The show must go on! Ignore the destruction and devastation and come take a seat at the Warrior section of the Darkmoon Faire!
This is the last of the class reviews, so I'll forego the usual spiel about how great we are and just thank you all for reading! Tomorrow we'll be covering all the neutrals over three reviews, a little earlier in the day than normal - we want to get those up before the expansion launches, after all. Hope you all have a great launch day!
The Darkmoon Faire Obstacle Course is an absolute blast!
Quote From ShadowsOfSense It took me a second to make the comparison, but this is essentially Dyn-o-matic without the body. There are differences, of course, and I think those differences do make Dyn-o-matic a slightly better card than Minefield - the ability to safely play it when you have a board of Mechs and it being a Mech itself, taking advantage of those Dr. Boom, Mad Genius and Magnetic synergies, give it the edge in the end.
However, Minefield does have its own slight advantage in that you can play it earlier, making it a great early board control option for the class. If you have no minions out you can remove any board of 5 or less Health total in just one card, which is fantastic. There are also potential applications with self-damage synergies, but I would think those would be more as a last resort play than something you should rely on the card for.
I think this'll see quite a bit of play to help smooth Warrior's earlygame, assuming they lean more in a Control direction this expansion. I certainly don't think they're heading aggro, at least.
He's always ready to lend a hand - or a rabbit, or a torch, or a...
Quote From Noxious Alright stats, with an effect first introduced in Mean Streets of Gadgetzan seemingly making a comeback for Warrior this expansion.
I… don't know what to think of this card. I think there's several other 2-cost Warrior minions that are more valuable than the Stage Hand: Frightened Flunky, Armorsmith, even the other 2-cost Darkmoon Faire minion, Bumper Car. It just feels like +1/+1 to a random hand minion is just too little when comparing to the power creep the rest of this Hearthstone Year has brought.
It's a tough diet, but it's really been helping cut down his weight.
Quote From Demonxz95 This seems like another one of those generally strong, simple class cards. Sword Eater comprises of a roughly 2.75 mana Battlecry effect, meaning that you're effectively paying 1.25 mana for the 2/5 Taunt body, which is very strong. Compare this to a Classic Warrior card that barely anyone remembers, Arathi Weaponsmith, and you can see how much better this card is for the same Cost. The body is better (with Taunt too), and the weapon is stronger. It's also a Pirate which is good for Menagerie Warrior, and this also means that it can be drawn with Ringmaster Whatley.
Make sure they're ready to catch you, first - we don't need another gnome incident.
Quote From Avalon Stage Dive has the same effect of Town Crier, a card that was included in every single Warrior list during its existence in Standard and that still pops up here and there in Wild. Being just 1-mana, it can be easily corrupted and therefore can grant a buffed draw for basically nothing: for example, Faceless Manipulator seems a very good target, but you could also tutor units like Animated Broomstick, Restless Mummy and both Kargath Bladefist and Kargath Prime. Super strong card that will see lots of play.
"What do you mean, you can't win? Not with that attitude! Hand me that axe..."
Quote From Demonxz95 I personally like this card even though it's not that strong, namely because of the flavor of you ramming your bumper car into something and the riders pop out. This card may not seem like much, but to me, it seems like it might be deceptively strong, and that largely lies in the tokens. The 1/1 Rushers that come from this serve as decent chipping tools for simply dealing one damage, and for going through Divine Shields. Its synergy with E.T.C., God of Metal also might give this card a home. This alone will be able to deal 6 damage to the enemy hero with ETC's effect with a single copy.
He's just trying not to die, but if you want to pay to see it he's not gonna complain.
Quote From Avalon Team 5 hasn't given up on Taunt Warrior yet: last expansion we received In Formation!, and now this. 3 mana +5/+5 is not bad at all, especially if you manage to hit something like Scrap Golem or Tomb Warden, but the problem is that you're targeting a minion in your hand and not in play: in other words, you're losing a lot of tempo to buff a Taunt unit that may come in play too late for you to be able to win the game.
To be honest, Into the Fray costs 2 less and buffs your entire hand, but has seen little to no play since its release in August 2019. My honest opinion is that the best result this card can achieve is being part of a Wild Taunt Warrior video on Roffle's YouTube channel.
Mech sure you come down to the show - we'll be dragon you out of the seats by the end! Uhh... Pirates welcome?
Quote From Noxious Well, compared to the underwhelming Stage Hand, I'd say the Ringmaster's Baton is definitely a step up when it comes to competing with the general power level of Darkmoon Faire (and its sister expansions). It is a strong 2-cost weapon, has 3 durability, and can offer up to +3/+3 (in +1/+1) increments, for a potential total of +9/9 stats spread over three turns. For just 2 mana, I think that's pretty great. It's not bonkers, but it can help some minions dealing with all the huge minions this game keeps throwing into its card sets.
Now, the real question is, can Warrior pull it off? This tri-tribe mechanic of theirs has only really been hinted at with cards in the past such as Boom Squad (which doesn't even account for Pirates). This new archetype Warrior is going for has nigh-zero support in Standard. Pirates, on their own, have received some good support in Descent of Dragons and some tiny little help in Darkmoon Faire - but Descent of Dragons rotates out soon. The story is the same for Dragons, naturally.
Mechs seem to be the tribe that has received the most consistent support out of the three, with quite a lot of help coming from Rise of Shadows (four actual Mech minions for Warrior stashes in there), Tomb Warden in Saviors of Uldum (which can work quite well with hand buffing), and Skybarge in Descent, a pretty awesome marriage of Mechs and Pirates. Make use of these cards as much as you can in the following 4-5 months, because the Year of the Phoenix has much less to offer.
Ashes of Outland gives Warriors only Scrap Golem which, fortunately, works quite well with hand buffs. Scholomance Academy has no minions of any tribe to give Warriors. Darkmoon Faire offers two low-cost Mechs.
Overall, I would personally like to see this archetype work, however I feel - for Standard - there's just not enough work put into supporting it in the previous expansions. I hope I'm wrong, because combining those three tribes successfully could be difficult considering the low-ish pool of minions to choose from, and much harder come next expansion rotation if the next expansion doesn't fully commit to this archetype for Warriors.
She's a harsh critic, but a faire one.
Quote From Avalon Easy 5 stars card. Even if you get just a 1 mana discount (which is quite easy considering that you would play it in a properly built deck), this minion will become the equivalent of Nightshade Matron, without the side effect of discarding a card you may want to play later on; discount it further to get an incredibly impactful board swing in the mid-game. The synergy with N'Zoth, God of the Deep is blatant, but people are questioning the fact that, most of the times, you'd want to bring back Deathwing, Mad Aspect instead of just a 5/5 with Rush. My point is: why not running both despite it? You can't expect to run a Menagerie deck with just 1-ofs for each tribe: what if you don't draw your only Dragon before turn 10? Do you just miss the res effect? Moreover, you'd hardly land any buffs on Deathwing in combination with Ringmaster's Baton, another card that will probably make the cut in the new Warrior archetype.
His shows will melt your opponent's face off!
Quote From Noxious Now here's an interesting one. Small enough cost that it can be played with plenty other Rush minions on the same turn, somehow slightly reminiscent of an [Hearthstone Card (Embrace the Darkness) Not Found] effect, but tuned to the Warrior's strengths. Aside from the majority of cards that support the tri-tribe archetype, this card and Stage Dive work to continue supporting the Rush Warrior archetype that has received solid support in the Year of the Phoenix. This card does not feel like an outlier, and does not feel like it'll be hard for it to find a place in a good deck.
Naturally, there will (and, thankfully, should) be an Achilles' heel to this card (compared to, well, Priest, a class that is missing more and more heels with all the powerful cards it gets fed), and that is the opponent needs its own set of minions to actually help trigger E.T.C's effect. Spell Mages will be at a clear advantage, but all is not lost. There's several helpful cards to trigger this effect in Wild, but a few in Standard as well, such as Descent of Dragons' Zul'Drak Ritualist, which conjures up cheap and harmless minions to give your Rush minions something to do. The Ritualist will be lost come next expansion, but Ashes of Outland has us covered with Terrorguard Escapee, a slightly weaker version of the Ritualist, but one that summons extremely harmless minions.
This is definitely a card that can be built around, and is a breath of fresh air for Rush decks, working to strike a balance with dealing face damage, but not outright giving minions Charge. I'm excited to see how high E.T.C will soar.
We've assembled a crack team of the absolute best minion types we could cobble together on such short notice.
Quote From Avalon If Menagerie Warrior will be a thing, this card will be an autoinclude for sure. What really worries me is that it is another The Curator wannabe, just like Countess Ashmore: while Whatley costs less and therefore can make an impact on the board way earlier than turn 7, it is a 5 mana 3/5 with no immediate advantage. It grants great refill and good synergies, but at the cost of a tempo loss. I want to be bold and say that 5 mana are a reasonable price to pay in order to get the deck going, considering also that Warrior has the ability to easily clear the board and gain some life through Armor Up! and Risky Skipper/Armorsmith shenanigans. But yeah, there are big chances this card will not rot in your collection manager.
Comments
Excitement-wise, Warrior got shlonked this expansion. Garrosh got support for two archetypes that don't exist and one archetype that has failed to exist 4/5 times (Thanks, Sulfuras). I have heavy doubts about E.T.C., God of Metal seeing any play - it's a hyperaggro card for a class without any fast decks, as one of the reviewers notes. Face damage doesn't mean much until you're threatening lethal. Similarly for Ringmaster Whatley and the Ringmaster's Baton, there's not enough behind them for it to be worthwhile.
That said, in the usual Hearthstone fashion, there are strong cards here. Tent Trasher, Minefield, Stage Dive, and Sword Eater all seem powerful. I imagine they'll see play outside of the 'intended' archetypes. That's something I appreciate about Hearthstone's development: many of the powerful archetypes are playermade, not 'player-found-out-what-the-devs-intended'. It feels that way, at least. Far better than CCGs like Shadowverse, whose devs print decks instead of cards.
I loved the Feat of Strength commentary that it’ll only ever see play in a Roffle deck, because he stated when opening packs how it’ll probably be a bad card, but he’s excited to try making a deck that uses it and Bolster.
I think you mean Faceless Corruptor, not Faceless Manipulator when talking about Stage Dive.
Yup, i somehow forgot that card exist because nobody seems to play it nowadays.
I run one copy of Faceless Corrupter in my current Odd Pally list, and honestly, it has saved me on multiple occasions!
Either giving up a small minion or a dude to trade into a couple small things, or to double trade into a giant or something of similar stats. It’s a great card!