Our Thoughts on Maw and Disorder's New Demon Hunter, Druid & Hunter Cards Coming to Hearthstone

Maw and Disorder, Murder at Castle Nathria's mini-set, goes live tomorrow, September 27th, and we've got some thoughts on the new cards coming for Demon Hunter, Druid, and Hunter. Let's go over the them and see where we're headed in the mini-set meta. Have a good read!

In case you missed it, a few days ago we published our Murder at Castle Nathria mini-set prediction article - how well do you think we did?

Moreover, here are other Maw and Disorder related articles you may want to check out:

• A Summary of Hearthstone Developer Insights - Accusations Card Cycle, How The Jailer Works & More

Demon Hunter

We start this review season with an absolute banger of a card. We think there's no situation where Prosecutor Mel'tranix isn't at the very least annoying: unlike Loatheb or Boompistol Bully, Mel'tranix doesn't lock you out by increasing your cards' cost. Think about it this way: back when Skull of Gul'dan was in Standard, how many times did you find yourself not being able to play it at full power because you had a very expensive card in your hand's left-most position? Many, many times. Well, Prosecutor Mel'tranix works similarly: unless your opponent's left-most and right-most cards are cheap (but then they'll have to spend their mana on them in order to "free" the cards in the middle), they will be able to do very little.

Again, this is an absolutely busted card.

Big Demon Hunter support: nice! Considering the card's text, we have to imagine that All Fel Breaks Loose will summon random friendly Demons that died during the game and it may summon multiple copies of the same unit if it has died more than once - kinda like Mass Resurrection.

One problem we see is that All Fel Breaks Loose's base form is a bit underwhelming: 5 mana summon an 8+ drop (most of the times at least) isn't bad, but you can't even Discover what you want; moreover, the Infuse (Demons) requirement is actually more punishing than you can imagine: you want friendly Demons to die quickly to upgrade the spell, but at the same time you only want strong friendly Demons to die and enter in the res pool, making Infusing All Fel Breaks Loose trickier to accomplish.

All in all, All Fel Breaks Loose demands a rather slow gameplan in order to be effective, but Big Demon Hunter isn't quick enough to be relevant in the meta: we feel like there's a clear short circuit here.

A card with more than one use, the most prominent of which must be refill in the "Handless" strategy promoted during the Murder at Castle Nathria expansion: cards like Bibliomite, Dispose of Evidence and Kryxis the Voracious are quite demanding to your hand-size, so Sightless Magistrate can help and mitigate such a harsh drawback.

On another hand, Magistrate's Battlecry can be considered as card draw in bulk, meaning that Final Showdown may benefit from this addition to the Standard pool.

The cost, 4 mana, isn't excessive at all and therefore we expect Sightless Magistrate to see experimentation, but at the same time we're not sure whether it will stay relevant after the first few weeks - Relics apart, Demon Hunter is a bit messy at the moment.

Druid

Let's start by saying that we totally nailed Dew Process back in our prediction article: both the class and the effect match!

Regarding the card itself, we've already seen a reminiscent effect back in The Witchwood with the forgettable Forest Guide; however, this time around the extra draw comes cheaper and stays for the rest of the game. Dew Process can be seen from two different points of view: aggro and control.

If you're on the aggressive side, one more card each turn will allow you to not run out of gas throughout the entire game and, also very relevant, will prevent bad topdecks - if you draw two cards at time, chances are that at least one of them will be good.

On the other hand, Dew Process can be used to counter slow and greedy decks by milling them to death: sure, you'll have to deal with the extra draw as well, but you'll have the chance to adapt to it during the deckbuilding session.

On a meme note, Dew Process with Hedge Maze and Selfish Shellfish may give us a Mill deck, something Standard rarely sees nowadays. Either way, this card has potential.

Hard removal, and quite good for Druid: we cannot complain on this one! While Incarceration has no Spell School to synergize with, Malfurion has been able to destroy enemy minions only through stats (Scale of Onyxia, Flipper Friends), so a spell like this actually goes beyond the class' usual identity, representing a valuable asset in Druid's arsenal.

There are a few considerations to be made, especially in comparison with Ashes of Outland's Maiev Shadowsong; in particular, Maiev never saw play for multiple reasons, among which:

• 4 mana was (and is) a rather expensive cost to pay for a "Silence" effect.
• Maiev's Dormant effect only lasted for 2 turns.

Now, Incarceration has the upsides of costing less mana and, especially, lasting one more turn: there are situations where you cannot afford to ramp and then deal with the opponent's threats - Bless Priest is a perfect example for what we're trying to say, as Druid has no way to deal with an early 7+ Health minion, something which Serpent Wig can allow with extreme ease.

Yes, it's no Life Sentence and it's not going to be an auto-include but, based on the meta, we expect players to seriously consider Incarceration.

This is a 2 mana Keeper of the Grove, which is great, and here's why.

Back when Keeper of the Grove was in Standard, you'd always consider it just for its Silence effect and not for the 2 damage. Now, Attorney-at-Maw does the same but for 2 less mana, has less terrible stats for the cost (spending 4 mana for a 2/4 is way worse than 2 for a 1/3) and the Immune half of the effect can grant some sweet trades.

Silence effects are very meta-dependant, so we do not expect Attorney-at-Maw to see tons of play from the very start, but it's another nice addition to Druid's card pool.

Hunter

Oblivitron, but arguably a lot better and way more playable: you're not limited to Mechs, you're not limited to the Deathrattles you have in hand (once a unit dies, you're set) and you get to Discover what Deathrattle you want (no more RNG lowrolls). Defense Attorney Nathanos pushes Deathrattle Hunter, an archetype Team 5 has been quiet about for quite a while.

The fact that Nathanos has a built-in Play Dead makes this unit far more viable, as it's not just a plain 6 mana 5/4 with no additional impact on the board (Seeping Oozeling): imagine getting an additional 8 Armor from Mo'arg Forgefiend, two Cubs from Mountain Bear or an Rushing Gravewing from Stoneborn General.

Not a buildaround card, but instead a nice top-end payoff unit in, let's say, Beast Hunter.

Unlike other Infuse cards, base Shadehound is just unplayable: a slow 5 mana 6/5 with no other impact on the board and that needs other units to be alive in order to give you an upside is too weak to be even considered.

When Infused, things get slightly better, but:

• You need Beasts to die in order to Infuse it.
  • It may not be a problem, as Mountain Bear, Hydralodon and so on are viable cards.
• You still need other Beasts to be on the board in order to Shadehound to buff them.

To be honest, we see this unit as a Bloodlust-type of card for Beast Hunter: you follow your usual gameplay and, when your opponent cannot deal with your sticky boards anymore, drop Shadehound and give your entire board +2/+2.

However, even this way, we're quite hesitant on Shadehound's viability: we want Sunken Saber and Pet Collector to pull the very best units from your deck, and Shadehound just seems to be polluting your pool.

Unless additional support will come in future card releases, we're not very high on this one.

The version on the right can be Discovered by Beaststalker Tavish's Battlecry.

A bit too worried that decks like Miracle Rogue will take over? Worry not, as Motion Denied will deal 6 damage to them while they pull off their crazy turns, potentially killing them!

This Secret reminds us of Rat Trap, a card which saw large success back in the day for being efficient at countering Miracle decks. As we already stated, Motion Denied does the same but, instead of generating board pressure, it pressures your opponent's face, putting them closer to that 0 Health total you want them to reach.

Probably an auto-include in any Secret-heavy deck, we expect Motion Denied to appear in Hunter decklists here and there in case the meta demands an answer to certain strategies.

What do you think about these cards? Are there any you're excited to play with? Let us know in the comments below!