With the new expansion this evening I thought now would be a good time to offer a few words of wisdom regarding deckbuilding in a new expansion meta. I'm sure to some of you this will all be old news - but I see the same mistakes repeated often enough during the first week of an expansion that I feel a reminder is warranted.
I should add, to be clear - I am not a big deckbuilder. What I am, however, is a deck critic. I may not be able to put together a high legend decklist from scratch, but I can certainly look at a decklist that already exists and tell you what's wrong with it! I will also add that this advice is intended only for people who actively want to win games on ladder during this period - if you're more interested in building a fun list than a good one, by all means, go for it. I won't tell you it's wrong to build a fun list and have fun with it - I will, however, tell you it's wrong to build a 'for fun' list and expect it to win. For my own amusement, I'm going to include a 'that guy' for every point. Remember - don't be that guy.
1. If you want to rise, play aggro. Early control lists tend to be phenomenally greedy as people try to pack in all the shiny new win-more legendaries they got. They skimp on both early board pressure and AoE. If you care more about winning games than about checking out new cards, lean towards aggressive archetypes - not only do these punish deckbuilding mistakes more reliably than other archetypes, they're also a lot harder to screw up! That means if you do want to try out new cards, you can - and if you do it inside an aggro shell you're less likely to lose games because of it. That guy - jams ten 8+ cost cards into one deck and plays one of them per game at most.
2. Don't be greedy. If you are playing control, don't fall into that trap. Pay due respect to the aggressive lists that will be floating around. Don't just throw in a couple of AoE clears and decide that's good enough - if a single on-curve board clear was enough to shut out aggro decks they'd never be played. Even if you've got a control deck, look to be contesting the board as early as turn 1 or 2, bring targeted removal (or weapons) as well as AoE, and only include as many late-game finishers as you'd reasonably need. That guy - builds a mage list with two cards of <5 mana cost and a single flamestrike as AoE. Then whines on every forum he can find about how aggro is stupid and takes no skill.
3. Alternatively, be greedy. If you really want to run a greed list - and let's be honest, who hasn't been tempted when a new expansion drops and there's a bunch of cool high-cost legendaries - then go all out. There's no point including two anti-aggro cards in an otherwise heavily greedy list, because they're never going to be enough to do the job. If you're going greed, go FULL greed and ensure no control deck you meet can even hope to match your value. That guy - includes a tiny amount of anti-aggro in a horribly greedy list, then complains about losing to other greed decks because they'd just lose to aggro. Also loses to aggro; doesn't see the irony in this. If I'm going to be a 'that guy', this is probably the one I'll wind up as.
4. Identify your win condition. I see a lot of post-expansion decks that basically amount to jamming a bunch of new cards into a box and hoping you wind up winning somehow. Unfortunately, that's not really how card games work these days. You will need to know what your win condition is - whether it's aggression, direct damage, tempo, value - and be working towards it as early as the deckbuilding stage. With each card you add, challenge yourself to identify how it's working towards your win condition - and, if you want to win games, don't accept 'because it's so cool' as an answer. In particular, be careful of trying to 'do it all' - don't add cards 'just in case' if they're not furthering your game plan in some way. To give a classic example - I saw a lot of people putting Elysiana in their lists at the start of her expansion, presumably 'just in case it goes to fatigue' - despite their game plan not being value-oriented at all. That guy - has what amounts to 20 tech cards in a 30 card list. Complains about his awful luck because his topdecks are always so bad.
5. Avoid tech cards. Tech cards are for targeting something you're expecting to face a lot of, or for swinging close matchups. Neither is something you can realistically evaluate at this stage with any real reliability. Instead, build a generalist list, but identify 1-4 cards that you can easily flex into tech choices as you get a feel for what you're seeing a lot of. Alternatively, if you want my guess - Dragonmaw Poacher is the obvious one due to all the dragons floating around. The next level, however, is to also tech Big Game Hunter as the on-curve counter to an on-curve Poacher. I strongly suspect anti-weapon tech will be valuable due to Pirate and Warrior both being favoured, as well as Galakrond's fully invoked 5/2. But realistically I'm just taking educated guesses - because that's all you can do right now. That guy - insists on including double Hungry Crab in every list he makes because he hates Murlocs. Last saw a Murloc in-game before the Wild cards rotated in.
6. Think probabilities. Remember that very few games will see you draw your entire deck, and a sizeable percentage won't even make it to turn 10. If your deck requires you to draw certain cards - the most obvious current example being Invokers - include more copies than you're going to need, to ensure you draw the required number. If your deck relies heavily on specific cards, include tutors for those cards. If you're building a combo deck, include a LOT of card draw - preferably low cost card draw, as the longer it takes you to assemble your combo the more likely you are to run out of resources. That guy - puts two copies of Corrupt Elementalist in his Galakrond Shaman list, with no other Invokers. Complains about never having a fully Invoked Galakrond. Alternatively, runs exactly 25 mana of Paladin spells alongside Shirvallah.
Well, Mage hero power isn't really in-point given that it can't target Chimaera. I would also argue Rogue hero power is fairly irrelevant as a tech card choice as there's no current Rogue deck that focusses on large minions, nor anything in the expansion that really points towards it.
Druid is a weakness of Chimaera over Gastropod, I agree - but equally, Chimaera is proof against any small targeted removal. As to 1/1 chaff, that's true of any small anti-large tech (Gastropod dies to Springpaw almost as easily as anything else, albeit at the expenditure of one more resource).
None of which is really the point I'm trying to get at, though. The point I was trying to make was that this isn't a Pit Snake because it's specifically a harder-to-remove Poisonous minion in the same way Gastropod was. The decks you'd tech this in to fight are ones that aren't going to be running much in the way of 1/1 chaff, and - Druid hero power notwithstanding - will usually deal with on-board threats with targeted removal, trades or expensive AoE.
AoE is usually going to be the last resort (a deck revolving around big minions will prioritise board-clears to stabilise the early game over low-grade AoE in most cases, making it a disproportionate use of resource). Trades are unlikely due to the poisonous tag. Therefore, being proof against targeted removal is a much bigger boon than it seems, in my opinion. In any matchup you're specifically teching for, Chimaera is substantially more likely to consume a valuable resource than a non-valuable one because of the untargetable effect.
While (as always) there's a fair bit I disagree with here, the main point I want to bring out is the Evasive Chimaera review comparing it to Pit Snake. While I see the logic in that comparison given the statline, I think a better comparison would be with Stubborn Gastropod given the mana cost and (more importantly) neutral tag. Gastropod saw some niche play when the meta was shifting towards a 'big stuff' position, and I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the same of Chimaera here. Pit Snake saw no play less because of its statline, and more because it was sat in Rogue - a class with decent single-target removal and a lot of options at the bottom end.
To be clear, I'm not saying it will see play right away, nor that it will be played heavily, I'm just saying it shouldn't be written off as a tech card depending on the meta.
The actual impact on gameplay is kinda irrelevant for changes like this. You can call it good or bad, but realistically it's only going to have fringe impact for now outside of Wild (where it'll matter primarily because Devolve remains a strong pseudo-removal tool for Shaman).
What actually matters is whether it increases clarity, consistency and intuitive...ness (not a word, but....). This is a design change, not a balance one, and should be considered accordingly. So, does it make sense to a relatively uninformed player that things work this way rather than the old way?
Personally, I'd say that yes, this does make things more intuitive. Any kind of evolve effect says, at its core, 'replace these minions with other ones' to an uninformed player. It is entirely logical to expect that evolving (or devolving) a minion should always do that, irrespective of whether they're at a specific mana threshold. Furthermore, to be able to evaluate what can and can't be evolved/devolved would require a player to have a strong working knowledge of high-cost cards - given Mountain Giant's base cost, for example, it's not entirely unreasonable for an uninformed player to expect there to be something at a higher cost, even if they don't know what it is.
So, yes, I'm in favour. Though I do have to question... why now?
I... um... Hm. I have no idea how to really value either of these cards.
Faceless Corruptor: Very much feels like a value-trade card. Take an on-board trade, then drop this, transform the crippled minion and double trade. The trouble is... Priest does not exactly lack for AoE, particularly not in this mana range. Sure, they're not as aggressive than this is, but they're a hell of a lot more aggressive. I can only see this being desirable if Priest spontaneously manifests a tempo-oriented deck with the expansion - certainly possible, but I don't see it happening.
Though I will laugh the first time I see someone Corrupt an Albatross and get lethal with it.
Murozond: As I noted in a reply to a pre-existing comment, in support of someone who already posted - comparisons to Tess Greymane are foolhardy. One requires you to build an entire deck around her, the other is a specific mirror of a turn (with some bits missing or randomised). I really have no way of judging the card right now as by its very nature its playability will heavily depend on what the meta looks like post-expansion. However, I can definitely see this being played as a value counter-drop if fat-arsed Dragon decks are rampant.
I personally enjoy Wild on occasion, usually when Standard starts to make me irritable. There are certain decks there, such as Renolock, which can still answer all of the ridiculousness that gets quoted while playing relatively fair. There are others, like Mech'thun Warlock, which can beat the fotm BS decks on average, and that always makes me smile.
There are three factors, though, which probably push me to Wild more regularly than I otherwise would visit:
1. Some of the relative evergreen decks are ones I loved at the time (Renolock being a good one), and it's always nice to be able to revisit an old friend.
2. The average skill level of players in Wild is lower, as well as occasionally coming across someone who blatantly doesn't play Wild much. Which sounds ridiculous - what is life without challenge, after all - but when I've hit a bad patch in Standard it's nice to be able to unwind with a relaxation of requirements.
3. The actual skill requirements of Wild are actually higher than in Standard, players notwithstanding. I'm aware that this statement is going to get some knee-jerk reactions, but hear me out. I accept that the average Wild player is worse than the average Standard one - see point 2 above. However, there is actually a much larger pool of viable decks in Wild than there is in Standard, and has been for a long time. If you play between 5-legend in Standard, you'll see maybe 5 archetypes in 30 games, if you're lucky. You'll see twice that in Wild, if not more. Yes, you'll still see the 'big' decks very often - but there's plenty of stuff which isn't central to the meta that can still take wins with a good pilot.
This, in turn, means that to succeed in Wild requires a breadth of knowledge and understanding of a lot more decks than in Standard. You also need to take a lot more into account when planning for random variables.
Example - in the run-up to the Wild open last year, I played against Zananananan four times in a row (this was before they put measures in place to prevent that). First game, he creamed me with a Mech'thun variant. Second game, I swapped to Evenlock (which I was confident could put out enough pressure to reliably get the win). Third game, he in turn swapped to an APM Priest variant and creamed me. Fourth, he did so again. At that point I may have gotten annoyed and stopped playing, but that's not the point...
The point is that if you looked at the various meta reports at that time, neither Mech'thun druid nor APM Priest were even listed. But they were strong enough to take wins off what was, at that time, one of the strongest decks in the Wild meta. And we're not talking lower ranks, either - this was around 150 Legend, and Zananananan is, to my understanding at least, a professional (I, quite decidedly, am not and couldn't compete with him).
Anyway. That's why I personally enjoy Wild. The above notwithstanding, however, I also fully appreciate that it's not for everyone. I can be frustrated with it sometimes too. All I can say is - if you're not enjoying it, don't play it?
I share Inconspicuosaurus' frustration here. And for the record, Murozond really isn't a worse Tess. Its effect is weaker, that's definitely the case. But on the other hand, you didn't have to fill your entire deck with random-generation garbage just to make it do something. Spells notwithstanding, you have a solid idea of what you'll get when you play it, and you can hold it until you need it or see a good opening.
Feels really underwhelming to me. It's not going to reliably clear an early board or a big minion. Hell, I'd be down on it even if it was enemy-targets only. Won't see play, Warlock has too many evergreen AoEs to be worth maindecking this.
What this card really needs is for its battlecry to also destroy a targeted Dragon, and to be a crab.
But seriously...
This card intrigues me because it feels like T5 actively trying to prevent people from going all-in on Dragons. It obviously won't entirely stop them, because no card will do that, but it is extremely punishing to run midrange Dragons to be dropped on curve only to see them swept. My immediate question is whether there's an efficient tech-to-the-tech - my first thought was BGH directly into this played on curve would result in a net positive trade, but I think not a big enough one to be worthwhile.
Resounding 'meh' from me. Penalty isn't big enough to be all that punishing, nor are there any hero powers in Standard that are overly threatening. The only way I can see this card seeing constructed play is in Wild as an Odd-Rogue tech to disrupt other Odd Rogues - and even then, existing techs are probably more effective, albeit less universally splashable.
A little curious why you're asking 'do you know' when my original post went into that area in significantly more detail than you did, but for the sake of clarity I'll explain further:
Yes, you can go through building a deck tuned for that specific mana timing. You can treat 1-drops as 2, 2-drops as 3. The trouble with that, as I was setting out in my original post, is that a) a solid 35% of the time you won't be drawing this card in the first half of your deck, if at all, meaning that's fully a third of your games in which you're running an out-of-kilter curve (and probably some inefficient minions that you added to try to capitalise on the raw stat boost.
In other games, you'll draw both copies. At which point, either one is dead, or you've broken your deck design again because your curve changed from what you expected it to be.
Now, as I laid out above, that problem isn't entirely unsurmountable. There are, no doubt, builds which will optimise a one-copy draw while remaining balanced enough to function with a 0- and 2-copy draw. But those builds will take time to find, and further time to refine. And even after that's done, I don't expect these decks to be particularly oppressive because of the significant downsides to what you're doing.
The comparison to Keleseth is a phenomenally unhelpful one, by the way, which I'm disappointed the community has latched onto for some reason. Keleseth required very little in the way of deck modification - drop the 2s, add in a couple more 1s and 3s to ensure early curve, you're good. And past turn 2-3, having no other 2-drops had very little impact on your game plan. That is not the case here. With this card, you are having to tailor your entire deck to function properly with a fluctuating curve, and you are under the negative effect of +1 costed minions for the entire game after playing it. The positive effect is greater, yes, but it's not the fire-and-forget that Keleseth was. Surrender to Madness is a far more apt comparison - and while this card is significantly stronger than that was, that doesn't make it good.
Edit: Forgot to mention one point which you raised in your post - the idea that this card would make 'zoo' archetypes (which are pretty unseen in Druid, by the way, as it either focusses on more of a token setup-burst build or a slower survival-token one, but that's by the way). This thought is wholly incorrect. Zoo as an archetype exists and works through early consistency, value and tempo. This card helps with value, while actively hurting both consistency and tempo. Running it in a zoo build would be an atrociously bad idea.
Meh. I don't see it working - treant decks have consistently failed to perform since they were first posited, and a single legendary (albeit a great one for the archetype) isn't going to change that. Even dropped on curve it's coming in later than a treant deck wants to spike (they really want to be at a positive or neutral boardstate going into their turn 8, which this card really doesn't push for).
I'm not counting the additional spell in the above analysis, primarily because it doesn't look good for a treant deck to me (amusingly). I -guess- it's a 1-drop that has some form of value to you later on, but... Eh. I suppose if I'm trying to find a reason to like it with that archetype, I'd note that an extra-cheap Treant is a good activator for other Treant synergy cards.
Note, however, that both these cards also have synergy with the Token Druid variant that died out about halfway through last expansion. You skip a lot of the Treant synergy, but when you've got a longer-term board-centric game plan I guess having your Forest's Aid arrive with a POTW already on it is worth a lot on its own.
P.S. I actually started doubting myself halfway through writing this. Maybe the legendary IS enough to salvage a functional archetype. I... really don't think it will, but I guess we'll see.
SLima finally posts what I was thinking the second I saw this card, after more than a page of comments thinking this card will be busted...
This card is not particularly powerful if you're playing anywhere above rank 10 with decks that actually have a game plan beyond 'put stuff on the board I guess'. The keys to a HS deck are, in almost all cases, a) synergy, b) combinations, and c) game plan. If all your cards cost (1) more, suddenly all three of those get a whole lot harder. Synergy is more difficult to exploit when it's harder to get minions out quickly. Combinations become prohibitively expensive or stop working entirely. And it's much more difficult to have a game plan when you have to build your deck entirely around cards which only affect targets in the deck and you have no real way of tutoring them.
Now, never say never. It's theoretically possible for a deck built around this card to be strong. But it would have to be carefully built so as to prioritise mana timings and curve expectations when you draw one copy of this card, vs when you draw two copies, while also retaining enough game to survive and find an alternate win condition when they happen to be buried in the bottom half of your deck (which, incidentally, will happen somewhere in the region of 35% of the time assuming you hard mulligan for them and there are no tutors). It will be very hard to pull off.
My expectation is that we'll see a little of this card in opening week. Those decks will lose a lot to mana inefficiency. Playrate will drop off hard for a while. Then, when the meta starts to settle, we'll start to see moderately successful variants of the deck released which have been tuned to allow for the difficulties above. Those decks will get to around tier 2-3, but no higher, then drop off again as people get used to encountering them.
Cobalt Spellkin: Ehh. Could be solid in theory, but in practice I suspect 5 mana is too much to be spending for a random effect with relatively low value. 3/5 has historically been too weak a statline for a 5-drop to be playable without a very strong effect alongside it, and I don't think this is strong enough.
Evil Quartermaster: Another ehh. Not incredible, but a Lackey for 1 is well-established as being reasonable in the right deck. The question is, will Warrior have the right deck? 2/3 with a 3 armour battlecry is decent for a defensive early game, too. Trouble with the card as I see it is that it feels like an anti-aggro card with Lackey generation bolted on, and it doesn't really fit easily into any deck. Dragon Control is going to be too tight a list, it's not aggressive enough for Tempo, and pure Control doesn't really have a win condition at this point.
Firstly, I would suggest you review the tone of your posts in this thread, because you're not coming across well.
Secondly, a common theme in tech cards is that they're low cost. If you're running tech, you want it to be easily playable alongside the rest of your game plan when you're facing an opponent that you're not teching for. Five mana is a lot to be spending on vanilla stats in a non-armour matchup.
Thirdly, barely anyone ran Thekal in the first place. Aside from the initial expansion period, he saw niche play in a few variants, and even that has fallen off over time.
Fourthly, I will say that my initial impulse was a knee-jerk 'oh god, armour-gain decks are dead', as a long-standing Control Warrior player. But realistically, that's not the case. Wild Odd Warrior is probably dead, but aside from that there's nothing massively dependent on a huge armour stack around anymore, at least not at 5-legend. And given the cost of this card and the relative rarity with which it will encounter something it actually cares about teching against, I'm not even sure it'll kill Odd Warrior, frankly. Aggro will not want to run a vanilla 5/5 - FAR too heavy for them to run unless their local meta absolutely forces them into it - so you're basically just looking at combo.
Fifthly, and finally, there is some good coming of this. It does add more decisions to make for Warrior players, because if you judge your opponent as likely to have teched this you now have to make a more legitimate judgment call on Shield Block. No more 'eh, 3 mana, may as well cycle the Shield Block'. Now it's more likely to function as what I assume it was always intended to be - short-term armour burst.
Struggling to place this right now. It's looking like a fit for two draconic variants - a 'typical' control late-game Paladin as a value card and early game drop, but also as a midrange dragon paladin enabler. Bronze Herald was (in theory) midrange dragon support as well as handbuff support, though that never materialised.
On the fence over here. The Talitha synergy might be enough to push it over the edge, but in either case realistically this is only seeing play if draconic decks become a thing.
With the new expansion this evening I thought now would be a good time to offer a few words of wisdom regarding deckbuilding in a new expansion meta. I'm sure to some of you this will all be old news - but I see the same mistakes repeated often enough during the first week of an expansion that I feel a reminder is warranted.
I should add, to be clear - I am not a big deckbuilder. What I am, however, is a deck critic. I may not be able to put together a high legend decklist from scratch, but I can certainly look at a decklist that already exists and tell you what's wrong with it! I will also add that this advice is intended only for people who actively want to win games on ladder during this period - if you're more interested in building a fun list than a good one, by all means, go for it. I won't tell you it's wrong to build a fun list and have fun with it - I will, however, tell you it's wrong to build a 'for fun' list and expect it to win. For my own amusement, I'm going to include a 'that guy' for every point. Remember - don't be that guy.
1. If you want to rise, play aggro. Early control lists tend to be phenomenally greedy as people try to pack in all the shiny new win-more legendaries they got. They skimp on both early board pressure and AoE. If you care more about winning games than about checking out new cards, lean towards aggressive archetypes - not only do these punish deckbuilding mistakes more reliably than other archetypes, they're also a lot harder to screw up! That means if you do want to try out new cards, you can - and if you do it inside an aggro shell you're less likely to lose games because of it. That guy - jams ten 8+ cost cards into one deck and plays one of them per game at most.
2. Don't be greedy. If you are playing control, don't fall into that trap. Pay due respect to the aggressive lists that will be floating around. Don't just throw in a couple of AoE clears and decide that's good enough - if a single on-curve board clear was enough to shut out aggro decks they'd never be played. Even if you've got a control deck, look to be contesting the board as early as turn 1 or 2, bring targeted removal (or weapons) as well as AoE, and only include as many late-game finishers as you'd reasonably need. That guy - builds a mage list with two cards of <5 mana cost and a single flamestrike as AoE. Then whines on every forum he can find about how aggro is stupid and takes no skill.
3. Alternatively, be greedy. If you really want to run a greed list - and let's be honest, who hasn't been tempted when a new expansion drops and there's a bunch of cool high-cost legendaries - then go all out. There's no point including two anti-aggro cards in an otherwise heavily greedy list, because they're never going to be enough to do the job. If you're going greed, go FULL greed and ensure no control deck you meet can even hope to match your value. That guy - includes a tiny amount of anti-aggro in a horribly greedy list, then complains about losing to other greed decks because they'd just lose to aggro. Also loses to aggro; doesn't see the irony in this. If I'm going to be a 'that guy', this is probably the one I'll wind up as.
4. Identify your win condition. I see a lot of post-expansion decks that basically amount to jamming a bunch of new cards into a box and hoping you wind up winning somehow. Unfortunately, that's not really how card games work these days. You will need to know what your win condition is - whether it's aggression, direct damage, tempo, value - and be working towards it as early as the deckbuilding stage. With each card you add, challenge yourself to identify how it's working towards your win condition - and, if you want to win games, don't accept 'because it's so cool' as an answer. In particular, be careful of trying to 'do it all' - don't add cards 'just in case' if they're not furthering your game plan in some way. To give a classic example - I saw a lot of people putting Elysiana in their lists at the start of her expansion, presumably 'just in case it goes to fatigue' - despite their game plan not being value-oriented at all. That guy - has what amounts to 20 tech cards in a 30 card list. Complains about his awful luck because his topdecks are always so bad.
5. Avoid tech cards. Tech cards are for targeting something you're expecting to face a lot of, or for swinging close matchups. Neither is something you can realistically evaluate at this stage with any real reliability. Instead, build a generalist list, but identify 1-4 cards that you can easily flex into tech choices as you get a feel for what you're seeing a lot of. Alternatively, if you want my guess - Dragonmaw Poacher is the obvious one due to all the dragons floating around. The next level, however, is to also tech Big Game Hunter as the on-curve counter to an on-curve Poacher. I strongly suspect anti-weapon tech will be valuable due to Pirate and Warrior both being favoured, as well as Galakrond's fully invoked 5/2. But realistically I'm just taking educated guesses - because that's all you can do right now. That guy - insists on including double Hungry Crab in every list he makes because he hates Murlocs. Last saw a Murloc in-game before the Wild cards rotated in.
6. Think probabilities. Remember that very few games will see you draw your entire deck, and a sizeable percentage won't even make it to turn 10. If your deck requires you to draw certain cards - the most obvious current example being Invokers - include more copies than you're going to need, to ensure you draw the required number. If your deck relies heavily on specific cards, include tutors for those cards. If you're building a combo deck, include a LOT of card draw - preferably low cost card draw, as the longer it takes you to assemble your combo the more likely you are to run out of resources. That guy - puts two copies of Corrupt Elementalist in his Galakrond Shaman list, with no other Invokers. Complains about never having a fully Invoked Galakrond. Alternatively, runs exactly 25 mana of Paladin spells alongside Shirvallah.
Good luck with your Day 1 deckbuilding, folks.
I hereby move for the 'no neutrals' Paladin archetype to be named 'Paladinadin'.
Well, Mage hero power isn't really in-point given that it can't target Chimaera. I would also argue Rogue hero power is fairly irrelevant as a tech card choice as there's no current Rogue deck that focusses on large minions, nor anything in the expansion that really points towards it.
Druid is a weakness of Chimaera over Gastropod, I agree - but equally, Chimaera is proof against any small targeted removal. As to 1/1 chaff, that's true of any small anti-large tech (Gastropod dies to Springpaw almost as easily as anything else, albeit at the expenditure of one more resource).
None of which is really the point I'm trying to get at, though. The point I was trying to make was that this isn't a Pit Snake because it's specifically a harder-to-remove Poisonous minion in the same way Gastropod was. The decks you'd tech this in to fight are ones that aren't going to be running much in the way of 1/1 chaff, and - Druid hero power notwithstanding - will usually deal with on-board threats with targeted removal, trades or expensive AoE.
AoE is usually going to be the last resort (a deck revolving around big minions will prioritise board-clears to stabilise the early game over low-grade AoE in most cases, making it a disproportionate use of resource). Trades are unlikely due to the poisonous tag. Therefore, being proof against targeted removal is a much bigger boon than it seems, in my opinion. In any matchup you're specifically teching for, Chimaera is substantially more likely to consume a valuable resource than a non-valuable one because of the untargetable effect.
While (as always) there's a fair bit I disagree with here, the main point I want to bring out is the Evasive Chimaera review comparing it to Pit Snake. While I see the logic in that comparison given the statline, I think a better comparison would be with Stubborn Gastropod given the mana cost and (more importantly) neutral tag. Gastropod saw some niche play when the meta was shifting towards a 'big stuff' position, and I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the same of Chimaera here. Pit Snake saw no play less because of its statline, and more because it was sat in Rogue - a class with decent single-target removal and a lot of options at the bottom end.
To be clear, I'm not saying it will see play right away, nor that it will be played heavily, I'm just saying it shouldn't be written off as a tech card depending on the meta.
The actual impact on gameplay is kinda irrelevant for changes like this. You can call it good or bad, but realistically it's only going to have fringe impact for now outside of Wild (where it'll matter primarily because Devolve remains a strong pseudo-removal tool for Shaman).
What actually matters is whether it increases clarity, consistency and intuitive...ness (not a word, but....). This is a design change, not a balance one, and should be considered accordingly. So, does it make sense to a relatively uninformed player that things work this way rather than the old way?
Personally, I'd say that yes, this does make things more intuitive. Any kind of evolve effect says, at its core, 'replace these minions with other ones' to an uninformed player. It is entirely logical to expect that evolving (or devolving) a minion should always do that, irrespective of whether they're at a specific mana threshold. Furthermore, to be able to evaluate what can and can't be evolved/devolved would require a player to have a strong working knowledge of high-cost cards - given Mountain Giant's base cost, for example, it's not entirely unreasonable for an uninformed player to expect there to be something at a higher cost, even if they don't know what it is.
So, yes, I'm in favour. Though I do have to question... why now?
I feel like they're basically just doing it as a sly nod towards the elusive push, really. Once could be coincidence, twice feels planned.
Yeah, you right. My bad on that one - I guess I tunnelled on the Priest legendary. Will have to revise my thoughts on it
I... um... Hm. I have no idea how to really value either of these cards.
Faceless Corruptor: Very much feels like a value-trade card. Take an on-board trade, then drop this, transform the crippled minion and double trade. The trouble is... Priest does not exactly lack for AoE, particularly not in this mana range. Sure, they're not as aggressive than this is, but they're a hell of a lot more aggressive. I can only see this being desirable if Priest spontaneously manifests a tempo-oriented deck with the expansion - certainly possible, but I don't see it happening.
Though I will laugh the first time I see someone Corrupt an Albatross and get lethal with it.
Murozond: As I noted in a reply to a pre-existing comment, in support of someone who already posted - comparisons to Tess Greymane are foolhardy. One requires you to build an entire deck around her, the other is a specific mirror of a turn (with some bits missing or randomised). I really have no way of judging the card right now as by its very nature its playability will heavily depend on what the meta looks like post-expansion. However, I can definitely see this being played as a value counter-drop if fat-arsed Dragon decks are rampant.
I personally enjoy Wild on occasion, usually when Standard starts to make me irritable. There are certain decks there, such as Renolock, which can still answer all of the ridiculousness that gets quoted while playing relatively fair. There are others, like Mech'thun Warlock, which can beat the fotm BS decks on average, and that always makes me smile.
There are three factors, though, which probably push me to Wild more regularly than I otherwise would visit:
1. Some of the relative evergreen decks are ones I loved at the time (Renolock being a good one), and it's always nice to be able to revisit an old friend.
2. The average skill level of players in Wild is lower, as well as occasionally coming across someone who blatantly doesn't play Wild much. Which sounds ridiculous - what is life without challenge, after all - but when I've hit a bad patch in Standard it's nice to be able to unwind with a relaxation of requirements.
3. The actual skill requirements of Wild are actually higher than in Standard, players notwithstanding. I'm aware that this statement is going to get some knee-jerk reactions, but hear me out. I accept that the average Wild player is worse than the average Standard one - see point 2 above. However, there is actually a much larger pool of viable decks in Wild than there is in Standard, and has been for a long time. If you play between 5-legend in Standard, you'll see maybe 5 archetypes in 30 games, if you're lucky. You'll see twice that in Wild, if not more. Yes, you'll still see the 'big' decks very often - but there's plenty of stuff which isn't central to the meta that can still take wins with a good pilot.
This, in turn, means that to succeed in Wild requires a breadth of knowledge and understanding of a lot more decks than in Standard. You also need to take a lot more into account when planning for random variables.
Example - in the run-up to the Wild open last year, I played against Zananananan four times in a row (this was before they put measures in place to prevent that). First game, he creamed me with a Mech'thun variant. Second game, I swapped to Evenlock (which I was confident could put out enough pressure to reliably get the win). Third game, he in turn swapped to an APM Priest variant and creamed me. Fourth, he did so again. At that point I may have gotten annoyed and stopped playing, but that's not the point...
The point is that if you looked at the various meta reports at that time, neither Mech'thun druid nor APM Priest were even listed. But they were strong enough to take wins off what was, at that time, one of the strongest decks in the Wild meta. And we're not talking lower ranks, either - this was around 150 Legend, and Zananananan is, to my understanding at least, a professional (I, quite decidedly, am not and couldn't compete with him).
Anyway. That's why I personally enjoy Wild. The above notwithstanding, however, I also fully appreciate that it's not for everyone. I can be frustrated with it sometimes too. All I can say is - if you're not enjoying it, don't play it?
I share Inconspicuosaurus' frustration here. And for the record, Murozond really isn't a worse Tess. Its effect is weaker, that's definitely the case. But on the other hand, you didn't have to fill your entire deck with random-generation garbage just to make it do something. Spells notwithstanding, you have a solid idea of what you'll get when you play it, and you can hold it until you need it or see a good opening.
Feels really underwhelming to me. It's not going to reliably clear an early board or a big minion. Hell, I'd be down on it even if it was enemy-targets only. Won't see play, Warlock has too many evergreen AoEs to be worth maindecking this.
What this card really needs is for its battlecry to also destroy a targeted Dragon, and to be a crab.
But seriously...
This card intrigues me because it feels like T5 actively trying to prevent people from going all-in on Dragons. It obviously won't entirely stop them, because no card will do that, but it is extremely punishing to run midrange Dragons to be dropped on curve only to see them swept. My immediate question is whether there's an efficient tech-to-the-tech - my first thought was BGH directly into this played on curve would result in a net positive trade, but I think not a big enough one to be worthwhile.
Resounding 'meh' from me. Penalty isn't big enough to be all that punishing, nor are there any hero powers in Standard that are overly threatening. The only way I can see this card seeing constructed play is in Wild as an Odd-Rogue tech to disrupt other Odd Rogues - and even then, existing techs are probably more effective, albeit less universally splashable.
A little curious why you're asking 'do you know' when my original post went into that area in significantly more detail than you did, but for the sake of clarity I'll explain further:
Yes, you can go through building a deck tuned for that specific mana timing. You can treat 1-drops as 2, 2-drops as 3. The trouble with that, as I was setting out in my original post, is that a) a solid 35% of the time you won't be drawing this card in the first half of your deck, if at all, meaning that's fully a third of your games in which you're running an out-of-kilter curve (and probably some inefficient minions that you added to try to capitalise on the raw stat boost.
In other games, you'll draw both copies. At which point, either one is dead, or you've broken your deck design again because your curve changed from what you expected it to be.
Now, as I laid out above, that problem isn't entirely unsurmountable. There are, no doubt, builds which will optimise a one-copy draw while remaining balanced enough to function with a 0- and 2-copy draw. But those builds will take time to find, and further time to refine. And even after that's done, I don't expect these decks to be particularly oppressive because of the significant downsides to what you're doing.
The comparison to Keleseth is a phenomenally unhelpful one, by the way, which I'm disappointed the community has latched onto for some reason. Keleseth required very little in the way of deck modification - drop the 2s, add in a couple more 1s and 3s to ensure early curve, you're good. And past turn 2-3, having no other 2-drops had very little impact on your game plan. That is not the case here. With this card, you are having to tailor your entire deck to function properly with a fluctuating curve, and you are under the negative effect of +1 costed minions for the entire game after playing it. The positive effect is greater, yes, but it's not the fire-and-forget that Keleseth was. Surrender to Madness is a far more apt comparison - and while this card is significantly stronger than that was, that doesn't make it good.
Edit: Forgot to mention one point which you raised in your post - the idea that this card would make 'zoo' archetypes (which are pretty unseen in Druid, by the way, as it either focusses on more of a token setup-burst build or a slower survival-token one, but that's by the way). This thought is wholly incorrect. Zoo as an archetype exists and works through early consistency, value and tempo. This card helps with value, while actively hurting both consistency and tempo. Running it in a zoo build would be an atrociously bad idea.
Meh. I don't see it working - treant decks have consistently failed to perform since they were first posited, and a single legendary (albeit a great one for the archetype) isn't going to change that. Even dropped on curve it's coming in later than a treant deck wants to spike (they really want to be at a positive or neutral boardstate going into their turn 8, which this card really doesn't push for).
I'm not counting the additional spell in the above analysis, primarily because it doesn't look good for a treant deck to me (amusingly). I -guess- it's a 1-drop that has some form of value to you later on, but... Eh. I suppose if I'm trying to find a reason to like it with that archetype, I'd note that an extra-cheap Treant is a good activator for other Treant synergy cards.
Note, however, that both these cards also have synergy with the Token Druid variant that died out about halfway through last expansion. You skip a lot of the Treant synergy, but when you've got a longer-term board-centric game plan I guess having your Forest's Aid arrive with a POTW already on it is worth a lot on its own.
P.S. I actually started doubting myself halfway through writing this. Maybe the legendary IS enough to salvage a functional archetype. I... really don't think it will, but I guess we'll see.
SLima finally posts what I was thinking the second I saw this card, after more than a page of comments thinking this card will be busted...
This card is not particularly powerful if you're playing anywhere above rank 10 with decks that actually have a game plan beyond 'put stuff on the board I guess'. The keys to a HS deck are, in almost all cases, a) synergy, b) combinations, and c) game plan. If all your cards cost (1) more, suddenly all three of those get a whole lot harder. Synergy is more difficult to exploit when it's harder to get minions out quickly. Combinations become prohibitively expensive or stop working entirely. And it's much more difficult to have a game plan when you have to build your deck entirely around cards which only affect targets in the deck and you have no real way of tutoring them.
Now, never say never. It's theoretically possible for a deck built around this card to be strong. But it would have to be carefully built so as to prioritise mana timings and curve expectations when you draw one copy of this card, vs when you draw two copies, while also retaining enough game to survive and find an alternate win condition when they happen to be buried in the bottom half of your deck (which, incidentally, will happen somewhere in the region of 35% of the time assuming you hard mulligan for them and there are no tutors). It will be very hard to pull off.
My expectation is that we'll see a little of this card in opening week. Those decks will lose a lot to mana inefficiency. Playrate will drop off hard for a while. Then, when the meta starts to settle, we'll start to see moderately successful variants of the deck released which have been tuned to allow for the difficulties above. Those decks will get to around tier 2-3, but no higher, then drop off again as people get used to encountering them.
TL;DR - not very strong, stop complaining.
Cobalt Spellkin: Ehh. Could be solid in theory, but in practice I suspect 5 mana is too much to be spending for a random effect with relatively low value. 3/5 has historically been too weak a statline for a 5-drop to be playable without a very strong effect alongside it, and I don't think this is strong enough.
Evil Quartermaster: Another ehh. Not incredible, but a Lackey for 1 is well-established as being reasonable in the right deck. The question is, will Warrior have the right deck? 2/3 with a 3 armour battlecry is decent for a defensive early game, too. Trouble with the card as I see it is that it feels like an anti-aggro card with Lackey generation bolted on, and it doesn't really fit easily into any deck. Dragon Control is going to be too tight a list, it's not aggressive enough for Tempo, and pure Control doesn't really have a win condition at this point.
RIP Kibler Dragon.
Firstly, I would suggest you review the tone of your posts in this thread, because you're not coming across well.
Secondly, a common theme in tech cards is that they're low cost. If you're running tech, you want it to be easily playable alongside the rest of your game plan when you're facing an opponent that you're not teching for. Five mana is a lot to be spending on vanilla stats in a non-armour matchup.
Thirdly, barely anyone ran Thekal in the first place. Aside from the initial expansion period, he saw niche play in a few variants, and even that has fallen off over time.
Fourthly, I will say that my initial impulse was a knee-jerk 'oh god, armour-gain decks are dead', as a long-standing Control Warrior player. But realistically, that's not the case. Wild Odd Warrior is probably dead, but aside from that there's nothing massively dependent on a huge armour stack around anymore, at least not at 5-legend. And given the cost of this card and the relative rarity with which it will encounter something it actually cares about teching against, I'm not even sure it'll kill Odd Warrior, frankly. Aggro will not want to run a vanilla 5/5 - FAR too heavy for them to run unless their local meta absolutely forces them into it - so you're basically just looking at combo.
Fifthly, and finally, there is some good coming of this. It does add more decisions to make for Warrior players, because if you judge your opponent as likely to have teched this you now have to make a more legitimate judgment call on Shield Block. No more 'eh, 3 mana, may as well cycle the Shield Block'. Now it's more likely to function as what I assume it was always intended to be - short-term armour burst.
I mean... Kibler, like most casters, is a free agent. He's also probably in Blizzard's bad books right now due to the whole Hong Kong thing
Struggling to place this right now. It's looking like a fit for two draconic variants - a 'typical' control late-game Paladin as a value card and early game drop, but also as a midrange dragon paladin enabler. Bronze Herald was (in theory) midrange dragon support as well as handbuff support, though that never materialised.
On the fence over here. The Talitha synergy might be enough to push it over the edge, but in either case realistically this is only seeing play if draconic decks become a thing.