It's dead now, but that could change when new weapon synergy cards are introduced. Remember how The Caverns Below came back twice after being nerfed. So I think it's good to have tech against Kingsbane just in case.
If you have your own weapon to override Aluneth after one or two turns, it's a good steal. Otherwise, Aluneth is going to fatigue you in no time. The only reason Aluneth is any good is that it's played in a deck full of cheap burn spells, so the opponent dies before the Mage does.
2 damage on turn 5 (Holy Nova) doesn't kill much because by then small minions have been buffed or larger minions have been summoned; 2 damage on turn 3 does clear a lot of wide boards.
How many pirates would you need in a deck to make this card playable? My estimate is that even with 5 pirates, it would be worthwhile, since most of the time you'd draw at least 2.
So if you include Captain Greenskin (which is already in my Quest Warrior deck) and two Dread Corsair (which I dropped but is not terrible in the deck), you only need one good additional pirate that you can include two copies of.
I'm not so worried, in Standard at least. Without Patches the Pirate and N'Zoth's First Mate a Pirate Warrior will have a slower start. At the same time, we now have rush minions as removal, so it's harder for the Warrior to deal repeated damage with the pirates.
One of the problems of Dragon Soul is that you have to build your deck around it, but have no guarantee you'll draw it in time. Mage has more other cards that generate or synergize with cheap spells, so the problem is less severe than for Priest. But I'm not sure that this one card gives Cycle Mage the critical mass to become viable again in Standard.
It is one mana cheaper than Zola the Gorgon though, so easier to play on the same turn as the dragon itself. If you're playing a dragon deck, most of the cards you might want to copy are dragons anyway. I think it is playable.
No, "fluffy" is the site's traditional placeholder text when the card name wasn't revealed in English yet and there is no reliable translation available.
It is hard to evaluate when we don't yet know the full pool of dragons it can offer, but while there are a few really good picks such as Deathwing, Ysera and Kalecgos, you also run the risk of being offered a choice between Faerie Dragon, Brightwing and Twilight Drake. Overall, I think a card this expensive and slow has to be more reliable to be worth it.
Since you'd be playing this in a deck that draws a lot of cards, it's not a problem if it's not playable in every matchup: you won't have enough mana to play all your cards anyway.
I think Flik is versatile enough to include in pretty much every Rogue deck, so playing him and Waxadred in the same deck is not that much of a meme. Whether it makes sense to include Shadowstep in the same deck as well is questionable though.
A huge taunt isn't just for protection against aggro, it's also very useful to kill your opponent. Handlock doesn't have to be defensive: I've been experimenting with an aggressive handlock built around Mountain Giant and Expired Merchant and while it's not quite there yet, with cards like this it may well become viable.
Also... isn't greed the essence of handlock? You take a risk by tapping often in the hope of a big pay-off.
...Unless you shadowstep Flik to reduce his cost, then play your own Waxadred and kill it with Flik.
(Only works if you draw both Flik and Waxadred before your opponent's Waxadred has his deathrattle triggered, but that's going to happen in some games.)
It could be used as an aggro tool as well, since it protects other minions in two ways: after completion as a taunt and before completion by inviting the opponent to deal face damage instead of dealing with the minions on the board.
The more I think about it, the more situations I see in which this is good.
If your opponent has a wide board of small minions (Quest Shaman, Lackey Rogue), this doesn't give them the full three minions, while you do get a cheap big taunt with enough attack to take out small minions when traded into.
If you don't play this on curve, you could immediately kill off the summoned minions with one-sided AoE; even on turn 6 or 7, a 3/9 taunt is useful.
In Quest Hunter, this progresses your quest by 4 ticks early game and has synergy with Unleash the Hounds late game.
And of course other advantages that were already mentioned, like messing up resurrect pools and discounting Sea Giant.
Maybe an opponent can delay the quest completion, but it is going to make their turns more awkward. For example hero powers are not mana efficient, so in the early to mid game, you don't want to be using your hero power every turn. And if you have to go face with a minion to prevent the quest completion, that minion is not trading, which leaves the Paladin's minions alive to deal face damage or get better trades.
Why not? One or two good dragon class cards can make a dragon deck viable. For example Dragon Priest was played because of Drakonid Operative and later Duskbreaker, not because the Priest class has particular synergy with dragons.
The class that would in theory have the most dragon synergy would be Shaman, because dragons often use battlecries. But Dragon Shaman has never been particularly good because there were no class-specific dragon cards.
It's dead now, but that could change when new weapon synergy cards are introduced. Remember how The Caverns Below came back twice after being nerfed. So I think it's good to have tech against Kingsbane just in case.
If you have your own weapon to override Aluneth after one or two turns, it's a good steal. Otherwise, Aluneth is going to fatigue you in no time. The only reason Aluneth is any good is that it's played in a deck full of cheap burn spells, so the opponent dies before the Mage does.
Consecration is borderline playable and this is 1 mana cheaper.
If it were 3 damage, it would be much better than Hellfire, which is a playable card.
2 damage on turn 5 (Holy Nova) doesn't kill much because by then small minions have been buffed or larger minions have been summoned; 2 damage on turn 3 does clear a lot of wide boards.
How many pirates would you need in a deck to make this card playable? My estimate is that even with 5 pirates, it would be worthwhile, since most of the time you'd draw at least 2.
So if you include Captain Greenskin (which is already in my Quest Warrior deck) and two Dread Corsair (which I dropped but is not terrible in the deck), you only need one good additional pirate that you can include two copies of.
I'm not so worried, in Standard at least. Without Patches the Pirate and N'Zoth's First Mate a Pirate Warrior will have a slower start. At the same time, we now have rush minions as removal, so it's harder for the Warrior to deal repeated damage with the pirates.
One of the problems of Dragon Soul is that you have to build your deck around it, but have no guarantee you'll draw it in time. Mage has more other cards that generate or synergize with cheap spells, so the problem is less severe than for Priest. But I'm not sure that this one card gives Cycle Mage the critical mass to become viable again in Standard.
It is one mana cheaper than Zola the Gorgon though, so easier to play on the same turn as the dragon itself. If you're playing a dragon deck, most of the cards you might want to copy are dragons anyway. I think it is playable.
No, "fluffy" is the site's traditional placeholder text when the card name wasn't revealed in English yet and there is no reliable translation available.
It is hard to evaluate when we don't yet know the full pool of dragons it can offer, but while there are a few really good picks such as Deathwing, Ysera and Kalecgos, you also run the risk of being offered a choice between Faerie Dragon, Brightwing and Twilight Drake. Overall, I think a card this expensive and slow has to be more reliable to be worth it.
Since you'd be playing this in a deck that draws a lot of cards, it's not a problem if it's not playable in every matchup: you won't have enough mana to play all your cards anyway.
I think Flik is versatile enough to include in pretty much every Rogue deck, so playing him and Waxadred in the same deck is not that much of a meme. Whether it makes sense to include Shadowstep in the same deck as well is questionable though.
A huge taunt isn't just for protection against aggro, it's also very useful to kill your opponent. Handlock doesn't have to be defensive: I've been experimenting with an aggressive handlock built around Mountain Giant and Expired Merchant and while it's not quite there yet, with cards like this it may well become viable.
Also... isn't greed the essence of handlock? You take a risk by tapping often in the hope of a big pay-off.
Yes, it goes up to 11!
:)
Also in today's news, the weasel was added to the endangered species list.
...Unless you shadowstep Flik to reduce his cost, then play your own Waxadred and kill it with Flik.
(Only works if you draw both Flik and Waxadred before your opponent's Waxadred has his deathrattle triggered, but that's going to happen in some games.)
It could be used as an aggro tool as well, since it protects other minions in two ways: after completion as a taunt and before completion by inviting the opponent to deal face damage instead of dealing with the minions on the board.
The more I think about it, the more situations I see in which this is good.
If your opponent has a wide board of small minions (Quest Shaman, Lackey Rogue), this doesn't give them the full three minions, while you do get a cheap big taunt with enough attack to take out small minions when traded into.
If you don't play this on curve, you could immediately kill off the summoned minions with one-sided AoE; even on turn 6 or 7, a 3/9 taunt is useful.
In Quest Hunter, this progresses your quest by 4 ticks early game and has synergy with Unleash the Hounds late game.
And of course other advantages that were already mentioned, like messing up resurrect pools and discounting Sea Giant.
Maybe an opponent can delay the quest completion, but it is going to make their turns more awkward. For example hero powers are not mana efficient, so in the early to mid game, you don't want to be using your hero power every turn. And if you have to go face with a minion to prevent the quest completion, that minion is not trading, which leaves the Paladin's minions alive to deal face damage or get better trades.
Why not? One or two good dragon class cards can make a dragon deck viable. For example Dragon Priest was played because of Drakonid Operative and later Duskbreaker, not because the Priest class has particular synergy with dragons.
The class that would in theory have the most dragon synergy would be Shaman, because dragons often use battlecries. But Dragon Shaman has never been particularly good because there were no class-specific dragon cards.