Dragon Priest definitely runs Primordial Drake over this for… obvious reasons.

N’Zoth/Quest Rogue would run this.

If Control priest returns, I’m not sure. I have a feeling that Primordial Drake is a lot more consistent, however.

The Reverse-SMOrc play!

“If the minions trade” *No, no, no* “Me still hit with face” *Yeah, yeah, yeah*

Sprint draws 4 buddy.

You can’t just add “Your opponent discards removal”. That’s part of the body existing, and we’ve already calculated it into the card’s value. Your opponent definitely doesn’t have to tap out to deal with this thing. A lot of classes can deal with this thing for two mana or less, assuming they don’t already have something on the board that can kill it.

The other thing I didn’t mention is that this card is especially underwhelming in Rogue where most frequently, their weapon will have 1 attack. None of the Rogue’s weapons other than its hero power actually see play, and unless you’re running another weapon buffing card (which Rogues almost never do nowadays), it’s just going to preserve your Hero Power for another turn. Is that really worth it? No, no it’s not.

On the flip side of that, there IS Envenom weapon. But on the flip side of THAT, that card doesn’t actually see play in constructed because it ends up costing too much health. You can combo it with the new weapon, but now it’s a 3 card, 10 mana combo that you’re not likely to get off (And doing it over two turns in this case isn’t really an option since you want to go it while you’re still immune from the weapon battlecry). This card just ends up having too many asterisks on it when you look closely, and I’m not even more convinced that it won’t do anything.

It would be a different matter in Warrior, which has tons of beefy weapons, but I think this guy is going to do approximately nothing.

Primordial Drake is a good card for a lot of reasons that this card doesn’t have. The Dragon tag is has is extremely important so that the Curator can pull it. The jump from eight to nine mana is huge, and his powerful board clear also paired well with Paladin’s play style, and was important for other classes as well.

To be clear, I don’t think this is a bad card, but I do think there’s a very real chance this doesn’t see play. Comparing it to Primordial Drake is, surprisingly, not very apt here. Also keep in mind that only one Priest deck even runs Primordial Drake: Dragon Priest. It’s pretty obvious that dragon priest won’t run this. If Quest Priest becomes a thing/N’Zoth Priest picks up steam/Control Priest returns, that’s the only real chance this card has. Which, I mean, those are very real possibilities, but this card is not automatically good like Primordial Drake was.

Very similar mana-to-statline ratio as Priordial Drake, which is a good thing. It also has Lifesteal, which is also good. The downside is that this card doesn’t impact the board nearly as much as Primordial Drake did, and does it slower. And the chance that it just ends up toasting some tiny minion is also real. The fact that N’Zoth can grab this guy is pretty huge; N’Zoth loves being able to pull taunts. It has a good potential to flip games on their head. Nine mana is steep though; the jump between eight and nine mana is probably the biggest gap between any mana, since you very rarely can do anything on 1 mana, meaning that this card, for most intents and purposes, is a 10 drop, just one that you can play one turn earlier.

Will deathrattle Priest ever be a thing? That’s the question that probably needs answered before we know if this card will be good. Currently, it seems unlikely. But this card could function outside of it as a card to help Priest stabilize late game. But, overall, I don’t think this is really what Priest wanted or needed.

So this is kind of like Dr. 6, which is a good comparison. The disadvantage is that it doesn’t have a body and is more expensive, the advantage is that Mage secrets are obviously more powerful than Pally secrets. Is this in fact good enough to build a “Secret Mage” deck different than the one that currently exists? I’m sure there’ll be a Mage secret in this set, and its quality will certainly help it along, but I’m not convinced that the mage secrets are impactful enough to want to fill your deck with them. Dr. 6 had a lot more going for him, and the Pally secrets were weaker, but were also less cumbersome.

Honestly, I don’t have a clue. I’m going to hedge on the pessimistic side, but there is a good chance that I’m flat out wrong.

Bad news is that the hero ability doesn’t do anything on an empty board. Good news is that regular Shaman ability isn’t great even on an empty board, so the bar is pretty low.

I was thinking that this card was underwhelming, but to be honest, Token Shaman will almost certainly run it, especially because it can combo with Dopplegangster if you make it to turn 10. That probably makes this card just automatically good. Though it is worth noting that 4 more mana on Evolve for 1 more cost when evolving probably isn’t worth it. Also worth noting is that at the end of the day, this is a very random card that can literally blow up in your face (Hello Bomb Squad!).

It’s basically 5 mana 5/3 draw a card. You get to somewhat control what he draws, but one problem is that your opponent does as well, since all of their deathrattles get thrown in too. The good news is that anything people put into their constructed deck with Deathrattle is usually a really good card (Tirion anyone?). The bad news is that his stats are fairly unfortunate. This card might actually become a tech against Paladin, now that I think about it. But it will be unfortunate that a lot of times you’ll be holding this card basically unable to play it until you get your deathrattles. This card has potential, but there are too many question marks right now to be sure. I’d want to see the whole set before I made a solid claim about this one.

The more I think about this card, the more I like it. It’s Argent Squire (an already decent card) with free taunt. It’s Annoy-o-Tron but with one less health for one less mana. Even off of turn 1 it can be a really good card to have in your back pocket to make it a lot harder for your opponent to deal with bigger threats like GoodRag.

Even if Divine Pally doesn’t become a thing, Pally might just find a place for this guy.

Ancestral Spirit bundled with a 3 mana 3/3. Gains a little oomph at the expense of flexibility. I mean, that card didn’t see very much play in Shaman, so I don’t have high hopes. Then again, it’s neutral so I’m sure some classes could find disgusting things to do with this guy. If Tirion survives one round and gets hit with this guy, he becomes a nightmare for your opponent to deal with; a much faster Getaway Kodo basically.

I guess I’ll be somewhat optimistic about this. I don’t REALLY think it’ll see play, but it has a shot.

Seems promising, but it depends on how viable Hunter Deathrattle minions are. Right now it runs Highmane and Rat Pack, and this card’s body is decent on its own, so if you get one discount with it, it’s extremely good. If not, it’s still not that bad. Again, will depend on how much hunters use Deathrattle, but I have some hope for this one.

Realistically, this card is “Battlecry: Your weapon gains 1 durability” or “Battlecry: Deal damage equal to your weapon to an enemy.” This is because the opponent is very likely to kill a 3 health minion on 4/5 mana.

In the first situation, the card compares very poorly with Upgrade!, which is only worth one mana. In the second, it seems to be super good, but considering that you have to give up your hero attack for the round, the damage is blocked by taunts, and you have to pay health… yeah, it still balances out.

Noteworthy is that if it survives for two applications it’s great. If it doesn’t (which it usually won’t)… it’s underwhelming. I don’t think we’ll see too much of this guy.

Well, the more mana a buff card costs, the less viable it is (which is one reason the aforementioned Grimestreet Protector never saw play). Defender of Argus is probably about the most mana you could reasonably expect to pay for one of those buffs.

Of course I know control exists. Control Paladin and Control Mage are my two favorite decks right now. I’m also realistic and know this card doesn’t help Control Warrior.

It’s not that this card is bad in other matchups, it’s that it’s UNPLAYABLE in other matchups. In aggro or midrange matchups it’s 2 mana discard a card. At least Eater of Secrets and Gluttonous Ooze have bodies you can use in irrelevant matchups. This doesn’t. Even in control matchups it can win you the super late game, yes, but it’s probably too slow even in those matchups. By weakening your hand so early on and saturating you deck, potentially making it more difficult to draw specific answers that weren’t in your hand when you played Dead Man’s Hand, the other control deck might just outvalue you too quickly and end the game long before it gets to Fatigue.

Compare it to the quests. Now, not many quests ever saw play. Only Warrior, Rogue, and a little bit of Mage saw real play of their quests (and nowadays it’s only really Warrior, and even then it seems like it’s on its way out). But quests are cards where you set aside a card in your hand early on. But the trade-off there is that later you get a free draw, and that free draw is an insane card. Dead Man’s Hand is more expensive, doesn’t get you that free draw later, and just gives you normal cards. Considering that Quests saw so little play as is, this is NOT going to be the card to make Control Warrior great again. I know, because I played a lot of Control Warrior. I experimented with giving Fatigue Warrior Prince Malchezaar. I tried a lot of variations to get the deck to work again, and this awful card is going to help nothing.

If you his no minions with it, this card sucks. If you hit one minion with it, it’s mediocre (we had a 5 mana 5/6 and it never saw play). If you hit two minions with it, it’s good.

TBH, Defender of Argus is probably just better in general. Hell, Grimstreet Protector is almost certainly better than this card and it hasn’t really seen play. Granted, only Paladin has access to Protector, but being one of the best class at getting dudes on the board, if it doesn’t work in Pally, it probably won’t work elsewhere.

So right off the bat, this is one of the funniest cards I’ve ever seen. You literally get to role-play Rafaam.

“I like your deck. I think I will TAKE IT!”

Ooooookay. So is this card actually good? Obviously the body isn’t so great. Worth 5 mana if we’re being generous. Similar to Dead Man’s Hand, this card does not actively affect the board or your hand. On the upside, unlike Dead Man’s Hand, it does have a body attached to the “deck buff” effect, so it doesn’t do nothing when you play it. If Fatigue Priest is possible, this deck might happen. Though shuffling your opponent’s deck into your deck will make it less likely to get the control cards you want, which may complicate your plan. You want to play this card early-ish to make sure you steal enough cards from your opponent’s deck to make a difference in fatigue, but not so early that you saturate your deck with shit you don’t need.

TBH, I’m not convinced that Fatigue Priest can ever be a thing again. Getting Dragonfire Potion is helpful, but Lightbomb was probably better. Losing Justicar and Entomb also hurt them. We’ll have to see, but I have a feeling this archetype isn’t going to work again, at least not with what we’ve got. Maybe the rest of the set will change my mind on that, maybe the Priest Death Knight will be the answer to that prayer, but for now we can only be sure of one thing: it’ll be damn good for some Trolden videos.

The only reason this card wouldn’t be insane is if Hunter is as absent from the future meta as it is in the current meta.

This is better than a 3 mana 2/2 “Draw a card”, and Hunter is going to appreciate being able to pull Highmane when it needs value, Houndmaster when it needs taunt, or Dispatch Kodo when it needs quick damage.

It’s a mark of a great card when any class would kill to have it.

This card looks a lot better than it actually is. After thinking on it, I don’t actually think this card will see play.

It’s a 2 mana 2/3 which is solid, but in constructed you need text along with that. And this text doesn’t affect the board, doesn’t affect your hand, and only kind of affects your opponent. You mill the top card of their deck, which was potentially something good, but maybe the card after that is as good or better. This only would really matter in fatigue matchups. Now, in the past Warlock frequently has gone to Fatigue… but that was mainly with Renolock, which no longer exists. Zoo will never care about this card, and Handlock has better things to run. Discolock also won’t care about it, because it doesn’t synergize with the deck. Unless some weird control Warlock appears, I don’t think this card will actually ever see play.

You know what would have made this card really interesting? Make it like a 3 mana 2/2 (or somewhere around the statline) with the text: “Draw a card from your opponent’s deck.” Now THAT’s a fun, interesting, sassy card.

Another card for the “Neat, but probably never gets played” pile.

Noteworthy is that this card actually works pretty well with Crazed Alchemist/Kooky Chemist, but even then it’ll frequently just get killed, leaving it only to summon a random card from your deck for 4 mana. As we’ve seen from priest, such as thing isn’t very good.

There are ways to buff this thing to make it good, but the problem is that it’s ONLY good if it gets buffed. As we’ve seen with the “Quest Pally” thing, that frequently is a bad sign. Most of the best stuff to play with this either requires a lot of mana, or requires this thing to survive a turn on the board. Seems… overly optimistic.

And in a lot of cases, you’ll likely end up pulling a battlecry from your deck and ruining the value, so even putting Spikeridge Steed with this thing won’t happen because pally doesn’t want to lose the effect from Hydrologist. Any higher and you risk losing Aldor, Stampeding Kodo, Primordial Drake…

Priest arguably could do something with this using Divine Spirit + Inner Fire, but they’d rather just use that on a better card like Ancient Watcher or Humongous Razorleaf.

tl;dr Interesting design, but card is overall bad.