Blizzard had just mistakenly revealed the mysterious 'Relics', simply added to their card gallery, that everyone was speculating about ever since the Relic Vault dropped. At the time of writing this article, they have rectified their mistake, the cards are no longer visible in the gallery.
Well, there you have it. What do you think about them? It seems like casting more and more Relics will make them more and more powerful, that seems to be their benefit.
More Murder at Castle Nathria Card Reveals
Reveal season is here and as usual, we have an expansion guide to help you follow along with all the fun! Use it to see all the card reveals, organized by class.
Comments
On the face of it, it doesn't look all that threatening because there's no obvious win-con, but the idea of the relics constantly improving is at least interesting.
But since this is a leak, we cannot conclusively say that this is exactly all the available relics and how many generation cards there will be for it. We also don't know the extent of the improvement: relic of extinction may very well at some point allow for face damage. So it would be premature to write it all off completely,
But based on what I can see currently, there's potential for control dhunter to be back, especially since relic of phantasm activates Sire Denathrius very neatly, and relic of dimensions can very well be an unnerfed Skull of Gul'dan at some point, maybe even before turn 5.
Improve? Improve how?
Stats, Discount, and Damage. Numbers(1) are improved.
I didn't mean it too literally, just frustrated they're only showing the un-upgraded versions.
They've "shown" these by mistake. We might see the upgraded versions during the scheduled reveal ;-)
I'm thinking same as you. We heard recently (and repeatedly in the past), that they aim for their cards to be easy to understand to (nearly?) everyone.
Yet time after time, they introduce such cards, which give "invisible" effects, which you have to guess yourself...
Come on, is it that hard? Once we hover over 1 of those cards (or in card played log) - show us CURRENT and IMPROVED, other relic cards.
And they will not do this. So much for "cards easy to read and understand" (PR bullshit).
Not even close to worth it on their own. The problem is that the payoff is too far in the future AND too inconsistent.
Consider the worst-case scenario where the cheap relics come late. Notice anything about them? They don't anything to close out the game. Even if they are vastly empowered, by the time they come on-line, your opponent is likely winning and you're on the backfoot. Unless the opponent is aggro, in which case you have already lost -- unless the upgrades include rush, in which case there's a chance you might live for an extra turn.
So your other cards need to end the game. Here's the problem: these relics actively hurt, not help, the only way -- techinically "ways" but practically "way" -- that Demon Hunter has to win. And that's Fel. And Fel decks are space-hogs with no room for lots of non-Fel stuff. Which Relics are.
Blizzard has systematically crushed all Demon Hunter late game options and replaced them with jack and shit and jack was let go because of allegations. There's nothing but Fel.
But if the rest of the reveals are a bunch of victory conditions for Demon Hunter, all of this can be immediately reversed, so long as they come on-line fast enough to mitigate the inconsistent power of Relics. There's a possibility that we're one reveal from this post being completely dumpstered. Let's hope so. I'd rather have a good game than a good first impression.
Also: the typing here really sucks. "Relic" really should've been a bold-face text on the card.
Seems like to me you're only thinking in the worst-case scenario. Currently, there are a total of 6 relics you can put into your deck which with demon hunter's card draws, is enough amount to reliably play the 3 or 5 mana on curve. I reckon playing any of the relics in their worst form on curve isn't the end of the world. Sure they're terrible in the first form but the cards scale off of themselves and each other, kinda like jades but better. I'm going to predict that you will be able to play at least 3 relics by turn 5, which is really good.
What makes this potentially broken IMO is the location Relic Vault with Relic of Dimensions. Even doubling a baseline Relic of Dimensions is an absurd amount of draws and cost reduction. This makes it so that putting the relic package into your deck will give it an insane amount of consistency.
Since my opening was about the worst-case draw scenario, one likely to come up slightly less than 50% of the time, that's correct, but I don't think that means what you think it means.
To reiterate, the point is that the draw-plus-body engine alone doesn't do anything and it can't be slotted into any presently-known DH deck in standard to improve or keep it at parity. It almost-but-not-quite could fit into a DH weenie deck, but that deck is bad right now and its lategame isn't really strong enough to get anything done.
Which was my overall point. If you're not winning the game, drawing cards and making many small minions is meaningless. If the DH card pool had different cards in it than it does at present, there'd be, for example, possible OTKs available as lategame finishers. And if even one of those is revealed, the value of these cards skyrockets. Which is what I said.
Priest has incredible card draw with Handmaiden. Priest is having an extremely hard time winning games because card draw without a solid win condition is meaningless. Pretending that having a strong draw option is the same thing as a game-winning effect won't somehow transform the former into the latter.
There are still plenty of reveals available. If we get a mid-late DH finisher, the Relics will be powerhouses. Alternatively, if a card can justify fitting Relics into the existing Fel archetype -- by making them Fel or by providing Fel generation or something -- then these slot in. Still plenty of time for either to show up.
too slow
I am used to Blizzard powercreeping their cards not their revealers. Somewhere Feno is crying in the corner.
Seems a little underwhelming. If the cards upgrade in the expected way (+1/+1 on summons, +1 to mana reduction) then a single upgrade only results in a mediocre card. Does it make sense to run 2 bad cards that have to be played first in order to have 4 good cards in the deck? Might be too slow for Demon Hunter.
These seem to be collectible cards, so you can get 2 copies of them in the deck right away, then you can have 2x Relic Vault with 2 durability each = technically 4 more Relics. And that second cast off Vault should be with an increased effect, so if you can combo it with that, that seems like a really good value already on your first play of any Relic, ofc you need to have the Vault setup for that.
Yes, it will be quite slow to power them up, but it might help create a slower DH deck, since those relics provide board, board clear and card draw, they seem to pretty much cover all bases. We shall see. If there are more cards that have synergy with them or work off them, then that would make them more viable as well.
Hmm... I don't know. 3 mana do nothing, make your cards better 3 turns in the future? The deck is going to need a lot of tempo to overcome that. Maybe a combo deck that just uses the locations and the card draw relics?
The suspect Legendary minion (Xy'mox) should help, as well.
I suspect Xy'mox will allow relics to be played more times by shuffling any that have been played into your deck!
Probably, but do you want a third or fourth copy of any of these relics? I guess that gives the phantasms one a sort of Jade Golem aspect. That could be fun.
If they are pushing a more board-centric playstyle, having multiple copies of Relic of Extinction that will do increasingly more dmg doesnt sound so bad, or getting increasingly larger Spirits. You probably dont want to play the card draw at some point, since you would just overdraw.
I'd wager that he just recasts them. Phantasms will definitely be a Jade Golem type deal. Since this isn't all of the Relic archetype, some other cards might add more Relics to your hand.
Plus, we do have at least two other Relics that are tied to Xy'mox in WoW. Possibly more. I suspect a Legendary Relic.
Recasting them would be too similar to Jace. I said shuffle into the deck because I think the devs want the Questline to be the engine of the deck where given enough turns everything you draw will basically be free.