The new Onyxia's Lair miniset has been revealed, and launches February 15!
Now that we're able to have a look at all the cards, we can see that this mini set has some recurring themes shared by multiple classes:
- Dragons - After more than two years since Descent of Dragons went live, we're receiving another Dragon-focused card release.
- Black Dragon Callbacks - A four-card cycle featuring the most (in)famous Black Dragons in Hearthstone.
- Callback Cards - Onyxia's Lair's Mini-Set features cards with mechanics belonging to Forged in the Barrens and United in Stormwind.
This article is going to discuss what decks the Mage, Paladin, Priest, and Rogue cards may be good in and what interactions they have in Wild.
Mage
Wild has much stronger removals, so this shouldn't see play in most Control or Combo decks. The one archetype that may want this is Spell-Only Mage.
This is 2 Flamewakers in one card that costs more than twice as much. It does have combo potential, but due to its cost most decks will run Flamewaker and not Haleh. However, one possible use for this card where it wouldn't be so inferior to Flamewaker is a Luna's Pocket Galaxy deck, or in a deck with Dragon synergies.
This is a great spell for Big Spell Mage, and more importantly it is a Fire spell which gives Magister Dawngrasp a great Fire spell to replay. Having Tradeable makes it a lot more flexible than many other high cost spells as well.
Wild has a lot of cards that can synergize with a spell like this one, including Spiteful Summoner and Primordial Protector to summon 10 cost minions; Dragoncaster, Kalecgos, and Inkmaster Solia to set its cost to 0; and Grey Sage Parrot, Iceblood Tower, Magister Dawngrasp, and Clumsy Courier to put it into play for free, albeit not giving you the option of what to discover.
Also, as a card that summons minions, you can combine it with Khadgar to summon 4 Dragons.
Paladin
This can be really good if your opponent has a wide board. However, many Wild decks do not have wide boards and instead combo you down from hand. Against those decks, this will often be very weak. However, you can Trade it away in those matchups.
Against an aggressive deck, this can provide significant stats.
We don't think any current competitive Paladin deck will run this, as it competes with Hand of A'dal which is consistently good and crucially, draws a card.
However, Paladin decks that care about buffs may want to consider this as another option.
Wild has so many Holy spells, it's better to just put the high quality ones you want into your deck. This will not see play in any deck. You will not get an extra copy of a specific spell consistently enough to include this.
Although the base stats are low, any Wild buff deck may want to use this, including Wild Libram Paladin. Other than that, a 3 mana 3/5 after one buff spell is too fair for Wild so no deck apart from decks that have a large number of cheap buffs will want to play it.
Priest
This card can be good in two types of decks: those that only have dragons as minions and ones that care about drawing specific minions.
For dragon decks, this is card draw and 4 damage for 3 mana, which can be decent in a Dragon Priest.
An archetype that is more competitive that benefits significantly from this card is Elwynn Boar Priest. Right now, it has been using Witchwood Piper to get Elwynn Boar out of the deck as a second option to Insight. Horn of Wrathion is a big upgrade to this, as it will not be drawn by Insight itself, costs 1 less than Piper and can be discounted by Palm Reading, and doesn't interfere with your resurrect cards or Raise Dead.
This is similar to Duskbreaker, which was a good anti aggro card when Dragon Priest was popular. Lightmaw Netherdrake can be good for Reno Priests, which run a lot of both Holy and Shadow Spells.
If this card had Taunt, it may have been good in Wild control decks. As it is, most Wild aggro decks have a very high speed level, and this has no effect the turn you play it, only beginning to heal on turn 7 if played turn 6. Therefore, it is not going to be useful in any competitive Priest decks. Control decks that want to heal usually use Reno Jackson, which can heal turn 6 for much more than just 4 hp.
If you don't care as much about competitiveness, you can try to play this card in a N'Zoth, the Corruptor deck along with Xyrella, the Devout and cards like Twilight's Call and Amulet of Undying to have an endgame where you have 7 Mi'das on the board and whenever they are destroyed, you will get them back soon after.
As a Deathrattle minion, you can also try playing it in an Awaken the Makers deck.
Finally, keep in mind that the Fragment of Mi'da is a Holy Spell which means it can be drawn by Spirit Guide.
Rogue
This card is outclassed in Wild, even in Thief Rogue decks that may want to run it. Wild has more consistent sources of card generation from other classes like Clever Disguise and Dragon's Hoard, and although this can deal damage, it will be less consistent and worse than something like Wand Thief as Mage spells are better than spells from other classes. Therefore, we highly doubt that this will see any Wild play.
Find the Imposter Quest Rogue will want to use this as it's a higher quality card than some of the other SI:7 minions. Other than that, no non-quest Rogue runs enough SI:7 cards for this to be useful.
This is the highest cost Spell Rogue has ever received. It is too high cost to be in any competitive deck, but you can play it in some kind of Spiteful Summoner deck with Wild's plentiful high mana Deathrattle minions. In addition to Smokescreen being able to draw 5 cards and trigger their effects, you will have Anka, the Buried and Kobold Illusionist as a way to get the cards into play early as well as Necrium Apothecary to get their effects. You can use Preparations, Counterfeit Coins, and even Kael'thas Sunstrider to get Smokescreen into play early.
What do you think about these cards? Which Wild decks will they see play in? Let us know in the comments below!
Comments
Mage's legendary and 10 mana spell indeed look promising. I like your suggestion of a big-spell mage shell trying to discount LPG, acting as a control mage and using a 1-mana Haleh as a finisher with a load of dmg spells from hand (APM style...?) Could use some experimentation. Regarding the 10-mana summon 2 dragons... Unless it is cheated very early I don't believe it's fast and consistent enough. Not many dragons have taunt or rush (and Big decks haven't been really good in a long time)
About Mi'da, I kinda liked it... Until you reminded me Reno Jackson is a thing lol. Even still, an interesting card with good keywords. Let's keep an eye on it.
BTW, I hope at the end of these reviews you sum it up answering the most important question. Is Onyxia's Lair worth its gold price for us Wild-only players??
It’s worth its gold price just for the dust; in terms of cards seeing play in Wild it depends on what kinds of decks you want to play. If you only care about playing tier 1 decks to climb ranked maybe 2-3 cards will see play but if you want to play a wide variety of different decks for fun you may want more of the cards.