Unlike Piloted Shredder you’re actually going to need to build around the Deathrattle here – if you look at the pool of 2 drops there’s an awful lot of them you only play specifically for the battlecries; Keleseth for instance, and there are others you want to hold onto like Acidic Swamp Ooze.

… and, unless you’re building a deck with a tonne of cheap cards (e.g. ZooLock) this is quite likely to be just a 4/3 for 4 mana.

Good point, well made 😉

Without the big’ ol’ stompy 8/8 you get to drop on the board for 5 mana with the Druid quest – the turn you play Barnabus, you’re not doing *nothing*, you’re dropping a chunky threat on the board.

Considering the last 2 legendary minions I got from Rotface were Nat Pagle and Lorewalker Cho, this card is bound to be terrible if I ever play it 😐 Anyone else will get the Lich King of course…

Oh, I agree, just I think in Mage it would be overkill as you’ve already got the option of 2 Arcanologists – which I think is probably better for consistency.

Hunter though…

True – but you do tend to Aviana > Kun for the OTK so it doesn’t matter that much.

Mill Rogue maybe …

Will this be available as Discover through Primordial Glyph?
That would increase your chances of playing it before you draw Malygos and/or Faceless Manipulator, maybe Alex or Antonidus … there’s a lot of combo potential here.

e.g.: Maly -> FM -> Fireball x2 = 32 damage

What, like Aviana you mean?

So – it’s a second rate, *neutral* Mysterious Challenger…

I can’t see it really getting any play with Paladin in Standard as there are fewer really good secrets than wild – and Bellringer Sentry and Hydrologist should have you covered. There’s even less point playing it in Wild as you’ve got the real Mysterious Challenger. I guess there could be an edge case for a weird Odd/Secret Paladin hybrid (since all the aforementioned cards are even costed).

Standard Secret Mage generally only runs 2 or 3 types of secret and Arcanologist has a better mana/stat line and curves nicely into a secret. This would be overkill in any Mage deck – even in Wild where you might actually run 5 different types of secret.

So… that just leaves Hunter. Even then, this is a bit peculiar. You can’t use Even/Odd Hunters because the secrets cost 2 and this guy costs 5. You’re probably *not* going to want to add a 5 mana minion to Secret/Spell Hunter as it’s normally going to screw up “To My Side” and “Rhok’delar” … that leaves a mid-range Beast Hunter with the Spellstone. To be fair, that’s not a bad deck but it doesn’t run that many secrets – still, dropping a 4/4 minion that tutors 2 or 3 cards for 5 mana isn’t bad, especially since it’s got the Beast tag.

… as for Rogue, well, there really isn’t a secret package worth running for this.

Riiiiiiiight – now to theorycraft a Rogue Star Aligner deck… where I end up with the remains of my deck holding nothing but copies of Star Aligner.

It’ll never work but hey.

… and face Aviana/Kun/Maly Druid instead?

You get the feeling that with this and Shooting Star, Blizzard are trying to rein in Odd Paladin?

Priest probably run more silence cards than any other class…

It’s highly unlikely to stay on the board for more than one turn so you’d need spells that are cheap enough to play on the same turn…

Biggest buffs would be on AoE spells like Arcane Explosion or Shooting Star (or Meteor for the total overkill?) but it could turn Arcane Missiles into Cinderstorm … or you could drop 2x Cinderstorm on the same turn for 14 damage.

But if we’re thinking Elemental Mage the most likely spells are Frostbolt, Flame Geyser and Blizzard; Jaina on 9 to Cosmic Anomaly > Blizzard on 10 could be a pretty strong comeback… especially as the Anomaly gains Lifesteal.

Very meta dependent – as long as Odd Paladin is a thing this might see play.

… but then again, it’s cheaper/faster than your hero power for early removal and cheap enough to combo with SDI minions – so it’s more reliable, and scales better, for minion removal than Arcane Missiles…. but nobody uses Arcane Missiles for minion removal.

With the new Cosmic Anomaly (SDI +2) you’ve got a potential T5 answer to Emerald Spellstone in a more Elemental focused Mage deck (where you’d not want to run Dragon’s Fury) I guess.

Well …. I was looking for an excuse to craft Sonya Shadowdancer.

I can *possibly* see a fit for this in a kind of Big Quest Druid (I’ve been mucking about with one featuring Tyrantus and Bonemare)… but it’ll be definitely iffy.

Amazing if you can complete the quest early enough since you’ve then got the ability to draw a tonne of massive creatures that cost nothing (hold a Nourish for draw if you can) – but it’ll be absolutely terrible in those games where you draw all your big stuff before the quest activators.

I suspect that in virtually every instance Ixlid or Manipulator would be better.

Why do I get a sinking feeling that Hunter’s Legendary Spell (assuming they’re getting one) will be something based on the number of Goblin Bombs played this game… I mean, why else would you print this as a collectible alongside Flark?

I guess there could be some shenanigans in Wild with Rivendare and Feign Death.

Obviously it’ll depend on how viable a Hunter Mech shell is… but I think this has got some degree of flexibility going for it. Early game, if you know you’re going to be the aggressor, it’s 3/2 worth of stats (if you’ve got a mech on the board) for 2 mana – which is OK, not earth shattering or anything.

But later it might not be a terrible top deck, you might still be able to get some use out of it, and it has synergy with every Hunter card revealed so far.

In Wild though, with things like Piloted Shredder, Sky Golem and Sneed’s Old Shredder… this could be really good – might even be worth including Rivendare.