The main use of this card is to find Dread Deserter but there's so many Pirates in the new set that the pool is probably too diluted to guarantee finding it. And I'm not sure that would be worth it. This is OK card generation, but nothing broken.
This is clearly top-tier fuel for Naga DH, and it's probably going to enable them to more easily kill their opponents from hand on Sharpshooter turns. It could possibly be played around with in other decks and classes, but I'm guessing that DH is where this sees 90% of its play.
Discovering Locations can be pretty powerful especially if we're assuming we see this mostly in Reno and other slow decks that are looking for anything to give them an additional tool for winning the game. There's a few locations that aren't necessarily good everywhere, but enough that this should be worth a shot.
This just seems like a slower Instrument Tech with more steps. There aren't any relevant weapons in Standard that cost less than 6 (at least right now) so I do not think this card is going to make the cut.
Even though we've only seen one drink spell so far, we know from Bunch of Bananas and Barrel of Monkeys that a spell with multiple uses is a pretty good deal. We're probably not going to see a lot of this card - the 2-Drop "random generation" slot in most Reno decks is filled by Watcher of the Sun, who has Ignis synergies.
I gave it 5 stars just for the cheese pun, but it wouldn't be hard to convince me to give it 5 stars on power alone. Both Zarimi Priest and Flood Paladin (and potentially other Aggro decks) could use a card that gives you an instant board presence for only 2 Mana, and that's before we get to the idea of using it to summon a trio of 10-Drops.
A 5/4 for 4 that lets you "draw" two cards for 1 Mana? Sounds good, sign me up. It doesn't feel so overpowered that I feel we're going to see it everywhere, but it's certainly a card with utility and I think a lot of decks are going to want what it gives them. I feel pretty confident in saying that, at the very least, we're going to see Rogue attempting to abuse this with Sonya Waterdancer.
This feels like it's attempting to fill the same niche as Razorscale, but in a more restrictive way. We don't see anyone playing Razorscale, so I don't imagine we'll see anyone playing this.
This has some intriguing possibilities with Magnetic but it's unlikely to be much more than a tool Control decks use to keep the opponent's board under control in the midgame. This is a 4-Mana minion that can eat a Giant, maybe somebody finds a use for that. I'm almost sold on the idea of a control Mech Warrior playing this in tandem with Furious Furnace. In Wild, people are obviously going to be trying to OTK with this and Soulbound Ashtongue.
I don't think we expect to see anyone running this in anything other than Ogreload decks designed solely to play as many Ogre related cards as possible. They took two of the least-played cards in Classic (Boulderfist Ogre and Nat Pagle) and smushed them together.
A 1-cost Kazakus potion is pretty strong; I'd expect to see this for sure in some Reno decks but it honestly could be a card that sees play in a variety of decks. For me, it's the perfect blend of good and fun.
Marin lets you CHOOSE Wondrous Wand? That's INSANE! I hate to be a knee-jerk nerf guy but if either Marin or Dorian comes out of this unscathed I'll be surprised.
Lynessa seems really strong.
Buttons looks good in a Rainbow DK/Shaman.
The two new Shaman cards (Headliner and Magma) look good for Burn Shaman.
The rest of the cards are fine, no real thoughts on them right now.
As a 7-Drop, this card is decent. Treasures are really great, and choosing them is even better. However, in combination with Dorian this card is exceptional. I imagine that a lot of Reno decks and other slow decks (most of which are already running Dorian for extra value) will slot this in immediately. At worst, I see it as an extra value generator for control decks that will excel in that role. At best, it's going to enable some powerful combos and maybe might get Dorian nerfed.
One question: do you get to choose from all four treasure, or do they give you only three choices. Because the difference between guaranteed instant Wondrous Wand and 75% chance of Wondrous Wand does matter.
Yeah, I'm definitely keeping my expectations low for this one's launch (but only 'cause it's Ubisoft; everything I've seen so far looks decent). Honestly, after seeing the story trailers they've put out, I'm much more interested in an Outlaws TV show than in a game.
I just finished T.H. White's The Once and Future King for the first time. Disappointed that I took so long to get to it; it's really freaking good. The Sword in the Stone is the best of the four books, but they all hold up and incidentally serve as an introduction to Arthurian myth. I also really liked two newer books from Adrian Tchaikovsky - City of Last Chances and House of Open Wounds - they're epic fantasies with some rich worldbuilding and a sprawling cast of characters (for real, I think City didn't repeat a viewpoint character for the first third of the novel) and I saw that a third is coming out (or is already out) so I'll have to check it out ASAP.
For classics, in the past couple months I read (and adored) Les Miserables. It's very long, but the minute-to-minute read rarely felt like a slog. I also got into Crime and Punishment, which is also (obviously) very good. If you haven't read it and have a chance to check out the translation by Michael Katz, I would recommend it - he made the book very approachable.
Right now I've checked out from the library The History of the Hobbit by John Rateliff; it's a deep dive into the various manuscripts Tolkien put together in the two-ish years he spent writing The Hobbit and breaks down not only how the book itself changed throughout the process (fr/ex: Gandalf was originally the name of the lead dwarf and the wizard's name was Bladorthin) but also Tolkien's many real-world influences from Norse myth, Old English lit, etc. Very cool, but very very long.
By my calculations I have a few more months before I want to start a full re-read of the Stormlight Archive in preparation for Wind and Truth. It might be excessive, but I know there'll be some references or things I've missed in the earlier books that I'll catch this time through. I've got a few books I want to read in the interim, so I'll get cracking on those.
The deck-building game Dominion works well with 5 players; I've played with that many several times. I know that some TCG purists disparage Dominion because the meta is "solved", but I have a really fun time trying out new ways to build engines or try out new synergies with various cards even if there are obvious "optimal" strategies. The base game is really good, but there's also TON of expansions (Seaside is my favorite) that bring new cards and mechanics to the game. Replayability, because of the variety of cards you can bring in to any given game, is fairly high, IMO.
I also like Scythe and the box says it can be played with five people (although I've never played with that many so I can't tell you how it goes). If engine-building/exploration is your family's cup of tea, it's a good game with a decent amount of replyability (most the game-to-game variety come from the event cards). The hardest part for beginners is getting used to the turn flow, once you've got that down things move a lot faster.
My absolute favorite game is Once Upon a Time, but it's a little esoteric. It's collaborative/competitive storytelling, where each player has a hand of cards featuring story elements and has to weave those elements into the story as the storyteller, or try to interrupt the story with their own cards to take it down their path. Each player has an ending card they're trying to build towards, and the first player to empty their hand and organically steer the story to their ending wins. It can accomodate five players, but it's not for everyone.
Spell Token Hunter is the main thing I used last month to climb; I basically played that list up top except I swapped in two copies of Bunny Stomper for Observer of Myths because it was insanely good in the mirror (I think I went 4-0 against other Aggro Hunters, small sample size but every single win was because I could control my opponent's board with Rush Beasts).
I don't have Pip, so I'm trying to brew up a Zarimi Priest deck that doesn't go quite so heavily into copying 1 drops. Right now I'm building around Party Animal buffs and I'm really liking it in combination with Rolling Stone as the Elemental. Probably not a good deck, but I'll still fool around with it. I might try running Glacial Shard for Demon Hunters.
I'm also kinda messing with the Mech Rogue that tries to cheese games with Power/Virus Zilliax. The dream is using Drone Deconstructor and Sonya Waterdancer for a ton of Magnetic minions, and I'm trying to work with that synergy currently.
All in all, a really fun set with lots of interesting things to try out.
The main use of this card is to find Dread Deserter but there's so many Pirates in the new set that the pool is probably too diluted to guarantee finding it. And I'm not sure that would be worth it. This is OK card generation, but nothing broken.
This is clearly top-tier fuel for Naga DH, and it's probably going to enable them to more easily kill their opponents from hand on Sharpshooter turns. It could possibly be played around with in other decks and classes, but I'm guessing that DH is where this sees 90% of its play.
Discovering Locations can be pretty powerful especially if we're assuming we see this mostly in Reno and other slow decks that are looking for anything to give them an additional tool for winning the game. There's a few locations that aren't necessarily good everywhere, but enough that this should be worth a shot.
This just seems like a slower Instrument Tech with more steps. There aren't any relevant weapons in Standard that cost less than 6 (at least right now) so I do not think this card is going to make the cut.
Yeah, this feels like a weirdly slow card for Constructed - are we sure this wasn't supposed to be a Battlegrounds card?
Even though we've only seen one drink spell so far, we know from Bunch of Bananas and Barrel of Monkeys that a spell with multiple uses is a pretty good deal. We're probably not going to see a lot of this card - the 2-Drop "random generation" slot in most Reno decks is filled by Watcher of the Sun, who has Ignis synergies.
I gave it 5 stars just for the cheese pun, but it wouldn't be hard to convince me to give it 5 stars on power alone. Both Zarimi Priest and Flood Paladin (and potentially other Aggro decks) could use a card that gives you an instant board presence for only 2 Mana, and that's before we get to the idea of using it to summon a trio of 10-Drops.
A 5/4 for 4 that lets you "draw" two cards for 1 Mana? Sounds good, sign me up. It doesn't feel so overpowered that I feel we're going to see it everywhere, but it's certainly a card with utility and I think a lot of decks are going to want what it gives them. I feel pretty confident in saying that, at the very least, we're going to see Rogue attempting to abuse this with Sonya Waterdancer.
Could be a fun card for Undead Buff DK or Taunt Warrior; conditional copies like this usually don't see the light of day.
This feels like it's attempting to fill the same niche as Razorscale, but in a more restrictive way. We don't see anyone playing Razorscale, so I don't imagine we'll see anyone playing this.
This has some intriguing possibilities with Magnetic but it's unlikely to be much more than a tool Control decks use to keep the opponent's board under control in the midgame. This is a 4-Mana minion that can eat a Giant, maybe somebody finds a use for that. I'm almost sold on the idea of a control Mech Warrior playing this in tandem with Furious Furnace. In Wild, people are obviously going to be trying to OTK with this and Soulbound Ashtongue.
I don't think we expect to see anyone running this in anything other than Ogreload decks designed solely to play as many Ogre related cards as possible. They took two of the least-played cards in Classic (Boulderfist Ogre and Nat Pagle) and smushed them together.
A 1-cost Kazakus potion is pretty strong; I'd expect to see this for sure in some Reno decks but it honestly could be a card that sees play in a variety of decks. For me, it's the perfect blend of good and fun.
Marin lets you CHOOSE Wondrous Wand? That's INSANE! I hate to be a knee-jerk nerf guy but if either Marin or Dorian comes out of this unscathed I'll be surprised.
Lynessa seems really strong.
Buttons looks good in a Rainbow DK/Shaman.
The two new Shaman cards (Headliner and Magma) look good for Burn Shaman.
The rest of the cards are fine, no real thoughts on them right now.
As a 7-Drop, this card is decent. Treasures are really great, and choosing them is even better. However, in combination with Dorian this card is exceptional. I imagine that a lot of Reno decks and other slow decks (most of which are already running Dorian for extra value) will slot this in immediately. At worst, I see it as an extra value generator for control decks that will excel in that role. At best, it's going to enable some powerful combos and maybe might get Dorian nerfed.
One question: do you get to choose from all four treasure, or do they give you only three choices. Because the difference between guaranteed instant Wondrous Wand and 75% chance of Wondrous Wand does matter.
Yeah, I'm definitely keeping my expectations low for this one's launch (but only 'cause it's Ubisoft; everything I've seen so far looks decent). Honestly, after seeing the story trailers they've put out, I'm much more interested in an Outlaws TV show than in a game.
I just finished T.H. White's The Once and Future King for the first time. Disappointed that I took so long to get to it; it's really freaking good. The Sword in the Stone is the best of the four books, but they all hold up and incidentally serve as an introduction to Arthurian myth. I also really liked two newer books from Adrian Tchaikovsky - City of Last Chances and House of Open Wounds - they're epic fantasies with some rich worldbuilding and a sprawling cast of characters (for real, I think City didn't repeat a viewpoint character for the first third of the novel) and I saw that a third is coming out (or is already out) so I'll have to check it out ASAP.
For classics, in the past couple months I read (and adored) Les Miserables. It's very long, but the minute-to-minute read rarely felt like a slog. I also got into Crime and Punishment, which is also (obviously) very good. If you haven't read it and have a chance to check out the translation by Michael Katz, I would recommend it - he made the book very approachable.
Right now I've checked out from the library The History of the Hobbit by John Rateliff; it's a deep dive into the various manuscripts Tolkien put together in the two-ish years he spent writing The Hobbit and breaks down not only how the book itself changed throughout the process (fr/ex: Gandalf was originally the name of the lead dwarf and the wizard's name was Bladorthin) but also Tolkien's many real-world influences from Norse myth, Old English lit, etc. Very cool, but very very long.
By my calculations I have a few more months before I want to start a full re-read of the Stormlight Archive in preparation for Wind and Truth. It might be excessive, but I know there'll be some references or things I've missed in the earlier books that I'll catch this time through. I've got a few books I want to read in the interim, so I'll get cracking on those.
The deck-building game Dominion works well with 5 players; I've played with that many several times. I know that some TCG purists disparage Dominion because the meta is "solved", but I have a really fun time trying out new ways to build engines or try out new synergies with various cards even if there are obvious "optimal" strategies. The base game is really good, but there's also TON of expansions (Seaside is my favorite) that bring new cards and mechanics to the game. Replayability, because of the variety of cards you can bring in to any given game, is fairly high, IMO.
I also like Scythe and the box says it can be played with five people (although I've never played with that many so I can't tell you how it goes). If engine-building/exploration is your family's cup of tea, it's a good game with a decent amount of replyability (most the game-to-game variety come from the event cards). The hardest part for beginners is getting used to the turn flow, once you've got that down things move a lot faster.
My absolute favorite game is Once Upon a Time, but it's a little esoteric. It's collaborative/competitive storytelling, where each player has a hand of cards featuring story elements and has to weave those elements into the story as the storyteller, or try to interrupt the story with their own cards to take it down their path. Each player has an ending card they're trying to build towards, and the first player to empty their hand and organically steer the story to their ending wins. It can accomodate five players, but it's not for everyone.
Spell Token Hunter is the main thing I used last month to climb; I basically played that list up top except I swapped in two copies of Bunny Stomper for Observer of Myths because it was insanely good in the mirror (I think I went 4-0 against other Aggro Hunters, small sample size but every single win was because I could control my opponent's board with Rush Beasts).
I don't have Pip, so I'm trying to brew up a Zarimi Priest deck that doesn't go quite so heavily into copying 1 drops. Right now I'm building around Party Animal buffs and I'm really liking it in combination with Rolling Stone as the Elemental. Probably not a good deck, but I'll still fool around with it. I might try running Glacial Shard for Demon Hunters.
I'm also kinda messing with the Mech Rogue that tries to cheese games with Power/Virus Zilliax. The dream is using Drone Deconstructor and Sonya Waterdancer for a ton of Magnetic minions, and I'm trying to work with that synergy currently.
All in all, a really fun set with lots of interesting things to try out.
Apparently this bug existed during the theorycrafting streams; Kibler played it with one Dreadlord in deck and it did nothing.