Has anyone found a good place for Headmaster Kel'Thuzad yet? I'd like to play him in a deck but can't seem to slot him in. I feel like he belongs in Priest but that class already has so much AoE removal. Any advice welcome :)
I've liked him in Highlander Priest, since you tend to have a wide variety of cheap removal spells, but can also pick up things like Shadow Word: Ruin from Zephrys the Great to steal a bunch of big stuff all at once in the late game.
I've been trying to make the self-harm/heal cards work in Priest, and the combination of Soulbound Ashtongue and Apotheosis is pretty nuts - each attack you make with him decreases the cost of Flesh Giant by at least 2 mana, as he harms and then immediately heals you.
It's one of many articles like it over the last few years, but it has some earnestly disturbing descriptions of what workers have had to do to get by, and it seems uniquely important during this pandemic and moment of economic downturn. As a community dedicated to these games, that implicitly relies on the workers of these companies to produce new games and content, this seems like a very pressing issue that ought to get a broader platform here.
It is trivial in Warrior to get this down to a baseline "3 mana draw 2," but they already have Battle Rage, which is tough to compete with in a deck that plans to use a lot of weapons. Rogue also has a lot of card draw options, and has a harder time setting up powerful weapons, so I'm not sure this makes the cut there either.
If you read this card as "0 mana draw 2 cards" it's pretty clearly awesome. Obviously you have to do a bit more work than just draw here, and the constraint that they had to have died means you might not put this in every deck, but it's probably one of the best cards in a deck built to use it.
Just in terms of value, Guardian Animals costs 7 mana and gets two 5-drops with rush (because I'm assuming your deck will be built to maximize this card). So, taken that way it's pretty good. The problem, of course, is that there really aren't a ton of great Beasts to put in your deck at that mana cost (and the ones that cost less are even worse for this effect). But we haven't seen the whole set, yet, and there are already some obvious ways to mitigate that problem.
Druid has it easiest with Survival of the Fittest and Embiggen, which will make every card you get from this is great. Embiggen Druid already ran Strength in Numbers to cheat one minion by paying for one or two minions, so this seems like an obvious archetype to take advantage of this effect. (Downside - the mana changing effect of Embiggen could make this card complicated.)
The case is a lot harder for Hunter, where Shan'do Wildclaw is the only thing shoring up the cards you hit with this, but Hunter also has much better cards to pull with this even with only a minor buff (e.g. Augmented Porcupine and Zixor, Apex Predator - maybe even Scavenging Hyena if you have a board you're going to trade away on the same turn), and Hunter typically lacks card draw, so this kind of deck thinning could be desirable.
I've tried a bit of Big Demon Hunter, and I was generally disappointed with how easy it was to run out of good demons in your deck for Pit Commander (or worse, draw into all of them). So, I think it's great they're adding more for that archetype. Still, while it's possible Raging Felscreamer, Fel Summoner, and Pit Commander are a good enough "cheat" package that this becomes playable, but at 9 mana that's still a bit tough. It's definitely powerful enough that I'll be happy to see it coming off of Netherwalker, though.
Clearly great in a Paladin deck full of buffs, but I don't see how this works in Priest at all. Yes, there are lots of buffs, but are you planning to run a Priest deck without any removal spells? Maybe that's possible, but I've tried Minion/Tempo Priest on and off as they've tried to provide tools to make it work, and pretty consistently it disappoints. Perhaps the Paladin-Dual Class cards will change that, but I'm skeptical.
This almost has to be more impactful to Rogue than to Mage, if only because it helps slower Rogue archetypes in a way that Mage doesn't really need. That said, this is still crazy powerful in a Cyclone Mage deck, as it's basically a cheaper Frostbolt in that context. It's probably also a key card for any Tempo/Secret Mage, as it can be paired on turn 2 with Sorcerer's Apprentice for a total of 4 mana's worth of value that makes it very easy to defend that Sorcerer's Apprentice and snowball a win.
Speaker Gidra is super powerful. In Shaman you can easily pair this with a 3 mana damage spell (e.g. Lightning Storm, Lightning Breath, Serpentshrine Portal) to clear a midgame enemy board with ease. Druid has slightly less attractive spells to pair with her in the midgame (maybe BEEEES!!! or Swipe), but that's probably fine because Druid lacks a lot of board clear tools and will still like to have something like this in any Control Druid deck, and maybe even in an aggro/tempo deck as an insurance policy to ensure you can push through enemy taunts and end the game by pairing her with spells like Savage Roar or Blessing of the Ancients.
Argent Braggart is clearly good just about whenever you play it, but to me the question is "what then?" It doesn't have taunt, it doesn't have rush, so your goal here is going to be to maximize buff value by buffing one minion and then dropping this to spread the value around (perhaps right before that originally buffed minion makes a value trade). In that way, it's kind of like a much more reliable Djinni of Zephyrs in a buff deck, and that's probably important for the archetype, but whether or not it sees play in any other archetype is unclear.
I can see the case for running this in a Control Highlander deck, where you already wish you could run multiple copies of your best spells and where you have the room for a tech card like this to rack up value and delay fatigue for the control mirrors.
So, Echo of Medivh that's way better for battlecries (and arguably for deathrattles, since 1/1s die quickly). Seems great, at least as a one-of, for value generation. Imagine copying something like Dragonqueen Alexstrasza or Zephrys the Great, for instance, in Highlander decks.
Instructor Fireheart is fine in just about any Control Shaman list as it's strong on 3 and just gets better later in the game,. It's also probably a lot better with a list that focuses on using spell damage.
I've liked him in Highlander Priest, since you tend to have a wide variety of cheap removal spells, but can also pick up things like Shadow Word: Ruin from Zephrys the Great to steal a bunch of big stuff all at once in the late game.
I've been trying to make the self-harm/heal cards work in Priest, and the combination of Soulbound Ashtongue and Apotheosis is pretty nuts - each attack you make with him decreases the cost of Flesh Giant by at least 2 mana, as he harms and then immediately heals you.
This article came out yesterday: https://www.businessinsider.com/activision-blizzard-salary-disparity-issues-2020-8
It's one of many articles like it over the last few years, but it has some earnestly disturbing descriptions of what workers have had to do to get by, and it seems uniquely important during this pandemic and moment of economic downturn. As a community dedicated to these games, that implicitly relies on the workers of these companies to produce new games and content, this seems like a very pressing issue that ought to get a broader platform here.
It is trivial in Warrior to get this down to a baseline "3 mana draw 2," but they already have Battle Rage, which is tough to compete with in a deck that plans to use a lot of weapons. Rogue also has a lot of card draw options, and has a harder time setting up powerful weapons, so I'm not sure this makes the cut there either.
If you read this card as "0 mana draw 2 cards" it's pretty clearly awesome. Obviously you have to do a bit more work than just draw here, and the constraint that they had to have died means you might not put this in every deck, but it's probably one of the best cards in a deck built to use it.
The mere fact that this can discover either Astromancer Solarian or Lady Vashj depending on the class you're playing makes this very powerful.
The cost to stats is already good enough to see some play, but the effect puts it over the top. Definitely a strong weapon.
Just in terms of value, Guardian Animals costs 7 mana and gets two 5-drops with rush (because I'm assuming your deck will be built to maximize this card). So, taken that way it's pretty good. The problem, of course, is that there really aren't a ton of great Beasts to put in your deck at that mana cost (and the ones that cost less are even worse for this effect). But we haven't seen the whole set, yet, and there are already some obvious ways to mitigate that problem.
Druid has it easiest with Survival of the Fittest and Embiggen, which will make every card you get from this is great. Embiggen Druid already ran Strength in Numbers to cheat one minion by paying for one or two minions, so this seems like an obvious archetype to take advantage of this effect. (Downside - the mana changing effect of Embiggen could make this card complicated.)
The case is a lot harder for Hunter, where Shan'do Wildclaw is the only thing shoring up the cards you hit with this, but Hunter also has much better cards to pull with this even with only a minor buff (e.g. Augmented Porcupine and Zixor, Apex Predator - maybe even Scavenging Hyena if you have a board you're going to trade away on the same turn), and Hunter typically lacks card draw, so this kind of deck thinning could be desirable.
I've tried a bit of Big Demon Hunter, and I was generally disappointed with how easy it was to run out of good demons in your deck for Pit Commander (or worse, draw into all of them). So, I think it's great they're adding more for that archetype. Still, while it's possible Raging Felscreamer, Fel Summoner, and Pit Commander are a good enough "cheat" package that this becomes playable, but at 9 mana that's still a bit tough. It's definitely powerful enough that I'll be happy to see it coming off of Netherwalker, though.
There's a lot to like here for both Paladin and Warrior - I expect it will see play in at least one of them.
Yet another combo tool for Druid. Seems good, also kind of boring.
Clearly great in a Paladin deck full of buffs, but I don't see how this works in Priest at all. Yes, there are lots of buffs, but are you planning to run a Priest deck without any removal spells? Maybe that's possible, but I've tried Minion/Tempo Priest on and off as they've tried to provide tools to make it work, and pretty consistently it disappoints. Perhaps the Paladin-Dual Class cards will change that, but I'm skeptical.
This almost has to be more impactful to Rogue than to Mage, if only because it helps slower Rogue archetypes in a way that Mage doesn't really need. That said, this is still crazy powerful in a Cyclone Mage deck, as it's basically a cheaper Frostbolt in that context. It's probably also a key card for any Tempo/Secret Mage, as it can be paired on turn 2 with Sorcerer's Apprentice for a total of 4 mana's worth of value that makes it very easy to defend that Sorcerer's Apprentice and snowball a win.
Speaker Gidra is super powerful. In Shaman you can easily pair this with a 3 mana damage spell (e.g. Lightning Storm, Lightning Breath, Serpentshrine Portal) to clear a midgame enemy board with ease. Druid has slightly less attractive spells to pair with her in the midgame (maybe BEEEES!!! or Swipe), but that's probably fine because Druid lacks a lot of board clear tools and will still like to have something like this in any Control Druid deck, and maybe even in an aggro/tempo deck as an insurance policy to ensure you can push through enemy taunts and end the game by pairing her with spells like Savage Roar or Blessing of the Ancients.
Argent Braggart is clearly good just about whenever you play it, but to me the question is "what then?" It doesn't have taunt, it doesn't have rush, so your goal here is going to be to maximize buff value by buffing one minion and then dropping this to spread the value around (perhaps right before that originally buffed minion makes a value trade). In that way, it's kind of like a much more reliable Djinni of Zephyrs in a buff deck, and that's probably important for the archetype, but whether or not it sees play in any other archetype is unclear.
I can see the case for running this in a Control Highlander deck, where you already wish you could run multiple copies of your best spells and where you have the room for a tech card like this to rack up value and delay fatigue for the control mirrors.
So, Echo of Medivh that's way better for battlecries (and arguably for deathrattles, since 1/1s die quickly). Seems great, at least as a one-of, for value generation. Imagine copying something like Dragonqueen Alexstrasza or Zephrys the Great, for instance, in Highlander decks.
That is just silly powerful.
Instructor Fireheart is fine in just about any Control Shaman list as it's strong on 3 and just gets better later in the game,. It's also probably a lot better with a list that focuses on using spell damage.
I expect Spirit Jailer to be a meta-defining card in Warlock. Even without the synergies, this does a lot