The Boomsday Project Card Review #5 – Myra Rotspring, Mecha’thun, The Soularium, Luna’s Pocket Galaxy, Subject 9 and More!

If you’re anything like me, then reveal season is your favorite time of the year (alongside the first days of a new expansion). With nothing figured out, new cards coming every day, wild theories and early deck builds (which most likely won’t work) popping up everywhere, and that surprise when you look at some card and think to yourself – “what were they thinking when they’ve designed it?”

I’ll take a closer look at each one of them, review it and rate it from 1 to 10. The scale itself should be quite obvious, but just to quickly explain how I see it: A card rated 5 is average – it might be playable in some decks, but it’s nothing special. Cards rated 3-4 might see some play in off-meta decks, or as obscure techs, but the closer we get to 1, the lower that chance is. 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 – even if not right after the expansion’s release. 1 and 10 are reserved to the worst or best cards I can imagine, meaning that they won’t be used very 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!

PREVIOUS CARD REVIEWS

• #1 – Spider Bomb, Biology Project, Omega Defender, Electra Stormsurge, Myra’s Unstable Element and Stargazer Luna
• #2 – Upgradeable Framebot, Zilliax, Flobbidinous Floop, Whizbang the Wonderful, Mulchmuncher and More!
• #3 – Kangor’s Endless Army, Lab Recruiter, Dr. Boom, Mad Genius, Giggling Inventor, Zerek’s Cloning Gallery and More!
• #4 – Boommaster Flark, The Boomship, Academic Espionage, Crystalsmith Kangor, Zerek, Master Cloner and More!

Shrink Ray

This card looks like a worse Equality. But it doesn’t mean that it’s bad – Equality is one of the most busted cards in the game and for a long time the main reason why Control Paladin was viable. It didn’t get many removal tools since then, and now this is one. And it’s pretty solid.

It seems to serve two main purposes. First, you can use it as a backup Equality to just clear the board. Combo it with Wild Pyromancer for 7 mana or Consecration for 9 mana. Of course, you don’t get much leftover mana like you do with Equality combos, but it’s still fine. You very often lose games with Control Paladin, because you didn’t draw your Equality – redundancy is good. Second use would be just as a single answer to big boards. It doesn’t work well against Aggro (at least not always, if they end up with a bunch of Midrange minions on the board then yeah, but most of the time you will spend 5 mana and they will still hit you for 5-6 and you will still have to clear the 1/1’s after), nor it does work well against Combo (most of the time, Combo decks don’t care about you answer their minions, unless you Transform them, that’s another story). It works best against Midrange and Control builds, especially those packed with big threats. This card is amazing against Big Druid, or Even Warlock, or Recruit Hunter – the decks that wants to crush you with their big minions. In case of those decks, lots of time you can just drop this and that’s all, their board was answered. For example, changing the Warlock’s board of 8/8, 4/9 and 4/4 to 3x 1/1 is a huge difference. The first one kills you in 2-3 turns, the second one you don’t really have to worry about.

All in all, it would be a solid Paladin card. Not amazing, but good enough to run, as the build desperately needs more removal cards. However, the problem is that Control Paladin still looks poorly. Despite this being a solid card, it might not see any play at all, because Control Paladin is not great. And so far, this expansion doesn’t seem to do much to bring him back. There are still a few cards incoming, but they would need to be absolutely nuts to see play. Merely “good” is probably not enough to bring the deck back.

Card rating: 7/10

Myra Rotspring

Deathrattle is one of the Rogue’s theme this expansion, it’s clear at this point. And this seems like a great support card for such an archetype. While the stat-line is very weak (5 mana 4/2…), the effects kind of make up for it. 4/2 body is worth around 2.5 mana, Discovering Deathrattle is worth like 1 mana (Journey Below), so you need around 1.5 mana worth of Deathrattle effect on average for this card to be worth it in theory. Well, maybe a bit less, because combining different effects always costs a little extra. It’s hard to realistically calculate the value of Deathrattle effects. If you end up with Cairne Bloodhoof, then well, it’s an extra 4/5 once this one dies, so the effect is worth a few points of mana. But then, there are more complex, situational stuff, like Rogue’s new Blightnozzle Crawler. Sometimes it can be worth lots of mana if you clear a big minion, and sometimes it might be nearly useless, as you opponent clears it on his turn and pings the 1/1.

The thing I don’t like about pushing Deathrattle theme in Rogue is that Rogue needs tempo. The class has no little to no defensive tools, healing and such and Deathrattle cards are generally slow. They have more value in the long run, but the initial bodies are kind of bad. Just like this one – in what world could you drop a 5 mana 4/2, as Rogue, against Aggro decks?

Another downside is that Rogue doesn’t have amazing Deathrattle minions, and Discover has 400% chance to get class stuff. If Rogue had two or three broken Deathrattle cards, then taking their effects and Discovering them would have extra value. As for the Neutral stuff, despite it being a Discover effect, there are simply so many different effects, weak or strong, that it might not be very reliable.

If it costed 1 mana less, or was a 4/4, or something like that, then it would be really powerful. But right now the initial stats / mana cost ratio might be keeping it from seeing play. For Rogue, a 5+ mana minion either needs to be high tempo or have a broken effect to see play. That’s how the class works right now – it just doesn’t have enough sustain or comeback mechanics to play slow cards. It still might see play in Deathrattle deck, but I don’t believe that it will be a card that carries the deck.

Card rating: 5/10

Voltaic Burst

I feel like people are underrating this card a bit. While summoning 2x 1/1 for 2 mana in total (not exactly, 1+1 overload is generally better than 2 mana) is pretty bad, if you consider the fact that they have Rush and that Shaman has lots of Token synergies, then it suddenly might look much better. Normally, lots of times those 1/1’s wouldn’t stack, because your opponent would kill them to play around exactly those synergies.

But with Rush, it’s a different story. Just for example – if you have Flametongue Totem on the board, then you get 2x 3/1 instead of 2x 1/1 to trade with. You can play them on your Bloodlust turn to trade for 8 extra damage, or just push through a Taunt. They have synergy with Knife Juggler, Sea Giant and such. It also combos really well with the new Thunderhead guy, summoning four tokens with Rush.

So yeah, this card is 2 damage for 2 mana, but that’s only the worst case scenario. If you play it in a Token Shaman deck, you will nearly always get more, sometimes much more. I like it and while it alone won’t be enough to push Token Shaman, add some more synergies and it might be a solid deck.

Card rating: 7/10

Juicy Psychmelon

Blizzard, why? While I think that some people are overhyping this card for Standard (it’s much, MUCH better in Wild right now), this just doesn’t make much sense. It’s draw up to 4 cards for 4 mana, and you draw specific cards. Since you will always put it into a deck with specific big minions you want to draw (e.g. Malygos, Hadronox), it’s a guaranteed tutor for your win condition. Right now, Druid decks in Standard don’t really need it – maybe Togwaggle Malygos build or something like that – but that’s only because they already have so many cycle cards. We’re living in a world in which lots of decks are dropping Ultimate Infestation – not because it’s too expensive or bad, but because they have hand size issues and would often have to overdraw.

In Wild, this card is absolutely broken. You can basically draw your entire Mill Druid combo whenever you play this – Azalina Soulthief, King Togwaggle, Aviana, Kun the Forgotten King. Not only it lets you hit fatigue much faster (which is what you want), there will no longer be combo pieces stuck at the bottom.

However, in Standard right now it’s pretty much redundant. Druid is not struggling for the card draw, nor there is a deck that fills all of the 4 mana slots this card draws from. Running it in Hadronox Druid is not very consistent, because you don’t want to draw your Dragonhatchers. Other Druid decks either don’t fill every single mana slot, or fill it with one card only, which means that it won’t be a very consistent card unless you play it on the curve. Remember that it gets weaker and weaker as the game goes by too, because there is a high chance that some of those mana slots in your deck will be empty already. Very often, by the time you draw half of your deck, you will draw 1 or 2 cards with this. Sometimes even 0 and it will be a dead weight in your hand.

Yes, this is a solid card. But I don’t think it will matter that much in Standard, at least not right now. People keep focusing on the best case scenario too much. Draw 4 for 4. Realistically you won’t even have all four slots filled in your average, slow Druid deck. Then by the time you play it you will often draw at least one of the other minions. It’s like draw 2 for 4 on average, and its main strength is that it tutors the combo pieces. I’m quite sure that there will eventually be a deck that will utilize it (and it will see more play in Wild), but no, this really isn’t going to make Druid unstoppable in Standard. It goes into a very specific Druid build and boosts that deck’s consistency, it’s not another Spreading Plague or Ultimate Infestation. Togwaggle Druid is just about the only deck I could see running this. Maybe Big Druid, but Big Druid wants to focus on removing threats and ramping up and not drawing their big bombs a few turns before they can play them.

Card rating: 5/10 in Standard

Edit: The card has got better when Florist was revealed, but I still don’t think it’s that powerful.

Power Word: Replicate

This card looks pretty bad, to be honest. I’ll just compare it to a few similar cards to show you my reasoning. First card is Vivid Nightmare. One of the reasons to copy a minion is to run some sort of combo. But, Priest already has a cheaper way to copy minions. 1 health doesn’t matter if you kill your opponent anyway, because you’re playing a combo deck. And 2 mana cheaper means that you can actually pull off some crazy stuff, unlike with this one. Another card isShadow Essence. This one costs one more mana, but has a few clear advantages. First one is that you don’t need a minion on the board to copy, so you can play it on the empty board. Another one is that actually copying a minion from your deck means that once it dies, you can revive him easily, so you can use it to pull expensive minions. This one is almost impossible to combo with some expensive, big minions, because they will just die. And finally, Faceless Manipulator. If you end up sticking a solid minion on the board, then Faceless Manipulator is just a better option – and you can also copy your opponent’s minions.

The only real advantage, and I guess the main use of this card, is to run it in a deck with lot of small minions with Deathrattles. For example, Devilsaur Egg – this is a card that you would absolutely want to copy with this one, because it would be a 5 mana 5/5 that Deathrattles into another 5/5 – great. Even 5 mana 5/5 with “Deathrattle: Draw a card, Spell Damage +1” (Bloodmage Thalnos) would be very good. So if I had to make a guess, if anything, this card would see play in this kind of Midrange / Tempo Deathrattle Priest thing.

It’s not a really bad card, since it can be pretty consistent in a deck with lots of sticky Deathrattles, but it’s not very exciting either.

Card rating: 4/10

Augmented Elekk

Very interesting card. Since there are lots of cards that shuffle extra cards into your (or your opponent’s) deck, there are many, many applications, and I think that theory won’t do them justice. Realistically, this will need to be tested to see whether it’s worth it or not. Because on the one hand, shuffling more cards is usually a good thing. But at the same time, you need to spend extra 3 mana to do it – the 3/4 body is nice, but you still add another card to the “combo”. Still, I will go through some of the potential combos you can pull off in Standard and talk about them a bit.

Rogue is probably the best class for this card. Starting with Fal'dorei Strider, it seems like Elekk was made exactly for that card. They curve into each other, and Strider shuffling 6 spiders is a huge deal. Not only it makes it much more likely to pull out one or two quickly, but it increases the total value of the card. Another obvious candidate is Academic Espionage – shuffling TWENTY 1 mana cards into your deck might seem like an overkill, but it will make drawing those discounted cards much more consistent. You can also use it with Lab Recruiter to shuffle even more copies of a given card (6 instead of 3), which might make sense in let’s say the Pogo-Hopper deck.

Other than Rogue, Warrior and Priest can use it in their respective “fatigue” decks. Warrior can combo it with Dead Man's Hand, but it seems a bit pointless – you go infinite with two copies anyway, so shuffling more cards at once doesn’t make a big difference. Dead Man’s Hand deck usually runs Direhorn Hatchling too, and playing Elekk right before the Deathrattle happens might be solid sometimes, an extra 6/9 in your deck. Similarly, Priest could use it with Archbishop Benedictus, but that card is already bad in most of the matchups, shuffling twice as much cards would make you even more fatigue-resistant, but is that really necessary?

You can also drop it with The Darkness to shuffle 6 Candles instead of 3, to make reviving it way more consistent. I doubt that’s enough to make the card playable, since it’s a 2 cards combo you need to hold off until at least Turn 7, but yeah.

Overall, you CAN do some stuff with this card. 3 mana 3/4 body also means that in matchups you don’t need it, dropping it on curve is a solid option. Your opponent might be afraid that you will use that effect anyway, so it has a sort of quasi-Taunt. It will most likely have more applications in Wild (such as meme decks with Iron Juggernaut), but I’m not playing the other format enough to really say whether it will be good or not. In Standard, however, it might not see play immediately, but it’s a card with high potential for some very specific combos. It’s not busted by any means, though, since it increases the mana cost of those combos by 3 and means that you need to draw this card first too.

Card rating: 7/10

Necrium Blade

I really, really like this card. While 3 mana 3/2 weapon is not particularly crazy in Rogue (the class can already to the same thing much more flexibly with Deadly Poison), the effect is really interesting. If you keep this weapon at one durability, like you should in a deck you play it in, it’s like a Play Dead for Rogue. If you run a Deathrattle Rogue deck, you absolutely want to play it, no doubt about it. For example, playing Myra Rotspring on curve, picking a strong Deathrattle and then immediately trigger it can potentially be game-winning. Even the Blightnozzle Crawler looks better now that you can trigger his Deathrattle on your own turn (and even on the curve if you need to do it).

But it’s one of those cards that might see more play in a deck it wasn’t designed for. Even though it’s amazing in Deathrattle Rogue, the deck might turn out not to be viable. But even outside of it, this card has some serious combo potential. The most obvious one is the example from reveal – you drop Leeroy Jenkins, hit, Carnivorous Cube it, hit with this weapon and get 2 more Leeroys. 21 damage in total, and even if it doesn’t KILL your opponent, you’re still left with 3x 6/2 and Cube holding two more 6/2’s. Another example – again from the reveal video – is Kobold Illusionist + Malygos deck. It was already tried out, but there was no good way to trigger your own Kobold Illusionist on your turn, now there is (not to mention that Necrium Vial was just revealed and it’s another way to do it, for more consistency).

The main problem I have with this card is that as long as you’re holding it on one point of durability for your combos, you can’t use your Hero Power, and Hero Power is a big part of the Rogue’s power. So ideally you’ll want to set it up a turn before dropping a strong Deathrattle minion and then quickly using it so you can Hero Power again.

I like this card, I’m quite sure that it will see some play. Weapon is okay, the effect is solid in both Deathrattle decks and in some combos, and we all know that Rogue is a combo expert.

Card rating: 8/10

Thunderhead

It seems like instead of trying to push new strategies for Shaman, they’re now trying to get the class back to its roots – flooding the board and finishing the game with Bloodlust. This card simply looks good. I already rated Voltaic Burst pretty well, and this is one of the reasons why it might be strong. 3/5 for 4 is not good by itself, but you could say the same thing about Violet Teacher in Druid. And unlike Violet Teacher, this card is already great after just a single trigger. Not only it summons two 1/1’s, but they have Rush, which can make some amazing tempo pushes, especially in the late game.

It works best if yo can combo it with cheap Overload cards – Zap!, Voltaic Burst or Lightning Bolt are the best options right now. In the mid game, even without other synergy cards this can provide a massive board swings. But that’s not all – it also has some insane late game scaling. If you can spend extra 2 mana to play Knife Juggler or Flametongue Totem before that, then you’re set. Flametongue Totem in particular seems really amazing proactive board clear – you deal with everything your opponent has and end up with a solid board he absolutely has to answer in fear of Bloodlust.

It also has an Elemental tag, but I don’t believe that it’s really relevant. You would rather put it into a more classic Midrange build than into an Elemental deck. Maybe Even Shaman, but the deck would need another cheap (0 or 2 mana) Overload card, or maybe two, because Zap alone doesn’t seem enough. And the most important thing is that you DON’T build a full Overload deck around it. Those are bad. But this card doesn’t need one – just a few already solid Overload cards will do, because like I’ve mentioned before, even triggering it once already makes it worth it. I really like it, and I will definitely try to test out the Midrange/Token strategy.

Card rating: 8/10

Storm Chaser

The “vanilla” card draw for 4 mana is 2/4 (Gnomish Inventor), so it’s already a bit better with one more attack. And that one more attack really matters, because lots of the early game cards right now have 3 health and not 2. On top of that, tutoring a specific card is usually better than just drawing. That’s the reason why Sandbinder is played in Shudderwock Shaman (to draw Grumble, Worldshaker) instead of Gnomish Inventor. Which means that this card has two advantages over a regular card draw.

However, for a tutor card to be good, you need to find a deck which actually WANTS to tutor the cards this thing draws. Right now, the main issue is the number of 5+ mana Shaman Spells in standard. There are exactly four (after Boomsday): Bloodlust, Volcano, Eureka! and Lesser Sapphire Spellstone. Luckily, each of those cards is something you want to tutor. Bloodlust in Midrange/Token decks, Volcano in Control decks, Eureka in Combo/Big decks (or whatever decks it will be played in) and Spellstone in Overload decks. We’re also waiting for the Shaman’s Legendary spell, which also has a significant chance to be 5+ mana (every other spell revealed so far is). The main issue I have with this one is the fact that if you run only two copies of 5+ mana spell, then it becomes a little inconsistent. Even with one copy of Storm Chaser, there is a chance to draw both before this guy, let alone two.

No doubt that the effect is powerful, and I believe that it will be played in the decks that really want to draw those 5+ mana spells. However, unless a certain decks puts 4+ of them (like Overload Shaman does already, actually), one copy of this will most likely be enough, just like Shudderwock Shaman runs only a single Sandbinder. Still, if you find the right deck, this card can be really, really good.

Card rating: 8/10

Replicating Menace

Would be absolutely busted at 3 mana, it’s only… meh at 4. The most obvious point of comparison is Eggnapper, which was actually good enough to see some Constructed play, but it was never broken or anything. And that’s 3 mana 3/1 that summons 2x 1/1. For one more mana, you get another 1/1 in a Deathrattle… which is absolutely underwhelming. You also get a Mech tag, which is alright. But the main selling point of this card is Magnetic mechanic. 3/1 can be pinged off easily, but adding +3/+1 to an already existing minion can make it trade up nicely, or just survive if it has more health. For example, sticking it to Nightmare Amalgam (the most obvious 3-drop in a Mech deck), it will be a 6/5 minion with Deathrattle: Summon 3x 1/1. Pretty good, but that’s about the best case scenario for this card, and you spend 7 mana and 2 cards in total for that.

And without Magnetic… Spending your entire Turn 4 dropping a 3/1 minion feels really, really bad. It’s slow, easy to take down, the 1/1’s don’t trade too well if you can’t buff them immediately etc.

To be honest, at 4 mana cost, the only way I can see it in Constructed is if some Token-oriented Mech deck pops out. The reason why Eggnapper has seen play in the first place was because Token Druid could utilize those 1/1’s quite nicely thanks to the cards such as Mark of the Lotus or Savage Roar. So we’d need a Mech deck also having a way to utilize tokens. Will it be a thing? I don’t think so, but we’ll see.

Card rating: 4/10

Security Rover

This card seems really, really bad. While it has some Grim Patron vibes, it’s nothing like that. Patron was strong, because its copies could also copy itself. This is more like Hogger, Doom of Elwynn, just without a powerful initial body.

Let’s start with stating obvious. 6 mana 2/5 is absolutely terrible. By that time, your opponent will definitely have a way to either kill it in one blow (and minimize the value) or just remove it with a spell etc. Triggering once is obviously terrible – 2/5 + 2/3 Taunt for 6 mana sucks. Even triggering it two times, which is realistically a very good scenario, it’s still bad. You need to trigger it 3 times or more to make it work, and that’s very hard. Either you need to buff it and your opponent needs to have absolutely no removal/Silence, or you need to play some Whirlwind effects and such, but that’s mostly a waste for a card like that.

If this card has Rush or Taunt, just something extra, it would be a better, but probably still not good enough. To really make it work, you need to not only have Dr. Boom, Mad Genius already played (so it has Rush), but also have some relatively cheap Magnetic minion to stick it to this guy and potentially get more value. You might see it being played sometimes, from the random Discover effects and stuff, but I seriously doubt that it will be good enough to play in the deck.

Card rating: 2/10

Mecha’thun

Boomsday Project is an expansion full of experimental, crazy cards, and this card is like the essence of an entire expansion. It’s insane. And I love it.

I honestly don’t think that it’s a good card at all, but it’s one of the most fun from the entire expansion. It will lead to hundreds of different theorycrafts, ways to make it work. Most likely none of them will really work, or at the very least none of them will work consistently and be better than already existing deck lists. The requirement to have nothing, literally NOTHING in your hand, board, deck etc. is already huge, but it gets even better. Since this is a Deathrattle, it’s vulnerable to any kind of Silence or Transform effects. Which means that you have ot trigger it right away yourself too. There aren’t many ways to do it. For example, Druid can play this + Innervate + Naturalize. But it means that every single card was already drawn, no other minions are present on the field etc. You often need to plan for it multiple turns ahead. Like, if your opponent realizes what kind of deck you play, and you drop Spreading Plague, he might leave you with a single 1/5 Taunt and ignore it for the rest of the game, so you can never proc Mecha’thun.

Of course, since you play a combo that literally requires you to draw and play every single card in your deck, playing a regular combo seems better. The main downside of combo deck is that you might not have time to find/play your combo before you die. This card, while consistent, is literally the slowest combo you can have in the entire game. Most of the other combos are drawn and played with a few cards still left in your deck, few dead cards in your hand etc. This one literally can’t.

The closest “trigger” card for this we have right now is Cataclysm in slow Warlock – it might be an extra win condition once you enter fatigue, but those are still two dead cards in your hand, work only after you reach fatigue AND require this guy to stick for a turn. Otherwise opponent just Silences or straight up kills it while you still have cards in your hand and that’s the end of your combo. So yeah, it won’t work.

It is an absolutely terrible card, but at the same time one of the most fun and unique from the entire expansion. It won’t work in Standard, I’m pretty much sure of that. Maybe in Wild, especially many expansions from now, there will be some crazy ways to get rid of everything on the board, as well as in your hand/deck and it will be viable.

Card: 1/10 strength, 10/10 flavor

Necrium Vial

TIL Play Dead x2 = 5 mana. While I have no way of knowing, I think that Preparation really has something to do with it. On the one hand, it’s one of the reasons why Rogue is a solid class nearly every expansion, on the other hand it really, and I mean REALLY limits the design space and I hope that it rotates out + they start giving Rogues well-priced spells. Because I get it, if it costed let’s say 3 or 4, then it would be too strong with Prep and some crazy combos would be available.

However, even at 5 mana, with Preparation (so at 2 mana really), I can see it being abused in some decks. The most obvious choice is of course Deathrattle Rogue, but it’s hard to say whether a deck like that will actually be viable. Triggering Deathrattle twice might not seem THAT much better than doing it once, but it really is more impactful. Just dropping Carnivorous Cube on anything and then using this will create 4 extra bodies on the board. It doesn’t have to be big – Cube a Fal'dorei Strider or the spider you get from him or something, this kind of board requires an immediate AoE clear. And normally if you flood the board, and it gets cleared, you end up behind both in terms of card advantage and in tempo. In this case, you still have tempo (if the Cube isn’t Silenced), and you didn’t have to use that many cards to achieve that.

Another great candidate for this card seeing play is Malygos Rogue. Play Kobold Illusionist when Malygos is the only minion in your hand. Prep this. You have +10 Spell Damage and 4 mana to play with. Just 2x Sinister Strike is 26 damage, add in a Shiv or Eviscerate and you’ve got yourself a proper OTK. If you also play the weapon (Necrium Blade) you can get another Malygos out for 5 more Spell Damage, now you might have enough to actually kill a Druid (55 damage from 2x Sinister + Eviscerate). This kind of card can be useful in all kinds of shenanigans, and we all know that Rogue players are itching to build another combo deck.

So while it might seem that 5 mana cost on this is a huge overkill, it can be justified in the right deck, especially if you can combo it with Preparation. If you can’t (so probably most of the time) – it might get clunky, but it’s not a bad card. I’d still gladly see Preparation gone, though, and then cost of this decreased to 4, cost of WANTED! decreased to 3 etc. to be actually reasonable without having to use an extra card.

Card rating: 6/10

Dreampetal Florist

So. This is a card that can reduce the cost of Malygos from 9 to 2. And I still think that it might not be necessary, because Druids already have a way to get it out on the board, as well as they might not have enough space to put this card in. Hard to say at this point, but the deck is just getting more and more consistent. If anything, this will add redundancy – you COULD play it instead of Twig of the World Tree, but you can also play both.

7 mana cost on this is also very interesting. Thanks to that, it fills the 7 mana slot in Juicy Psychmelon. I previously didn’t think that the card will see play in Malygos Druid (because you would pull out like 2 cards at best), but with this one it actually might. Drawing both this and Malygos can potentially make the combo much quicker. The worst thing ever when playing the deck was having Twig near the bottom of your deck. The problem was that you didn’t only have to draw it, but also

The problem is that Malygos isn’t the only minion you play for the combo. Faceless Manipulator is a thing, and you will also play Flobbidinous Floop most likely. What if it hits one of those? Well, to be honest, nothing. If one of those takes the discount instead of Maly, you just drop Maly one turn, then play Floop + Faceless next, then Swipe + 2x Moonfire with +10 Spell Damage for 36 damage in total. All covered.

You COULD also combo it with Drakkari Enchanter on Turn 10 for double discount. But that seems unnecessary. One discount on anything is enough to combo down most of your opponents and adding unnecessary, clunky cards isn’t going to help overall. Theoretically, since this is an end of turn effect, it can trigger more than once, but that’s a wishful thinking. Emperor Thaurissan came down a turn earlier, was a 5/5 and it nearly never survived after the initial turn. This will share a similar fate.

So yeah, it is good in combo decks. It adds redundancy, and redundancy adds consistency. I don’t believe that it would see play outside of those – if you don’t hit a combo piece, this is a bit like playing a 0 mana 4/4 in the long run – you pay 7 mana now, then you get 7 mana discount later. But you might be able to do some tempo pushes, like discounting The Lich King and immediately dropping a Faceless Manipulator on it. Still, seems unnecessary. So I’m quite sure that this kind of powerful discount will see play in combo decks, if not now then in the future. Not sure if that was the devs intent, but this really starts looking like a Malygos expansion. Maybe they want people to have some fun with it before it rotates out to Hall of Fame? Who knows?

Card rating: 9/10

The Soularium

It might be one of the most busted cards from the expansion. And despite being rated really highly, I think that lots of folks are still underestimating it. While it will basically only fit into aggressive Warlock builds (Zoo and such), the card will be extremely powerful in those kind of decks.

It might seem that card draw is not great in Zoo, because of the Hero Power. Normally that’s true – but the fact that it draws you THREE cards for 1 mana makes it pretty insane. Even in the worst case scenario, if you end up playing only one of those cards and the other 2 get discarded, it’s like a Tracking. And that’s the worst case. Okay, Tracking is a bit better, because you can play it on T1 and keep the card for later, but that’s a non-issue given the potential upside. Playing two of them already makes it great, and if you manage to play all 3, then it’s even better. Looking at the current Heal Zoo deck, it runs out of cards very quickly. In the mid/late game, you have to tap every turn, and while getting 2 cards per turn is good, it’s often not enough. If you end up with two 1-drops, then you have an extremely weak turn. If you play this later in the game, you will be able to play all 3 cards very often, maybe even tap on top of that.

Of course, the card is also very useful in any kind of Discard Warlock. Not only it can be used to accelerate the Quest (Lakkari Sacrifice) very, very well (if you just play it and don’t use any of the cards you got, that’s +3 for the Quest for 1 mana), but it makes sense in Wild in a more oldschool Warlock build. Drawing Silverware Golem would be great, playing this while having Malchezaar's Imp on the Battlefield would basically negate the Discard downside etc.

This card will 100% see play in Zoo, because it’s very, very strong. At the same time, it won’t boost the slower Warlock archetypes – not only they don’t really need more draw most of the time (especially Even Warlock), but it could potentially hit an expensive card you can’t play and don’t want to lose. Like, you could discard Bloodreaver Gul'dan, even if you play this on Turn 10. It works in Zoo, because the individual cards aren’t that important, the deck doesn’t run a single card it just absolutely needs to perform its game plan.

Card rating: 10/10

Arcane Dynamo

Important thing to keep in mind that Discover can only give you cards from your class, as well as neutrals. And since there are no neutral spells, it will always show 3 spells from your own class. And given that most of the classes don’t have many 5+ mana spells, this card will be very consistent. Just for example, Rogue has only three 5+ mana spells right now, so it would always offer those three (Lesser Onyx Spellstone, Vanish and Sprint). It will get two more in the upcoming expansion – Myra's Unstable Element and Necrium Vial – but it will still be 60% chance to get exactly the one you want, or 80% chance if you’re looking for one of the two cards.

The problem here is mana cost and the body. It would be an amazing card at 4 mana. At 5 mana, it would be average. At 6 mana, it’s just bad. Despite giving you a card advantage, 6 mana for a 3/4 body is something absolutely unplayable. While the effect is powerful, the weak body will keep it from seeing play. Unless you absolutely want to have as many copies as possible of a certain 5+ mana spell and it’s so good that you’re willing to play a 6 mana 3/4 to get it… But I can’t really think of spells like that right now. Like, just compare it to the new Shaman card – Storm Chaser. While the effect is slightly worse (draw vs discover), paying 2 more mana for it seems a bit ridiculous.

Right now it looks bad, but I wouldn’t completely dismiss it. The fact that some of the classes have so little 5+ mana spells and can get the ones they want very consistently means that it might be useful at one point, in some deck.

Card rating: 3/10, but possibly better if you want to look for a specific 5+ mana spell

E.M.P. Operative

Crab of the expansion! Except that it’s not a Crab. Which is pretty sad, I feel like Crabs as hate cards are a meme at this point and they should release more. Even if it had the same stats and effect.

Compared to other Crab cards, it’s clearly inferior. Unlike a 1 man 1/2, or a 2 mana 2/3, 5 mana 3/3 is not really playable by itself. If you don’t hit a Mech, it’s absolutely terrible. It also doesn’t gain any stats if you do.

Whether this card will see play or not is basically a meta call. Like, let’s say The Black Knight – a card we haven’t seen in a long while that made a comeback recently. If meta will be full of Mechs, being able to destroy one for 5 mana while getting a 3/3 body on top of that will be solid. I guess that they didn’t want to make it cheaper, because other crabs are frustrating to play against, the early game tempo swing can be so massive that one crab can just win the game. But come on, 5 mana 3/3 is too weak. Even if it actually HITS a Mech, it’s still a weaker Vilespine Slayer, a card that has absolutely no restrictions (yes, it’s an amazing card, but you get my point).

This is absolutely terrible if it doesn’t hit and only “good” if it does, which makes it less swingy and more risky to actually put into your deck. Crabs were solid even if only 10-20% of the meta were playing Murlocs/Pirates, because they could be dropped as vanilla minions on the curve too. Not great, but usually not game-losing. This is basically a dead card in non-Mech matchups. So in order for this to see play, Mechs would need to completely dominate the meta, and I mean it – I doubt that I would put it into my deck if less than 50% of my matchups were Mechs. And if Mechs will be a thing, Big Game Hunter will often do a similar job to clear the Magnetized ones, while also working against a bunch of other stuff. So it seems like a very, VERY situational tech card, pretty bad in general. I absolutely can’t see Mechs dominating enough for this to be played.

Card rating: 2/10 in general, 6/10 if Mechs dominate the meta

Meteorologist

This card has some potential, but only if you can keep your hand sizes really high. And I mean it. If your average hand size is 5, then this card is pretty bad. 6 mana for 3/3 that deals 4 random damage (4 not 5, because it starts doing damage after it leaves the hand already). With 9 cards in hand, this is Avenging Wrath with a 3/3 body. Seemingly really powerful, given that Avenging Wrath has seen play in a T1 deck, right? Well, not exactly. It has seen play for a few specific reasons that don’t translate well into another deck/class. Paladin plays it because the class has no reach (and Mage does), because of the Equality synergy (and Mage doesn’t have anything like that) and because it is a Genn Greymane deck, so it has limited choices.

A 3/3 with Avenging Wrath attached would be good, but not as broken as you might think. But that’s like the best case scenario. You would need to have a nearly full hand to do it. Big Spell Mage might fill that condition, but Big Spell Mage doesn’t want to deal a bunch of random, Avenging Wrath style damage. The deck doesn’t care about face damage, for example, and this can hit it. That’s why the only deck I can imagine this seeing play in is Elemental Mage – a deck with hand sizes so big that it commonly runs Mountain Giant. The effect also fits this kind of deck quite well, because the deck doesn’t run many spells (because otherwise Book of Specters would be pretty weak), so having a source of removal/burn damage can work nicely.

Tempo Mage with Aluneth is also a possibility, although the card would be terrible until you get Aluneth. By Turn 6, you usually have maybe 2-3 cards in your hand, so it would be just bad.

Bad-to-average in most of the Mage decks, but it can be very useful in a deck like Elemental Mage. Especially if your opponent didn’t develop and you shoot him for like 8-9 in the face, that can really hurt.

Card rating: 7/10

Omega Mind

I’m on the fence about this card, don’t really know if it’s good or not. On the one hand, it’s very powerful late game card. Playing it with Lightning Storm or Volcano (it’s important to note that it usually won’t leave a body behind if you play it with Volcano) heals you for A LOT. But the Battlecry only activates on Turn 10, which is really late.

You definitely do not replace Healing Rain with this one. You need healing in the mid game so often when playing a slow Shaman deck like Shudderwock build, and Healing Rain always works – you can play it on Turn 5, 8 OR 10. Even Hallazeal the Ascended could be used on Turn 8 with Storm, this can’t. And even Hallazeal turned out to be only okay card, not as impressive as it seemed. You could run Omega Mind as something extra, for even more late game healing, but is it really that necessary?

Another problem is that the only Shaman deck that would want to run it right now – Shudderwock Shaman – runs Prince Keleseth, so adding this would mean taking the Keleseth out. Ideally, if you take Keleseth out, you want to add more than one 2-drop, but the thing is that slow Shaman doesn’t have many great options.

I will probably add one copy to my Malygos build, but that’s about it. I don’t think that Shudderwock Shaman will play it, and non-Keleseth Shaman builds might use one copy as an extra late game healing. Maybe not even always – it will be more of a tech card if you face a meta in which more healing is useful. It’s okay, but nothing special.

Card rating: 5/10

Void Analyst

Pretty cool card, but I think that it came out too late. A while ago, Demon Zoo build was pretty popular and it worked quite nicely. It used Demonfire, Bloodfury Potion, Crystalweaver and a bunch of Demons. This would fit right in.

Right now, there are three main issues. First – Zoo decks aren’t exactly Demon-heavy. I mean, they DO run Demons, but not at an incredibly high density. Second – past the early/mid game, you nearly always empty your hand every turn, so this would be a vanilla 2/2 minion… not very exciting. And last, but not least – Prince Keleseth. +1/+1 for all minions is still better. Of course, when Warlock reaches a certain amount of good 2-drops (like Vulgar Homunculus), you might want to drop the Keleseth, but I don’t think it’s this one.

On the other hand, I don’t see it being played anywhere outside of Demon Zoo deck. I mean, giving your Doomguard and Voidlord +1/+1 is not really worth a card slot and diluting the pool of Demons for DK Hero. Maybe some Midrange Demon Warlock build will pop out eventually, Skull of the Man'ari would actually make it quite interesting.

So overall, it’s okay, might see some play in the future, especially after Keleseth rotates out. But it’s not amazing, nor I think that it will be played right now.

Card rating: 5/10

Seaforium Bomber

This is like a weaker, Neutral version of Iron Juggernaut from GvG. And while Juggernaut was a class card, Warrior had all kinds of decks, ranging from Aggro to Control, and it wasn’t played in any of them. It has only seen play briefly with Brann Bronzebeard, in Control/Fatigue deck, as a finisher. But 10 damage bombs were so much better than 5 damage bombs.

While this effect seems like something good in Aggro/Tempo decks that want to kill the opponent quickly, it really isn’t. Realistically, if you shuffle it when your opponent still has 20 cards in your hand, the chances that it will trigger during the next 5 turns are roughly 27.5%. I took 5 turns as an example, because by that time most of the games will be decided – either you will get ahead and be in a winning position, or your opponent will stabilize. But it basically means that 62.5% of time, it will be a vanilla 5/5 minion for 5 mana. Not very appealing, right?

The only realistic use for this card is in some kind of combo, or fatigue deck – a deck that can reliably force the opponent to draw all of those. This card can combo with Augmented Elekk just like Juggernaut could combo with Brann, but then again, it’s still only 10 damage. You CAN add Murmuring Elemental to boost it up to 20, but that’s a 3 card combo in Shaman, a class that isn’t know for its fatigue decks (I mean, Shudderwock Shaman gets to fatigue quite commonly, but it already plays its own combo and doesn’t need this).

All in all, it might be used by some combo off-meta combo deck, but I just don’t see it as a part of the meta.

Card rating: 2/10

Luna’s Pocket Galaxy

This is a very interesting card, and the effect really looks broken. Reducing the cost of all minions in your deck is massive, it activates all kinds of Big and Combo decks. Just think about it – a 1 maan Archmage Antonidas or even Malygos would be absolutely broken. However, I think that people were lost in the hype and didn’t think about this card longer.

First and most importantly – it’s a 7 mana card with zero immediate effect. And I mean zero, not even a small board clear, minion or whatever. Since Mage has no way to cheat mana on spells, that 7 mana will always have to be spent. Another thing is that it reduces the cost of minions in your DECK, not in your hand. That’s one of the reasons why Quest Druid is not always consistent – and Quest Druid usually gets to finish the Quest quite quickly.  The issue here is that if you go for a combo deck, and you draw one of your combo pieces, then it won’t get a discount. You can theoretically shuffle it with Baleful Banker and THEN play Pocket Galaxy, but that means that you have to spend two entire turns not clearing/freezing the board, which might be way too much in the late game. This card can also be stuck in your deck for a while. Yes, you COULD try to fetch it with Raven Familiar, but if you play a combo deck, you need lots of other spells to stall the game, stuff like Dragon's Fury and Blizzard, so you won’t get it consistently. Not to mention that a Combo deck wouldn’t take a huge advantage of this effect, because the deck is spell-heavy, not minion-heavy. It’s just incredibly hard to make it work, and people are looking way too much into the best case scenario.

So maybe some other deck? The deck definitely needs to be minion-heavy, with multiple bigger minions to really take advantage of it. Something like Elemental Mage? Then again, there’s another huge issue. Spending 7 mana doing nothing means that you fall behind in tempo. So you probably need some powerful AoEs to come back, and if you have a minion-heavy deck, you might simply not have one.

Maybe an entire deck will be built around it, with Stargazer Luna, Aluneth etc. But again, perfect case scenario – if it works, then it’s great. But realistically, it will rarely work. So when it comes to this card, I’m going to go against the hype and say that it’s pretty bad. It might be better in Wild, where you still have Ice Block and you can cheat it out with Inkmaster Solia in Reno deck.

Card rating: 3/10

Subject 9

This card can be really strong in decks running Secrets. In order for this to be playable, I’d say that you need to draw 2 cards. 5 mana 4/4 that draws a single card is not bad, but not THAT good – Azure Drake was better, because it also had Spell Damage (and it obviously fit into many more decks). At 2 cards, however, it’s already really strong. 3 cards and it’s bonkers – you don’t need to go higher than that. While it can theoretically draw up to 5, you have to simply ignore that part. Not only you won’t likely put 5 different Secrets into your deck, but even if you do, you will most likely draw some of them before this card. Still, with 3 different Secrets in your deck, you should draw 2 pretty consistently. Sometimes you will low-roll and get only 1, sometimes you will high-roll and get 3.

This card will 100% see play in Wild Secret Hunter deck. Combo it with Cloaked Huntress to get out all of the Secrets for free and you’re set. As for the Standard, it’s a bit more complicated. First of all, there aren’t many decks that play Secrets. Paladin and Rogue most likely won’t want to play it for now. Paladin doesn’t have any great Secrets in Standard right now, while Rogue’s Secrets fit different kinds of decks and you won’t likely want to put all of them into your deck (maybe with two different Secrets… but I’m still not seeing it). So we’re left with Mage and Hunter.

As for the Mage, right now the class still has Arcanologist, which is one of the best 2-drops ever printed and it tutors Secrets. That’s why, unless you want to put LOTS of Secrets into your Mage deck, Subject 9 just isn’t necessary. Slow Mage decks don’t run Secrets at all after Ice Block has rotated out, and faster Mage basically runs 2 copies of 2 Secrets (Counterspell and Explosive Runes), sometimes with an additional one (mostly Mirror Entity), but rarely. So Arcanologists are enough to get them.

Which means that we’re left with Hunter. This card would fit best into Spell Hunter, but it’s a minion, so that’s that. However, I’d say that it will definitely be played in any Hunter deck running at least 3 different Secrets – maybe some Recruit Hunter builds without Prince Keleseth, maybe Midrange Hunter, maybe the new Mech Hunter if it plays Secrets.

All in all, this card has massive potential, but the problem is that right now there is no deck that would really want to play it. If Secret Hunter was still a thing in Standard, then it would be an auto-include there. But it’s not. So right now it might not see any serious play, despite being absolutely powerful.

Card rating: 9/10 potential, but probably 4/10 in the upcoming meta

Dr. Morrigan

This card just seems… bad. Theoretically you can go for the “infinite loop” with Baleful Banker, but you need to build an entire deck around it, and it’s still not consistent. Not to mention that if it just gets Silenced or Transformed, that’s it for the infinite plan. No, it’s not a combo you build your deck around.

So maybe build a deck around big minions only? This will have 100% chance to pull something good then. But what’s the point? It costs 8 mana, that’s not much of a cheating. Just look how weaker Possessed Lackey got after nerfing it to 6 mana, and it’s still 2 mana cheaper than that. Playing 8 mana to pull a 10 mana minion doesn’t seem like the most efficient thing ever.

And running it in a regular Warlock deck seems outright terrible. Even the non-Zoo Warlock decks run multiple small minions – Kobold Librarian, Doomsayer, Plated Beetle, Gnomeferatu, Vulgar Homunculus, Stonehill Defender etc. Those are terrible pulls. The card can also be Silenced before you pull anything and you spent 8 mana on a 5/5 minion. And even if you high roll into a Voidlord for example, it’s still not very impressive. You had to pay pretty much the same mana cost, and got an extra 5/5 body for one card.

You theoretically can do some Carnivorous Cube shenanigans on this card, but you can’t play those two together and it’s incredibly vulnerable to Silence, like I’ve mentioned before. If it works, then you can either pull a bunch of high value minions or just more copies of Morrigan. But the question is – how consistently will it work? My guess is that not consistently at all.

So unless I’m completely missing something, this card is just bad. Might be played in some meme deck, but I don’t see it seeing play with the current pool of cards. But Blizzard will probably troll me and reveal some sick synergies after I’ve already said that this card is trash.

Card rating: 2/10

Galvanizer

A new, toned down version of Mechwarper. Which is fine, because Mechwarper was one of the first real “mana cheat” cards and it could lead to some crazy scenarios.

First of all, stats. That’s where the card is much weaker than Mechwarper – 1/2 vs 2/3 is a huge difference on a 2-drop. Mechwarper actually had 2-drop’s stats, this has a 1-drop’s stats. Of course, if the effect is good enough, it will make up for that fact, and I believe that it’s the case here. But it luckily won’t be as broken as Mechwarper.

And now to the more important part – effect. I would say that the effect are comparable, and maybe this one is even stronger. The biggest difference is that Mechwarper’s effect was active as long as it was on the board. So in case it stayed there for 3-4 turns or something, it was absolutely busted and way, way better than this. On the other hand, lots of the time it was just killed by Fiery War Axe (2 mana…), Wrath, Frostbolt and such. It rarely stayed on the board for longer than 1-2 turns, but if it did, Mech deck usually won the game. This effect, on the other hand, is more consistent. If you drop it when you have 3 Mechs in your hand, you will get 3 mana discount in total, and that’s it. It doesn’t matter if it stays on the board or dies, the effect is still there. Which I believe made Mechwarper’s effect better in tempo-oriented decks, which usually had a low hand size and really wanted the discount on topdecked Mechs too. On the other hand, this fits more into a bit slower Mech decks, the ones that can wait before they have multiple of them in the hand before dropping this. It’s also better for any Combo deck using Mechs, since the discount is permanent.

That said, I think that even faster Mech decks will gladly take it, even though it’s no Mechwarper. It can speed up your progress and create some amazing curves. For example, in Paladin, you can drop this on T2, then Magnetize an Annoy-o-Module into it on T3, then Wargear on T4. If your opponent doesn’t have Silence or big removal, then you basically win the game with your 8/11 Taunt + Divine shield combo on Turn 4.

It’s a solid card and should see play in Mech decks. It’s nowhere near as degenerate as Mechwarper was, but that’s great. Of course, its viability will depend on how strong Mech decks turn out to be, and that’s a big question right now. We still haven’t seen most of the Neutral Commons/Rares, and they might be holding some nice Mechs/Mech synergies out there.

Card rating: 7/10 (as long as Mechs see play)

The Storm Bringer

I feel like this card is better than some of you might be thinking. While cards that featured random Legendaries weren’t historically very powerful, this might be a difference. Have you ever played Rotface in Recruit Warrior? If you trigger it once, you’re very susceptible to bad RNG – you often low-roll it. But if you trigger it 4-5 times, you nearly always end up with a great board, with at least 2 or 3 bigger minions. And that’s the thing about this card. Evolving an ENTIRE board into Legendaries means that even if you hit some low rolls, at least some out of the let’s say 5 minion’s you’re Evolving are going to turn out to be good.

The main issue here is mana Cost. 7 Mana is A LOT for a Token deck like that. Thrall, Deathseer costed 2 less and it was already sometimes pretty hard to utilize.

“Why not just play Bloodlust?” is the question I’ve read a few times, and it’s a silly question. You still play Bloodlust, duh. It’s just an alternative win condition. You don’t always have Bloodlust, and Bloodlust is not always great. Like when Druid answers your board full of small minions with Spreading Plague – what will Bloodlust do? Maybe clear a few 1/5 Taunts and that’s it. While this can potentially swing the entire game.

With the new Thunderhead and Voltaic Burst, on top of already existing cards like Saronite Chain Gang, Primalfin Totem or Fire Fly, it seems like Token Shaman might some nice ways to build the wide boards of small minions. If a board like that sticks for even a single turn, this card can be incredibly powerful. I mean, you don’t even have to stick a huge board in the late game. If you’re at 10 mana already, and have 2 minions on the board, just play Voltaic Burst + Fire Fly and suddenly you have 6, and can still play this card. And while some of the decks have good answers for a full board of big minions, lots of them will just lose on the spot.

I don’t think that this card alone will make Token Shaman a thing, but it should be a nice addition to the deck nonetheless. I still can’t rate it too high, because even with the new additions Token Shaman might not be good enough.

Card rating: 6/10

Prismatic Lens

This card is a real deck building challenge. Drawing 2 cards for 4 mana is pretty bad, but it’s not the end of the world. So for it to be a good card, the secondary effect needs to work. It always draws a spell and a minion, and it swaps their mana cost. Which means that there are two ways to make this card work.

First is playing cheap spells and expensive minions. Playing this might let’s say draw your 1 mana Blessing of Might and Tirion Fordring, then switch their mana costs. You will have a 1 mana Tirion and 8 mana buff. You obviously drop Tirion as soon as possible, out-tempoing your opponent and possibly winning the game.

And second is playing cheap minions and expensive spells. If you build an Aggro deck with lots of 1-3 mana minions, and then put some more expensive spells like Spikeridged Steed or Dinosize, then you will end up with a cheap buff and an expensive minion. Something like a 1 mana Dinosize can carry the game easily, meaning that it also makes lots of sense.

That said, I’m not sure if those decks will be good enough. You’re limiting yourself, not to mention that you need to draw this card in the first place. That’s why this card is pretty much impossible to rate correctly right now, it might take week for people to figure out which builds it goes into. Maybe something like a Secret Paladin with some expensive minions? Or Spiteful Paladin running only big spells like Dinosize and possibly even Kangor's Endless Army (while making it a Mech deck)? Hard to say. But I like the cards that aren’t very obvious, and this has some solid potential.

Card rating: 7/10

Dyn-o-matic

This is another card which proves that Mech Warrior will most likely want to play a Control style. Tempo decks usually want to drop stuff on the curve, not really hold off onto them, and this might be amazing in some situations, but it’s not your usual 5-drop that always works. It’s like a removal with a body attached. It might be played in a more Tempo deck if the meta demands it (like people are running lots of board flood decks, then it can be a nice addition), but I see it mostly as a Control card.

3/4 body costs 3 mana, so you’re getting 5 damage for 2 extra mana. However, that damage is spread between non-Mech minions, making it quite useful in a range of situations. Just two examples – if you’re playing against Odd Paladin and they have a bunch of 1/1’s on the board, you drop this and it clears. On the other hand, if you play against some deck that just dropped a 5/5 minion on the empty board, you can also play this and it clears. Fun, right? You can also combo it with Acolyte of Pain to draw 3 cards immediately, and possibly hit something your opponent has on the board too. But since it’s situational, it means that you might need to hold onto it for multiple turns to find the right board – hence why it might work best in a Control deck.

I like this card, it’s not particularly impressive, it’s no Vilespine Slayer, but it should be useful lots of times. Removals attached to bodies are generally pretty solid, especially if you can somewhat control the outcome. I’m super glad that it can’t hit the face, because it would make the card way, way less consistent.

Card rating: 8/10