Saviors of Uldum Card Reviews #7 – Ancient Mysteries, Crystal Merchant, Dune Sculptor, Garden Gnome, Hyena Alpha, Injured Tol’vir, Mischief Maker And More!

Welcome to the seventh 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. I’ve decided to split the final one into two, because there was A LOT of cards to talk about at the same time.

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.

Even though we’ve seen all of the cards (and I have more knowledge about what synergies we’re getting etc.), a lot of the ratings will still most likely be wrong, because we have no clue how the upcoming meta will look like. 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 #5 – Plague of Wrath, Colossus of the Moon, Hack the System, Overflow, Plague of Flames, Dark Pharaoh Tekahn 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 #8 (Final) – Naga Sand Witch, Oasis Surger, Octosari, Quicksand Elemental, Unseal the Vault, Vessina, Zephrys the Great

Ancestral Guardian

It’s a solid card. The best point of comparison from the past would be C'Thun's Chosen – a 4/2 with Divine Shield. Reborn is a mechanic a bit similar to Divine Shield, but instead of you having to “ping” the minion at the start, you have to do it at the end. So in that regard, those cards are comparable. But Ancestral Guardian comes with an extra Lifesteal, which is very valuable. If you drop it against a fast deck – yes, they should be able to deal with it quite easily, but lots of the time you will gain 8 health just like that. 8 health is Antique Healbot level of healing – strong.

Ancestral Guardian will 100% see play in any Reborn-themed Paladin deck (like Quest Paladin – although after seeing an entire set, I don’t have high hopes for this archetype), but I’m pretty sure that it will also slot nicely into Highlander Paladin, since the deck will need to take whatever solid card it has access too.

As for the other decks, I’m not sure. It’s a bit awkward in a way that it’s aggressively statted, so it would fit into some kind of Aggro/Midrange deck more, but then again, Lifesteal is not AS useful in that kind of deck, so that stat can often be ignored. Hard to say.

Card rating: 6/10

Ancient Mysteries

Very, very powerful card in any Mage deck that runs Secrets. I’m really glad that Ice Block is no longer in Standard. The effect alone is great – for 2 mana you cycle a card, tutor a specific one and then reduce it cost by 3. So not only you cycled, but you got 1 mana advantage. Thinning your deck is important, and if you specifically run a deck built around Secrets, then getting your Secrets is also important.

What I like a lot is that you are not forced to play the 0 mana Secret right away. What you can do is to hold it and then play it with Arcane Flakmage to deal 2 AoE damage, or with Cloud Prince to have it active on curve. Flakmage in particular might be pretty difficult to use with full-priced Secrets. E.g. if you wanted to deal 4 AoE damage (pretty common thing to want), you’d need 8 mana in total. Now you can front-load the 2 mana and get Secret for free, then play just another one and deal the same amount of damage for 5 mana. Much more flexible and comes down way earlier.

I think that it’s slightly worse than Mad Scientist or Arcanologist, because both came with bodies, but those were some of the best Mage cards in history (I know, Scientist is Common, but it worked best in Mage). But this is still very good, and it will be an auto-include in every Mage deck that runs Secrets most likely until it rotates out. If you run at least 2-3 Secrets, there’s no reason to not play this (with only 1 Secret you risk drawing this card second and it being useless).

Card rating: 9/10

Armored Goon

Armored Goon might not look menacing – it’s a Boulderfist Ogre, after all, and Ogre doesn’t see any play. But it’s an Ogre with a significant upside. 6 mana 6/7 are absolutely the best stats you can get for the mana cost without any kind of downside. So anything on top of that can tip the scales into “playable” side very quickly. Remember Shieldmaiden? 6 mana 5/5 that gave you 5 Armor? That was already good at the time. Probably would not see play now, but this is 6/7 instead of 5/5 – the dfiference is huge. And it gets the same effect if you have a pre-equipped weapon and swing once. Yes, once, because you get +5 for every swing. So if it survives and you swing again – it gave you +10 Armor in total on top of a massive body. If you have Sul'thraze equipped, you can immediately rip 10-15 Armor quite often while removing opponent’s board.

At the same time, it might be a bit awkward to slot in. Regular Control Warrior doesn’t play enough weapons to take advantage of it, in my opinion. It would be a vanilla 6/7 just too often. On the other hand, the new Warrior’s Quest – Hack the System – seems like a better fit in a more Midrange/Tempo Warrior, and that deck doesn’t really care about Armor gain THAT much. I mean, it can still be useful vs faster decks, since you will be swinging at their minions a lot and take damage, plus once you finish the Quest there’s no way they will win in any other way than rushing you down, so they will try to do that. So Armored Goon will come very handy. If they will decide to remove it – that’s at least 7 damage that doesn’t go into your face. And if it sticks – you gain Armor every turn. And I guess that in slower matchups, it will be okay just because of its body. Vanilla threat is still a threat. So after thinking a bit, it’s better than I’ve initially thought. Probably nothing gamebreaking, but might be a bit underrated.

Card rating: 7/10

Beaming Sidekick

A solid 1 mana minion that’s actually not a 1-drop. It reminds me of Acherus Veteran, which by the way has seen quite a lot of play during its time in Standard. A total of 3 stats for 1 mana with a buff on the Battlecry. On the one hand, 2/1 stats are better on a 1-drop than 1/2, but on the other, +2 Health is a better Battlecry effect than +1 Attack. So overall I think that it’s on a similar level to Veteran, maybe even a bit stronger. And because of that, I’m nearly sure that it will see a decent amount of play in Aggro decks.

For example, Zoo Warlock will absolutely love this. The deck is all about board presence/control, and +2 Health on a 1 mana minion can give the deck a lot of great trades for cheap. Let’s say that both you and your opponent have 3/3 on board – but if you have initiative you can buff it with Sidekick and trade, leaving a 3/2 + 1/2 on your side of the board for just 1 mana. Much better than any other 1-drop in cases like that. Against slower deck, you can buff your important targets out of the range of their removal, especially AoE. It also synergizes with Magic Carpet, and even with no other minions on board, it can buff Carpet to 8 health, making it even harder to clear. Other board-oriented Aggro decks like let’s say Aggro Paladin would also like it for similar reasons.

It’s a great, Neutral 1 mana minion (not 1-drop, because you really want to take advantage of its Battlecry and not play it as a 1/2) which I’m sure will find home in some decks.

Card rating: 8/10

Blatant Decoy

That’s interesting. The idea is to obviously run it in a deck that plays no small minions, so on average it will always pull out something big from your hand on Deathrattle, and something much smaller from your opponent’s hand. It can also be used to disrupt the game plan of some decks, like against Cyclone Mage it could pull out Khadgar, Sorcerer's Apprentice, Mana Cyclone etc. at the time they didn’t want.

The problem is that the card is very slow. 6 mana 5/5 is pretty bad, and the effect is a Deathrattle, so assuming that you will even have a way to trigger it yourself (by running it into something), the big minion you want won’t come out until 2 turns after. And if you don’t have a good way to trigger it, sometimes even later. Then, there are situations in which your opponent is actually holding only something big, and then you might have a hard time answering it.

It might be interesting in some kind of Big Shaman or Ramp Druid, but I don’t think it’s good enough for those decks. Shaman already plays Muckmorpher and Eureka!, both of which are better, and Ramp Druid… what Ramp Druid? Ramp was killed off by Blizzard. It would probably need to cost like 1 mana less. But I guess that even now, someone will probably build a combo around it.

Card rating: 3/10

Body Wrapper

I see that some people are excited about the card, but I don’t think it’s that good. If it added the card to your hand – that would be another story, but it just shuffles it into your deck. So not only the body is weak (4 mana 4/4 is not good), but the effect is also very slow.

The card HAS some uses. The best one I can think of is playing it in Highlander decks to shuffle your Highlander cards back into the deck. Since they are way over the power curve of other cards, it might make sense. When it comes to cards that are just “good”, though, I don’t think it’s worth it. I’ve heard that you can shuffle another Archivist Elysiana. It’s true, you can do that.

But people seem to forget that discover doesn’t mean “pick whatever you want”. If more than 3 minions died this game, you might not hit the target you want. And it also counts any kind of Tokens, because why wouldn’t it? Let’s take a look at Control Warrior now. You don’t drop Elysiana until you hit fatigue (or get very close to it). Your average Control Warrior plays ~15 minions, only 1 of which is Elysiana. Assuming that even only 10 of those minions died (including Elysiana), you only have a 30% chance to Discover her from this. And that’s the most generous assumption I could come up with. Remember about all of the Tokens produced by SN1P-SN4P and Boom’s Hero Power. Remember about all of the extra Mechs you Discover with Hero Power and Omega Assembly. Realistically, by the time Elysiana has died, roughly 20 other minions would have died too. EVEN if the card doesn’t count duplicates, it’s still a very low chance to hit Elysiana. There’s absolutely no way that you could pull it off consistently, unlike Banker or Brewmaster.

And same thing for any other deck. You won’t hit the targets you want to hit unless you play almost no minions. Making the card too random to see play, unless you want situations in which you’re forced to play a weak body and then shuffle a weak minion into your deck, because you didn’t get what you want.

Card rating: 3/10

Bug Collector

This is very similar to Hench-Clan Hogsteed, but most of the time Hogsteed is 2/1 with Rush and a 1/1 without, while this is 2/1 without Rush and a 1/1 with. I think that Hogsteed is just a stronger option at 2 mana, especially since it’s a Beast (technically Locust is also a Beast, but it doesn’t count for the sake of e.g. Master's Call).

It’s basically a 2 mana 2/1 that lets you either summon a 1/1 or deal 1 damage to a minion on Battlecry. Which is not terrible, but I wouldn’t call it good. It will most likely end up being a pack filler.

Card rating: 2/10

Candletalker

Meh card, probably comparable to Harvest Golem. It has a bit better stats (revives as 3/1), but doesn’t have Mech tag, which would probably be the only reason why Harvest Golem might see play now. Another comparison would be Scarlet Crusader, which I don’t believe has seen any Constructed play ever (besides Beta/early Classic when people were playing literally everything).

However, since we don’t have A LOT of Reborn cards, if we want to build a Reborn deck we can’t really be picky. With only 1-2 options at each mana cost, this might as well see play in something like Quest Paladin (but like I’ve mentioned earlier, I don’t think that the deck will be very good).

A good Arena card, though!

Card rating: 3/10

Clever Disguise

Getting 2 cards for 2 mana is always good. This is like what Burgle should have been from the beginning! At 3 mana, it was just too weak compared to regular draw (since you’d rater pull cards from your deck than get random cards from opponent’s deck, EVEN in a deck built around those synergies), but at 2 mana it’s just in a perfect spot. Can fit it into your turns much easier, can finish the Quest faster, can activate your synergy cards while still doing something else in that turn etc. Indeed, 1 mana makes a big difference.

The card will 100% see play in Thief Rogue. Even more, it will be the base of it. Especially if you run Quest, then you just HAVE to include it. I mean, come on, on Turn 2 you can already get your Quest to 2 out of 4. Then next turn you might even complete it with a second copy, to start using your reward on T4. How crazy is that?

I don’t think that it will necessarily see play outside of Thief Rogue, simply because – on average – a random card from another class won’t work amazingly well with your deck. More tempo-oriented decks would rather play something with a body like Blink Fox and Hench-Clan Burglar. But it doesn’t change the fact that this card will accomplish exactly what it wants to – make Rogue Quest easy to finish. Viable? Not sure yet, we’ll have to play around with it first. But definitely playable.

Card rating: 8/10

Crystal Merchant

That’s an interesting way to make floating mana hurt less! If you run Quest Druid, you 100% include two copies of it. The idea is that you will float mana for 4 turns anyway, so why not as well take advantage of that?

Normally, 1/4 statline is not a best one for a 2-drop. I’d rather have a 2/3 than a 1/4. But in this specific scenario, given that it has a powerful, ongoing effect, the more health it has, the better, so I don’t mind them at all. There’s a common break point at 3 health (A LOT of early minions have 3 attack and a lot of removals deal 3), so 4 is significantly harder to get rid of. And even if it gets removed, it’s not bad either way. If you dropped it on T3 it’s like playing a Mana Tide Totem – a better statted one, obviously. If your opponent uses removal to destroy it, you don’t mind, because you got ahead of that exchange anyway (since it cycled immediately). But you actually spent only 2 mana on it and could progress the Quest too. And the best thing is that it doesn’t fall off in the late game. In the worst case scenario, it cycles itself, and in the best case it sticks on the board for a few turns and draws you multiple cards. Because why the hell not?

It’s nice to see that Druid’s Quest is getting some support. Druid is my second favorite class, but I prefer slower decks way more than a Token strategy. And this definitely does not fit into Token Druid. Other slow decks than Quest Druid? Still not sure, maybe. But those decks don’t get an extra pay-off from floating mana and don’t really struggle with card draw now that Overflow is out. But will definitely go into Quest Druid.

Card rating: 7/10

Desert Hare

I’m not really seeing it. You get 3x 1/1 for 3 mana. That’s not absolutely terrible, but it’s not that good either. We already have a similar card – Microtech Controller – and it’s straight up better in terms of stats. That one 2/1 makes a difference when trading or even putting a clock on the opponent. And Mechs seem to be more synergistic right now with lots of decks running Mech package with Zilliax and SN1P-SN4P. The only advantage of Desert Hare is Beast tribe, which basically only Hunter can take advantage of. I mean, Hunter’s Quest IS about flooding the board and summoning minions, so that’s that. If the deck would also run some Beast synergies, then I guess that this card would make some sense.

Oh, and what’s interesting is that the summoned 1/1’s also cost 3 mana, which makes it a pretty solid Evolve target. Not that Evolve is in Standard, and you wouldn’t play that in Wild over Doppelgangster anyway, but that’s something that might come useful later in Standard (keep in mind that the card will be around for 4 more sets, so we might get some Evolve synergies). Right now, however, I can only rate it for what it is – a below average 3-drop. Not terrible, but the only deck that could MAYBE run it is Quest Hunter.

Card rating: 3/10

Dune Sculptor

I like this card, I like this a lot. It’s a cool spell pay-off, and unlike Vex Crow, it’s not the worst thing ever to drop on the curve if you have to. A 3 mana 3/3 with a nice upside is always welcome. And the thing is, in the current Mage decks, the upside is SO EASY to take advantage of. Mages are running so many cheap spells that I could totally see it slotting into Cyclone Mage or something similar (like a Tempo Mage). Like I’ve mentioned, it can be dropped on T3 if you really need, and in the late game it’s a massive hand refill. You know how many spells can this Mage deck play in a single turn, right? And you don’t always get Mana Cyclone to take advantage of that. Sometimes you stare at a board that you just need to start throwing spells at, or your hand is nearly full of cheap spells with no pay-off, and that’s when this card would come handy. Just play Sorcerer's Apprentice, this, and then start flinging cheap spells. Ray of Frost, Mirror Image, Magic Trick. You will fill your hand in no time. And not with some random garbage like from Astral Rift. Current value of Mage minions is really high. Like 1/4 of the minions are something you wouldn’t actually mind putting into your deck, and another half of them is something that you wouldn’t mind getting for free from effects like that. Even something like Arcanosaur can be useful given that Cyclone Mage runs Elementals.

The problem is that the deck is really tight and doesn’t have many free slots. That’s because there is a bunch of spell synergy cards that you absolutely need to run, then you have to play X cheap spells to take advantage of those cards, and finally you need Giants + Conjurer's Calling combo, since it’s your main win condition. But just the fact that it’s a card that MIGHT slot into one of the best decks in the current meta makes it pretty alright.

Card rating: 8/10

Dwarven Archaelogist

Not a big fan of this card. In order to take advantage of this effect, you’d need to run a lot of Discover cards. It works only as long as this stays on the board, so realistically only for one turn. So why would you really want to combo it with? Most of the Discover cards are somewhat random, so you don’t even know if you will need a discount. I bet that you could come up with a scenario in which this card is completely broken, but if it relies on RNG from Discover, then it doesn’t make much sense. I just don’t really know what deck would want to play it.

Maybe there’s some combo with a guaranteed Discover card that I can’t think of now. Any kind of mana discount is powerful in theory. But you usually want to discount very specific cards that you already have in your hand, not something random.

Card rating: 2/10

Faceless Lurker

In a regular deck? No, definitely not. It’s a 5 mana 3/6 with extra 3 health coming as a buff (which makes it worse to Silence). You don’t want to play a weaker Fen Creeper, which is already bad. However, that’s not the way the card is supposed to be played. It’s made for… shenanigans!

The simplest ones are obviously handbuff. Each buff to health while it’s in your hand doubles. So if you run it in Paladin with Glowstone Technician, it will come down as 5/10 Taunt (instead of 5/8 like it normally would). Same thing for Warrior. And if Quest Warrior will revolve heavily around handbuffs, then I guess that it can totally play this card. Without handbuffs it’s meh, but 5 mana 3/6 Taunt is still sometimes playable even if it doesn’t have any other effect (I mean, Direhorn Hatchling was still an okay roadblock even if you didn’t draw Matriarch that game). The issue is that the more consistently you can handbuff it, the better it is, and right now that might not be the case. Paladin only has Glowstone, while Warrior has only 3 handbuff cards even if he decided to run all of them.

But that’s not the only way you can make it bigger. There are also Battlecry synergies! If you can double that Battlecry, he will first go up to 6 health and then up to 12. And that’s pretty cool – 5 mana 3/12 Taunt is pretty good. The best ways to pull it off are Shaman’s Quest and… Spirit of the Shark. I don’t think that Rogues will suddenly drop other stuff to play it with Shark, but to be fair, if it comes down on curve and your opponent has no removal, then it’s a pretty good way to use the card (not to mention that your Shark is also much safer behind 3/12 Taunt).

I don’t think that the card will see play in Battlecry strategies. Handbuff? Maybe, possibly, but only assuming that Taunt Warrior takes off in the first place.

Card rating: 5/10

Garden Gnome

2/3 + 2/2 + 2/2 on Turn 4 is very powerful. That’s a solid board flood, can be used aggressively vs slower deck, does some nice trading vs smaller minions, just a nice play overall.

The issue is that it’s conditional. You need to be holding a 5+ mana cost spell in order for it to work. Is that difficult? Honestly, not very given that it’s Druid we’re talking about. Playing expensive spell is like a norm for the class. However, we have yet another slotting issue. Decks that run enough of those expensive card so they can activate it on curve quite consistently are not the same decks that would benefit from the minion most. The card is easy to activate in let’s say Quest Druid, but you would really like to play it in Token Druid. The issue is, however, that when it comes to expensive spells, Token Druid runs only The Forest's Aid. And two 5+ mana spells in the entire deck might not be enough to consistently activate it on curve.

Of course, nothing is stopping some Midrange Druid, or Quest Druid deck from running it. But without AoE buffs, without Savage Roar etc. it won’t be that effective. Might still slot into Highlander Druid (assuming you build it as a regular Midrange deck and not Como deck) just because you might not have better options, but again – a deck that really wants to run it is Token Druid. So maybe Token Druid will add another 5+ mana card or two in order to activate it more consistently? For example, I could see Token Druid trying out Overflow. From my experience, the deck suffers from “running out of steam” issues, and having a huge draw would somewhat fix it. Healing the opponent might be a downside, but on the upside you could sometimes heal up your buffed board. Alternatively, Token Druid can go for Force of Nature – it fits the deck and is basically a weaker version of this card. But it might be used just to activate this one. Garden Gnome on T4 into Force of Nature on T5 is also a nice curve and forces your opponent to have some answers prepared (or else you might just win).

This is a common story in this expansion – strong card, but might be difficult to slot. If it gets slotted, though, it will definitely win some games.

Card rating: 8/10

Golden Scarab

Oh hey! Look! It’s Jeweled Scarab‘s older brother! Normally I would immediately dismiss cards like that, but the fact that it’s a very specific Discover makes it more interesting. You see, Discover has 400% chance to offer you a Class card, which means that – in this case – you have a solid chance to get a 4 mana class card. So the card would make most sense in a class that a) has multiple 4 mana cost cards (so they would be offered more commonly) and b) those 4 mana cards are good enough that you want to pick them commonly. It’s a bit like Stonehill Defender, which was “Discover a good Legendary Taunt” in Paladin. And, funnily enough, I think that Golden Scarab would also fit into Paladin class most. Blessing of Kings, Consecration, Equality, Hammer of Wrath, Prismatic Lens, The Glass Knight, Spirit of the Tiger, Annoy-o-Module, Zandalari Templar and Truesilver Champion are all cards that could be picked depending on the situation, matchup etc.

While you probably don’t want to put it into your regular Paladin deck, I can see one copy in Highlander version because of that. It’s an okay-ish 3 mana play, slightly comparable to the Hunter’s Stitched Tracker. Tracker was probably better because it was more consistent, but then again, this is less obvious and you can get a lot of cards that your opponent might not be expecting.

I won’t really go through every single class and analyze it now (Paladin is the most obvious one), but maybe other Highlander decks too? Because I don’t think you’d have space to slot it into a regular deck, but Highlander builds are much more flexible in that matter (because you had to fill the duplicate slots with something else). Overall, an average card. Effect can be strong in the right class, but 2/2 for 3 are weak stats.

Card rating: 5/10

History Buff

I like this card. It has premium 3-drop stats – 3/4 – and a pretty strong positive effect on top of that. If it survives a turn, you can get a lot of value out of it in a Zoo Warlock deck or some other Aggro build. Playing 2-3 minions is more than enough to justify running it. And even if it dies immediately, I mean, the worst case scenario is that you’ve played a 3 mana 3/4, which is not that bad. Later in the game you can drop him with a few minions and get some buffs immediately.

It has extra synergies with cards that generate more minions, such as Acornbearer (Druid) or Halazzi, the Lynx (Hunter). Even with Springpaw in Hunter – you can easily get +2/+2. You could even try running it with Hir'eek, the Bat, but I’m 99.9% sure that it’s still a meme.

It’s pretty hard to rate this card. On the one hand, it has premium stats with an upside. On the other hand, handbuffs are really slow and you have no control over what it hits. But I will have to lean towards “good card, you will consider running it, but might not make a cut”.

Card rating: 6/10

Holy Ripple

Mini Holy Nova, or Arcane Explosion with an upside 🙂 The effect is pretty strong. 2 mana 1 damage cards with an extra effect have usually seen some play. For example, in Shaman it was Maelstrom Portal, and Priest also had one already – Spirit Lash. While it was a bit different, it has shown that 1 AoE damage can come handy at times, especially if you can combo it with Bloodmage Thalnos, for example. This gives you less healing, but also heals your minions instead of damaging them, which is big in some cases. Can be easily used to draw cards from Northshire Cleric. If you have some damaged minions on board, you can drop Cleric + this and draw. You can also combo both with Wild Pyromancer.

I’d say that it’s a solid card, but also heavily a meta call. It’s not useful in slower matchups, even not THAT useful in Midrange matchups. But it’s great against Aggro, especially decks that flood the board. It’s a good way to get through the early game to get to your more expensive AoEs/Taunts/etc. I’m pretty sure that it will see play at one point.

Card rating: 8/10

Hyena Alpha

To be perfectly honest, it’s hard to imagine this card not seeing play. Especially with Rat Trap still in Standard. Lesser Emerald Spellstone was THE reason why Secret Hunter was such a powerful deck. Board floods in a single card are always powerful, because opponent basically never gets the better of it. In the best case scenario he plays AoE and gets 1 for 1. But very often he has to use multiple removals, or isn’t able to clear everything and takes damage. Of course – 3/3 + 2x 2/2 is not AS strong as 4x 3/3, but Spellstone was even playable as 3x 3/3 when it was 5 mana. Heck, even after getting nerfed to 6 it was still solid (although no longer as powerful). This is a great T4 play, especially if you build a pretty aggressive deck (which you probably do if you play Secret Hunter).

There’s not much to tell about this card. Nearly every deck in game would play that card if they could activate the condition easily. And Secret Hunter can. The reason I’ve mentioned Rat Trap is that it’s because it’s the easiest way to activate it. Rat Trap is rarely triggered so early (and honestly, if it is, you really don’t mind). So you can get back the tempo you lost from playing Rat Trap with this card while still having a potential 6/6 when your opponent plays 3 cards. It will 100% be a Secret Hunter staple, and Secret Hunter looks very promising.

Card rating: 9/10

Injured Tol’vir

A very, very good card. I honestly think that it’s better than both Injured Blademaster as well as the old Injured Kvaldir we had. Well, maybe not than Blademaster because it’s a bigger threat when healed, but if we assume no healing, it’s by far the best one out of three. Actually, 2 mana 2/3 Taunt is already close to playable. You might not think about it, but we never actually had a Neutral 2 mana 2/3 with Taunt. And then the fact that you can heal it up to 2/6 makes it even better.

It’s an absolutely amazing Priest card. You can easily play it on curve and it won’t even be that bad – can clear most of 1-drops and trade 1 for 1 with 2-drops, it also protects your Cleric. And if it sticks, you can heal it up to 6 if you need. Later in the game you can drop it and heal immediately if you have some free mana. It has synergy with all of the AoE heals like Circle of Healing. It has synergy with the new Quest (good healing target). It’s not a terrible revive target (because it revives as a 2/6), especially not when compared to other 2-drops.

Other classes – I’m not sure. Maybe Warrior might want to play it simply as a 2/3 in Taunt build? Or maybe a Midrange/Tempo Warrior would want to play because of “damaged” synergies (like it can be copied on curve with Bloodsworn Mercenary, draws a card from Battle Rage etc.) But honestly, I think that it could as well be a Priest class card, because the card is like a perfect fit into this class.

Card rating: 8/10

Kobold Sandtrooper

We’ve got a new Leper Gnome! Do you remember times when Gnome was a 2/1 and it has seen play in literally every single Aggro deck so it had to get nerfed to 1/1? Yeah. This is like a per-nerf version for +1 mana and with +1 damage on Deathattle. The +1 damage is definitely NOT worth the increase in mana cost by 1. It’s clearly worse than the old Leper Gnome, and probably on a similar power level to the current one. And since the current one sees no play, I don’t think that this would either. Sure – it’s 3 damage for 2 mana with a body, but the problem with this card is that while it’s solid vs slower decks (you get a small minion and most of the time you WILL get that 3 damage eventually, because they will have to kill it), it sucks against faster builds. A big advantage of most of the cheap burn spells is that they can double-up as removal. This can’t. In mirrors, taking over the board is way important than dealing face damage, and 2 mana 2/1 is a very weak tempo play.

I wouldn’t say that it’s terrible, because it can be scary in some matchups. Maybe if we get a hyper-aggressive burn deck that really cares about face damage and we won’t have many board-oriented Aggro/Tempo decks in the meta, then it can see some play.

Card rating: 3/10

Living Monument

Pack filler. No one will actually put it into their deck. If we go as high as 10 mana, there are simply better options. Even if we’re looking at the cards to cheat out, I’d say that there are better options (like most of the time you’d rather just get out Colossus of the Moon instead).

However, the card will be seen on the ladder quite commonly, given that Mage runs Sea Giant + Conjurer's Calling and both cost 10. While Colossus will be more obscene, this is a huge upgrade too. And Taunt makes it even stronger, because it can protect more valuable minions (Khadgar, Stargazer Luna) and prevents opponent from just going face and hoping to get a quick lethal.

While I’m not a fan of nerfing cards even before the expansion is out, I think that Conjurer’s Calling should definitely be targeted in some way. I don’t even care if the card will be strong or not this set (but most likely it will), the issue is that your opponent rolling out This + Colossus of the Moon from their Sea Giant won’t be any fun to face.

Card rating: 1/10

Mischief Maker

As much as I like disruption cards in general (I think that there should be some ways to keep combo decks in check in case something degenerate pops out), I’m not a big fan of this one in particular. Just like I was not a big fan of Gnomeferatu. There is basically no strategy involved, you just play those and hope to get lucky. There’s no waiting for the right moment, trying to read your opponent’s hand etc. – you just drop it and that’s it.

Then, keep in mind that you also give your opponent your own card. Which means that you don’t want to run it in a deck with powerful, “win condition” cards. For example, you would never put it into Warrior because of a slight chance of giving them Dr. Boom, Mad Genius. Other decks that have this one, powerful play also wouldn’t run this. It’s just too risky, and way too random/inconsistent.

I mean, the only funny play is when you play vs Bomb Warrior and you give them one of their Bombs while you steal their Boom. I can’t wait for a video like that, because it WILL happen at one point, I’m sure. But the chances of pulling this off are way too slim for me to even try. So overall – no, I don’t like this card and I don’t think it’s good. Right now, there are really no popular combo decks in the game, and honestly, if we had some combo that requires a minion, I’d much rather run Hecklebot as the disruption.

Card rating: 2/10

Mogu Fleshshaper

The idea behind Fleshshaper is similar to the one behind Sea Giant. It’s 3 mana cheaper, so WAY easier to get it for 0 mana (because Giant is usually played in decks that can get it to less than 5 mana consistently), and it has immediate impact in a form of Rush. But – obviously – it has much weaker stats. 3/4 vs 8/8 is a massive difference, it’s not even close.

However, I really, really like this card in deck running Mutate. Even if you play it for 0, it still “costs” 7, so it will Evolve into a random 8-drop. So the best case scenario would be playing him for 0, killing some 3/3 minion, then Mutating it into a strong 8-drop – all of that for 0 mana. 3 damage removal + 8-drop. Of course, you can’t always look at the best case scenario, but in this case, a similar one is not that hard to achieve.

But even without evolving it, a 3/4 with Rush would probably be worth around 4 mana if it was a “fair” Neutral card, so realistically you’d want to play it for 2-3 mana for it to be worth it (and ideally for 0 mana). And getting him down to 2-3 mana should not be very difficult in Token decks (you only need 4-5 minions on the Battlefield in total). So even if you don’t run Mutate, I could totally see playing it in a Token deck.

Card rating: 7/10