Mountain Giant is optimal but you could easily play the deck without it, I say go for it.

Umbra is much less versatile than Prince.

Welp, if you don’t play Wild then not crafting N’zoth is probably a good idea (he’s always going to be strong in Wild though). Cube-lock loses nothing at rotation, better to go that route without N’zoth.

That’s the only reason I’m happy they’re not doing Adventures anymore, so annoying for F2P players to complete decks if they don’t have them. Do you have Keleseth? Unless you play Wild I wouldn’t recommend getting the Adventure this close to rotation, and Keleseth would be fine until then.

Yeah that can be annoying, but the consistency you get from running two is too valuable. Sure you often end up with a dead card, but you draw so much it doesn’t really matter.

Thanks! Giving your opponent two mana can be pretty devastating, or in some cases even two cards. Now that Raza has been nerfed it’s probably more playable than it was, but I’d still get excited if someone played it against me.

Last year it was in April.

As a sub for something you’re missing? Sure. I can’t imagine he’s optimal but you could probably throw him in there somewhere.

Yeah that’s not bad, especially if you don’t have Prince.

Any of the cards in the substitution section would work fine.

Not yet, soon

You could try it, but it’s probably a dead card after turn 2. I’d probably go Golakka Crawler before Doomsayer.

Priest is losing Barnes and Raza with the Standard Rotation already. These cards are necessary for the decks that make Priest so frustrating. Do you remember how mediocre Priest was for almost the entirety of Hearthstone before Big Priest and Raza Priest were around? Nerfing a class that’s about to lose its best stuff doesn’t make sense.

Fair enough. *there’s little to no justification

Thanks for the in depth reply, you make some good arguments. I wouldn’t say my logic was strictly Classic staples, for example I didn’t mention Acolyte of Pain, Ysera, Frothing Berserker etc. Cards like these have been consistent staples throughout Hearthstones history, but I don’t think any of them cause stale strategies or immediately overpowered ones. Standard is supposed to be a format where you see new decks all the time, and as long as cards like Doomguard exist in the evergreen set you’re always going to see them as prominent players in the decks they’re in.

Cube lock is a really strong deck right now, a fun one that takes some skill to play, but at this rotation all other strong decks are getting gutted, while it loses nothing. Maybe Voidlord, Possessed Lackey and Skull are the actual problem, but they create a strategy that is new and different, which is what Standard wants. Doomguard however is a tired card, and Kobolds and Catacombs proved that it does limit design space (if Voidcaller wasn’t evidence enough). So I think there are several good reasons to move it with this rotation in particular. This is coming from someone who loves the Warlock class and this card btw.

Someone in the comments suggested Sorcerer’s Apprentice instead of Antonidas, and I think that solves the issue just as well if not better. Also I don’t at all think it’s a “throw in every Mage deck” card, sorry if I gave you that impression.

Thalnos being replaced by Zealot is fine, but cards like Zealot will never see much playtime as long as Thalnos is in Standard. Thalnos is just strictly better because he draws you a card, so there’s no justification to run Zealot unless there’s already a Thalnos in your deck.

Yeah but those cards are going to be in Standard for a while and I doubt they’ll get nerfed. If they did it would have to be right now, Cubes gonna be crazy post rotation.

Doesn’t sound bad, if it’s working out well you should definitely keep it in!

Someone else suggested Sorcerer’s Apprentice instead of Antonidas, which I think also solves the issue without rotating a class legendary.

Awesome!

That’s an interesting idea. Since Corridor Creeper isn’t really a 7-drop the deck could probably tolerate it. It might be good, but maybe playing a 4/6 on 7 is slow for what this deck is trying to do at that stage of the game.