We've made it! Now begins our journey through the actual class cards of the expansion, starting with the bigger selection from Demon Hunter.
As a Demon Hunter initiate myself, I actually know everything there is to know about how these cards will function, so you can trust that our reviews will be excellent - if I can figure out how to write them, that is. Spectral sight: great for catching prey, not so great for parsing input from a computer monitor. C'est la vie.
It's-a me, Illidario!
Quote From FearGralex I absolutely love this card. It's a very cheap and specific tutor effect, and one that you can tailor your deck to determine what kind of cards it can tutor. Many of Demon Hunter's most powerful cards have Outcast effects, so you're usually going to be drawing one of the most powerful cards in your deck. Not only that, Double Jump also puts the card on the right side of your hand, so whatever card you draw is going to have its Outcast effect immediately enabled. This means the right play might often be not to run this out on turn one, because then the Outcast card might end up stranded in the middle of your hand for a while. Instead, try to save the Double Jump for a critical turn where you might not have a good play lined up, and go fishing to see what you get.
"You can't use a flesh-ripper to cut marrow! What are you, a Warrior?"
Quote From ShadowsOfSense Compare this to Truesilver Champion and you can already see why this is going to be a good card. Truesilver has consistently been a solid choice for Paladins, and Marrowslicer is essentially the same effect in the end, having the ability to heal you for 4 (eventually), with the added bonus of giving you the option of playing cards that trigger from Soul Fragments.
Not to mention that 4 Attack is nothing to scoff at. This will allow Demon Hunters to push even more damage to the face or help clear larger walls. I don't know if it's quite strong enough to push more weapon-synergy cards like Blade Dance into the meta, but it's a great card nonetheless.
They want everyone else to learn how to play dead, too!
Quote From sinti It would be an amazing on-curve play if you draw it on T4 exactly. I suppose anytime you do top-deck this, it would be a decent enough play, but at the later stages, would that be enough? As a 5/4 for 4, while the aggressive stat-line is nice for Demon Hunter, I don't think this will make its way into many decks, even though it does look like it wants to help with the token synergy they are trying to push more this expansion. I'm really undecided if the card is good enough or not for Constructed.
Lapidaries are real gem buffs.
Quote From ShadowsOfSense The first pay-off for running Soul Fragment generators, beyond just enjoying the life gain benefits. Honestly, this is pretty strong; I think that perhaps they were worried that people would recognise how good the Fragments are on their own and not bother running the pay-offs, so they perhaps pushed them a little much. After all, a 5/5 for 5 isn't exactly awful, and one with a Battlecry to deal 5 damage (more or less)? Well worth considering.
Given how strong the Fragment generators are on their own, I think this has a good shot of sliding into a deck, perhaps just as a 1-of. This pairs very well with many of Demon Hunter's existing weapons, especially the Lifesteal one, so be on the lookout for it.
The ultimate corridor monitors.
Quote From sinti Obviously, this card gives everyone the Corridor Creeper vibes, and despite not specifically mentioning that (probably due to not enough space for the additional text), Alec Dawson confirmed that it only gets discounted while in your hand. On top of that, it only triggers off friendly minions, meaning you will actively have to kill off your board to get this lowered. With the push to the token Demon Hunter this expansion, it might end up being just fine and playing the 1st copy reduces the cost of the 2nd one by almost half in itself, though you probably don't want to play this for more than 3 to begin with even if 5 is probably the fair cost, considering stuff like Force of Nature (1 more attack, no Taunt). I guess we'll see, it definitely has potential to become as annoying as Creeper was in the right deck. Nethrandamus hype?
She wandered into the wrong class at the start of term and was too shy to say anything.
Quote From Demonxz95 Wait. I thought we were supposed to be Demon Hunters, not Mage Hunters (well if they aren't hunting me, then I'm okay with it). But what this card does is pretty nice. Magehunter can take out an early game threat with a useful Deathrattle and negate its effect for you, or take out Divine Shield minions without needing to pop the shield first. Notably, it hard counters Edwin VanCleef on turn 3 (or later), and Questing Adventurer, and just about any 2 Health minion with a Deathrattle (or Divine Shield or similar effect that your opponent interacts with) will be demolished by Magehunter no problem. Unlike typical Silence cards, it will still be blocked by a Taunt upon first strike, although it can be used to attack any Taunt minion and let your other characters go face.
Between this and Consume Magic, it seems Silence will be a mechanic for Demon Hunter moving forward. As long as they don't go too crazy with it, then I'm fine with this. I quite like this card.
"I see the future in these fragments... You're going to buy a new crystal ball..."
Quote From ShadowsOfSense This one, for having such a strong effect, I'm actually not as keen on. Demon Hunters already have a wide variety of board-control options, and this one - which requires set-up and still damages your own stuff - doesn't seem quite up to the standards of the rest of their cards, in my opinion.
If Demon Hunters go absolutely in on the Fragments, then sure, this is a good enough option for that deck to make use of. I just don't know that a deck like that will exist, and even if it does I don't know that this really excites me enough to want it. I think I'd rather run their more targeted removals to be more precise in what I'm hitting, instead of nuking the board just because it fits with the theme of the deck.
It's just falling with style.
Quote From Echo This card scares me a lot. Glide is some of the best reload Hearthstone has ever seen and it feels like it can push Demon Hunter to be even more aggressive just to make sure you can consistently make the card draw 4 as soon as possible. The Outcast effect makes the card significantly more interesting as its the first case where it is not a strictly better effect. The ability to forcefully change the opponent's hand can be back-breaking when up against a control deck or one that often has a large hand size, such as Quest Warlock or Galakrond Priest, yet can become a downside when up against an aggressive deck that can empty their hands just as quickly. However, Demon Hunter has shown to be strong against other aggressive decks and so most likely they can afford a card that would hurt its win rate against those decks while strengthening the matchup against every other major archetype. In this sense, the card is very similar to Divine Favor, which was strong enough to be sent to the Hall of Fame and while I'd argue Glide isn't as strong, it is definitely up there in terms of power. This card feels like an easy two-of in any aggressive form of Demon Hunter.
First, get steamed; Second, condense that into a storm of anger, Finally, rain down vengeance on your enemies.
Quote From sinti Expensive AOE for Demon Hunter, cool :) 3 damage is enough to deal with a lot of things, but also low enough that plenty of bigger things would stay alive. I wonder how much will it act as an actual board clear rather than refresher of your board by killing off your tokens and getting additional synergy off that, not only from getting the 3/3s, but stuff like Fel Guardians or Nethrandamus. 7 Mana is a lot, but the potential board swing is high, it might end up being a staple.
"Ancient?! I'm barely 12,000 years old!"
Quote From sinti This card packs a lot of punch in 9 Mana. 10/10 stats, which will actually grow even more at the end of the turn. It is basically Despicable Dreadlord on steroids and while the power level of this card is sky-high and it almost looks like the stats combined with the ability could have easily given the card a Legendary status, I really don't see it making an appearance in any competitive deck at all. For now at least. Praise Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound enough, maybe it will happen?:)
Does cheating count if you copy the wrong answers?
Quote From FearGralex I predict this will be the most controversial card of the expansion for a long time. This kind of disruption effect is something that hasn't really ever existed in Hearthstone, and I predict a lot of players who are on the receiving end of this will argue that it's messing with something that's not supposed to be messed with. Not only that, but the card is also just very powerful in a vacuum, so it's going to show up in most Demon Hunter decks regardless.
That said, I think this card existing is healthy for the game- Hearthstone is a game that doesn't always allow for a lot of opponent interaction with certain combos, and those combos can be quite frustrating to lose to when they're at the forefront of the meta. Oftentimes the way you're supposed to "counter" those combos has been to run a tech card that specifically beats that strategy, but is weak against the rest of the field (example: Eater of Secrets). The fact that this card is generically powerful enough to include in any old deck and also happens to provide hand disruption is a good thing, in my opinion- it means that there's more interaction between players allowed in the game.
As for the power level of the card in a vacuum, I think it's quite high- I'd expect to see most Demon Hunters running this. It has reasonable stats for the cost, gives you a peek into your opponent's hand, and will usually net you a two-for-one by trading with something around its cost and getting rid of one of your opponent's cards for a while.
Dual Class Cards
Comments
Star Student Stelina seems like it could be one of the best cards in the whole set. Excited to play it; not excited to play against it lol
Lol love the Illidario joke, even read it with Mario's voice in my head
I think Magehunter and all the Soul Fragment cards are going to be the most played out of all of these. .
what is the record of the fastest nerf in Hearthstone history again?
one day? less than 24 hours? I kinda wanna bet that this expansion gonna beat that record.
Anyone up?
the first DH nerf happend in less than 24 hours if I remember correctly
Glide has to compete with Skull of Gul'dan in an aggressive deck, and that's why I personally think its not going to slot in. I am interested, and will very likely try day one, to fit both into control dhunter. I feel that glide, controversial as it may be, will eventually turn out quite mellow in an aggro deck, since its still a 4 mana card, and that's quite a lot considering how tempo dhunters plays nowadays. Its best use is actually in slower dhunter decks, where denying combo and control is more useful.
At the time of writing the review I was fairly certain of Glide being better than Skull of Gul'dan is just cheaper and faster to cast. However, once Voracious Reader was revealed, every class has a lot better reload and so Skull allowing you to dump your hand out faster afterwards to still get the effect of the reader seems like it could be pretty valuable. I still think Glide has a place in some deck, but it's definitely not as black-and-white as it was before.
The biggest issue I predict for Star Student Stelina is that not only will it be annoying to play against, and feel pretty bad, but that it's in a class that has felt pretty bad to be slapped around by anyway. That will add to the salt I'm sure
The salt would be real if Blizz gave Stelina to priest instead.
That said, losing your best card to a 4-mana 4/3 is pretty backbreaking and if they ended up nerfing this card to a 3/3 or something, I would not be surprised.
Yeah, I definitely see your point- I think Blizzard is in the process of balancing Demon Hunter out still so over the next year or so we'll feel like Demon Hunter is becoming more and more a normal part of the game. I think it's okay for the card to be annoying to play against, because it represents a stopgap to interact wit strategies that normally keep most of their important cards in the hand and don't leave much room for interaction aside from killing them as fast as you can.
My issue with that is that I think combo-disruption cards shouldn't be cards that an aggressive deck would play. I like Dirty Rat, for instance - it removes a card, but it's also not a card a fast deck would want. They're already good at, as you say, killing them as fast as you can. If we give aggressive strategies disruption cards, we're driving people like Markmz right out the door.
On that note, I like that Star Student Stelina doesn't remove the card from your opponent's deck, because that won't ruin a combo. And I really dislike Mindrender Illucia, because that can just shred cards.
To Magehunter - if Paladin is gonna be a thang in Standard, Demon Hunter will want all the silence they can get. Goody Two-Shields, Argent Braggart, Blessing of Authority, etc. - I'm going to predict we might as well rename that card to 'Paladinhunter'.
As a Libram Paladin player, I can pretty much confirm what you said. Magehunter seems pretty good so far, and will also be useful against Priest and a few other decks who rely on big or deathrattle minions.
I propose that the name of the class be changed to Soul Hunter, at least for the duration of this expansion, as that is what Illidan is going to be. Soul Fragment hype is on.
Cycle of Hatred hard counters itself xD
It's intended since you play it- get 3/3s, your opponents plays it he gets 3/3s.. And the cycle goes on..