We're unleashing the Beasts this time with the Hunter/Druid dual class cards!
I actually taught this class myself back in the day, so you can be sure that our card reviews will be 100% accurate assessments of how these cards will perform in the upcoming meta. After all, I'm sure the game hasn't changed so much that my teachings on proper Hadronox feeding or how best to befriend Kathrena Winterwisp are no longer relevant - right?
Join the Marsuul Club and get a Marsuul Cub!
Quote From ShadowsOfSense This is one of those strange cards that does quite a lot of things, supporting quite a few different ideas - and yet it's hard to say how good it'll be.
The first thing to notice is that this is not a card you generally play on turn one, despite being a 1-Cost card. In fact, if you don't have a minion to target you simply can't play this card at all. Think of this more as a 2-Cost card, with some flexibility - it's a 3/3, spread over three different minions. One needs to be on the board already, one comes in straight away as a 1/1 body, and the final one is added to your hand and doesn't necessarily need to be played right away. If you don't play it, hey, it only cost you 1 mana this time.
This is deceptively strong for swarm strategies which already plan to have something to play on the first turn, which they can then buff and supplement with two 1/1s on turn 2. The decks you run this in will rarely have an issue of not having a minion to play this on. I expect to see this experimented with in Token Druid and possibly even Face Hunter variants; whether the flexibility and additional bodies are actually enough to push it into the meta remains to be seen.
Always carrying the rest of the class.
Quote From Demonxz95 10/10 for the pun, and I feel similarly about this card. Sludge Belcher used to be really good, and this card is very much like that. A 4/5 Taunt is a fairly formidable wall at the stage of the game where you want to play this, and the Deathrattle is really good. Most 3-Cost Beasts are quite good to summon from it (the only bad ones would be Desert Hare and Ironbeak Owl), even if it just summons a 3/2 body with no ability.
Hunters might be too aggressive for this card to be good for them, but it will definitely be great for Druid at least.
Just play them a bit of music and they'll go right to sleep.
Quote From FearGralex Seeing as how my favorite Hearthstone card of all time is Kathrena Winterwisp, I am quite stoked by this. Recruiting some Beastly friends to join the fray is great fun, and it actually seems quite powerful in the right deck as well. If you actually manage to get two 4-5 drop Beasts reliably (and that can be done with clever deckbuilding), you can drop 10 mana worth of stats on the board for only 7 mana, and allow those stats to have an immediate impact.
As for the actual Beasties to recruit, you have many great options in Scholomance Academy alone, from Teacher's Pet (sticking power), Lake Thresher (AoE board control), Krolusk Barkstripper(stronger removal), or Twilight Runner (card draw). A couple other great options from earlier sets include Tundra Rhino and Escaped Manasaber. On a personal level, I am REALLY excited to get building some midrangey Hunter/Druid decks with this card.
+1/+1 will be awarded to each of you for sheer dumb luck.
Quote From Noxious Shan'do Wildclaw is another flexible card introduced with Scholomance Academy, though one I find more balanced than many other legendaries coming with it. For Druids, a +1/+1 deck-wide buff to just Beasts is alright, but when Embiggen and Survival of the Fittest exist - without any restrictions on tribes - I'm not sure shoving more Beasts in your deck just for a +1/+1 buff is the better choice. This effect is much stronger for Hunters - Hunters' buffs are less AOE-oriented, an example of a successful Hunter deck buff is Dire Frenzy - so it might end up being quite strong for Aggro Hunter decks.
On the other hand, we have the other 'Choose One' effect - transform into a copy of a friendly Beast. Now, this can be quite dangerous for both classes, but think of what could be accomplished with this effect and King Krush. Sixteen face damage. On top of how great it is for Hunters, the effect can also work as a sort of cheaper Germination, with the downside of being restricted to Beasts. I am far more hopeful of this effect making a mess of the opponent than the first one.
Regardless, for a card that costs 3 mana, either effect option is going to be worth picking. Played early, the +1/+1 buff can put more pressure on your opponent, and the Shan'do herself has decent stats for turn 3. Played later on, 3 mana still leaves a lot of room to play a Beast - to be copied - without having to risk it being destroyed by waiting one turn.
Comments
This was a great write up, thank you much for taking the time.
I love reading your reviews. Are you planning to write about all the cards, like you did with AoO?
That's the plan! Be prepared for some serious review spam in the coming days.