All 35 of the Onyxia's Lair Mini-set cards have been revealed and we've put all the cards in one spot to make it really easy to review all the new goodies.
We're seeing some throwbacks to existing mechanics from the past year and we've also got some Dragon action! Our full reviews of the sets for both Standard and Wild are going to be coming out soon, so do look forward to that content. While you're here, be sure to let us know what your favourite cards of the new set are down in the comments below, and if you want to talk about any specific cards, we have threads linked below for dedicated card discussion for each card.
Onyxia's Lair Mini-set Quick Info
- Onyxia's Lair contains 35 new cards.
- You can purchase all of the new cards in one go through Hearthstone's shop, or open them in Fractured in Alterac Valley card packs.
- You can purchase all the cards for 2000 Gold, or,
- You can purchase all the cards for $14.99 USD.
- New! This time around you can buy the mini-set in golden for $69.99 USD.
- This is the last set of cards arriving in the Year of the Gryphon. What a year!
Demon Hunter
Druid
Hunter
Mage
Paladin
Priest
Rogue
Shaman
Warlock
Warrior
Neutral
Onyxia's Lair Cinematic
If you missed the cinematic, watch below!
Comments
So paladin got a spell that buffs minions, a minion that wants to be buffed, and a minion that probably discovers a buff. What new and exciting gameplay! Paladin's class design has been frustratingly 1-dimensional since librams came around. I know the class used to get pulled in too many directions, but this is getting silly.
I feel like Paladin finally has an identity, a I prefer it to be this way rather than being pushed in different (and unsynergistic) directions each expansion.
Librams, however, have always been very dominant: introducing them at the begin of a Year was probably a mistake, but still.
I accept it's probably better than getting 2 new and unsynergistic decks each expansion like they did in the years of the Raven and Dragon, but it feels like it has turned the very meaning of a class on its head. To me, a class is a basic toolkit applied to different decks/archetypes.
For example, rogue has the basic toolkit of high tempo, great single target removal and card draw/generation, which all heavily influence how their various archetypes play but aren't actually what those decks are doing per se. Decks focused on deathrattles, SI:7, secret, poisons, garrote, burgle etc. are all trying to do something fundamentally different and using rogue's core strengths as the support. In other words rogue's basic toolkit is the foundation to the archetype's house.
Meanwhile paladin game-plans in Standard are mostly trying to do the same thing. They look distinct on paper - librams, divine shields, silver hand recruits - but they all revolve around summoning minions and having them be buffed into significance. So they're all using paladin's basic toolkit in essentially the same way, which has the unfortunate side effect that they are directly competing with each other. I.e. why would you play minion buff deck X when minion buff deck Y does the same thing better?
It wouldn't be fair if I didn't acknowledge the existence of secret and big minion pally, especially as the former was a major meta player in the Barrens. Unfortunately big minion pally suffers from intra-class competition as most of the buff decks build their own big minions anyway, so what should be distinct is once again quite similar.
All this amounts to 'paladin' feeling like a deck rather than a class, which is a shame.
This might be the first mini set ever to not completely destroy wild
From a Wild perspective, only the two Hunter spells are worth anything, otherwise this seems like a safe skip and 2k gold saved.
Looks a bit weak considering the current state of things but the post-rotation potential is huge.
I totally agree with you.
Am I the only one who's disappointed there isn't a new Leeroy Jenkins? He needn't have Charge, since they've moved away from that as a game mechanic, but they could have found a fun way to reintroduce him. Summoning whelps for your opponent would synergize nicely with Impfestation and Ring of Courage.
Why does everyone think Leeroy has something to do with Onyxia's Lair? The Leeroy Jenkins video takes place in Upper Blackrock Spire.
Probably ran out of neutral legendary slots. There's usually two neutrals and two class legendaries. I guess they weigh up the pro and cons and decided that both kazakusan and onyxia needed to be neutrals, and leeroy being a class card just doesn't feel right.
Most interesting cards of this set to me;
Kazakusan, Curse of Agony, Bracing Cold, Dragonbane Shot, Mi'da, Pure Light, Razorglaive Sentinel, Gear Grubber
To be honest, this midset looks weaker and less interesting than the last 3. Maybe its because its so close to the rotation, and this set is trying to pre-empt it. It just feels a bit - unexciting to me, for the lack of a better term.
I really hope Curse of Agony won't end up as a Garrote 2.0
Kazakusan is probably the most flavorful card this set. He definitely sticks to the "most interesting card mechanics" like the previous Kazakus cards. Also glad to see they've toned down the mana cheating a bit (taking Cora's comment about Bracing Cold into consideration).
Overall super hyped for this mini-set, heavily biased though - dragons are always awesome!