The Witchwood Card Review Part 12 (Final) – Shudderwock, Prince Liam, Earthen Might, Divine Hymn, 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?”

In this article, I’ll take a closer look at some of the recently revealed cards, reviewing them and rating from 1 to 10. The scale itself should be quite obvious, but just to quickly explain my point of view: A card rated 5 is average – it might be playable in some decks, but it’s nothing special (think something like Plated Beetle from Kobolds & Catacombs). 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.

Previous Card Reviews

• Part 1 – Initial Reveal: Phantom Militia, Pumpkin Peasant, Militia Commander, Genn Greymane, Azalina Soulthief, & Baku the Mooneater
• Part 2 – Black Cat, Gloom Stag, Murkspark Eel, & Glitter Moth
• Part 3 – Warpath, Face Collector
• Part 4 – Houndmaster Shaw, Glinda Crowskin, Hagatha the Witch, Lord Godfrey and More!
• Part 5 – Scaleworm, Vex Crow, Coffin Crasher, Darius Crowley, Emeriss, and More!
• Part 6 – Blackhowl Gunspire, Lady in White, Cursed Castaway, and More!
• Part 7 – Chameleos, Witching Hour, Deadly Arsenal, Duskfallen Aviana, Wing Blast and More!
• Part 8 – Rat Trap, Dire Frenzy, Dollmaster Dorian, Voodoo Doll, Splintergraft and More!
• Part 9 – Mistwraith, Pick Pocket, Silver Sword, Bellringer Sentry and The Glass Knight!
• Part 10 – Worgen Abomination, Town Crier, Totem Cruncher, Countess Ashmore, Book of Specters, and More!
• Part 11 – Tess Greymane, Blink Fox, Archmage Arugal, Paragon of Light, and More!

Remember that it’s very hard to review cards accurately, since predicting an upcoming meta accurately is almost impossible, which means that some seemingly “bad” cards might see much more play, because they fit right into a new meta, and the “good” cards won’t be used, because the meta counters them. 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 with 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!

Shudderwock

It looks like the early leaks have turned out to be true. I was honestly hoping that it will be the case because of this card. Shaman’s power level is very low right now, but this is absolutely insane. There are LOTS of strong Battlecries, and while targets are random just like in case of Tess Greymane, there are lots of Battlecries that are always good.

In Wild, this could obviously be broken with the whole Jade mechanic. Jade Claws, Jade Spirit and such are Battlecries, so you will get a HUGE board after playing this, a board that your opponent just has to answer or he dies.

But looking at cards that are still in Standard, there are still quite a few good options. Any kind of Battlecry card draw, weapon destruction, Saronite Chain Gang (as shown on the stream), Bonemare, Fungalmancer, Guild Recruiter, Defender of Argus, Mind Control Tech, Stonehill Defender, Zola the Gorgon, Kalimos, Primal Lord and so on and so on. If you want to go all-in, you can even play Yogg-Saron, Hope's End and then double his Battlecry!

Even though it’s only a 6/6 for 9 mana, you can’t really look at that, as it will do so much immediately, heavily depending on what deck you’re playing and what you’ve already done this game.

While it’s hard to say what deck exactly will this go into, it looks very promising!

Card rating: 9/10

Baleful Banker

It’s a Neutral version of the Manic Soulcaster from Gadgetzan. While 3/4 for 3 is better than 2/2 for 2, the fact that it’s Neutral and it’s cheaper might work for it. To be fair, Manic Soulcaster has seen some play in Reno Mage, to copy Reno Jackson, Kazakus and such. Other decks might also find it useful either as a way to get more value in a long, grindy game or possibly even activate some combos.

Just as an example, if you run Holy Wrath Paladin with Molten Giants (now in Wild), if you draw a Giant, but have no cards in your deck, plus you’re low on health (13 or less), you can play Giant, play this and Holy Wrath. Of course, that’s not a reliable deck anyway, but it might make it slightly better.

It also combos nicely with all kinds of Recruit mechanics. You can play (or Recruit) a big minion, get another copy of it in your deck and Recruit it again.

The card doesn’t strike as a very powerful one, but it has some potential.

Card rating: 6/10

Zap!

It’s a bit like Shaman’s version of Backstab – 0 mana to deal 2 damage with a slight downside. In case of Rogue, you can’t target damaged minion, in this case, you get 1 point of Overload.

However, the biggest difference between those two is the context of each class. In Rogue, 0 mana cards, especially spells, get extra value. You can use them to activate combos, to draw cards from Gadgetzan Auctioneer, to buff Questing Adventurer, to gain one charge on the dormant Sherazin, Corpse Flower etc. Rogue decks are also much heavier on cycle in general.

Shaman, on the other hand, doesn’t really combo with 0 mana cards, just as he doesn’t have lots of ways to cycle through the deck. And so, dedicating a slot to a 0 mana card that doesn’t even synergize with your deck doesn’t sound great.

That said, the Overload part doesn’t have to be a downside. If a deck built around Overload mechanic would be a thing, this might actually fit right into it – like, this already combos quite nicely with Unbound Elemental on Turn 3, but that’s of course not enough.

It’s not a bad card, but I don’t really see it making a cut in your average Shaman deck. Tempo is nice, but you might run out of cards too quickly.

Card rating: 5/10

Curse of Weakness

This card looks super interesting. It’s a bit like Pint-Size Potion, but the effect lasts THROUGH your opponent’s turn. Which means that not only you can get some good trades, but you might also make your opponent’s turn much weaker. It works best against wide boards with relatively low attack minions, where even a single cast can make their board useless for your next turn. You can combo it with Doomsayer to force them to Silence / remove it with spell, or just let it blow off.

The fact that it’s Echo means that later in the game you can cast it 2 or 3 times to basically neutralize almost any mid/late game board.

It seems like a really good Control Warlock tool. It’s a solid stall tool, it basically “heals” you for the amount of damage you reduce as well as improving your trades. Stalling even a single turn in a slow Warlock deck can be really powerful – e.g. you can set up a Possessed Lackey + Dark Pact to pull out a Voidlord, or you can stall a turn to try to draw one of your AoEs (Defile, Hellfire, Twisting Nether). It can also stall on Turn 9 so you can play Bloodreaver Gul'dan on Turn 10.

Control or Cube Warlocks don’t lose much, but Mistress of Mixtures will be gone, and the “healing” part of this card can actually fit quite nicely into that gap.

Card rating: 8/10

Carrion Drake

Hunter is getting a Dragon package! Maybe after pushing Dragon Priest (and sort of Warrior and Paladin), they might decide that Hunter will be the next Dragon class? We’ll see. But so far, the Dragon stuff in Hunter doesn’t look particularly strong.

Some of you might remember a Legendary called Maexxna. While it was tried out, ultimately it didn’t see any serious play. While yes, it is one mana more expensive, it has a better stat distribution for a Poisonous minion + it’s a Beast + Poisonous isn’t conditional.

To be completely honest, I don’t think that Hunter would even want the card if the Poisonous was guaranteed. My only idea is some kind of a mixed tribes Hunter deck with Beasts & Dragons – this can serve as one of the Dragon activators. The problem is that there isn’t an awful lot of Neutral Dragon synergies Hunter can take advantage of – Scaleworm is the only one, to be honest. Wyrmguard is a thing, but I don’t think that Hunter is the right deck for it. And would you actually want to run lots of Dragons to just activate Scaleworm?

Might be better in the future because it’s a Dragon, if Hunter gets more Dragon synergies. Right now I’m not sold.

Card rating: 4/10

Ghost Light Angler

Echo Murloc for Shaman! It’s actually quite relevant in the context of Quest Shaman (Unite the Murlocs), but this deck is not going to work. It wasn’t great before the rotation, and remember that Call in the Finishers, the easiest way to finish the Quest, is rotating out. Quest Shaman is also an Aggro deck, and this seems a bit slow in an Aggro deck. While yes, you can play it three times on Turn 6 or something, it’s a low tempo card, even given the Murloc tag and the potential synergies.

Another synergy is Hagatha the Witch – in the late game, you can play it 5 times and get 5 random Shaman spells + 5x 2/2 on the board. That’s actually great, but the card sucks before you get Hagatha out. And anyway, after you play Hagatha, you won’t have any value problems, to be honest. You will think how to empty your hand and now how to draw 5 random Shaman spells most of the time. The problem with this deck will be getting to that point, not gaining even more value when you’re already outvaluing your opponent.

In the end, it’s a pretty average card. It’s a solid Echo card, but that’s just about it.

Card rating: 5/10

Vilebrood Skitterer

Meh. The obvious comparison for this card is Assassinate, which doesn’t see any play. One could say that it’s stronger, because it has a body – e.g. you can trade it into a Doomsayer and still have 1/3 with Poisonous on the board. On the other hand, the fact that it’s a minion means that it can’t bypass Taunts, so if your opponent hides a big minion behind any Taunt, even a stupid Righteous Protector, you won’t be able to pass through it.

I mean, yes, Hunter’s removals aren’t exactly amazing, but I still don’t think this is good enough. Hunter's Mark just seems better in most of the cases. Hunter has plenty of ways to activate it without necessarily wasting lots of value, like a single charge of Candleshot and such. Hunter’s Mark + Candleshot is 2 mana (and you still have 2 more Charges), this is 5.

Rush and Poisonous is a powerful combination, but I just feel like it should cost 4 instead – it would make much more sense to run it.

Card rating: 2/10

Squashling

It’s like a 2/1 body with a Priest Hero Power attached… which you can play multiple times per turn. Or well, to keep it simple, an Echo version of Voodoo Doctor. To be honest, Voodoo Doctor isn’t a terrible card by itself – its main problem is the late game scaling, which it just doesn’t have. Early you don’t need healing, and later the 2/1 that heals you for 2 is just bad. This can scale quite well into the late game, as you can heal up to 10 (spread between up to 5 targets) with 5x 2/1 on the board. Depending on the situation, it might be really good.

It combos with Northshire Cleric – you can draw multiple cards. It combos with Auchenai Soulpriest – you can deal up to 3x 2 damage in the late game.

I actually see this more as a mid/late game card than something you’d ever want to drop before Turn 6. Playing it once or twice is pretty bad, and I’d do it only if I could combo it with something.

Just like any other Echo card, flexibility is what makes it okay. But just like any other Echo card, I feel like they went on the “fair” side with this mechanic – there is no really overpowered Echo card, and this one seems to follow a similar pattern. Might see play in some slower Priest decks, maybe Heal Priest built around healing stuff will eventually be a thing (probably not now, but depending on what they release during the next expansion or two).

Card rating: 6/10

Wyrmguard

Too bad that it’s not a Dragon itself, then it would be much better, as it would also activate other synergies if you draw it early. Right now drawing it early makes it completely dead. Without the Dragon synergy, it’s terrible, but you obviously wouldn’t put it into a deck which doesn’t play Dragons. With enough Dragons to pretty much guarantee the synergy, it’s a 4/11 Taunt for 7 mana.

Two points of comparison – first is Ancient of War. Those are roughly similar – 5/10 might be a bit better on Turn 7, because it clears the 5 health minions too. However, AoW is a Druid card, so this one can be played in other decks too.

So another point of comparison would be Bog Creeper – 6/8 Taunt. This has one more stat in total, but more health is always better on the Taunt, so the 4/11 is most likely a better distribution of stats. But it’s not like it’s much better – in slow matchups, the extra attack might actually be better than health.

To be honest, I’d probably rather play Primordial Drake. A big Taunt, it’s also a Dragon AND deals 2 AoE damage, which is much more important than more health against Aggro decks. The only downside is that it costs 1 more.

Card rating: 3/10

Prince Liam

Very interesting card. On a first glance, it looks like a build-around card, but I’m not absolutely sure if it’s consistent enough to be one. But then I’ve realized – you don’t have to build a deck around it. You can just play a pretty regular Midrange Paladin, maybe with some Secrets and Bellringer Sentry, and then if you draw it in the mid/late game, you play it and turn those 1 mana cards in your deck into something better.

Because let’s be honest – random Legendaries aren’t always most powerful or impactful. There are lots of better options. But no matter how I look at it, I’d still rather draw a random Legendary than a 1 mana card in the late game.

1 mana cards are necessary if you want your deck to stand a chance against faster builds, or possibly to put pressure against slower ones. But they aren’t good draws later. So playing this is like increasing the average value of your future draws.

What’s going on for this card are the stats – 5 mana 5/5 is solid. Of course, it’s not amazing, but it’s not like playing it without getting any immediate effect is going to lose you the game.

I could see this being played in some kind of Midrange Paladin. Very interesting card, and it’s just on the edge of being a meme card too, but I’ll still test it out.

P.S. This card could go from the “meme” to “actually solid” with one change – if it also changed cards in your HAND and not only in your deck. Right now, if you draw a bunch of 1 cost cards first and then this, it will feel really bad…

Card rating: 4/10

Vicious Scalehide

We’ve seen this card quite a lot on the stream yesterday, but to be honest, it was never really good by itself… Even though it has both Rush and Lifesteal, which is a nice combo, the 1/3 stats for 2 mana make it a bit weak. Realistically, you will be able to trade into some 1 health 1-drops and tokens, but that’s it. Without buffs, this card is pretty bad.

However, I really like it as a part of the Build-a-Beast Deathstalker Rexxar Hero Power. It should be updated with all the new minions when Witchwood launches. Adding both Rush and Lifesteal for just 2 mana to your beast can be really nice. 3 health also makes it a nice combo with high attack / low health minions.

Card rating: 2/10

Ghostly Charger

It would be much better as a 4/3 instead of a 3/4. Since it has Divine Shield, having higher attack would make it better. 3/4 with Rush and Divine Shield is an interesting combination. It seems pretty weak for a 5 mana card, but remember that Argent Commander is a thing. Yes, it has Charge, but it costs 1 more mana and is a 4/2 instead of a 3/4 (and I think that 3/4 is better than 4/2 even given the Divine Shield context).

The main problem with this card is that on Turn 5, you often don’t have anything you can kill with it. It would be great at killing the 3-drops, but that’s one turn too late. Most of the 4-drops and 5-drops have AT LEAST 4 health, possibly even more, which makes it a bit awkward.

It might be a solid clean-up tool. For example, clearing a 3/3 and still having a 3/4 on the board is not that bad, but is it really worth 5 mana?

You can actually see this card as a sort of 3/4 for 5 that deals 3 damage to a minion on a Battlecry. Which is kind of like a mini Firelands Portal which can’t go face. Or maybe even closer comparison would be Flanking Strike – which costs 1 less mana. For 5 mana, Rogues get Vilespine Slayer, which can straight up remove anything while leaving the 3/4 body too… Of course, those are different classes, and the context is different, but it still doesn’t feel too good.

In the end, it looks like a good Arena card and an average Constructed one. Probably not good enough to see play.

Card rating: 5/10

Blazing Invocation

I mean… Warrior could Discover a Taunt with I Know a Guy. Shaman could Discover an Overload card with Finders Keepers. Now the class can also Discover a Battlecry minion. Historically this kind of cards weren’t great. Rogue did play the Deathrattle one (can’t remember the name right now) and Hallucination, but mostly because those were 1 mana spells… in Rogue. Some Druid builds played Raven Idol, but mostly if it synergized with the rest of the deck + it had added flexibility of picking a minion instead.

What I like about this card is that you can pick the right card for each situation – there are Battlecries that buff your board, heal you, deal damage and such. Battlecry cards also have an immediate impact, they are the “fastest” kind of minions.

On the other hand, you need to pay 1 extra mana for each of those minions. And the pool of Battlecry minions is SO BROAD – there are dozens of them. Bad ones, average ones, good ones. Offensive ones, defensive ones. Getting exactly the one you need might be really, and I mean REALLY difficult.

Obviously, getting the right Battlecry minion could also make your Shudderwock better, but be careful. Stuff like damage Battlecry, or buff Battlecry might actually backfire – damage your own minions or buff opponent’s stuff.

I have mixed feelings about this card. It will definitely be a nice card to get from Hagatha the Witch, but would you actually want to put it into your deck? I’m not sure. Shaman doesn’t really have any specific synergy with cheap spells, it’s not a minion, so it doesn’t come with an extra (even small) body etc. So in the end, it has some merits, but I don’t think it’s going to see much play.

Card rating: 4/10

Hidden Wisdom

It’s a Rat Trap, but for Paladin! And honestly, just like with the Rat Trap, I don’t really see it working too consistently. The thing is, look at how often your opponent plays 3 cards in a single turn before the late game. With Coin, maybe, but still not always (they often e.g. use Coin on T3 to play a 4 mana card, so 2 in total).

Unlike Rat Trap, however, which is a huge tempo gain once it procs, this one isn’t. You get +1 card advantage, which is like playing a 1 mana Arcane Intellect. Sounds great, that’s true, but you can’t control it and it’s delayed. Until your opponent plays those three cards in a single turn, which can be 5 or even more turns from whenever you’ve played it, you are a card behind.

I mean, if you pull this from the Bellringer Sentry, then you technically get it for free from your deck, and thus gaining +2 card advantage might be juicy. The problem is that you’d rather have some Secrets which gain immediate value, interact with the board, as the Bellringer Sentry himself is a low tempo play.

It might see some play thanks to the Bellringer Sentry, but I don’t think it’s too powerful. Heavily depending on the meta, it will get more value when either decks playing lots of 1-drops (especially stuff like Fire Fly) or combo deck pop out in the meta.

Card rating: 5/10

Earthen Might

This is a Shaman’s version of Mark of Y'Shaarj – +2/+2 and an extra card if the condition is met. However, unlike Mark of Y’Shaarj, this will fit into a slower deck more than into an Aggro build. Unlike drawing a card from your deck (which is fast), random Elemental can be bigger / slower. However, this will be a great fit into pretty much any Elemental Shaman build – Midrange or Control alike.

Earthen Might looks solid throughout the entire game. On Turn 2, you can easily play it on your Fire Fly to get a 3/4 minion to trade with AND you save your other half to activate Elemental synergies AND you get a random Elemental too. Then, later in the game, you can just play something bigger, possibly even a Taunt (e.g. Tar Creeper) and immediately gain small advantage on the board and an extra card in your hand.

This is basically an auto-include in any Elemental Shaman build. There is simply no reason not to run it.

Card rating: 9/10

Swamp Dragon Egg

To be honest, I think it’s the worst Egg we’ve seen so far. Eggs that have seen at least some play – Nerubian Egg, Dragon Egg and Devilsaur Egg had some immediate board impact when damage/destroyed. That’s why they were strong – you sacrificed the immediate tempo in order to gain it back (and even more) later.

Another Egg, Runic Egg, is more similar to this one. It has seen some play, but only in Combo decks – decks that wanted to cycle as quickly as possible. That’s why drawing a card from your deck was important.

This card, on the other hand, doesn’t accomplish any of that. It doesn’t give you any on-board advantage, so doesn’t really fit into an Aggro deck. It doesn’t cycle, so won’t fit into Combo. Neither of those builds would want a random Dragon card anyway.

And if you play Control, why not just put a good Dragon instead of this card? Not only you don’t have good ways to benefit from it on the board, but you’d rather just have a way to proc your potential Dragon synergies immediately instead of waiting for it to get destroyed.

So I just don’t get why would you ever want to play this card. It’s just a delayed random Dragon in your hand. Maybe Quest Deathrattle Priest with some Dragon synergies, because it’s a 1 mana Deathrattle? I’m honestly not sure.

Card rating: 2/10

Cinderstorm

Bigger version of Arcane Missiles, but also much worse. I honestly have no clue why they priced it so high – it would be a pretty good card at 2 mana. At 3 mana, it’s just not worth it. You pay 2 more mana to get 2 random damage, not to mention that Arcane Missiles already don’t see any play. Whenever the card was played, it was because it costed 1 mana and you could easily combo it with Sorcerer's Apprentice, Mana Wyrm, Flamewaker etc. At 3 mana, this is much harder to combo, and just not as good.

Of course, I’m not saying that this card should be Arcane Missiles x3 – it would be broken. But upping the damage to 6 or 7 would go a long way to making it playable. If anything, it could be used with Burn Mage to deal some damage on the empty board. Because with minions, it’s not going to be lots of burn – for example, with 2 minions on the board, it will on average deal 1 and 2/3 damage to each target. Even assuming 2 damage, still not worth it. Slow decks don’t want it, because it’s too random and might not even kill any minion, and fast decks don’t want it, because it’s too expensive for what it does and you can’t target the face.

Card rating: 2/10

Curio Collector

This is like a reverse Daring Reporter. Instead of growing when your opponent draws cards, it grows when you do. If neither your or your opponent plays any extra card draw, Daring Reporter is a 4/4 on your opponent’s turn – and so is this. However, this is clearly meant to be combo’d with some card draw immediately.

A deck that it could fit into is Minion Mage, with Book of Specters to be precise. Curio Collector + Book of Specters on Turn 7 is a 7/7 minion + 1 card advantage (since you use two cards and draw three in total). This is good, but the problem is that it’s bad if you don’t have it. The fact that if you don’t immediately combo it with a good draw, it starts as a 4/4 for 5 makes it almost unplayable. Such a minion will rarely survive unless you’re already far ahead.

Theoretically, for it to START getting value, you need to draw 2 cards – now it’s a 5 mana 6/6, which is above vanilla stats. But realistically, you wouldn’t put a 5 mana 6/6 into your deck. Maybe 7/7? 8/8? The point is that you need to play lots of card draw for this to be worth it, dropping it on Turn 5 is bad unless the board is empty AND you won’t always have a card draw to combo with him.

Oh yes, you COULD run it in the Aluneth deck, but that’s not a good idea, to be honest. First of all, Aluneth decks usually don’t run lots of card draw besides it (so you won’t draw a bunch of card draw after you’ve already played Aluneth) AND you want to empty your hand as quickly as possible after playing Aluneth, and 5 mana minion is not always the best one to do it.

Overall, it’s cool that they’re trying to push new stuff, but this one doesn’t look promising.

Card rating: 3/10

Marsh Drake

Those overstatted minions that summon something for your opponent never turned out to be good. And at the first glance, this one looks even worse – after all, the minion it summons ALWAYS has Poisonous. Meaning that you can’t play it on Turn 3 unless you have something to clear that minion off, and the thing you clear it off with just dies. However, I actually like this design, because it’s also the most consistent of those minions – you know that it’s going to be a 2/1 with Poisonous, so you always play around it. With cards like Hungry Dragon you never knew what it’s going to pull, so you couldn’t possibly play around it. For example, in case of this card, Rogue might be a good class to play it. If you Hero Power on Turn 2, you can clear the 2/1 unless there is a Taunt in your way. But you’d always need to spend your Turn 2 daggering – which might actually not be bad in a Prince Keleseth deck, since you often dagger up if you don’t play Prince (and you play Prince on T2 only about 30% of time if I remember correctly).

It could also work with the Hunter’s Candleshot, or with Priest’s Potion of Madness, but the latter is luckily rotating out anyway.

I feel like this is about average. The thing is that even if you make it work and clear the 2/1 token immediately, you always lose something – a small minion, even a weapon charge, and what you gain instead is +2 Attack on your vanilla 3-drop. Is it good? Yes, it’s pretty good. But is it great? I don’t think so. I feel like people might experiment with it for a bit, but I don’t see it being too powerful.

Card rating: 5/10

Darkmire Moonkin

Terrible card, pack filler. 2/8 stats are very, very bad for 7 mana – those stats would even be bad on a 5-drop.

The +2 Spell Damage bonus is nice, but it’s really hard to combo some spells immediately with this, since even on Turn 10 you’re left with 3 mana. It’s far too late against Aggro, and it’s slow even against Control decks.

Jungle Moonkin made some sense, despite its downside, because it costed 4 – you could combo it e.g. with Swipe on Turn 8. Same goes for the Evolved Kobold – it has seen some play in Freeze Mage when Emperor Thaurissan was still in Standard, because you COULD still combo it with some spells.  This one just looks bad.

We actually had another +2 Spell Damage card in Frozen Throne – Spellweaver. Guess how much play it has seen.

Card rating: 1/10

Rabid Worgen

3 mana 3/3 with an upside have historically seen quite a lot of play. And Rush looks like a nice upside in the right deck. This is a bit like a balanced version of the Alexstrasza's Champion, one of the cards that made Midrange Dragon Warrior a thing back in the day.

It has a solid combo with Woodcutter's Axe – play Axe on Turn 2, Attack, then play this on Turn 3 and attack with Axe again – now you have 5/4 with Rush, which most likely means that you can kill whatever you want and it survives.

This card would probably be underpowered in vacuum, but given that Rush Warrior will want to play lots of Rush cards, obviously, it will most likely make a cut given the context of the decks and other synergies.

Card rating: 7/10

Tanglefur Mystic

It reminds me of that Mage card… Spellslinger. And Spellslinger has seen some play. However, it was mostly because a random spell was on average BETTER in that Mage deck than in other decks, since it had lots of spell synergies. Not to mention that it was a while ago – I don’t think that Spellslinger would make a cut right now.

Now we need to find a deck that will take advantage of the random 2-drops. Maybe some Midrange deck? Or a deck with lots of buffs, minion synergies etc.? On average, a random 2-drop will be better in such a deck than in some Control build, so you might want to run it.

On top of that, giving a card to your opponent might potentially be good if they have 9 cards in their hand already – burning a top card from their deck is never bad. You will prefer them having a random 2-drop than a card from their deck.

I think that this card is solid – not powerful, but good enough to see Constructed play. The difficulty might be finding the right deck to play it.

Card rating: 6/10

Hench-Clan Thug

This seems like a very strong card in Rogue. Probably not in any other class – even heavy weapon classes like Warrior or Paladin don’t attack every turn. It could also work in Druid, but Druid doesn’t want to Hero Power every turn. Rogue can Hero Power every second turn and this will still grow.

Assuming you play weapon in Rogue on Turn 2, play this on Turn 3 and attack, it starts as a 3 mana 4/4 that will grow every turn by +1/+1. While it doesn’t snowball hard, if your opponent doesn’t remove it immediately, it will only get harder and harder. In case it’s Silenced by Spellbreaker, it’s not that bad – you can trade your 3-drop for their 4-drop and they’ve used their Silence already.

It won’t be wide-spread on the ladder, because it pretty much fits only into a Tempo Rogue deck (or maybe Miracle, but I’m not sure) – but it looks really promising in that build.

Card rating: 8/10

Nightscale Matriarch

Well, the obvious comparison here is Northshire Cleric. Low attack / high health, synergy on healing. However, unlike Cleric, this is MUCH less flexible. Since it costs 7 mana, you need to wait until Turn 9 before comboing it with your Hero Power right away. While technically you can drop it on the curve, 4/9 for 7 mana is not too good. It could survive sometimes, and then get the value, but you can’t really count on that.

Theoretically you could make some fancy combos with Wild Pyromancer and Circle of Healing, but I really think that it’s just too fancy. You spend 3 cards to put a bunch of 3/3 minions on the board. In case of a board clear, you’re really behind. With Cleric, not only the whole combo is much cheaper, but you draw cards – your opponent can’t really punish you for doing that (most of the time, that is), you won’t lose card advantage if they play a single card to counter you.

However, if you already have 2-3 damaged minions, it can be big with the new Divine Hymn. Especially if you can drop this + Cleric + Hymn on Turn 10, that would be an insane Turn. Summon a few minions and then draw a few cards.

Anyway, what I like about this card is the Dragon tag. While Drakonid Operative is gone, so the incentive to play the Dragon synergies will be lower, Duskbreaker is still pretty broken vs faster decks, so if the meta will demand it, I could totally see Priest running a Dragon package. This card should fit into a Control Dragon Priest, deck that is losing quite a lot with the rotation, but MIGHT still find its way back into the meta.

I’m not as hyped about it as some of you, but I think it’s a solid card.

Card rating: 7/10

Quartz Elemental

This card has 2 more health over vanilla 5-drop (Pit Fighter) that would never see play in Constructed. While I believe that a vanilla 5/8 might see some play, this card comes with a quite big downside – it can’t attack when its damaged. It might not seem as crippling as “Can’t Attack” in general (hence it costs 5 mana and not 3 mana like Humongous Razorleaf), but it actually is quite bad. For example – you play vs an Aggro deck with some 1/1 on the board, he can trade into it. Now, you HAVE to spend 2 mana on your Hero Power if you want to attack with it. Even worse if you end up killing something bigger. E.g. if you trade it into a 5/5, you would need to heal it for a few turns in a row for it to work. Or rather, you wouldn’t be able to attack until you drop Divine Hymn too.

I mean, it’s not THAT bad. After all, the stats somewhat try to make up for the downside. But I still can’t see it being good enough unless you put a lot of healing cards / synergies into your deck. For example, if you run either a Baku Odd deck (Hero Power now heals for 4), or put cards like Circle of Healing + Divine Hymn into your regular Priest deck, it might work. But it’s just not good enough to build a healing deck around.

Card rating: 5/10

Unpowered Steambot

Generally, Taunt minions benefit from a low attack / high health stat distribution, but there is also a tipping point. If you go below a certain attack threshold, the Taunt’s main function – blocking damage WHILE TRADING into your opponent’s minions – will vanish. Yes, it will block damage, but it won’t do anything besides it. That’s why Mogu'shan Warden, even though it has 7 health and a Taunt for 4, is one of the worst cards in the entire game. This one looks similar. At 0 attack, and yes, I repeat, 0 attack, if you just drop it on Turn 4, it will soak some damage and die. It’s like gaining 9 Armor or something. Definitely far from perfect.

On stream, it was played in a Lady in White deck, but don’t fool yourself, it won’t work. Lady in White deck will NOT function if you build whole deck around that one card – you need to play cards that are good enough even without Lady in White, and get upgraded by her. This is not good enough without her. If you draw it before Lady in White, it’s a dead card.

Even a Combo Priest (Divine Spirit + Inner Fire) wouldn’t like to play it. Unlike other Taunts, which might stick because your opponent doesn’t want to throw their whole board into it, this will always get as much damage as possible depending on your opponent’s board. So if he has 5 damage on the board, it will be a 0/4 going into your turn. While it MIGHT sometimes work, I didn’t really see Priests running Mogu’Shan or Oasis Snapjaw just because those cards had lots of health.

Shieldbearer, which has even better stats for its mana cost, sees zero play. So I don’t believe that this will see any play too.

Card rating: 1/10

Cutthroat Buccaneer

Naga Corsair is rotating out, and Rogue gets another way to buff the weapon. However, I’d say that Naga Corsair was better. 2/4 for 3 seems worse than 5/4 for 4, and this effect is a combo, not a Battlecry, so you often won’t be able to play it on curve. Still, it’s good to have some sort of alternative.

While I don’t see Kingsbane Rogue working in Standard after losing all of those cards, this is a good start. The weapon buff part is incredibly important in Kingsbane decks, since you want to make it as big as quickly as possible.

Outside of Kingsbane Rogue? I don’t really think it will see play. SI:7 Agent seems better most of the time if you don’t try to buff a specific weapon. And other than Kingsbane, the only weapon that you would specifically want to buff is the new Spectral Cutlass, and to be honest, I’m still not sold on that card.

Card rating: 5/10

Divine Hymn

Wow, I think that this card is very good. Paladin cries in the corner with its Holy Light. 6 healing to all friendly CHARACTERS means that it will heal all of your minions and your Hero. Yes, you could already do something similar with Circle of Healing – for 0 mana! But it also healed your opponents’ board, and didn’t heal your Hero, which is a big deal. Priests have been commonly running Greater Healing Potion, since the meta was aggressive enough that some sort of healing was just necessary. Now, while healing yourself, you can refresh some health on your minions, possibly draw cards or even summon 3/3’s in the late game.

It will be a great replacement for Greater Healing Potion, I can totally see Control Priest wanting to run two copies of this card. Other decks probably won’t want it, since it’s a slower card, but it looks like a great fit into a Control build.

Just remember that it won’t work like Circle of Healing with Auchenai Soulpriest – this combo will most likely destroy your board and possibly even kill you.

Card rating: 8/10

Walnut Sprite

This seems like a more aggressive version of Phantom Militia, which I already didn’t like that much. Most of the slower decks, so the decks that could take advantage of being able to play it 3 times on Turn 9, would prefer the 2/4 Taunts over the 3/3’s. On the other hand, faster decks like Aggro or Midrange builds would rather play a stronger on-curve play than a vanilla 3/3. Yes, it’s playable, but it won’t likely win you games. On Turn 3 you want to push the tempo (…push the tempo, push the tempo), and on Turn 6 you want to look for a way to close out the game, and 2x 3/3 minion is definitely not it (I mean, Hunter has 2x 3/3 for 5 mana with the basic version of Lesser Emerald Spellstone and it’s bad until you upgrade it).

It’s an easy card to understand the Echo mechanic, but it doesn’t look good in Constructed – it’s a pack filler.

The only thing I like about it is the art! It looks so wacky. While I enjoy the beautiful art of some MTG or Gwent cards, the art in Hearthstone is great for a whole different reason.

Card rating: 2/10

Deranged Doctor

It’s a bigger Antique Healbot. For 3 more mana, it gains +5/+5 in stats, which seems like a good deal, right? Well, yes, and no. This costing 8 mana is a big deal, because it comes 3 turns later. Or even 4+ turns later, because it’s a Deathrattle, not a Battlecry. Realistically, the healing might proc only on Turn 10 or so.

This is almost always worse than Ragnaros, Lightlord, which didn’t even see lots of play in Paladin. First it was used by the Control lists, but then even Control have dropped it. The problem is that Turn 8 is often too late to heal. If you’re playing against Aggro, you’re usually either dead or already stabilized at this point.

The only way for this to realistically see play is cheating it out in some way. For example, Priest can do it with Coffin Crasher, but Obsidian Statue would most likely be a better target anyway. Rogue can theoretically get a 1/1 copy out with Kobold Illusionist, and that might work out, but Illusionist is random, so you can’t guarantee it.

It will be a nice card to get from Spiteful Summoner or Free From Amber, but I don’t think it’s going to see an actual Constructed play.

Card rating: 3/10

Fiendish Circle

A balanced version of Imp-losion, but in this case “balanced” equals “bad”. Getting 4x 1/1 for 4 mana is not good. I mean, Paladin will laugh at you, play Call to Arms, get three stronger minions and probably throw knives at two of your 1/1’s too just for a good measure. Call in the Finishers, a Shaman’s version of this card, was played only twice – first in some sort of Token Shaman (but it was replaced pretty quickly by better options) and then in Quest Shaman, but in both cases, it was thanks to multiple synergies. Similarly, Stand Against Darkness didn’t see any play until the amount of synergies reached a critical level.

Realistically, the card has SOME synergy in Zoo. You can play it with Knife Juggler or with Dire Wolf Alpha. You also have cards that buff Demons (Demonfire, because Crystalweaver is rotating out), but that’s not good enough.

This is a much worse version of a Forbidden Ritual, which has seen some play in Warlock thanks to its flexibility, but disappeared once every deck started running some 1 damage AoE. The only advantage of this card is summoning Demons, but right now, there aren’t really lots of ways to take advantage of that.

If they print some powerful Demon synergies, especially AoE ones (like 2 mana “give all your Demons +2/+2” or stuff like that), it might see play. But right now, it doesn’t make much sense to play it.

Card rating: 2/10

Chief Inspector

I like the fact that they constantly keep some kind of anti-Secret tech in Standard. First it was Kezan Mystic, then Eater of Secrets and now this. I honestly think that this card is better than Eater of Secrets. Even though Eater was already a 4/6 (for 4, not 5!) just after destroying two Secrets, in most of the matchups it was simply a 4 mana 2/4. 5 mana 4/6 base stats are better, since the card is playable (yes, it’s bad, but also playable) in the matchups which don’t play Secrets.

It’s clearly a tech choice. If you face Secret decks, you can consider putting it. It’s a bit similar to the Skulking Geist in a way – 4/6 mid game body that is vanilla in most of the matchups, but can work wonders in certain 2 or 3 matchups you face on the ladder. I’m quite sure that if the meta will demand it, it will see play. But will it? Ice Block is rotating out, and it was the most common Secret you’ve ever teched against. Right now I don’t think it will be played, but maybe in the future expansions. It’s always good to have some kind of way to counter Secrets available in the game in case a deck like that takes off and becomes high tier.

Oh, and it’s also a good Arena card. Eater of Secrets was bad, because it was nearly unplayable if it didn’t hit anything. This can be dropped on the curve without really losing you the game, and it can potentially get extra value in some matchups.

But to be fair, I think that they should just add one of those cards to the Classic set and be done with it instead of reprinting similar cards over and over again.

Card rating: 7/10 tech card

Witchwood Imp

It’s a pretty average card. Not great, but not bad. 1/1 for 1 will rarely kill something, but because it has Stealth, you will most likely be able to dictate how the trade goes. For example, on Turn 2, you can buff it with Demonfire or even Dire Wolf Alpha and potentially get some nice tempo by clearing a 1-drop.

+2 health on a random minion is a solid effect for a 1-drop, but nothing exciting. The stat-line and the effect are similar to Zealous Initiate from WoG, but this one is clearly stronger thanks to its extra advantages.

What’s going on for this card is Stealth + Demon tag. For example, if Bloodfury Potion didn’t rotate out, it might make sense to play it, as you could nearly guarantee a Demon going into Turn 3. It’s better than Blood Imp in that manner, as you actually want to reveal it and attack with it (unlike Blood Imp, which you often prefer to keep Stealthed).

In the end, I feel like it’s okay. Zoo will have to fill some gaps, and this might be one of the ways to do that, since no new busted 1-drops will be available.

Card rating: 5/10

Swamp Leech

Lifesteal isn’t a very powerful keywords, especially when it’s on a 1-drop and a minion that will likely die immediately. Early in the game, you don’t really care about your health – you’re either at full (so Lifesteal is completely useless) or nearly full, which makes it a meh early drop. Later in the game, where you might start caring about the health, it’s a 1 mana 2/1, so also pretty useless. This realistically won’t heal you more than once, and often won’t heal you at all. Seems like it’s on a similar power level to Voodoo Doctor – the upside is that you can buff it to heal for more, but the downside is that it’s not guaranteed.

That said, it’s another cheap Lifesteal Beast for Deathstalker Rexxar‘s pool of Beasts. That’s great news. Previously when you wanted Lifesteal, you hoped to get Bloodworm, which was very overpriced. This seems fair if you need some healing in Hunter after you’ve turned into DK.

Card rating: 2/10

Mad Hatter

Oh, so it’s like a Mad Bomber, but throws +1/+1 buffs (Explorer's Hat) instead of bombs. I like the flavor here, but the card itself is quite bad. First of all – stats. 4 mana for 3/2 is very weak. You give +3/+3 in total, but spread among random minions.

In the best case scenario, this card is good. If your opponent has no minions, it’s a 3/2 that gives you +3/+3 in total – that would be playable. However, it’s only the best case scenario. Even if a single buff lands on your opponent’s minion, it’s already bad. You play an understatted minion and get only +1/+1 more than your opponent – now it’s comparable to a 4 mana Shattered Sun Cleric. Of course, it heavily depends on which minions it lands specifically, but that would already be bad. Then, it can also completely backfire – if the RNG hates you and you somehow give your opponent +2/+2 or even +3/+3, then you might have lost yourself a game.

I’d probably prefer Defender of Argus (or even Fungalmancer) in my token decks, since those effects are much more reliable. The only argument here is that if you’re going into your Turn 4 with a single minion on the board, this card is much better. But like I’ve said, it’s only the best case scenario.

Maybe, just maybe, if you play a token/board flood deck (e.g. Zoo Warlock, Aggro Paladin) and the meta is mostly Control, then you MIGHT want to play this, but that’s just about it. In your average meta, the chance to backfire is just too high.

Card rating: 3/10

Snap Freeze

Shatter power creep! But to be honest, even if you power creep it, Shatter was one of the worst cards in the entire game, so even an upgraded version still looks bad. This is what Shatter should have been in the first place, to be honest.

But even after a lift, the card still looks unplayable. We’ve already established that destroying a frozen minion for 2 mana is terrible. How about Freezing it for 2 mana? Well, Freezing Potion was a card and it has never seen play (outside of the random effects), even though it costs 0. Not to mention that Ice Lance was also a thing (I wanted to say “is”, then I’ve remembered that it was HoF’d a year ago), and it has only seen play for its burst potential.

The only good thing that can be said about it is that when you get it out of a random effect, it’s not a completely dead card, like Shatter often was. You can still use it as an overpriced Freezing Potion if you have no way to combo it. Bad card, but not as mind-blowingly bad as Shatter.

Card rating: 1/10

Sandbinder

This is a Gnomish Inventor that tutors a specific thing instead of drawing a random card. The same mana cost, the same stats. Tutoring is generally less flexible, but also more powerful in the right deck.

And so, if you play a deck with a vital Elemental that you want to draw as quickly or as consistently as possible, then this card will be an auto-include. For example, if you play a Shaman deck with a combo built around Grumble, Worldshaker. If you play some Priest combo that requires Radiant Elemental, this should also see play to tutor it.

Generally, in an average deck, this will be a weaker version of Gnomish Inventor, which already doesn’t see any play. But it might find its place in a specific deck you build around some specific Elementals. Or, if such a deck won’t see play, this card will also be never played.

If it was an Elemental itself, then it would be a great addition into any Elemental deck, as you could then follow it up with an Elemental synergy like Servant of Kalimos or Bonfire Elemental next turn. But without that tag, I don’t think I would want to play it in a regular Elemental deck, unless some really powerful Elementals that I would want to draw quickly would be released.

Card rating: 6/10

Lost Spirit

Meh card. 2 mana for 1/1 is very bad. On top of that, the effect is not immediate – it’s a Deathrattle. +1 Attack also means that it’s only good on wide boards – playing it on Turn 2 is kind of pointless, as you most likely don’t have more than 1 minion to buff anyway (and that minion can still be killed before it by your opponent). f

It looks worse than Spawn of N'Zoth – 3 mana 2/2 is comparable to a 2 mana 1/1 and Spawn also gives Health, not only attack. And the card didn’t see Constructed play.

Its only saving grace is the fact that it’s a solid card to pull from Call to Arms in Aggro Paladin, but that’s not how it works. You want  to play strong STANDALONE cards that are also good to pull from CtA. If it wasn’t the case, every Aggro Paladin build would run Millhouse Manastorm.

Card rating: 2/10

Lifedrinker

This card is a bit counter-intuitive. It both deals damage to your opponent’s Hero and heals you. Those are usually the things you want to do in a completely different decks. Dealing face damage is good in Aggro, while healing your Hero is good in Control. Midrange deck also assumes either a control role (vs Aggro) or a beatdown role (vs Control), so it never really needs BOTH damage and healing at the same time.

For Aggro, the healing part can be ignored, 3 damage is good, but you’d rahter play a better body than a 3/3 on Turn 4. 3/3 is easy to remove, while something like even a vanilla 4/5 might be out of range and get in a hit or two (resulting in more damage overall).

Control deck would definitely play Earthen Ring Farseer before it – 1 mana cheaper and healing is targeted.

Midrange might POSSIBLY want to play it, but this card is still pretty bad on the curve. And although not as much as Aggro, Midrange decks also care about their early curve.

By itself, the card looks bad. The only potential I see is some wonky combo with Shudderwock – if you play a few of those, maybe some other Battlecries that damage your opponent, you could have a really solid burst finisher. But the combo is pretty hard to pull off, so it might not actually work.

Card rating: 3/10, maybe more in some fancy combo Shaman deck.

Dark Possession

This card looks pretty promising. First of all, it’s another card you can self-damage yourself with for the sake of Lesser Amethyst Spellstone, as well as the new damage yourself synergies.

Then, you can use it to pop the Possessed Lackey. While Dark Pact is often a better way to do that, sometimes you don’t really need healing and another Demon in your hand could be good.

While I don’t think that it’s super powerful, I could totally see running it as an one-of as another way to pop your Lackey or upgrade Spellstone while getting more value. Especially in the decks that run Skull of the Man'ari – remember that

I’ve heard that a semi-random Demon might pollute your Bloodreaver Gul'dan resurrection pool.. and while yes, a random Demon will most likely be worse than Voidlord or Doomguard, keep in mind that you usually already have a bunch of 1/3 Taunts in your resurrect pool, so getting let’s say a 3/5 Taunt instead of one is going to be a nice upside.  Not to mention that thanks to the Discover, you have a quite solid chance to get something big – there aren’t THAT many Demons.

Card rating: 7/10

Felsoul Inquisitor

Mogu'shan Warden… with 1 less health, but Lifesteal instead. Very bad card. Thanks to its low attack, it won’t really perform its main function, which is stopping attacks while trading back. 1 attack doesn’t trade back even into 2 health minions – it just damages them. Then, the Lifesteal part is a bit ueless if it has only 1 attack. Realistically, you’ll probably look at 2 or 3 points of healing in total, definitely not enough.

Oh, and it’s another Neutral Demon. Not like it matters, to be honest, but so far all of the Neutral Demons (besides the Alpha version of Illidan Stormrage) have been bad.

P.S. I like the art! It’s a shame that such a cool art is wasted on a pack filler.

Card rating: 1/10

Cauldron Elemental

Another bad card. 8 mana for a 7/7 is bad, that’s a start. Giving +2 attack to your Elementals is a very specific kind of buff. Unless you have a full deck built around Elementals, it won’t even affect your whole board. Even in a full deck, if you get some tokens (like Shaman Totems), they still aren’t Elementals, so they won’t be buffed.

To be honest, I’d probably put a Stormwind Champion into my deck before this, and just look at how many people are running Stormwind Champion in their decks.

It can be situationally useful to discover from e.g. Servant of Kalimos if you’re looking for a finisher in your Elemental deck, but I can’t honestly see anyone wanting this in their deck.

Card rating: 2/10

Furious Ettin

We have lots of mid/late game Taunts in all forms, but this one doesn’t look exciting. It’s worse than Ancient of War (technically, better if you Silence it), but Ancient of War didn’t really see any play recently. Similarly, this has the same stat total as Bog Creeper, but a slightly different distribution – 5/9 is honestly probably slightly better than a 6/8, but Bog Creeper hasn’t seen any play outside of a Concede Shaman deck that was more meme than meta.

Great Arena card, but filler in Constructed. Might see play when discovered from different cards, but that’s about it. It’s slightly better than your average pack filler, but it still looks like one.

Card rating: 3/10

Ratcatcher

Interesting card. It’s a bit like Void Terror with worse stats and Rush. Void Terror has seen play back in the day, when Power Overwhelming was a thing, and this would honestly be even better in a Zoo deck like that (so it might see play in the Wild). What makes it better than Void Terror is Rush. You could make a big Void Terror, but you still had to wait a turn before you can attack with it.

Thanks to this card, you can “double-dip” on the stats in a single turn. For example, if you have a 5/5 minion, you can run it into some 4/4, then Ratcatcher it, then run it into a 7/7 minion to kill it off. This is just an example, but you can simply “re-use” attack of a minion that has already attacked, which is a high tempo play.

There are two decks that might want to run it. First is Zoo Warlock, but honestly, it would work best with temporary buffs like PO. Dire Wolf Alpha and such are also solid, but they don’t give you that much.

Other deck might be Cube Warlock. It might be a good way to pop the Cube in the late game – you often don’t need healing, especially in a slower matchup, and on Turn 8 you can Cube something, pop it and still have a 6/8 Rush minion.

I’m not absolutely sure whether it will make a cut, but it has some potential in the right deck.

Card rating: 7/10

Night Prowler

The upside is nice. 4 mana for a 6/6 card is very good, it’s a high tempo play and can even win you some games on the curve if your opponent can’t answer it.

On the other hand, it’s really bad if you don’t. 4 mana 3/3 is absolutely unplayable. So while the upside is nice, I don’t think that it’s worth having to run a potentially terrible card. There are some games in which there is basically a minion on the board every turn. You’d need to play a clear and then play it on the same turn, and that usually costs at least 6+ mana, and this kind of card would get worse and worse as the game goes by.

And in what deck would you exactly want to play it? If you play a faster deck, you usually have some minions on the board already. Unless you face a board clear on Turn 3, you won’t be able to drop it as a 6/6. On the other hand, when playing Control deck, even if you can sometimes guarantee that you will have an empty board going into Turn 4 (like with Doomsayer), 6/6 doesn’t feel that good. I mean, it’s good, but it won’t accomplish much, and if you can’t set it up after a board clear, you will never get its effect.

Card rating: 2/10