Halfway through the remaining cards, today we tackle the Pirates, Warrior's other cards, and a Warlock card, because we needed to put it somewhere. Let our expert opinions guide your crafting decisions and make sure to direct all criticism to... I don't know, go outside and shout it skyward, I'm sure someone will hear and get back to you eventually.

Skybarge Card Image

This ship is very much cannon.

Quote From Nudewookie

Is it just me, or is Blizzard running out of ideas beyond more stats on similar effects? Cough, cough, Ship's Cannon. Except that the Skybarge is much, much harder to kill. This card is going to absolutely make Pirate Warrior so so good. I imagine a Pirate-heavy deck with weapons like Ancharrr and Galakrond for support. You have so many cheap Pirates, generators, and ways to cheat out extra pirates like Sharkfin Fan, Parachute Brigand, and Dread Corsair. If you have a 4-attack weapon, you can play up to 6 Pirates in the same turn for as little as 2-mana; this translates to 12-damage just from the Skybarge! 

Sky Raider Card Image

Firate. That's it, that's the joke.

Quote From Nudewookie

I also absolutely love the art, its mount reminds me of the horse-head-on-a-stick I ran around with as a kid, but this breathes fire! Warrior Pirate synergy in DoD has officially reached terrifying levels. I still fear the old days when it was 66% of the meta for a month. Warrior just continues to hit the lottery with 1-drop minions. Town Crier and Eternium Rover will be joined by Sky Raider as an awesome aggro value-generator. This is the equivalent of Rogue's [Hearthstone Card (Pharoah Cat) Not Found], but with a pool to pull from that has better synergy in my opinion. I imagine a Pirate-heavy deck with weapons like Ancharrr and Skybarge for support. It'll be fun to see how the Pirate package comes together with Galakrond and other Rush tools at it's disposal. 

Parachute Brigand Card Image

Getting the latest Hearthstone Patches so fast is rather handy.

Quote From Nudewookie

Everyone, meet inverse [Hearthstone Card (Patches) Not Found]. You want Parachute Brigand in your hand rather than in your deck. Imagine having 2 of these in hand and then playing a 1-cost Pirate. Yes, your hand is gone, but you played at least a 5/5 worth of stats on turn 1! Insanely powerful! This card works in any Pirate deck you are trying to play and offers a huge tempo boost, if you summon it with Skybarge in play it also gives you a free 2-damage. Expect to see this card simply because it's you'll never have to pay mana for it. 

Hoard Pillager Card Image

Not to be confused with those scum, the Horde Pillagers. FOR THE ALLIANCE!

Quote From Nudewookie

Ancharrr is a Hoard Pillager's best friend! I can already see playing Hoard Pillager to summon Ancharrr which then draws Hoard Pillager. Any strategy which relies on weapon damage or only uses powerful weapons gives this card reason to be played as a tech choice. Paladin, Rogue, and Warrior I see being incredibly effective using Hoard Pillager for value. Paladin most of all actually, because there are only a few small weapons which see play in the class now. The final bonus is that this will resummon a fully-Invoked Galakrond weapon as well.

Bloodsail Flybooter Card Image

You use these words with such confidence for someone pulling them from thin air.

Quote From ShadowsOfSense

This is a really weird one. It'd be insane with Skybarge if it were neutral or Warrior, so I imagine that's why it's a Rogue card, but also… Rogue has nothing to really support this right now. There's no need in Rogue for a low-cost Pirate, as any Pirate decks they have already have good earlygame and are starved for lategame plays.

The best combo this has right now is with Cannon Barrage, but is playing a 3 mana 3/3 across easily killed 1/1 bodies worth that? I'd almost argue that the better combo is hoping to get this from Sky Raider - at least that gives you some good damage without actually taking up a card slot.

I mean, you can use this to get some low-cost stuff to activate combos? But they already have plenty of Lackey generation, which is much better for that. I really don't know what you're supposed to use this for.

Ritual Chopper Card Image

Used to prepare the ritual tomatoes for the ritual salad.

Quote From Demonxz95

Now getting into the remaining Galakrond stuff, we got both of the Warrior Invoke cards here. Why they waited until the final 10 cards or so to reveal them instead of during the main reveal or even the final stream, I don’t know. Would've made much more sense to reveal them then. Before we get into the main review, I'd like to point out that a Reddit user by the name of polarbear31415 perfectly predicted this card on r/customhearthstone, right here. Polarbear, whoever you are, congrats! You’ve joined the ranks of the reveal season prophets!

But now that it’s a real card, I can say that it seems like a strong Invoker for Warrior. 4 Attack on turn 2 makes it better than pre-nerf Fiery War Axe (probably the closest the game has ever had to a 100% universally played card by every player), and can kill almost every 2-drop in the game, and can even kill a pretty large percentage of 3-drops as well. That's insanely strong.

Just be sure to use the bonus Attack or else it basically becomes a Rogue Hero Power that takes a deck slot. The card supports the aggressive nature of the Warrior strategy for Galakrond nicely. After the first turn though, it loses power and becomes a 1/1 weapon. Not too impressive, although the 1 damage can still be used to kill a Silver Hand Recruit or similarly small minion. Overall, it seems like a strong Invoker for Warrior. I like it.

Awaken! Card Image

Awaken! Awaken my insides! Call my name and bring about the end of all!

Quote From Demonxz95

This one however is… slightly less impressive. It prices the Invoke effect at 2 mana, which according to Ritual Chopper, which we literally just looked at, is a bit much.

Whirlwind effects are good in Warrior, so it’s still useful without a doubt, but the power level is a bit low compared to most other Invoke cards. You can deal 4 damage to something and 1 to everything else, so it's quite comparable to Swipe, although it can't bypass Taunt, hits your own stuff, and you'll need to take damage if you a minion with it. Swipe is a pretty good card, so it looks like this one will also be as such.

It's still a decent card and you'll play it Galakrond Warrior because you need the Invokes. It's just not as strong as the Invoke effects from other classes. One thing of mention though it contradicts the typical Galakrond Warrior's aggressive plan. I guess they made this card bad for Aggro as a way to pre-emptively control the power level of aggressive Galakrond Warrior strategies.

Ramming Speed Card Image

Faster than sheeping speed but slower than goating speed.

Quote From linkblade91

Functionally-speaking, it's a single-use of Supercollider, for 2 less mana and you don't have to sacrifice any Health. Honestly, I would just use Supercollider for as long as it remains in Standard: for 5-mana, you get to threaten your opponent's board for three separate actions. That's a lot of pressure on your foe, having to work around Supercollider's effect until you gracefully end their suffering and use it up. Ramming Speed just can't develop that same kind of tension, although it might find a home after The Boomsday Project rotates come April. Maybe if it cost 2-mana, or it was a lesser rarity; for an Epic card, though, I'm not going out of my way to acquire a copy.

Rain of Fire Card Image

Who pissed off Adele?

Quote From Demonxz95

Because fire is clearly green, right?

So here we have what is essentially a Whirlwind for Warlocks. Truth be told, I think this card is better than some people are giving it credit for, and the main reason for that is that Warlocks don't have very many small and cheap board clears in Standard. Against a small board of tokens or just small minions in general, this does the job. Warriors do have better self-damage support as its basically a centralized part of their class. Warlocks may not have anything like Frothing Berserker or Armorsmith, but they have their own ways to support this through cards like Diseased Vulture, Duskbat, and the new Zzeraku the Warped. This could even be combined with Spell Damage to get more damage out for only 1 mana. I'm not saying it'll be a strong card in the meta, but I think it has a larger possibility than the public opinion seems to think. Maybe I'm just hopeful.