As a 6 mana 3/4, you need to make sure whatever you pull is worth it. Weaponized Pinata, Piloted Reaper, Spider Bomb are the decent options.

Mechanical Welp is the juicy option. And with Necromechanic, you could have a heckuva T7 (I’m thinking Wing Blast as an activator?). But that’s a very ambitious combo. This seems too finicky.

Hard to see a good combo with Mechathun (at least with the cards we have currently) but it might be worth it just to pull a 10/10!

All these Max out at 4, yeah?

This compares pretty badly to Pint-Size Potion, which didn’t see play other than the perfect combo with Shadow Word: Horror. For 1 mana more it targeted all enemy minions and didn’t need to be charged in your hand.

It’s easy to imagine plays with Little Miss Let-Me-Change-Your-Mind and whatnot, but nothing I can think of would really demand using a precious deck slot on this. Priest has a lot of other new 0-1 cost spells, best case is you can cycle with Auctioneer.

… yes it does? Go to 0:19 in the demonstration video.

I think this card is just ok. If you’re already Hagatha, you pull two more spells (from playing two minions), and the horror is a decent Tempo Bomb (that gets repeated when you Shudderwock! And you get another, crummier Horror to boot!) But you probably aren’t doing anything else the turn you play a 7 mana 5/5 (which is pretty bad, actually!), and there’s no guarantee the spells you discover will be clutch (especially with Healing Rain and Volcano rotating out). Shaman’s spells are either cheap or conditional right now (of the 5+ Cost spells, Bloodlust and Storm Bringer need a wide board, while Eureka! needs luck and particular sorts of minions in hand. Rain of Toads is the best outcome). For the targeted spell, you’re probably keeping fingers crossed for Hex or Lava Burst, but will get stuck with stuff like Zap! and Earth Shock.

Based on the meta and the new spells we get, this should land somewhere between “ok card that’s flexible enough to slot into any midrange/control Shaman” and “inconsistent, greedy card that’s swiftly cut from decklists”. I’m leaning a bit toward the latter, which is honestly ok. The only good Shaman cards lately have been legendaries- give us Shammy lovers’ wallets a break, maybe?

FYI: you get to Discover the two spells, and the Horror is 5 mana and has “battlecry: cast [spell 1] and [spell 2]”. It seems like the first option is always a targeted spell, and the second is always an untargeted one, so there’s no special logic of how you have to target the battlecry.

Oh Rogue, can’t you play with the toys you already have? Why, just look at poor Lab Recruiter gathering dust on the shelf!

You can use this to yank your opponent’s powerful lategame minions, freeing up your deck to curve lower. If you snag a good Class minion you can even plan on resummoning em with Tess. Casting this on Zilliax will probably get a concede from Aggro. Those are the sorts of uses that come to mind, and they’re nice and all, but ultimately I have a hard time imagining why you’d NEED to use this card. Academic Espionage and Lab Recruiter taught us that Rogue usually has better things to do than play Value games. But it’s entirely possible that a weird combo or psynergy will make shuffle-clones a thing you really want to do. (Bless your heart, Pogo-Hopper ????➰)

Any Shaman deck that would run Volcano would feel perfectly comfortable running this. There’s no Overload with Hagatha’s Scheme, but the downsides (compared to Volcano) are it can’t adapt itself to tall minions, and you’ll probably lose a few games when you topdeck this in a pinch.

If you wanna live ~*~the dream~*~ it’s probably the best spell to pair with Omega Mind, FWIW.

A board of 6/6s is a helluva thing, but only Fatigue decks in a not-too-combo-heavy meta would be interested in running this. The exception is Rogue, who can empty her deck with Myra’s, drop this, and then fill it back up with Academic Espionage.

The Lackeys themselves are such great Combo activators. Hard to guess what Tempo Rogue will get up to this expac, but this card should fit right in.

I was hoping we’d see some big Mage minions that incentivize Luna’s Pocket Galaxy.

If Kobold Monk wasn’t playable (in a Meta dominated by Machine Gun Priest, no less!) then I can’t imagine this will be, either. Even if combo decks become really popular, Mojomaster Zihi seems like a better way to tech.

Your opponent needs two AoEs to counter this “one” spell, or they’ll be punished heavily when you turn then into 5/5s or just slam down some Savage Roars.

But needless to say, expensive cards that don’t clear your opponents’ board or throw up taunts leave you very vulnerable and are usually forced out by the speed of the meta.

It’s a little more appealing than Shadow Word: Pain, but only a little bit. Spending 8 mana to kill an 8/8 is necessary sometimes, but not terribly good-feeling.

Seems super legit for Zoo once they’ve run out of steam! Also opens up a possibility for HakkarLock.

Sooo, full announcement on Friday? Maybe? Hopefully? I can’t wait any longer!

Good article as always. What is the “OTK Potential” with Gonk?

Rogue has an underexplored and dead simple Mechathun activator: one Galvanizer tick + Preparation + Walk The Plank. She even has Myra’s to empty her deck instead of relying on Hemet. Of course, Rogue is also the worst class at fending off aggression, but with Odd decks HoF’d out, combo Rogues in general might not be forced to deal with as much aggro pressure.

I suspect Holy Wrath Paladin, Hakkar Paladin, and Mechathun Warrior + Rogue have a shot. Malygos can work for Druid and maybe Shaman. The new expansion will probably open up a few new combo decks too.

Gave it a shot and can’t say I had much luck. Feels very inconsistent, even by combo priest standards, and the traditional Wall Priest outvalues you 100% of the time. I only won by snowballing with a Radiant Elemental dropped T2, the good old fashioned way. And also once by dropping 4 Grave Horrors on T6 against an Odd Paladin, which admittedly may have made it all worth it.

A lot of powerful decks use Baku and Genn right now, but a lot of powerful decks use Lich King. A lot of powerful decks use Ziliax. Why are Genn and Baku more important to nerf than any other popular neutral? Why should we care if certain cards define their meta while they stick around in standard- isn’t giving each year of standard unique “contours” the whole point of the rotation system, and the reason they HoF/nerf cards that become too “evergreen”?

Do Genn and Baku add to the diversity of the game? Yes, by definition. Is it fun and possible to counterplay the decks? Yes- they’re just tempo-focused buildarounds at the end of the day. Are they overcentralizing the meta (e.g. the way Giggling Inventor, Dr. Boom, etc etc were?) No, by definition- the tech cards you’d use against Even Warlock are the opposite of what you’d use against Odd Paladin, for instance. Point is, there’s really no objective standard to nerf Genn and Baku. “I’m sick of encountering them” isn’t good enough.

The best solution is to do what they’ve already been doing, and design the cost and effect of upcoming cards with Genn/Baku in mind. Like, we’ve seen that they’ve been careful with minting more aggressive odd-cost cards for Paladin and Rogue. We’re also due for an anti-HP tech card anyway, since Mindbreaker is rotating out.

My understanding is you use Faceless + Voodoo Doll + Hero Power to yoink Lich King, a huge Zombeast, or some other big lategame minion you can’t run yourself.