The new Onyxia's Lair mini-set has been revealed, and launches February 15!
Now that we're able to have a look at all the cards, we can see that this mini set has some recurring themes shared by multiple classes:
- Dragons - After more than two years since Descent of Dragons went live, we're receiving another Dragon-focused card release.
- Black Dragon Callbacks - A four-card cycle featuring the most (in)famous Black Dragons in Hearthstone.
- Callback Cards - Onyxia's Lair's Mini-Set features cards with mechanics belonging to Forged in the Barrens and United in Stormwind.
This article is going to discuss what decks the Demon Hunter, Druid, and Hunter cards may be good in and what interactions they have in Wild.
Demon Hunter
Odd Demon Hunter has better early game cards for its aggressive strategy. However, Token Demon Hunter might want to use this as a way to cheaply generate tokens.
As a board clear, Demon Hunter has better ones like Chaos Nova. There are some niche combos like using this with Mad Summoner to gain a ton of attack, but otherwise this is unlikely to see Wild play.
A common version of Stargazer Luna which works with both left and right hand cards. You can use this for card draw in any Demon Hunter deck apart from Odd. You can also combo this with Altruis the Outcast in a cheap deck to draw a lot and deal a lot of damage in one turn. You can use Line Hopper to make Outcast cards cost less and draw faster.
Druid
Wild has a lot of Choose One cards, and many of them are low quality or situational even if you get both effects combined. It's not worth running this card in any Druid deck.
Wild decks generally rely on synergies to be powerful - standalone powerful cards rarely see play. This card has no tribal synergy, no Taunt synergy, and no Deathrattle synergy. Therefore, it wouldn't fit into any generic combo, control, or aggro decks for Druid.
However, the one Druid deck where it may be worth trying is a deck built around choose one cards like an Untapped Potential deck.
Scale of Onyxia is a 7 mana card that can deal 14 damage to a board, so it may have potential as a board clear. However, most Wild Druid decks use Spreading Plague and Poison Seeds which are better and have synergy with each other, so it may be tough for this to find a home.
This may seem like it's good in token decks, however those decks are generally aggressive so for 7 mana, this is too slow for the existing aggressive token decks.
One card that does have great synergy with this is Floop's Glorious Gloop - using it combined with Scale of Onyxia can restore 7 or more mana for you depending on how many minions you are able to trade it into. There is no clear deck that would benefit from this, but this combo may be worth trying. In a Celestial Alignment deck, for example, you could use this along with Gloop to gain 7 or more mana after you play Alignment.
Hunter
This is a good card for aggressive Hunter decks. Beast decks have way better card draw through Starving Buzzard, but Wild Face Hunters may want to use it for refill. Even Hunter often runs out of cards quickly and being able to refill 2 or even 3 cards can be great fuel in the midgame. Finally, this card can be great in Questline Hunter, which often runs out of cards in the midgame as well. As a spell, it will allow you to active your hero power an extra time, and the refill will draw more spells to be able to deal even more damage.
This card is very good for Wild Questline Hunters. Wild has so many spells that deal 1 or 2 damage, as well as the hero power itself, that in combination with them it will be easy to activate Dragonbane Shot on 2+ health minions. This will be great for both quest completion and as fuel to be able to activate the hero power after it. You can even use it on your opponent's face as extra burst.
There are a number of good beasts that you can get with this. Imported Tarantula, Teacher's Pet, The Rat King, and Trampling Rhino are beasts that are good on their own and can be summoned from this, while Witchwood Grizzly can be extra powerful as it will be a 3/12 with Taunt and won't trigger its damaging Battlecry.
This can be worth trying as a standalone beast package in an aggressive or midrange deck, or can be useful in a Big Beasts deck that runs Guardian Animals.
What do you think about these cards? Which Wild decks will they see play in? Let us know in the comments below!
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Comments
Pet Collector could be a great meme card if Tavish Stormpike summoned beasts that cost 1 more. Summon a Tundra Rhino and then go nuts! But unfortunately he doesn't work that way...
Hunter is the clear winner here! I agree that regular QL Hunter may see an upheaval with Furious Howl and Dragonbane Shot. Definitely worth trying!
BTW, thanks for doing the Wild set review! Don't know if my suggestion played a role or not, but anyway.
I really like that you guys decided to also make a Wild POV of this miniset!
As a conclusion, Druid and Demon Hunter don't have too much impact from the expansion. Maybe Hunter have, but most of Quest Wild Hunters are Odd, while the two supposed good cards are even ...
After the recent nerf of the Odd version (the Twinspell card going to 2 mana) Non-Odd Quest Hunter is rising in popularity and may even be more powerful.
I always kind of felt that non-odd version was better anyway, but people liked the Odd version because of the extra damage on the Hero Power. It just felt stronger.