Claw doesn’t see play. Bite doesn’t see play. Will this see play? NOPE.

Keeper of Uldaman didn’t even really see that much play when it was around. And pally still has Sunkeeper Tarim.

The flexibility will not save this card. Honestly, I only really value this effect at about one mana (which makes sense when you compare it with Keeper of Uldaman), and even then I don’t like it. Humility and Aldor Peacekeeper are good because not only are they frequently a more relevant nerf, but they combo with Kodo.

Trust me, this won’t see play. Especially looking at all the quality cards Paladin has… yeah, no. If it does see play I will be friggin’ floored.

Consecration on a minion? Seems pretty great. It is deathrattle, which slows the effect, but it also makes for a flamestrike when combined with the Hunter DK on 10.

I really like the idea of giving Hunter more Control oriented cards, and I’m a big fan of this one.

This card is not only really thematic and hilarious, but insanely good, especially if Rogues start using their higher damage weapons. 1 mana deal… I dunno, 3 damage? Then draw a card? And all it costs is probably 1 weapon durability? Whoo… good thing this is in Rogue, because Pally and Warrior would do some pretty degenerate things with this card.

But again, the chance that it doesn’t see play is if Rogue continues to not care about its Weapon Cards, as it currently doesn’t. With the hero power weapon… not very good.

It’s a nice card for arena, but I doubt Constructed will consider it, because Bloodmage Thalnos and Kobold Geomancer are much less conditional spell damage cards than this, and the extra health on this thing probably won’t make it worth it to deal with the drawback.

I guess it might be cool to give a minion with big stats Spell Damage, or “Can’t be targeted by Spells/Hero Powers”… but that won’t save this card.

It’s interesting. I don’t think Warrior will use it, but it’s really cool card design and synergizes nicely with all the whirlwind effects that Warrior is getting. It sounds really appealing to get a 5 mana 8/8, 10/10, 13/13, 16/16, whatever, but for this card to be worth it at all, you need at least five hurt minions on the board. That’s not exactly super hard to pull off (just using your own board), but I’m not sure it’ll be good enough to warrent all that setup. It’s a combo card with kind of a lackluster payoff, especially when it might just get Hex’d, or Polymorphed, or silenced. So… card is probably bad. Also bad in Arena.

Even Murloc decks won’t want this thing. Far too weak, and not nearly aggressive enough for the typical murloc deck.

There are cards that do similar things but better. Pally has better buffs for its small minions, better nerfs for enemy minions, and a lot of similar effects that are already bundled into better cards. Pally won’t give this a second glance.

So it’s a N’zoth effect, but minus the N’Zoth body.

The good news is that there are some really good demons to pull with this. Doomguard having charge is huge, Lakari Felhound having taunt is important… but a lot of the good cards are discard cards, which makes it risky to play with this thing.

I’d love if this were the start of a new Warlock deck, but currently trying to wrap my head around it, I’m not sure that I see it.

Turning into Jaraxxus and then back to Gul’Dan will be pretty fun though, that’s for sure.

This is an interesting comparison to Meteor. Obviously 15 damage is just better, but trading 15 damage to a single target for a free to save 2 mana… not a bad trade, to be honest. Icebreaker is… somehow starting to look appealing. I still don’t think it’ll work, but I’m getting more and more tempted to give it a shot.

So yeah, this is a pretty efficient card, provided the board gets to an agreeable state.

I really like the Warrior card that has this mechanic, but this things stats aren’t anything special even if it gets its deathrattle off. It has the same number of stats as the Warrior card, but it costs one more. Its deathrattle is a little stronger, but not THAT stronger. I do like how its stats are balanced though, which does encourage the enemy to trade with it to avoid you trading up, which gets you the deathrattle value. The design is good, the balance is just awful, which is why this card is bad.

If it weren’t for how much Lifesteal is in this set, this might be an interesting anti-aggro option. But… yeah. It’s a bad filler card. Man, this thing is so bad that it’s making that crappy Priest 3 drop look good.

It’s uh…. yeah… it’s not good. Even the “Enrage Warrior” won’t want this thing which is a testament to how bad it is. In Arena also bad.

No one in their right mind is going to play Dead Man’s Hand. The only realistic way it sees play is if Fatigue Warrior is a deck again, and I’m really not convinced it will be. Maybe if the Warrior Death Knight super leans in that direction. Dead Man’s Hand is way too slow (even for control) and a great way to lose tempo and get beaten up by midrange and aggro decks.

I’m sure there are others who post similar to me; I just stand out thanks to my good friend Heavy Breathing Cat. I do check a lot because I’m genuinely excited about this expansion and I love these spoilers. It’s exciting to see a new card and start theory crafting on it. I also work weird hours, which lets me get in analysis when cards are revealed in the middle of the day.

For the record, I don’t actually think I’m very good at Hearthstone. The highest rank I’ve ever gotten to was… 10? 8? Something like that. I don’t play excessively, but I do watch a fair amount of hearthstone and I play lots of different card/board games, so hopefully some of my analysis isn’t shit/misleading people into thinking that I’m an undercover pro with top tier analysis. I also just like to write, and this is a good outlet for that. Or maybe I just want a soap box. Apparently it’s working though. Thanks for the compliments though, I appreciate it!

Right, the reason this card isn’t just blatantly insane at 2 mana draw 2 is because, like you said, two weapons are clunky. You can’t play them at the same time, but it gives you consistent ammo for your weapon slot, and since Warrior weapons are generally good (especially the two that are going to get the most play) especially early on, you’re going to love using this card. Like I mentioned in my other post though, I think this MIGHT only be a one-of, because the second likely won’t get the full value if you’re just running 4 weapons. Unless your deck is more weapon heavy, in which case you might go for two of these. Again, deck thinning is still pretty good, so it might be worth it just for that.

Oh right, and if there IS a Blizzard employee out there reading this… call me!

Yes you can. Here’s the line:

Step 1: On some turn before turn 9, play Hydrologist, keep the secret. (Alternatively you could just have a secret in your deck… but Hydrologist is a better card, so I suggest that).

Step 2: On some turn before turn 9, play a Burgly Bully or two and get two (or one if you went second, in which case you need to keep that first coin) coins.

Step 3: On turn 9, play this. Get your weapon, smash a face (Smashing faces is optional, but highly encouraged).

Step 4: On turn 10, play Auctionmaster Beardo. Hero Power. Coin. Hero Power. Coin. Hero Power. Secret. Hero Power. Costs 12 mana, which is made possible by the two coins you played.

Step 5: EXODIA, OBLITERATE!

Honestly, this isn’t even that outrageous of a combo. The only downside to this combo is that it relies on an opponent playing one or two spells into Burgly Bully, which sometimes doesn’t happen. Well, the other downside is that you need to play Auctionmaster Beardo and Burgly Bully to make this happen.

To be fair, the Auctionmaster Beardo dream will only really happen if you have a few coins from Burgly Bully, You need 3 mana for Beardo and 8 mana for the Horsemen to win, so you either need three coins or two coins and a secret. Seems like too much setup and putting bad cards (Burgly bully and Beardo; easy to get secrets from Hydrologist, a good card) in your deck for this combo to really work. But who knows; maybe control is strong enough that it’s viable to make it work. Maybe you just give Exodia Mage hiding behind its Ice Block the finger by pulling off your own Exodia. Sounds fun enough, I suppose.

Okay… bad news first. The best Shaman deck in the Meta right now, Token Shaman, only plays two overload cards (Two copies of Jade claws, which only overloads a total of 2 crystals), so it definitely won’t see play in that deck (and the deck definitely won’t morph so much just to incorporate this card).

Spirit Echo Shaman uses a few more overload cards… five to be precise, which overloads a total of 8 mana crystals (if you play them all). I won’t talk about the other Shaman decks, because at that point we’re dropping down to tier 3.

So how many crystals do you need to overload before this card becomes good? I’d say at least five; a 6 mana 8/8 is about the worst I’d want it to be before playing it, and normally I’d want it to be a lot lower. So how viable is it to get that many crystals overloaded? Back in the day, Tunnel Trogg saw a lot of play and loved having crystals overloaded, but that was an early drop that curved pretty well into the other good overload cards of the day (Totem Golem and Ancestral Knowledge). Unfortunately, all of those really good early game overload cards are gone. Jade Claws is a really good early game overload card, we still have Feral Spirits, Flamewreathed Faceless, Lightning Storm, Jinyu Waterspeaker… there are definitely good overload cards out there. The question is, are they good enough to fill your deck with? Is it worth slowing down that much so that you can play these for cheap? Will you have to run Eternal Sentinel to make THAT worth it? Will “Good Stuff Shaman” be good enough?

I… kind of doubt it. At least with the current pool and how strong and competitive the current metagame is. We’ll have to see, but I’m not sure that overload shaman is really a thing right now. Good design though.

Side comment; this card might only see one copy in Warrior decks because you don’t want TOO much of this weapon draw power, since the second one will frequently whiff, becoming 2 mana draw 1 or even 2 mana draw 0 even before late game.

Now here’s an interesting card. I like the design on this because it will frequently draw 2 cards for 2, which is great, but because they’re both weapons you can’t immediately use both of them.

Currently, I think every single Warrior will run 4 weapons (2 Firey Win Axes and 2 Bloodrazors, or the Aggro Warrior decks might not run the Bloodrazors but will run Arcanite Reaper instead), which bodes well for this card. On top of that, thinning your deck is also quite good, increasing your odds of getting the stuff you want. Control Warrior might not run this (since they don’t want to thin their decks very much), assuming it makes a return, but all in all, it seems pretty solid.

Noteworthy is that this card CAN be a really bad card late game when all your weapons have already been drawn… but I think this card’s going to be pretty insane.