Let's say you have the dream draw and play Stonewright on turn 4, then Macaw on turn 5, then this on turn 6; you'll get two 4/2's to use on turn 7. Compared to what other decks can put on the board, that's not all that great. And this is the dream scenario: if you don't draw Stonewright and Macaw, it's going to look much worse.
Apart from the problem of not drawing Stonewright, there is also the question what you're going to play on turns 1-3. You can't snowball if you fall behind on board and unbuffed totems are statted worse than murlocs, mechs or beasts. If Stonewright had a start-of-game effect, it could work, but as a battlecry it just comes in too late and too inconsistently.
This would work particularly well with Shadow Waltz. I'm not convinced yet though that the Shadow package is worth running based on the cards revealed so far: zoo only has a few turns to find its synergies, so it needs more of them than a slower deck would.
I think Burden of Pride is mainly support for Infuse: against aggro it keeps you alive until you can play your infused card, against slower decks it charges your Infuse cards while still putting a reasonable amount of stats on the board.
I've been surprised by how good Demonic Assault is. Burden of Pride isn't quite that versatile, but if any Infuse card is worth playing, Burden of Pride will likely be in the same deck to support it.
I agree that Shadow Waltz wouldn't go into a control warlock: you either go for a board-based strategy or for a board-clearing strategy; mixing them just gives you anti-synergy.
Maybe it would be useful as reload for zoo, but the risk there is that you need it to either be discounted or played after a sacrifice to be good, so if your board just got cleared by an AoE and you either don't run Shadowborn or didn't draw it yet, you're not going to reload fast enough.
Regarding Shadowborn in zoo: the only other Shadow spell I see worth running in zoo would be Impending Catastrophy, but that's a card that you want to play before your board gets wiped, while Shadowborn needs to die to get the discount, so it seems like an awkward combination.
Edit: With Lady Darkvein, it seems they are pushing for Shadow spells in zoo. I think it would need more support than the already revealed cards though.
Vanndar is very good when you play him on curve. The problem is that in the games where you don't draw him in time, you're left with a bunch of expensive minions in your hand in the early game, while late game he's a bad top-deck.
While I agree that the Guff hero is better, I don't think he makes Vanndar redundant. Instead, Guff gives you an alternative early game when you don't draw Vanndar in time, so if Vanndar is worth running at all, he will be run together with Guff.
I guess what I'm saying is that Vanndar's competition isn't Guff, but all the cards that you can't run if you build your deck around Vanndar, like Jerry Rig Carpenter.
Seems like a decent follow-up to ramping with Nourish. It being a one-of limits how useful it is to build a deck around though. In theory you could tutor this card with Capture Coldtooth Mine, but then you can't include any other 8+ mana cards in your deck, which reduces its usefulness considerably.
Maybe you'd just put this in as the 30th/40th card in a deck and accept that it sometimes low-rolls. Even if it discounts something that was already cheap, it still draws you closer to your good cards, which is useful in particular if you're running a 40-card deck.
Ironbark Protector has been unplayable for such a long time that I don't even know whether it is in Standard or not. For example Mo'arg Forgefiend already obsoleted it.
Using "cannot attack" minions might be the way to make it work indeed, as without discounted huge minions, it's going to be hard to find a good target for this spell.
I'm pretty sure this card itself is broken, but as it is a one-of and not easy to tutor, the deck could suffer from low consistency. On the other hand, Wig Priest is not terrible right now, so adding one more high-roll to it might just make it good enough.
Other bad archetypes like Pirates and Freeze Shaman eventually became playable because new and much more powerful cards.
I don't think it needs all that much support to be good enough, because of the 3 durability. Coining this out on turn 3 gives you a Spider Tank + a 2/3 weapon, that's pretty decent at that stage of the game. I don't think this is a build-around card, but it is likely a good addition to any low-curve deck.
Even if you can craft a deck that could play 30 cards in one turn, the animation slowness makes it unlikely you'll actually be able to execute it. Spectral Pillager OTKs already require good APM and there you can take advantage of a doubled battlecry, but in this case that will just override the weapon instead of giving you twice the damage.
Akama Prime has permanent Stealth, but Akama still saw very little play. It turns out that slower decks run enough taunts and board clears to stop it regardless, while fast decks win or lose before you ever get to play the Prime.
If the endless infusion updates the battlecry itself, it would work with Brilliant Macaw and could then be boosted with Brann Bronzebeard and Bolner Hammerbeak. Surviving until turn 11 should be doable for Shaman with all the freeze cards they currently have.
Some of the Colossals also summon a lot of extra minions, so it's certainly possible to infuse the Sire. However, infusing him to OTK level will be a challenge, so maybe this is more of a card that you add to a 40-card deck than a buildaround.
Edit: Any deck that relies on spells to summon tokens will be extra vulnerable to Mutanus, as there will be fewer other minions in hand to act as lightning rods.
Edit2: Actually, 2x Scales and then also Onyxia herself is already 21 minions, plus Druid can combo this with Brann thanks to the Guff hero card, so maybe an OTK is feasible.
Because of the "start of your turn" condition, I fear that Ancient Harbinger will share Moorabi's fate: even when a deck it was designed to support sees play, it won't be in that deck.
Let's say you have the dream draw and play Stonewright on turn 4, then Macaw on turn 5, then this on turn 6; you'll get two 4/2's to use on turn 7. Compared to what other decks can put on the board, that's not all that great. And this is the dream scenario: if you don't draw Stonewright and Macaw, it's going to look much worse.
Apart from the problem of not drawing Stonewright, there is also the question what you're going to play on turns 1-3. You can't snowball if you fall behind on board and unbuffed totems are statted worse than murlocs, mechs or beasts. If Stonewright had a start-of-game effect, it could work, but as a battlecry it just comes in too late and too inconsistently.
For evolve fodder, you'd want a battlecry instead of an end-of-turn effect.
Even when infused, I don't think the effect is worth 3 mana plus a card. As a top-deck, it's even worse.
This would work particularly well with Shadow Waltz. I'm not convinced yet though that the Shadow package is worth running based on the cards revealed so far: zoo only has a few turns to find its synergies, so it needs more of them than a slower deck would.
I think Burden of Pride is mainly support for Infuse: against aggro it keeps you alive until you can play your infused card, against slower decks it charges your Infuse cards while still putting a reasonable amount of stats on the board.
I've been surprised by how good Demonic Assault is. Burden of Pride isn't quite that versatile, but if any Infuse card is worth playing, Burden of Pride will likely be in the same deck to support it.
I agree that Shadow Waltz wouldn't go into a control warlock: you either go for a board-based strategy or for a board-clearing strategy; mixing them just gives you anti-synergy.
Maybe it would be useful as reload for zoo, but the risk there is that you need it to either be discounted or played after a sacrifice to be good, so if your board just got cleared by an AoE and you either don't run Shadowborn or didn't draw it yet, you're not going to reload fast enough.
Regarding Shadowborn in zoo: the only other Shadow spell I see worth running in zoo would be Impending Catastrophy, but that's a card that you want to play before your board gets wiped, while Shadowborn needs to die to get the discount, so it seems like an awkward combination.
Edit: With Lady Darkvein, it seems they are pushing for Shadow spells in zoo. I think it would need more support than the already revealed cards though.
Vanndar is very good when you play him on curve. The problem is that in the games where you don't draw him in time, you're left with a bunch of expensive minions in your hand in the early game, while late game he's a bad top-deck.
While I agree that the Guff hero is better, I don't think he makes Vanndar redundant. Instead, Guff gives you an alternative early game when you don't draw Vanndar in time, so if Vanndar is worth running at all, he will be run together with Guff.
I guess what I'm saying is that Vanndar's competition isn't Guff, but all the cards that you can't run if you build your deck around Vanndar, like Jerry Rig Carpenter.
Seems like a decent follow-up to ramping with Nourish. It being a one-of limits how useful it is to build a deck around though. In theory you could tutor this card with Capture Coldtooth Mine, but then you can't include any other 8+ mana cards in your deck, which reduces its usefulness considerably.
Maybe you'd just put this in as the 30th/40th card in a deck and accept that it sometimes low-rolls. Even if it discounts something that was already cheap, it still draws you closer to your good cards, which is useful in particular if you're running a 40-card deck.
Ironbark Protector has been unplayable for such a long time that I don't even know whether it is in Standard or not. For example Mo'arg Forgefiend already obsoleted it.
"Vomit" was the exact same word that came to my mind when I saw these DH cards.
I hope you're right about them not being good. At least we have Prince Renathal, otherwise I would be worried.
The Mass Effect remaster for PC (Origin) can be claimed for free today via Prime Gaming.
Using "cannot attack" minions might be the way to make it work indeed, as without discounted huge minions, it's going to be hard to find a good target for this spell.
I'm pretty sure this card itself is broken, but as it is a one-of and not easy to tutor, the deck could suffer from low consistency. On the other hand, Wig Priest is not terrible right now, so adding one more high-roll to it might just make it good enough.
Other bad archetypes like Pirates and Freeze Shaman eventually became playable because new and much more powerful cards.
I don't think it needs all that much support to be good enough, because of the 3 durability. Coining this out on turn 3 gives you a Spider Tank + a 2/3 weapon, that's pretty decent at that stage of the game. I don't think this is a build-around card, but it is likely a good addition to any low-curve deck.
Even if you can craft a deck that could play 30 cards in one turn, the animation slowness makes it unlikely you'll actually be able to execute it. Spectral Pillager OTKs already require good APM and there you can take advantage of a doubled battlecry, but in this case that will just override the weapon instead of giving you twice the damage.
Akama Prime has permanent Stealth, but Akama still saw very little play. It turns out that slower decks run enough taunts and board clears to stop it regardless, while fast decks win or lose before you ever get to play the Prime.
If the endless infusion updates the battlecry itself, it would work with Brilliant Macaw and could then be boosted with Brann Bronzebeard and Bolner Hammerbeak. Surviving until turn 11 should be doable for Shaman with all the freeze cards they currently have.
Some of the Colossals also summon a lot of extra minions, so it's certainly possible to infuse the Sire. However, infusing him to OTK level will be a challenge, so maybe this is more of a card that you add to a 40-card deck than a buildaround.
Edit: Any deck that relies on spells to summon tokens will be extra vulnerable to Mutanus, as there will be fewer other minions in hand to act as lightning rods.
Edit2: Actually, 2x Scales and then also Onyxia herself is already 21 minions, plus Druid can combo this with Brann thanks to the Guff hero card, so maybe an OTK is feasible.
Because of the "start of your turn" condition, I fear that Ancient Harbinger will share Moorabi's fate: even when a deck it was designed to support sees play, it won't be in that deck.
It's a minion, so Taelan Fordring is still an option and you could use Tuskpiercer to tutor Taelan.
In Wild, Countess Ashmore could be used as a neutral tutor.