No – it’s potentially bad because when you’re playing a big value minion you need it to have some kind of immediate impact or be able stick around – Soggoth the Slitherer at least can’t be targeted by spells.

Look at the big cards that get played, for instance: Angry Rag deals 8 damage instantly, Tyrion has Divine Shield and a decent Deathrattle, Grommash has Charge and will generally have 10 attack immediately, Malygos is a combo OTK activator, C’Thun and Deathwing are board clears (C’Thun is potentially lethal or can be resurrected via Doomcaller), N’Zoth resurrects all your deathrattles and Yogg just randomly picks a winner 😐

Now look at some of those that have no immediate effect: Eldrich Horror, Giant Sand Worm, Gruul, The Boogeymonster, Ironbark Protector, Blood of the Ancient One (or even the Ancient One if you’re running Ramp Druid with Faceless Manipulator and Emperor Thaurissan to be able to get it out instantly) – even King Krush who’s got charge and can get buffed in the hand now is still considered bad for a 9 cost minion.

Think about how long C’Thun generally stays on the board before being hit with a hard removal spell… you know you’re playing against a C’Thun deck so you can either play extremely aggressively to outright kill your opponent before they drop it – or you hold a hard removal spell.

Ozruk will be much the same I suspect – but without the big Battlecry damage.

If you’re referring to Ozruk – I don’t think it matters what health it gets to, it gains no attack and has no immediate effect. A 5/30 Taunt Minion on Turn 9 is still virtually unplayable – especially if that means you’re going to have to gear your entire deck around elementals. Your opponent will see it coming a mile off and be able to prepare.

Priests are going to love you if you play Ozruk; Pint Size Potion > Potion of Madness > Inner Fire … OTK on you with your own minion 😐 Or they could just mind control it or SWD.

Then there’s Polymorph, Hex, Assassinate, Naturalize, Deadly Shot, Hunter’s Mark, Siphon Soul… warriors would need damage + execute combo… in fact, it’s only Paladin that’s slightly screwed as Keeper of Uldaman is rotating out but they’ll get Sunkeeper Tarim.

Even with all that, there’s still The Black Knight since Ozruk’s a Taunt minion.

Compared to C’Thun, another minion you have to completely gear the deck towards, which is quite possible to drop at 20+ and it deals that damage instantly, Ozruk is pretty bad.

… however, yeah, it does entirely depend on what else there is that makes use of the Elemental mechanic.

… and I’m now half expecting to Mage Quest card to involve summing Elementals in some way.

… and with Flame Geyser and Pyros that quest may be for Mages.

I suspect the quality of this card is going to be highly dependent upon the Elemental synergy… it’s not bad, as is, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see a “Summon Elementals” quest card.

So it’s a 4/4 that casts an elemental tribe version of Feral Spirit – without the overload – as long as you played an Elemental last turn. Seems low stat-wise for a 7 cost minion but considering Feral Spirit is 3 mana with overload 2 it’s not too shabby; it’s no Dr. Boom thankfully.

Hmmm – it’s a Beast … this means there’s potential for synergy with The Curator there; which might not be a bad idea as it’s likely to be one of very few (if not the only) beasts you run and being Legendary there’ll only be one in your deck; the Curator gives you a 2nd chance to pull it – especially if you’re going for the quest as you’ll likely be running a slower game than regular Discolock I suspect.

Yes it’s a bit slow for a pure aggro deck but the effect is kinda 3-fold:

1) It buffs all your weeny minions to 3 health which puts them clear of a lot of common AoEs like Holy Nova, Consecration, Demonwrath and Swipe (for all bar 1 minion).

2) because everything goes to 3/3 it now means you can trade a Leper Gnome or Argent Squire for a Druid of the Claw or Ancient of War – which can’t be bad. This completely neuters large boards of Jade Golems as well.

3) it puts a Taunt minion on the board, for you, which at 3/7 now has enough attack to kill anything on the opponents board and survive 2 hits.

It gives a little more depth to an aggro deck – and with cards like Divine Favor you might actually get to draw on that depth.

I suspect it’ll be more like the old Muster for Battle > Quartermaster combo than anything else… I don’t think it’ll be a game changer but I don’t think it’s terrible either.

Hmmm looks like a replacement for Eadric the Pure when he rotates out… except this is more beneficial to aggro paladin maybe since it sets the health of everything to 3.

For example, Argent Squire will trade favourably with Ancient of War (or just about anything else) so when combined with Small Time Recruits there could be some potential here.

Not as good a combo as Equality > Consecration for enemy board clear but perhaps not terrible.

… the scummy thieving gits 🙂

Makes me quite sulky when they get to use my own Fandral / Druid of the Claw combo against me before I can use it against them (since Thoughtsteal nabs cards that you’ve not drawn yet).

Makes me want to play Warlock Zoo and have a deck full of cheap rubbish.

^ Pretty much this – the ladder is (generally) more aggressive than casual.

I get bored of playing as (or against) constant aggro pretty quickly so I have a some decks I use on the ladder and some in casual. Just because a deck is weak against aggro doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a bad deck – it might be far stronger against control or combo decks – it does mean, however, that it’s probably a bad deck to use on the ladder.

Good guide – I’ve been playing for over a year and I still trip up with deck building – despite it being my favourite part of the game 🙂 Though I don’t build entirely sane decks always (Angry Chicken Buff Hunter anyone?).

Minor point about the mana curve – Shaman, and to a lesser extent Druid and Warlock, have some quirks that it’s worth taking into account. For instance, Overload. Quite often you’ll be dropping a Totem Golem on turn 2 which means you’re one mana down on turn 3 so it’s worth considering having more 2 and 4 cost minions and fewer 3.

Similarly Druid can jump from 2 to 4 mana with Wild Growth and Warlocks can destroy their own mana crystals (e.g. Blastcrystal Potion). So it’s possibly worth noting where your mana drops/jumps can occur and putting slightly fewer cards in at that mana cost.

This may be beyond the scope of a “new player” guide though.

It’s random as all hell, I actually won with a Priest just because I got Mukla’s Champion; +1 +1 to each Party Crasher, each turn. Oh and a couple of Onyx Bishops which resurrected Party Crashers.

I might be doing something wrong – but Aya seems to suck 😐

It’s an aggressive deck all about going face, you wouldn’t really expect minions to do much more than whack your opponent in the face once – Huge Toad will likely die as soon as it’s summoned so that’s only 1 face damage max and Stranglethorn Tiger is too expensive; 2 extra mana for 1 extra damage.

Because of stealth, Jungle Panther is almost guaranteed to be 4 damage to your opponent for 3 mana (or 8 for 4 mana with Cold Blood) – or it can remove something like Misha if you’re ready for the Leroy killing move.

All 3 get the beast draw synergy from the Curator though which is why a beast over say something like Wolfrider.

Or Warlock since it uses the Wild card list – early Mal’ganis pretty much wraps things up.

Leroy Jenkins isn’t a bad swap for Shaku – doesn’t provide the same mechanic but works very well with Cold Blood … I’ve been running something similar to this for a week or two on and off – experimenting with Miracle Questing Rogues with added Leroy or Malygos for an additional win condition.

Oh – and I’ve only just read the STB nerf, so that’s aggro Pirate decks nicely tamed.

Buff, Zoo and Facehunter it is then.

Oh – I forgot – Shaman loses the Tunnel Trogg > Totem Golem combo so it’s not all bad 😛

Be interesting to see what the “replacements” are that they release for Standard since, as it stands with BRM, LoE and TGT going into wild – plus these classic cards – this pretty much kills off, or at least hamstrings, so many current archetypes.

Dragon Decks lose Twilight Guardian, Blackwing Technician and Corruptor (worse for Dragon Priest as they lose Wyrmrest agent and Twilight Whelp).

Miracle Decks lose Azure Drake, Emperor Thaurissan and, in the case of Rogue, Conceal and Tomb Pillager – Raven Idol and Living Roots for Druid which also hamstrings Malygos Druid with Arcane Golems.

Highlander Decks lose Reno Jackson.

Aggressive Mage decks lose Flamewaker and Arcane Blast.

Control Warrior/Priest lose Justicar Trueheart.

And RIP Anyfin Pally, Everyfin Shaman, Resurrect Priest and Camel Hunter as all the key cards are going.

It looks like the archetypes that will be least affected will be:
Aggro Pirate Warrior
Aggro Pirate Rogue (though she’s losing Buccaneer)
Warlock Zoo (though losing PO)
Facehunter (I can see this making a comeback actually, though losing Quickshot is going to pretty much remove all card draw)
Buff Decks

… and the meta will move yet further in favour of aggro unless there are some really well thought out cards in the next expansions.

Buff Paladin, Buff Hunter and Buff Taunt Warrior may increase in strength relative to the new meta though as they’ll be almost unaffected – and it’s already been hinted at that there will be further cards to complement the mechanic.