It's going to be very hard to get anything to stick on board against Tempo Mage, and if you do, it will probably just get frozen. (You just know they have more Frost spells to reveal!)
I highly doubt that they removed Frost Nova and Blizzard from standard to just reveal more freezes
Certainly no more board-wide freezes, but there's plenty of room for single-target freezes.
One could argue that they removed the AoE ones to make room for other ones.
When I first learned of ranked spells, I was like, "Oh, those could be really powerful in Druid. Maybe Druid won't even get them."
When I saw this was a Druid ranked spell, I was like, "Uh-oh, they actually gave a ranked spell to Druid. Is it broken?"
After I read the card, I was like, "Ah, so they didn't actually give Druid a ranked spell. This is fine."
Targeted draw is always playable, and the mana reduction keeps it from utterly sucking, but let's be real: This is an utter waste of a ranked spell. They could have released the middle version on its own, and it would be exactly as good as this ranked version.
To make proper use of the ranked mechanism, the scaling part should be something like a stat boost, or even adding increasingly potent keywords, or an additional keyword at each rank.
It's not like this is sticking around forever, so you don't need to go out of your way to load up on spells.
I think you probably don't play it on curve unless you have to, but that's nice -- it's good to have cheap cards that get more value later in the game. Kinda like ranked spells!
This is not a "worse" Survival of the Fittest. It is a smaller version, but smaller isn't the same as worse.
Paladin often finds itself in a position of already having a board and not wanting or needing to play additional minions on a turn. At those times, a spell like this is beyond perfect.
I'm pretty sure any Paladin spell that represents a magical effect is going to be Holy. Some older spells might have been other things, but nothing we've seen in Standard so far.
So not things like summoning dudes or taking a bullet for a comrade, but everything that glows, for sure.
This is a great card, and it shows how important spell schools are in terms of design space.
If she copied just any old spell, Tamsin Roame would be severely broken. But being restricted to Shadow as she is, she's just strong, not overly dangerous. Why? Because -- as far as we know -- Shadow spells cannot hit face. As long as they avoid creating Shadow spells that will break the game at 0 mana, everything is fine. And since that's actually the whole point of spell schools in the first place, there's no real reason to be alarmed here.
Everything that summons Demons, for example, is going to be Fel, so there's no reason to worry about this card flooding the board.
It's still not worthwhile. It's worse than every one of the spells you mentioned except Sinister Strike, and that's a pretty bad spell in the first place. There are better spells and better combo enablers to put in your deck.
Even the flexibility aspect isn't great. As a Rogue, you need to be focused on getting the job done, not changing horses midstream.
If you play some kind of weapon rogue, you often don't want to use Rogue's hero power, so switching it out might be nice
If you don't want to use your hero power, you're better off spending your mana on cards. If you don't have enough cards, that's a whole different problem.
Even at 0 mana, hero powers are not very impactful. And don't forget, you are spending 2 (oops, 1) mana to yoink it in the first place. So that's a real cost of 1 (oops, 0.5) mana per use. Rogue can do so much more per mana than borrowing someone else's lame-ass hero power. In every case, you are better off just running a card that does the same thing as the hero power but more efficiently.
I really hope ranked spells stick around forever. I firmly believe they are as important to the game as Discover and need to be present in every future expansion.
Holy Nova is present in the current meta, which is one of the nuttiest metas Standard has seen in a while in terms of power. That power level is going to drop significantly after rotation, so if Holy Nova is good enough now, Condemn will be good enough a few weeks from now.
I love everything about this card. It's great for both midrange and control, and I am excited about how hard they are trying to give midrange tools to Priest.
People keep mentioning Rez Priest, but I find that very strange considering there may not be a full resurrection archetype after rotation. (I guess they must be talking about Wild?) In particular, this card doesn't work at all with Rally! and is unlikely to be fetched by Raise Dead so late in the game, and those are the only two rez spells left in Standard IIRC. There's N'Zoth, obviously, but I don't consider that "Rez Priest" so much as N'Zoth Priest since you can only do it once.
The name's a little close to "golden shower" for my taste, but whatever.
These are all just Secrets with the trigger "At the end of your opponent's turn." Of course, they are easier to play around than Secrets because the information isn't hidden, so they are going to be slightly more powerful for the Cost. That doesn't really make them more interesting though. The most important difference from a design perspective is that they can have varying Costs, and I'm 100 percent certain that's how this whole idea came about.
Glad to see they are trying to slow DH down a bit. There may be no direct counterplay, but you can certainly play around it. Would have been better as a Secret, and I suspect the same will be true of the other Sigils they reveal.
Called it!
Flurry (Rank 1)
When I first learned of ranked spells, I was like, "Oh, those could be really powerful in Druid. Maybe Druid won't even get them."
When I saw this was a Druid ranked spell, I was like, "Uh-oh, they actually gave a ranked spell to Druid. Is it broken?"
After I read the card, I was like, "Ah, so they didn't actually give Druid a ranked spell. This is fine."
Targeted draw is always playable, and the mana reduction keeps it from utterly sucking, but let's be real: This is an utter waste of a ranked spell. They could have released the middle version on its own, and it would be exactly as good as this ranked version.
To make proper use of the ranked mechanism, the scaling part should be something like a stat boost, or even adding increasingly potent keywords, or an additional keyword at each rank.
It's not like this is sticking around forever, so you don't need to go out of your way to load up on spells.
I think you probably don't play it on curve unless you have to, but that's nice -- it's good to have cheap cards that get more value later in the game. Kinda like ranked spells!
It's a strictly better Gormok the Impaler -- easier trigger and a lesser effect if you can't trigger, AND it's not legendary.
Gormok was pretty good in Zoolock back in the day, but that was Grand Tournament era, which was kind of a grindy meta IIRC.
Overall, probably pretty good for Rogue now that Eviscerate is gone.
The Murlocs we have at this moment aren't quiet good enough, but if they print one or two more decent ones, this will surely be a thing.
Every single competitive Paladin deck will run this card.
This is not a "worse" Survival of the Fittest. It is a smaller version, but smaller isn't the same as worse.
Paladin often finds itself in a position of already having a board and not wanting or needing to play additional minions on a turn. At those times, a spell like this is beyond perfect.
I'm pretty sure any Paladin spell that represents a magical effect is going to be Holy. Some older spells might have been other things, but nothing we've seen in Standard so far.
So not things like summoning dudes or taking a bullet for a comrade, but everything that glows, for sure.
This is a great card, and it shows how important spell schools are in terms of design space.
If she copied just any old spell, Tamsin Roame would be severely broken. But being restricted to Shadow as she is, she's just strong, not overly dangerous. Why? Because -- as far as we know -- Shadow spells cannot hit face. As long as they avoid creating Shadow spells that will break the game at 0 mana, everything is fine. And since that's actually the whole point of spell schools in the first place, there's no real reason to be alarmed here.
Everything that summons Demons, for example, is going to be Fel, so there's no reason to worry about this card flooding the board.
KNOWN SHADOW SPELLS (excluding 0-Cost)
LIKELY CANDIDATES
There is a reason no one ever plays an un-Corrupted Tickatus.
It's the same reason no one will ever play this card.
Hearthstone is very clearly moving toward a more board-based atmosphere, yet people are still surprised when Team 5 pushes Zoolock. smh
Oops, thank you.
It's still not worthwhile. It's worse than every one of the spells you mentioned except Sinister Strike, and that's a pretty bad spell in the first place. There are better spells and better combo enablers to put in your deck.
Even the flexibility aspect isn't great. As a Rogue, you need to be focused on getting the job done, not changing horses midstream.
If you don't want to use your hero power, you're better off spending your mana on cards. If you don't have enough cards, that's a whole different problem.
I love the name, and that's pretty much all.
Even at 0 mana, hero powers are not very impactful. And don't forget, you are spending 2 (oops, 1) mana to yoink it in the first place. So that's a real cost of 1 (oops, 0.5) mana per use. Rogue can do so much more per mana than borrowing someone else's lame-ass hero power. In every case, you are better off just running a card that does the same thing as the hero power but more efficiently.
(Even at 1 mana, it's still a worthless effect.)
Sorry, I do not see the fun in this.
I really hope ranked spells stick around forever. I firmly believe they are as important to the game as Discover and need to be present in every future expansion.
Holy Nova is present in the current meta, which is one of the nuttiest metas Standard has seen in a while in terms of power. That power level is going to drop significantly after rotation, so if Holy Nova is good enough now, Condemn will be good enough a few weeks from now.
tl;dr -- It is not too slow.
I love everything about this card. It's great for both midrange and control, and I am excited about how hard they are trying to give midrange tools to Priest.
People keep mentioning Rez Priest, but I find that very strange considering there may not be a full resurrection archetype after rotation. (I guess they must be talking about Wild?) In particular, this card doesn't work at all with Rally! and is unlikely to be fetched by Raise Dead so late in the game, and those are the only two rez spells left in Standard IIRC. There's N'Zoth, obviously, but I don't consider that "Rez Priest" so much as N'Zoth Priest since you can only do it once.
The name's a little close to "golden shower" for my taste, but whatever.
It's not the death of anything. Secret hate has never been widely played in the past, and this will be no different.
No matter how powerful you make the effect, it's still just a Spider Tank in more than half of your match-ups, so it's not worth the slot.
These are all just Secrets with the trigger "At the end of your opponent's turn." Of course, they are easier to play around than Secrets because the information isn't hidden, so they are going to be slightly more powerful for the Cost. That doesn't really make them more interesting though. The most important difference from a design perspective is that they can have varying Costs, and I'm 100 percent certain that's how this whole idea came about.
The end is coming!*
Glad to see they are trying to slow DH down a bit. There may be no direct counterplay, but you can certainly play around it. Would have been better as a Secret, and I suspect the same will be true of the other Sigils they reveal.
*Unless you have 4 or more Health