Mean Streets of Gadgetzan Card Review (Part Three) – Dragonfire Potion, Mark of the Lotus and More!

Here’s part three of our Mean Streets of Gadgetzan Card Review from Stonekeep!

More Card Reviews

• Mean Streets of Gadgetzan Card Review Part Two
• Mean Streets of Gadgetzan Card Review Part One

More Information

• Mean Streets of Gadgetzan Guide and Information
• Mean Streets of Gadgetzan Card List

Kooky Chemist

Crazed Alchemist’s big brother. And I want to start with one simple thing – the same effect is worth much more on a cheap card than on an expensive one. Let’s say that Fire Elemental is good as a 6 mana 6/5. But if you had a 2 mana 2/2 with the same effect, it would be simply insane. That’s also why Ironbeak Owl was used over Spellbreaker before the nerf. And it’s a very similar thing here. Both minions have bad statlines – 2/2 for 2 and 4/4 for 4. But if you play this minion for the effect only, you prefer to have the effect on a cheaper card. That’s because it’s more flexible – you can fit it into your turn more easily etc.

Crazed Alchemist was a tech card from time to time, especially in Zoo Warlock vs a Doomsayer-heavy meta. And it might remain this way. I don’t think that Kooky Chemist will take its place. Maybe if it was a 4/5, but not as a 4/4.

• Constructed rating: 2/5 (Bad)
• Arena rating: 3/5 (Average)

Lunar Visions

Another variance on card draw. This time around, it’s overcosted at the base, but it gives you discounts for the minions you draw. 5 mana for 2 cards is terrible, it’s 2 mana too high. So you need to hit at least 1 minion to break even. Well, break even theoretically, because in practice it might be better (e.g. if you hit Ragnaros the Firelord, you can play it right away on turn 6) or it might be worse (e.g. you might discount a minion but then play it while floating the mana anyway). But realistically, to make it really good, you would want to hit 2 minions with it.

The problem with the card is that Druid decks are usually spell heavy. Malygos Druids run more spells than minions. Ramp Druid? Around 50/50. Even in my Beast Druid, I run 13 spells, which is still a lot. Only Aggro Druid decks focus on the minions, but you don’t want to play such a card in Aggro decks.

I don’t feel like doing exact math here, but assuming you run 15 spells and 15 minions, the chances of this hitting 2 minions is definitely on a low side. And if it doesn’t hit 2 minions, I feel like Nourish is just better. Plus it has a chance to backfire completely and now you have an overpriced Arcane Intellect. I don’t think that’s going to worth it.

• Constructed rating: 2/5 (Bad)
• Arena rating: 3/5 (Average) – Worse if you draft a lot of spells, better if you draft almost no spells.

Friendly Bartender

Meh. I’d say that it’s one of the filler cards, because it’s simply bad. I mean, 2-drops rarely survive more than 2 turns. Most of the time they are removed right after they’re played. So it’s going to be a 2 mana 2/3 that heals you for 1-2 on average. And that’s pretty bad. Earthen Ring Farseer is simply better, because it heals you instantly and guarantees 3 points of healing and it’s still not played in almost any deck.

Not to mention that when dropped on turn 2, you rarely have taken any damage yet. So on turn 2 it’s usually a vanilla 2/3. And in Control matchups where you don’t really need healing it’s also most likely a vanilla 2/3.

That said, vanilla 2/3 is not that terrible in Arena, so that’s probably where this card will belong.

• Constructed rating: 1/5 (Terrible)
• Arena rating: 3/5 (Average)

Dragonfire Potion

This. Card. Is. Insane. Remember the 5/6 Dragon Priest (Drakonid Operative) is getting this expansion? That alone might be enough to push Dragon Priest into viable territory. But if you add this on top of that, I think that Dragon Priest has a serious chance of becoming one of the best decks.

Priest needed AoE desperately after Lightbomb rotated out of Standard. This effect is actually kinda similar – a big AoE for 6 mana that affects both sides of the board. On the one hand, Lightomb was stronger against stuff like Giants – this deals up to 5 damage and can’t go higher. But on the other hand, this has two advantages. First – it kills minions that have Attack that’s lower than their health (e.g. 3/4’s). Second – it doesn’t damage your own Dragons. Sure, Dragon decks run some non-Dragon minions too, but it’s still amazing. I mean, just compare it to the Excavated Evil, which is used in Priest decks right now, because there is no other option. For just 1 more mana, you get 2 more AoE damage and your Dragons are protected too. Not to mention the Holy Nova – for 1 more mana you get THREE more AoE damage.

When you have an empty board or only Dragons on the board (both scenarios are quite common), this card is going to be a Flamestrike. That costs 1 less mana and deals 1 more damage. So you take an already strong AoE and make it even stronger.

It will be the Dragon Priest’s time to shine. After all, a lot of key Dragon cards rotate out in 2017, so if you’re a Priest player, you should have a few months of fun.

• Constructed rating: 5/5 (Great)
• Arena rating: 5/5 (Great)

Meanstreet Marshal

I’m not completely sure about this one. I mean, it’s like a Runic Egg without a guaranteed draw, but with +1 Attack instead. It draws a card only when it has 2 or more attack. So if you want to play it, you definitely need to play a deck that has buffs. And that’s why I can see it being played in Zoo-like Aggro Paladin. The deck runs cards like Abusive Sergeant, Dire Wolf Alpha or Keeper of Uldaman, which all make this card much better.

The thing I don’t like about this card is how big the difference is between it working and not working. If it works – it’s great. 1/2 for 1 + draw a card is great. But then if it doesn’t work, it’s a vanilla 1/2 for 1, which is really bad.

It might be decent with the new Paladin’s card draw (Small-Time Recruits) – if you pull it out in the mid/late game, you can play it and immediately buff it to guarantee the card draw. It can be also okay opener when you‘re going first – you can immediately pump the attack and trade into something. All in all, the card isn’t insane, but it might see some play IF Aggro Paladin will be alright.

• Constructed rating: 3/5 (Average)
• Arena rating: 2/5 (Bad) – It gets better the more ways to pump its attack you have

Fel Orc Soulfiend

The turn you play it, it’s a 3/7 for 3. Great. But at the beginning of your next turn, it’s 3/5 for 3 already. The turn after? 3/3 for 3. Then 3/1 and then it dies. That’s if it’s not interacted with in any way. I think the card is very interesting and might be actually playable.

So, first of all. It screams “PRIEST CARD”. Priests could use a strong, on curve 3-drop. Priests have ways to keep it alive – Hero Power, Circle of Healing, Flash Heal. It can synergize with Northshire Cleric. It’s kinda similar to the Injured Blademaster, but with a twist. It takes 2 turns for it to deal 4 damage to itself. But then it doesn’t stop and deals more every turn.

Overall, even though it’s interesting, I don’t think it’s that good. I mean, it might require too much attention to keep it up. Blademaster seems better, because you don’t need to babysit it every turn. Plus the 4 Attack is significantly better than the 3 Attack.

That said, I feel like this card might surprise us all. I think that it has some potential and it MIGHT see some play.

• Constructed rating: 3/5 (Average)
• Arena rating: 3/5 (Average)

Pint-Size Potion

Just some quick trivia first – spell with the same effect was in the game already. It was a Druid’s card called Demoralizing Roar and it was removed during the game’s Alpha.

You’re playing Priest. You have minions on the board. Opponent has minions on the board. It’s your time to trade. Your trades are bad and you would need to reduce minions attack damage to make them better. How often does it happen? Not that often. So the most obvious use of the card isn’t honestly that thrilling. Just because it’s way too situational.

That said, I think the card has a lot more potential. As we all know, Priests are known for the cards with a limitation – you can use them only when a minion has X or less attack. And that is a very easy way to make them active.

First and probably most powerful combo is the one with Shadow Word: Horror. The card was nearly useless, because board full of 2 or less Attack minions is extremely rare sight. With this card, however, you get a 5 mana AoE removal that clears everything with FIVE or less attack. That’s a huge difference. Actually, so huge that you probably clear most of the common board states.

Then, there is also Cabal Shadow Priest. Remember how it was pretty common to combo it with Shrinkmeister back in the day? Yeah, yeah, stealing Ysera and such. This one is even stronger – with this combo you can steal any minion that’s up to 5 Attack. Yes, it means that you can steal goodies like Sylvanas Windrunner or Cairne Bloodhoof.

Then, there is the new Potion of Madness. Thanks to that, it might affect any minion up to 5 health too. Although it might be hard to kill anything with it, because the minions on the opposing side will all have -3 Attack. Still, it might situationally happen.

So yeah, while Priest won’t likely have a full board ready to utilize this effect in trades, it has some different interesting uses. And that’s why I like it. I honestly don’t know if it’s going to be played. I’m 100% sure that people will try it, but whether it will work or not is another story. The effect is so situational and combo-oriented that it’s hard to say if it will be good or not at this point. But I have a good feeling about it.

• Constructed rating: 4/5 (Good)
• Arena rating: 2/5 (Bad)

Wind-up Burglebot

This card doesn’t seem very good. It has poor statline, 5/5 for 6 is not good. The minion has to have a powerful effect to be played with pretty poor stats – e.g. Sylvanas Windrunner or Emperor Thaurissan. The effect here is okay, but it’s nothing amazing.

It can potentially draw multiple cards, but it has 2 limitations. It needs to attack a minion – so minions trading into it won’t trigger the effect. And it needs to survive – so getting a 1 for 1 trade against another 5/5 (for example) won’t do anything. So to make it work, you would need to play it, it would need to survive, enemy would need to have smaller minions on the board, he would need to ignore this minion and go face instead and then you would need to attack into that small minion and then you would draw a card.

In theory, you can draw multiple cards with it. But in practice, it’s really unlikely. You would need to use something like a new Charge to immediately get the value, that’s a decent combo, but it’s still nothing impressive – you don’t get any extra value, you just cycle your Charge.

So in practice, it will usually draw between 0 and 1 card. And if you want a midrange minion that draws a card, just play Azure Drake. It’s 1 mana cheaper and it’s guaranteed.

• Constructed rating: 1/5 (Terrible)
• Arena rating: 2/5 (Bad)

Mark of the Lotus

Remember the Priest’s Pint-Size Potion I’ve just reviewed? It used to be a Druid card back in the alpha. Surprise, surprise – this one also had its own version back in the alpha. With the same mana cost and the same effect. And it belonged to… Priest. It was called Prayer of the Fortitude. It’s pretty neat that those two were switched, because they clearly fit into the other class way more than into their original ones. When I was writing an article about removed cards, I’ve mentioned that Prayer of the Fortitude wouldn’t be that amazing in Priest, but would work really well in some other classes, like Druid.

And here it is. In Druid. And I keep my opinion – this card is amazing. This will be a staple in Token Druid. It has insane combo with any token generators, but especially the Violet Teacher. When it comes to Violet Teacher synergies, it’s way better. It was sometimes hard to squeeze in the 2 mana Power of the Wild into the Teacher turn. This is much easier – turn 6 Teacher + Living Roots + Mark of the Lotus is a great board flood.

This also should be good in Aggro Druid decks similar to the old, good Egg Druids. If you run a lot of small minions, giving them all +1/+1 is great. With 4 minions on the board, that’s +4/+4 for 1 mana.

However, it’s not a clear upgrade over the Power of the Wild. There are two main things that concern me. First – you can’t use Mark of the Lotus to spawn a 3/2. So it’s useless if you have no actual ways to flood the board in the first place. You can’t play it as a 2-drop (a weak one, but still a 2-drop). It completely relies on other cards to combo it with. And another thing is that since it’s not a Choose One, it doesn’t get the insane synergy with Fandral Staghelm. When playing Token Druid, that synergy won me games quite a few times.

So the question is – will it replace Power of the Wild or will it be played alongside it? Because I’m pretty positive that we’re going to see it in Token Druid.

• Constructed rating: 4/5 (Good)
• Arena rating: 3/5 (Average)

Mistress of Mixtures

Zombie Chow v2.0. I’m calling it. Insane anti-Aggro tech. While yes, one could argue that 2/3 statline is way superior to the 2/2 statline, which is undoubtedly true, the Deathrattle on this card is way better than the one on Zombie Chow. You would play it in the slower decks, most likely. Something like Control Priest, Paladin, Mage, RenoLock… I really can’t wait to play RenoLock this expansion, it seems like it’s getting so much stronger.

But yeah. This one restores 4 health to both players. What does it mean from the perspective of the deck that plays it? In a faster matchup, dropping it on turn 1 means that you force enemy to trade into it or you get a good trade yourself (well, it’s a 1 mana 2/2 after all, your enemy won’t likely run something stronger). Then it’s just a 2/2 for 1 without any downside or upside. A little later into the game, when you’ve already taken some damage, it’s a 2/2 for 1 that heals you for 4. After all, you didn’t likely deal damage to your opponent. And even if you did, you’re on a survival plan, so it doesn’t matter that much. And in the slow matchups, health totals also don’t matter. It’s a 2/2 for 1. So while not that great vs Control, just like Zombie Chow wasn’t amazing, it might chop some Armor off the Warrior or trade into some other early game guy.

What I like about this guy is that, unlike Zombie Chow, it’s great against Aggro decks in the mid/late game too. Zombie Chow wasn’t a good draw. You had a 2/3 that heals your enemy and doesn’t do anything else. This one can make a difference even in the late game, as it might heal you for 4.

I honestly think that Zombie Chow was a little stronger. The 1 extra health matters – it makes it survive trades against 2 Attack minions like 2/1’s (e.g. Loot Hoarder) or 2/2’s (e.g. Dark Peddler). But we’ve finally got another strong 1-drop that fits into slow decks and Aggro decks can’t abuse.

• Constructed rating: 5/5 (Great)
• Arena rating: 4/5 (Good)