Onyxia's Lair, Fractured in Alterac Valley's mini set, is going be live very soon, and we're just done with one of the tightest reveal season ever!
Now that we're able to have a look at all the cards, we can see that this mini set has some recurring themes shared by multiple classes:
- Dragons - After more than two years since Descent of Dragons went live, we're receiving another Dragon-focused card release.
- Black Dragon Callbacks - A four-card cycle featuring the most (in)famous Black Dragons in Hearthstone.
- Callback Cards - Onyxia's Lair's Mini-Set features cards with mechanics belonging to Forged in the Barrens and United in Stormwind.
Now, remember that, as usual, Onyxia's Lair will be purchasable with 2000 Gold or cash ($14.99 for the whole thing). This time around there's an additional bundle for our whale readers out there: in fact, for the moderate sum of $69.99 you'll be able to purchase the entire mini-set in Golden cards!
Quote From Blizzard Things are heating back up after the cold of Alterac Valley! Enter Onyxia’s Lair in the Fractured in Alterac Valley Mini-Set, coming February 15! After a year of growth, our heroes are max level and ready to raid with these 35 new cards. Get them in Fractured in Alterac Valley packs, or get the entire 66-card Mini-Set* for $14.99 or 2000 Gold. For the first time ever, we are also offering the option to buy an all-Golden set of all 66 Mini-Set cards for $69.99!
Now let's see what we can expect from the Demon Hunter, Druid and Hunter cards that Onyxia's Lair will bring to the game. Have a good read!
In case you missed it, a few days ago we published our Fractured in Alterac Valley mini-set prediction article - how well do you think we did?
Demon Hunter
Probably one of the least exciting cards of the mini-set, but you know what? The card's good. In the entire Hearthstone history there isn't a single occurrence in which players passed on a 1 mana 2/2: Alleycat and Wolpertinger are clear examples.
Of course, Wings of Hate (Rank 1) wants to be played as soon as possible in order to capitalize on the sheer stats it provides, but even its Rank 2 form is more than playable.
This Ranked spell encourages an aggressive playstyle, which Demon Hunter hasn't experienced in quite a while, but at the same time it has really strong synergy with Ur'zul Giant. Aggro Token DH meta incoming? One part of me hopes it.
Demon Hunter's version of Field Contact. Although the Year of the Gryphon wasn't too hot on Outcast synergy, with the right setup Razorglaive Sentinel can easily draw a bunch of cards from your deck, especially with the help of discount synergies like Final Showdown, Sigil of Alacrity and Skull of Gul'dan.
You'd obviously need something to draw into, but we think Illidan won't regret having this card available in the future. We see potential.
This is basically a Duels' Warmaster's Frenzy, except you only get to play it at best twice per game. Honestly, Keen Reflex appears to us as an out of place card:
- it has no Fel synergy, which is currently what the class is about.
- Differently from other cards like Cycle of Hatred, Keen Reflex wants you to exactly kill the minions for you to get the bonus Attack.
- Therefore, the spicy Talented Arcanist is unfortunately out of question.
We see Keen Reflex being played post-rotation (when Immolation Aura and Felscream Blast will rotate) if Demon Hunter will desperately need board clears, but other than that... we're not very sold on it.
Druid
This is the kind of card that makes you want to play Pride Seeker and, as we'll see in a bit, Raid Negotiator. We obviously struggle to see Boomkin being played in a non-Choose One dedicated deck (or at least in a non-spell heavy list, which is currently what Druid's jam is nowadays), but if this condition is going to be met in the future, then Boomkin will give Malfurion much flexibility, and Hearthstone decks do not despite that. All in all, a promising, but also a "we'll see" card.
Worth noting is that Boomkin is worded in a way that benefits you from Discovering it with Raid Negotiator.
After Alterac Valley's Pathmaker and Pride Seeker, here we are with another synergistic Choose One card, which appears to be one of the themes Druid will vibe with in the future. Let us be clear: right now we struggle to see even the basics for Choose One to be at the very least a package inside a bigger archetype, but all these support cards are really good, and we feel like Druid only needs a couple good Choose One spells for all this theme to be actually viable, and it has been confirmed that more is to come!
As for the unit itself, Choose One cards are balanced around players being forced to pick only one of the effects, and Raid Negotiator gives you a one-time exception to the rule, as if you temporarily had Ossirian Tear online. The stats are slightly below average, but the card isn't particularly expensive, so it won't require you much to have a decent follow-up turn.
So, this spell is quite controversial to us. On one hand, it's 14/7 on stats with Rush and for just 7 mana, which isn't a bad deal; moreover, Druid is always in desperate need of board clear, and this is as good as it gets: you can always ramp some mana and play it ahead of time.
On the other hand, what does Druid ramp and remove for? What strategy would want to run Scale of Onyxia? With the upcoming rotation, Druid will lose almost all its late-game tools, with Token and Beast Druid as the only archetype that will survive Ashes of Outland, Scholomance Academy and Madness at the Darkmoon Faire rotating.
All in all, we're not too hot on Scale of Onyxia: while it may see some play right now, we think it will be support-dependent in the future, which doesn't makes particularly excite us. We'd be happy to be wrong tough.
Hunter
Defend the Dwarven District support and a possible (yet very expensive and situational) board clear for Hunter. Considered by itself, Dragonbane Shot is a more expensive Arcane Shot, but its replayability is obviously what makes this spell special. Consider that Hunter has different ways for you to put enemy minions in Honorable Kill range, such as Wound Prey, Kolkar Pack Runner and a decently wide set of weapons.
We also see Dragonbane Shot as an attempt from Team 5 to move away Hunter's design from the "Face" synergies the class received in the last few years - nice!
Guardian Animals is a Druid-Hunter spell, but despite that it has started to see play in the latter just recently, and that is thanks to other late-game value bombs like Wing Commander Ichman and Vanndar Stormpike's mana-cheat. If you remember, the reason was that 8 mana is a lot for an aggressive class like Hunter, and Pet Collector goes to solve that problem. At the cost of halving Guardian Animals' effect and giving up Rush, this new unit allows you to Recruit from your deck much, much earlier.
Trampling Rhino and Teacher's Pet are two very good targets, which unfortunately are going to rotate relatively soon, but even in that case you'll be left with Imported Tarantula and The Rat King - very good targets.
Obviously, Pet Collector forces you to not run small Beasts, but we do see it being tried out in the current Beast Hunter and even after the next rotation - a very good minion a lot of people are embarrassingly sleeping on!
If with Dragonbane Shot we can see Team 5's attempt at moving away from Face Hunter, the same cannot be said about Furious Howl. It's basically a one-time Voracious Reader that procs at will and not at the end of the turn, and we all know how good Reader was at 2 mana.
In order to empty its hand quickly, the current Face Hunter lists will have to lower their curve, but u/Xaedral on r/CompetitiveHS has a good point when they say that "with Quick Shot this might be the renewal Hunter decks sporting an extremely low mana curve: a style that we haven't seen in a few years (Classic style). Might happen after rotation, who knows." We're a bit scared of this take, but interested at the same time.
On a final note, we can see Furious Howl being played in Questline Hunter too, given that the archetype runs out of gas fairly quickly.
What do you think about these cards? Are there any you're excited to play with? Let us know in the comments below!
Comments
I really think people are overestimating Furious Howl in Face Hunter. Running a curve that low means all the good stuff that currently allows Face Hunter to actually scale into the midgame (mainly Rhino, but also Wrangler) needs to be cut and you entirely rely on cheesing the first few turns with stuff like Trogg + buffs (and Adorable Infestation, Augmerchant and Intrepid Initiate are all rotating soon). At that point you're basically playing Shadow Priest and fold to any singular boardclear.
If that archetype ever materializes it'll be hard carried by Trogg...and then Trogg will probably get nerfed again and the whole thing falls apart.
Predictions about what will happen to a given archetype after the annual rotation are seldom accurate.
It has to be said that Trampling Rhino will rotate in a couple months, and with it Rinling's Rifle, which are two of the most expensive cards Face Hunter currently runs.
Moreover, I doubt that Warsong Wrangler will be very hot in Face Hunter once Rhino rotates, unless we're missing some crucial information.
fair enough, but there's still an entire new expansion coming as well and that already hits a bunch of current Face Hunter cards so who knows if the deck is even viable afterwards.