Our Thoughts on Hearthstone's Scholomance Academy Warrior Cards

We've made it! The last class to be reviewed, Warrior. You can look forward to the neutral reviews tomorrow.

This review is part of our Play Smarter Initiative. Simply by reading the words of our reviews, you will absorb the psionic waves transmitted during their writing, instantly becoming as good at the game as we are. Since you've all likely read previous reviews, you shouldn't notice too much of a difference anymore - we are, after all, always right. So, y'know, don't bother actually checking or anything.

Scholomance takes hitting the books very literally.

Quote From Echo

Athletic Studies is an all around decent card, but due to how many rush minions are currently in standard, it feels like there are too many options to make it consistent. There are 17 cards with rush, meaning there is roughly a 17% chance to hit a specific card, and quite a few of the options just aren't strong. There are only 5 cards that are strong on their own to discover off of this and it seems better to just run a strong card on its own than to run this. The only warrior deck that might want to run athletic studies would be Galakrond warrior as Devoted Maniac and Scion of Ruin are both strong cards for that deck and having more copies of them seems pretty good.

If you escape the scrum with all your teeth, you weren't playing hard enough.

Quote From linkblade91

I like Taunt Warrior, as has been discussed before in my reviews. And In Formation! works readily in my Quest deck, so here we go talking about it yet again :D My Quest Warrior generally lacks a turn-2 play - outside of Frightened Flunky…and the Hero Power, of course - so In Formation! can fill the gap by providing some additional value for later in the game. And who knows, it might even provide additional Legendary Taunts like Sky Gen'ral Kragg, Zilliax, Armagedillo, or The Lich King. More fuel in hand means more targets for Into the Fray, as well. It's a straight-forward Common that can get the job done; it's not a dead draw in future turns, either, and that's always a plus.

Unfortunately only the guns have Lifesteal.

Quote From FearGralex

I'm a VERY big fan of this card for Control Warrior decks, although those are somewhat weak in the metagame right now. Who knows, though- that could change with this current set!

As us Hearthstone boomers might recall, Death's Bite was an absolute house in the old-school Control Warrior decks back when the rocks were soft, and Reaper's Scythe shares that same sweet, sweet 4/2 for 4 mana statline. Instead of the whirlwind Deathrattle, though, we get a cleaving effect as a Spellburst! This makes the Scythe a less powerful turn-4 play, but a much more powerful board clear tool against midrange decks that don't necessarily rely on swarms of 1/1s. Control Warrior decks often run plenty of spells, so having this enabled shouldn't be too much of an issue, at which point you've got a weapon that's fairly comparable to Scourgelord Garrosh's weapon for only 4 mana! It'll even have 3 Durability as well if you're able to draw it with Corsair Cache.

I'm unsure whether Control Warrior decks will be strong anytime soon, but if they are, it'll certainly be off the back of Reaper's Scythe.

He actually makes the toil and the trouble for the Mage laboratories.

Quote From Noxious

A card with great stats considering its poweful effect, reminiscent of Imprisoned Felmaw yet offering opponents no chance of counterplay if they don't expect the Troublemaker to be played.

Now, Troublemaker is strong on its own, and with 8 health it is not cheap to be rid of it. Warrior has a history of getting high-cost cards that birth extra minions at the end of their turn, and Troublemaker is one of the better ones in that regard. It will keep summoning 3/3 Ruffians each turn, and the beauty lies in what those Ruffians can attack: enemies. Not just minions, but also heroes! Should your opponent have an empty board when you plonk those Ruffians down, they'll send a crisp 6 damage to face. Not too shabby, right?

Wild can get pretty… wild, I guess(?) with the likes of Drakkari Enchanter, bumping the total on-play damage of Troublemaker and its Ruffians to 12. Fortunately, you shouldn't expect the summoned Ruffians to become even more dangerous, as cards such as Addled Grizzly are not part of the Warrior's pool of cards. Regardless, I can see this card being successful in both formats; the Ruffians' potential of essentially becoming Charge minions with an opponent's empty board is not to be underestimated.

Her game plans are always rushed.

Quote From Echo

The first card that comes to mind when I think about Playmaker is more precise Bloodsworn Mercenary, which is to say it looks like a very good card. While I do not think it is as strong as the mercenary, Playmaker is able to shine in a wide variety of circumstances, such as having a turn 3 Playmaker into either a turn 4 Kargath Bladefist or Restless Mummy are both incredibly powerful lines. On top of this, Playmaker works very well with the mercenary, which could lead to a fun deck where all the warrior does is play Kargath Prime over and over again until they drown themselves in armor. I think in other warrior decks, Bloodsworn Mercenary is just better, but Playmaker definitely should not be underestimated.

He'd be much better if he hadn't died 11 times. Hindsight is 20/20, I guess.

Quote From Demonxz95

This was one of the very first cards revealed in the reveal season for this expansion. When I initially took the helm of reviewing it, I decided that I would wait until we saw more of what Warrior (and it's dual-class pairings) had to offer, as I thought this would have Big Warrior support (and Troublemaker being revealed at the time further exemplified this thought).

After all the Warrior cards were revealed though, I was a bit disappointed by the fact that there wasn't really any support for Rattlegore outside of Commencement, but that's just one card. I suppose Dimensional Ripper and The Boom Reaver are going to stay in Standard for two more sets.

Theoretically, this card is absolutely amazing, as it's a 9/9 that will summon an 8/8, and then a 7/7, and so on until 1/1 (effectively creating what can technically be thought of as a 9 mana 45/45). Once it's cheated out (and Commencement will surely help with that), the game is basically yours as this minion will basically never leave the field. As it's a 9 mana do nothing card though, it will be quite hard to cast it from your hand with its normal cost (and as Warrior doesn't have methods to cheat out of the hand, only the deck), you may find yourself needing to do this more often than you want to. Another problem with this card is Zephrys the Great. Zephrys is a problem for this card's viability because Zephrys will give your opponent a Hex to clear it (when it's working correctly anyway). As long as Zephrys exists in Standard, Rattlegore may never see play which is a shame since he's a cool card.

Dual Class Cards