New Neutral Minion - Smothering Starfish

Silence priest is getting stuff, now we need something to silence.

By the way, if handbuff is a thing, that card can see play in control decks... And aggro boys can deal with taunts.

In the right meta, that card is a 5/5 stars.

We're saved from the Snowfall Guardian Meta everyone!

I'm definitely glad that this card exists, specifically as a tech card that can answer Snowfall Guardian board freezes, Handbuff decks, or anything else that might be annoying. Also Silence Priest is a thing. That being said, I REALLY hope that this doesn't become a ubiquitous minion; I like it as a tech card, but the ability to Silence everything is just really annoying to have to play against too often. I would really like to play with the new Colossal minions and it's not going to be very fun to drop, say, Nellie, the Great Thresher only to have my opponent completely negate her effect for 3 mana. So, in conclusion: Really powerful card, good as a tech card for a lot of different decks, really hope that it's not going to just go in every deck.

There's a chance that team5 have made an mistake trying to cover for both the colossal minions and the evidently powerful Snowfall Guardian. Because if shaman is everywhere next meta, this is practically a must have card which also unfortunately counters many things that under normal circumstances no one will be prepared for.

Deathrattle decks for example gets shafted pretty hard just because snowfall guardian's shit. Should've just given us [Hearthstone Card (living dragonflame) Not Found] instead. Its not like standard doesn't already have a good silence, tradeable minion around.

Nevertheless, silence effects are like weapon destruction. It'll always see play one way or another. So I'd expect this one will certainly do as well.

I don't like this. It feels like it's specifically designed to counter Snowfall Guardian because they kinda cornered themselves with that card (the more board focussed the meta, the more powerful it becomes with very little actual counterplay)

However, at the same time, this feels poorly designed for this shop, especially because they should just add Living Dragonbreath to the Core set.

My reasoning for this would be: If your opponent plays Guardian and freezes like 5 of your minions, he now has an 8/8 and you can't fight. If you play Dragonbreath, you are now unfrozen, can attack and your opponent can't follow up with another wave of freeze...but they still have an 8/8, meaning they're not completely fucked. It's then upon you to make sure they cannot easily kill your dragonbreath so you can leveerage the anti-freeze for as long as possible. That adds depth and decisionmaking.

Meanwhile, with Starfish, you just play it after the Guardian and their Guardian gets basically invalidated. They spent 6-mana on a 3/3 unless silencing your own stuff is a huge detriment to your own gameplan. At that point however, if they have a follow-up freeze then you're just as fucked as you were before. Essentially you'd have to have lethal by the time they freeze your board because you can only run two Starfish while they can freeze 4 times.

Maybe Dragonbreath is in the Core set anyways and this is just a generic tech card against buff spells, but still...not a huge fan of this design. Also huge powercreep on Showstopper for some reason.

The Snowfall Guardian counter, i LOVE this! Considering the game is getting more board focussed, Freeze shaman has a opportunity to completely lock down the game, and Smothering Starfish is here to prevent that. Also it's good in Silence priest, a deck that is very much known for being bad in every iteration. This tech card will see play when the meta is Snowfall Guardian filled, or when deathrattles are popular.

So, Showstopper as a battlecry. Probably better since deathrattles can be prevented by transform or silence, and especially since you have absolute control when it goes off.

Ironbeak Owl be like "Wuut?!"

I like it! Decent Stats and nice battlecry :) 

A useful tool, given the stats and the effect. One copy of it might be included in some decks, as a tech option at least.