Hey I'm Griffior, I've played since Naxx so that automatically gives me the credibility that I know what I'm talking about. I saw the reveal while I was at work and have been trying to figure out where these guys fit in. FYI I'll be calling the SoU Explorers the New Explorers so there's no confusion.

So we're going to look at the cards one by one to kind of figure out where they fit right now, and where they could fit into a future deck..... Even though we only have like what? 15 cards revealed thus far?

Let's start with the Big Boi Reno the Relicologist. So right off the bat we can we can see that it's automatically a move away from Cyclone mage, which is a good thing. That deck is strong enough as it is and doesn't honestly need any more help.... So where else does Reno fit in? So if we look at him, it's 10 damage randomly split among enemy MINIONS. This is obviously in flavor of the "hero coming in and killing the evil Lackeys", it's that obvious. Sure it's good against aggro and maybe some mid-range decks, but on its own, on an empty board, it's just a 6 mana 4/6 that just makes you play a restricted deck. I mean LoE Reno at least healed you if you absolutely had to play him for some tempo, but SoU Reno? Nu-uh. I honestly would have preferred equipping the Gatling-Wand with some random effects associated with whatever color wand was being used that turn. And the Mage quest doesn't really help out either so I only see Reno being played in decks that are already good on their own when there are no duplicates remaining in the deck.

Now onto the most niche of the New Explorers, Elise the Enlightened. As I said, this card is very niche, most likely for some kind of OTK/TTK. But hey, someone already found the niche in which she belongs: https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/cey0ht/apm_time/ If anything the only other place I can find a home for her is towards the late game combo'ed with The Forest's Aid. There's also an infinite combo with Barista Lynchen so there could be a possibility for a Fatigue Druid, but with Highlander it would be near impossible to pull off. But I'd like to see it in HS eSports.

Dinotamer Brann makes me scratch my head the most. Objectively, it's more powerful than a vanilla King Krush because of the extra body that is Brann. But again, it's at the cost of not having duplicates in your deck. We saw this effect of a legendary card summoning another, older legendary card with Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk, it's a nice theme but it's starting to seem that they are just recycling older cards instead of actually making new, unique ones. I hope it's a trend that doesn't stick around. I don't know if Mech Hunter could use this, I haven't played it enough to honestly say it can afford to cut duplicates, but hey someone out there will try it. I'm also not sure if any Hunter deck would make the sacrifice of not having duplicates, but only time will tell.

I'm glad they kept the theme of Sir Finley alive with his battlecry, but just like in LoE, his ability is just a polarizing. Sir Finley of the Sands has the potential to high-roll a paladin into an easy victory, or just straight up make it more difficult for either player of the match. It won't be as polarizing as Baku the Mooneater because you actually have to draw AND play him in order to gain the benefit of an upgraded hero power. On top of that it won't always be an upgraded paladin hero power, and depending on the scenario and how the game is going, chances are that the player won't find the hero power they are looking for. Side note: Do we want to play Finley in the same deck as the new Paladin quest? Or are they aiming for two paladin deck archtypes with this expansion?

What leads me to believe that the cards are even more niche than they already are, is that highlander deck format are not getting support outside of the legendary minions themselves: https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/ceyyv1/confirmed_by_liv_bredeen_no_other_highlander/ When I look back at Reno Jackson, Kazakus, Inkmaster Solia, Raza the Chained, and Krul the Unshackled, they were all pretty powerful on their own at the time (you couldn't tell because of fucking Jade Druid). The New Explorers (except for Brann, kind of) don't have that big swing of power that the old Highlander cards had. Elise is the only one that could set up a massive combo but it seems so niche and hard to pull off that it's almost not worth it.

Right now Bomb Warrior is a thing that's going to be around for at least 8 months after Saviors of Uldum launches I bring this up because: https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/ceyzrt/bomb_warrior_probably_relevant_still_because_of/

So tell me what you all think on what I've elaborated on, maybe you can add to this conversation.

Edit 1: Apparently Blizzard still has one more Highlander card to show off. It's a neutral: https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveHS/comments/cewzfg/saviors_of_uldum_card_reveal_discussion_thread/eu63bhg Still probably not going to be good enough IMO.

Edit 2: Well, Making Mummies just got announced so I guess they are giving paladin some options for this meta.