Drawing 2 cards for 3 is way too normal for druid and will usually end up with you dead. But in context, since this card tutors dragons, you can simply design this around Desert Nestmatron, the OP card of this set, and go ham on 3. Even if all youre getting is a 3 mana 4/6 taunt, thats kinda insane along with thinning the deck by 2.
Outside of that specific thing, this card would probably only see play in highlander.
Possibly the only druid card in this expansion that's completely broken as fuck.
Whether youre playing dragon druid or highlander, this card will be in it. Hell, Im not 100% sure it wouldnt just be in most druid decks regardless. Just play Take to the Skies, draw both of these and get an instant 4/6 taunt at 3 for free. And if you happen to have another dragon in hand that's 2 of these things for free.
I look forward to this card being nerfed at some point. You cant print stuff like these and not expect it to be completely toxic. Probably wont happen...but we've been there before.
Its a good card for both highlander dragon and just ordinary dragon druid.
But its not enough. Just having 2 additional dragons to pump up both Dragon Golem and Fye, is not good enough. There's also one other issue, and that's the fact that this is a choose one card and therefore actively makes it difficult to play Embrace of Nature, whose sole target throughout every druid expansion that's not specifically drum druid will be Nourish
Im already not optimistic about dragon druid's chances, so chances are good you wont see too much of this card outside of try harding.
So this is it, the entire set's payoff and its a highlander card.
A shame really. Because that practically limits all the dragon cards to be seen only in highlander decks. While it is true that this card is a standalone that can function in highlander even without the dragon support, the same cannot be said of the reverse side. If youre playing dragon druid at all, you'll need dragon reload, and there's only one other card that does this so you effectively cannot do it without Rheastrasza
Will this card see play. Probably, but because I dont think druid can actually play any midrange deck, let alone highlander, Im disposed to feel very negative of this card's chances. Very good power level, would easily slot into any other class without question, but in druid...youre either tossing 100 spells and destroying your opponent in a single player fest, or you get destroyed yourself with nary a whimper. Where does this card fit in both narratives?
Its the sort of card that would be OP outside of druid, but because it is a druid card Id have to say this card is contentious.
If some how a midrange dragon druid can actually see play next expansion this card is excellent. Outside of that, it'll never see any play.
Such a shame seeing team5 ramp up the power level of minions in druid just because the whole class is a single player cesspool for most of its history. Lets hope this actually works for a change.
Aggro druid usually has tons of 2 drops already so this really doesnt do much other than give you an additional option, and a 1/2 on one is, while not necessarily bad, isnt as good as it was years back.
The bar has reached higher levels these days. Unless there's a spell druid somewhere, you'd never see this card in standard, and even then Id question whyd anyone play this card at all.
Your payoff for actually playing midrange dragons in your druid deck.
Is this good? Of course it is. Is the dragon deck gonna be good? Well, that Im not sure. Druid relying on minions hasnt worked since DoD, and that's largely down to cards like Embiggen. Fingers crossed a dragon druid deck can actually work without the usual single player shit we see every expansion from the class.
Without seeing the full extent of the reveals and judging based on the available cards currently, this card is shit.
You'd need a hand with at least 4 dragons for this to be even remotely worth it and since its not a spell this card cant be discounted naturally (unless you know, they print one this expansion, and Id be surprised if they didnt)
And all this in aid of what? Drum Circle was shit because druid never could reliably build a board to take advantage of it, so team5 made the initial board building redundant by printing Embrace of Nature etc. and the card became insanely good. This card suffers from a lack of finishers, like a Cultivation that works for or with dragons.
Theres still a chance it'll see play outside of highlander. But its not looking good at present.
Its one of those cards that will be good by virtue of the fact that Im 100% sure team5 is going to support this. The fact that this absolute monster has three very important keywords and allows for mana cheating is a sign telling druid mains to build around it.
That said however, its also equally clear why team5 pumped up this card's power level. Because they know, and we know it too, that druids rarely ever play anything even remotely fair, and usually very spell dependent. The fact that this card forces you to actually put midrange dragons into your deck means the payoff has got to be monstrous or no one will play it.
We havent seen the rest of the reveals for druid but Id be surprised if there isnt a spell that craps out dragons. Let's hope this isnt one of those cases where we ignore all the dragon related shit and play only this card + a spell that craps dragons, because Im sick to the death of druid playing single player all the time.
But lets be real. There has better be either a massive board based buff for dragons still yet to be revealed, or something that allows massive mana cheating related to dragons or these cards simply wont see any play.
This is where we're at with druid. They either dominate or get dominated. All these in between stuff usually never gets anywhere. Hopefully this is the exception to that rule because Im sick of all these feast or famine shit with druid cards every expansion.
This, team5, is the problem with your idea of a sludgelock deck.
You print several cards that get better when this card is played but this is only 2 out of 30 cards in your deck. So you build your entire deck around two of a piece and call it synergy?
I would have preferred if all these sludge related cards simply discarded from the hand instead of bottom of the deck. At very least that way we know there's discard synergy already existing that can support this archetype. At present moment, this is the most important card in sludgelock and its not even that great. So why are we arsed to play sludgelock at all?
This is the kind of "lol, 4 mana 7/7" moments that we all know and love.
Unfortunately, this is 2023 and in this era even a 4 mana 8/8 is no longer considered good enough to suffer through its conditions, and this card comes with one major problem indeed. Fair enough its only destroying cards from the bottom of your deck, but imagine playing this against mage or DK and you can already see the problem.
Aggro decks nowadays tend to have plenty of reload options so there's just no reason to believe that burning 10 cards, for example, from your deck is inconsequential. Making things worse is that this card practically puts you on a timer, and its very nearly impossible to play two of these at the same time unless you really, really feel lucky that day.
Its not very good but the whole idea is for this card to be discarded/destroyed and never played on its own.
So the question is whether it is possible for this card to be discarded/destroyed with any consistency? My guess is no. There's at present no many discard cards and none of them presents a consistent method of discarding this specific card. Even if you play this in a sludgelock deck, there's just no way to guarantee it destruction. Imagine drawing this card, what then? Just do a hail mary? Making things worse is the fact that sludgelock presents more targets to be discarded so this card gets even less consistent.
Personally I think the card is shit. Its the kind of thing that can only ever be good if you do some convoluted mexican hat dance so the card wont screw you.
The whole idea is of course to discard the sludges but what if you dont have any sludge at the bottom, will you risk it all and play this card regardless? Or more likely it'll just stay stuck in your hand until you can properly set it up.
There is only one silver lining, and is presently the only thing keeping me from downgrading this to 1 star, is that you can build an aggro deck and just pretend that you're playing Gone Fishing. But in 2023 nowadays, its increasingly difficult to justify building a deck filled with garbage even for aggro decks.
Its really not good. But if youre gonna play this is entirely because it puts a barrel into your deck's bottom.
Personally I think this card is bait. Unless youre playing aggro your opponent would likely manipulate this card to either overdraw you or to fill your deck with so much trash that when shuffled instantly makes your deck weaker on the draw.
And with options like Snake Oil Seller being very likely to see play throughout, forcing a shuffle will likely not be too difficult. Id avoid this card, but then you'll likely play it just for the synergy and pray.
The only good thing about it is that excavates, so you'll play this entirely for that reason alone. The nice stat and taunt is a bonus, though a good one at that.
It'll see play in excavatelock, because there's really no other reason to play this vanilla minion in your deck otherwise.
Its an excavate card so it'll see play if excavate warlock is playable.
That's about it really. The main factor is indeed just to trigger more excavate, because you're probably aiming to get to The Azerite Snake as soon as possible. Screw the card, its main function is for a higher purpose, and thus even if its effect is simply just to excavate it'll see play.
Personally I think this card is a miss because at current moment of writing there's just no good fel spells. Ironically had this card came out during alterac it would at very least be an impactful card, over the many fel spells that were introduced then.
But will this card see play? Probably yes, because lifesteal is a keyword you can never ignore and always must be respected. Even if I personally dont think its as good as it seem, you'll play this because of deck synergy. At very least the card grants you two 1 mana deal 3 damage fel spells so you can do something with it.
Its practically Soulciologist Malicia in all but name. Bizarrely this card has less stats by 1. Is that extra health and attack really that OP team5?
So, there's no real reason to review cards like these. Its gonna see play if excavate sees play. No reason not to play it, especially since you'll likely need that board swing option for playing so many excavate cards that probably dont do more than putting stats on board.
Its unlikely to ever win you games on its own, but then again neither did malicia and yet that card functioned pretty well with good win rates.
Boost the health and then team5 has to now design cards around it and inevitably the same result will come off.
Renathal was the first true exception whereby additional health are granted on an optional basis and we already seen the effects of renathal in the game. Suddenly aggro decks can sustain entire matches without ever running out of stuff, burn damage got increasingly more insane and in some cases near infinite, and certain classes go far into greeding their entire deck. Burn mage can virtually destroy any 30 health deck without a whimper, but struggle against a 40 health control deck.
To me, there's just no reason to ever buff the starting health of any class because inevitably team5 would design around it. If they needed a class to last longer in the game, all they got to do is to print better sustain cards for them. We've seen it with priest already. The class went from being a laughing stock for having less than healing than paladin, to the point that you sometimes genuinely needed 60 damage in total to kill them.
Also, the additional health means certain classes pretty much gets pigeonholed into one archetype or another. How is it fair for shaman to play aggro with 40 health against the same archetype in hunter who has 10 less health? If we print more powerful aggro tools for hunter to compensate, then what happens when they face a more controlling or greedy dhunter? Its just not ideal whichever way we do it.
In my opinion, the hero health in hearthstone hearthstone is perfect. No need to tweak what isnt broken.
As a card, I really think its shit.
Drawing 2 cards for 3 is way too normal for druid and will usually end up with you dead. But in context, since this card tutors dragons, you can simply design this around Desert Nestmatron, the OP card of this set, and go ham on 3. Even if all youre getting is a 3 mana 4/6 taunt, thats kinda insane along with thinning the deck by 2.
Outside of that specific thing, this card would probably only see play in highlander.
Possibly the only druid card in this expansion that's completely broken as fuck.
Whether youre playing dragon druid or highlander, this card will be in it. Hell, Im not 100% sure it wouldnt just be in most druid decks regardless. Just play Take to the Skies, draw both of these and get an instant 4/6 taunt at 3 for free. And if you happen to have another dragon in hand that's 2 of these things for free.
I look forward to this card being nerfed at some point. You cant print stuff like these and not expect it to be completely toxic. Probably wont happen...but we've been there before.
Its a good card for both highlander dragon and just ordinary dragon druid.
But its not enough. Just having 2 additional dragons to pump up both Dragon Golem and Fye, is not good enough. There's also one other issue, and that's the fact that this is a choose one card and therefore actively makes it difficult to play Embrace of Nature, whose sole target throughout every druid expansion that's not specifically drum druid will be Nourish
Im already not optimistic about dragon druid's chances, so chances are good you wont see too much of this card outside of try harding.
So this is it, the entire set's payoff and its a highlander card.
A shame really. Because that practically limits all the dragon cards to be seen only in highlander decks. While it is true that this card is a standalone that can function in highlander even without the dragon support, the same cannot be said of the reverse side. If youre playing dragon druid at all, you'll need dragon reload, and there's only one other card that does this so you effectively cannot do it without Rheastrasza
Will this card see play. Probably, but because I dont think druid can actually play any midrange deck, let alone highlander, Im disposed to feel very negative of this card's chances. Very good power level, would easily slot into any other class without question, but in druid...youre either tossing 100 spells and destroying your opponent in a single player fest, or you get destroyed yourself with nary a whimper. Where does this card fit in both narratives?
Its the sort of card that would be OP outside of druid, but because it is a druid card Id have to say this card is contentious.
If some how a midrange dragon druid can actually see play next expansion this card is excellent. Outside of that, it'll never see any play.
Such a shame seeing team5 ramp up the power level of minions in druid just because the whole class is a single player cesspool for most of its history. Lets hope this actually works for a change.
Very likely shit.
Aggro druid usually has tons of 2 drops already so this really doesnt do much other than give you an additional option, and a 1/2 on one is, while not necessarily bad, isnt as good as it was years back.
The bar has reached higher levels these days. Unless there's a spell druid somewhere, you'd never see this card in standard, and even then Id question whyd anyone play this card at all.
Your payoff for actually playing midrange dragons in your druid deck.
Is this good? Of course it is. Is the dragon deck gonna be good? Well, that Im not sure. Druid relying on minions hasnt worked since DoD, and that's largely down to cards like Embiggen. Fingers crossed a dragon druid deck can actually work without the usual single player shit we see every expansion from the class.
Without seeing the full extent of the reveals and judging based on the available cards currently, this card is shit.
You'd need a hand with at least 4 dragons for this to be even remotely worth it and since its not a spell this card cant be discounted naturally (unless you know, they print one this expansion, and Id be surprised if they didnt)
And all this in aid of what? Drum Circle was shit because druid never could reliably build a board to take advantage of it, so team5 made the initial board building redundant by printing Embrace of Nature etc. and the card became insanely good. This card suffers from a lack of finishers, like a Cultivation that works for or with dragons.
Theres still a chance it'll see play outside of highlander. But its not looking good at present.
Such a shame that Scale of Onyxia is no longer in standard.
Its one of those cards that will be good by virtue of the fact that Im 100% sure team5 is going to support this. The fact that this absolute monster has three very important keywords and allows for mana cheating is a sign telling druid mains to build around it.
That said however, its also equally clear why team5 pumped up this card's power level. Because they know, and we know it too, that druids rarely ever play anything even remotely fair, and usually very spell dependent. The fact that this card forces you to actually put midrange dragons into your deck means the payoff has got to be monstrous or no one will play it.
We havent seen the rest of the reveals for druid but Id be surprised if there isnt a spell that craps out dragons. Let's hope this isnt one of those cases where we ignore all the dragon related shit and play only this card + a spell that craps dragons, because Im sick to the death of druid playing single player all the time.
Love the druid set theme.
But lets be real. There has better be either a massive board based buff for dragons still yet to be revealed, or something that allows massive mana cheating related to dragons or these cards simply wont see any play.
This is where we're at with druid. They either dominate or get dominated. All these in between stuff usually never gets anywhere. Hopefully this is the exception to that rule because Im sick of all these feast or famine shit with druid cards every expansion.
This, team5, is the problem with your idea of a sludgelock deck.
You print several cards that get better when this card is played but this is only 2 out of 30 cards in your deck. So you build your entire deck around two of a piece and call it synergy?
I would have preferred if all these sludge related cards simply discarded from the hand instead of bottom of the deck. At very least that way we know there's discard synergy already existing that can support this archetype. At present moment, this is the most important card in sludgelock and its not even that great. So why are we arsed to play sludgelock at all?
This is the kind of "lol, 4 mana 7/7" moments that we all know and love.
Unfortunately, this is 2023 and in this era even a 4 mana 8/8 is no longer considered good enough to suffer through its conditions, and this card comes with one major problem indeed. Fair enough its only destroying cards from the bottom of your deck, but imagine playing this against mage or DK and you can already see the problem.
Aggro decks nowadays tend to have plenty of reload options so there's just no reason to believe that burning 10 cards, for example, from your deck is inconsequential. Making things worse is that this card practically puts you on a timer, and its very nearly impossible to play two of these at the same time unless you really, really feel lucky that day.
Its not very good but the whole idea is for this card to be discarded/destroyed and never played on its own.
So the question is whether it is possible for this card to be discarded/destroyed with any consistency? My guess is no. There's at present no many discard cards and none of them presents a consistent method of discarding this specific card. Even if you play this in a sludgelock deck, there's just no way to guarantee it destruction. Imagine drawing this card, what then? Just do a hail mary? Making things worse is the fact that sludgelock presents more targets to be discarded so this card gets even less consistent.
Hand of Gul'dan it is not.
Personally I think the card is shit. Its the kind of thing that can only ever be good if you do some convoluted mexican hat dance so the card wont screw you.
The whole idea is of course to discard the sludges but what if you dont have any sludge at the bottom, will you risk it all and play this card regardless? Or more likely it'll just stay stuck in your hand until you can properly set it up.
There is only one silver lining, and is presently the only thing keeping me from downgrading this to 1 star, is that you can build an aggro deck and just pretend that you're playing Gone Fishing. But in 2023 nowadays, its increasingly difficult to justify building a deck filled with garbage even for aggro decks.
Its really not good. But if youre gonna play this is entirely because it puts a barrel into your deck's bottom.
Personally I think this card is bait. Unless youre playing aggro your opponent would likely manipulate this card to either overdraw you or to fill your deck with so much trash that when shuffled instantly makes your deck weaker on the draw.
And with options like Snake Oil Seller being very likely to see play throughout, forcing a shuffle will likely not be too difficult. Id avoid this card, but then you'll likely play it just for the synergy and pray.
The only good thing about it is that excavates, so you'll play this entirely for that reason alone. The nice stat and taunt is a bonus, though a good one at that.
It'll see play in excavatelock, because there's really no other reason to play this vanilla minion in your deck otherwise.
Its an excavate card so it'll see play if excavate warlock is playable.
That's about it really. The main factor is indeed just to trigger more excavate, because you're probably aiming to get to The Azerite Snake as soon as possible. Screw the card, its main function is for a higher purpose, and thus even if its effect is simply just to excavate it'll see play.
Personally I think this card is a miss because at current moment of writing there's just no good fel spells. Ironically had this card came out during alterac it would at very least be an impactful card, over the many fel spells that were introduced then.
But will this card see play? Probably yes, because lifesteal is a keyword you can never ignore and always must be respected. Even if I personally dont think its as good as it seem, you'll play this because of deck synergy. At very least the card grants you two 1 mana deal 3 damage fel spells so you can do something with it.
Its practically Soulciologist Malicia in all but name. Bizarrely this card has less stats by 1. Is that extra health and attack really that OP team5?
So, there's no real reason to review cards like these. Its gonna see play if excavate sees play. No reason not to play it, especially since you'll likely need that board swing option for playing so many excavate cards that probably dont do more than putting stats on board.
Its unlikely to ever win you games on its own, but then again neither did malicia and yet that card functioned pretty well with good win rates.
Boost the health and then team5 has to now design cards around it and inevitably the same result will come off.
Renathal was the first true exception whereby additional health are granted on an optional basis and we already seen the effects of renathal in the game. Suddenly aggro decks can sustain entire matches without ever running out of stuff, burn damage got increasingly more insane and in some cases near infinite, and certain classes go far into greeding their entire deck. Burn mage can virtually destroy any 30 health deck without a whimper, but struggle against a 40 health control deck.
To me, there's just no reason to ever buff the starting health of any class because inevitably team5 would design around it. If they needed a class to last longer in the game, all they got to do is to print better sustain cards for them. We've seen it with priest already. The class went from being a laughing stock for having less than healing than paladin, to the point that you sometimes genuinely needed 60 damage in total to kill them.
Also, the additional health means certain classes pretty much gets pigeonholed into one archetype or another. How is it fair for shaman to play aggro with 40 health against the same archetype in hunter who has 10 less health? If we print more powerful aggro tools for hunter to compensate, then what happens when they face a more controlling or greedy dhunter? Its just not ideal whichever way we do it.
In my opinion, the hero health in hearthstone hearthstone is perfect. No need to tweak what isnt broken.