Category: KnC Card Reviews - Team Hearth League

THL Kobolds and Catacombs Card Reviews: Paladin, by BlueSpartan

12/8/2017

Val'anyr: 3/5
The Paladin Legendary weapon Val’anyr is stacked with value. My first question is whether Control Paladin is a good enough deck to make use of that value. In theory you could never go a turn without having this weapon to swing (play 6, use up 7, play buffed minion 7, dies on 8, play weapon again...). But is this a win condition or are you slowly killing yourself a swing at a time? So it depends on having ample healing and threats in the deck, as well as not being way behind on turn 6. I am sceptical about Control Paladin having the tools it needs to compete.

The next thought is, would this fit as a finisher in aggro paladin? Maybe, since aggro decks have consistent pressure and ample card draw (especially with the addition of Call to Arms). This weapon could be the perfect late game fuel in a deck that often fizzles due to a collection of weak minions. You can use the last swing at the beginning of the turn to see where the buff falls, before playing any cards. Now, a sudden +4/+2 is quite a boost for that 1 mana card you just top decked, and 4-8 extra damage per turn could be enough to finish the job.

Lynessa Sunsorrow: 2/5
Lynessa Sunsorrow could be enough to make buff paladin viable, but if the meta remains full of silences it may be limited to memes. One thought is, if you pack your deck with enough buff targets that demand a silence, maybe your opponent will not have an answer when you apply all the same buff cards to this card on turn 7. The other thought is to simply include Lynessa in another deck that already runs Blessing of Kings and Spikeridged Steed, which provide enough value for this card to make some noise. Again, you have to hope your opponent is out of answers or all you have left is a 1/1 ping target. But if they are, this card could win some games.

THL Kobolds and Catacombs Card Reviews: Druid, by Bonja

12/7/2017

Twig of the World Tree: 1/5
The best case scenario is to follow this up with Medivh, the Guardian and Ultimate Infestation in the same turn, but that’s far from a good enough reason to run this two Legendary card combo in a deck that has infinite value. Against weapon removal, your opponent isn’t going to play it until you already have 10 mana or 1 durability left, effectively removing the Deathrattle. Of a set of bad weapons, this is one of the worst.

Ixlid, Fungal Lord: 1/5
If I see you playing this card, I will personally hunt you down with Spell Hunter. Please don’t make me play Hunter.

THL Kobolds and Catacombs Card Reviews: Warrior, by Ericokey

12/7/2017

Woecleaver: 1/5
Woecleaver is not a card that will see play in every warrior deck nor will it see play in most warrior decks. The only archetype that might want this is some form of big warrior and I'm not even sure if that is a viable archetype or even if it is that it would want this card. There is no good way to accelerate this card out so it's not coming down until turn 8 and at that point you could prolly just play whatever Big creature you are hoping to pull with this.

Geosculptor Yip: 2/5
Geosculptor Yip is basically just rotface 2 except it's probably easier to trigger which is a plus in my opinion even if you can't trigger this twice in the same turn like rotface. That being said the only decks that would want this is a recruit warrior deck or a control warrior deck and even there it's far from the best threat in each. That being said warrior doesn't have too many big value creatures so this card would probably make the cut if that archetype ends up being good but this card will not make that archetype good.

THL Kobolds and Catacombs Card Reviews: Warlock, by Mojopowell

12/7/2017

Skull of the Man'ari: 1/5
Now this card is quite interesting. Skull of the Man’ari, at a glance, seems strong. The ability to cheat mana is always powerful, and most demons that would be run in a control deck with this card are inherently strong. However, when put into context, this card is somewhat trash. On turn 5, the loss of tempo is insane, and will most likely get you killed. The dealbreaker is the fact that this card says “at the beginning of your turn”, not “at the end”. If it was at the end, summoning sickness would be a non-factor, and it would get immediate value and tempo when cheating out big demons such as Voidlord. Instead, you lose tempo, gain no immediate value, and probably get killed by a Cobalt.Scalebane.

Rin, the First Disciple: 1/5
This card isn’t even worth really discussing in depth. It’s 41 mana’s worth of understatted minions with bad effects that doesn't even win the game every time you pull it off. Warlock just doesn’t have the ability to cheat out this much mana without just dying, and the demons you create are far too small for far too much mana. Rin will see lots of experimental and meme play, but everyone will eventually come to realize that losing every game is not a fun meme to play.

THL Kobolds and Catacombs Card Reviews: Mage, by Sage

12/7/2017

Aluneth: 2/5
I hate this weapon. I want to love it, because I’ve wished exactly for it in the past, but as time went on I realized it would just probably lose you the game. You’d either end up self-milling, or fatiguing way too fast. I wish they printed something else, but I still plan to play it in my Tempo Mage. That’s the one place I think this will do very solid work. The only Mage deck with minimal draw is helped greatly by insanely card advantageous effects like this. Given infinite resources to swarm the board and face with, Tempo will win every time. Only helping one archetype doesn’t do much to curry my love though, even if I *love* Tempo Mage the most.

Dragoncaller Alanna: 3/5
Oh baby I love the flavor of this card. She’s gorgeous, and her effect is extremely strong. This is Big Spell Mage’s #1 Wincon. However, I think Big Spell can definitely work without her. Which means she isn’t pushing the archetype as much as the spells that support it are. I think a Dragon Mage would be pretty neat. Very solid 3 out of 5.

THL Kobolds and Catacombs Card Reviews: Shaman, by rebobson

12/7/2017

The Runespear: 1/5
This is a fairly difficult card to analyse, so I’m going to attempt to break it down a bit further: This card will only be played in really, really slow Shaman decks, due to its incredibly slow nature: you need to get to turn 10 for this to be worth playing in your deck, and you need to be able to survive that long. That means you will probably be a controlling Shaman deck, with a great deal of AOE and single-target removal, and a few big juicy minions. That means you would want this card to be consistently giving you the option of specifically cards which deal with your opponent’s board whilst also assuming you do not have any minions due to the tempo loss acquired through playing an 8 mana weapon, and we can look at the Shaman spell pool in order to see how likely that is. I have broken down the spells into several distinct categories, with some of the notable fringe cases for each category mentioned:

Number of Shaman Spells: 35
AOE Spells: 3 + Devolve, Forked Lightning
Single-Target Removal (Specifying minions): 4 + Earth Shock, Avalanche
Burn (Can hit face/your own face): 3 + Frost Shock
Summons Tokens: 2
Useless Spells (No impact with no minions of your own): 8
Minion Buffs: 2 + Cryostasis, Primal Fusion:
Other: Far Sight, Finders Keepers, Unite the Murlocs (may not be in card pool), Rockbiter Weapon, Ice Fishing.

Playing this card, you would want to be offered exclusively AOE, Single-Target Removal, or card draw (Far Sight, potentially Finders Keepers at a push. This gives us a desireable card pool of 12/13 cards out of a possible 34/35, which amounts to a 35% chance to get a desirable card in one of the Discover slots, or a 65% chance to whiff. Calculating further, this card has an approximate 25% chance to offer you no good spells in any of the 3 Discover slots, which is incredibly high odds to fail for a weapon which requires such a huge tempo loss to play initially. Because of this, I think the card is unplayable, and gets the lowest possible 1 / 5 rating.

Grumble, World Shaker: 3/5
This card is interesting, and allows for a great deal of combo potential, as the effect is so potent that we could see some incredibly interesting things further down the line, created by someone with a little more imagination than myself at this point in time. I think the effect is so interesting that it could easily give rise to one or more combo Shaman archetypes, and as a potentially deck-defining meme card, I think warrants a 3 / 5 rating rather than a 2. Could easily be revised downwards, should nobody think of anything special to do with it, however.

THL Kobolds and Catacombs Card Reviews: Priest, by BitBeaker

12/7/2017

Dragon Soul: 3/5
I love the concept of this weapon in Priest, but I'm not sold on the card itself. There are far more impactful things you could be doing on turn 3 as a Priest. If you look at the cards Priest currently has available in the 3 mana slot we see things like Kabal Talonpriest, Curious Glimerroot, and the new Twilight Acolyte. Can we really afford to basically do nothing on turn 3? On top of that, if weapons become popular in the meta then you can't expect this to last long enough to get any value out of it. The best we can expect is to drop this on a later turn and follow it up with 3 spells for a 5/5 Dragon. I guess since Priest has seen so many good Legendaries in the last few sets Team 5 decided to tone it down a notch. Or at least that's how it seems at first glance. One niche use for this card could be combined with the other Priest Legendary in the set.

Temporus: 4/5
What even is this? I don't know where to begin. This card could bring memes of epic proportions. If you are able to somehow deny your opponent one of the allotted two turns then this card could be great. The only way you could play this card is if you are sure your opponent can't win in 2 turns and you can. Let's be honest though, if you are in a position where you can allow your opponent to take two turns in a row you've probably already put yourself in a position to win. The design of this card is amazing but I feel like the only reason this card exists is to give you one less viable pick when your Netherspite Historian discovers in the upcoming Dragon dominated meta. Nothing like this has existed in Hearthstone up to this point, making Temporus a rather difficult thing to evaluate. If you can set things up right it’s possible you could string a bunch of spells together to summon enough 5/5 Dragons from Dragon Soul to end the game on your bonus turn. You could also include it with Alexstraza in a dragon Priest for a TTK, assuming you don’t die before getting to take your turns. This card gets one bonus point for the meme potential and the amazing Trolden videos we are about to encounter.

THL Kobolds and Catacombs Card Reviews: Neutrals, by FollowDurden

12/7/2017

King Togwaggle: 1/5
The memes. And… nothing else. Prince Malchezaar even thinks this card is a dumpster fire.

Master Oakheart: 2/5
This could be the darkhorse of the set, in the right deck of course. Like Taunt Druid or a Bolster Warrior. Okay, just Taunt Druid. I don’t see this so much in any midrangey or aggro decks, of course. Very niche, but potentially OP in Taunt Druid.

The Darkness: 3/5
This expax’s Golakka Crawler, in that it’s a direct nerf to a currently Tier 1 deck. This card laughs at all Highlander decks as it sits invulnerable, waiting on them to draw into death. Seriously, the reward for a Highlander deck drawing back to it’s singleton status is activating a 20/20 minion. But, in the end it’s just a tech card.

Zola the Gorgon: 1/5
I mean, the flavor is fun. “Are you a filthy F2Per like Markshire? Here! Have a free golden card for this game!” Okay. It might see play in someone’s Deathrattle deck if they’re unfortunate enough to open this.

THL Kobolds and Catacombs Card Reviews: Rogue, by rebobson & Sage

12/7/2017

Kingsbane: 5/5
This weapon is nuts! Surprisingly, I think it has no place in pre-existing Tempo Rogue. However, it it will fit right in with any deck that can make use of a weapon with early anti-aggro utility and late game sustain from permanent Leeching Poison. Goes very well with the new minion that draws weapons from your deck, Cavern Shinyfinder. Blade Flurry died for this.
-Sage

Sonya Shadowdancer: 3/5
When you see Sonya, the first thing you think, besides ‘She squats’, is probably ‘Shadowcaster’. It’s a very similar effect, both giving you a 1/1 copy of a minion, and both being situational in that they require you to have a minion in play already to get value from their effect, and are incredibly weak when played on curve. However, simply due to the 2 mana difference between the 2, Sonya is definitely the better of the two, and could find a home in pretty much any Rogue deck which would conceivably have run Shadowcaster. Jade/Deathrattle builds are certain fits for the card, and the effect might just be strong enough to find a home in Tempo Rogue, likely edging out the other situational 3 drop of Shaku, the Collector. Hell, if we were to ever see Quest Rogue again, Sonya would be fantastic in that deck. While these are several distinct archetypes which all make use of the card, I do not really think we can really expect to see any of these archetypes make any dents in the meta besides the obvious exception of Tempo Rogue. Unfortunately for Sonya, this is the only one where she is not a staple. 3 / 5.
-rebobson

THL Kobolds and Catacombs Card Reviews: Hunter, by Markshire

12/7/2017

Rhok'delar: 1/5
For this to be any good at all, you have to be running a no minion deck, and even then it is not that powerful of a card. On curve, you will burn a card, and random spells mean that you will get a lot of situational cards that may not work. Because Hunter lacks good board clears and comeback mechanisms (although that is getting better with this expansion) the tempo loss from only equipping a 4/2 weapon on turn 7 will be difficult to justify.

Kathrena Winterwisp: 1/5
8 mana is simply too slow for this kind of effect in Hunter. I don’t see a slower Hunter deck having the amount of support needed to get to turn 8 or later and be in a position to win consistently. High-cost minions without an immediate effect on the board have historically not seen play, and I don’t think this will be the exception.