This card is basically here to save a minion from being removed.
So cards like Illidari Inquisitor can be saved for the next turn and lose absolutely nothing in initiative.
But of course, the real power of this card is simply the fact that it more or less guarantees you can never play a titan against this without risking your own. That alone makes this a viable card.
Its more relevant to rogue, since it allows poison rogue to essentially remove minions without sacrificing weapon swings. Plus, with enough durability you might scupper your opponent's plans to viper it, since they now have to get rid of this minion before being able to do so.
Cant think of much else really. Its viability is determined by how many weapons you typically play and whether you can hold onto a brick until then.
Its great vs aggro assuming you're playing control, but its really never realistically a good AoE choice.
4 mana to deal 2 damage is bad enough. 2 damage really doesnt kill much nowadays. At most this card is a bane to all aggro decks especially the likes of treant druid but I can think of better AoE cards like Immolation Aura that not only cost less, but sometimes allowing me to swing board whereas this card effectively caps me from doing the same without risking it to die before I get to do anything.
At first I was thinking it might be an epic from a miniset that actually sees play and then I see what team5 did to cap it in its knee (not that it has any)
Being a deathrattle means if you cant immediately kill or trigger it its effectively worthless. Even if you can somehow contrive that to happen the most is that this grants windfury to some minions but that's a far cry from actual enders like Grave Strength
Cant imagine this being anything more than a meme card.
I dont know what this will do but it'll be broken as fuck at some point and team5 would be forced to nerf and hand out apologies.
Only good thing is that this card is difficult to trigger (so even if randomly gained its not guaranteed to immediately turn games) and its a warrior card, just about the only class that rarely relies on battlecries.
But really, you cant print out cards like this and not have it be overpowered. Its just impossible.
But its not a very good one. There's just tons of elementals to discover so your range can go from Ragnaros the Firelord to Bubbler, and if all three are not good then this card just clogs your hand with bs.
So this is it? The long wait for Therazane only for her to end up like this?
Basically a stat monster, similar to Lor'themar Theron, except this only works with elementals and more crucially, this is a deathrattle. Essentially its worse than lorthemar, unless going full on stat bombs is what you want to do.
Problem? well, the biggest one is the most obvious. What indeed is this card supposed to do? Even lorthemar itself only ever saw play in either highlander decks or decks with clear win cons that involve charge. This card has none of that advantage and comes with an even bigger disadvantage in that it can be silenced or interacted with before it does anything useful. Plus with reno everywhere its hard to actually imagine this card doing much more than eye candy.
Only niche I can see is deathrattle interaction. Its entirely possible to imagine this card being relevant because of it.
Perhaps unsurprising. Duels have been in the rut for quite a time now, perhaps since they practically killed the bucket system and every game progressively gets greedier to the point that post 7 wins is almost always a value matchup.
Judging by the queue times, its likely that the mode doesnt really see much attention at all. I pretty much drop duels the moment they changed the bucket system and havent looked back. But once a while I drop in (usually to complete quests etc.) and find myself waiting minutes to get a match and even one loss puts me further down the waiting time queue. Got to the point that I just didnt want to bother.
As to why they decided to remove the mode entirely? If I have to speculate its very likely because unlike mercs and classic mode, you cant realistically keep it static. It'll have to have at least some form of attention even if its nothing more than merely switching the expansions around every 4 months.
- Changes to Barrel of Sludge will not truly make a difference to sludgelock. The main problem here is really the fact that the entire archetype relies so much on two cards: Disposal Assistant and Sludge on Wheels. All else doesnt work without these two being played on curve.
If you get these two on curve, the decks great, prob tier 2. But if you dont, then this deck is trash level bad.
- The changes to velarok and scorpion are helpful but Im not sure if it'll make them playable. The current iteration of drill rogue suffers from hand problems, making the scorpion difficult to play in most cases anyway. But at very least we dont have to keep it in hand until 8 excavates anymore.
- Buffs to kazgorath and slagmaw might as well be nonexistent as they fix absolutely nothing of which made both these cards weak in the first place. Kazgorath, incidentally, is already playable anyway, its just quite weak. 1 additional health doesnt change anything.
Slagmaw's problem is way worse. If you dont play it on 4 you might as well never have played it. No ones gonna keep their excavate cards waiting for this guy to show up. So minus 1 extra excavate to bring it up is not gonna change anything.
- Paladin nerfs are fine. Id expected them to nerf the AoE since it really cant be understated how impactful these cards are, as they tend to cover pally's arse, removing its sole weakness of having little to no ways to dealing with board except via minions.
Could we have seen a nerf to Boogie Down instead? Well, that'll likely kill the class.
Buffs to DK? Not gonna dignify it with a comment. Suffice to say, if youre not interested in playing rainbow DK you're unlikely to want to do it now.
Its only a brilliant nerf if the idea is to keep its essential power level but disallowing a naked sharpshooter on 3 turn, which to be fair happens rarely anyway.
I think team5 wants to monitor this a bit more before removing its viability. Its a cool new thing for dhunter and its a new expansion they'd probably want to avoid killing it early.
But with regards to what the deck was already doing, it'll continue doing it, which I get is not exactly what the community wants or expected.
Well, we get some nerfs but surprisingly few changes, given that elemental shaman is just dead on arrival.
- There's only two possible changes to Blindeye Sharpshooter. Either a mana increase to 4, or it gets the damage dealt reduced to 1. Both would very nearly remove the card as a competitive option, or at very least relegate the card to being a supporting card rather than as a full build around.
We've seen the same nerfs to steno, I would be very surprised if this card doesnt get the same treatment.
- Always a Bigger Jormungar would probably get a mana cost nerf to 3. Its harsh, but I seriously dont see how team5 can fix this one without changing how the mechanics work. We could make it not work with cleave effects, but Ive rarely seen team5 do mechanic changes and I dont expect it to be done here.
- Changes to Order in the Court is likely entirely because it does it job way too well. Almost all the problems with paladin starts with this card: you simply see The Countess, The Garden's Grace, and Lightray way too often against pally.
Probably change it so it doesnt draw you a card. That'll slow down paladin substantially, probably even make the card nigh unplayable outside of highlander. We'll see what they'll do with this one.
Its likely to be random. But I can confirm that he cant turn your golden cards gold so to get this achievement you'd need to have a deck of normal cards and lots of luck because he'll likely never survive past the turn hes played.
I got mine in a freak accident. Had a whole deck of gold cards except for nozdormu and wouldn't you know it, he turned my noz gold and gave me that achievement.
The most intricate nerf would simply to turn this into a spell, making it impossible to bounce.
Unfortunately, if you cant reliably turn this into a win con theres simply no reason to actually want to play excavate warlock. I find hearthstone nowadays has gone to the point where you need to be threatening lethal by turn 7-8 or the deck would automatically suck. Not to mention preventing the opponent from killing you by turn 7-8. The excavate cards have not really turned up the way I thought they would, mostly because the excavate cards themselves are often overcosted. Think about how easy druid can pile up dragon golems and how you playing a bunch of subpar cards for a good reward can outrace that?
The snake was an anomaly. It does both prevent and exact as a wincon. Take away the wincon and you can see warlock simply never excavates again. They really dont need to. Sargeras alone can wipe most games, as can Symphony of Sins.
It'll probably be something like reduce 2-4 damage, or just flat out make it deal damage instead of stealing health.
Whatever it is, Im not optimistic that snakelock would be gone for too long. The point is simply to slow down the snake so other things thats not aggro can actually play the game.
The change to Stitched Giant is really just an indictment of how that card is moving along. Its never a bad card, but trapped in a rune that doesnt need nor want it.
Well, at least you'll now be able to play this in rainbow DK and feel less dumb about spending loads of corpses.
But really, they should have just removed its rune restriction in its entirety. There's no solid reason why this card should be exclusive given that all runes types uses corpses to varying degrees. Might actually see play then, encourage a bit of creative deckbuilding because thus far the rune system certainly arent doing it.
Its a fine card for what it is.
Probably more relevant to rogue that dhunter since rogue needs the draw more urgently than dhunter and a 2 mana draw 2 is handy.
This card is basically here to save a minion from being removed.
So cards like Illidari Inquisitor can be saved for the next turn and lose absolutely nothing in initiative.
But of course, the real power of this card is simply the fact that it more or less guarantees you can never play a titan against this without risking your own. That alone makes this a viable card.
I love this card.
But hearthstone has moved beyond these things. Still, it is a taunt minion that cant be interacted with.
Dont think it'll make much impact but you got to respect the taunt and lifesteal at least.
Its more relevant to rogue, since it allows poison rogue to essentially remove minions without sacrificing weapon swings. Plus, with enough durability you might scupper your opponent's plans to viper it, since they now have to get rid of this minion before being able to do so.
Cant think of much else really. Its viability is determined by how many weapons you typically play and whether you can hold onto a brick until then.
If youre playing an elemental deck this card is a shoo-in.
If youre not, then this card is trash.
So is viability is stuck to elemental decks. Have to respect it, but I dont think I'll be seeing this guy too much.
Its great vs aggro assuming you're playing control, but its really never realistically a good AoE choice.
4 mana to deal 2 damage is bad enough. 2 damage really doesnt kill much nowadays. At most this card is a bane to all aggro decks especially the likes of treant druid but I can think of better AoE cards like Immolation Aura that not only cost less, but sometimes allowing me to swing board whereas this card effectively caps me from doing the same without risking it to die before I get to do anything.
At first I was thinking it might be an epic from a miniset that actually sees play and then I see what team5 did to cap it in its knee (not that it has any)
Being a deathrattle means if you cant immediately kill or trigger it its effectively worthless. Even if you can somehow contrive that to happen the most is that this grants windfury to some minions but that's a far cry from actual enders like Grave Strength
Cant imagine this being anything more than a meme card.
I dont know what this will do but it'll be broken as fuck at some point and team5 would be forced to nerf and hand out apologies.
Only good thing is that this card is difficult to trigger (so even if randomly gained its not guaranteed to immediately turn games) and its a warrior card, just about the only class that rarely relies on battlecries.
But really, you cant print out cards like this and not have it be overpowered. Its just impossible.
It'll see play because its a highlander payoff.
But its not a very good one. There's just tons of elementals to discover so your range can go from Ragnaros the Firelord to Bubbler, and if all three are not good then this card just clogs your hand with bs.
So this is it? The long wait for Therazane only for her to end up like this?
Basically a stat monster, similar to Lor'themar Theron, except this only works with elementals and more crucially, this is a deathrattle. Essentially its worse than lorthemar, unless going full on stat bombs is what you want to do.
Problem? well, the biggest one is the most obvious. What indeed is this card supposed to do? Even lorthemar itself only ever saw play in either highlander decks or decks with clear win cons that involve charge. This card has none of that advantage and comes with an even bigger disadvantage in that it can be silenced or interacted with before it does anything useful. Plus with reno everywhere its hard to actually imagine this card doing much more than eye candy.
Only niche I can see is deathrattle interaction. Its entirely possible to imagine this card being relevant because of it.
Perhaps unsurprising. Duels have been in the rut for quite a time now, perhaps since they practically killed the bucket system and every game progressively gets greedier to the point that post 7 wins is almost always a value matchup.
Judging by the queue times, its likely that the mode doesnt really see much attention at all. I pretty much drop duels the moment they changed the bucket system and havent looked back. But once a while I drop in (usually to complete quests etc.) and find myself waiting minutes to get a match and even one loss puts me further down the waiting time queue. Got to the point that I just didnt want to bother.
As to why they decided to remove the mode entirely? If I have to speculate its very likely because unlike mercs and classic mode, you cant realistically keep it static. It'll have to have at least some form of attention even if its nothing more than merely switching the expansions around every 4 months.
Here's my own comments on the changes;
- Changes to Barrel of Sludge will not truly make a difference to sludgelock. The main problem here is really the fact that the entire archetype relies so much on two cards: Disposal Assistant and Sludge on Wheels. All else doesnt work without these two being played on curve.
If you get these two on curve, the decks great, prob tier 2. But if you dont, then this deck is trash level bad.
- The changes to velarok and scorpion are helpful but Im not sure if it'll make them playable. The current iteration of drill rogue suffers from hand problems, making the scorpion difficult to play in most cases anyway. But at very least we dont have to keep it in hand until 8 excavates anymore.
- Buffs to kazgorath and slagmaw might as well be nonexistent as they fix absolutely nothing of which made both these cards weak in the first place. Kazgorath, incidentally, is already playable anyway, its just quite weak. 1 additional health doesnt change anything.
Slagmaw's problem is way worse. If you dont play it on 4 you might as well never have played it. No ones gonna keep their excavate cards waiting for this guy to show up. So minus 1 extra excavate to bring it up is not gonna change anything.
- Paladin nerfs are fine. Id expected them to nerf the AoE since it really cant be understated how impactful these cards are, as they tend to cover pally's arse, removing its sole weakness of having little to no ways to dealing with board except via minions.
Could we have seen a nerf to Boogie Down instead? Well, that'll likely kill the class.
Buffs to DK? Not gonna dignify it with a comment. Suffice to say, if youre not interested in playing rainbow DK you're unlikely to want to do it now.
Just go mill druid on this one.
Typical stuff. Biology Project, Dew Process, and Naturalize, Jade Idol
Reno, Lone Ranger. In case your opponent gets any ideas and plays mechacthun.
Funny thing is. Theres so many steamcleaner decks about you might as well not play that card and let your opponent waste 5 mana.
Its only a brilliant nerf if the idea is to keep its essential power level but disallowing a naked sharpshooter on 3 turn, which to be fair happens rarely anyway.
I think team5 wants to monitor this a bit more before removing its viability. Its a cool new thing for dhunter and its a new expansion they'd probably want to avoid killing it early.
But with regards to what the deck was already doing, it'll continue doing it, which I get is not exactly what the community wants or expected.
Well, we get some nerfs but surprisingly few changes, given that elemental shaman is just dead on arrival.
- There's only two possible changes to Blindeye Sharpshooter. Either a mana increase to 4, or it gets the damage dealt reduced to 1. Both would very nearly remove the card as a competitive option, or at very least relegate the card to being a supporting card rather than as a full build around.
We've seen the same nerfs to steno, I would be very surprised if this card doesnt get the same treatment.
- Always a Bigger Jormungar would probably get a mana cost nerf to 3. Its harsh, but I seriously dont see how team5 can fix this one without changing how the mechanics work. We could make it not work with cleave effects, but Ive rarely seen team5 do mechanic changes and I dont expect it to be done here.
- Changes to Order in the Court is likely entirely because it does it job way too well. Almost all the problems with paladin starts with this card: you simply see The Countess, The Garden's Grace, and Lightray way too often against pally.
Probably change it so it doesnt draw you a card. That'll slow down paladin substantially, probably even make the card nigh unplayable outside of highlander. We'll see what they'll do with this one.
Its likely to be random. But I can confirm that he cant turn your golden cards gold so to get this achievement you'd need to have a deck of normal cards and lots of luck because he'll likely never survive past the turn hes played.
I got mine in a freak accident. Had a whole deck of gold cards except for nozdormu and wouldn't you know it, he turned my noz gold and gave me that achievement.
I think its sufficiently convoluted and slow enough in wild that it'll never realistically be a problem.
The most intricate nerf would simply to turn this into a spell, making it impossible to bounce.
Unfortunately, if you cant reliably turn this into a win con theres simply no reason to actually want to play excavate warlock. I find hearthstone nowadays has gone to the point where you need to be threatening lethal by turn 7-8 or the deck would automatically suck. Not to mention preventing the opponent from killing you by turn 7-8. The excavate cards have not really turned up the way I thought they would, mostly because the excavate cards themselves are often overcosted. Think about how easy druid can pile up dragon golems and how you playing a bunch of subpar cards for a good reward can outrace that?
The snake was an anomaly. It does both prevent and exact as a wincon. Take away the wincon and you can see warlock simply never excavates again. They really dont need to. Sargeras alone can wipe most games, as can Symphony of Sins.
It'll probably be something like reduce 2-4 damage, or just flat out make it deal damage instead of stealing health.
Whatever it is, Im not optimistic that snakelock would be gone for too long. The point is simply to slow down the snake so other things thats not aggro can actually play the game.
The change to Stitched Giant is really just an indictment of how that card is moving along. Its never a bad card, but trapped in a rune that doesnt need nor want it.
Well, at least you'll now be able to play this in rainbow DK and feel less dumb about spending loads of corpses.
But really, they should have just removed its rune restriction in its entirety. There's no solid reason why this card should be exclusive given that all runes types uses corpses to varying degrees. Might actually see play then, encourage a bit of creative deckbuilding because thus far the rune system certainly arent doing it.