Randomly chosen. There’s 5 possible lackeys you can get with Rise of Shadows, and more will be added to that pool in this year’s 2nd and 3rd expansions.

Yeah, lackeys are 1-mana, 1/1 minions with strong battlecry effects. They were introduced when the E.V.I.L. Miscreant card was announced a little while ago:

https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/cards/evil-miscreant/

Strong at 10 mana obviously, but if you put it in your deck you have to expect you’ll often have to play this before 10 mana. Is there space for a 4 mana 4/5 in Control Warrior? I think so. Biggest competition I see for the 4-mana slot is Spellbreaker, and you could just run both.

That said, this can get super awkward to play at 10 mana. If you have a board and your opponent doesn’t and you need to push damage, you can only play this in exchange for roasting one of your own minions- something which I’m sure combo decks will try to exploit. 4/5

This looks like it could be decent. It’s not, for the same reason you won’t see straight aggro decks with Dragon synergy. Dragon synergy requires you to have another dragon in hand. Which decks hold a lot of cards in hand and are likely to have another dragon? Control decks.

Same logic for schemes. They upgrade every turn you hold them; which decks hold cards in hand for many turns? Control decks. Leeroy and other finishers have permission to stay in hand for some turns in aggro decks, but otherwise you want bodies on the board ASAP. 1/5

Pings are versatile, and more so for Warrior with Grom and Execute; ping + lackey is fine value for 1 mana, even if getting the lackey is conditional on not killing the minion. Control Warrior could take this or leave it in favor of a tech card to hedge against specific matchups. 3/5.

Yeah, it depends on class for sure. If this was a Druid spell, I’d give it 5 stars instantly. But Priest already has some of the best removal options in the game, so this looks like a slightly better version of SW:Pain. Is it worth it to play a slightly better version of a card that isn’t played? In the case of this card, I expect the answer is yes for slower archetypes (Control / Combo), and no for faster archetypes (midrange, minion-centric decks like Dragon Priest)

Aside from Mecha’thun OTK shenanigans, this can be used to cheat out large minions like Damaged Stegotron, Mecha’thun (10/10 minion) or Mechanical Whelp. However, it’s pretty vulnerable to silence, polymorph and hex, as most ways to get a free deathrattle activation are rotating out of Standard (Play Dead, Terrorscale, Umbra). Only Fireworks tech is left.

I highly doubt Mecha’thun OTK Hunter will be viable, so the question is, is it worth it to build a Mech Hunter deck around this? Right now, I don’t think so. Maybe if this gets more support. 2/5.

Do they max out at 4? I’ve read no such thing, and assumed they scaled infinitely.

At first glance, this looks a lot worse than Pint-size Potion. The potential advantages I see are:

1. 0-mana spells always have potential in the right decks. Look at Cloning Gallery priest, spamming spells like Silence and Circle of Healing alongside Lyra, in order to upgrade a spellstone. Lyra and spellstone are going away, but you can still use this with Auctioneer in a combo deck to quickly draw your entire deck.

2. Reducing an enemy minion’s attack with this then stealing it with Cabal Shadow priest lets you get the minion at full attack value next turn. Better combo than with Twilight Acolyte IMO, since you can do this on turn 6 rather than turn 9, and it requires no Dragon synergies.

The downside, of course, is that you need to wait for this to power up, and that enemy Mountain Giant won’t just quietly wait for you to upgrade this for 5 more turns.

Overall, very strong for Control Priest, but I don’t think more proactive priest deck archetypes will be willing to hold on to this and Cabal Shadow Priest for quite so long until you can get the payoff. 4/5.

Very powerful card for a Control Shaman archetype. With this and Hagatha’s Scheme and Krag’wa, a viable Control Shaman deck starts looking plausible. I’m not certain it’ll work out in the end though, so I’ll give this 4/5.

There’s a tradeoff in Tempo for sure. And yet, current Midrange Hunter decks, with a similar low mana curve to Zoo Warlock, bring along Deathstalker Rexxar which does something very similar: Sacrifices immediate aggression in favor of lategame value. You’d think this is a terrible idea, and yet this was the best-performing deck in HCT Winter just now.

There’s a few really bad ones: Blackhowl Gunspire, Millhouse Manastorm, Nat Pagle, Harbinger Celestia, Shirvallah, Zentimo, Hir’eek. But there’s also some really good ones, as you’ll have access to legendaries from all classes. My favorite here has to be Priestess Talanji.

Still, my point stands: a random legendary minion is not great overall. But a random legendary minion after turn 7 will be a hell of a lot better than a knife juggler, on average.

The type of deck that would use this (with Pogo Hopper, as others have pointed out) would be very strong vs. Control decks, and very weak vs. Aggro and Combo decks. This sounds like a losing proposition. 2/5

I don’t think you can summon ragnaros directly, at least not in Standard format- since Ragnaros isn’t a Standard format card.
But if Rafaam gives you Jan’Alai, self-inflicted damage from your hero power can let you summon Ragnaros via Jan’Alai’s Battlecry ^^

It’s a cool effect though, great for memes and can turn games around in surprising and exciting ways. Don’t facepalm at this; remember how Genn and Baku and combo decks made Hearthstone boring in 2018 because every game played out very similarly? Well, this card will keep your games fun and fresh.

The effect is admittedly not new. It was introduced with Elise Starseeker, then added as a treasure option for Marin the Fox. The effect was cool; it just didn’t see a lot of play because activating the effect was often too cumbersome. Rafaam just triggers this effect as a Battlecry, and pairs it with a Lich King-sized body to boot. We’re going to see a LOT more random legendaries than Elise, Marin and Prince Malchezaar ever gave us, because a lot of people are gonna be playing this guy!

Spellward Jeweller isn’t meant to win you the game outright against combo decks; this is not Demonic Project. 90% of this card’s value is in the 3/4 body.

Also, the effect isn’t just against combo decks. If your opponent is just short of lethal on board, this battlecry can prevent them from finishing you off with Fireball, Eviscerate or Kill Command.

Witchwood Mascot: Hagatha. Shaman card.
Boomsday mascot: Dr. Boom. Warrior card.
Rastakhan mascot: Zul’jin. Hunter card.

The Lich King and King Togwaggle were neutral before that, but it’s not exactly unprecedented for the face of an expansion to be a class card.

Super strong card. Insanely good stats, can transition an aggro warlock deck into a more value-oriented game plan, and in a control mirror it can turn a bunch of useless tech cards and removal into more useful minion cards.

For those who think this is bad: Yes, of course Zoo Warlock doesn’t put cards like Alexstrazsa or Hogger into their deck, because they’re dead in your hand for many turns while a turn 1 Flame Imp is great. What makes Rafaam here good, is that a turn 8 Flame Imp is NOT good; it’s rather the opposite. Random Legendaries are terrible if you draw them on turn 1 or 2 or 3, but this guy makes it so that your turn 8 Voodoo Doctor turns into a turn 8 Gruul. Not the ideal 8-drop, but a hell of a lot better on turn 8 than Voodoo Doctor. 5/5.

Turn 9 Preparation + Myra’s Unstable Element + Chef Nomi is legit super scary. Don’t see this working in any other deck though. 3/5

No good in Tempo Rogue IMO, because… this is poor tempo. No immediate board impact, and a poor body for an aggressive deck. Also, the 3-mana slot is pretty saturated with Van Cleef, SI:7 Agent and Hench-Clan Thug. Also no good for Pirate Rogue.

Maybe this is good for slower Rogue decks, but it doesn’t seem to be a good fit for Deathrattle Rogue either… I dunno, I just can’t think of any deck archetype that would be happy to include this. 2/5.