This card is just plenty of utility for rogue. Whether its buffing weapons, or activating combos, its just simply so much damage.
Perhaps we'll see that nerf to Nitroboost Poison after all. You can literally destroy your opponent from a good amount of health simply by highrolling with this card, and its not like you can't get more value out of this, with Shadowstep and Potion of Illusion being so handy.
Cutterbutters looking really dangerous with so many cards like this around.
Also, that damn broom. It shows how overtuned a 1-mana neutral is when people's first thoughts are "maybe it works well with broom?"
Honestly, now that you mention it, I do find myself coming back to this failsafe 'this would still be viable with broom' excuse quite often.
Maybe team5 should have a look at it either nerfing it or changing its effects. Because it seems like Animated Broomstick papers over nearly every card that should otherwise be too slow, or too weak.
Cool and rather unique effect. Not sure how viable it will be though.
For achievement hunters: Celestalon is once again teasing us with upcoming achievements. Apparently you'll need to kill the drained minion with Serena.
If you only need to do this once, its simply enough, since anything with 1 health will die to this effect...I assume anyway
There's no shenanigans here, this card will never kill the target unless its literally at 1 health.
Kinda useless actually. And its a legendary too. The only hope this card has left is that there's some OP epic card around the corner that will immediately make this card the most powerful card imaginable.
I guess while we're hoping for stuff that will never happen, I might as well hope that I would win Outofcard's mega bundle lottery myself.
A fairly underwhelming priest legendary to be honest.
The problem is that this card doesn't remove the target, but rather soften it, at roughly half its stats and building up a decent minion for you, depending on the target. So you spend 2 mana to reduce a target's stats and then...I guess you play broom and remove it? Or you play the deluge of tempo spells priest has now and build a very big minion which will subsequently be removed by a better reactive option from your opponent. Both scenarios admitably suck.
Its not entirely trash. There are stuff you can do with it like using it to reduce the target's attack so you can get it with Cabal Acolyte, or just kill it with Initiation and get your own copy.
Kinda makes us wonder why Argent Braggart isn't a legendary himself. Is this card really the nuts that team5 couldn't make it an epic card instead?
Yeah, unfortunate. If Im not mistaken, elysianna would be unnerfed back to 8 as well.
But probably don't really need it to be honest. Once the portal's up you're often 2 turns from winning unless your opponent is capable of freezing your board, and if they can then there's no space to play elysianna anyway.
Probably not going to make the cut even if this deck somehow gets to tier 1/2. Played early and you're now 3 cards away from emptying. Played at the late stages of the game, and its arguable that you don't really need it since you have a permanent board of six 3/2 imps.
One of those cards that shows potential but is practically impossible to pull off without dying.
But if team5 really wants this to work, expect plenty of support in the coming 2 expansions. The payoff is certainly nice. Outside of freeze spells, there's just very little you can do to prevent 18 damage incoming, since the imps are summoned every turn.
On paper it looks nice, but getting there and not die is something else altogether.
Guess warlock's not only going to delete your deck in the next expansion, they're also going to delete their own deck.
Probably some kind of weird midrange zoolock that goes through their deck really quickly just to make this card work. But there's still significant hurdles for this to actually be viable;
- Warlock can no longer draw all their deck quickly as they can now because Expired Merchant is gone, so there's only 2 copies of Hand of Gul'dan
- If your deck is empty, you're practically on a timer which is usually not favorable to warlock because most of their cards damage heroes and there's only limited amounts of healing
- There are card burn synergy with Tickatus and Soul Rend, which can remove your deck quickly but ironically can also end up discarding this card.
Unless we see something that can refill your deck, stop you from drawing per turn, or something close to old Tracking or The Soularium, I doubt this card will be viable anytime soon.
Edit: Should've mentioned that miracle warlock is not entirely impossible. But I'll believe it when I see it.
Its main use will be to vomit out as many cards as it can be done on 4.
You can actually just jam him into any rogue deck and get value somehow, and since rogue tends to draw cards like the wind, not to mention Secret Passage being very handy, its not entirely out of the picture to just play everything from hand in one turn. Most of the time if you manage that then your average midrange opponent can almost never catch up.
And of course there's the fact that he is a win condition himself with cards like prep -> into scabbs -> Alex/Oil rig ambusher -> Potion of Illusion, which will get you another 1 mana scabbs. So with Shadowstep and Potion of Illusion we're looking at somewhere around 16 damage at minimum on turn 8-10. Its hardly Edwin VanCleef, but rogue having lost nearly all its win conditions except for hanar, it'll have to take anything it can get.
Im not entirely sure its a good idea, because without the benefit of history we don't really know if the quests will reset once the new reward track comes in. It did during darkmoon, but that was admitably a larger jump from the old to the new. And big patches are often code word for 'lots of bugs attached' which can screw the unprepared.
For me, I'll be finishing as many as I can until the new patch release. Just in case. It really doesn't matter at the end anyway.
Even if this can be done transparently it will never happen simply because it makes games more about highrolling rather than skill. Team5 have stated on multiple occasions that they would prefer cards to not have that 'draw this and win' quality, and assigning draw rates to certain overpowered cards will not change the fact that games are won because one player managed to get lucky. To use your example of a 1% draw rate of a 30 damage dealing card. Will you, or anyone else in fact, be content understanding that you've done everything right in the game only to lose because your opponent managed to draw that 1 percenter card?
It will also accomplish very little at the end of the day. One card rarely makes the whole deck. Decks that rely on specific cards to win are usually combo decks which already suffers from draw rng and consistency as a whole. And then there are decks that plays cheap costed cards which are otherwise average in strength and value, but are more consistent than other decks. These are your average tempo aggro deck. No adjustments are needed. If you want your deck to be more consistent in tempo, then play a deck with more 1-2 drops in it. If a specific set of cards is the key, then the deck needs more draw cards to draw them. Why make silly adjustments on backend when we can do it ourselves to fit the purpose of the deck.
Besides which, how does one really define 'over-performing'? Most play win rates of cards tend to be around 10-15% more than the lowest win rate cards in a deck, and even then these rarely tell the whole story, since reactive cards don't usually have high win rates. Something like Mindrender Illucia can easily win a game at times, but her winrate is abysmal. Cards like Envoy Rustwix have middling win rates but can hardly be considered unimpactful. And these win rates tend to change according to deck build, and the pilot behind the wheel. High legend players are always going to be better at handling cards than normal players like us; which set of data should team5 then use when considering this exercise?
Cutterbutter. His occupation when he's not out roguing somewhere.
Cheats mana to such a ridiculous degree, its impossible that this card will not see play. Its basically a tempo 3/3 for a net negative 2 mana. What else is there to say?
This card cheats a total of 2 mana, not counting the combo activator you need for this to work.
Unfortunately, unless there's some Questing Adventurer or Edwin VanCleef like card for rogue, this is just pure mana cheating for 2 without the necessary big minion to go along with it.
But with cards like Shadowstep, you're really cheating quite a good deal of mana. Not to mention that with Tenwu of the Red Smoke, you'll end up cheating a whopping 7 mana's worth in the same turn. Fairly certain there's some OTK combo with Oil Rig Ambusher somewhere around here. If not an OTK then certainly a good deal of damage.
Certainly one of the best cards for rogue. But with a surname like that, who really doubts this to be anything less than 5 stars.
SSS costs the same and have 2 more durability and is more reliable because it doesn't need poisons to deal 10 damage over 4 turns. With poisons SSS starts to deal obscene damage whereas this card requires poisons to even be relevant at all.
Similarly assassin's blade have the same attack but a whopping 3 durability more for 1 additional mana.
Yes, you can generate more poisons are you go along, and there are a total of 6 you can jam into your deck, but since this card isn't even immune to oozes, is there any reason to build your entire deck around it? Reminds me an awful lot of Spectral Cutlass, which was supposed to be that glue in a burglar deck but never really reaching any heights in standard when it was introduced.
Actually the viability of Desperate Prayer will likely be more dependent on whether you can damage your opponent. It just occurred to me that with desperate prayer, the AoE damage will be 10, assuming you heal both for 5. Considering that you only pay 4 mana for this swing, its kinda insane.
I still dont think priests will start jamming desperate prayer in their deck, though. But the option is certainly there.
Brings 2 minions back and trigger their frenzy. Then deal damage to your opponent's board.
There's simply so much this card does that its not possible for this to sit on the sidelines. Will probably find a place in most warrior decks, assuming there's better frenzy minions down the line.
It gives you weapon buffs, twice.
Expect this to be in just about every rogue deck bar the craziest memes. Got rid of Eviscerate only to recreate even more burn with this thing.
This card is just plenty of utility for rogue. Whether its buffing weapons, or activating combos, its just simply so much damage.
Perhaps we'll see that nerf to Nitroboost Poison after all. You can literally destroy your opponent from a good amount of health simply by highrolling with this card, and its not like you can't get more value out of this, with Shadowstep and Potion of Illusion being so handy.
Cutterbutters looking really dangerous with so many cards like this around.
Honestly, now that you mention it, I do find myself coming back to this failsafe 'this would still be viable with broom' excuse quite often.
Maybe team5 should have a look at it either nerfing it or changing its effects. Because it seems like Animated Broomstick papers over nearly every card that should otherwise be too slow, or too weak.
If you only need to do this once, its simply enough, since anything with 1 health will die to this effect...I assume anyway
There's no shenanigans here, this card will never kill the target unless its literally at 1 health.
Kinda useless actually. And its a legendary too. The only hope this card has left is that there's some OP epic card around the corner that will immediately make this card the most powerful card imaginable.
I guess while we're hoping for stuff that will never happen, I might as well hope that I would win Outofcard's mega bundle lottery myself.
A fairly underwhelming priest legendary to be honest.
The problem is that this card doesn't remove the target, but rather soften it, at roughly half its stats and building up a decent minion for you, depending on the target. So you spend 2 mana to reduce a target's stats and then...I guess you play broom and remove it? Or you play the deluge of tempo spells priest has now and build a very big minion which will subsequently be removed by a better reactive option from your opponent. Both scenarios admitably suck.
Its not entirely trash. There are stuff you can do with it like using it to reduce the target's attack so you can get it with Cabal Acolyte, or just kill it with Initiation and get your own copy.
Kinda makes us wonder why Argent Braggart isn't a legendary himself. Is this card really the nuts that team5 couldn't make it an epic card instead?
Yeah, unfortunate. If Im not mistaken, elysianna would be unnerfed back to 8 as well.
But probably don't really need it to be honest. Once the portal's up you're often 2 turns from winning unless your opponent is capable of freezing your board, and if they can then there's no space to play elysianna anyway.
Probably not going to make the cut even if this deck somehow gets to tier 1/2. Played early and you're now 3 cards away from emptying. Played at the late stages of the game, and its arguable that you don't really need it since you have a permanent board of six 3/2 imps.
One of those cards that shows potential but is practically impossible to pull off without dying.
But if team5 really wants this to work, expect plenty of support in the coming 2 expansions. The payoff is certainly nice. Outside of freeze spells, there's just very little you can do to prevent 18 damage incoming, since the imps are summoned every turn.
On paper it looks nice, but getting there and not die is something else altogether.
Guess warlock's not only going to delete your deck in the next expansion, they're also going to delete their own deck.
Probably some kind of weird midrange zoolock that goes through their deck really quickly just to make this card work. But there's still significant hurdles for this to actually be viable;
- Warlock can no longer draw all their deck quickly as they can now because Expired Merchant is gone, so there's only 2 copies of Hand of Gul'dan
- If your deck is empty, you're practically on a timer which is usually not favorable to warlock because most of their cards damage heroes and there's only limited amounts of healing
- There are card burn synergy with Tickatus and Soul Rend, which can remove your deck quickly but ironically can also end up discarding this card.
Unless we see something that can refill your deck, stop you from drawing per turn, or something close to old Tracking or The Soularium, I doubt this card will be viable anytime soon.
Edit: Should've mentioned that miracle warlock is not entirely impossible. But I'll believe it when I see it.
Its main use will be to vomit out as many cards as it can be done on 4.
You can actually just jam him into any rogue deck and get value somehow, and since rogue tends to draw cards like the wind, not to mention Secret Passage being very handy, its not entirely out of the picture to just play everything from hand in one turn. Most of the time if you manage that then your average midrange opponent can almost never catch up.
And of course there's the fact that he is a win condition himself with cards like prep -> into scabbs -> Alex/Oil rig ambusher -> Potion of Illusion, which will get you another 1 mana scabbs. So with Shadowstep and Potion of Illusion we're looking at somewhere around 16 damage at minimum on turn 8-10. Its hardly Edwin VanCleef, but rogue having lost nearly all its win conditions except for hanar, it'll have to take anything it can get.
Im not entirely sure its a good idea, because without the benefit of history we don't really know if the quests will reset once the new reward track comes in. It did during darkmoon, but that was admitably a larger jump from the old to the new. And big patches are often code word for 'lots of bugs attached' which can screw the unprepared.
For me, I'll be finishing as many as I can until the new patch release. Just in case. It really doesn't matter at the end anyway.
Wouldn't both Roame sisters technically be human? Unless tamsin's an undead.
Even if this can be done transparently it will never happen simply because it makes games more about highrolling rather than skill. Team5 have stated on multiple occasions that they would prefer cards to not have that 'draw this and win' quality, and assigning draw rates to certain overpowered cards will not change the fact that games are won because one player managed to get lucky. To use your example of a 1% draw rate of a 30 damage dealing card. Will you, or anyone else in fact, be content understanding that you've done everything right in the game only to lose because your opponent managed to draw that 1 percenter card?
It will also accomplish very little at the end of the day. One card rarely makes the whole deck. Decks that rely on specific cards to win are usually combo decks which already suffers from draw rng and consistency as a whole. And then there are decks that plays cheap costed cards which are otherwise average in strength and value, but are more consistent than other decks. These are your average tempo aggro deck. No adjustments are needed. If you want your deck to be more consistent in tempo, then play a deck with more 1-2 drops in it. If a specific set of cards is the key, then the deck needs more draw cards to draw them. Why make silly adjustments on backend when we can do it ourselves to fit the purpose of the deck.
Besides which, how does one really define 'over-performing'? Most play win rates of cards tend to be around 10-15% more than the lowest win rate cards in a deck, and even then these rarely tell the whole story, since reactive cards don't usually have high win rates. Something like Mindrender Illucia can easily win a game at times, but her winrate is abysmal. Cards like Envoy Rustwix have middling win rates but can hardly be considered unimpactful. And these win rates tend to change according to deck build, and the pilot behind the wheel. High legend players are always going to be better at handling cards than normal players like us; which set of data should team5 then use when considering this exercise?
Cutterbutter. His occupation when he's not out roguing somewhere.
Cheats mana to such a ridiculous degree, its impossible that this card will not see play. Its basically a tempo 3/3 for a net negative 2 mana. What else is there to say?
This card cheats a total of 2 mana, not counting the combo activator you need for this to work.
Unfortunately, unless there's some Questing Adventurer or Edwin VanCleef like card for rogue, this is just pure mana cheating for 2 without the necessary big minion to go along with it.
But with cards like Shadowstep, you're really cheating quite a good deal of mana. Not to mention that with Tenwu of the Red Smoke, you'll end up cheating a whopping 7 mana's worth in the same turn. Fairly certain there's some OTK combo with Oil Rig Ambusher somewhere around here. If not an OTK then certainly a good deal of damage.
Certainly one of the best cards for rogue. But with a surname like that, who really doubts this to be anything less than 5 stars.
Self-Sharpening Sword and Assassin's Blade are in standard.
I mean, is there any reason to play this card over those two? Nope.
Fairly certain Self-Sharpening Sword and Assassin's Blade is just better
SSS costs the same and have 2 more durability and is more reliable because it doesn't need poisons to deal 10 damage over 4 turns. With poisons SSS starts to deal obscene damage whereas this card requires poisons to even be relevant at all.
Similarly assassin's blade have the same attack but a whopping 3 durability more for 1 additional mana.
Yes, you can generate more poisons are you go along, and there are a total of 6 you can jam into your deck, but since this card isn't even immune to oozes, is there any reason to build your entire deck around it? Reminds me an awful lot of Spectral Cutlass, which was supposed to be that glue in a burglar deck but never really reaching any heights in standard when it was introduced.
Actually the viability of Desperate Prayer will likely be more dependent on whether you can damage your opponent. It just occurred to me that with desperate prayer, the AoE damage will be 10, assuming you heal both for 5. Considering that you only pay 4 mana for this swing, its kinda insane.
I still dont think priests will start jamming desperate prayer in their deck, though. But the option is certainly there.
Brings 2 minions back and trigger their frenzy. Then deal damage to your opponent's board.
There's simply so much this card does that its not possible for this to sit on the sidelines. Will probably find a place in most warrior decks, assuming there's better frenzy minions down the line.