I’ve been saying all along that cards like Branching Paths or Ferocious Howl would be totally fine if they HEALED instead of stacking armor. Especially Branching Paths. I’m glad to see that they’re putting healing back into Druid. This spell is BTW solid, outstanding vs Aggro.

The problem with Mage minions is that they are generally weak. You also won’t pull a Taunt out of this…

Defile rotates out but we do have Shriek from Rastakhan’s Rumble at the very least. That would combo with Spirit of the Bat + charged-up Rafaam’s Scheme + Shriek = get 6 +1/+1 buffs, do 2-damage to enemy minions, waste 4 cards. As I say, looks way too clunky, but the combo is there…

So we already have Fiendisch Circle (4 mana for 4 x 1/1 Imps). That card has seen zero play until now, although it might get into Zoo now that the power level is reduced drastically. So this has to be 3 (THREE!!) turns in your hand until it gets better than Fiendish Circle, and everything after that is a bonus. I don’t think I would run this instead of Fiendish Circle in Zoo, since having consistency is better (top-decking into this feels awful, and Zoo has to draw heavily in the mid-to-late game). Would I run it TOGETHER with Circle? Hard to say, maybe Warlock gets some token synergies, then yes. Otherwise it looks like a poor card. It might combo well in a Control-like Warlock shell with Spirit of the Bat: you drop the Spirit, then this, then clear your whole board, you get 6 +1/+1 buffs in the cards in your hand. Looks clunky, but definitely worth to experiment. I will give this a preventive 1.5/5 stars though.

Can be a ping or an Enrage activator without losing you card advantage. Looks solid. 3/5 stars from me.

Cool to see that they’re expanding on the Omega-type of cards. This card is super-good in Arena (where Yeti was already a great card, so anything with an upside is great), and I believe it can also find its way into midrange decks in Constructed. Nothing spectacular, but very solid. 3.5/5 stars from me.

Dude the problem with Hunter was Rexxar. You would slot it in ANY Hunter deck, because it was your main win condition vs grindy Control decks. Without him you will see the WR of Midrange Hunter drop drastically, since it won’t be able to outgrind games vs Control once they have answered his threats.

The combo with Cabal Shadow Priest is probably this card’s only redeeming grace. Unlike Aldor Peacekeeper, the effect is temporary AND you get no board presence.

Big waste of an Epic slot. The card is not bad if you generate it (with Lyra or something similary), but it will never make the cut in a deck.

Well we already got the useless Hunter legendary for the expansion.

Espionage is a meme card (tbh I thought it would be good but… there’s a difference between putting cards in hand and having to draw them). The support for Rogue to go for the value game is Healing and Armor, which Rogue will never get because of class identity.

I’m not saying Lab Recruiter is useless, it does have its niche, but it’s in the wrong class. Getting several Zilliax is good, but it’s better if you’re beating up your opponent rather than being on the backfoot.

That’s a good point. Still, Rogue can’t realistically go to the value game. Seance for Priest had the added benefit of being able to target your minion instead of only an opponent’s minion, like Convert. Did that make Seance playable? Not one bit.

Lab Recruiter is a great card which was given to the wrong class, because they know that Rogue can’t realistically go to the value game. I want it to be good, but it’s kind of difficult in a tempo class with no heal and no armor.

Disappointed. How much play did Gang Up! see? How much play did Lab Recruiter see? Getting tired of seeing the same failed idea reused ad nauseam. At least wait until Lab Recruiter rotates out, for the love of Toggwaggle (one of my favorite cards BTW). 1/5 stars

It’s really sad that Bli$$ard only nerfs stuff when their data says that people have stopped playing the game. By just browsing Reddit and listening to the streamers, a 5-year-old would have known that players would be leaving and that action was needed back then. But no, they had to wait until MTGA went into Open Beta to announce the nerf to Giggling Inventor back in Boomsday (after saying that they were not going to release a patch), and now that people are playing MTGA and Artifact instead, they decide to nerf the archetypes that had been a bad experience during the year of the Raven. And notice that I said nerf ARCHETYPES and not cards, because they sneakily nerfed key cards without addressing the REAL culprits.

When did Wild Growth and Nourish become problematic cards? The moment Ultimate Infestation was printed! And yet, Innervate, WG and Nourish have been nerfed instead! Not to mention that Spreading Plague and Branching Paths also covered the weakness of the ramp in the early game until you got to cast UI. Logic anyone? Oh yeah, UI is an epic and WG and Nourish are not, less dust for the players.

Level Up! – a perfectly fine card, strictly worse than 2-arms men from past sets, ran as a one-of in Aggro Dude Paladin before Witchwood. Then Baku comes around… well yeah, then this card becomes insane. But it’s not a problem of the card. It’s a problem of the upgraded Hero Power, which is just TOO STRONG WHEN IT IS ACTIVE FROM THE BEGINNING!! And who gets the nerf? The epic, not the legendary. Was changing Baku to create a 2/2 Silver Hand Recruit so hard?

Leeching Poison – this one is a joke. It’s obviously only good in Kingsbane. Why not nerf Kingsbane to be a 1/2 weapon instead of a 1/3 weapon? Oh yeah, because Kingsbane is legendary and Poison is a common.

Saronite Chain Gang – a perfectly fine card with lots of synergies in lots of archetypes. Stupid Shudderwock comes around and… In any case, the card could have been “nerfed” with a different wording that would still ONLY affect Shudderwock: “Battlecry: summon another Saronite Chain Gain with the same enchantments as this minion” BOOM! You still leave its synergies with Keleseth, Valanyr, Soul Infusion and literally any other handbuff, which was the reason why Saronite Chain Gang was printed in the first place. Now those strategies have to suffer because of Shudderwock, and of course SCG is a Rare, not a legendary like Shudderwock.

And yeah… where are the Hunter nerfs? Do we still believe it’s OK to summon 12/12 stats in turn 5?

All in all, despite powerful decks getting hit and that the meta is finally going to be shaken, I am very disappointed with the nerfs, purposefully avoiding nerfing the real culprits because they would give back too much dust to the playerbase.

I think the questions actually asked what you’re mentioning? Nerf two of Baku’s Hero Powers -> make it less polarizing. Fail to make an impactful set? We’re just suffering the power level of Year of the Mammoth. Once that rotates out, the game will be completely new. They didn’t say anything about Wild Kingsbane, but Wild is a mess anyway. If it’s not Naga Giants, then it’s Star Aligner Druid, and now it’s Kingsbane, and another OP deck will climb up again if that gets nerfed.

Go to Collection -> New Deck -> Select your Hero -> you have 3 deck recipes to choose from. One of them is the deck you are looking for. Click on it and you already have it in your collection (if you’re missing cards, you will have them blued out so you know)

“It would have been too strong”. Meanwhile, Mage gets Baku…

The thing is, the deck restrictions are SO BIG that you do need some pay-off, and besides, the upgraded Hero Powers is what allows you to weave them in the curve. And you’re already including a bad tempo card (6 mana vanilla 6/5 and 7 mana vanilla 7/8). Not drawing Keleseth on 2 or not drawing Reno sucks, but you can still play Hearthstone. If you don’t get a 1-mana Hero Power from Genn at the start of the game, what do you do on T1? And in T3 you just drop a two-drop? That would make the deck unplayable.

Another thing to consider is that Justicar Trueheart’s upgraded HPs were only designed with the late-game in mind, so obviously some of them are too powerful from the beginning of the game: namely Odd Paladin and Odd Warrior. It’s also a reason why Odd Priest is bad: the upgraded Hero Power is great in the late game, but it does absolutely nothing in the early game, so the deck-building sacrifice is not worth it. As I say I’m all for nerfing Odd Paladin’s and Odd Warrior’s upgraded Hero Power from Baku, and still leave them as is for Justicar Trueheart.