Blizzard has released the full core set and we're in for a very different new year of Hearthstone! Today we're going to be taking a look at the Warlock class in the Year of the Gryphon by looking at their new set of core cards and giving the new ones a full review.
- If you want to see the full core set, you can check out our Core 2021 Guide.
- Want to see only the new cards? We have a dedicated article for that.
- You can build decks with all these cards in our deckbuilder - just select Year of the Gryphon as the format!
Let's get to it!
Felsoul Jailer
We got an early look at Felsoul Jailer at Blizzcon, so people were able to get some preliminary opinions on it. After seeing the rest of the Core set, this card doesn't seem that much better than when we first saw it. Jailer will most likely find a home in Control decks since its stats are far too slow for anything faster. Discarding minions has some potentially powerful utility especially against Control decks since you will likely hit a situational or slow minion, such as Rattlegore or Y'Shaarj, the Defiler, and stall their play for at least a turn. Jailer is great for disrupting some Combo decks since it must be hard-removed as polymorph/bounce effects will completely delete the discarded card. My main concern for Jailer is that it is too situational and doesn't provide that much of a swing in its favorable matchups to warrant it over generally good cards. Jailer excels against Combo decks and is situationally good against control, but it is so abysmal against Aggro that I don't think it will see common play.
Ritual of Doom
I was personally hoping for Reliquary Seeker to make it into the Core set, so Ritual of Doom came as a pleasant surprise. Ritual is clearly a card meant for Zoo decks that can swarm the board to summon a '0-mana 5/5'. Like most Warlock effects that sacrifice your own minions, you will ideally be targeting 1/1 minions to minimize losses. In Year of the Gryphon, this should be a bit easier given Fiendish Circle and Possessed Villager are in the Core set, Villager especially being a fantastic target for Ritual for his Deathrattle. However, Warlock is also losing access to Lackeys and the Galakrond, the Wretched package, both of which excelled at providing wide boards. Warlock also runs into the issue of not having enough wide board buffs to warrant investment into spamming 1/1 tokens compared to other Zoo strategies. I don't have too much hope for Ritual of Doom as it currently stands, but maybe Warlock reaches a critical mass of board-spam and it becomes good. On a side note, '0-mana kill a friendly minion' has potential if some crazy Deathrattle minion is printed, but we'll have to wait for that one.
Enslaved Fel Lord
Enslaved Fel Lord is an exceptionally spicy Demon for Control Warlock decks. Archwitch Willow is absolutely salivating at the idea of pulling this chad Demon out. Not only is it a massive Taunt, but it has a cleave ability that lets it function as a slow board clear, giving it the potential to insta-win against swarm decks. I don't think this gets run in non-Willow Control decks since there might be better options, but it certainly a strong contender for inclusion. It's honestly a little sad seeing this in Core rotation at the same time as Ancient of War, who got no changes and only has +1 attack over Fel Lord's cleave ability and relevant Demon tag. Fel Lord also synergizes very well with Animated Broomstick, putting its cleave ability to immediate use.
Warlock In The Year of the Gryphon
Warlock's Core set seems to revolve around three main archetypes, Discard, Zoo, and Control.
The Dynamic Duo of Discard
The Discard package Warlock is receiving in its Core set is quite meager, only consisting of Tiny Knight of Evil and Lakkari Felhound, the latter of which was updated to discard your two lowest-cost cards. Knight is meant to find a home in some kind of Discard Zoo deck, which I don't have too much faith in until the next Malchezaar's Imp comes around. Modern Zoo does run a couple of Discard cards, such as Nightshade Matron and Wicked Whispers, but I don't think that is enough to warrant Knight's inclusion over other options. Felhound might also find a place in a Discard Zoo for its ability to somewhat reliably discard Boneweb Egg, but its defensive statline might also allow slower Discard strategies to emerge. Knight and Felhound will help pave the way for more Discard synergies this year, but the incentive isn't there quite yet.
We heard you like 1/1s
Warlock's Core Zoo package isn't extremely numerous, but Zoo will probably still be alive and well. I don't have high hopes for Fiendish Circle since it didn't see play at any point during its previous standard rotation, but maybe Ritual of Doom will offer enough incentive to warrant it. Possessed Villager helps by offering a consistently sticky minion, but the loss of Voidwalker will definitely be felt. Zoo is also going to struggle a bit with the loss of Soulfire, having a harder time pushing for lethal or dealing with large minions. However, modern Zoo gets most of its tools from Year of the Phoenix with Ashes of Outland's discard package, Scholomance's damage and fragment packages, and miscellaneous Darkmoon cards such as Wicked Whispers and Wriggling Horror, so it will probably be fine.
YOUR ARROGANCE WILL BE YOUR UNDOING
It is my firm belief that Control Warlock is the big winner from the Core set changes. Drain Soul will have a bit of contest with Soul Shear, but it combos very nicely with Mo'arg Artificer and helps replace Nether Breath. Siphon Soul being reduced to 5 mana helps a lot in Control matchups and will do its best to fill the void left by Dark Skies (RIP Dark Skies, one of my favorite cards ever). The massive winner from this though is Lord Jaraxxus. Jaraxxus as a hero card disqualifies him from effects such as The Dark Portal and Free Admission, but makes him much more flexible in playability. New Jaraxxus only gains less effective health if you are at 9 or less health, gaining more effective health at all other health totals, much more if you consider healing effects such as Soul Fragments. Jaraxxus' increased flexibility is integral in modern Control Warlock since it makes him a prime way to Corrupt cards like Tickatus or Strongman. Jaraxxus as a Hero also removes a lot of the clunkiness that he was often involved with when trying to make Big Demons work, since he used to gunk up effects like Krul the Unshackled or Archwitch Willow. Control also gets to keep Twisting Nether and Hellfire while only losing Shadowflame and Shadow Bolt, the latter two seeing little to no play and being very minor losses. A small price to pay for salvation.
Those are just my thoughts, but I want to know what do you think of the new cards Warlock is getting and their outlook in the Year of the Gryphon. Let me know in the comments below!
View More Out of Cards Core Set Reviews
We're putting together reviews for all the classes and their core set cards. Here's everything up so far!
Comments
Literally every streamer: Ritual of Doom may not be good because you'll never get that many minions to stick.
Me (yelling at my TV): Fiendish Circle is a thing!
There's no way they put cards like these in Core if they aren't planning to support them in expansion sets.
0-cost cards usually have good value. Zoo could use Sea Giant as a finisher, but it's gonna rotate. Anyway, nice to see we'll get a refresh on archetypes.
There's also some precedent for Deathrattle synergy in Zoo with Possessed Villager and Nerubian Egg, so I don't think Ritual of Doom needs that much of a push, but it's definitely going to need support from the sets this year.
I am very excited to try out the new Jaraxxus! Control Warlock seems like a strong deck after rotation.
Here's a meme - Felsoul Jailer in a control deck with Shadow Hunter Vol'jin. You're already getting yourself to 10 mana playing this deck, you plop down Jailer to remove a late game threat or combo piece, then target Vol'jin on it for something else - like anything with a taunt.
Also I don't think discard warlock is missing out on draw - they're usually aggro zoo type decks that run the Hand of Gul'dan - you just dump your hand, Lakkari will discard that 6 mana draw spell, get 3 cards, profit.
I didn't realize Drain Soul was 3 damage now. I think it was 2 originally?
All in all Warlock has some GOOD tools in the core. This is the only class I have over 1000 wins with, it's going to feel good to bully people with warlock again.
I was thinking Vol'jin with Enslaved Fel Lord. Maybe a control Big Warlock deck?
Hell, you could also use Youthful Brewmaster and Tickatus to further the disruption degeneracy!
Discard warlock isn't missing on draw, but Felhound requires a very specific hand-state to discard Hand of Gul'dan for draw and is probably better off only using Nightshade Matron unless the print more cheap discard synergy.
Yup, Warlock basically got Penance, which is pretty good!
Youthful Brewmaster and Tickatus?!? OH BOY YES PLEASE
Lakkari Felhound wasn't a buff, its likely a change to make it harder to get Hand of Gul'dan out since Expired Merchant would be rotating away. Discarding two cards is still significant so I don't expect this to ever be played in standard unless we start seeing something like Clutchmother Zavas. I'm more impressed with tiny knight. Its simply impossible to ignore and Wicked Whispers with this on 3 creates a 5/4, which is plenty of tempo.
My prediction is that zoo will still make it via pain warlock. Most of their core is still here, but losing Voidwalker might be just a tad too much for comfort. It'll likely be the best variation of warlock unless Barrens introduce yet more control cards.
I still have my doubts with Tiny Knight of Evil since Wicked Whispers and Nightshade Matron aren't enough cards that discard to really amp up it's threat level. A 5/4 on turn 3 is good tempo, but that takes three cards when there are plenty of other strong options available (Midway Maniac + Flame Imp is 4/7 of stats for only two cards). I totally agree that Pain-lock will likely be the direction Zoo goes in for now with some light discard synergy in potentially Matron and Whispers as Warlock's only AoE buff.
yeah, right now Warlock's only reward for discarding is either Hand of Gul'dan or Boneweb egg.
but having this in the core set is probably an indicator we'll get more discard synergies this year
I cant wait to try Control Warlock this year :D
I've been waiting a while for Control Warlock to become relevant again. So excited to play with new Jaraxxus!