by JR Cook - 10 years ago     show comments

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Spoiling Naxrammas

There’s no time more exciting for a CCG than spoiler season! Now that we’ve gotten a peak at the new Adventure Mode, Curse of Naxxramas, spoiler season has officially begun! [DKMR]Varranis of team Don’t Kick my Robot is here today to talk about the new cards we’ve seen so far.

Deathrattle is the preeminent and apt focus for the cards in Curse of Naxxramas, so it’s no surprise that almost all the new cards we’ve seen revolve around the mechanic. Let’s take a look!

Undertaker

Undertaker is very similar to a few cards we’ve seen before; namely Mana Wyrm and Secretkeeper. Secretkeeper has never been an all-star, but Mana Wyrm is arguably one of the stronger Mage cards. So on which side of the power spectrum does Undertaker lie? We’re inclined to think he’s more a Mana Wyrm than a Secretkeeper.

The key difference that makes Mana Wyrm stronger than Secretkeeper is that Spells are a much broader group of cards than Serects. It’s easy to find many powerful spells to play in a Mage deck, while our current card pool makes it difficult to arrange a powerful suite of Secrets. Spells are also generally more proactive than Secrets. If a Mage needs to kill a Knife Juggler, Frostbolt will always do the job on command. Vaporize needs a little more coercing.

Undertaker wants minions with Deathrattle. So what do we have? Leper Gnome, Bloodmage Thalnos, Loot Hoarder, Harvest Golem, Abomination, Cairne Bloodhoof, Sylvanas Windrunner, The Beast, Savannah Highmane, and Tirion Fordring is a complete list of current Deathrattle minions. Not bad company.

Undertaker probably isn’t going to be hanging out with Tirion Fordring or Cairne Bloodhoof anytime soon, but he fits perfectly in an aggressive shell utilizing Leper Gnome, Loot Hoarder, and Harvest Golem. These three minions in particular see fairly frequent play already in aggressive decks. Unsurprisingly, we feel Undertaker may fit best in a Warlock Aggro deck tooled more toward Deathrattle. While Leper Gnome and Loot Hoarder typically don’t make the cut in Warlock Aggro, Undertaker may be a good reason to start playing them. There are several other goodies spoiled so far in Naxxramas that will work great with Undertaker as well.

Dancing Swords

And here we have our first new Deathrattle minion. While the Deathrattle is actually a drawback, getting a 4/4 for 3 mana is one of the best rates in the game. I can already envision devastating openings of turn 1 Undertaker, turn 2 Coin into Dancing Swords. That’s 6 attack worth of minions on turn 2! And it didn’t even need Innervate! Speaking of Innervate, Dancing Swords also happens to be an excellent minion to Innervate on turn 1. I’m not sure a vanilla 4/4 with downside is what Druid’s in the market for, but the interaction is worth noting. While a 4/4 for 3 mana is a bargain, there’s a big difference between 4 and 5 health when so many minions have 4 attack. Dancing Swords isn’t replacing Chillwind Yeti anytime soon.

We believe this card is more suited for aggressive decks. It comes down early and hits hard. While it may trade unfavorably with Chillwind Yetis, it trades very favorably with commonly played 2 mana 3/2s.
While this card is definitely powerful, it’s difficult to say whether it will see significant play or not. Allowing your opponent to draw an extra card is a fairly big deal. An incredibly fast aggressive deck may be able to end a game with Dancing Swords before the drawback is relevant. Deathrattle can also be silenced, removing the drawback. Perhaps a Priest deck using Ancient Watcher, Dancing Swords, and Mass Dispel could be a thing. We’re cautiously optimistic about this card’s future.

Nerubian Egg

Now here’s a Deathrattle minion! The love child of Ancient Watcher and Harvest Golem, Nerubian Egg is poised to see a significant amount of play. In midrange and control decks, Nerubian Egg serves a similar role to Ancient Watcher. Taunt it for a road block against aggressive decks. When it dies, you’ll have a tough 4/4 that can attack at will. In more aggressive decks, you can buff it with Shattered Sun Cleric, Dire Wolf Alpha, or even an Abusive Sergeant and cash in the less impressive 0/2 before wreaking havoc with the 4/4.

While sometimes it will be difficult to crack this egg, we believe it won’t be so difficult as to prevent this card from seeing play. Once again, this is a card that will likely be most at home in an aggressive deck. Most aggressive decks run a fair number of minions who buff other minions. With just 1 attack, Nerubian Egg becomes significantly more powerful than Harvest Golem, a card that sees an enormous amount of play. It plays very well with the already discussed Undertaker and could be further incentive to run Sunfury Protector in aggressive decks. Taunt it, buff it, get a cool 2 mana 4/4. There’s a lot to get excited about with Nerubian Egg. We expect it to make a big splash in the meta.

Shade of Naxxramas

This is a difficult card to evaluate. It is essentially a cheaper Gruul with Stealth. It has the potential to be an incredibly potent finisher, or even just a strong value minion. The power level of this card really hinges on the meta’s ability to remove a 3/3 on turn 3 or to allow a turn 3 play to do nothing for a turn or two. We’re hesitant to predict a meta that will allow a player to play this on turn 3 and let it sit for a few turns before attacking with it. Hearthstone is a very tempo-oriented game and generally punishes slow plays. What is essentially a 3/3 on turn 3 is not so exciting either.

This card will truly shine in situations where it can attack as a 3/3 and survive to be a 4/4 or larger. We’re reasonably skeptical of that being a common occurrence, but this card still holds a ton of potential. While we don’t expect it to make big waves at first, keep your eye on it. It’s bound to be the flavor of the week sometime down the line.

Baron Rivendare

Here it is! The first Legendary that’s been spoiled from Curse of Naxxramas. While the 1/7 body isn’t especially impressive, this guy can do some crazy things. Double Cairne Bloodhoof triggers, two draws from Loot Hoarder, twice as many Damaged Golems. Just think of the shenanigans you can pull off with Baron Rivendare and Soul of the Forest. There are sure to be a lot of people who dig deep to find ways to break this card.

This is the kind of card that breeds new decks. While we don’t expect the Baron to slot into any existing decks particularly well, he has boundless potential to be the centerpiece of a new and powerful deck. Similar to Cult Master, it will likely be difficult to orchestrate perfect scenarios to utilize his effect. However, Baron Rivendare does a much better job at living than Cult Master and has a more powerful effect. The coolest part about the Baron is that he gets better the more Deathrattle minions Blizzard prints. All it takes is one particularly potent combination, and BAM! Baron is broken. Will that combination be with Nerubian Egg? Will it be Sylvanas Windrunner? It’s hard to say! We can’t wait to see what other cards are spoiled in Curse of Naxxramas and how they will interact with Baron Rivendare.

Old cards are new again

Never forget the oldies. Old cards often go overlooked when new goodies come out. Many times the true winners when new cards are introduced are old cards that become significantly better. Based on the spoilers so far, Deathrattle minions are sure to become more popular. Loot Hoarder, Harvest Golem, and Leper Gnome are sure to see more play. This also means Silence will be a lot stronger. Earth Shock has always been a good answer to Loot Hoarder and Leper Gnome. Maybe even Mass Dispel will see some play! It’s always good to look to the past to see who tomorrow’s unlikely hero will be.
[DKMR]Varranis streams every Sunday from 10 AM – 4 PM EST at http://www.twitch.tv/varranis. You can find all of DKMR’s streamers on their website with the days they stream!

Guide written by [DKMR]Varranis
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Decks to watch out for

The meta has stayed fairly consistent. Warlock Zoo, Warrior Control, Hunter, and Druid Midrange are still the dominant archetypes. We’ve noticed an uptick in Druid Midrange, Tempo Rogue, and Hunter Midrange recently. We’ve included the same Hunter Midrange list highlighted in last week’s Deck of the Week article as it seems to be the primary Hunter list people are running. We’ve also included the Druid Midrange list I recently made Legend with. It is a very standard list and several of the Legendaries could be swapped for different cards. We’ve included Atak’s Rogue Spellpower list as it’s fairly unique and pops up often enough on the ladder.