Interesting card but it requires another minion or spell to completely remove whatever minion that was weakened. Just weakening a minion isn't good enough as some opponents can just buff them and make them a threat once more (like Paladin). It's pretty bizarre that they printed this card and still kept Natalie Seline in the core set. Even if this isn't direct removal, the fact that it only costs 2 mana already makes it a lot more flexible and easier to work with than the highly prohibitive 8 mana cost of Natalie. I believe that this pretty much kills any possibilities of Natalie seeing any play for the remainder of this year. Not that it matters much as Natalie probably wasn't going to see any play anyway but it's just baffling that they thought it was a good idea to keep a really bad card like that around. They could have kept Mindflayer Kaahrj around instead as it is good as a Tempo card and still scales well into the late game making it perfect for both fast and slow Priest decks. They did add at least one card from the Year of the Dragon to the core set so there is no excuse for this.
Fine card as a last resort in Control games but i don't think this is worth building around. Warlock already inflicts too much damage on themselves through Hero Power and there aren't enough reliable sources of healing available to make you last long enough to kill your opponent with Imps. You will probably be out of healing cards by the time you hit fatigue anyway. Your Control opponent will just hold back on their removals to stall you to death and Aggro/Midrange opponents will kill you even faster. Envoy Rustwix could help but i don't really have faith in this kind of strategy.
This type of card only creates bad situations. It's a very arbitrary type of disruption. Hearthstone doesn't allow any counterplay for this kind of card unlike LoR. The only thing you can do is watch your opponent burn your cards and hope that they screw themselves in the process. However, they do have a synergy or win condition for an empty deck and you don't. This card is probably bad in a similar fashion to Void Contract (probably even more because combo decks are losing too much in the rotation) but it will never feel good to play against just like Tickatus.
Looks worse than most other freeze cards at first glance but this costs 0 mana and that makes it relevant. If it costed 1 it would immediately be compared to Ray of Frost (which is probably the most played card in Mage since its introduction 2 years ago) and that would diminish its chances of seeing play quite a bit. But Mage is losing most of their freeze cards so it's very likely that this is going to see play anyway because of a lack of options.
It's possible to activate this on curve with Raise Dead and Desperate Prayer. Is it worth it? Maybe...? The thing that saves this card from being completely irrelevant is the Taunt keyword. If it was just an occasional 5 mana 8/8 then it would be completely unimpressive. At least it provides some utility in the form of protection for your face and a ton of burn is going away which makes taunts more appealing as aggressive players will need a clear path to face to win consistently. They can no longer ignore a wall like this because they don't have the same over the top reach as before.
It's pretty weak at 2 mana but becomes a pretty decent curve filler at 5 and 10 mana. You don't use this as the main play in your turn but as an extremely mana efficient way of filling your turn later into the game. Let's say you throw a Guardian Animals at 10 mana. Instead of just using the Hero Power, you can summon a 6/6 rush to complement the initial board swing. This is just theoretical, of course. There's no guarantee that Hunter will be able to play a deck with slow cards but things will change a lot for the class as it can no longer rely on its usual burn strategies to close out games anymore.
Great defensive card. And deathrattle synergy as well. They also removed a ton of silence effects from the core set which makes this deathrattle much more relevant.
This looks weak at first glance. It's basically just Arcane Explosion when you need it the most (the early game) and Priest doesn't have any incentive to run spell damage to improve it. It's just okay at 5 mana (1 less mana for your average 2 damage AoE) and it becomes quite good at 10 mana (2 mana for 3 damage AoE is really flexible) but this is the kind of card that needs to make an impact at very early stages of the game. It doesn't matter how flexible or strong it is at 10 mana if you don't survive to that point. There's always the possibility of synergies appearing around its holy tag and that is something to take into account.
It's nice that they aren't afraid to print strong card draw for Hunter because of the rotating core set. This filters three cards from the deck and that's good enough to see play. With some synergies (like a spell based deck) or a strong build around curve then this can be pretty nuts.
This thing is going to be a nightmare to deal with. It basically forces you to trigger the secrets in order to prevent a massive board from being created from thin air. And, even if you think you can deal with the sheer amount of stats, the secrets will come back to haunt you. It looks extremely obnoxious.
She's not just removal, though. She's removal on a very threatening stick.
It seems like we're about to see a lot of big dragons flying around with their fat 12-health bodies. A 4/12 can be a nightmare for Priest to deal with unless they have something like this.
Dealing with 4/12 dragons is literally the only thing that differentiates her from any other removals that Priest has. For everything else there's a better option available. And the 4/12 dragons with snowballing effects (Original Ysera, Kalecgos, etc) are all leaving standard. A simple 4/12 dragon without any continuous effect isn't enough of a threat to justify running a card that's just too expensive, too slow and too clunky. The body barely matters as it's pretty easy to remove a large body at such a late point in the game. Also, this card has no flexibility. It's a one dimensional card with no synergies or possibilities of different applications attached to it. I'd rather just run Brittlebone Destroyer. In my opinion, this is one of the most uninspired and uninteresting cards ever printed and completely undeserving of legendary status. Priest doesn't have a legendary card in its classic set since the rotation of Prophet Velen and this will be the case again with the core set.
They are unnerfing Galakrond completely for the rotation. Four classes had at least one of their Galakrond cards hit with a nerf with Shaman taking the heaviest blow. The cards should be fine in Wild so this is a good thing but people on Standard ladder will need to deal with the high power level of these cards one last time before they are finally out. Btw, Galakrond Priest was the only one who dodged all nerfs even though some people wanted it gutted as well. And it will probably be the one that will leave with a quiet note and not really have any possibilities of having an impact in Wild.
For me, it's Isaac for sure. I might drop HS completely for a while as i'm also busy playing Grim Dawn a lot. Not enough time to dedicate to three games and these other two are way more important to me by far.
Quest Rogue no longer has access to boar or bluegill for its charge shenanigans but they aren't changing Southsea Deckhand, are they? This is a lot less consistent because it requires a weapon equipped and that can be easily removed but Rogues do have access to a variety of cheap weapons. I don't think the deck will break Wild as it's too vulnerable to aggro but the toxic playstyle isn't completely gone.
And Priest only got Power Word: Shield back, huh? A little bit of support for other archetypes would be highly appreciated but i guess that is pointless until they finally deal a killing blow to Raza Priest as no other archetype Priest has access to can compete against that. I guess they didn't do anything about Extra Arms because the card's original cost is 3 and they don't want to do a double revert (buff, revert the buff, revert the revert)?
Nothing much to say about Call to Arms. It just revives Even Paladin. Maybe the deck will be strong enough to be competitive but the field has changed a lot and the competition is fiercer than ever.
Well, the "revert" to Mana Wyrm came a little bit too late as it's leaving standard. It could come back eventually and it will be fine once it does, i believe. This is how they should have nerfed it to begin with. It's a lot easier to remove but it still retains its niche as a snowballing 1-cost minion that can't be ignored. As a 2-cost 1/3, it was doomed. It fell from grace so hard that i never saw it being played until Duels arrived and the Wyrms there come from a Hero Power and not the card itself which was still absolutely unplayable. It might see some play in Wild but the competition there is way too fierce and i don't really believe it will make its way into any of the current Mage archetypes in the format. At least it isn't completely terrible anymore.
Wow... Remember when people were calling Keleseth a garbage card during the reveal period of KofT and it turned out to be pretty busted? The card that you mentioned sounds like that but even more overpowered.
The Hearthstone killer has been dead for quite some time. It technically still exists and functions but without updates it's literally undead now. Alive but not really.
I should wait for expansion card reveals before condemning the class but this doesn't sit well with me at all. Silence Priest sucks and it's losing its biggest pay off card in the rotation (Unsleeping Soul). Also, targeting an enemy minion with that silence card is always going to feel bad.
Tempo Priest doesn't work without better card draw and basic cycle options like Insight and Thrive in the Shadows won't be enough to make it viable. The 1/3 is decent but suffers from similar issues as the Priest Hero Power. In order for it to be able to do anything it needs a friendly target to heal (or be healed in the case of the 1/3). It curves well into Power Word: Feast but that's the kind of dream curve that the archetype already depends on 100% of the time so it doesn't really mean anything. Tempo Priest depends too much on early game snowballs to have any chance of winning.
Shadowed Spirit is already getting gutted by the rotation before it even arrives. It loses two of its most synergistic cards: Shadowy Figure and Wretched Reclaimer. And i don't see a card like this seeing play in any archetype that's not Aggro or Tempo and i don't have any hope for either. The same applies to all the other Tempo cards. If Tempo Priest fails to make an impact then most of the cards in the class are going to be unplayable. Most of these card require a target in order to make of use of their abilities and maintaining a board is something that Tempo Priest isn't good at. Paladin can dump their buff spells or battlecry effects on their 1/1 tokens but Priest doesn't have such an option. Without anything to buff the cards become completely useless.
Shadowform is still horrible. You can tutor it now and you can get it online on turn 1 if you mulligan for it and started with the coin but that costs two cards, provides no tempo gain and you sacrifice your healing Hero Power. You already start the game behind in Tempo and card advantage. That's far from a winning recipe. Also, since they removed the ability to upgrade the damage to 3, you have to choose between running two copies for drawing consistency and having the second copy be a completely dead card after playing the first or running only a single copy and possibly drawing the card too late or never at all.
And Natalie Seline... Oh my god... I can't believe they kept that card in the set. It's absolute garbage. Paying 8 mana for a single target removal is too slow and the body is completely irrelevant. It's just going to be removed every single time. It's much simpler to just use Shadow Word: Death if you want to remove a big threat. Natalie only has one niche in the game which is dealing with the 4/12 dragons but that niche is incredibly small and 100% dependent on the relevance of such cards. Also, Ysera no longer generates a snowball of infinite value so she isn't big removal priority anymore which makes Natalie's niche even worse. They could have brought Lyra the Sunshard back. Or Archbishop Benedictus. Or Confessor Paletress. Or literally anything else (other than Prophet Velen, i suppose). I'm extremely disappointed with the core set.
I love that Altruis and Twin Slice are leaving but losing Nethrandamus is something that pushes me even farther away from this class. I have absolutely no reason to play it anymore as the dragon was the only card that i liked. I don't dislike Zai but without cool things to copy it isn't all that interesting.
Interesting card but it requires another minion or spell to completely remove whatever minion that was weakened. Just weakening a minion isn't good enough as some opponents can just buff them and make them a threat once more (like Paladin). It's pretty bizarre that they printed this card and still kept Natalie Seline in the core set. Even if this isn't direct removal, the fact that it only costs 2 mana already makes it a lot more flexible and easier to work with than the highly prohibitive 8 mana cost of Natalie. I believe that this pretty much kills any possibilities of Natalie seeing any play for the remainder of this year. Not that it matters much as Natalie probably wasn't going to see any play anyway but it's just baffling that they thought it was a good idea to keep a really bad card like that around. They could have kept Mindflayer Kaahrj around instead as it is good as a Tempo card and still scales well into the late game making it perfect for both fast and slow Priest decks. They did add at least one card from the Year of the Dragon to the core set so there is no excuse for this.
Fine card as a last resort in Control games but i don't think this is worth building around. Warlock already inflicts too much damage on themselves through Hero Power and there aren't enough reliable sources of healing available to make you last long enough to kill your opponent with Imps. You will probably be out of healing cards by the time you hit fatigue anyway. Your Control opponent will just hold back on their removals to stall you to death and Aggro/Midrange opponents will kill you even faster. Envoy Rustwix could help but i don't really have faith in this kind of strategy.
This type of card only creates bad situations. It's a very arbitrary type of disruption. Hearthstone doesn't allow any counterplay for this kind of card unlike LoR. The only thing you can do is watch your opponent burn your cards and hope that they screw themselves in the process. However, they do have a synergy or win condition for an empty deck and you don't. This card is probably bad in a similar fashion to Void Contract (probably even more because combo decks are losing too much in the rotation) but it will never feel good to play against just like Tickatus.
Looks worse than most other freeze cards at first glance but this costs 0 mana and that makes it relevant. If it costed 1 it would immediately be compared to Ray of Frost (which is probably the most played card in Mage since its introduction 2 years ago) and that would diminish its chances of seeing play quite a bit. But Mage is losing most of their freeze cards so it's very likely that this is going to see play anyway because of a lack of options.
It's possible to activate this on curve with Raise Dead and Desperate Prayer. Is it worth it? Maybe...? The thing that saves this card from being completely irrelevant is the Taunt keyword. If it was just an occasional 5 mana 8/8 then it would be completely unimpressive. At least it provides some utility in the form of protection for your face and a ton of burn is going away which makes taunts more appealing as aggressive players will need a clear path to face to win consistently. They can no longer ignore a wall like this because they don't have the same over the top reach as before.
It's pretty weak at 2 mana but becomes a pretty decent curve filler at 5 and 10 mana. You don't use this as the main play in your turn but as an extremely mana efficient way of filling your turn later into the game. Let's say you throw a Guardian Animals at 10 mana. Instead of just using the Hero Power, you can summon a 6/6 rush to complement the initial board swing. This is just theoretical, of course. There's no guarantee that Hunter will be able to play a deck with slow cards but things will change a lot for the class as it can no longer rely on its usual burn strategies to close out games anymore.
Great defensive card. And deathrattle synergy as well. They also removed a ton of silence effects from the core set which makes this deathrattle much more relevant.
Tons of value and information on a premium stated minion. This looks a little bit over the top for a tech card.
This looks weak at first glance. It's basically just Arcane Explosion when you need it the most (the early game) and Priest doesn't have any incentive to run spell damage to improve it. It's just okay at 5 mana (1 less mana for your average 2 damage AoE) and it becomes quite good at 10 mana (2 mana for 3 damage AoE is really flexible) but this is the kind of card that needs to make an impact at very early stages of the game. It doesn't matter how flexible or strong it is at 10 mana if you don't survive to that point. There's always the possibility of synergies appearing around its holy tag and that is something to take into account.
It's nice that they aren't afraid to print strong card draw for Hunter because of the rotating core set. This filters three cards from the deck and that's good enough to see play. With some synergies (like a spell based deck) or a strong build around curve then this can be pretty nuts.
This thing is going to be a nightmare to deal with. It basically forces you to trigger the secrets in order to prevent a massive board from being created from thin air. And, even if you think you can deal with the sheer amount of stats, the secrets will come back to haunt you. It looks extremely obnoxious.
Dealing with 4/12 dragons is literally the only thing that differentiates her from any other removals that Priest has. For everything else there's a better option available. And the 4/12 dragons with snowballing effects (Original Ysera, Kalecgos, etc) are all leaving standard. A simple 4/12 dragon without any continuous effect isn't enough of a threat to justify running a card that's just too expensive, too slow and too clunky. The body barely matters as it's pretty easy to remove a large body at such a late point in the game. Also, this card has no flexibility. It's a one dimensional card with no synergies or possibilities of different applications attached to it. I'd rather just run Brittlebone Destroyer. In my opinion, this is one of the most uninspired and uninteresting cards ever printed and completely undeserving of legendary status. Priest doesn't have a legendary card in its classic set since the rotation of Prophet Velen and this will be the case again with the core set.
They are unnerfing Galakrond completely for the rotation. Four classes had at least one of their Galakrond cards hit with a nerf with Shaman taking the heaviest blow. The cards should be fine in Wild so this is a good thing but people on Standard ladder will need to deal with the high power level of these cards one last time before they are finally out. Btw, Galakrond Priest was the only one who dodged all nerfs even though some people wanted it gutted as well. And it will probably be the one that will leave with a quiet note and not really have any possibilities of having an impact in Wild.
For me, it's Isaac for sure. I might drop HS completely for a while as i'm also busy playing Grim Dawn a lot. Not enough time to dedicate to three games and these other two are way more important to me by far.
Quest Rogue no longer has access to boar or bluegill for its charge shenanigans but they aren't changing Southsea Deckhand, are they? This is a lot less consistent because it requires a weapon equipped and that can be easily removed but Rogues do have access to a variety of cheap weapons. I don't think the deck will break Wild as it's too vulnerable to aggro but the toxic playstyle isn't completely gone.
And Priest only got Power Word: Shield back, huh? A little bit of support for other archetypes would be highly appreciated but i guess that is pointless until they finally deal a killing blow to Raza Priest as no other archetype Priest has access to can compete against that. I guess they didn't do anything about Extra Arms because the card's original cost is 3 and they don't want to do a double revert (buff, revert the buff, revert the revert)?
Nothing much to say about Call to Arms. It just revives Even Paladin. Maybe the deck will be strong enough to be competitive but the field has changed a lot and the competition is fiercer than ever.
Well, the "revert" to Mana Wyrm came a little bit too late as it's leaving standard. It could come back eventually and it will be fine once it does, i believe. This is how they should have nerfed it to begin with. It's a lot easier to remove but it still retains its niche as a snowballing 1-cost minion that can't be ignored. As a 2-cost 1/3, it was doomed. It fell from grace so hard that i never saw it being played until Duels arrived and the Wyrms there come from a Hero Power and not the card itself which was still absolutely unplayable. It might see some play in Wild but the competition there is way too fierce and i don't really believe it will make its way into any of the current Mage archetypes in the format. At least it isn't completely terrible anymore.
Wow... Remember when people were calling Keleseth a garbage card during the reveal period of KofT and it turned out to be pretty busted? The card that you mentioned sounds like that but even more overpowered.
The Hearthstone killer has been dead for quite some time. It technically still exists and functions but without updates it's literally undead now. Alive but not really.
I should wait for expansion card reveals before condemning the class but this doesn't sit well with me at all. Silence Priest sucks and it's losing its biggest pay off card in the rotation (Unsleeping Soul). Also, targeting an enemy minion with that silence card is always going to feel bad.
Tempo Priest doesn't work without better card draw and basic cycle options like Insight and Thrive in the Shadows won't be enough to make it viable. The 1/3 is decent but suffers from similar issues as the Priest Hero Power. In order for it to be able to do anything it needs a friendly target to heal (or be healed in the case of the 1/3). It curves well into Power Word: Feast but that's the kind of dream curve that the archetype already depends on 100% of the time so it doesn't really mean anything. Tempo Priest depends too much on early game snowballs to have any chance of winning.
Shadowed Spirit is already getting gutted by the rotation before it even arrives. It loses two of its most synergistic cards: Shadowy Figure and Wretched Reclaimer. And i don't see a card like this seeing play in any archetype that's not Aggro or Tempo and i don't have any hope for either. The same applies to all the other Tempo cards. If Tempo Priest fails to make an impact then most of the cards in the class are going to be unplayable. Most of these card require a target in order to make of use of their abilities and maintaining a board is something that Tempo Priest isn't good at. Paladin can dump their buff spells or battlecry effects on their 1/1 tokens but Priest doesn't have such an option. Without anything to buff the cards become completely useless.
Shadowform is still horrible. You can tutor it now and you can get it online on turn 1 if you mulligan for it and started with the coin but that costs two cards, provides no tempo gain and you sacrifice your healing Hero Power. You already start the game behind in Tempo and card advantage. That's far from a winning recipe. Also, since they removed the ability to upgrade the damage to 3, you have to choose between running two copies for drawing consistency and having the second copy be a completely dead card after playing the first or running only a single copy and possibly drawing the card too late or never at all.
And Natalie Seline... Oh my god... I can't believe they kept that card in the set. It's absolute garbage. Paying 8 mana for a single target removal is too slow and the body is completely irrelevant. It's just going to be removed every single time. It's much simpler to just use Shadow Word: Death if you want to remove a big threat. Natalie only has one niche in the game which is dealing with the 4/12 dragons but that niche is incredibly small and 100% dependent on the relevance of such cards. Also, Ysera no longer generates a snowball of infinite value so she isn't big removal priority anymore which makes Natalie's niche even worse. They could have brought Lyra the Sunshard back. Or Archbishop Benedictus. Or Confessor Paletress. Or literally anything else (other than Prophet Velen, i suppose). I'm extremely disappointed with the core set.
I love that Altruis and Twin Slice are leaving but losing Nethrandamus is something that pushes me even farther away from this class. I have absolutely no reason to play it anymore as the dragon was the only card that i liked. I don't dislike Zai but without cool things to copy it isn't all that interesting.