It’s good, but it has to prove itself to be better than Master’s Call, Secret Synergies, and Mechs. Hunter has a lot of good, flexible, unused cards now, though (I’m thinking Baited Arrow and the like), so maybe something will come together.

A good control card, just… not for mage right now? Cyclone/Giants isn’t gonna give up its consistency for this. I have a hard time imagining Freeze Mage giving up its second copies of Fireball, Frost Nova, or Doomsayers for this.

Extremely dependent on what other taunts and general support get printed. Like, if the old quest and pre-nerf Saronite Chain Gang still existed this card would at least be playable.

That said, it’s very hard to imagine Warrior rallying around playing Taunt minions past T6 when Dr. Boom, the mech package, and his existing rush/AoE tools are sooooo good at board control. Maybe after the rotation? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Great writeup! It’s been tragically fascinating to see Priest’s identity crisis evolve- the devs have gradually decided every Priest playstyle isn’t fun to counterplay, and I don’t necessarily disagree with em:

– Getting killed by your stolen minions isn’t fun
– Getting fatigued isn’t fun
– Being stalled until an OTK combo isn’t fun
– Being whack-a-moled (where the priest just plays a removal every turn) isn’t fun
– Having priest reliably revive big minions isn’t fun
– Getting Divine Spirit/Inner Fired is just ok

And because Priest “isn’t a tempo class” it’s hard to see what other sorts of playstyle will be effective enough for the meta, but not weird and unfun to play against. If I was in charge, I’d stop shying away from allowing priest to have tempo though: my favorite priest decks ever were Year of the Mammoth’s Dragon Priest and Spiteful Priest, which worked based on some pretty busted proactive-oriented tempo cards (Kabal Talonpriest, Drakonid Operative, Radiant Elemental, pre-nerf Spiteful Summoner). Despite having some objectively ridiculously strong cards, their winrates were never oppressive and they were still fun to play/counterplay. We now have 2-mana Extra Arms! which is a fantastic card just waiting for the right sorts of minions to stick onto.

A very cool card, but I don’t think it’s THAT bonkers. It stings hard against Big Mage and Revive Priest and Mech Pally (probably other mech decks too), but if you’re an aggressive Shaman your better bet is to hit their face (and/or use Earth Shock) – not play this, which is a reactive card that removes any buffs you might have and hands initiative to your opponent. It’s also a rather dead card vs token matchups- don’t overlook that.

It works better for Control a Shaman (or maybe something like Big Shaman), which can follow this up with Lightning Storm/Hagatha’s Scheme or even Hungry Crabs. It also might be worth it if you’re playing a lackey heavy deck- this will provide a slight bump in stats and let them synergize with your Murloc buffing cards. But if you have that sorta board, The Storm Bringer or just Bloodlust feel like more winning plays.

A little trickier to use than I think people are giving it credit for – you’ll usually have to wait until T4, making this a conditional, aim-able Lifedrinker without the healing. I’m not convinced on the new totem as a consistent lackey generator, either. Most Shaman decks run 2x Sludge Slurper but is that enough to enable this? Will Cable Rat be worth using to synergize with this?

But yes, it’s a promising card for sure. Though most Shaman decks have lackeys, you really wanna run this alongside the quest, it’s perfect both to finish the quest and easy/effective to weave alongside the hero power once it’s complete. This is the exact sort of card I was hoping they’d print to make the quest worth it.

It’s a strong value tool, but I’m not sure what Mage deck needs it right now. I suspect it’ll get left by the wayside because Mage has better, combo-y win conditions and will have no interest in playing a value game.

Shadowbolt with… weird synergies. You can use it with Cult Master, Witch’s Cauldron, Flesheating Ghoul, or something like Dire Wolf Alpha. But those are looking pretty clunky. You can use it to get 4 1/1s if you sic ‘em on a 0 attack minion. That might come in handy as a tech option, I guess?

Floop’s Glorious Goop is interesting, but it’s a two card combo that only really lets you deal 4 damage for 0 mana.

I never said any of those plays were instant wins, just that they were possible lol.

We’ve only seen 8% of the new cards, much less do we have any idea what archetypes the meta will/won’t be friendly towards, so you can’t make any pronouncements about what cards will/won’t be played (unless they’re obviously super good or obviously super garbage). You can only evaluate what sorta deck a given card might go into, what play/counterplay it unlocks, and what sort of support it would need to thrive.

Worthless Imp is (presumably) the card you can already get from Sense Demons – a 1 mana 1/1 Demon.

It’s a clever card! You get a cheap spot removal, but at the cost of shuffling dross into your deck. At first glance, though, it seems kinda weak compared to Polymorph and Hex, which cost the same but also prevent deathrattles and ruins your opponent’s res pool. On the plus side, even shuffling worthless imps into your deck puts you several steps farther from fatigue, which can be a huge thing. If you don’t like the worthless imps in there you can even get rid of them with Arch-Villain Rafaam.

Will be interesting to see how this plays! Assuming Controllock can even be a thing again.

Needless to say, Control Shaman loves this, and Big Shaman can use it as a boardwipe. A much better card to topdeck (or generate via Hagatha) than Hagatha’s scheme.

7 damage is basically a boardwipe – only giants and big magnetized minions can survive it (rolling a Windfury totem means giants go down, too). With the aftershock, you get to clear sticky token-y minions summoned by deathrattles, which are all over the place – microbots from SN1P-SN4P and Replicating Menace, Soul of the Murloc, Soul of the Forest, Reborn cards…

Rounds out Shaman’s cardpool with support for Midrange Battlecry (it’s more playable than you think) and Evolve Shaman (since strong battlecries make for the best Mutate targets).

Murlocs could try to run it, but as we learned with the last quest, Murloc really wants their T1 play, and I’m not sure the reward is worth it (the best Murloc Battlecries are Hench-Clan Hag and Coldlight Seer- the deck has better plays to make).

Actually, I think that’s the biggest limitation of this card – it’s hard to make the reward have a high impact, especially considering you have to give up Bewitch (Hagatha’s Hero Power) while you have this. Are there that many battlecries that you would pay 2 mana to use on their own? Giggling Inventor, Former Champ, and Swampqueen Hagatha (incl. the horror) are probably the best scenario, but you have to occasionally play them without the Hero Power, and sometimes your Hero Power will be dead with no battlecries in hand or a bad curve. Other good battlecry cards are “just ok” spending 2 mana to double up (Fire Elemental) or don’t quite make sense to spend 2 mana doubling up (Crowd Roaster, Scaleworm). So just 1 or 2 good new battlecry cards will make a big difference on whether this card is playable.

The good news is that Sludge Slurper is crazy good for this card, giving you 1/3rd of the quest on its own and being quite good when the Hero Power is active, Spirit of the Shark style.

Interesting, not quite sure how you’d keep it alive though. And you’ll really want to keep this alive, otherwise it’s worse than playing EVIL Cable Rat. Maybe Overload and Murloc Shaman, where there are too many snowbally minions and your opponent can’t clear them all?

Priest needs earlygame removal right now, not lategame. It’s obviously super powerful but will need a specific meta to be viable.

Not sure why you’d put this in your deck, but the same logic would apply to “why put Yogg in your deck” so maybe I’m crazy.

Good desperation card to pull from Kalecgos…

To play the comparison game, it’s a lot like a Militia Commander that can do 1 more damage, has flexibility vs wide boards, but at the cost of hating 4-Health minions. And 1-attack minions. Should be playable.

Crazy good. Remember how rock-solid Arcanologist was? This is like that, but neutral, and never runs out of cards to draw. If the quests are good enough to play, this will be a two-of in every one. And hell, if the quests AREN’T good enough to play, this might singlehandedly put them into playability range.

Support for slow warlock- and Plot Twist helps you complete it, which is something. What are you gonna do with those 0 cost cards, though? You can’t quite build a combo deck around it, since you’ll probably draw your combo pieces before the quest is complete.

You could run a Big Warlock deck with something like Darkest Hour, but it needs support still.

Not toooo hard to activate if you’re playing a slower deck anyway. The challenge is that with previous quests, for the most part, the quest reward was your win condition. For this one, you want a deck that already has a particular gameplan, and the quest merely helps it along.

And we’re running a little low on Choose One cards, so it’ll be interesting to see what new ones they mint.

Aww yeah. Fun stuff!

Quests are a fun mechanic that I’m glad they’re returning to. Reborn seems like a “filler” keyword tbh, they could’ve just phrased it as “deathrattle: summon a 3/1 mummy with rush” for instance. But you could say the same thing about Recruit and Echo. A few classes (Priest and Warrior?) might be able to exploit the fact they come back injured.