Saviors of Uldum Card Reviews #3 – Riftcleaver, Hunter’s Pack, Tip the Scales, Anka, Arcane Flakmage, Hooked Scimitar, Tortollan Pilgrim, Mogu Cultist And More!

Welcome to the third part of Saviors of Uldum card reviews! After skipping them for Rise of Shadows, I’ve decided (thanks to you) to pick them back up for Saviors of Uldum. I might not review every single card, since we’ll be getting lots of them every single day now, but I’ll try to share my thoughts about as many Saviors of Uldum cards as possible.

In this article, I’ll take a closer look at the newly revealed cards, reviewing them and rating from 1 to 10. The scale itself should be quite obvious, but just to quickly explain how do I see it: A card rated 5 is average – it might be playable in some decks, but it’s nothing special. Cards below 5 might see some play in off-meta decks, or as obscure techs, but the closer we get to 1, the lower chance it is that they will see play. When I rate card 1 or 2, I don’t believe that it will see any Constructed, non-meme play at all. On the other hand, going above 5 means that I see this card as something with a lot of potential. While I can’t guarantee that it will work out in the end, I believe that the cards with 6-8 are likely to see at least some Constructed play, while cards rated 9 or 10 are, in my mind, nearly sure hits. 1 and 10 are reserved to the worst or best cards I can imagine, meaning that they won’t be used often.

Remember that with only a handful of cards seen, it’s incredibly hard to review them accurately, since we have no clue what synergies will be printed or which themes will be pushed. I advise you to pay more attention to the description than the rating itself – I will try to explore some of the potential synergies and reasons why a given card might or might not work. I also encourage you to share your own predictions and reviews in the comment section. Even if you aren’t sure, don’t worry, no one is! There is nothing wrong about being wrong, I have never seen anyone who nailed most of the card ratings before the release. But, without further ado, let’s proceed with the reviews!

Other reviews:

• Saviors of Uldum Card Reviews #1 – Plague of Death, Puzzle Box, Corrupt the Waters, BEEEES!!!, Armagedillo And More!
• Saviors of Uldum Card Reviews #2 – Highlander Explorers, Making Mummies, Hidden Oasis, Expired Merchant, Wild Bloodstinger And More!
• Saviors of Uldum Card Reviews #4 – Diseased Vulture, Into the Fray, Pressure Plate, Frightened Flunky, High Priest Amet, Generous Mummy, Grandmummy And More!
• Saviors of Uldum Card Reviews #5 – Plague of Wrath, Colossus of the Moon, Hack the System, Overflow, Plague of Flames, Dark Pharaoh Tekahn And More!
• Saviors of Uldum Card Reviews #6 – Embalming Ritual, Shadow of Death, Siamat, King Phaoris, Wretched Reclaimer, Activate the Obelisk, Bazaar Burglary and More!
• Saviors of Uldum Card Reviews #7 – Ancient Mysteries, Crystal Merchant, Dune Sculptor, Garden Gnome, Hyena Alpha, Injured Tol’vir, Mischief Maker And More!
• Saviors of Uldum Card Reviews #8 (Final) – Naga Sand Witch, Oasis Surger, Octosari, Quicksand Elemental, Unseal the Vault, Vessina, Zephrys the Great

Bazaar Mugger

I’ve definitely seen worse Rogue cards, but I’ve also seen many better ones. It continues the trend of Thief Rogue getting more support, but is it what the deck needs right now? It already has a bunch of ways to get cards from random classes, so I think that it would rather have another strong pay-off card instead. Of course, having more options is never bad, and I believe that it might be actually decent enough to see play in that deck (but given that the deck is pretty weak, it doesn’t tell ALL that much). Let’s compare it to Blink Fox, the current “baseline” thief card. For 2 mana, you get 2 more health and Rush. While Rush is always nice, since it gives you a way to impact the board immediately, 5 mana for a 3/5 body is pretty weak. It might be good way to clean up smaller minions, but anything with 4+ health (which are usually played past turn 4) dodges it. You might use it to finish off some bigger minions (e.g. damaged Mountain Giant), but then you lose the body completely. I wish it was either 4/5 or 3/6, then I think that it might have been playable in more decks. The card is also a higher tempo one than Hench-Clan Burglar, but Burglar’s big advantage is the fact that it discovers. Random cards from other classes are often bad in Rogue, lack any kind of synergy etc. Thanks to discover, you can sift through multiple choices and ignore the bad ones instead of being potentially stuck with something you can’t play.

As it is right now, I can see it being played in Thief Rogue because it synergizes well with the deck. You get another way to trigger a 0 mana Vendetta, some value (and a card to buff Cutlass/Fence with) and some tempo on board. But I don’t think that other Rogue decks will want to play it. It’s no Vilespine Slayer, that’s for sure.

Card rating: 5/10

Desert Obelisk

I don’t really get the idea behind this card. The effect is so hard to trigger and doesn’t even seem that rewarding once you do. You can’t really drop it on Turn 5 and then try to copy it – it’s a 0/5 minion, it will just die most of the time. It’s hard to play 3+ of them on the same turn. You need to do some crazy shenanigans to get them out… and when you do, when you finally get to 10 mana, draw all your cards, pull off your combo… you get 3x random 5 damage. Even if they all hit face – that’s half of your opponent’s health. Mage can do that without any crazy stuff with 2x Fireball + Frostbolt. Paladin drops 25 damage with Holy Wrath combo. And this is 15. Some of which can even hit minions. Normally that might be good, but not if you build your deck around Obelisks – if they’re your win condition, then you want them to hit face not some random minions.

Of course, it CAN repeat next turn – but that’s only assuming that it doesn’t die / get Silenced. Remember that your opponent doesn’t even have to kill all of them. If you’re left with no more ways to copy them, he can leave 2 of them and they will do nothing. It’s really, really bad.

Maybe in Wild there will be some way to break it eventually, but in Standard? I really don’t see it. Right now, it’s by far the worst card of this set. Even more, it’s the worst card that I’ve seen in a while.

P.S. And the sad thing is that I actually like the design behind it! I like those weird, janky combo decks that can pull off a win sometimes. Even if it became a viable combo deck, I wouldn’t mind. But not in this state. We’d either need some crazy amounts of support for it in Standard, or it would need to cost 1 mana less to even start thinking about some combos (even then it would probably be a jank deck, but at least realistic to pull off).

Card rating: 1/10

Riftcleaver

Riftcleaver is a massive, double-edged sword. On the one hand, having a 6 mana 7/5 that destroys any target is crazy good. And it’s a Demon on top of that? Warlock would play the hell out of it. But on the other hand, if you target something big, you will take a lot of damage. If you want to kill something meaningful, that’s at least 4 damage, and usually 8 (Giants and such). And that is… scary. Given that Warlock really struggles with healing right now, and still has to use Hero Power as well as cards like Hellfire that damage him, it’s like asking to get combo’d or rushed down. Opponent doesn’t even have to do a lot – if you add Riftcleavers, you will do most of the job by yourself.

A Warlock deck that doesn’t struggle with life totals that much is Zoo, but at least for the current Zoo builds, Riftcleaver is way too slow. Right now Zoo is a deck of 1-drops pumped by Magic Carpet, it would need to shift into a more Midrange variant before Riftcleaver is even considered. Of course, it would be a nice addition if that was the case, but it’s hard to say whether such a deck would be better than current, fast builds.

Given that the card is Obliterate (one of The Lich King DK cards) on a stick, it has to be powerful. Obliterate maybe wasn’t the best option, but it was far from the worst. Here you pay 4 extra mana, but get a massive 7/5 body in return – it’s worth it. In other words, the card is absolutely nuts – it’s just that slow Warlock needs A LOT more healing (because right now it has almost nothing) before this can be played, and Zoo needs to slow down if it wants to play it.

Card rating: 9/10 in theory, but current Warlock decks don’t support it, so despite being amazing it might see no play

EVIL Recruiter

Lackey synergies this expansion look really, and I mean really good. While Heistbaron Togwaggle was already good, it was a Legendary, so you could only play one in your deck. It also often came down on Turn 7, with the card being played on Turn 8, so the pay-off was really late. Those new Lackey synergies not only are powerful, but come down very early. And just like in case of other synergies, if you have Lackey on board, this is nuts.

Nearly all of the Lackeys power comes from their Battlecries. The 1/1 body on board is often irrelevant. But thanks to this card, you can turn it into a 5/5 – and that makes a big difference. If you play both on the same turn, you get 3/3 + 5/5 + Lackey’s effect for 4 mana. That’s insane tempo play. And given that generating Lackeys isn’t that hard (Warlock already has EVIL Cable Rat and EVIL Genius, but it might get something more this expansion).

It’s really obvious that if you happen to have Lackey on board (or in hand), this card is great. But the real question is – how often will you be able to play it on curve (or rather Turn 4, because it’s very hard to play on curve), because that’s when it’s most powerful? Will Zoo Warlock have enough consistent Lackey generation to carry this card? Because without Lackeys, it’s a vanilla 3 mana 3/3 – not something you want to play. Of course, in the worst case scenario you’ll still drop it, but it’s like playing Silverware Golem from hand instead of getting it from Discards used to be (feels bad).

My guess is that with Rat and Genius, there’s just enough Lackey generation to support it in Zoo. Genius is Zoo staple, while Rat is also a good addition to the deck, since Lackeys synergize very well with what the deck wants to do. But with just those two, you will sometimes have games where you drop it as a 3/3 because you don’t have any Lackeys. I think that for the card to really shine, we’d need another strong, cheap, Neutral/Warlock Lackey generator.  Even without it, I’d rate it as a good card, but it just need a bit more to deserve the “amazing” rating.

Card rating: 7/10 right now, 9/10 if we get another good Lackey generator.

Hunter’s Pack

It’s a bit ironic that card draw & generation were supposed to be Hunter’s limitations, and yet here we are with Master's Call and now Hunter's Pack 😀 To be honest, I don’t mind the latter. People who are calling it overpowered, the best card in the set etc. are – in my opinion – kind of right, but also wrong at the same time. Yes, the card is strong, without a question. Getting 3 cards for 3 mana is great. Especially since all of those cards will be decent (despite being random). Since they are only pulled from Hunter class cards, the card will be very consistent. All of the Hunter weapons, Secrets and Beasts are at least okay.

So where’s the “wrong” part I was talking about? Because Master’s Call exists. The card is just better. Both draw 3, but Master’s Call draws stuff from your deck, so ALWAYS good cards. Master’s Call also synergizes incredibly well with Dire Frenzy, something that Hunter’s Pack doesn’t. That’s why I don’t think that current Midrange Hunter lists will want to play it. Of course, Master’s Call has a big limitation – you can only run Beasts. But given that Midrange Hunter mostly wants to run Beasts anyway, I don’t think that’s necessarily a big deal in this specific build. At the same time, another prominent Hunter build – Mech (Bomb) Hunter – doesn’t want to play a pure value card, since it’s just too slow.

Where Hunter’s Pack might shine are the decks that are not the top meta builds right now. Secret Hunter, slower Midrange Hunter with non-Beast cards, Spell Hunter (assuming that the deck will be back in Standard at one point) or… Highlander Hunter. When reviewing Brann, I was not convinced that it’s going to be a thing, but after the last three, strong Hunter reveals… I’m not sure anymore.  If the Neutral Highlander card turns out to be amazing too, maybe, just maybe we’ll actually see Highlander Hunter. How crazy is that?

But back to the revealed card – it’s clear that it packs insane value (funny right? it’s a pack so it PACKS… okay I’ll see myself out) by itself, but that’s not the end of it. Zul'jin recasts it, meaning that you get even more value. Two of those and you have a full hand after Zul’jin. But even before that – let’s say that you run it in Highlander Hunter that also plays Archmage Vargoth. Play both on Turn 7, Vargoth recasts it, you get SIX cards and a 2/6 on the board. Even though it’s a slow play, it’s a nuts value move and can help you win outgrind some decks.

In other words, it’s a great card that might just not fit into the best Hunter decks right now, simply because another, even better card exists (Master's Call) or they’re fast enough that they don’t need it (Bomb build). But it still has a lot of potential in other builds if they ever come into spotlight.

Card rating: 9/10 in theory, BUT right now it only slots into Hunter builds that are not optimal (so it will see play only if those decks see play), so I’d say that 6/10 in practice

Bloodsworn Mercenary

Bloodsworn Mercenary is a common type of card we’re seeing during reveal seasons. One with a very powerful effect that doesn’t seem to have any real synergy in Standard and doesn’t fit into any deck. Because let’s be honest – if you would build a deck around Enrage effects, damaging your own stuff etc. (somewhat like an old Tempo Warrior) then it would be nuts in there. You have a (damaged) 5/4 on the board? Then this card is a 3 mana 3/3 + 5/4. Absolutely insane. If Tempo/Enrage Warrior becomes a thing again, then this card will be a staple in this build. Even getting some (for example) 3/2 minion out of it will be good enough. Tempo/Enrage Warrior is a pretty aggressive deck, so any high tempo move or extra board presence is welcome. The biggest downside is that you can rarely play it on curve (you need your 1-drop or 2-drop to stick, play Inner Rage and then play this – while it will happen sometimes, lots of the time it will be a dud on T3), and later in the game it might be a vanilla 3/3 if you have minions on the board (or no way to damage them).

Another potential use for this card is in some sort of combo deck. We’ve already seen Sudden Genesis combo builds that were off-meta, and since this is 3 mana cheaper, you might be able to fit in more cards. Let’s say that you play Leeroy Jenkins + Inner Rage + Rampage + this = 22 damage combo. With just 4 cards, which is not bad at all. It’s not as deadly as the old Raging Worgen combos, but it packs a punch.

Those two uses can even be combined in the same deck. You can run a Tempo/Enrage build with combo finisher. Even without Rampage, just Leeroy + Inner Rage + This = 16 damage. And given that those 3 are the cards you might want to play in the build anyway, it’s not that hard to imagine that it would be a nice finisher quite often.

I’m really glad that they’re trying to push other Warrior strategies, because variants of Control Warrior were strong for a while already. While this card doesn’t fit into any good deck right now, with enough support, I could totally see a new Warrior archetype taking off, and it being a big part of it.

Card rating: 8/10 in theory, but it doesn’t fit into any current Warrior archetype, so without more support it might not see any serious play this expansion.

Fishflinger

Fishflinger looks to be a good card in Murloc Shaman. It has solid stats for a 2-drop, although 2/3 would be preferable to 3/2 (doesn’t die to 2/1 minions, Backstab etc.). Still, they’re premium 2-drop stats. Then, the effect. Despite being mirrored, it’s a classic case of the player running it benefiting from it more than the opponent. You getting a random Murloc is a big deal, since it has all kinds of synergies. Cards like Underbelly Angler, Murloc Warleader, Coldlight Seer etc. are all great for you, but only vanilla minions for your opponent. And even if you get a Murloc without an effect, it will still get affected by your other Murloc synergies.

For the most part, a random Murloc in your opponent’s hand will be a dead card most of the time. They will drop it only after they run out of their own, better cards or have some spare mana if it’s cheap. Sometimes you might drop it on Turn 2 and not even see the Murloc you gave them for the entire game, meaning that in this case, it’s like they never had it.

A vanilla 3/2 Murloc didn’t really see much play (Puddlestomper), but this is slightly better. While it’s not a gamebreaking card that will make Murloc Shaman Tier 1 (like a new Rockpool Hunter or Gentle Megasaur probably would), I can see it being played.

Card rating: 6/10

Tip the Scales

First of all, I really like puns in the Murloc spell names. Anyfin Can Happen and Everyfin is Awesome are pretty old, but we’ve got a new one!

In the right deck, the card is very good. While it costs 8 mana, it’s a full board refill – literally. And unlike let’s say The Forest's Aid, the minions you’re getting are not some small tokens – they’re actual Murlocs. Often with slightly bigger bodies, buffed by Murloc Warleader etc. I’d say that most of the time if you play it, your opponent just HAS to have a board clear, or else you threaten lethal. The only scary thing is that it pulls out so much resources of your deck at once. If your opponent has AoE, you might not have almost any Murlocs left in your deck after playing it, which means that you can as well concede. Normally you’d rather put 3-4 Murlocs out at once, which also requires your opponent to play AoE, but doesn’t run you out of Murlocs in your deck that quickly. You also lose out on any potential Battlecries, which is not a big deal right now, but might be if the right Murlocs get printed. But of course – no matter what, a full board flood is strong no matter how you look at it.

However, the card requires a serious deck building commitment. You need to play a Murloc Paladin. A full Murloc Paladin deck. You can’t just put a few Murlocs in and hope that it works. Since it pulls out 7 from your deck, and by the time you draw this card and get to 8 mana you will draw a bunch of them, you probably need to play 10+ Murlocs before even considering a SINGLE copy of this card. And to be honest, I don’t think that you would ever want to put two copies into your Standard deck. It’s just too much – you would want to run 20+ Murlocs first and there just aren’t enough good Murlocs in Standard to sustain that. Or you can put two and just live with the fact that the second copy will be dead.

If you play Murloc Paladin, the card is great. But the thing is, why would you play Murloc Paladin in Standard with no Murloc synergies? Will we get some Murloc cards for Paladin in this expansion? (Finley doesn’t count, if he sees play, then only as a vanilla 2/3 because Pally needs more Murlocs) What I’m not fully understanding is why they’re trying to pack so much themes into Paladin at the same time. Why can’t they just stick with 2-3 themes for this rotation cycle and push them? In the current Standard rotation, Paladin has access to Mech synergies (admittedly that one took off), buff synergies, healing synergies, Secret synergies and Dragon synergies. And now they’re pushing Murlocs, Reborn, Aggro AND Highlander? It’s like they still have no clue what to do with Paladin class, which was already a problem few years back.

Card rating: 7/10 card, but Paladin has literally zero Murloc synergy in Standard… so realistically maybe 3/10, because it probably won’t be enough to carry an entirely Neutral Murloc deck. Unless they decide to print Murlocs out of blue instead of e.g. Reborn cards that synergize with Quest. Much better in Wild, though.

Anka, the Buried

New Rogue Legendary is an interesting card design. If you don’t play it correctly, the Battlecry could even be a downside, that’s why you need to pick the right cards to use with it. For example, while it’s no longer in Standard, the card would be nuts with Carnivorous Cube. 1 mana 1/1 Cube? Sign me up!

With Anka, you want to run cards that have most of their value packed into Deathrattle. The best example would be Mechanical Whelp. The card is a mere 6 mana 2/2 – you would obviously prefer to play it as a 1 mana 1/1, since when it dies, it becomes a 7/7. From Neutral options, there’s also Cairne Bloodhoof and when looking at Rogue cards, it might work well with Gral, the Shark. What’s cool is that if you drop Anka on curve, then you can immediately follow her with the discounted Deathrattle minion + Necrium Vial on T6. Best case scenario = 1/1 Whelp + 2x 7/7 on board. Pretty annoying to clear, and it didn’t even use all that many resources. Still, I think that Deathrattle Rogue is not nearly strong enough right now to work. It had its brief moment before rotation, but without Eggs, Cubes etc. it’s just too weak right now. This is a cute combo, but we would need a) more strong Deathrattle cards or b) more Deathrattle synergies to really make it work.

Of course, there’s also the Mecha'thun dream. Thanks to this card, you can make him a 1 mana 1/1 and be able to kill it off easily. Also, since you can draw your entire deck with Myra's Unstable Element, the Mecha’thun Rogue might finally have some time in spotlight… most likely as a meme deck, but still. It was already possible to kill of your Mecha’thun with Rogue. For example, before Prep nerf you could discount him only once with Galvanizer, and then Prep + Walk the Plank it. Of course, that’s more difficult than playing Anka and then Backstabbing it, but to be honest, killing off Mecha’thun wasn’t the biggest issue. Drawing your entire deck, getting rid of the unwanted cards in your hand and clearing the rest of your board was. Or rather, doing it while surviving vs faster decks or Bombs. Remember that Myra’s dream happens only every now in a while (Myra’s might be near the bottom of your deck), and even after you play it, you still have a full hand you need to get rid of (and now you’re in fatigue, so you make the job even easier for your opponent).

So all in all, I think that the card has some potential in those two builds (Deathrattle & Mecha’thun), but I honestly don’t think that they will take off. I suspect that Mecha’thun Rogue will be a massive failure, while Deathrattle Rogue might be a low tier / off-meta deck.

Card rating: 4/10

Cloud Prince

I feel like this is sort of a theme this expansion – we get A LOT of powerful cards for archetypes that either are weak or don’t exist right now. Secret Mage was an amazing deck a while ago, and this would be nuts in there. But right now, we don’t have any great Mage Secrets (the only non-Classic Secret right now is Splitting Image, which is… okay), nor Secret synergies.

You obviously don’t play this card in a Mage deck that’s not built around Secrets. If you play this card in a Secret deck, though, it’s great. It’s basically a Fireball on the stick. For just 1 more mana, you get a 4/4 body. It’s a better version of Sunreaver Warmage, which is already pretty strong if you can meet his condition consistently. Even if you don’t know much about the game you can clearly say that it’s awesome.

But the issue is that in order to trigger it consistently, you need to run A LOT of Secrets. And I mean A LOT. Just 2-3 Secrets won’t cut it. And preferably, you’d want some Secrets that are not that easy to trigger (e.g. Spellbender) so they might stick for a while until you want to drop it. And I don’t think that the current pool of Secret is big or good enough. We also don’t have a way to get them consistently (such as Mad Scientist or Arcanologist).

The card is incredibly strong if you build your deck around it, but I don’t think that we have enough to make Secret Mage viable just yet. Although there are still a few Mage cards to be revealed, and we can get another Neutral Secret synergy, so everything is possible yet.

Card rating: 9/10 in Secret Mage, but I don’t think that Secret Mage will take off yet with the cards we currently know

Arcane Flakmage

Arcane Flakmage is basically very similar to the card above. What is interesting about it, though, is that unlike other synergy cards, it triggers on you PLAYING it, not when it’s on the board already. It basically adds 2 damage AoE to any Secret you play. A strong effect, especially since it can be repeated. If you play it vs a board-oriented deck and they have no way to clear it… Then you won the game. Murlocs, Zoo Warlock, Aggro Paladin – they would just lose their board every turn while you develop more and more stuff.

Since it has good 2-drop stats, you can play it on Turn 2 and hope to get off his effect on T3 if it’s not killed. Or keep him until Turn 5 to combo with Secret immediately. Either way, it’s the same story as the previous card – Cloud Prince. The card is way, way more powerful than average, but only if you run Secret Mage. Which is not the deck right now. And given the current pool of cards, I don’t think it will be yet. But again, we haven’t seen all of the reveals yet, so there’s still a lot that might happen.

Unlike Cloud Prince, however, I think that it has some chance to see play in Control Mage too, if the deck will want to run some Secrets. Since you can keep it in your hand until you drop a Secret, and can combo both much more easily (5 mana and not 8 mana), it can be a nice source of AoE. Control Mage needs AoE more than Secret Mage. Secret Mage is usually a very proactive, tempo-oriented deck, and the previous versions could even stop caring about board at one point and go for the pure “burn from hand” plan.

P.S. Right now I’m also curious in how those two might fit into Wild Secret Mage. The deck is REALLY packed, but those are pretty powerful, so it might be interesting.

Card rating: 8/10 in Secret Mage, same story as above, but maybe has some potential in Control Mage too (~3/10 right now, but can get better with more Secrets)

Splitting Axe

Hm, I’m just not seeing it. I would like it much more if it was a Deathrattle. As a Battlecry, you need to already have some good Totems on the board before playing it. Of course, in theory you can drop EVIL Totem on T2, Nightmare Amalgam on T3 and then this on T4… but realistically, how often will your opponent let you do that? Your minions will die most of the time before you get to play it. And you probably wouldn’t want to put Amalgam into your deck just for this synergy in the first place. Even if you duplicate it, it’s good, but far from game-winning. It’s like a better Arathi Weaponsmith – solid, but not something that will let you seal the game. And that’s basically the best case scenario – Amalgam sticking into this on T4. However, if you have no Totems on board, it’s just a 4 mana Fiery War Axe, something that’s absolutely terrible.

Copying Basic totems (which will stick around every now and then) might be a good set-up for Bloodlust or The Storm Bringer, especially after the latter was buffed to 6 mana. Still, for Bloodlust you would need to wait another turn (and if you play a deck with Bloodlust, you telegraph it enough for your opponent to most likely pull the trigger on that board clear) and for Storm Bringer, that’s a 10 mana play.

I think that the card has a lot of potential in dedicated Totem Shaman deck, but we don’t have one. We didn’t have one for years now. Shaman is getting a Totem here and there every set, and some sort of synergy every few sets, but it’s not enough to build a deck around.

Card: 7/10 in a dedicated Totem Shaman, but since the deck does not exist… I can give it 2/10 right now unless we see some crazy Totem synergies soon.

Hooked Scimitar

A solid Rogue weapon. Realistically, it should be 4/2 for 3 mana most of the time, since you would play it in decks that have rather easy time triggering Combo. I’m really glad that Raiding Party was nerfed, because it would be really, really powerful alongside that and Pirates. But I think that running this card would justify at least one copy of Raiding Party.

Yes, Waggle Pick exists. And it’s often better. But I don’t really see an issue with running both. You can split them 2-1 if running four weapons would be too much. And while Waggle Pick is amazing in Tempo decks, I think that Hooked Scimitar might be even better in pure Aggro. If you hit face all the time, you don’t necessarily want to bounce your stuff back and replay it for the value. You just want more damage. And this is 8 damage for 3 mana – very clean and efficient.

Of course, it’s only a 3 mana 2/2 without combo, which might be an issue later in the game when you’re running out of resources. But Eviscerate is also only 2 damage without Combo, and yet it’s virtually always played for 4 (unless 2 is enough to kill something anyway).

It’s a good card. I can totally see it being played in Tempo, and it will probably become a staple in more aggressive builds (maybe even over Waggle Pick).

Card rating: 7/10, maybe even more if Aggro Rogue will come back into the meta

Whirlkick Master

I’m not a big fan of this card. I always say that Rogue is THE tempo class. Slower, more value-oriented Rogue cards just don’t work. Most of the time you either want to play high tempo stuff or cards that get you closer to your high tempo stuff. Alternatively, if you run a combo deck, you want to cycle a lot to get to your combo faster. And Whirlkick Master doesn’t really accomplish that. It’s slow card that adds more value to your hand. The problem here is that you can’t really drop it on Turn 2, because it does nothing (you’d need to Prep something out to get value out of it) and has 1/2 stats. In order for it to work, you want to play it in the mid/late game alongside a few combo cards. But given that Rogue combo cards aren’t cheapest (they usually start at 2-3 mana), you can’t drop that many of them. So even in a good case scenario, you will get maybe 2 extra cards out of it. And not necessarily good cards. While another EVIL Miscreant or Eviscerate sound sweet, you can also get subpar cards like Kidnapper or Headcrack. Of course, they are not useless, but it’s not exactly something you want to get.

So to make the long story short – it’s a value card with weak stats that you can’t play in the early game (because just like any other high priority, 2 health minion, it will die right away). And most of the combo cards Rogue play cost 3 mana, so you often need to wait all the way until Turn 8 to get two extra cards from it. Just compare it to Underbelly Angler. Angler has better stats, tribe that synergizes with your entire deck, is much easier to trigger (because lots of Murlocs cost 1-2 mana) and chain it + gives you cards that, again, synergize very well with your entire deck. This is worse than Angler in basically every single aspect.

Maybe if some value Combo Rogue build popped out, but that was never a thing and I don’t think that will ever be a thing.

Card rating: 2/10

Tortollan Pilgrim

This is a very, and I mean VERY powerful card. It reminds me of Tortollan Primalist, but a way, way more consistent one. Since it can only pick from cards you actually put in your deck, all you need to do is play it in a deck that runs lots of cards that it’s good with. The best ones are cards that don’t require targeting – this way they will always work consistently. AoE board clears (Blizzard, Flamestrike), Power of Creation, card draw, Secrets. It would be very powerful in Control Mage (and thus in Highlander Mage if that will be a thing), since the deck runs lots of AoE spells. Pulling Flamestrike is crazy good – you pay 1 more mana for a 5/5 body and you don’t even use the card from your deck. If it’s the only minion on board, you can even easily pick Conjurer's Calling. Not only you will get two random 8-drops, but also the second part of Conjurer’s Calling in your hand (since it’s Twinspell). Since it’s discover, you can also pick whatever suits your needs at the time. Your opponent has minions on board you want to clear? Pick AoE. You need more board presence? Power of Creation. Value? Pick card draw / Secret.

You don’t want to play it in Cyclone Mage because it has too many spells that are bad with it (e.g. cheap spells don’t get enough value, Ray of Frost, Frostbolt etc. are random). Which, don’t get me wrong, is a great thing – the deck doesn’t need more support right now. But it’s like auto include in any slower Mage build. And again, the card that continues the trend of being very powerful in decks that are either bad or don’t exist now. Interesting!

Card rating: 8/10 in slow Mage decks with expensive, non-targetable spells (Control, Highlander), but I’d give it 6/10 right now since the decks might not get off with the current card pool yet

Mogu Cultist

(Highkeeper Ra)

Oh I love this card, I really do. It’s feels so janky, but opens up so many interesting and fun combos. And probably won’t be broken, because unlike something like Mecha’thun, it doesn’t win the game immediately – if the 20/20 gets removed and you’ve spent everything summoning it, then probably you lose the game. On the other hand, 20/20 is not that easy to remove at all, especially since it clears the entire board too. And all it needs is to stick for one turn, then it’s game over. Unlike Blood of the Ancient One combos, however, this has a massive, immediate board impact (while The Ancient One is usually just killed / frozen / blocked by Taunt / whatever).

But having 7 of those on the board at the same time is not an easy task. You absolutely have to play them on the same turn, because otherwise opponent will just remove them. So stuff like Faceless Manipulator doesn’t work.

People are already coming up with all sorts of crazy combos. For example, if your Glinda Crowskin sticks for a turn, then you can play 6 copies, Grim Rally her and then play the last copy. In Rogue, you can stack Togwaggle's Scheme to 7, play Tak + Mogu, shuffle Mogu and get 7 copies thanks to Tak, then drop them all next turn (Tolin's Goblet is also a possibility now with Heistbaron Togwaggle). And that’s just the start of it.

Between Mogu Cultist and Desert Obelisk, we also might get some more ways to duplicate our minions this expansion. That might play a big role in how viable Mogu turns out to be. Overall, since it’s not an insta OTK combo like Mecha’thun, but deals “only” 20 damage and the minion can be removed afterwards, I don’t think it will be as viable as Mecha’thun. On the other hand, with the right cards, you might be able to pull it out earlier than Mecha’thun, so everything is possible. I mean, if someone finds a consistent way to do it before or around Turn 10, then it might actually be a scary deck. But I don’t think that’s going to happen.

Card rating: Honestly, I have no idea. By the time the card is released, people will come up with 10 more combos (and we might get more synergy). But my guess is that it will be a fun, but not competitively viable combo.