All the new Warlock cards for Voyage to the Sunken City have been revealed and in this article we're going to discuss how they will impact Wild in general and any specific decks they can fit into.
Here is how the cards will be rated:
- 5 stars means a card that can see a lot of play in meta defining and powerful decks
- 4 stars means a card that can see some play in the best decks and a lot of play in slightly less competitive meta decks
- 3 stars means a card that can see some play in less optimal meta decks or is good for some off meta decks
- 2 stars means a card that can see play in any deck, even if it's a very niche or weak archetype
- 1 star means a card that won't see any play at all
Gigafin
Our Wild Rating
Let's be optimistic and assume Murloc Warlock will see play in the meta as a decent deck (this assumption will hold for all murloc cards for Warlock - if the deck sees play they do and if the deck doesn't they won't). In that case, Gigafin is quite a good card with synergy with all the handbuffs and also with being played early for health instead of mana with either Bloodscent Vilefin or Seadevil Stinger.
Za'qul
Our Wild Rating
The entire Abyssal Curse package is too slow of a win condition for competitive Wild, so the best this can do is see play in some niche deck along with the other Abyssal Curse cards.
Abyssal Wave
Our Wild Rating
The entire Abyssal Curse package is too slow of a win condition for competitive Wild, so the best this can do is see play in some niche deck along with the other Abyssal Curse cards.
Chum Bucket
Our Wild Rating
Chum Bucket is one of the strongest cards for Murloc Warlock. Compare this to Smuggler's Run and this will already be of comparable strength with only one murloc on the board and a 2/2 buff. With 2 or more, this becomes very strong and can pump out enough pure stats to bully other aggro decks with low removal. In addition, this can be used on Charge murlocs like Bluegill Warrior and Old Murk-Eye for burst.
Bloodscent Vilefin
Our Wild Rating
Bloodscent Vilefin is good for the sheer tempo of dropping any murloc for no mana, but is especially powerful with getting the Sunken Scavenger from Azsharan Scavenger, Gigafin, Mutanus the Devourer, and Gorloc Ravager.
Voidgill
Our Wild Rating
Another great card for Murloc Warlock support, good stats for the cost and a powerful effect.
Rock Bottom
Our Wild Rating
Cards like Lost in the Jungle and Wicked Shipment have seen Wild play, and Rock Bottom is not only 2 1/1s with a tribe for 1 mana but can Dredge up the Sunken Scavenger from Azsharan Scavenger.
Dragged Below
Our Wild Rating
The entire Abyssal Curse package is too slow of a win condition for competitive Wild, so the best this can do is see play in some niche deck along with the other Abyssal Curse cards.
Sira'kess Cultist
Our Wild Rating
The entire Abyssal Curse package is too slow of a win condition for competitive Wild, so the best this can do is see play in some niche deck along with the other Abyssal Curse cards.
Azsharan Scavenger
Our Wild Rating
Azsharan Scavenger is mostly played for the Sunken Scavenger, and with Warlock's 2 Dredge cards unlike 1 for most classes, it should be easy to get to consistently. The Sunken Scavenger providing a board buff in addition to the hand and deck buff is what really makes it good and worth playing.
Overall Set Score
Sunken City Wild Demon Hunter
This set gets a score of 7 solely from the sheer power of the murloc support cards which are all quite powerful. We don't know for sure if it will be a good deck, but if it is, all these murloc cards will see play in it.
What do you think about the new Warlock cards and how they'll do in the Wild format? Let us know in the comments below!
More Wild Reviews for Voyage to the Sunken City
We've been hard at work preparing additional insights into the new Voyage to the Sunken City cards with a Wild spin. Check out all the classes released so far down below.
More From Year of the Hydra
Blizzard has plenty of new information to share about Year of the Hydra including the remaining cards for Voyage to the Sunken City.
- All 46 New Voyage to the Sunken City Card Reveals
- All Card Flavor Text for the Voyage to the Sunken City Hearthstone Expansion
- Everything You Need to Know About Hearthstone's Year of the Hydra & Core Set
- Future of Hearthstone Battlegrounds in 2022 - Seasons, E-Sports, New Keywords, Progression System and More
- Hearthstone Mercenaries Receives Big Updates in Patch 23.0 - Task System Rework, Balance Updates, & More!
- All Hearthstone Duels Updates for Patch 23.0 - The League of Explorers, Hero Selection Expands, Retired Heroic Runs, Treasures, & More
- Drek’Thar and Loatheb Are the Latest Cards To Join Hearthstone’s Diamond Club
- Our Wild Thoughts on the 24 Reverted Card Nerfs in Hearthstone's Year of the Hydra
- Open a Voyage to the Sunken City Pack in our Pack Opener
Comments
I don’t care how awful it’s going to be, I’m ready to mess around with curses in the most DOT-y deck possible alongside Hakkar, the Soulflayer.
I'm afraid Curse of Agony will carry you way further than Hakkar :
- Easier to draw (2 card vs 1 legendary)
- Easier to play (1 mana vs 9)
- Agony token card will be drawn more consistently than the first Hakkar's blood.
- You don't rig your own deck.
- It synergise with Tamsin Roame (and she synergise with Dragged Below and Abyssal Wave)
It's a shame, because Hakkar really have that Timmy-esq aura to it, that make us want him to be viable :-/
Don't be modest and post the deck list already ;-) looking forward to it as well, I hope I'll get all the cards :)
I have an awful theorycrafted list I’m still not happy with on my profile. Looking forward to messing with it come Tuesday and elevating it from Tier 99 up to Tier 51
Can't wait to play around like a zoo murloc Warlock slinger...
I really don't like the fact that all of these cards except Gigafin are only playable in strictly one deck. In Standard, because of the small card pool, the archetypes will find a place for themselves in the meta. But if in Wild neither Murloc nor Curse Warlock turn out to be a thing (and frankly I don't expect it), then essentially Warlock only got one playable new card from the new set, and that's very disappointing.
I personally like high synergy cards and a clear package for a type of deck, than just getting a bunch of random cards and maybe 2 or 3 work together. I like my decks to have a goal, to have a theme and an identity. Shoving all good cards and calling it a deck feels disjointed to me. I'm actually fairly disappointed that these big package sets have failed for the most part. Frost shaman and Shadow priest for example had clear cut ideas behind them but only 2 or 3 cards saw any real play. The decks became a thing but without half of the cards meant to be inside them.
If i'm to take a guess i'll say murloc warlock will be bad, simply because handbuffs and hyper aggro don't work. In wild paladin has a shit ton of draws that let it function but warlock needs to tap each turn. Murlocs are cheap and swarmy by nature so you'll just run out of cards in your hand, thus you'll only handbuff like 1 or 2 guys at a time.
I've always wanted to dive into this as a topic. My memory could be bad considering it's only been a million years since Hearthstone came out, but I remember them printing such varied strategies for each class every set and there were definitely cards that didn't look like they fit anywhere but then they did.
It feels like to me Hearthstone just doesn't have much of that anymore. They print tools for the 1 or 2 archetypes they want to establish for that year and then leave it at that. Granted, it would take an entire year to make things feel right by printing varied things (you'd need the next rotation to hit to properly fix that). I think the biggest problem there is that the power level can become less predictable when you no longer have your sights on 1 or 2 goals.
Yep. There's a shift in the way they design cards. I've a hard time putting it into word (*), but I'm under the impression they want :
- cards to be nuanced. I.E. You no longer get a fixed value out of one card. Deckbuilding, state-of-the-match, and opponent's counterplay should matters.
- archetype to be pluridimensionnal. A decklist may be good at doing one thing; But it should be built around several "package".
Which should hopefully do good for the fairness and health of the game.
Warlock is a good illustration of these change; it got two curses added these two last expansion : Agony and Abyssal Curse :
They fundamentally do the same thing : deal ever-increasing FAAACE! damage.
They could both - theorically - be abused, individually, in "meme-y" way. But the agony package (Tamsin + elekk + curse) has [empyrically] proven to be weak. And the abyssal one is currently prophetized to be as bad.
They don't exactly synergize with one another; but they do synergize with Tamsin Roame. (Their relationship to opponent's drawing and overdrawing is... interesting and somewhat conflictual)
I think those two package will see play; but never alone, as the sole selling point of a decklist. I can picture a deck playing both, a murlock deck playing agony for the oracle synergy, control deck playing abyssal alongside their spellcost disruption card, etc. They will perhaps not T1 decks , but CCG are not only about those anyway. (if your only focus is ranked gaming... well, you're a debat point for another day)
IF they had made only one type of curse, (like Curse of agony shuffling 3 abyssal curse instead, or the abyssal package dealing fatigue damage), or add another card later then it could be different. We're talking about self-increasing damage here, adding more source/flexibity can tip the scale - quickly -, and make the whole resulting package overpowered/abusable.
Libram was a similar experiment. It was arguably fun and fair while it lasted. But releasing a whole new set of libram-themed cards to standard could murder the whole package balance in wild. It would devolve into a 0-cost clown-fiesta deck with 90% of card being libram-related. Think balance-druid, but the opponent is not even invited to the mana-cheat party.
( * Damn, these few paragraph has costed me two hours already ! And nobody will even read them :-( )