We're back with the expansion revue... er, review! Demon Hunter remains the first class alphabetically, having usurped Druid earlier in the year, so we'll be starting off with them - good thing too, really, because they get the most cards per expansion right now and this thing can get chunky.
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Demon Hunter concerts get a little intense.
Quote From Demonxz95 This is a simple, sweet AoE card. A Shooting Star with Lifesteal might not seems like much, although I believe its small cost and reach potential will be useful. Demon Hunters can deal 1 damage with their Hero Powers, but sometimes you might find yourself 1 damage away from killing a large minion and you don't want to take that much damage. In that respect, Felscream Blast is here to help you by giving Demon Hunters a source of 1 damage without requiring them to attack it and instead can use that attack on something more productive. As a bonus, it can take out other small minions next to it and it gives you 3 healing. I think this card will work quite well for Demon Hunters. Perhaps this even gives them a reason to run Bloodmage Thalnos?
Nobody tell him that we just couldn't remember what he did in the first place.
Quote From sinti Solid 2-drop that gets better with something that you would naturally do. Not much else to say about this than it'is an exceptional card for probably any DH deck.
Don't worry, Hearthstone automates the D20 roll for you.
Quote From Demonxz95 More draw for Demon Hunters! This is simply a better Arcane Intellect for Demon Hunter. The ability for it to cast twice if you play both of the cards is obviously quite strong and can reward good deckbuilding around it, although it does make it hard to use with more expensive cards.
Despite the high strength of the card, I'm not even entirely sure it'll see play because I don't particularly think Demon Hunter even needs this since they already have so much good draw, you might just play those instead of this.
Just wait 'til you see Dreadlord's Bark!
Quote From Demonxz95 This is the first weapon with Outcast in the game. That's pretty neat. 3 mana 3/2 weapons are pretty good, so I suspect this will see play somewhere although it does conflict with Marrowslicer on turn 4 somewhat. The weird part about Outcast on a weapons are typically not supposed to be cards that you hold in your hand for several turns (except in the case of some weapons which are not really meant to be used as weapons), and are cards that are typically played at the first turn you get a chance to. In the case of Dreadlord's Bite, it may be awkward to find a turn where you can get the AoE effect off and a good turn to use the 3/2 statline at the same time.
This will probably see some experimentation as simply a 3 mana 3/2 weapon, but in the end, I think most players will probably just end up using Aldrachi Warblades instead.
"Who's a good ravenous demon? You are, yes you are!"
Quote From Avalon Powercreep on both Silverback Patriarch and Ashtongue Battlelord in a single shot: the card is okay-ish in its base form, but when corrupted it becomes a 3 mana 3/6 that your aggro contenders cannot afford to ignore.
I'm not sure that the current top tier iteration of Soul Demon Hunter would want this card in its ranks, but I can imagine a more Control/Combo oriented archetype (maybe together with Il'gynoth) that wants to survive at all costs against aggro. The dream curve? Raging Felscreamer would corrupt and reduce the cost of Insatiable Felhound, making it a 1 mana 3/6 with Taunt and Lifesteal that can be coined out the same turn or played later.
In the end, not a flashy card, but solid: it may find a spot in a meta deck sooner or later.
Does it count as line hopping if nobody was queuing for it in the first place?
Quote From sinti Great stats for a 3-drop, I guess nowadays these are almost not even that impressive anymore. But still very good and the ability is surely a strong one, allowing you to cycle through your Outcast cards more easily and possibly keep going if you draw into more. Not quite the Sorcerer's Apprentice, but might feel like it in some situations. If you can stick more than one on the board, the discount will be preeeeetty nice!
They'll follow you to the ends of the earth... or at least until the end of the turn.
Quote From sinti Pretty great card for DH, kinda like Shadow Bolt, but with more synergy from attacking. 4 dmg for 3 mana is also a lot and pretty cheap to combo with other cards for a decent face burn.
"This next trick's a real side-splitter!"
Quote From Demonxz95 Remember when Infested Wolf was considered a pretty good card? Well we can now see how much we've evolved. This card seems pretty decent. Maybe not great, but it's not terrible. It's pretty good at being a 3 damage reach and giving you some defense afterwards. I don't anticipate it to make a huge splash in Constructed, but it's decent in Arena.
Attending shows at the Faire with audience participation is a glaive mistake.
Quote From sinti At first glance, this reminds me of Cheap Shot. Throw Glaive is cheaper, but it has to act as a finisher, if you want to keep on going. It is versatile in what it does, but it will also probably deal deceptively less damage than one would expect. Still an amazing card for its cost and if any Spell Damage minion ever makes it into a DH deck, this card instantly shoots up in value.
She's one of the laziest performers, always cutting it close.
Quote From Avalon Another very easy 5 stars card. If Bladed Lady were a Warrior or a Rogue minion, it would have been much worse. However, it is quite easy for Illidan to reach 6 attack, to the point where Demon Hunter doesn't even need to change many cards from its currently top performing Soul Fragment archetype. Soulshard Lapidary and hero power, Marrowslicer and Twin Slice, Aldrachi Warblades and Twin Slice/Second Slice: choose whatever combination you want, they all do the trick. 1 mana for a 6/6 with Rush is mana cheating with a proactive and board swinging effect, all of this while pushing damage. There's no way this card won't see play in every single Demon Hunter list: you should definitely save your extra copies.
The best executioners really embody the role.
Quote From Avalon It's been ages since the first time I thought of a minion with the ability to turn into a weapon, and now my dream is finally accomplished.
Felsteel Executioner is quite mediocre as a standalone card: 4/3 for 3 mana are vanilla stats, and without the Corrupt keyword it would have no chance of seeing play in any deck. However, the ability of turning it into a 3 mana 4/3 weapon by fulfilling the condition of just playing a higher cost card is pretty remarkable. Demon Hunter has plenty of hero attack-related effects (Glaivebound Adept, Satyr Overseer, Bladed Lady, Blade Dance), so being able to start with a 4 attack baseline without investing further mana or resources is quite nice.
I think Executioner is a great card that will see lots of play, maybe not now if Soul Demon Hunter will find better options, but surely at a certain point of its existence in Standard.
Making it into the show at the Faire is a really tall order.
Quote From Avalon An interesting card that kind of reminds of Diving Gryphon: while the latter has immediate impact on the board and the ability to tutor specific units from your deck, Stiltstepper grants cycle and the ability to push direct damage while playing a fragile yet threatening body on the board.
Since its effect can be fully exploited only if you're able to play the drawn card, I see this card played in Aggro Demon Hunter, which could make a comeback in DM Faire, rather than Soul Demon Hunter, which starts from a better position but runs more expensive cards and therefore cannot consistency trigger Stiltstepper's attack bonus.
Dev insight: Celestalon confirmed that, if Stiltstepper draws a Soul Fragment, its +4 attack bonus will be blocked, since the following card will be drawn by the Fragment itself (which you don't really play, since it's a Cast when Drawn effect) and not by Stiltstepper. Sad but reasonable.
The best disappearing acts are the ones who never get found.
Quote From Demonxz95 After this text confused a few readers, we have official confirmation that you don't need to summon 7 of them to activate the second wave. No matter what, you'll always get it as long as the entire first wave dies.
In that case, this card is just straight up good. Swarm of Locusts was pretty good, and this essentially gives you a second wave for only 1 additional mana. Just like Felscream Blast, this card gives you a lot of additional reach as it basically allows you to get up to 14 damage for 7 mana. For comparison, Command the Illidari gives you 6 damage for 5 mana, and that wasn't a bad card. Although this does require an empty board to get maximum damage output, it's pretty good even without it. Just 12 or 10 damage is still quite good with this. It works pretty well with Knife Juggler (remember that card?), as well as being able to give you a free Fel Guardians right off the bat and is a very quick way to level up Nethrandamus. Wrathscale Naga seems like it would work well, but it paradoxically works against the card too as it might kill your opponent's board before you get the second wave. It could even be used with Feast of Souls, but just be careful you don't overdraw with it!
I think this card is good and will definitely see play.
"This thing is a nightmare at parties, who invited it?"
Quote From ShadowsOfSense This is a fun, weird little card. It's the kind of effect that reminds me that at one point, Lifesteal effects could totally accidentally kill the player who owned them if they were translated into damage thanks to that unfortunate loop. In some ways I miss it, not because it was healthy for the game or in any way something that should've been encouraged, but because I love those quirky rules interactions that the team tries to shy away from as much as possible (correctly, really).
The card itself is pretty solid. I'm kind of scared of the potential for OTKs with minimal set-up requirements, actually - Aldrachi Warblades can come down on a previous turn, and then you can go ham on the attack buffs and swing at your opponent's face for double the damage that they might be expecting. That's the real power of this card, not the incidental bits and pieces of Lifesteal available on other Demon Hunter cards (though I'm sure those would be fun to play around with).
I hope this doesn't get unfairly punished for Demon Hunter's frankly absurd ability to boost its Attack, and instead they correctly excise the other problematic parts of their kit if this becomes too powerful a combo piece.
She takes accusations of plagiarism very seriously; her performances are 100% original copies!
Quote From ShadowsOfSense This is one of those cards that can trick people into underestimating it because the wording isn't conventional - remember that no matter what you copy you're still getting an extra 2 cards to work with, an effect worth around 3 mana. The fact that you don't draw those cards (but they still 'come from your deck', as opposed to being random) could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your current situation. If you've built your deck correctly, however, you shouldn't ever have trouble with receiving awful cards from her.
Obviously the dream would be to copy some Outcast cards, doubling up on those effects and overwhelming your opponent with value - a card like [Hearthstone Card (Eyebeam) Not Found] seems like a prime candidate, for example - but you shouldn't feel bad about copying just generically high-value cards as well. Getting more copies of your strongest weapons or minions will definitely help to close out a game, and I wouldn't be surprised if this card needed to be toned down a little at some point. The body you get, after all, is fantastic when you consider that you have a sort-of-kind-of Arcane Intellect attached to it.
I love this card, as I love all value generation. Here's hoping we don't end up in too fast a meta for her to see play.
Comments
Nice summary! I like how they opened some new options and how you showed them to us. I think I'll try out a weird built including Bloodmage Thalnos for combos with Felscream Blast and Throw Glaive as well as some swarm tools. I've not even once played Nethrandamus yet and maybe Expendable Performers really is the card to make this work. Thanks for pointing me at Knife Juggler, Demon! That said, the icing on the cake will definitely be slamming down two 5 mana 15/15 Blood Heralds the turn after.
There, you've made me do it. Day 1 memes, here I come!