Saviors of Uldum Card Reviews #5 – Plague of Wrath, Colossus of the Moon, Hack the System, Overflow, Plague of Flames, Dark Pharaoh Tekahn And More!

Welcome to the fifth part of Saviors of Uldum card reviews! After skipping them for Rise of Shadows, I’ve decided (thanks to you) to pick them back up for Saviors of Uldum. I’ll try to share my thoughts about as many Saviors of Uldum cards as possible.

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 this card as something with a lot of 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 only a handful of cards seen, 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!

Other reviews:

• Saviors of Uldum Card Reviews #1 – Plague of Death, Puzzle Box, Corrupt the Waters, BEEEES!!!, Armagedillo And More!
• Saviors of Uldum Card Reviews #2 – Highlander Explorers, Making Mummies, Hidden Oasis, Expired Merchant, Wild Bloodstinger And More!
• Saviors of Uldum Card Reviews #3 – Riftcleaver, Hunter’s Pack, Tip the Scales, Anka, Arcane Flakmage, Hooked Scimitar, Tortollan Pilgrim, Mogu Cultist And More!
• Saviors of Uldum Card Reviews #4 – Diseased Vulture, Into the Fray, Pressure Plate, Frightened Flunky, High Priest Amet, Generous Mummy, Grandmummy And More!
• Saviors of Uldum Card Reviews #6 – Embalming Ritual, Shadow of Death, Siamat, King Phaoris, Wretched Reclaimer, Activate the Obelisk, Bazaar Burglary and More!
• Saviors of Uldum Card Reviews #7 – Ancient Mysteries, Crystal Merchant, Dune Sculptor, Garden Gnome, Hyena Alpha, Injured Tol’vir, Mischief Maker And More!
• Saviors of Uldum Card Reviews #8 (Final) – Naga Sand Witch, Oasis Surger, Octosari, Quicksand Elemental, Unseal the Vault, Vessina, Zephrys the Great

Sunstruck Henchman

This card is just bad. At the start of every turn, you have a 50% chance that you won’t be able to use it. So let’s say that you drop it on curve. Then on T5 you have 50% chance that you won’t be able to attack. On T6, there’s now 25% chance that you haven’t been able to attack with it. T7 – 12.5%. That’s not THAT low – it would happen in 1 out of 8 games. Not being able to use a card you’ve played on T4. And if you high roll and attack with it? Well, then it’s still not that great. Vanilla stats for a 4-drop are 4/5. You’re getting 2 extra points of attack. It’s nice, but nothing impressive. Actually, I’m not even sure if a vanilla 4 mana 6/5 would see play in Constructed. It would be close. So one with a downside so severe definitely won’t see play. And it’s not overstatted enough for Silence strategies to pick it up (you’d rather run Arcane Watcher at 3 mana).

And I’m honestly glad that it’s not good enough, because it’s just not a good design (even though it’s quite flavorful). Coin flip cards like that are simply bad – you don’t want to be winning or losing games based on whether you win or lose coin flip every turn. Instead, this should work more like Frozen Crusher – make it fall asleep after it attacks. Or even make it fall asleep every second turn – so you can’t attack the turn it’s summoned, then can attack on the next one, then can’t attack again. With this kind of pattern, you could plan ahead and know whether you will be able to attack or not. It would also be guaranteed that you could be able to use it the turn after (and e.g. trade it off). With the current design, I really don’t like it.

Card rating: 2/10

Plague of Wrath

Sleep with the Fishes v2.0. While much more expensive, it always clears minions, while Sleep only did 3 damage to each (usually 4 when combined with a Whirlwind effect, though). It’s better in some matchups, but overkill in others (like board flood decks). The problem is that it’s a 5 mana board clear that you still have to combo with another card. It’s a bit like Equality in Paladin – it does nothing by itself (not exactly nothing, but if you have no minions on board it could as well be nothing). This card often will also do nothing when you can’t combo it with anything. Of course, when opponent has some damaged minion on the board already (because he e.g. killed your smaller minion), you can use it as an expensive Execute if necessary. But you should treat this card as a part of the combo.

Actually, besides Sleep with the Fishes we already had a card that destroyed every minion on the board – King Mosh. It has seen SOME play, although not very much, because realistically you could only combo it with Whirlwind and it was a 10 mana combo. While it did have a solid body, that’s not really what Control Warrior needed. Plague of Wrath is better, because it’s more flexible.

But does Warrior really need another board clear? The answer is – why not? Right now, the only “hard” board clear available to Warrior is Brawl. Two copies are not enough in some matchups. While Warpath is okay at filling the gaps, it only deals up to 5 damage, which is often not enough. And unlike Brawl, you can be guaranteed that Plague of Wrath will clear everything. While it consumes two cards, the advantage of Plague of Wrath is that no minion survives. Let’s say that your opponent has two Giants – if you want to Brawl them, it just destroys one of them – you will still stare at 8 damage on board and another Conjure target. With Whirlwind + this, for example, you could clear both and be much safer.

Now, the only problem is that you would want to run some Whirlwind effects alongside it. There’s always Warpath, but you’d rather save it to use individually than activate Plague of Wrath. Regular Whirlwind is pretty bad, unless there is also a bunch of Aggro decks with lots of 1 health minions in the meta. And Blood Razor has already rotated out (the combo would be insane, by the way). Luckily for Warrior, Dr. Boom, Mad Genius is also a solid activator. Deal 1 damage to all enemies Hero Power would finally come handy, and 3x 1/1 with Rush would also be able to do a lot of work. That’s 2 out of 5 Hero Powers that can serve as activators – not the most consistent solution, but it’s good to have it nonetheless. On Turn 10, Dyn-o-matic can do some work too, although it’s not guaranteed that it will hit every target at least once. Still, if you wouldn’t add more activators, I think that running two copies would be an overkill. But I can totally see one copy alongside Brawl, especially if the meta demands it.

Overall it’s a good card. Not as good as Sleep with the Fishes IMO, but alright. It will probably see play as 1 copy in Control Warrior, maybe even 2 if the meta will really demand a big board wipe (it’s great vs Mage’s Conjurer's Calling shenanigans, for example). Might get auto-include if Warrior gets good activator (probably not this expansion, because we’ve seen almost every Warrior card already)

Card rating: 7/10

Colossus of the Moon

Uhh, I’m not exactly happy about this when Conjurer's Calling shenanigans exists. It’s in the same mana slot as Sea Giant, which is the second most common late game target in Cyclone Mage (after Mountain Giant). And getting this out of Conjurer’s Calling is insane. Big Conjurer boards are already had to clear – this is a nightmare. Even if you play a board wipe like Twisting Nether, Mage will still end up with a 10/1 with Divine Shield. If you are not Priest with Plague of Death or Shaman with Plague of Murlocs, you’re going to take A LOT of damage (and in the latter case, you still need another AoE or you will still take a lot of damage). But of course, I don’t blame them for still wanting to release strong high cost cards – it’s just that probably something needs to be done with Conjurer’s Calling if it remains as popular as it is.

A lot of people are saying that it won’t see play in actual decks and you will only see it from random effects, but I wouldn’t be so sure. The minion is INCREDIBLY sticky. First you need to take out Divine Shield. Then deal with a 10 health body. Then take out another Divine Shield. Then deal with the final 1 health body. Just about the only removals that can 1 for 1 it are Transform effects (Hex, Polymorph). Lots of the time the card will need to be 2 or 3 for 1’d. Of course, it’s way, way too slow vs Aggro, but it’s amazing in most of Control matchups. Like, it’s very hard for Warrior to remove, and they can’t just ignore it. In Specialist format, if slow decks will be popular, this might be teched in.

But even in your regular decks – if you can somehow cheat it out, then it’s also insane. The first decks that comes to mind is Resurrect Priest, but it can no longer cheat it out with e.g. Shadow Essence in Standard. If it could, however, it would be great. Having multiple copies of it revived for cheap? Crazy. However, Big Shaman can absolutely play it. I’d easily put it instead of Ysera, as it’s better at performing your game plan. If you drop Ysera with Eureka! on Turn 6, it just takes one big removal to get rid of it. If you drop this, opponent might have a very, very hard time dealing with it. And a 10 attack minion sticking means that you can just kill your opponent very quickly. Same with Muckmorpher – getting Ysera out is just a 4/4, so easy to kill. This will be 4/4 with Divine Shield that Reborns into 10/1 with Divine Shield. Duel! Paladin would also love this – I know that the deck is sort of meme, but this is just insane in that build, probably the best minion you can pull out with Duel. It kills nearly anything in the game and sticks as a 10/10 with Reborn. I can even see Plot Twist Warlock running it (although the deck doesn’t look promising so far) with cards like Dollmaster Dorian and Fel Lord Betrug.

Yes, the card is pretty bland and boring for a 10 mana Legendary. But people are way to quick to dismiss it as useless. While it doesn’t slot into any current high tier meta deck, there are definitely a few strategies that can take solid advantage of it. And I wouldn’t be surprised if it was one of the more underrated cards of this expansion. If the decks that can cheat it out will become a part of the meta, people will quickly start to respect it. But since they still aren’t good (except Big Shaman, which is like Tier 3 also) I can’t rate it THAT highly (although I also can’t give it a low rating because of the potential).

Card rating: 6/10

Hack the System

(Anraphet's Core)

I was wondering what the Warrior Quest will do, but this one I didn’t expect. I honestly thought that it might have something to do with Taunts, but them I remembered that last Warrior’s Quest was about Taunts, so they probably wouldn’t print something similar again. Then I thought about dealing damage to your own minions (“Enrage” theme). But swinging at stuff with your face? That I didn’t expect. To be honest, the quest is not that hard to complete. Or rather – not that hard if you build your deck around it. A regular Warrior deck doesn’t play that many weapons now, but it doesn’t mean that there are no weapon available.

First let’s look at the Hero Power, though. If reward is bad, then the Quest makes no sense in the first place. And this one is… very good, actually. Summoning a 4/3 every turn is great. It’s a meaningful threat that your opponent has to remove, or else it will quickly get him down to 0. And you put one out every turn. It’s not Lord Jaraxxus level of pressure, but then again, you don’t go down to 15 health (and can finish it before T9). The extra effect is also very nice. Since you put a lot of weapons in your deck to finish the Quest quickly, you now have a way to utilize the extra ones you might not be able to use otherwise by refreshing your Hero Power. Given that you can only attack once per turn with most of the weapons, it usually means 2x 4/3 every turn until you run out of weapons. And that’s big. Especially vs Control decks, that’s almost as good as winning the game. Even if they somehow deal with the board every turn (which I doubt they will given how many resources it would require), you’re still pushing face damage with weapons throughout most of the turns. And that thing stacks.

But the main question is – do we have enough good weapons in Standard to support this Quest? I’d say that yes, yes we do. While we sadly don’t have something similar to N'Zoth's First Mate (it would be insane with the Quest), the options we have are still good enough. There’s the good, old Fiery War Axe – not the most optimal weapon, but it’s playable. Woodcutter's Axe is also good if you’re playing some Rush minions. Wrenchcalibur, while made for Bomb decks, would probably see play in this build too. The weapon is overcosted by 1 mana, but you end up shuffling 10 damage into your opponent’s deck, and that’s not something to take lightly. Supercollider is probably too slow for that deck (since you are often holding onto it for many turns and you can’t really hit face with it), but Arcanite Reaper doesn’t sound too bad. And of course – late game MVP Sul'thraze. Thanks to this card, you will be able to finish the Quest on T6 very consistently. Just swing at 2-3 minions and then save rest of the charges for refreshes. There are also Upgrade!, Weapons Project and Arathi Weaponsmith, all of which give you weapons (and I’d say that all of them have a chance of seeing play in the deck), as well as Heroic Strike, but since it’s only one time use, I doubt that it’s going to be played. We’ve also just got a new weapon revealed – Livewire Lance – and it looks solid too (plus Lackeys would be a great fit into such a deck). I’ll review it more thoroughly below. The point is that we DO have enough weapons.

Now, the biggest issue is that any new Hero Power directly competes with Dr. Boom, Mad Genius. The card is nuts and you don’t really want to run both in the same deck. You will probably be finishing your Quest around Turn 6-8, which is also around the time when you can drop Boom. I actually think that for a Midrange deck, the 4/3 Hero Power is much better (since it can also refresh), but losing out on Dr. Boom sure sucks. Maybe it’s better to just drop the Quest completely and go for Boom instead? Well, that’s an option, but the upside of Quest is consistency. You will always get it finished around that time, you won’t always have Boom on curve. That’s why, if anything, slower builds will most likely ignore the Quest completely and just stick to Boom. But if you build a Midrange deck around the Quest, with many weapons, then it might work really, really well. And Dr. Boom won’t be here forever. We have only three Hero cards left in Standard, and it doesn’t look like we’re getting any more now. Upgraded Hero Power is a huge deal in HS, and this one is powerful enough to win the games by itself. So if anything, I’m almost certain that after Boom rotates out, it will be playable. But my guess would be that even before Boom rotates out, faster decks will still want it.

Card rating: 8/10 (even if it won’t see play right now because of Dr. Boom, I’m absolutely sure that it will if it gets nerfed or when it rotates out)

Overflow

Druid is getting some good stuff this expansion. And it should given how bad it is right now (Token Druid is good, but any other Druid deck just sucks). This card is clearly above the power curve. It’s still not nearly as good as Ultimate Infestation, because the extra 5/5 and 5 damage really made the card what it was, but it’s still good. Drawing 5 cards for 7 mana is already stronger than usual. The baseline so far was 1 mana for 1 draw, 3 mana for 2, 5 mana for 3 and 7 mana for 4 (Sprint). In this case, it’s 7 mana for 5 and it also has an additional effect. The effect CAN be a downside in certain scenarios, but majority of time it’s going to benefit Druid. Healing all characters means healing all minions and both Heroes. Since you play it in a slower deck, you don’t mind face heal (or to heal your opponent). Healing minions is also good – you’ll most likely be the one with bigger minions, and you can control the trades on your turn before playing it. You also control the timing – if your opponent has a bunch of damaged minions, you can simply not play it.

The card is obviously amazing, there’s no doubt about it. Right now slow Druid decks are “forced” to play Nourish for 6 mana because they have no better card draw options (it’s too late to ramp anyway most of the time), and that’s 3 cards for 6 mana with no extra healing. For just 1 more mana you’re getting +2 cards and +5 healing.

The only and I mean only question is whether we’ll have any Druid deck that can play it. Despite this card being amazing, any kind of slow Druid strategy is in a really bad shape now. But this card would shine especially in combo decks – Malygos Druid, maybe Mecha’thun Druid (but it’s most likely too risky in Mecha’thun, because if it’s on the bottom of your deck you still need to play it and go deep into fatigue). Both are still possible to build (heavily thanks to Dreampetal Florist), but they just couldn’t ramp efficiently and cycled too slowly in the current Druid’s state. Now those combo decks got a great cycle card, but they still need a) good ways to ramp into it or b) some strong early/mid game survival tools (another Druid card revealed below helps with that part a bit).

So the card itself is clearly above the power level for mana cost, but at the same time, it might not find any good deck to fit into if Druid doesn’t get even more good tools.

Card rating: 8/10, but slow Druid might still need something more, because right now it’s in the dumpster

Anubisath Defender

Arcane Tyrant, anyone? Druid was probably the class that could use it most prominently thanks to a bunch of 5+ mana spells. While Nourish got nerfed and both Spreading Plague and Ultimate Infestation have rotated out, Druid’s base of high mana spells is slowly being replenished. We’ve already got Hidden Oasis before, and now they revealed Overflow. Former might be very useful in Quest deck, while the latter will be solid in any slow Druid build. And this card has very good synergy with it. You draw a bunch of cards, so even if you don’t have any Defenders in your hand, you have a solid chance of drawing them. And then you can drop one for free so you won’t lose that much tempo. With one Defender dropped, Overflow becomes basically 7 mana 3/5 with Taunt that draws 4 cards and heals everything for 5 – not too bad at all.

Because of Taunt, I’d even say that this is better than Arcane Tyrant. Tyrant was often used with Nourish on Turn 5 as a catch-up mechanic. You spent your entire turn doing something very slow, but you could still drop some board presence. This is similar – but since the card is heavily reactive, Taunt works very well. In the worst case scenario, you CAN drop it as a 5 mana 3/5 Taunt (it’s Sen'jin Shieldmasta +1 mana) but whenever you get it for 0, it will be a nice tempo swing.

There’s not much to talk about it. 0 mana 3/5 is great. We just need a Druid deck that runs enough 5+ mana spells to support it. ~6 is enough, especially if one of them draws cards like Overflow. If slow Druid will see play, this card will also see play.

Card rating: 9/10

Plague of Flames

Plague of Flames is a very strong card, but it’s a very weird fit into any deck. You might put it into Zoo-like decks. It will be very easy to activate there, but… it destroys your whole board. You can’t just pick 2-3 minions to sacrifice – it’s always entire board. Which often sets you back. Sure, there are some cases in which you have only a few 1/1’s and your opponent drops bigger stuff – then it works well. But any time you’re ahead on the board (which is your main goal), it’s not a good card. Zoo is also bad at coming back once you lose the board, so that’s that. Then we’ve got slower decks, which would kill for a cheap board clear like that after they’ve lost Defile. But the issue here is that slower decks don’t flood the board with small minions they might want to sac. They usually drop a few, but bigger minion sand then this card is also useless. The only way to play it in slower deck is to combo it with something – and here’s where the main synergy comes in.

Rafaam's Scheme. Those two cards were made for each other. While they start really slow – you get 2 cards and 4 mana Deadly Shot – they grow quite quickly. Just after 3 turns in hand, it’s 4 mana to destroy 4 of your opponent’s minions. Give it 3 more turns and it’s a full board clear (but that’s really necessary – 4-5 is usually enough to clear everything your opponent has). This works a bit like Wild Pyromancer + Equality in Paladin. It’s weaker initially, because Scheme needs to grow in your hand, but once it does, it costs 2 mana less (which is great). You can also combo it with Fiendish Circle, which is guaranteed 4 minion removal, but costs 1 more mana and doesn’t grow. So in that way, you could play it in a slow Warlock deck as a piece of 2 cards board clear. It might work well with Warlock given how much the class cycles with Hero Power anyway. You should have both up in the mid/late game most of the games.

I think that a deck that could use it is Darkest Hour Warlock. It naturally wants to play the stuff that summons tokens in order to flip them for big minions with Darkest Hour. But you run more token generators than Darkest Hours, so you can use the remaining ones with Plague of Flames as a board clear.

Overall the card has potential but it might be hard to find the right deck. If anything, despite what most of people say, I don’t think that you want it in Zoo. Can still be good in slower builds but it requires other cards to make it work in there. I’m not as hyped about this card as most of players. But I also can’t dismiss it.

Card rating: 6/10, unless the meta will be full of Conjurer’s Calling Mages

Micro Mummy

Now that’s some interesting stuff, and the first real Quest synergy Paladin got. What I really like about it is that it’s both a Mech card and a Reborn card, so it can potentially fit into both Mech Paladin and Quest Paladin. Or maybe we’ll get one deck that’s a combination of both? It would actually make a lot of sense, since using your upgraded Hero Power on Mechano-Egg is insane. But that might be a tad too much to pack into a single deck. Still, it’s cute that Micro Mummy might fit into two of those decks individually even if they’re not combined together.

But is it actually good enough to see play? In Reborn deck – maybe, because Paladin will need whatever he can get to finish the Quest quickly. But in Mech deck? I’m not so sure. I think that Paladin might have better stuff to play. It will rarely stick for multiple turns to really snowball with the buffs and let’s be honest – +1 Attack is not very menacing. Remember how much Constructed play Master Swordsmith has seen? Exactly – none. That’s because the effect is not that good, neither is the body. Of course, Micro Mummy is still better than Swordsmith, but not by A LOT. In particular, I dislike playing small Mechs without Magnetize in Mech Pally, because they kind of ruin Kangor's Endless Army. Oh, and in general – Priest’s Grandmummy seems to be more impactful, since it also buffs health and let’s be honest – those cards aren’t sticking to the board for long and surviving many turns so this can take off.

First of all – stats. 1/2 for 2 is weak. Reborn adds something extra, but it’s still not amazing. So the effect has to really carry it. But does it? Assuming you have another minion on the board, in the worst case scenario, you’re getting +1 Attack. If your opponent kills the first part and then 1/1, you won’t get another buff. In case of Priest – if you have another minion on board, you’ll get +2/+2, and that’s a huge difference. In Reborn Pally, I’m not particularly happy with the fact that this requires another minion on board to get the buff, but if you play Quest on T1 and this on T2, there’s no another minion, so the effect is wasted. If it could at least buff itself, then it would be much better to be honest – but it can’t.

Thanks to having 1 Attack, it might be drawn by Crystology, which makes me believe that Reborn Pally will also play the card (let’s be honest, probably every single Paladin deck will play it now since it’s draw 2 for 1 mana). That’s kind of its saving grace, although not a huge one. It’s pretty flexible, and it fits into both worlds (Reborn & Mech), but doesn’t work amazingly well in neither of them.

Card rating: 4/10

Livewire Lance

Very solid card and a reason that I’m pretty hyped for the Warrior’s Quest. 3 mana 2/2 stats are pretty weak, but if anything, Paladin’s Unidentified Maul has proven that given the good enough effect, those statline can be passable. And I’d say that generating two Lackeys is a solid effect in a Midrange/Tempo deck. While 2/2 weapon would also probably be better than a 1/4 – EVIL Miscreant – I’d say that this card is worse than Miscreant because of the class. Lackeys just work better in Rogue, Shadowstep is also a thing and having minion on the board activates some of them (like Witchy Lackey). But being a bit worse than Miscreant should still be treated as a compliment (even after Miscreant got nerfed).

This is definitely not a Control or Bomb Warrior weapon. It’s simply not defensive enough. Because of 2 attack, it often won’t be able to remove minions by itself, but a faster deck should be able to either finish them off with own minions or even just go face with it. Honestly, lots of time it will be 3 mana “deal 4 damage to the opponent’s hero, add 2 Lackeys to your hand” which is pretty good. If a Midrange/Tempo Warrior pops out, especially a Hack the System deck, then you will definitely want to run this!

We also don’t know whether Warrior will get some Lackey synergy card this expansion. But honestly, it would need to be very good in order to see play, because Improve Morale is not that great and the only Neutral generator is EVIL Cable Rat, which is okay-ish, but doesn’t fit very well into Warrior. Still, you do not need Lackey synergies for this card to be good, since they’re strong standalone. Lackeys generators have proven to be great time and time again, and I don’t think that this one will be different.

Card rating: 7/10

Desert Spear

The card has a cool concept, but I think that it’s just about mediocre when it comes to power level. Of course – over the three turns you attack with it, this is basically a better Muster for Battle. That’s impressive, right? Right, but the biggest advantage of Muster was that you got all the value frontloaded. In this case, you NEED three attacks to get everything out. You don’t get an immediate tempo swing and take over the board. 1/3 weapon for 3 mana is obviously bad. Candleshot costed and it gave you immune, which was big when you wanted to ping off big minions (e.g. after Hunter's Mark). But maybe calling it a 1/3 weapon is not exactly fair. Technically, given that 1/1’s you summon have Rush, you can deal 2 damage immediately. With an advantage that you can use the second point of damage however you want – you can attack another minion or even not attack at all if 1 damage was enough. But still, a weapon that’s pseudo 2/3 is not great for 3 mana. Its redeeming quality is the fact that that 1/1’s are Beasts, so they have extra synergy with Timber Wolf, Scavenging Hyena etc. Which makes it close to playable, but I’m not sure if actually playable. It’s important to note that Turn 3 is rather busy in Hunter and the card needs to be really good to fit in. The downside is that the 1/1’s can’t go face immediately, so if you’re looking to push damage, most of the time you’d rather just have a 2/3 weapon instead. And talking about 2/3 weapons – Hunter already has access to one. For 2 mana – Headhunter's Hatchet. While this gets some extra points for Beast synergies and flexibility, 1 mana less still wins the fight.

Notably, this will be the fourth weapon you can get from Hunter's Pack, which means that you should see it quite often assuming Hunter’s Pack sees play. And while I think that it’s slightly worse than other options (barring Gladiator's Longbow in the early/mid game – in the late game you definitely prefer Longbow), it won’t ruin the weapons pool.

It reminds me a bit of Piranha Launcher. If the card would give you whole value (4x 1/1) immediately, it would be busted. But in reality it was underwhelming, because it was so slow in a class that really wants to stay ahead in tempo or else it falls behind and loses the game. Here, Rush makes the card slightly faster, but overall it still seems too slow for Hunter.

Card rating: 5/10

Dark Pharaoh Tekahn

Now that’s something I completely did not expect. I was hoping that Warlock would get another Lackey synergy or Lackey generator in order for the strategy to work, but that exceeded my expectations. Here’s the thing – if you play a dedicated Lackey Warlock deck, this is just insane. Turning your 1/1’s into 4/4’s is the Rogue’s Quest all over again. Luckily, in this case it’s only Lackeys and not all minions, but still.

What I don’t necessarily understand is why they overlap the effect with EVIL Recruiter so much. Once you turn your Lackeys into 4/4’s, making them 5/5 would be just +1/+1 as opposed to +4/+4 the card normally provides. Of course, if you play Lackey deck, you probably run both. Recruiter can be used before you draw Tekahn, and even after, 3/3 that gives +1/+1 (and can effectively “heal” the Lackey if you e.g. traded with it) is not the worst thing ever.

The main problem RIGHT now is that Warlock can’t generate that many Lackeys. Assuming no bounce effects etc. we have 2x EVIL Cable Rat and 2x EVIL Genius for 6 Lackeys in total. That’s not a lot, not a lot at all. Assuming that you might be forced to use some of them before you drop this, and that you won’t draw all of your generators every single game… This card’s effect might be pretty useless in some games. Because let’s be honest – 5 mana 4/4 IS useless. Warlock desperately needs another Lackey generator, preferably two. But I don’t think that there’s enough cards left for it. Maybe one Warlock + one Neutral generator?

This card’s viability really, and I mean REALLY depends on whether Warlock gets more, good Lackey generators. Right now we don’t have enough to support it. You’d have games in which you play this, lose a lot of tempo and then don’t see any Lackeys. While you COULD theoretically hoard them from early game, it’s a bad idea too. Sure, keeping them for 1-2 turns when you already have this in your hand might be okay, but you definitely won’t keep them from the beginning and hope that you will draw it. That’s a tempo suicide in a deck that will be built around tempo.

I’d say that right now Lackey Warlock will be maybe Tier 3 deck. If we get one more strong Lackey generator, it might be Tier 2. With two more – I think that even Tier 1 might be possible. Keep in mind that it might not be the last expansion for Lackeys. Since they seem to be kind of the theme of EVIL classes this year, we might see more Lackey generators and synergies in final expansion too. So there’s a high chance that by the end of year, we’ll reach a critical mass of Lackeys and Lackey decks will be really good. But let’s not think about the 3rd expansion for now.

Card rating: If a Warlock deck could generate 10+ Lackeys, it would be 9/10 card. With the current Lackey generators pool, however, it’s 4/10 – there’s just not enough Lackeys to support it.

Vilefiend

Doesn’t strike me as a Constructed card. 2 mana 2/2 is weak. Lifesteal is a cool addition, but it’s definitely not worth losing an entire stat point over. I could totally see a 3/2 or 2/3 Lifesteal 2-drop and it wouldn’t be problematic at all. Realistically, it’s probably not going to attack and heal more than once, so it’s comparable to Gadgetzan Socialite – a card that as far as I remember haven’t seen any real Constructed play. This can heal multiple times in theory, but Socialite could target anything, so that’s that. The only interesting part about this card is Demon tag. You don’t often see Neutral Demons in Hearthstone – most of those belong in Warlock class. But is there actually a way you can take advantage of that tag right now? There are some Zoo synergies like Void Analyst and Impferno, but not only a Demon Zoo deck doesn’t see play, but it definitely wouldn’t want a 2 mana 2/2 with no extra effect besides Lifesteal.

For the most part, I’d probably rather play Vicious Scalehide. Beast have more synergies in Hearthstone (and in different classes), it has the same stats but with a different distribution (arguably 2/2 is better than 1/3, but not by much – 1/3 would be better if there were a lot of 1 health 1-drops running around), but most importantly, it also has Rush. Thanks to Rush you can hit something and heal immediately, it also makes it better with buffs and such.

Overall, seems like your usual pack filler that you will never put into any deck.

Card rating: 1/10

Titanic Lackey

For those of you who have missed it – we’re getting a new Lackey! It’s obviously not a collectible card so I won’t rate it. It works just like the other 5 we already have – it’s just added to the pool alongside those. And it’s the first really defensive one we’ve got. On the power level chart, I’d place it somewhere in the middle probably. It’s amazing in the right scenario, but you need to have a minion on the board that you want to buff AND Taunt. However, we can’t rate them in vaccum and need some context. Since Lackeys are mostly seen in faster decks, the Taunt part is not very relevant – it’s mostly about health buff. Giving a minion +2 health means that you can trade with it more efficiently, or put it out of range of AoE removal. If you have a high priority minion on board, you can also Taunt something else to protect it. But to be honest, it’s probably worse than average in Aggro deck. The effect works much better in slower deck that can drop a bigger minion and Taunt it up to put a wall. So given that you mostly play Lackeys in decks like Tempo Rogue or Zoo Warlock, I’d say that the average power of Lackeys will go down slightly – but only slightly. Witchy Lackey is still probably worse than Titanic.