Bisalissy's Comments
Primordial Studies
In any normal deck, you will just run a good spell damage minion instead of this. And why even run a spell damage minion when all-non-primes are pretty terrible? Sure, this can highroll to get you a copy of your Prime (More Solarians are ALWAYS good!) but anything else is bad. There are tons of terrible spell damage minions. Minions you would never want to use in your deck.
What goes for this card? It’s a cheap spell for mage and mages love this. But once again, every other 1 Mana Spell is better for decks that play around Mana Cyclone and Chenvaala: This or Arcane Missiles? Arcane Missiles.
And now, the one and only niche for this awful card could be Pure Spell Mage. There, you have enough spells to make Spell Damage strong and you can risk ending up with an Archmage or Dalaran Mage. Although I doubt this deck can happen, it is strong there and therefor gets 2 stars.
Trueaim Crescent
Sick’em Misha!
Nice effect, but it requires your opponent to have a certain minion on board to make your certain board get use of a card that uses up your weapon slot…I think this is just too awkward to include in your deck. Sure, it is nice with Kreen but then you have to use Kreen with this. Two pretty bad cards that require each other to work IF your opponent gives them the opportunity and you have enough minions on board…no. I cant imagine this.
Also, this is greatly hindered by Taunt. If your hero attacks the Taunt to protect your minions, they will go for it and die. Even if they survived, they used up their attack for a massive overkill.
I dont care about the current raiting, to me, this is 1/5 Stars.
Guardian Animals
I think Hunter, at least with their current beasts, will have a hard time getting use out of this. They want to run Beast flood with Shan’do Wildclaw or, in Highlander, just run the standart Diving Gryphon/Zixor/Phase Stalker/ecr.
Druid has a little bit more Potential IF they can play around that card. By no means will druid run something like Stranglethorn Tiger, Mana Saber and Bad Luck Albatross just to make this card decent.
In any case, I think this can be very strong once it gets some real support. 7 Mana might be tough, but Druids can cheat Mana and they love dishing out big boards and if there is a great beast to synergies with this, Mana Saber and maybe even Albatross are here to support this card, even if they arent enough on their own. For now, 3 Stars, as soon as it has support, 5 stars.
In Hunter, I doubt this will ever work unless they get massive support. But you can never know, I just have the feeling Blizzard wouldnt print such a well designed card for the dust it provides.
Ancient Void Hound
Why couldnt this be in Warlock? It would be so cool with Willow!
For Demon Hunter, I could imagine this in a big Demon deck with Pit Commander pulling it out, but that archetype might need more support to work.
Currently, this is a high cost card with a, due to it’s hindering cost, mediocre effect in a class that struggles to control itself into the lategame. So unfortunatly, 3 Stars.
But I like the design of the card! (Like almost all of the terrible DH cards in this expansion. Seriously: why couldnt this package be the OP release stuff and the boring cards be saved for later and already nerfed on their release? Would’ve made Demon Hunter Meta a lot more fun!)
High Abbess Alura
Great Card for Paladin! While you have to be careful not to run something like Subdue or Humility, this is not really a big Deckbuilding restriction. You play this, you cast Libram, you get Hand of Adal/another Libram/Libram of Hope/ectr.
Priest…yeah, no. Every single Dual Class Card for Priest is a “Oh, you can also play it in Priest. But I wouldnt recommend it though….” and this is no exception. It limits Deckbuilding way to much for Priest to fit anywhere.
Note: I write this believing that it will pull target spells first: So if you Spellburst with this and have Blessing of Kings and Conceration left in your deck, it will 100% be Blessing of Kings. Because the Spellburst targets this if possible. +
If this is wrong, it is a terrible card and will never be played, but I would be really suprised if Blizzard would program it that way.
Potion of Illusion
Exodia was already summed up perfectly in the comments, so I’ll just go over the strength of this card in a “normal” deck.
It can obviously go for some insane combos. Most notably, the one featured in the Art of this card, Jandice Barov. Get her for 1 Mana + 2 5 Costs for 1 Mana (Something like Big old Whelp).
Rogue can use it for Lackey generation and invoking by playing this on a big board with lackey and Invoke Cards.
Mage has Kalecgos, Malygos, Khartut Defender, the (for this card nerfed) Dragoncaster, Astromancer Solarian, Zephrys in Highlander
The question is: Is this worth running this card? It costs 4 Mana after all. It has tons of Meme Potential, but in a serious Meta Deck? 4 Mana means: No reliable Togwaggle, no free Dragoncaster, you often need a big board for this to really get value.
But in the end, despite all of this, I think it will make it into decks. With all the Battlecries and Combos this provides, it is good enough. 4 Stars.
Potion of Illusion
Scary. But it requires a lot of dedication to make it work. You either play the big Quest, but this limits you to play max. 9 spells before you have your Licensed Adventurers to get the coins. If you go for Elemental Allies, you have to draw this first.
You need to spend a dead turn to get Antonidas+Potion off.
And during all of that, you have to keep your opponent at bay without Iceblock.
Yet still, scary!
Brain Freeze
Ice Lance but not as twinspell. It can be Frostbolt, but Frostbolt is something you want to use as opener, not as follow up.
The fact it is a cheap spell for classes that can make use low cost of it is nice, but the effect is just bad. Can be a good Discovery from Magic Trick of Etheral Lackey though. 2/5 Stars.
Mozaki, Ras Frostwhisper and all the Spell Damage Stuff is nothing I could possibly imagine as more than meme deck, so no bonus there.
Speaker Gidra
*5/8 for Blessing of Ancients
But yes, gain is gain. If this is played with a 4 Mana Spell, it gets +4/+4.
Educated Elekk
This is incredibly strong in a variety of decks.
Druid loves this! You can gain all your 0 Mana Spells back and thanks to Overflow you have more card draw than you can cast anyway. (Also, this can be summoned with Exotic Mountseller)
Paladin can get tons of Librams! This + 2 Librams of Wisdom + Libram of Hope… and it can go even further!
Rogue has tons of shenanigans to make this work. All the Backstabs and Shadow Steps….
Mage, Priest and Warlock can get their removals back. Warlock can stack up on Nether Breaths and Priest can stack up on Renews. Mage can go Dragoncaster + this + Puzzle Box for the ultimate Clown Fiesta!
The biggest downside of this is the anti-synergy with Vectus. So, let’s say your deck runs Gift of Luminance, Convincing Infiltrator and Vectus, you dont play this along this. But if the competition for a spot in a deck from a card that has completly diffrent synergies, it just shows how strong the card is!
Argent Braggart
Paladin deserved this! Finally something that takes care of Aggro Problems! Also, Salhet’s Pride might come into consideration for Pure Paladin since it can draw Imprisoned Sungrill, Murgur Murgurgle and this.
I don’t think a deep analysis of this card is needed. Unless your opponent plays a Token Deck, this is the perfect awnser to everything. Similar to Murozond with potentially less impact, but much cheaper and often more flexible.
Professor Slate
I think this makes the cut for Highlander Hunter and also brings a few changes to the decklist. Rapid Fire, Marked Shot and Scrap Shot should all make a comeback with this. In my opinion, this is the great minion protection card for Hunter that Ace Hunter Kreen isnt 😀 Also very strong in Face Hunter!
Soulshard Lapidary
Maybe I am, maybe not. We’ll see when the expansion is released. Some hyped cards go down and some underestimated ones rise up. And some are just as good or bad as expected.
Soulciologist Malicia
So out of all the Soul Fragment Cards, I think this is the strongest and will always be the first inclusion for the package, so I’ll just post my thoughts here. I think thanks to the fact all SS-Generators are really useful, SS will see play in all Midrange and Control Decks from Warlock and Demon Hunter. While I dont know how good Control Demon Hunter stuff will be, Warlock seems promising and should make it into Tier 1 & 2 with archetypes like Quest, Galakrond and Handlock.
Soulshard Lapidary
I think this is the only Soul Fragment Card that might be pretty bad, due to Tempo DH not really using them and for Control DH it’s overkill.
Devout Pupil
This is like…meant for Libram Paladin. It might not generate Value, but having a 0 Mana 4/5 with Taunt and Divine Shield should be good enough for the Deck.
Priest…Priest really falls short with the Dual-Class Cards. They lack draw, so they probably want more impactful cards in their deck. Tempo Priest might want to use this, but the viability of Tempo Priest is another story. One last niche this card might find is a Priest-Heavy Meta. 4 Attack, very sticky, easy to throw out of a full hand… And last but not least: Inovking Galakrond into this is really cool!
Lab Partner
I’m not, I just think it wont see play. The 1/1 that gives you Arcane missiles isnt played either and I think it is a lot better than this one.
Keymaster Alabaster
This is great for classes with a lack of card draw that are usually empty-handed, like Hunter or Paladin. Getting a decent 1 Mana card is great for everyone and I think this will be found in a variety of decks that can a) make it to 7 Mana (Aggro DH/Hunter or Murloc decks struggle) and b) dont have a full hand at all times (Rogue and Priest for example).
Gives good Value and fits in Stealth Rogue. Simple and useful card to fill a deck. 3 Stars.