Not gonna lie, I love me some Brian Kibler. Definitely gonna watch this ^^

Didn’t you hear? Priest isn’t getting any cards this expansion, Uldum is all about ruins and vast ancient powers, and the priest class identity isn’t compatible with powerful cards.

Just kidding man, the priest cards will come soon enough, just have a little patience and faith in the Holy Light 🙂

Pros: This card offers great value over time. You play it, then you attack for 4, if you went face it needs to be removed, then you get to attack for 4 again next turn. It takes 3 total turns, but 8 damage for 5 mana is very mana efficient. Then there’s also the combo with the Paladin quest hero power.

Cons: It’s very slow and has no immediate board impact, which makes it poor vs. aggro decks. Going infinite with this and the Paladin quest hero power sounds great vs. control decks, but any 2-damage AoE effect will disrupt it.

Stealth is a cool mechanic, but there’s a variety of decently-statted stealth minions that never see play- Worgen Infiltrator, Jungle Panther, Stranglethorn Tiger- so it’s not enough by itself. Maybe this makes the cut in quest paladin decks, but I don’t think anyone else wants it. If you like the prospect of dealing 8 face damage with this for 5 mana on a minion that’s hard to deal with because of stealth, cards like Arcanite Reaper will deal more damage, faster, for the same mana cost while being even harder to disrupt. 2/5

Is it actually better to copy Tirion over Wasteland Assassin? Your 6/6 Tirion gets killed and you get Ashbringer, then the 2/2 Tirion gets killed and the new Ashbringer replaces the old one. I think Wasteland Assassin is a better target for the Pally quest hero power. Wasteland Assassin vs. Zilliax is closer, maybe you need the Zilliax for the immediate board impact and the lifesteal, but Wasteland Assassin is the better option if you’re not in danger.

Pally quest hero powers on Mechanical Whelp and Mechano Egg do provide more power than on Wasteland Assassin, but I do think the threat of going infinite with Wasteland Assassin if your opponent doesn’t have AoE clears for it could be valuable.

A lot of Stonehill Defender’s value was in it being a Neutral card, Frightened Flunky being Warrior-only significantly detracts from its power. This is an auto-include card in any Taunt Warrior decklist, but if that archetype flops then this card might not see any play. 4/5

It’s a consequence of the Hearthstone class identities, and the classes they were based on from World of Warcraft. In WoW, Warrior, Paladin, Shaman, Druid and Priest could either have an offensive role (DPS) or a defensive role (either Tank or Healer), whereas Rogue, Hunter, Mage and Warlock only had access to the offensive role.

In Hearthstone, this translates into Rogue, Hunter, Mage and Warlock excelling at aggro and midrange strategies, while being poor at control strategies because they’re no good at playing defense. This hasn’t always been true in practice (see: Reno Mage, Reno Warlock, Frost Lich Jaina, Bloodreaver Gul’dan), but as you see, the devs are now trying to stick closer to the class identities going forward. Of those 4, Warlock looks closest to having a functional control deck, but it might be a long time until we see a good Control deck for Hunter, Rogue or Mage.

I hear ya. Loved me some big spell mage as well. To be honest, I’m not sure we’ll have anything like that again; the Hearthstone class identities are based on the same classes from World of Warcraft, and in WoW, there are 4 mono-role classes: Rogue, Hunter, Mage and Warlock couldn’t tank and couldn’t heal, they could only deal damage. In Hearthstone, that translates into classes that need an aggressive game plan to win, they’re no good at playing defense.

Frost Lich Jaina and Arcane Artificer flew in the face of that, but with the devs making an effort to keep new cards more closely aligned with their class theme, I’m not sure Control Mage will ever be a thing again.

The effect is worse than that of Deadly Shot (also kills a random minion, but you control when the effect goes off) but better than that of Vaporize (instead of killing a random minion, your opponent chooses which minion dies).

I think there’s a lot of room to be worse than Deadly Shot and still be good, especially when this costs less mana than deadly shot and has Secret synergies with cards like Masked Contender, Eaglehorn Bow, Secretkeeper, Sunreaver Spy and Subject 9.

Secret Hunter is already a top tier deck even though it runs bad cards like Snipe, I think the archetype will welcome Pressure Plate with open arms. 4/5

I’m not sure what the win condition for Taunt Warrior is. Control Warrior aims to kill you with fatigue damage, and gets there with a powerful removal suite plus Dr. Boom Mad Genius giving all mechs rush to assert board control. Bomb Warrior kills you with bombs plus Blastmaster Boom, whose Boom Bots deal 15 total damage on average.

Do you play for fatigue as well with Taunt Warrior? I don’t think handbuffing taunts will be as effective as having a bunch of mechs with Rush. Is Taunt Warrior an aggressive or midrange tempo deck? That might be good vs. aggro, but I imagine it would struggle badly vs. Control.

Absent a coherent game plan for winning the game, I don’t think you can make a good deck by dropping some large taunt minions on the board and hoping for the best, this needs more support. 2/5

A 4-drop with decent stats that can summon multiple 3-drops sounds good to me. You don’t even need to build synergies around this, a deck that fights for the board like zoo can just play this on curve as a minion that demands immediate removal, and if it doesn’t get removed then you can get a bunch of free 3-drops next turn with Flame Imp + Hero Power.

I think this is a much better fit for zoo than it is for slower decks. 4/5

I like this for a board-centric, tempo priest deck. It has a direct synergy with Injured Blademaster and Damaged Stegotron, but also with Hench-Clan Shadequill: you can use Shadequill to trade and then this guy to heal it up, or you can attack face with Shadequill then follow up with Auchenai Phantasm + Neferset Ritualist to kill your Shadequill for extra burst damage.

This guy also plays well with Extra Arms, since value trading with big minions and then healing them up is pretty good, and Northshire Cleric likes him since you can heal her for card draw and simultaneously develop your board, all for 2 mana.

None of this will turn the game on its head, they’re just small bonuses and synergies and this guy will oftentimes just be a turn 2 River Crocolisk, but I think he can be a solid role-player for Priest. 3/5

I think Emeriss’ greatest sin was being a Hunter card, there’s no way Hunter can afford to play a 10-mana card with no immediate board impact. Anubisath Warbringer’s greatest advantage over Emeriss is being a neutral card.

Ok, now this is a card that Deathrattle Rogue can work with. Anka the Buried turns this into a 1/1 that costs 1, then you play it and combo it with Necrium Vial. Next turn, you run the Anubisath Warbringer into something for a +9/+9 final handbuff bonus you can take advantage of on turn 7. It’s a really powerful combo, but I don’t know what Deathrattle Rogue even does if they don’t draw Anka in their first 15 cards, since this minion is a dead draw without her.

Mana cost on this is too high for Priest to copy it with Shadowy Figure, but it does have synergy with Coffin Crasher and Zerek’s Cloning Gallery, so maybe it’s good on Priest. You never want to play this from your hand for 9 mana, but I think either Rogue or Priest can make it work. 3/5

I can easily see this card winning games against most if not all disconnected opponents. The only real weakness I can see, is that you’ll have a rough time winning against opponents who play cards. 1/5

Can only get collectible cards as possible outcomes. If you play conjurer’s calling on a Half-time Scavenger, it’s impossible to get a 7/6 Emerald Drake that can only be generated by Ysera.

If it’s not a card that can be added to a deck in the Collection Manager, then it’s not a collectible card and it’s not a valid result for effects that give you random minions / spells / whatever.

After Control Mage fell flat on its face in Rise of Shadows, there’s a little extra support here in Tortollan Pilgrim. Sadly, it’s not what the Control Mage archetype needs. You can have a sick turn 8 with the help of this card, but by that time you’ll have 2 health remaining and the enemy Rexxar will finish you off with his hero power and say Thanks.

This card could be good, but it needs a viable Control Mage shell to go into, and that in turn requires better anti-aggro tools. 3/5

When Sunreaver Warmage was announced, I rated it 5/5. Given the amount of play it saw, I now think that rating was a mistake. I still think that card has potential, but I don’t think a card can be top tier if no one wants it in their deck.

Cards don’t exist in a vacuum; when the 2017 sets rotated out of Standard, for instance, Mecha’thun got a lot weaker- the card itself remains unchanged, but what was an excellent card in the Year of the Raven is now mostly irrelevant in the Year of the Dragon.

If Secret Mage becomes a strong deck, then Cloud Prince will be the rockstar in that party. If Secret Mage flops, then Cloud Prince will be as relevant as Magma Rager.

Ability is not strong enough to make up for its weak body. Maybe if we saw some 0-mana combo cards this could be good, but until then this is not a good card. 2/5

Not a bad card, but why would anyone play this over Waggle Pick? At best, I could see a Raiding Party Rogue want one or two of these on top of two Waggle Picks. 3/5

The combo with Nightmare Amalgam is strong. Outside of that, this card is fairly weak and needs more support. 2/5