the board in any way, which is a very important quality for a 2-cost minion to have.

KoBold Prediction – Won’t see any play..

Gather Your Party

There is not much to say about this one, it’s mostly used to showcase the Recruit mechanic. It might enable some sort of Big Warrior deck on a more consistent basis because at Rare you can run two of those, but that remains to be seen. Until we know what the meta will shape to be like, it’s really hard to say. Right now it seems there are better things you could be doing in Warrior. To be realistic, this is a very powerful card. Cheating out big impactful minions should never be overlooked, however, there is also the problem of exactly what the pool of big minions to cheat out is at the moment. That being said, it’s priced just a tad bit too fairly for an unfair card (if that makes sense), so it might simply not be as impactful as other options in different classes. The problem with Gather Your Party is that unlike other Recruit cards (not that we have seen too many) is that it’s very generic – you can’t take advantage of tutoring something, which would normally be very scary, because “a minion” means any minion in your deck, making it unreliable. If there is only one minion in your deck however… you are getting into fun but not competitive territories.

Bold Prediction – Won’t see play.

Guild Recruiter

Another card that features the new Recruit mechanic from Kobolds and Catacombs. Tutoring up minions is always powerful no matter how you do it, so the question becomes what you can use with this to make it stand out. As a 5 mana 2/4, you need to be pulling out some serious stats or effects on the board to make up for the low impact of the Recruiter himself. If it didn’t have the “or less” clause, the card would be beyond overpowered, especially in Shaman where everybody’s favourite 4 mana 7/7 resides. That said, it does feature the last two words of its text, so you can potentially pull a 1-drop with it, which is nowhere near as exciting. It can be custom fit to straight up tutor exactly what you want with a lot of creative deckbuilding, but that means running very few minions and giving up the board early for a deck that wants to… play for the board. As it stands, it seems like a solid card in 3 and 4-drop-heavy zoo lists with very little use outside of that, but this card is just waiting for the right target to become the next Barnes. Imagine a 4 mana minion with “Battlecry: You lose the game.” and “Deathrattle: You win the game.” – though a little extreme, this is a type of minion that Recruiter wants to enlist for his guild and one that can have a deck created around it, a la Barnes/Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound Hunter.

Bold Prediction – Will find it’s way into Zoo.

Kobold Illusionist

Superficially, the effect looks a lot like that of Barnes and actually complements it for the “big” style of deck, allowing you to Barnes out things that you have already drawn. Unfortunately, the subtle differences in how it’s activated mean a lot here, because having it as a Deathrattle is a much bigger downside than normal. Most Deathrattles usually trigger during the opponent’s turn, which means that the opponent will have priority while the 1/1 is being summoned. 1/1s are trivial to remove for just about any class, especially with any amount of board presence, so it will be extremely difficult to get value because it won’t work with classic big minion effects such as powerful Battlecries, static auras and EoT effects, on top of having to play an understatted/overcosted minion. It works best with very very powerful deathrattle effects, however unlike some other classes, Rogue doesn’t usually have many of those. It’s worth noting that with something very powerful in hand to make a copy of, this card can become very strong in the late game when N'Zoth, The Corruptor brings back two copies of it. It gets a lot better when that deathrattle is happening on your own turn.

Bold Prediction – Unplayable.

Lesser Jasper Spellstone

While nothing flashy, the card screams “constructed powerhouse”. Arcane Blast saw play in most Mage decks while it was in Standard and as long as there are Druid decks who want to play a longer game, they will be playing this card. Gaining armor is relatively easy and becomes downright trivial once DK hits (in fact it plays rather well with it, because now you can armor up while still removing minions, where you would normally take face damage to utilize the 3 attack). Scaling into the late game, this also covers a major Druid weakness of dealing with large minions. While it won’t take care of the Deathwings of the world, it will provide flexible removal options and maybe cover the middle ground well enough that Big Game Hunter can once again find it’s way into Druid decks for the… big game. There is also the fact that it’s a cheap Druid spell – the class loves their Gadgetzan Auctioneers and this can be a big incentive to return to the Miracle Druid style of deck, especially for the Wild format where Malygos Druid has a lot more tools to work with.

Bold Prediction – Standard auto-include.

Lesser Sapphire Spellstone

Unlike this card’s Druid alternative, the Sapphire upgradable spell does not look too exciting at first. It’s a class-restricted Faceless Manipulator on a spell, however it costs a lot more. In this frame, the Lesser version of the Spellstone seems unplayable, although an argument could always be made for critical mass – if your deck wanted Faceless Manipulator in the first place, wouldn’t it want more of them? Probably, but such a deck does not currently exist. It might however, once you unlock the Spellstone’s upgraded version. Even the first upgrade is already exactly opposite its Lesser version in terms of value – now costing less than two Manipulators while doing the same thing. The Greater version of this card is some amazing value, that much is certain.

Now, the question becomes “Can the Spellstone deck exist?” On one hand, Overload is bad. Not as a mechanic, but as a cost. It’s a drawback on powerful cards and as such, it is a punishing mechanism. Current Shaman decks actively avoid Overload cards, however we cannot overlook the synergy with the new Snowfury Giant from KFT. Keeping in mind that the vast majority of Shaman’s controlling tools are Overload cards, the “Overload deck” could become a real thing. I imagine it will have a somewhat similar play pattern to the current Evolve Shaman where they have the Doppelgangster + Evolve combo for two rounds of powerful board floods, except it’s a Snowfury Giant + Greater Sapphire Spellstone combo for two rounds of very, very powerful board floods of 4 8/8s. Something to keep an eye out for is the fact that the Spellstones only upgrade while they are actually in your hand (as far as we are aware right now, anyway), so that can be a major downside to this type of strategy.

Bold Prediction – Won’t see play unless the Snowfury Giant Overload deck is somehow a thing.

Rin, the First Disciple

The embodiment of your weekly /r/customhearthstone post, this card features too many steps with really cool art. Paying lots of mana to do absolutely nothing many times is not a bargain worth selling your soul for. Consider this – even The Final Seal, a 5 mana 6/6 is not actually a good Hearthstone card. As cool as Azari, the Devourer is, this is one deal with the Devil you don’t want to make.

Bold Prediction – Unplayable.

Unidentified Elixir

Now there’s a weird card. Although the possibilities are interesting, they do seem a bit underwhelming at first. At 3 mana, +2/+2 is not the most exciting buff in the world, especially considering Priest’s history as a minion-heavy class. Dragon Priest used to be a thing of course, but it’s no longer seen in Standard and in most Priest decks, buffs are generally quite bad. Even with a plethora of cool effects attached to them, with dubious yet sweet value, what the Elixir needs in order to see play is a Priest deck that plays for the board, buffing and healing minions through thick and thin.

The actual bonus effects are relatively nice on their own – Lifesteal and Divine Shield are both solid defensive options and summoning a 1/1 copy or giving it “Deathrattle: Return this minion to your hand” are excellent value-oriented abilities when they find the proper target. But then again, that’s exactly the problem with this spell – it’s random. Since you never know what your Elixir will be for that game, you cannot actively plan ahead for it during deckbuilding other than getting the +2/+2 buff onto a minion. You can’t actively put cheap value Deathrattle minions in your deck because you are not guaranteed to get the two good options for them (although you are likely playing those minions regardless… anyway). By not being able to anticipate the buff with any certainty, you are left with a card that’s primarily exactly that – a boost in stats, which as I mentioned already is not good in existing Priest decks (yes there is the occasional Dragon Priest being experimented with). Without more support that’s unlikely to be a deck, although KFT’s Shadow Ascendant could be a possible indication towards incoming support, probably in the next set.

Bold Prediction – Not worth your time unless there is a new Dragon Priest-style deck.

Wandering Monster

OR “Get Down!” 2.0. This is one of the more interesting Hunter Secrets we have seen in a while now. 3-Cost minions are very often well statted and their health is typically in the 3-4 range, so unlike Noble Sacrifice, the summoned creature doesn’t necessarily die to literally anything that it’s blocking. Still, that does not mean the card is particularly powerful. On one hand, it could be seen as “cheating out” a 3-cost minion for 2 mana, however unlike other similar cards in the same class, it only activates when specifically the face is attacked. Hunters fight for the board and are fought against by whittling down their board – in 9 out of 10 times, the opponent will use their minions to attack yours in the early stages of the game when a 3-cost card is relevant. After that it falls off and becomes barely more than a nuisance for the enemy, though when all is said and done, it does block the attack. As a pseudo-healing card (absorbs face damage), it does look like one of the many unsuccessful tools for the mythical Control Hunter archetype, which still remains unlikely. Obviously we can’t say without having seen the rest of the set, but this card is definitely not enough to support it with the current card pool.

Bold Prediction – Won’t see play.

That’s all for now! Are you excited about about the upcoming spoiler season and the next expansion? The schedule has been announced and we are in for a treat these next couple of weeks. Keep up with all things Kobolds & Catacombs.