Omnitarian's Comments
Plagued Protodrake
Slow, so you need to cheat it out – Duel!, Boom Reaver, Anka the Buried, etc etc. If the cheats work then this works, compare it to the old Mechanical Whelp.
Mindrender Illucia
This is gonna tilt things sooooo hard. It’s also scary that Control Priest can use this to waste combo deck’s pieces, eliminating that weakness.
Guardian Animals
The deckbuilding restriction might be too tough to work with Wildclaw, but mostly there’s just no beast you want to Recruit? Stranglethorn Tiger, Bad Luck Albatross, Mana Saber, King Mukla and Emperor Cobra are the only good ones, every other 4 or 5 cost beast relies on Battlecry. If you’re cheating this spell out you have better things to do, if you’re running lots of beasts you have better things to do. I can only assume they’re gonna reveal a Recruit target that makes more sense for this.
Primordial Studies
There’s a lot of garbage you can get from this. Best case is you snag Bloodmage Thalnos, Azure Explorer, Lab Partner, Malygos(?) or a Prime. It’s a 1-mana “hope you highroll and draft those minions”.
Worth tinkering with for Spell Mage. Can’t see Shaman using it, except it’s a GREAT pull from Instructor Fireheart, and maaaaybe you use it with Diligent Notetaker to fish for a prime?
Trueaim Crescent
Interesting card, at first it seems pretty bad since your minions will “overtrade” and kill themselves. But there’s some workarounds – it’s crazy good with Ace Hunter Kreen for one. And if you’re behind on board you can use this to give each minion you summon pseudo-rush (or pseudo-windfury if they already have rush), which can be quite good. You’ll take face damage for it, though.
High Abbess Alura
This card is nuts and will instantly make Libram Paladin a contender for best Midrange Deck in the meta. With just a little bit of deckbuilding investment this card will have no bad outcomes – people are treating a 4 mana 4/7 that casts Consecration, or a 5 mana 6/8 that draws a card as a bad thing?! The highrolls on the other hand are wild. Librams alone can make this a turn 4 4/7 that summons an 8/8 Divine Shield Taunt (and hands back a Libram of Wisdom when it dies).
It might be good enough for Tempo Priest to tinker with, too. We have Embalming Ritual as a cheap activator and can cast Grave Rune or Psyche Split on itself which will lead to massive shenanigans.
If you REALLY don’t want to lowroll a cheap spell you can use Wandmaker (2 mana neutral 2/2 – add a random 1 cost spell to your hand).
Lord Barov
Equality would have been balanced at 3 mana, this is that but with a body and an activator attached. Wild. Sword and Board is a 4 mana boardwipe, Shield Slam also works in a pinch. Paladin can activate it with Animated Broomstick or Rocket Augmerchant – once again a 4 mana boardwipe.
Soulshard Lapidary
I mean, it’s playable if the Soul Fragments are playable for DH. But 4.8 rating? Is it really all that better than Glaivebound Adept?
Soulciologist Malicia
I don’t think this is the only win condition your deck should bank on, but it’s obviously a solid payoff card that goes into any Soul Fragment control deck.
Instructor Fireheart
Shaman is happy to have any card generation he can get. Honestly even a 3/3 that discovers a spell ain’t bad, and if you draw it later you’ll be able to chain 2 or 3 spells easy. Kinda like Underbelly Angler, but no deck buildarounds needed.
The “7 lightning bolts in a row” dream is pretty unlikely, but just chaining a few and winding up with a big spell for next turn is fine. Good card but I’m still nervous we haven’t seen a Shaman Wincon that isn’t totems this set. :/
Lab Partner
Dear lord Mage really needed a one drop, and this is a good one drop. Now you can kill 3 health minions with Ray of Frost or Arcane Breath without having to HP. There are also enough turns where you would otherwise float a mana but can use this to help wipe an enemy board, like Rolling Fireball on T6. I would put this in Highlander Mage fo sho.
There’s a lot of Spell Damage synergies from RoS that weren’t good enough at the time, you can try it with this but idk if Mage has enough cheap burst to make it work.
Keymaster Alabaster
A very fun card for sure. Power level is alright, definitely good stats for the ability. Scariest in Res Priest, but any Greedy Grindy control deck will be tempted to run this, assuming they aren’t too scared of aggro.
Adorable Infestation
You’ve heard of Ultimate Infestation, now get ready for…
It’s playable, for both classes even. Could make for some explosive early turns.
Runic Carvings
Shaman is happy to have a Board-in-a-can, since normally he has to build his token boards piece by piece using cards he struggles to draw in the first place.
Druid probably doesn’t care, he has better board-spam options at the moment. If you use this you’re going in on the Treant synergy cards that are still in standard.
The overload option is a bit harsh but it could come in handy in emergencies.
Not confident this’ll see play, but good to have after the rotation.
Secret Passage
Umm yeah this is pretty much a better Soularium, a better Tracking, and a not-quite-the-same-but-definitely-more-appealing Myra’s in a class that can very easily take advantage of the effect. I don’t see how this isn’t instantly an auto-include 2x in every single Rouge deck.
Jandice Barov
Uhh tough to evaluate, on its face it’s not the best, since the minions are random and your opponent can usually guess that the one with lower health is the one you gave reverse-poison. It’s like a random 5 drop and two 1-Health minions for 5 mana which isn’t impressive.
You’ll have to find a workaround. A big one that comes to mind is Bamboozle- both her and the illusory minion are great when attacked. For Mage Idunno, you can save up and use conjurer’s calling to negate the auto-death, maybe it ain’t bad with Khadgar either?
Turalyon, the Tenured
Changing my review because it’s now confirmed he has Tenure. 5/5 Auto-include
Ras Frostwhisper
Without the buff it’s very close to Despicable Dreadlord, arguably better stat distribution + it hits heroes. And that was a good card. I don’t think this card will enable a successful Spell Damage deck (without way good support), but you can slot him into a value-focused Mage/Shaman deck that happens to run spell damage and he’ll be just fine.
Turalyon, the Tenured
Cool support for Duel! Paladin but outside of specific (read: Druid-heavy) metas I don’t think he’s gonna make more than one successful debuff+trade.
You can actually get a pretty explosive start using this, the coin, Adorable Infestation, etc. Probably just a meme though.