I’d love for Control or Fatigue Warrior to be good. I’ve opened way too many Warrior Epics that work in that kind of deck (Bring it On!, Dead Man’s Hand, Shield Flurry…). But Tempo Warrior looks interesting too. In any case, Warrior is looking more promising than Shaman right now, since Shaman has way too much RNG right now to be consistent IMHO.

So with this minion Blizzard is telling us that they really liked Barnes and that they’re sad he’s rotating out, so they print this Barnes-wannabe. To be honest I like Barnes as a card, it just got out of control with Big Priest –
it turns out to be too much of a swingy card where drawing it before 4 almost wins you the game thanks to their obnoxious resurrection mechanics (they shouldn’t be able to resurrect the full-stated minion), but not drawing it before is a huge setback. And it’s not fun to win or lose a game depending on whether you draw a very specific card or not, neither for the player nor its opponent. This said, Barnes summoning a Deathrattle minion (which is probably the role Blizzard intended for him) is reasonable.

So now we have this Legendary. Barnes brings out a minion immediately, so that’s a huge setback already: while in Turn 4 you put 9 stats on board, with this you only put 7. On the other hand, this can get more value if it survives and in the next turn you cast a card-draw spell. So it will work very differently. You may consider it in Big Priest, since contrary to Barnes, it’s NOT TOO BAD to resurrect this minion (or getting it from Shadow Essence). Other than that, we need to wait to see what combos people come up with. Maybe this + Elven Minstrel on Turn 7 for Rogue?

All in all, I like it since it doesn’t look like it will be as oppressive as Barnes. It will probably be difficult to get good value of it though. So… 3 out of 5 stars.

The Worgen mechanic of swapping Attack and Health each turn is NOT good. 50% of the time you have to wait for a whole turn to drop a minion with the desired stats, and that is too inconsistent. That said, these are not bad minions in Arena, when you can usually play other minions until you wait for the desired form, and the stat-distribution is pretty vanilla. The only way we are going to see these in constructed is in a Lady in White deck (which highly boosts these minions, not just by stats but also they become consistent minions that always have the same attack and health), or when summoned by random minion generators. Many of these rotate out (Portals from Karazhan), so we may not see this minions practically at all in Constructed.

This minion is not necessarily bad, but for 8 mana you almost always have better options. Sure, removing an 8-health minion and leaving behind a minion that the oponent has to remove is not bad, but it doesn’t cut it in Constructed. In Arena it will be more powerful. Also, we’re going to see this often being summoned from a Spiteful Summoner casting an 8-drop from Free from Amber. In that case it’s summoned as a 3/8, which is usually good for the opponent because it’s only a 3-attack minion. The Priest won’t be able to complain about luck because he could have gotten a Bonemare, which is the worst 8-drop being summoned.

All in all, 2/5 stars.

The Worgen mechanic of swapping Attack and Health each turn is NOT good. 50% of the time you have to wait for a whole turn to drop a minion with the desired stats, and that is too inconsistent. That said, these are not bad minions in Arena, when you can usually play other minions until you wait for the desired form, and the stat-distribution is pretty vanilla. The only way we are going to see these in constructed is in a Lady in White deck (which highly boosts these minions, not just by stats but also they become consistent minions that always have the same attack and health), or when summoned by random minion generators. Many of these rotate out (Portals from Karazhan), so we may not see this minions practically at all in Constructed.

This minion seems to me the most useful of all three, since 1/4 stats and Spell Damage is great in a 2-drop. I think this is Stronger than Bloodmage Thalnos and Tainted Zealot on Turn 2, since it will probably stick better in the early game. From Turn 5 onwards though, Thalnos and Tainted Zealot are clearly better. Also the inconsistency of the Worgen form can be overcome somehow if you manage to get this in your Mulligan. If you do, you’re guaranteed a 1/4 2-drop on Turn 2. The 4/1 stat distribution is terrible, you will never want to play the minion like that unless you need the Spell Power in a pinch. EVERYONE has ways to ping the 4/1, in the best case scenario the oponent takes 4 damage to face for removing it with a weapon, or a small 1-attack minion takes it out. You don’t want a Magma Rager… I’m giving this minion 3/5 stars, I’d probably still run Thalnos or Zealot for consistency and for value in the late game. But in an aggressive Mage Deck this might fight in better, possibly.

The Worgen mechanic of swapping Attack and Health each turn is NOT good. 50% of the time you have to wait for a whole turn to drop a minion with the desired stats, and that is too inconsistent. That said, these are not bad minions in Arena, when you can usually play other minions until you wait for the desired form, and the stat-distribution is pretty vanilla. The only way we are going to see these in constructed is in a Lady in White deck (which highly boosts these minions, not just by stats but also they become consistent minions that always have the same attack and health), or when summoned by random minion generators. Many of these rotate out (Portals from Karazhan), so we may not see this minions practically at all in Constructed.

This minion in particular seems to work best as the 4-mana Fireball to a minion, with the downside of not always having it with the desired attack and not going through Taunt. It can also clean up a 2-health-left minion and leave a body on the board for 4 mana, which is not too bad, but again, you need to have the desired form in hand for this. Inconsistent mechanic, so it gets 2.5/5 stars.

You haven’t played much Arena, have you? Firstly, Hunter lacks card draw in BOTH Constructed and Arena. The difference is that Hunter actually goes into Turn 15 in Arena quite often, which gives him a higher chance to draw the buffed beasts. In Constructed Hunter has usually won or lost the game by Turn 10, Turn 7 if we’re talking about Aggro/Midrange Hunter.

This is not a bad spell in Spell Hunter if you have already used Rhok’Delar, but then again, it probably is not worth a spot since Rhok’Delar has a high chance of generating it when you equip it. But don’t underestimate the power of buffed Zombeasts in Spell Hunter.

Blizzard is not trying to kill Face Hunter, actually the best deck that probably will fit Baku is a Face Hunter one.

Not in Hunter, ESPECIALLY in a 3-drop. Houndmaster is the best 4-drop in the game, but it requires that you have a Beast on the board. That’s why Bearshark (and, to a lesser extent, Jungle Panther – that’s the name!) are better than this dude. Also, you may think it’s good to have “flexibility” of Attack and Health, but this “flexibility” is actually a disadvantage, since you can’t control what form this dude will be in when you actually want to play him. This Worgen mechanic is bad and this minion suffers from it too. Still think this is 1.5/5 stars.

This is great in Arena. Maybe a bit too slow in Constructed though, since +3/+3 for 4 mana is slow and Hunter doesn’t have good card draw. Spell Hunter: it’s not a bad idea to shuffle buffed Zombeasts in your deck, although you should have used Rhok’Dhelar by then… 4.5/5 in Arena and 3/5 in Constructed.

Yes it does! You have to wait until Turn 5 for it to be efficient then, though… But it’s still pretty solid!

Good Zoolock card for board (re)fill. Needs Blood Witch, Flame Imp, Kobold Librarian or Vulgar Humunculus to activate it, sounds reasonable. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

A 4/6 Lifesteal for 5 is very good. It’s easy to activate later on curve thanks to Kobold Librarian, etc; but if you want to play it on curve then you need the Blood Witch. Rating it 3.5 out of 5 stars. It’s nice to get replacements for Zoo as Sid says, now that we lose Apothecary, Bloodfury Potion and Darkshire Councilman.

So vanilla stats and a downside… which could actually be an upside if you want to play the other two revealed Warlock cards on curve. It obviously has a niche role, but I don’t think this is THAT necessary to activate the other cards or Amethyst Spellstone. 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Ohhhh so this is the spell-generation rotation Blizzard wants to give Hagatha Shaman so it can somehow compare to Lyra. If you have Hagatha, you play this minion, get a spell. Then play the spell, draw another minion, play it, generate another spell, ad aeternum. Well, it’s much more clunky, since you still have to pay minions to generate spells, so it won’t cycle as effectively as Lyra. Also, in the late game you can risk milling or running out of cards, and you never want that as Control. The last piece of the puzzle would be an understatted minion with Battlecry: shuffle a copy of this minion into your deck. Then the Control Hagatha minion-spell cycle would be complete.

As for the minion, clever distribution of stats: 4 attack to survive Priest, and 8 health is not easy to remove in one turn without board presence. I can see this surviving one turn after it comes down, which would give enough value to justify its 7 mana cost. Also, Elemental tag, that’s important!

4 out of 5 stars.

Very bad weapon. I can’t see why you would run this over Perdition’s Blade, which costs 3 mana and can do more damage. I’d rather it cost 2 mana and didn’t have Lifesteal. Then it would compete with Kingsbane, and would be a nice tool in Tempo Rogue (who usually heropowers on 2 anyway). At its current state, it’s more of a late game tool, where you don’t need to play Leeching Poison and can use the other-class cards to improve its durability. But in the late game this weapon pales in comparison to Kingsbane. Also, weapon removal hits this very hard. 1 out of 5 stars. #roguedecksmatter

A very slow removal tool for Control Priest. It can be very effective vs Rin or Lich King, for example. I don’t think you would run more than 1 in a deck. 3 out of 5 stars.

Versus… A GIANT Rat! (Thinking Dungeon Run)

I like this card, I don’t think it will be super powerful, but it can be very nasty. 4 out of 5 stars.

Oh boy, this is a very strong spell for Hunter. I like playing Hunter, so I like seeing cards like these. 5/5 stars.

Thanks! I like it too. 🙂

This has to be an April Fool’s card, right? I mean, even the name is gramatically incorrect: “Witch’s cauldron” it should read. Total meme. 1.5 out of 5 stars.

Oh, look, it’s a Temporus for Druid! Awesome effect which your opponent gets to exploit earlier, thus probably leading you to lose the game. If at least you could give it Stealth for a turn, it would work in the Malygos Druid. As it is, your opponent will play a card for 0 the next turn and make sure you don’t have this minion or its effect by the next turn. 2 out of 5 stars, meme legendary, but like Temporus, it could be exploited in the future if you can get around its drawback (so far unlikely).