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Who Will Win the Showdown in the Badlands? First Impressions from the Theorycrafting Event

By: Old Guardian - - Updated:

It is that time of the year again when streamers get to play with the new cards a few days before everyone else. The Showdown in the Badlands theorycrafting livestreams event showcased the brand-new cards in action for the first time. In this article, I will take a look at what we can learn from the event, what looked strong, and what looked fun.

I had the pleasure of being invited to the event, and I have 8.5 hours of Badlands gameplay under my belt now. However, it is important to note that this is not the real Badlands gameplay. The pre-release event is a classic Western movie with noble heroes and exciting duels, promoted by the house rule that you need 10 new cards in each deck. The real Badlands will be a gritty version of the same thing, where the life of a meme deck will be nasty, brutish, and short.

With that disclaimer, let’s take a look at what Badlands has to offer for each class.

Death Knight – Rainbow in the Dark

Obviously, I had to try Rainbow Death Knight. The new set includes Maw and Paw with its fabulous American Gothic art and the promise to support Climactic Necrotic Explosion. Not only that but Corpse Farm gives you another great Corpse spender to really pump up your spell. Alas, I could not make it work at all. Even in a meme-friendly environment, there is no sign of a morning coming for Rainbow Death Knight.

The Death Knight set is not hopeless though. Death Knight is one of the Excavate classes and can get The Azerite Rat that resurrects their highest-cost minion as their fourth Excavate reward. The Azerite Rat is not a game-ending reward, but resurrecting your The Primus or Reska, the Pit Boss can still get a lot done.

Death Knight has one of the most interesting Excavate cards in Skeleton Crew. Whatever treasure you get from the Crew is going to cost zero. You usually want to try to use the Crew for your third or fourth Excavate to get the most value from it. You can even get a zero-cost The Azerite Rat that you will be able to use for a big swing turn later.

Also, Plague Death Knight is still a thing. You know all the Highlander support coming with the new set? On Tuesday, you have the opportunity to ruin everything for the Reno hopefuls and add duplicate Plagues to their decks. Just try to avoid aggro decks.

Demon Hunter – The Real Naga Mage

Did you ever wonder why Naga Mage did not blast you in the face and instead built some big boards? That’s because it was just Naga Mage at home. The real Naga Mage is the Blindeye Sharpshooter. In the land of blind meme decks, the one-eyed combo deck is king. Naga Demon Hunter was the strongest deck I met in theorycrafting. The deck is very consistent in getting to lethal by turn 8 at the latest, and as early as turn 6 at best. And that’s with the versions people were playing in this first event before they can be refined further.

Now, once we hit the real ladder, this Demon Hunter combo deck will have to fight against aggro decks that hold nothing back. I expect the deck to be very popular in high Legend, and the real scare will be if it turns out to be good throughout the ladder.

Corbett’s Naga Demon Hunter – Badlands Theorycrafting

Deck Import

Druid – The Emerald Dragon Dream

The Druid set is built around Dragons, and that’s it. Druid is all in. I played a Midrange Dragon Druid and a Highlander Dragon Druid, and I highly prefer the latter. Dragon Druid with duplicates feels like Dragon Priest before Drakonid Operative. Yeah, you have some ramp in there in the form of Splish-Splash Whelp, but you’re still playing too fair of a deck. Fair is not fair in modern Hearthstone. Maybe you can use a Dragon core and add something else in there to actually win games. Splish-Splash Whelp and Desert Nestmatron provide some interesting mana options, but they need something else than Dragons to win the game.

The Highlander version has some more tricks up its sleeve. There’s Rheastrasza, who is actually quite bonkers. With Purified Dragon Nest, you will discover a Dragon each turn and it will be discounted by four mana, too. Discover is such a powerful mechanic that you are just pushing out powerful Dragons like an industrial printing press. You can also fix one of Druid’s main weaknesses to an extent with Reno, Lone Ranger. As soon as you get to 8 mana, removal is not a problem.

Druid will do Druid things in Badlands. Ramp up, use Neutral removal as you lack your own, and then build board states that the opponent cannot defeat.

The question is, can this actually be stronger than Drum Druid? Drum Druid can build their board, buff it up, and hit face for lethal, all before turn eight. Highlander Druid will need to find their Ramp and their Reno in time to survive, and that may be too tall of an ask. But if you’re looking for value, Highlander Druid is the ultimate infinite value generator. A pair of 3/4 Taunt Imps every turn? Bah, that’s child’s play, and there is no room for that in this children’s card game.

Thijs’s Highlander Dragon Druid – Badlands Theorycrafting

Deck Import

Hunter – Handbuff or Die?

I only played against a single Hunter in 8.5 hours. They used Sneaky Snakes and Saddle Up! for some Soul of the Forest vibes, but overall that did not look too strong. I tried to play Hunter myself, a Highlander deck with Theldurin the Lost, but I could not make it work. The Hunter set requires you to buff your things for them to be useful. Buffing them and surviving seems hard to do consistently.

Mage – All Realities

I found the Mage set the most inspiring one in Badlands. I’m not sure if any Mage decks will be competitive, but Mage has the widest range of options. Druid is all-in on Dragons, for example, but the Mage set adds key cards that allow you to explore the class, and that is awesome.

I played some Elemental Mage, of course. Finding ways to play an Elemental every turn to make your Overflow Surger as big as possible was fun. I also had the pleasure to witness what happens when Mes'Adune the Fractured draws Ragnaros the Firelord. Yes, that would be two 4-mana 4/4 copies of Ragnaros, each with the full 8-damage effect! You can play a midrange Elemental Mage that brings some powerful tools to the game, or you might even play a Highlander Mage with Mes’Adune, Ragnaros, and Neptulon the Tidehunter. That’s what I love about the Mage set. There are some clear archetypes to play, but the cards can also be used elsewhere.

I also played a Secret Excavation Mage. Reliquary Researcher just screams to be paired with Contract Conjurer, and the deck was a lot of fun to play. Unfortunately, I also noticed that Reliquary Researcher truly attempts to cast random Secrets: if you have one in play already, she might only give you one more.

Old Guardian's Secret Excavation Mage – Badlands Theorycrafting

Deck Import

Casino Mages also get a new toy with Tae'thelan Bloodwatcher. Cheap random cards, that’s the name of the game.

Overall, a very impressive set for Mage at least in terms of archetypes it supports. As for power level, that remains untested.

Paladin – A Mirage?

The Mirage from Spirit of the Badlands sounds like a lot of value. In practice, it is far less impressive. You still pay the full mana cost of the minions you copy, and it is a random minion from your deck. If you have early-game minions there, you will sometimes get copies of those. I did not meet any Paladins, and my own attempts at the class were not great.

The current Paladin card pool is strong, and Pure Paladin is always happy to grab whatever good cards it can add to the deck. There may even be enough tools to build a Highlander version of the deck, but with the new Reno, Lone Ranger being a Neutral Legendary, it can be hard to combine purity with highlanderism.

Priest – Keep Adding Cards Until They Work

Blizzard’s time-tested approach to Priest archetypes is to keep adding new cards to them until they work. Remember Purify? It has been seven years, so maybe you did not even play Hearthstone back then, but if you did, you will remember. Silence Priest was not a thing. Purify did not make it a thing either. But Blizzard doubled down on the archetype until it finally had enough cards to be playable.

The Silence Priest of Showdown in the Badlands is Overheal Priest. Finally, there are enough cards to make the archetype playable! With Injured Hauler, Pip the Potent, and Holy Springwater, you will finally have enough tools to overheal for days. This festival is not over until Heartbreaker Hedanis and the Heartthrobs have had the final dance!

GetMeowth’s Overheal Priest – Badlands Theorycrafting

Deck Import

Rogue – A Coin for Your Legendaries

The Rogue set is heavily focused on getting cards from other classes. Rogue can Excavate and get The Azerite Scorpion, which will give them four random spells from other classes, and those spells are free if Rogue has Excavated eight times. However, the real swings come from coins. Wishing Well is actually a formidable card. Especially in the slow pace of the theorycrafting event, that Well pumped out so much value.

Even if Wishing Well turns out to be too slow in the real meta, the coins are real. With increased access to coins, Rogue can brew up scary things for turns that require them to play a lot of cards, like for a Sinstone Graveyard. Coins are scary.

Thijs’s Coin Rogue – Badlands Theorycrafting

Deck Import

Shaman – The Cows Come Rushing Home

Elemental Shaman can apply a lot of pressure in Badlands. Minecart Cruiser is practically a 3-mana 4/5 with Rush in the deck, and that’s a big board control tool that early in the game. Living Prairie keeps the Elemental chain going while summoning more Rush minions to the board. Finally, Skarr, the Catastrophe is a one-sided board clear that also hits face. If Elemental Shaman has the board in the mid-game, do not expect to stop that with Taunt minions.

Shaman also gets some slow Highlander support in the form of Doctor Holli'dae. Slow cards are slow, though. What are a few frogs against endless cheap Dragons? This value game goes to Druid.

Warlock – You Will Play Discard Warlock and You WILL Like It

Did I mention that Blizzard has a tendency to double down on archetypes they want to see played? Warlock and discard, name a more iconic duo. In their attempt #22 to push Discard Warlock on Standard players, Blizzard has invented Barrel of Sludge. Now you can generate more cards that you can then Discard!

I think this is going to be a real deck. You generate Sludges to your hand and to the bottom of your deck and you just drown the opponent in all that sludge with Discard effects and with Waste Remover. A 4-mana 7/7 may be nothing special in today’s Hearthstone, but when it also deals 3 damage to the lowest-health enemy three times at the end of the turn, it starts to get more impressive.

Other than Discard, Warlock also gets the most impressive Excavation reward. The Azerite Snake is a blast. It is a four-mana minion that steals ten Health from the opponent. That means both current Health and maximum Health! At ten mana, you can even bounce it and replay it on the same turn to steal 20 Health from the opponent. I played a Cursed Excavation Warlock in the event, and it was the most fun deck I had there. I expect the live meta to be a little too fast for it though, but between Abyssal Curses and the Snake, there is so much unavoidable damage that any slow decks are feeling the pressure. I expect there to be a much faster deck that will bounce and copy Azerite Snakes much earlier in the game and just steal the opponent’s life away.

RegisKillbin’s Excavate Warlock – Badlands Theorycrafting

Deck Import

Warrior – Taunt Warrior, Again?

I did not see any Warriors in the event. This is probably because of the house rules, as the Warrior set mostly supports Taunt Warrior, which I don’t expect to be very popular. The Warrior Excavation cards are a little strange in that the cards themselves are very defensive, but the rewards would fit a more aggressive deck better. Will you Excavate rather than play Odyn, Prime Designate? Can you fit in both? Warrior is left in a bit of limbo again with Badlands.

Conclusions

Overall, Badlands looks powerful. With Naga Demon Hunter, Wishing Well Rogue, and Snake Warlock getting added to the game, portraits are about to explode. There’s also plenty to explore in various Elemental decks, Overheal Priest, Highlander and Pure Paladin, and Dragon Druid. Maybe there is even a way to make Handbuff Hunter work. Death Knight’s Excavation package simply has to fit into some deck as well. Warrior seems to be the most lackluster class this time. Odyn may still survive, but there is not much new for the Halls of Valor. However, there will be plenty of new things for Hearthstone!

Old Guardian

Ville "Old Guardian" Kilkku is a writer and video creator focused on analytic, educational Hearthstone, and building innovative Standard format decks. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/OldGuardian Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/old_guardian

Check out Old Guardian on Twitter or on their Website!

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