Can be played as top-end for some kind of Aggro deck, but most likely just pack filler.

I already like playing with it, it's a fun card which is decently strong, without being oppressive. Also flexible as heck. I really dig it.

Great control card. Its base form is good enough, and upgrading scales quite nicely with the phase of the game. Also bonus flavor for being one of the most iconic Shaman spells.

Hard to evaluate without seeing all Nature spells, but it can serve as a giant board clear with Lightning Storm or as a burst engine with Lightning Bolt (especially with Wandmaker giving you more Lightning Bolts). This flexibility makes me think it will have a very good chance at being a good card.

Dire Mole with upside, for a class which is really dependant on a good one drop. Especially now that Dwarven Sharpshooter is going away. I think this will get played in every Hunter deck for the forseeable future.

Decent by itself, absolutely balls to the walls bonkers when combined with Apotheosis, especially since Wild Pyromancer is leaving. Will see play in every controlling Priest decks as a combined Reno Jackson and board clear.

Bad card, not worth a slot in your deck for the effect. However, it can be nice off random generation and I can see it being played in some kind of Miracle/Gadgetzan Auctioneer/Nazmani Bloodweaver Priest.

Good card, but don't really see it fitting into any existing druid decks. Of course these will change massively, so I do hold out hope for this card. I can really see it taking the Beast spot in some kind of N'Zoth, God of the Deep druid.

Nozdormu required tournament let's gooooooooooooooooooo

While I like the idea, it would kind of delete the core of the deck and make it purely a Malygos OTK deck. In this version, Malygos is one of multiple win conditions (Dragon tempo, Vereesa). I'm looking forward to see your version of a Malygos Vol'jin OTK Hunter though!

This is something I considered, but I figured the tempo from the minions would be necessary to keep the board until the Malygos blow-out, at which point you'll most likely have played all your minions already. However, I guess a small Scavenger's Ingenuity, Phase Stalker Secret package might work. It's hard to find free space though! What would you cut for it?

Might be worth updating this with the core set ;)

Aww you featured my deck! Thank you ^^

Excellent article @Avalon. I agree with pretty much all of your points here, especially considering not including too powerful cards. One point of note though: since they explicitly named Shadowform as the only card returning from the Hall of Fame, it's pretty much 0 chance to see a return of Azure Drake and other rotated cards.

I think it's especially needed to include themes that have become core to class identities, but were not included yet in the basic set. You already named Silver Hand Recruit synergy for Paladin, but I think the same case could be made for themes like Evolve for Shaman, Deathrattle for hunter and Pure for Paladin. Because it's of little use to speculate about new cards, I think adding cards like Mutate, Terrorscale Stalker and Lightforged Crusader would make a lot of sense. Other cards I'd love to see return are Dire Frenzy, Blood Razor and Nightmare Amalgam.

Some general tips, besides the choice of decks that other have already noted:

- Use a deck tracker. No reason not to, and it gives you a big advantage it also allows you to...

- Review previous matches. Try to spot your own mistakes, both in games you won and games you lost. What choices could you have made differently? Learn from them.

- Play focused. Don't alt tab between your game and something else, give it your full attention.

- Take a break after losing 2 games in a row. You'll get tilted and make mistakes, causing you to get even more tilted and make even more mistakes. Giving yourself a 15 minute breather after losing 2 games in a row to walk around, grab something to drink, talk to your family, etc. will prevent you from getting trapped in the Tilt-Loss spiral.

- Have fun! Hearthstone is a game, games are supposed to be fun.

Good luck!

The fact that Season 1 winners are no longer automatically qualified for Worlds is huge. We saw it twice already, with Feno and SilverName. Especially in Europe, where the skill difference between top GMs and bottom GMs is much smaller, there is a very real chance of a rightful winner in S1 getting screwed over by bad luck in S2, especially now that there's even more of a focus on formats other than Conquest in the first weeks. Can you imagine the salt if another top-tier player like Hunterace or Feno gets relegated because they performed poorly in the specialist weeks, especially if it costs them their Worlds spot? Then again, the main reason SilverName ended up qualifying for Worlds was his performance in the Shamadin meme week. Also, haven't we learned our lesson with Specialist? They better nerf control priest and control warrior into the ground before those weeks cause I ain't watching Armor Up Pass Lesser Heal Pass games that last 45 minutes each.

I love Control Warlock as an archetype (just check my deck history lmao), and I like the direction you took this list in. There are three points in which I see room for improvement:

1. Plague of Flames. This card is great, but I don't feel like you have enough weenies to sacrifice, and I doubt you need more removal.
2. Siphon Soul. This card just isn't very good, I feel like we have plenty of removal with Cascading Disaster, Twisting Nether, etc. This would open up two more spots, which leads me into the following point:
3. Free Admission. You already mentioned this in your guide: It feels really bad if you hit Y'Shaarj, the Defiler. I think it's not worth running Free Admission with non-demons in your deck, which means you can go into two directions:
   1. Cut Y'Shaarj, the Defiler. Keep it a pure demon list, guaranteeing the Free Admission discount. There are plenty of demons you can add in like Midway Maniac, Man'ari Mosher, Fire Breather, Void Drinker and Enhanced Dreadlord. This would make your list less top-heavy.
   2. Replace Free Admission with Sense Demons or Backfire. This allows you to add in good non-Demon minions like Luckysoul Hoarder, Khartut Defender, Strongman, [Hearthstone Card (Soulciologist Mailicia) Not Found] and Alexstrasza. This would make your list more top-heavy.

Honorable mention: Whirlkick Rogue, getting it from Jandice Barov ;) I'd also like to spotlight two decks I made with this card:

Deathwing was in Warcraft 2! Albeit not in the form in which he is a warrior hero

I'm really loving the deck spotlights you've been doing recently. The guides are very well-written and the featured decks are very unique. However, I think it's a missed chance to not take community submitted decks from right here on OutOfCards. I think this would be a nice feature for the following reasons:

1. A lot of them already have written guides, minimising the effort for you guys.
2. It would be an extra impulse for people to submit their decks and write guides for them, since I think quite a lot of people would love to see their decks on the front page.
3. I think it would strengthen the community feeling on the website much like the custom card contests do.
4. You could spotlight good comments on the decks as well, giving an extra reason for people to comment on decks.

Anyway, keep up the good work!