Perils in Paradise is the latest. This time we’re taking a trip to the Spiral Isles, where Marin the Manager (previously known as Marin the Fox) started his own vacation getaway. Of course, since it’s Hearthstone we’re talking about, things will likely go sideways on more than one occasion.
Blizzard gave me an opportunity to reveal three new Neutral cards from the set – one Epic and two Rares. As is always the case, the power level of the cards is hard to predict, especially so early into the expansion, but I do think that they have some potential.
Carry-On Grub
Let’s start with the Epic. Carry-On Grub is essentially a 4 mana 5/4 that adds a 1 mana Arcane Intellect to your hand. In fact, even better than AI, because you have the added benefit of knowing what cards it’s going to draw. For example, if you draw some expensive cards that you won’t need any time soon, you can simply delay playing the 1 mana Carry-On Suitcase.
Okay, I repeat the word “draw”, but technically this card does not draw cards at all – it adds the Suitcase to your hand and then the Suitcase adds the cards to your hand. It won’t make a difference in most scenarios, but as we all know there are some cards that synergize with drawing, and this one won’t trigger them. It’s not a dealbreaker, but I just wanted to clarify that.
The card will obviously be pretty solid in Arena, but what about Constructed? Well, I don’t think it’s going to see a lot of meta play. Right now most of the classes have access to more than enough card draw. However, I could see it being playable in Reno decks to fill the curve. 4 mana 5/4 is a solid statline and the extra cards can always come in handy.
This is one of those cards that would be an auto-include back in the day, but there’s simply so much card draw and generation in 2024 that (almost) no deck needs more.
Bumbling Bellhop
Our first Rare is Bumbling Bellhop. It’s yet another in a series of weak minions that get much stronger if conditions are met. In this case, it’s a 3 mana 3/3 with Taunt (a card you would never consider playing in Constructed), but if you’re holding a spell that costs (5) or more, it summons a copy of itself.
And that’s really interesting. 2x 3/3 with Taunt for 3 mana is really good. Dropping it on the curve is powerful in basically all matchups – it’s a lot of early pressure vs slower decks and a way to contest the early board of Aggro decks (which they can’t simply ignore because of Taunts). In some decks, it could also be a good mid/late game play. In particular, Handbuff decks. Any card that summons a copy of itself double-dips on any handbuffs, and summoning two (for example) 7/7 Taunts in the late game is still very good.
The biggest downside is obviously the fact that if you DON’T hold an expensive spell, this card sucks. It pretty much disqualifies it from more aggressive decks that don’t tend to play 5+ mana spells. As I’ve mentioned before, it would be a perfect fit into Handbuff decks, neither Handbuff Paladin nor Handbuff Death Knight run ANY 5+ mana spells right now. They technically could slot in a few of those, but this card doesn’t seem to be worth such massive deck alterations. Of course, it’s still very early in the reveal season and for all we know those decks might get some expensive spells they want to run anyway – if yes, then this card is a great fit.
And that’s a real problem, isn’t it? If we look at the current meta, 5+ mana spells simply aren’t very popular. Only a handful of decks run more than 1-2 of those, and in order for this card to be consistent enough, you would probably need at least 4 or 5. Right now Reno Shaman is probably the best fit. Not only it runs a few high-cost spells, but Bellhop could also synergize with Wish Upon a Star. Maybe Reno Warrior, but those tend to run only 2-3 expensive spells and that might not be enough (on the other hand, after playing Brann it would be 3x 3/3 Taunt so that’s good).
Overall, I think this card has a lot of potential. In the right deck, it can be very strong. The question is – will the right deck exist in Perils in Paradise? It’s impossible to say yet.
Customs Enforcer
The last card I have to reveal is Customs Enforcer. And this is definitely not something you would want to add to any deck and call it a day. It’s a tech card, and whether those are playable depends heavily on the meta.
This one is meant to stop decks that generate a lot of cards. At 5 health, the card is quite durable and can take some beating before getting destroyed. If your opponent’s deck relies heavily on generated cards, they might struggle with removing it, or at least waste some extra mana to do it. And that’s always a good thing.
Looking at the current Standard meta, we don’t have tons of decks like that, though. There’s Spell Mage, but it runs enough burn/removal in their base deck to get rid of it before using their generated cards. I think it could work pretty well vs Excavate Rogue – sometimes they have a full hand of generated cards (including the ones from the Azerite Scorpion) and making all of them more expensive could lead to some awkward turns. It could also be used to disrupt/delay some combos (e.g. Nature Shaman relies heavily on cards Discovered from Lightning Reflexes, so they might have to delay the combo until they kill it or waste some burn on this minion). However, the problem is that this card is only good against a small portion of the meta – against many decks this is simply a 3 mana 2/5 with no effect. While it’s impossible to say what the next Standard meta will look like, I just can’t see running it in the main deck.
I actually think that this might be better in Wild than in Standard. It would cripple a deck like Quest Mage which relies heavily on playing cards that didn’t start in their deck. If I’m correct about the way it works, it could also stop Questline Warlock from comboing you with Mass Production (the ones your opponent shuffles didn’t start in their deck so they should cost 3 mana instead of 1). Wild has its fair share of similar decks that his card could disrupt, but again, I don’t think it has ENOUGH to warrant running it in the main deck.
Overall, like with other tech cards, the meta would have to be dominated by decks this card is good against to consider running it in your main deck. But I can see it being a solid E.T.C., Band Manager sideboard inclusion in some metas.
And that’s all! Thanks again to Blizzard for providing us with another opportunity to reveal some cards. The reveal season is only just beginning, we’ve seen less than 20% of the expansion at this point, so we still have a lot of exciting cards ahead of us.
Anyway, if you want to learn more about the upcoming expansion and see all of the card reveals in one place, check out our Perils in Paradise guide!
