Like Zola the Gorgon before it, this’ll see play if there’s a specific value engine or combo scheme that can use it. Miiiight be usable in a general/midrange Dragon deck just knowing it’ll create value at some point. There might also be some high-impact legendary Dragons that you’ll specifically want to combo with this (I’m thinking Warrior will be happy to wait until T10 to drop Deathwing, Mad Aspect in order to play it again).

I assume this’ll just take from the sum pool of dragons, not that there’s a specific set of dragons it can hatch into? I also wonder how it’d work with Quest Shaman, would it hatch into two dragons, or “take” the second one?

Most dragons we’ve seen so far are just OK to hatch from this. While most we’ve seen are expensive/big-bodied, many have battlecries that’ll go to waste. And it’s possible to low-roll and be forced to hatch into Azure Explorer or whatever. The fact that it only gains Deathrattle on battlecry is kinda a bummer in niche cases (can’t be Anka’d/Necrium Apothcary’d, bad if revived, bad if yanked from your hand/deck, etc)

The vibe I’m getting is that this is worse than Mechano-Egg and Mechanical Whelp, but with them rotating out, we’ll lose the best “big egg” cards in standard, leaving this as the (so far) only alternative.

Mostly a tech card vs Revive shenanigans.

There’s various ways to (try to) exploit it, either by removing the tokens or using them as synergy (Psychopomp/revives? Cheap AoE? Sea Giant/Rabble Bouncer/Mogu Fleshshaper? Desert Spear? Mossy Horror?) but it all seems meta-specific rather than “heck yeah, can’t wait to make that play”.

Wow, this is a really hard card to judge.

For one thing, I don’t think you play this with Time Out. That’s a 2 card 5 mana combo to summon a 3/6 taunt and prevent some face damage, not the best. With Holy Wrath Paladin, we’ve seen Time Out is only really good to play at the last second to prevent lethal (and work toward your wincon), it’s not a card you decide to run just for the “armor” it gives.

I’m thinking the best use of this card (other than not running it at all, cuz it’s too finicky) is hoping to draw it early and punish slow decks, or an opponent that mulliganed badly. Even if your opponent is forced to use their Hero power on your face every turn, that’s 2 less mana they have to work with each turn lest they get punished pretty bad. Against aggro you have to shoot for weaving this in alongside some removal around T6, and activating the taunt when your opponent reloads the board.

A 6/4/4 that casts Assassinate is good enough as-is. Gives me Vilespline vibes.

The additional effect is obviously meta-dependent, but can be a gamewinner if the right decks are floating around. There’s too many possibilities to name, but Tomb Warden, Oasis Surger, Unleash the Beast (recast en masse by Zul’jin), Mass Revive, Waxadred, and Greasefire Elemental (from Chef Nomi) all come to mind.

It’s a cool card, but Warlock still needs a lot of things to have a viable slow deck – healing, midgame removal, and lategame threats key among them. Granted, we’ve seen a few of those slots starting to fill in these reveals and I expect to see more of them.

While this supports Handlock, it also kinda misses the point of handlock – when Evenlock was good it was because it could cheat out Mountain Giant or a super tough Twilight Drake early. Good handplays in the *lategame* wasn’t quite part of the picture.

The stats seem pretty bad, you’ll want at least 6 cards in hand for this to be “just ok”. And just ok is.. just ok. It’s nice that it always summons a taunt, but -3/-3 compared to Astromancer is pretty unflattering. There’s surprisingly few cards in standard that use the Demon tag, either.

Big Deathrattle Rogue still feels a way off, even though it’s been getting support with Anka. But this is a good piece of the puzzle – the problem with Anka is that if you don’t draw her, your big deathrattles become stranded in hand. This gives you another way to cheat the deathrattles out early, and it curves well with Necrium Blade, Necrium Vial, and Anka alike. Glad they’re not giving up on the archetype!

I’m actually kinda skeptical on this one, the problem with a Controladin is that there are no Value tools for Uther, and Holy Wrath Pally doesn’t need the body (it prefers cycling with Flash of Light). Midrange decks usually don’t bother with healing for the sake of healing, the closest counterexample I can think of is Lifedrinker for Quest Shaman.

But the stats/effect are clearly potent for the cost, and there’s a lot of untapped heal synergies (and dragon synergies) for Paladin floating around, so it might find a use.

The effects are just so good, there’s no way you’re playing Galakrond but not playing this, unless you’re using like … Galakrond Rogue strictly for the Combo potential. Not much else to say!

The stats and effect are just so dang good. Springpaws and Desert Spear turn into incredible removals when you’re rocking this. For lategame, it’s a boardwipe in combination with Hounds and the like (Unstable Ghoul? lol). The only way I can imagine this not seeing play is if the meta throws Hunter into strictly Aggro archetypes.

Giving stealth is only busted when you can combo it cheaply with a snowbally card (Questing Adventurer + Conceal is the classic example). And this is super expensive. Trying to stealth your board to prevent trade-ins is just way to niche a use (by T6 just about every class has either an AoE boardwipe or is threatening lethal).

There may be some sortof “self-snowballing Mech” synergy they’re printing judging by Hot Air Balloon, that this would help with I guess, but even then it’s hard to imagine this ever working. It’s just NOT the effect you want on a 6 mana card.

This seems good? To answer it as a 1-drop your opponent needs to
1) Be on play and play a 2/1 or Flame Imp or w/e, not very common unless you’re a Murloc deck. Or: play any minion and have a hero power that can ping- common for Rogue, less so Mage and Druid
2) Be on coin and spend a cheap removal spell (or have a 0-mana removal like Zap, Pounce, or Backstab).

It sounds like a lot of answers but honestly having your 1 drop bait out the coin or a cheap removal is still pretty good. More often than not as a T1 play this will be a 1/1/3, that keeps getting health, AND has a tribal tag. And if quests and slow Galakrond plays are common, the benefit of snowballing early might get even better.

One downside is that this is worse outside of T1 than a simple 1/3, but given the number of body-centric neutral 1 drops are rotating soon (Crystalizer and Saronite Taskmaster), we’ll need this one way or another.

I really wish this worked with Swarm of Locusts – probably not, cuz Swarm fills your board, meaning this can’t activate.

We do have solid activators in Springpaw and Desert Spear. It’s also nice that this will recast with Zul’jin (and you’ll be able to reactivate it with Unleash The Beast). If you can proc it *using plays you’d make anyway*, then you can think of this as a 4/4 with rush you weaved in with just a floated mana – great tempo. But I’m still having a hard time seeing what particular deck would run this (considering all the other great cards you want to play in Hunter) but it has potential.

Any card that serves as a “board in a can” has potential. Look at The Forest’s Aid. Token decks live or die based on their ability to have more boards than the opponent has boardwipes. This is one card, one board. Or multiple boards, if you’re lucky enough! The counterargument is Onyxia, which never sees play and is arguably better than this.

I think the stats are pretty miserable. Very unlikely to survive a turn. The fact that Shu’ma is tall while the board it makes is wide helps prevent a total clear .. however even control decks will have minions onboard to trade with this (and still live).

Rated Maybe-in-Quest-Hunter-but-that’s-it out of 5

It has no benefit to Quest Druid or Token Druid. I’m not seeing this as reviving the Gonk package. (I’m also not seeing Blizzard pushing Hero-Attack Druid cards this set, since they did that so recently in RR).

So what sort of new deck would this go into? Probably none… since Quest and Tokens are already so good. There needs to be some very particular and crazy scenario where this card is an enabler for handsize or miracle or combo shenanigans. Otherwise it’s dust.

A 2/2/2 that (usually) replaces itself in hand is good… usually? You can compare that to EVIL Conscripter, Firetree Witchdoctor, and Menacing Nimbus, which are only playable if the rest of their deck already is playable. The good news is that this will always net you a meta-viable card, but it may be a synergy card or combo piece that you have no usage for.

Priest is kinda hard-up for card generation right now, but barring a return to something like Karazhan-era Midrange Dragon Priest, Anduin isn’t like Rogue or Shaman who can turn “play minions on curve that replace themselves in hand” into a win condition. We’ll probably need to see something that very specifically synergizes with card generation (e.g. Princess Talanji) before this ever sees play.

I think Galakrond Warrior will be: A) Just packaged into a Control Deck

Or B) one that works by stalling around then sticking huge Tomb Wardens/Faceless Lurker/Armegadillos (with help from attacking with your hero to kill the opponent). The problem is that that sorta deck might be too easily outvalued – versus Control Decks they’ll have plenty of removal to deal with 4 buffed minions, especially since you sacrificed playing threats due to Invoking. Galakrond’s might is a blessing and a curse along the way: Galakrond Decks by nature will be weak to aggro*, so while it will be good to have removal alongside your Invoke plays, you’ll have to use your face to do it.

* I know it’s hard to imagine a Warrior Deck that’s weak to aggro, but if you’ve tried playing Bomb Warrior since Uldum you can see that Warrior really needs to be all-in on his Hero Power and a handful of the reactive cards to make it happen.

This is not a card to try to fit into Aggro/Tempo Warrior – like C’Thun or Quests, Galakrond is designed around having “bad” early turns in exchange for better turns later. That’s not Aggro and that’s not Tempo.

Also, we haven’t seen Warrior’s “If you’ve invoked twice” OR general “Invoke” cards, so there’s gonna be more kickers to Warrior’s Galakrond package. The quality of those will make or break the Archetype.

Weird! But understandable, the way Control Warrior (and previously, Odd Paladin) could exploit a small discover pool kinda ruins the idea of the mechanic. One tiny “buff” this gives is to Power of Creation in standard – Meteorologist and Arcanosaur were MISERABLE low rolls. Toki and Reno are just eh, and those are all of the 6-cost Mage minions in standard so they showed up all the time.

I’m pretty convinced that Highlander mage needs Archmage Antonidas or somesuch to deal with control Warrior… well, I’m pretty convinced every deck needs something to deal with Control Warrior. Also I’ve found Zephrys likes to give you Tirion Fordring on T10, and the 15 damage from the Ashbringer helps a lot.

People are focusing on the new, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we see Mechathun Warrior it Big Mech Deathrattle Hunter emerge to keep Control Warrior in check, it’s very clearly emerging as the deck that the meta will revolve around.