Hearthstone has revealed 6 new sunken cards from the upcoming expansion via their Twitter. These cards were supposed to be revealed by Kripparrian, who pushed his video early after Blizzard leaked them.
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Comments
The sunken paladin card is gonna promote some hand buffing again :)
Azsharan Mooncatcher is actually really good with Seafloor Savior and Radar Detector, maybe handbuff mech will be a thing in standard?
Sunken Scroll does not specify that the spells have to be Shaman, but rather "from your class". So if the base spell is randomly generated somehow, you could be potentially gipped out of some cards (like Mage being without Nature, or Priest not having...well, much of anything beyond Whirlpool).
Not saying the card is bad; just could lead to a feelsbad moment for someone out there.
That's a good point, and definitely a relevant consideration for burgle rogue who will generate it (or have the option to discover it) reasonably frequently. In Standard, I guess rogues will have to read the card text of both Azsharan and Sunken parts as "Add a random poison to your hand." In Wild it becomes: "Discover a nature spell, Brain Freeze or Candle Breath."
Obviously that's pretty bad in Standard, but I could see there being times you'd like that very controlled choice in Wild.
Probably an unpopular opinion (what am I saying probably, I'm going against the hype culture after all), but I think this expansion is going to have a Rastakhan's Rumble level of lasting impact. It may change things some for Standard (and do almost nothing in Wild) by virtue of there being very few sets in Standard on release, but its impact is not going to last past the second expansion. At least not from what I've seen so far.
Outside of the Colossal mechanic, which appeals to the Timmy players with its high costs and bombastic effects (bombastic, not necessarily that good or interesting), this expansion feels like it forces you to take a whole bunch of extra steps to get something kiiiinda ok.
The cards that put shit on the bottom of your deck are weak without Dredge. Dredge cards on their own are mostly weak without the bottom deck placement cards, cause they just adjust your draw. They don't draw you cards. They don't revolutionise your draws either, because you only put good cards in your deck in the first place. Being able to adjust which good card you draw is neat but neat doesn't cut it in constructed. There's a distinct difference between Dredge in Hearthstone and Scry in MtG, to address that comparison. We don't run lands in our decks, the outcomes of the filtration mechanics are not nearly as spiky. So only if there's something really strong at the bottom do you actually get a decent pay off with dredge. But then you're investing two cards into actually making your deck do something somewhat interesting. And things go very bad when you get one half of the pair and not the other.
The naga cards are mostly duds. They're absolutely horrifying as topdecks. Imagine you're running a spells+Nagas deck. You're one or two spells from activating a bunch of naga in your hand but you're out of spells. You proceed to topdeck useless, inactive naga for the next 2 turns. So now the shit you're drawing is useless until you activate it like 2-3 spells later (which you still haven't drawn) and the shit you're holding isn't getting activated either. Sure you can use dredge effects to put spells on top of your deck to save yourself. But then you're really just spending cards and mana to fix a mechanic. Remember the Spirit cards from Rastakhan Rumble? The cards that gave you a payoff or boost on something you didn't want to do in the first place? Naga + Dredge is kinda like that. With the spirits there were at least two outliers that did eventually start breaking stuff (in Wild) like a year or so later. I don't see that happening with Dredge (which essentially lives and dies with this expansion, bottom of deck shenanigans are not an evergreen thing cause they do nothing without Dredging) or with Naga (who really are just a minions+spells gimmick entering the world of Questlines).
Overall about the only thing coming out of this that's kiiinda interesting to me personally has been the Murloc Warlock stuff, cause that's something I've wanted to make happen ever since Seadevil Stinger came out.
I'm gonna be honest, it feels like you have never played this game before from your analysis.
If topdecking a naga is bad, so is topdecking a 1 drop. So by your logic all 1 drops are bad.
Saying "naga are useless until 2 or 3 spells later" shows you literally haven't looked at Naga at all. There are only 5 naga that require 3 spells to activate. Three of those are different class cards, and 2/3 class cards and 1/2 neutrals are legendary. So if you have "a bunch of naga in your hand" but draw multiple that require 3 spells, then you're hitting what would be a 1% chance if you have 10 cards left in deck, or a .3% chance if you have 15. It won't happen. The most Naga you can have in your deck TOTAL is 14 at current. Naga Giant can be played vanilla anytime turn 6 or 7-ish if you've been casting spells. Enforcer and Baba both only require a single spell. And most classes either have a naga that can be played without a spellcast, or that gives you something else.
Dredge cards are great, they're literally just a Sphere of Sapience effect. It also allows you to know two cards that you won't have access to, so that you can play around that. Why would it be bad to select which card you're going to draw next and be able to plan your plays ahead?
You're also ignoring the fact that search and Shuffle effects exist. That allows you to simply add good cards to your deck and draw them later.
I think you're more referring to the mechanics of the expansion being weak rather than the entirety of it because after looking at the cards again, there are a lot of damn good ones. The problem with Rastakhan's Rumble is that not only overkill is weak, but the cards are just weak in general. If you would compare the cards in RR and in Voyage, I think you would absolutely agree that Voyage is far stronger than RR.
If you want to judge the overall impact of an expansion, you need to look at all of the individual cards and their interaction with other cards not just the specific mechanics of it. And I think so far Voyage is looking pretty fine.
i was hyped about this expansion super flavourfull with creative mechanics
until i read your thesis on it, and honestly i think you are right. i hope not, but my hype has been sunken
I think the fairer assessment is actually that this expansion may follow barrens rather than rastakhan's. RR had a lot more problems because it was the last entry of the year and is generally one of the weakest expansions because it was followed up a tough act, being designed to be weak as a counter to the more powerful ungoro-kobolds expansions.
As it stands, you might be right that the power level of Sunken city might will not last past its expansion cycle, but isn't that kinda the point? Team5 specifically wanted to design expansions to shine in their cycle, because that's how they get players to buy more packs and generally spend money in the game. If I get to play dredge throughout the next meta because the power level is weaker, and then subsequently in the next expansion dredge gets completely forgotten, is that really so much of a big issue?
As for your assessment of the current crop of mechanics;
- Dredge doesn't draw you a card but allow you to choose what you get next turn based on the bottom three cards of your deck. That's significant. Your assessment that it doesn't revolutionize your draws because you only put good cards in your deck is a rather moot point because even Kazakusan drawn on turn 2 can be significantly worse than any vanilla 2 mana 2/3 depending on matchups. If I could play a card that allows me to choose from three cards what to topdeck, that's not an insignificant resource to have.
The only thing now is to assess the dredge cards themselves. And we've got a few good ones so far. Aquatic Form, Scalding Geyser, Bloodscent Vilefin are all good on their own. You dont need to wait for the sunken cards before playing these things, you can just play it and prepare accordingly for the next turn when you draw the dredged card.
As for the sunken cards themselves. Well, Ive seen some good ones like azsharan gardens, scavenger and possibly vessel. At least they're nowhere near as random as the prime cards was in AoO. Whether they will be worth the trouble keeping a dredge card in hand, that'll depend on what payoff we're looking at.
- I would agree with your assessment for the naga cards. But in my opinion, it all depends on payoff. Queen Azshara offers a payoff good enough that I'll climb some mountains to get the reward it offers. Cards like Coilskar Commander, maybe not so much. There's not many naga cards that feature these conditions though, and if every one of them dont see any play, that's not a mark against the entire expansion.
- Colossal minions are probably the one thing Im sure will last over this expansion. Im not sure what you mean by bombast vs good/interesting. Crabatoa is a good minion, its not bombastic or interesting, but its good. Nellie, the Great Thresher is interesting, is likely good, and is 'bombastic'. They have high costs because they tend to do very powerful things, not because its to make the cards look better.
And also, let's not forget that team5 have a tendency to save the best cards for last. So chances are good our assessment of the the sunken city expansion is premature. I'd see the entire set and the core set first before forming opinions of my own.
Well argued. However, I would respond that the conditions aren't as different as you say. Sunken City, while part of a new year, also comes on the back of a string of powerful expansions just like RR did. The entire Alliance vs Horde cycle has yielded some fairly unhealthy designs, particularly on the Questline end. While my perspective is admittedly skewed on the topic as I'm a Wild player, I'd imagine these Questlines will continue to have a presence in Standard as well, and the designers will have to tiptoe pretty exensively not to give any of these Questlines any tools. We already know Hunter is getting some fuel for their Questline, and who knows what the Core set will bring to the others. In that environment, a new set has to be doing something fairly spectacular to present an appealing alternative to doing the same old from United in Stormwind and I just don't feel VtSS is doing that so far. It's self-contained mechanics mean that if the set cards underperform as they stands, they're pretty much dead in the water (lol puns) for the future as well cause they don't interact particularly well with upcoming sets. Perhaps when the 2021 sets rotate and the meta gets truly powered down, Sunken City may float back up in relevance (I crack myself up sometimes) but currently it feels dead on arrival barring a few exceptions.
It's not necessarily a problem for the expansion itself but it is a problem for the future. If design is this self-contained too often, the end result is a bigger part of your collection becomes redundant as new expansions release (moreso than usual), which in turn means higher costs for remaining competitive and a general feeling from the playerbase that they've wasted their money. That's the type of dissatisfaction you can't keep on accumulating for long.
As for Colossal, what I mean is...it feels somewhat like Jungle Giants. In practice the Quest is pretty meh in terms of power level even with the variety of tools Wild offers. It's bombastic in concept (stuff my deck full of giant monsters and draw and play 38 mana of stuff on turn 6-7) but in practice not that interesting, as your deck is often choking on big, clunky cards that rot in your hand if drawn before Quest completion, and you mostly rely on a handful of crucial, low-cost, high-attack minions to get your Quest moving. If those end up buried midway through your deck, your deck does very little. It's exciting, just impractical. A lot of these Colossal minions feel the same way. Xhilag of the Abyss is exciting in theory but the tentacles are never gonna last a turn and the EoT effect isn't impactful enough past the raw on-board stats. Colaque is just a giant idiot. Can be fun if you find ways to copy the shell etc. In fact all of the Colossal minions get pretty fun when you try some copying, mana cheating or bouncing shenanigans on them. It's really a Timmy mechanic through and through. And maybe they will make a splash as a top-end option, even with the Alterac Valley heroes being around. But they're more exciting by their size and by the Dane/Mark McKz/Roffle bombastic shenanigans they invite rather than sheer practicality in ending the game.
Quest lines have warped the game almost to Baku/Genn levels. Every new card has to be considered in light of quests and does it make them more broken. Best move would be to remove them from standard like Baku/Genn.
I think we can all agree that stormwind was an anomaly, a botch to put it mildly. Team5 wanted the questlines to shine so they designed each and every quest in stormwind to feature a win condition that ultimately took it too far. From my understanding, it went way past what they originally intended, and none of us predicted how powerful and impactful the questlines ultimately became. It took 3 nerfs within a month, that's unprecedented.
Far as Sunken City's own cards are concerned, I think there's enough stuff so far to keep me interested in the expansion: Lady S'theno, nellie, Emergency Maneuvers, murlock deck, Queen Azshara. If the questlines starts running rampant (which Im not certain that they will, having lost a chuck of their good cards) I'd imagine team5 nerfing them down again.
Also, I'd point out again that team5 have this habit of leaving the best cards for last. We didn't even see galakrond shaman until the end of the reveal, and again none of us have predicted that it'll take over the entire meta for the 1 week before it got nerfed.
On the subject of card redundancy, I think its pretty much clear that that has been happening throughout hearthstone's history. Only under very specific circumstances does previous expansion cards matter more than the current one, like the ungoro-kobolds vs witchwood-rastakhans. Otherwise, the result has been fairly consistent - As the years move forward, previous expansions loses relevance. How many barrens cards are still being played today?
Its not specifically in hearthstone too. I still have old Pokemon tcg cards that are completely redundant today (My old machamp used to do 60 damage and at that time it was insane. Now even an unevolved pokemon can do it). But in its lifetime I got some worth out of my money. I dont think its fair to say money has been wasted if you have had a good deal of time playing it.
Purify priest back on the menu boys PogChamp
Purify had to target own minions. This can target enemy ones, too.
Silence Priest is back! Lol 🤣
Except this time it works on enemy minions, too.
This sunken mechanic is kinda lame...
That Shaman card has a ton of value though.
Next best ones are Paladin then Hunter the rest are pretty bad.
I'm proud of them actually for making a mechanic that's just interesting with its different moving parts and multiple steps. In a vacuum it let's you do fun little mini combos to get cards that have a nice impact but aren't wincons. It's how Hearthstone SHOULD be. In reality a lot of these cards will take a backseat to broken stuff from this year. Hopefully they'll have the balls to see it through and make the game more about fun midrange play where you win by making smaller plays at the right time and get to box with your opponent more and do cool stuff like dredging a nice card that can give you a small edge.
Literally the bottom card of your d3ck with deathrattle cast a card from your deck needs a LOT of tools to make it good
It's only on the bottom until you use another shuffle mechanic right? If they include/introduce any other shuffle/insert card into your deck mechanics than the whole deck gets reshuffled and your dredge cards could in theory be anywhere at that point. Just pointing that out as a way to get around the "dredge" mechanic since it does seem rather lackluster.