Seems legit. Might even be useful to support target-a-minion cards that can clog your hand if there’s no enemy minions to hit (Flanking Strike, Pyromancer, anything with Overkill…)

Hunter wants to play Eaglehorn or Animal Companion at 3 mana, and his secrets can lose value when doubled up (e.g. Freezing Trap into Explosive Trapping an empty board). On the plus side, this DOES curve into Hunter’s secrets, and against slower decks his Secrets tend to stay on board a few turns.

Paladin has a more consistent and powerful Secret activator in Bellringer Sentry. You could play this alongside, but I’m not sure what dumping a bunch of secrets really accomplishes for Paladin.. at least with his current crop of secrets (which isn’t the best).

As for Rogue, [this space intentionally left blank]

That leaves Mage- pulling a 3-mana Secret is certainly the most value of all the classes. But Kirin Tor Mage fills a similar role and probably does it better.

“STOP ASKING QUESTIONS”

Ah, finally. Shaman hasn’t had a new weapon all year, and hasn’t had a new PLAYABLE weapon since, er.. Spirit Claws.

I’m a bit bearish on this one, since it’s so similar to Spirit Claws, and that wasn’t really played once it was nerfed to two mana. On the other hand, though, a lot of that had to do with the nerf removing the Spirit Claws > Spelldamage Totem opener. Plus, there are very playable 0 and 1 mana Overload cards, which can’t be said for Spell Damage. So activating this shoooould be less clunky and certainly more controllable.

I still can’t help but feel this will be cut to make room for other cards, but definitely worthy of experimenting.

Paladin has always been “a healing class”, but those cards got left behind because Pally was topped off on health anyway. His early game is actually pretty good, meaning your hero didn’t take enough damage to, say, proc the healing off of Truesilver Champion. This card, obviously, changes that- it’s a roundabout way to let Paladin “overheal”. And sets you up for a *chefs kiss* Alexstraza turn, too.

Also, now we know why Molten Giant was moved to wild.

Also also, the armor gain here is so dramatic that we proooobably won’t be getting a tech card against armor like I’ve always wanted 🙁

This challenges you to build a Rogue deck with high-statted vanilla minions, which is not something she traditionally wants to do – it doesn’t immediately disqualify this card, but does raise a skeptic’s eyebrow. You’re gonna want to nom something at least 4/4, but given that it’s a deck buildaround you’re realistically gonna want much better than that. Rogue now has the tools to trigger its deathrattle, but that’s not terribly important? Do you REALLY care whether you draw the card or burn it? I guess you could come up with some shenanigans where you “clone” cards by milking the deathrattle, but that seems .. just not very good.

You can also try to combo this with Spirit of the Shark to make a massive pile of stats, but it’s just begging for a silence/removal.

After writing all this out, my vibe is that Rogue has much better things to do than stuff a deck full of cheap removals + Bittertide Hydras + Damaged Stegotrons. I’m not sure what they can print to synergize with it, either.

You pretty much have to count on getting multiple casts off this, otherwise why not just play a 4 drop with a better body? And that seems a little finicky to pull off. And slow, too- you won’t be able to attack with those Tigers until 2 turns after you play this. It gets better in the lategame, but a Slower Paladin will probably have better things to do at that point.

Beast Hunter would rather play a 3-mana Beast that can curve into Houndmaster, IMO. He doesn’t have the draw tools to make this consistent, and there’s a lot of competition at the 3-mana slot for ‘im.

Best option in my estimation would be curving/comboing this with Juicy Psychmelon to pull a bunch of high cost beasts, including Oondasta (!)

Some dark horse options are Warlock- he’s actually getting a fair number of beasts though none of them are very good (Hi’reek, Ravenous Terrordax, Duskbat, Chittering Tunneler, Deathweb Spider). Mage is another – Book of Spectres can pull a lot of buffed beasts, but you’ll be relying on neutral cards pretty much.

Also note that Ragnaros is an elemental, so if you have Frost Lich Jaina online, you’ll get 8 lifesteal healing right off the bat.

Having a hard time imagining Odd Mage NOT being a thing with all this support. Miiight also be an option for super slow decks (who can try to drop this card late into fatigue when the opponent is out of removal).

Definitely wouldn’t argue it’s better than Even Shaman, this is for if you’re in the mood to Bloodlust pretty much

Pretty juicy with Rockbiter Weapons + Windfury.. you’d even have enough left over to Zap! and Earth Shock enemy taunts out of the way. Unstable Evolution and Earthen Might will also be… interesting.

Control options seem less impressive- note that they confirmed onstream that any Overload will apply for each minion targeted, not just One-Overload-per-card. Triple Hex is no laughing matter of course, and we’ll see what other single-target removals get printed.

You need to care strongly about Hero Powering every turn, while also developing a board (Otherwise.. why not just Hero Power and not have to spend a card). What deck cares that much? Other than Odd decks that can’t run this anyway. And Zoolock, which already has this card for 1 Mana cheaper.

Unless 3+ cost Hero Powers get revealed, in practice this card is like a 2/1 Wisp you can’t drop T1. Nah.

Huge potential for setting up wacky combos or just constant tempo with Witchwood Piper and Bwonsamdi themself. Do note that your opponent can deny you value by not giving you minions to trade into, though.

This makes Surrender to Madness make a lot more sense (playable though? Ehhh we’ll see). Whatever you call this direction they’re taking Priest, I can dig it.

My heart says no but my body says.. maybe…

It’s a strong effect.. and her stats, while unflatteringly distributed, are technically vanilla for a 4-drop. Worst case is that your opponent can trade a 3-attack minion into it. In that case, keep this in your hand, of course. It’s also easy for control decks to fire off a smaller spell to off her, but that costs them a spell you can punish with a follow-up threat. And notice how this card can really pin your opponent if they don’t have a board. They can’t play weak minions to draw your fire, or you’ll score a ton of cards off them. They can’t Saronite, they can’t drop a totem/dude, they can’t plop an Elven Minstrel or Arcane Tyrant or any of that sorta stuff. If they instead chose not to play anything, you now have free reign to smack their face for 5+ damage each turn. They’ll really wanna kill with this with a spell, but that’s not always possible or efficient.

This also is a rare draw tool that gets much better with buffs! A Keleseth or Southsea Captain buff makes this look a lot more dangerous. In a pirate deck, you can try protecting her from pesky minions with Southsea Deckhand or Dread Corsair, then making up for those cheap plays with her draw effect.

It’s not a bad card in and of itself – kinda like a pre-nerf Spiteful Summoner without the body but without the buildaround. Thing is, I can’t see it fitting into any particular Warrior gameplan. Control Warrior wants removal and value tools, not spending a whole turn making a random tall minion. Tempo Warrior probably wants more aggressive cards and weapons, fewer clicks of the Hero Power- so he won’t have the armor to make it work effectively. Ditto for a possible even Warrior – no Eternium Rover, Dr. Boom, or Shield Block makes getting armor tricky. Bring It On! + This card ain’t bad, but ehhh hard to see building a deck around.

For this to work, it either needs to be useful enough to help Control Warrior pivot to beatdown vs Combo Decks, or there needs to be new tempo tools (preferably even-costed) that develop armor as you go (e.g. Bash).

Great writeup as always.

RIP Spiteful Summoner, you never deserved that nerf 🙁

They’re going all in on control Pally! While this probably isn’t good enough to make Control work on its own, it’s obviously a good inclusion for that sort of deck. Rogue has a similar card, after all, but it’s not very common since she doesn’t have other compelling defensive options to help that gameplan (plus it’s easier to play around than this). In contrast, Mage was all about Ice Block since she had clear win conditions to work towards.

Paladin has control-based win conditions, but let’s look at the caveats:
– Instawin due to Uther of the Ebon Blade is still very slow, and your lategame turns still need lots of mana to generate and bounce the horsemen. Even with this card, it may be vulnerable to other OTK decks. And it’s rotating out in the spring.
– Paladin is possibly the hardest class to combo with Mechathun, requiring a Prismatic lens highroll or Galvanizers+Equality+Skaterbot. New tools might pop up in this expansion, though.
– Holy Wrath + Shirvallah? Untested, but possible…
– Pure Fatigue strategy? I’m not sure Pally has the value tools to make this option very compelling, but that can change a lot based on the other expansion cards that pop up.

An ok hand refill for slow mages that don’t want to draw through their whole deck. Also an ok way to inflate your hand to help out Meteorologist and Astromancer; maybe other cards too if big hand mage gets further support in this expansion.

For some reason this one just feels really hard to rate. Let’s wait and see what sort of Token and Overload synergies get printed.

Similar to Coldwraith, but the ability is easier to activate and you can pull multiple cards if you’re lucky enough. Sounds good to me.

You need two pirates to make this on par with Greater Arcane Missiles (which cost one more, but wasn’t mindblowing at that price). Is that feasible? Depends on how many token pirate cards they print- we’ve seen one already. With those aggressive pirates, it’s very plausible that this card will simply threaten lethal by the time you get around to casting it.