Hearthstone 20: What is your Quest?

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I think that's comewhat comparable to Vilespine Slayer. Probably a good card.

Hmm.

Vilespine is way more card-efficient, this is slightly more mana-efficient.

Zevox is right to highlight the tempo here--and that's been one of Rogue's strengths, classically. Will be very strong for arena Rogue. It's a high-tempo removal.

[Destro_Yersul]

Worth noting that it turns any charge minion into hard removal. Southsea Deckhand is already used in a lot of Rogue decks, and so is Patches.

[Kish]

Two-card inferior Assassinate not the most impressive use I could think of for that card.

I am wondering about the potential for combination with Baron Geddon.

[PsyBomb]

Two-card inferior Assassinate not the most impressive use I could think of for that card.

I am wondering about the potential for combination with Baron Geddon.

I wouldn't call it inferior when it can hit fairly easily on turn 3 to clear significant early taunts. Pirate/Patches-Plague to snipe a Tar Creeper or a Rat is a big deal for aggressive setups.

[Rodin]

I think it's worth comparing to Equality/Pyro. That's a 4-mana, clear the board combo. This is a 5-mana, clear the board combo. The extra 1 mana sucks, but this is in a class which has traditionally had NO board clears, or at least none since Blade Flurry got killed. And as noted, it's easier to use for pure tempo while maintaining your own board than Equality is.

This card's a winner for sure. Either it'll be a Tempo card in some sort of Aggro/Water Rogue, or it'll get used as a reset button in Miracle/Control Rogue. Or possibly both.

If a Pyro becomes Poisonous, does it clear itself? I'm really not sure how that works. Based on the wording, I assume it will kill itself, but it's weird from a common sense standpoint.

[Kish]

I'm not seeing any "common sense" reasoning by which it makes sense for a Wild Pyromancer to damage itself but not for it to kill itself.

[tonberrian]

Still, getting off a poisonous pyromancer is at least a three card combo. Probably the most palatable is Pyromancer - Scientist - Shadowstepping the Scientist. One mana and one card longer than pyromancer - equality, thus markedly less useful.

What I see is turning any incidental 1/1 into killing something threatening. But I can't build decks so what do I know.

[Gandariel]

The 5/6 is obviously garbage, and I think we all agree with that. Even egg druid wouldn't put it in, because it's very rare that your board is ONLY eggs

The new rogue card... I'm gonna go ahead and call it 1 star too.
Reminds me of Voljin and other "amazing" cards that eventually saw no play.

The only scenario where this card is good is when:
- both you and the enemy have another minion
- your minion can attack and is substantially smaller than the enemy minion
- you gave already played another card.

And in that case, you're getting a free Cold Blood that can't go face. And the body of the card itself isn't that good either.

I know the potential is there, and I know it does look strong. But my prediction is that it'll see exactly zero play.

[Haruspex_Pariah]

Plague Scientist looks cool. Don't know if it's competitive good, but it suits Rogue and I can see it being decent.

[Rodin]

Still, getting off a poisonous pyromancer is at least a three card combo. Probably the most palatable is Pyromancer - Scientist - Shadowstepping the Scientist. One mana and one card longer than pyromancer - equality, thus markedly less useful.

What I see is turning any incidental 1/1 into killing something threatening. But I can't build decks so what do I know.

*headdesk*

For some reason I forgot that the Scientist isn't a spell.

Ignore my earlier post then.

On the common sense thing, having something poisonous get killed by its own venom is a bit weird. That's generally not how it works in the real world, unless I have a gross misunderstanding of nature. You don't tend to hear of vipers Darwinning themselves out of existence by accidentally biting their own tails when fighting something. Obviously, the Hearthstone card reading is fairly unambiguous, but it's the sort of interaction that might be associated with the keyword.

[Legoshrimp]

*headdesk*

For some reason I forgot that the Scientist isn't a spell.

Ignore my earlier post then.

On the common sense thing, having something poisonous get killed by its own venom is a bit weird. That's generally not how it works in the real world, unless I have a gross misunderstanding of nature. You don't tend to hear of vipers Darwinning themselves out of existence by accidentally biting their own tails when fighting something. Obviously, the Hearthstone card reading is fairly unambiguous, but it's the sort of interaction that might be associated with the keyword.

Uhh if you apply poison to a dagger and then stab yourself with it you probably will be poisoned.
How I see the interaction is pyromancer uses a spell to damage everything. This card buffs the pyromancers spell so that when it damages something it instantly kills it.
Then pyromancer damages himself with the spell that instantly kills.

[PsyBomb]

Gandariel, I will note that Voljin in particular did see some play as a tech choice in the months prior to the Standard split (this is when I came into the game).

[Spore]

New cards:

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3 Cost Ice Breaker - 1/3 Shaman Weapon: "Destroy any Frozen minion damaged by this."

3 Cost Plague Scientist - 2/3 Rogue Minion: "Combo: Give a Friendly Minion Poisonous."

[Haruspex_Pariah]

New cards:

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3 Cost Ice Breaker - 1/3 Shaman Weapon: "Destroy any Frozen minion damaged by this."

3 Cost Plague Scientist - 2/3 Rogue Minion: "Combo: Give a Friendly Minion Poisonous."

Frost Shock synergy? Interesting to see if Shaman gets more Freeze effects in this set since that's been Mage's thing all this while.

[Joran]

I'm not seeing any "common sense" reasoning by which it makes sense for a Wild Pyromancer to damage itself but not for it to kill itself.

Giving a Wild Pyromancer poisonous does kill itself.

Disguised Toast video interaction: https://youtu.be/jxHhwNJo0tA?t=54

[Yael]

Spoiler: New cards

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Spoiler: Reviews

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Blood-Queen Lana'thel: Discardlock enforcer. I don't see any play at the moment, maybe if we get some more for discard?

Blood Razor: I guess I could try this in a wild patron deck? Damn if I miss old Warsong Commander. It helps triggering damaged effects, but for a 4-cost weapon with 2 attack, well, we've seen that before and it didn't got played that much, of course it deals 6-18 total damage to enemy minions (2-14 to yours) for 4 mana, so it may get some play?

Prince Taldaram: Slightly nerfed Faceless Manipulator. Pretty much a nerfed faceless manipulator? You need the condition of having no 3-cost minions in your deck (follows the theme for that other legendary from the set), and it becomes a 3/3 version of a minion, unless it's a pretty powerful effect that does not depend on stats (Gatgetzan Auctioneer?) I don't see it shining.

[Epinephrine_Syn]

Spoiler: New cards

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Blood Razor: I guess I could try this in a wild patron deck? Damn if I miss old Warsong Commander. It helps triggering damaged effects, but for a 4-cost weapon with 2 attack, well, we've seen that before and it didn't got played that much, of course it deals 6-18 total damage to enemy minions (2-14 to yours) for 4 mana, so it may get some play?

Spoiler

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Eh, I can see it working. Reprinting death's bite right now, it'd likely see play in a lot of warrior. Exchanging 2 Atk for +1 Whirlwind does make it weaker on average, but I'm not sure if it's so much weaker that I can't imagine it seeing play.

[Zevox]

Spoiler: New cards

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Spoiler: Reviews

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Blood-Queen Lana'thel: Discardlock enforcer. I don't see any play at the moment, maybe if we get some more for discard?

Blood Razor: I guess I could try this in a wild patron deck? Damn if I miss old Warsong Commander. It helps triggering damaged effects, but for a 4-cost weapon with 2 attack, well, we've seen that before and it didn't got played that much, of course it deals 6-18 total damage to enemy minions (2-14 to yours) for 4 mana, so it may get some play?

Prince Taldaram: Slightly nerfed Faceless Manipulator. Pretty much a nerfed faceless manipulator? You need the condition of having no 3-cost minions in your deck (follows the theme for that other legendary from the set), and it becomes a 3/3 version of a minion, unless it's a pretty powerful effect that does not depend on stats (Gatgetzan Auctioneer?) I don't see it shining.

Prince Taldaram: Yeah, I don't see this going anywhere either. 3-drops are important in most decks, and if you're waiting to draw them all, you want a better effect than this. Maybe it'll have some crazy combo potential that isn't apparent at first glance, but otherwise, I'd agree that it's just a worse Faceless Manipulator.

Blood Razor: Has potential. Two free AoEs in one card is nice, and in Warrior you can benefit from it affecting your side of the board too. That said, with the poor actual weapon stats I'm not certain whether it's good enough to see actual constructed play at this time, when Warrior isn't running anything as dependent on self-damage as Patron of old and already has Ravaging Ghoul and Primordial Drake as great cards with AoE effects stapled on. So, it's kind of a maybe.

Blood-Queen Lana'thel: Well, it's nice that they're trying to help Discardlock again, but I don't think this is much help. Just making a medium-cost minion have a bigger attack score isn't that much of an upside, even if she has Lifesteal. If there's other cards that push Discardlock into viability she may or may not see play, but I don't believe she does that herself.

[Kish]

Why is discussion of the cards in spoilers? Is there actually anyone who will be upset if they're not surprised by the cards when they pop up in a pack they just bought?

[Zevox]

Why is discussion of the cards in spoilers? Is there actually anyone who will be upset if they're not surprised by the cards when they pop up in a pack they just bought?

With larger reveals and card images I figure it's a space-saving thing. With small reveals like this, yeah, I agree, don't see any reason for it.

[Divayth Fyr]

I've seen people complain about spoilers ruining mtg sets for them, nothing would surprise me.

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[Kish]

Huh. That's...huh.

I can easily see it ruining my day; I'm just having a hard time picturing a deck in which it wouldn't be just about as likely to ruin its controller's day. The Yogg-Saron decks it seems to be specifically targeting were already wrecked by them revising the rules for Yogg-Saron.

[Zevox]

Huh. That's...huh.

I can easily see it ruining my day; I'm just having a hard time picturing a deck in which it wouldn't be just about as likely to ruin its controller's day. The Yogg-Saron decks it seems to be specifically targeting were already wrecked by them revising the rules for Yogg-Saron.

Yeah, agreed. About the only deck so light on spells that I could see that fitting in is Zoolock, but I don't think this is what Zoo needs to return to viability. Otherwise, I guess it hurts Discover Mage more than most other decks if you're looking to tech specifically against that, but still kind of risky even then. And on top of that it's not even decent stats for the cost. Chalk another one up for the trash heap, I think.

[Destro_Yersul]

Card reviews:

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Ice Breaker: trash weapon. Frost shock has never been good, and this won't make it good.
Prince Taldaram: That's kinda cool, but I don't see it being good for the same reason that Keleseth isn't good.
Mountainfire Armour: 3 mana 4/3, deathrattle: If it's your opponent's turn gain 6 armour. Stats are average. Seems decent.
Blood Razor: Probably the thing that hurts this most is that it's only 2 attack power. Could still be good, but I don't think the pair of free whirlwinds is enough to make up for that low attack.
Blood-Queen Lana'thel: They're really trying to push Discolock, but here's the thing. For this to have average stats, you need to discard 4 cards. That's not easy. The quest wanted 6 discards, and turned out to be terrible. Based on that, I'm pretty sure this is bad.
Nerubian Unraveller: Weak tech card, probably bad.
Frost Lich Jaina: Oh, that's cool. This is a leaked card, so no hero power known yet, and we don't know if the card itself is legit, but I'll act as if it is until proven otherwise. Ideally you want to play this with a bunch of elementals out already, help stabilise the late game. It's a pretty hefty cost, so not sure if it'll be worth it, but I'm putting this card in the 'has potential' category.

[Zevox]

Right, I forgot Ice Breaker. My thing with that is, why is it in Shaman? It clearly belongs in Mage. Shaman's only means of freezing are Frost Shock, Frost Elemental, and Glacial Shard, the first of which sucks, the second of which costs too much, and the last of which is the only actually viable card to combo this with, which isn't enough to make Ice Breaker remotely viable. And only one of those is a Shaman card. Unless we see some good new Shaman or neutral freezing cards this set, that's likely to be one of the worst cards in the entire set.

[PsyBomb]

Lana'thel is interesting. That isn't a Battlecry, theoretically it's going to keep getting stronger if it sticks. The problem here is that the format is set up to deal with 5-health threats, due to the strong presence of Tar Creeper.

[Nerocite]

Good news everyone!

Spoiler: Hunter Legend

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Secret Hunter comeback?

[Zevox]

Oh god, but that is going to be so annoying...

About the only way that doesn't see play is if no midrangey Hunter deck manages to work with more than one secret. The sheer value and tempo of free cards going directly onto the field is too good.

[Epinephrine_Syn]

That hunter "secrets cost 0 mana card" still exists, so I think they'll somehow manage. Secret Hunter may come back with a vengeance.

[Destro_Yersul]

Damn that's nice. The archetype it's pushing helps out Deathstalker Rexxar, too.