Our Thoughts on Hearthstone's Ashes of Outland Neutral Cards (Part 1)

It's time for some neutrals! As the biggest 'class' of cards, we've split this into three parts - this first part will cover the low-cost Commons. Part 2 will contain the remaining Commons, while Part 3 will give you the lowdown on all the Rares, Epics and Legendaries.

Now, I'm not one to make outrageous claims of credibility, but I have to say that these reviews right here? 100% accurate. You won't find a more accurate review anywhere on the internet, and trust me, I've been searching. You think we want the burden of being so right all the time? Hell no! We'd love to be able to point you to someone else and say 'hey, they can help you out on this one'. Sadly, everyone else just can't compare to our humble brilliance.

To the first merchant, Yogg offered an impenetrable shield, that he may hide from his enemies.

Quote From ShadowsOfSense

I love this trio of cards as a design exercise. They're incredibly versatile in their usage.

On the one hand, each of them is an Elven Archer with +1 Attack; assuming you kill the minion you're targeting, the only downside they have is that they can't target the opponent, which is miniscule. On the other hand, targeting your own minions lets you trade a single point of Health - not completely unreasonable - for a great effect. This first one offers Divine Shield, which is fantastic, essentially trading 1 Health for a free Attack into something.

These will be Arena powerhouses for sure, but what about Constructed? It's difficult to know for sure, but I'd expect this one to find its way into aggressive lists and especially into Zoo-like decks. It's the most obviously good of the three in my eyes. I don't anticipate it finding its way into more midrange lists, with one exception - if there's a self-damage or 'Enrage' Warrior deck, then this one would be a fantastic boon to it, activating a lot of your effects and giving your minions a free pop at something.

To the second merchant, Yogg offered a shiny jetpack, that she may fly circles around her enemies.

Quote From ShadowsOfSense

The second best merchant! There's not much more to say about this one except that it's a bit more clunky to utilise its bonus than its fellows, requiring an additional minion in your hand (or summonable in some way). As such I think it'd be the second choice of any deckbuilder, losing out to the Guardian Augmerchant in aggressive and Zoo lists, although potentially still making the cut in that hypothetical 'Enrage' Warrior.

I quite like how this forces you to consider how valuable a keyword is - after all, you have three options, but which one would be best for you?

To the third merchant, Yogg offered arcane knowledge, that they may reduce their enemies to ash.

Quote From ShadowsOfSense

The runt of the litter. Like the others, it's not a bad early-drop for Arena, but it'll struggle to find a place in Constructed games. Spell Damage just isn't a good enough boon to warrant running this over either of the other two, and in a deck that might be hyper-focused on Spell Damage there are far better options to choose from.

At least it gets the coolest art to make up for its gameplay failings.

At least you aren't guaranteed to open more once you dust them.

Quote From ShadowsOfSense

This is a 1 mana 1/4 - that's way above rate! Surely such a fantastic statline can only be a good thing. I mean, obviously it's going to have a downside, but it'll probably still… oh. Oh dear.

Yeah, no, this card is abysmally bad. The most you'll see of this is as a pollutant to the 1-drop pool - an occasional annoyance to whichever player is unlucky enough to find it stuck in their hand or Yogg forbid summoned to their board. Make no mistake - if you end up with this in your hand somehow you're better off leaving it there and hoping it eats a discard effect at some point. This turns all your opponents 'minion only' damage spells into face damage; their Rush minions can lose 1 Health to gain Charge instead; every damaging board clear gets to be Consecration and hit face too.

You should never run this card. There is no feasible situation in which it makes sense to do so. Its higher Health is practically a downside in and of itself, allowing your opponent to abuse its ridiculous ability to deal even more damage to you.

As Noxious put it in their far more succinct review (before I took it over to rant about how awful this card is): "Absolute trash. At least Wrathguard had good stats."

You aren't special, 'Bonechewer'. I have teeth too.

Quote From linkblade91

It's neat, letting Gurubashi Berserker's effect see the light of day again, and on a Taunt minion no less! But it's a 2-mana 2/3; how many procs are you realistically going to get? Probably just the one when you trade into something, but after that it's gonna be toast. No one in their right mind would trade a larger minion into the Bonechewer Brawler after he's been enraged boosted: they'll use something that was going to die regardless, finish the Brawler off with a spell/Hero Power to avoid the issue, or they'll overpower him in a single blow before the effect can be made of use. We can always use more low-cost Taunts in the game, but I just don't see the Brawler being a staple card.

He'll help you with your spells in a minute, he's a little rusty.

Quote From ShadowsOfSense

This was a very interesting card to me when it was revealed, because the idea of it was so novel.

A 2 mana 2/2 that summons a 1/1 when it dies? That's not very good - Haunted Creeper and Hench-Clan Hogsteed are both comparable (and better) cards. So what do you do to try and sway the pendulum in the other direction? Give the 1/1 Spell Damage, of course! That's… good, right?

Well, is it? You've summoned a 2/2 on your turn that does nothing for you. Unless you have a way to kill it off then and there, you can't make use of the Spell Damage. Your opponent now has their whole turn to react to it, in which they'll most likely be able to kill a 2/2 and a 1/1. Only if they don't do you get to take control of the situation, hopefully killing off your minion in a favourable trade to then take advantage of that sweet sweet Spell Damage.

The thing is, I think I'd rather just have the Spell Damage readily available to me? Kobold Geomancer is a bad card, sure, but at least I can combo it with a spell straight away without jumping through hoops. Other neutrals at 2 mana: Tuskarr Fisherman, which merely requires that I've already played a minion; Tainted Zealot, which saw plenty of play in Warlock due to a nice combo with Defile; Bloodmage Thalnos, one of the most fair and just good Classic Legendaries. Even the Ethereal Augmerchant, who I readily claimed was the worst of the trio of Augmerchants, comes down for 1 less mana and in my eyes a generally better effect, because the Spell Damage is right there for you when you need it.

I love this card for the idea of it. The fact that somebody rightly recognised that a 2 mana 2/2 summon a 1/1 on death just wasn't good enough on its own, and tried to find something that could give it a little relevance. It's a shame that they chose Spell Damage to do that, but the out-of-the-box idea of it is neat, at least.

I wouldn't expect to see this anywhere but Arena.

It's not imprisoned, it's just well-trained. Stay!

Quote From Noxious

This card made me properly understand that as soon as a minion stops being dormant, it doesn't mean it can attack on the same turn. Imprisoned Vilefiend is basically a 4-mana 3/5 with Rush. It has a decent health pool, and 3 damage can certainly be enough to clear a part of the board in the early game. The real "bonus" here is that you are paying only 2 mana instead of 4 for a minion that you get to use in two turns. With the power of simple math, if you play this on turn 2, it would be akin to summoning two 4-cost minions on turn 4, one of which can be used immediately!

I suspect this might see some play in aggro decks, though some classes might have better options (Hunter and Warrior with their plethora of rush minions, Rogue with Underbelly Fence), but I see this card as being used in arena most often, where board control is key to winning more than anywhere else.

She might seem a little cold at first, but once you get to know her she really chills out.

Quote From Demonxz95

Maybe it's just because it's a Neutral Freeze, a design space that doesn't get explored a lot, but I really like this card. Neutral Freeze is something I think is probably not appreciated as much as we should as we don't really see it. The ability to Freeze something and get decent stats on the board is nothing to necessarily scoff at. It's really good in terms of Tempo as well.

I actually think people are sleeping on this card. I think this card has potential to say some Constructed play somewhere. Don't be fooled by the simple looks of this card.

You heard it here first: I officially nominate this card as the sleeper of the set.

I can do this. I can do this! Oh fuck, no I can't.

Quote From linkblade91

Druids used Crypt Lord for a good while after it released in Knights of the Frozen Throne, and this is kind of like that stat-wise. Yeah it's a 3/3/6 until damaged, but most of the time you'll probably see some little bugger ping your Health and lose the +2 Attack bonus. Very similar to a Tar Creeper that only procs once…but then why would you play such a card? I'm not really sold on the effect as being super worthwhile, but I could be mistaken.

Prisoner Zero has escaped.

Quote From FrostyFeet

A very premium statline at the cost of summoning tokens for your opponent, quite classic drawback card. Even though it's Neutral I don't think there will be many classes that want to face the wrath of three Huntresses, which the opponent can buff as they will or gain some other advantage out of them. The only class that I think might be interested in this minion is Priest as they've used to abuse high Health minions. Now that Holy Nova only costs 4 it would be the perfect follow-up to clear the tokens and/or heal up Terrorguard Escapee for future Inner Fires and such. The card won't be in the plans of any other class, the drawback just isn't worth it.