This just seems bad. I mean sure, you can summon tokens for yourself and then blow them up for a decent attack boost but I feel like there's better ways to do that. The fact that this costs 2-mana just makes it terrible in my opinion. Can't even abuse it with Expendable Performers.
Could be really good in Quest Hunter. It effectively means that if you get this in your opening hand with a bunch of other smaller spells you can turbo your Quest extremely efficiently while conserving ressources that will allow you to just end the game after Tavish drops.
Quest Hunter needed some support in Standard but I fear this + Howl is too much. It's a deck that thrives on just dumpstering board-based strategies that don't have explosive board swings and it's only slightly more fair than Quest Mage.
This might be complete garbage but I don't care, it'S post rotation Big Beast Hunter support and that deck is my absolute favourite right now. It synergizes with Vanndar and it's basically a faster and less clunky Guardian Animals. I already run just one GA because the 2nd one usually comes out too late and only makes Ichman weaker. I'd gladly replace it with two of these for a solid midgame play as well as the chance to highroll after Vanndar into a turn 5 Bear.
Reload is finally real. Weirdly enough I'm not entirely sure if this is even that good in the current Face Hunter builds. Feels like a dead draw that only becomes good once you've gassed out at which point you might already be losing because you didn't steamroll hard enough. I mean...Voracious Reader does the same but it comes with a body and weirdly enough Face Hunter isn't even starved for draw.
Now where I think this will do some MAJOR work is in Quest Hunter. I've played that deck a lot during Stormwind and one of my most useful plays was...Loot Hoarder. Yeah. turns out that any card draw is pretty good when you can realistically close out the game by turn 7. This basically means that you can safely spam spells and don't have to worry about conserving ressources for later. If you topdeck this after dropping Tavish you probably just win. It's Kodobane for 2-mana and also a spell. This isn't a good thing btw, Quest Hunter, even in Standard has very one-sided gameplay, it's basically Quest Mage without Freeze effects in exchange for a much faster win condition. Be afraid (although thankfully the deck probably won't make it through rotation in one piece because Professor Slate carries a lot of matchups that are unwinnable otherwise)
Not a bad card I think but it's probably too inconsistent. Sure, the pool of Choose One cards is fairly small at the moment so you'll rarely just discover a blank, but still...is it really worth to play a 4-mana 3/4 just for the chance to maybe get a juiced up Nourish for turn 6? Maybe you do, I don't know, I've never been good at Ramp Druid, but I feel like this is too value-focussed and not enough "I turbo ramp to 10-mana and then vomit a bunch of huge stats on the board in the hopes that it wins me the game"
This looks really strong in a class that has limited access to removal. Sure, it's expensive but essentially this is either a 5-mana Fire Elemental or an improved and unconditional Groundskeeper (without the Taunt, but who's counting...).
While this is certainly intended to be post-rotation support to make up for the loss of defensive tools like Lunar Eclipse and Cenarion Ward I can already see it being a solid inclusion in most current Druid decks.
Worth noting that this is a great play after Wild Growth (or any turn 3 ramp card), which will be relevant once Overgrowth rotates
Looks like something that would have been printed ages ago and only ended up as Arena filler. I guess dealing 4 damage on a 3/6 stick is decent but I don't see a dedicated dragon deck spontaneously spawn from just this mini-set.
Random discard is bad unless there'S a dedicated discard archetype. 6-mana is also really slow.
I think I need to point out that Brittlebone Destroyer is still in Standard and does not see play despite having excellent synergy in a powerful meta deck. If Questlock doesn't need Brittlebone it won't need this either. Same goes for Owllock (who can't run this anyways).
Hoping for some discard support in the future but right now this looks like just a meme card for meme's sake (which is still pretty funny. It's 50% Deathwing)
Might be better than Duskbreaker. Priest no longer has issues with drawing cards as much as they used to, I doubt it's going to be hard to have both spells in your hand by turn 4...and even if you don't, there's still some redundancy with Xyrella and Hysteria so you're not exactly relying on this alone for boardclears.
They're gonna make Quest Priest into a real thing and we're all gonna hate it...
Quick question: Is Shield Slam on a stick for 3-more mana better than the flexibility of being able to stack armor on the same turn you use it? I'm not sure it is.
I'd run this in Paladin without hesitation, it might even be better than Bannerman depending on the type of deck you're running. If you drop it on curve one draw is basically guaranteed and if it doesn#t get removed you can easily buff it to draw even more. Maybe that's not needed at the moment though, Paladin has some pretty decent draw these days.
Could also try and make Handbuff Warrior a thing again..
Looks like a pretty good control tool. For one it's more Quest Shaman support (and while the deck might not need it right now it will post-rotation because it loses pretty much everything that makes it good right now), but more importantly it helps post rotation (and even current) Freeze Shaman decks that rely on Multicaster for draw.
Deep Breath is probably terrible anyways. You need 4 spells in hand for it to measure up to Fire Sale and even then it's 5-mana. The best it does is give you a way to deal with multiplte giants if you have 8 spells in hand and how often does that come up?
I don't see how it would make any existing deck better
Whelp Bonker looks pretty strong for decks with buffs. If you play it on curve it's basically Acolyte of Pain and if you then manage to buff it up it can get you a lot of cards. Finally an epic from the miniset that isn't just a shitpost.
Also an insanely powerful Shaman Fire Spell. That should fix post rotation Multicaster issues.
Not too crazy about all the dragon stuff. I hope they don't just shoehorn dragons into every class.
The problem about PvE is that thee's 0 incentive to ever use anything outside of the most efficient comps because the grind sucks and the only thing that makes it bearable is making it faster. Why should I spend two turns to wipe a fight with Demons when I can do it in one with Fire?
Right now PvP is dictated by Valeera and Lokholar. You either oneshot LOkholar on turn 1 or you get destroyed by him. Those who don't play Lokholar play Valeera and dumpster whatever's left. Tribal archetypes are almost completely unplayable outside of Fire/Nature stuff. When'S the last times you've seen Beasts? Have you ever seen Pirates?
The whole fantasy of Mercs was supposed to be to build your party of synergistic mercs but instead everyone just runs the handful of top mercs that are just independently strong and synergy is largely out of the window. This isn't going to get better unless the rampant abuse of speed manipulation is addressed and the most consistently powerful mercs (like Valeera, Varden and Cairne) are in someway nerfed.
The only thing I ever really wanted from mercs was the ability to build a team focussed around themes I enjoy like Beasts and Pirates and stuff, but those builds aren't just bad they're pretty much unplayable in PvP and entirely impractical in PvE, meaning a large part of the lads that I'm supposed to collect and max are just pointless filler....but I still have to spend time doing their tasks and stuff...that's not fun...and I usually don't mind grinding.
I know that there'S going to be improvements in the future but to me the entire thing just feels doomed...and I've played it a lot, even managed to max all mercs right up until the last update at which point I gave up because the bounties are just so unfun to grind and the meta somehow managed to get even worse in PvP.
TO me there's nothing they can fix in PvP unless the do a massive overhaul of the combat system and dish out multiple nerfs and buffs across the board (which would affect the viablility of certain mercs in PvE too which is why I doubt they ever will do it)
Then there's the obvious excess coin issue which I'm sure they're working on but it's just beyond ridiculous that this wasn't planned for at all on launch. Like...they couuld have at least brainstormed a concept to allude to instead of just saying "we'll figure something out" after people realize the massive diminishing returns from packs.
I'm gonna be honest here, I don't think Mercs is ever going to improve. Their approach to balance seems to be "release broken stuff then release more broken stuff to counter previously released broken stuff". It's not even been out for a year and the powercreep already rivals that of Traditional HS. Excess coins still haven'T been addressed in any way, grinding is still a repetitive chore. PVP is just not interesting due to lack of actual strategy beyond "netdeck a popular team and hope you don't queue into things that hardcounter you"
Honestly at this point they're better off just selling the merc portraits as actual skins since they're clearly the best part of the entire thing.
I don't think that's what they meant. They're saying they'll never buff cards in order to make the competitive for Wild. Unnerfing is another thing, that's just making sure a card that was nerfed specifically for Standard doesn't suffer in Wild forever despite not being a problem there
This just seems bad. I mean sure, you can summon tokens for yourself and then blow them up for a decent attack boost but I feel like there's better ways to do that. The fact that this costs 2-mana just makes it terrible in my opinion. Can't even abuse it with Expendable Performers.
Could be really good in Quest Hunter. It effectively means that if you get this in your opening hand with a bunch of other smaller spells you can turbo your Quest extremely efficiently while conserving ressources that will allow you to just end the game after Tavish drops.
Quest Hunter needed some support in Standard but I fear this + Howl is too much. It's a deck that thrives on just dumpstering board-based strategies that don't have explosive board swings and it's only slightly more fair than Quest Mage.
This might be complete garbage but I don't care, it'S post rotation Big Beast Hunter support and that deck is my absolute favourite right now. It synergizes with Vanndar and it's basically a faster and less clunky Guardian Animals. I already run just one GA because the 2nd one usually comes out too late and only makes Ichman weaker. I'd gladly replace it with two of these for a solid midgame play as well as the chance to highroll after Vanndar into a turn 5 Bear.
Reload is finally real. Weirdly enough I'm not entirely sure if this is even that good in the current Face Hunter builds. Feels like a dead draw that only becomes good once you've gassed out at which point you might already be losing because you didn't steamroll hard enough. I mean...Voracious Reader does the same but it comes with a body and weirdly enough Face Hunter isn't even starved for draw.
Now where I think this will do some MAJOR work is in Quest Hunter. I've played that deck a lot during Stormwind and one of my most useful plays was...Loot Hoarder. Yeah. turns out that any card draw is pretty good when you can realistically close out the game by turn 7. This basically means that you can safely spam spells and don't have to worry about conserving ressources for later. If you topdeck this after dropping Tavish you probably just win. It's Kodobane for 2-mana and also a spell. This isn't a good thing btw, Quest Hunter, even in Standard has very one-sided gameplay, it's basically Quest Mage without Freeze effects in exchange for a much faster win condition. Be afraid (although thankfully the deck probably won't make it through rotation in one piece because Professor Slate carries a lot of matchups that are unwinnable otherwise)
Not a bad card I think but it's probably too inconsistent. Sure, the pool of Choose One cards is fairly small at the moment so you'll rarely just discover a blank, but still...is it really worth to play a 4-mana 3/4 just for the chance to maybe get a juiced up Nourish for turn 6? Maybe you do, I don't know, I've never been good at Ramp Druid, but I feel like this is too value-focussed and not enough "I turbo ramp to 10-mana and then vomit a bunch of huge stats on the board in the hopes that it wins me the game"
This looks really strong in a class that has limited access to removal. Sure, it's expensive but essentially this is either a 5-mana Fire Elemental or an improved and unconditional Groundskeeper (without the Taunt, but who's counting...).
While this is certainly intended to be post-rotation support to make up for the loss of defensive tools like Lunar Eclipse and Cenarion Ward I can already see it being a solid inclusion in most current Druid decks.
Worth noting that this is a great play after Wild Growth (or any turn 3 ramp card), which will be relevant once Overgrowth rotates
looks trash. I guess it's just Mage's fate to get really underwhelming cards each mini set. Let's hope the minions are good at least.
Looks like something that would have been printed ages ago and only ended up as Arena filler. I guess dealing 4 damage on a 3/6 stick is decent but I don't see a dedicated dragon deck spontaneously spawn from just this mini-set.
Random discard is bad unless there'S a dedicated discard archetype. 6-mana is also really slow.
I think I need to point out that Brittlebone Destroyer is still in Standard and does not see play despite having excellent synergy in a powerful meta deck. If Questlock doesn't need Brittlebone it won't need this either. Same goes for Owllock (who can't run this anyways).
Hoping for some discard support in the future but right now this looks like just a meme card for meme's sake (which is still pretty funny. It's 50% Deathwing)
Might be better than Duskbreaker. Priest no longer has issues with drawing cards as much as they used to, I doubt it's going to be hard to have both spells in your hand by turn 4...and even if you don't, there's still some redundancy with Xyrella and Hysteria so you're not exactly relying on this alone for boardclears.
They're gonna make Quest Priest into a real thing and we're all gonna hate it...
Quick question: Is Shield Slam on a stick for 3-more mana better than the flexibility of being able to stack armor on the same turn you use it? I'm not sure it is.
I'd run this in Paladin without hesitation, it might even be better than Bannerman depending on the type of deck you're running. If you drop it on curve one draw is basically guaranteed and if it doesn#t get removed you can easily buff it to draw even more. Maybe that's not needed at the moment though, Paladin has some pretty decent draw these days.
Could also try and make Handbuff Warrior a thing again..
Looks like a pretty good control tool. For one it's more Quest Shaman support (and while the deck might not need it right now it will post-rotation because it loses pretty much everything that makes it good right now), but more importantly it helps post rotation (and even current) Freeze Shaman decks that rely on Multicaster for draw.
Deep Breath is probably terrible anyways. You need 4 spells in hand for it to measure up to Fire Sale and even then it's 5-mana. The best it does is give you a way to deal with multiplte giants if you have 8 spells in hand and how often does that come up?
I don't see how it would make any existing deck better
Whelp Bonker looks pretty strong for decks with buffs. If you play it on curve it's basically Acolyte of Pain and if you then manage to buff it up it can get you a lot of cards. Finally an epic from the miniset that isn't just a shitpost.
Also an insanely powerful Shaman Fire Spell. That should fix post rotation Multicaster issues.
Not too crazy about all the dragon stuff. I hope they don't just shoehorn dragons into every class.
The problem about PvE is that thee's 0 incentive to ever use anything outside of the most efficient comps because the grind sucks and the only thing that makes it bearable is making it faster. Why should I spend two turns to wipe a fight with Demons when I can do it in one with Fire?
Right now PvP is dictated by Valeera and Lokholar. You either oneshot LOkholar on turn 1 or you get destroyed by him. Those who don't play Lokholar play Valeera and dumpster whatever's left. Tribal archetypes are almost completely unplayable outside of Fire/Nature stuff. When'S the last times you've seen Beasts? Have you ever seen Pirates?
The whole fantasy of Mercs was supposed to be to build your party of synergistic mercs but instead everyone just runs the handful of top mercs that are just independently strong and synergy is largely out of the window. This isn't going to get better unless the rampant abuse of speed manipulation is addressed and the most consistently powerful mercs (like Valeera, Varden and Cairne) are in someway nerfed.
The only thing I ever really wanted from mercs was the ability to build a team focussed around themes I enjoy like Beasts and Pirates and stuff, but those builds aren't just bad they're pretty much unplayable in PvP and entirely impractical in PvE, meaning a large part of the lads that I'm supposed to collect and max are just pointless filler....but I still have to spend time doing their tasks and stuff...that's not fun...and I usually don't mind grinding.
I know that there'S going to be improvements in the future but to me the entire thing just feels doomed...and I've played it a lot, even managed to max all mercs right up until the last update at which point I gave up because the bounties are just so unfun to grind and the meta somehow managed to get even worse in PvP.
TO me there's nothing they can fix in PvP unless the do a massive overhaul of the combat system and dish out multiple nerfs and buffs across the board (which would affect the viablility of certain mercs in PvE too which is why I doubt they ever will do it)
Then there's the obvious excess coin issue which I'm sure they're working on but it's just beyond ridiculous that this wasn't planned for at all on launch. Like...they couuld have at least brainstormed a concept to allude to instead of just saying "we'll figure something out" after people realize the massive diminishing returns from packs.
I'm gonna be honest here, I don't think Mercs is ever going to improve. Their approach to balance seems to be "release broken stuff then release more broken stuff to counter previously released broken stuff". It's not even been out for a year and the powercreep already rivals that of Traditional HS. Excess coins still haven'T been addressed in any way, grinding is still a repetitive chore. PVP is just not interesting due to lack of actual strategy beyond "netdeck a popular team and hope you don't queue into things that hardcounter you"
Honestly at this point they're better off just selling the merc portraits as actual skins since they're clearly the best part of the entire thing.
I remember Gadgetzan when Hunter was so bad compared to eveything else that the entiree class became virtually unplayable.
I don't think that's what they meant. They're saying they'll never buff cards in order to make the competitive for Wild. Unnerfing is another thing, that's just making sure a card that was nerfed specifically for Standard doesn't suffer in Wild forever despite not being a problem there