by JR Cook - 10 years ago     show comments

UPDATE 11:12am PST: The remaining five six cards have been revealed and are appended at the bottom of the article. Read on for the original post and analysis.

Taking a break from its regular trend of posting new cards to Twitter, Team 5 today revealed five new cards for Curse of Naxxramas – which is releasing tomorrow – on the Hearthstone Facebook page.

Following the theme of the expansion, three of the new cards have a Deathrattle effect. While perhaps not as game-changing as Loatheb, they will have their place in certain decks – or, in the case of the Sludge Belcher, perhaps the majority of decks.

The new cards are the Mad Scientist, Stoneskin Gargoyle, Stalagg, Sludge Belcher and Maexxna.

The Mad Scientist will, obviously, see play in Secret decks. Team 5 is trying to cut down on the amount of text on cards in the expansion, but rest assured: this will be a random Secret. It could be an extremely powerful Deathrattle, if you auto-play that Mirror Entity right before the opponent lays down Ragnaros; on the other hand, it could be more of a hindrance than a help if you Vaporize a lone Murloc.

Obviously, the card will be more useful in decks with just one or two Secrets, in which you can target specific spells.

The Stoneskin Gargoyle could be a real nightmare if buffed, and the target of some hard removal. It will definitely perform well in Priest decks running Inner Fire, Druids with Mark of the Wild/Nature or Paladins with Blessing of Kings.

Not much to say about Stalagg as we haven’t seen Thaddius yet, but as he requires the deaths of two Legendary (and, if Stalagg is anything to judge by, pretty powerful) minions, he’s sure to be a nightmare to deal with. Aside from that, a 7/4 for 5 is a good bet by itself!

Harvest Golem 3.0 right here, ladies and gents. Not only does it come back after death (in a significantly weaker form, of course), but both versions have Taunt. This one is likely to see a lot of play in control decks.

Speaking of control, there had to also be a card for those aggro decks that dominate the meta at the moment, didn’t there? Not only does Maexxna have the irritating effect of killing any minion she damages – common to the neutral Emperor Cobra and Rogue’s Patient Assassin – she also boasts a whopping 8 health. That’s not to be sneezed at, and almost guarantees that she’ll trade well.

Hello, friends! Leviathan here to update you with the next batch of cards revealed for Round Two of what I’m calling “The Day Naxxramas Came For Us”. This is crazy and I’m too hyped and excited, so let’s dive right in!

The next batch of cards are Zombie Chow, Deathlord, Echoing Ooze, Feugen, and Spectral Knight.

Zombie Chow is now the strongest one drop in the game stats-wise, but its Deathrattle, of course, provides the trade off. When killed, Zombie Chow will give 5 Health to the enemy hero. If it’s early enough in the game, that probably won’t matter all that much since you’ll have barely made any headway into your opponent’s health pool when you trade this off. However, imagine trading this out when you’ve also got an Auchenai Soulpriest on the board… Hello, free Mind Blast!

Deathlord seems poised to help against the Zoo onslaught that we are bound to be seeing more of with some of the new Naxxramas cards bolstering its power. This is a massive Taunt to throw down on Turn 3 and with all that health, it’ll absorb a Soulfire and then some. The downside, of course, is that you also risk stalling the onslaught of their one and two drops only to possibly summon their Doomguard right onto the board with no Battlecry drawback. Hm… Proceed with caution and watch out for wild Stampeding Kodos!

First of all, I love the flavor here as the Battlecry essentially brings out the echo. Early strategic thoughts on this card are that, simply put, it will be a must for any minion-based deck. It’ll put two bodies on the board. But wait! There’s more. Early theorycrafting suggests that this may actually be a great mid to late game card as whatever buffs you throw on it before the end of the turn will also be seen on the echo. Blessing of Kings? Sure. Here’s two 5/6s for 6 mana. I’ll take that value!

…and here’s Feugen! The other side of the coin to Stalagg, revealed earlier today, the stats here are fantastic. With a hearty 7 health, he’ll be sticking around for a while and even when he does go, assuming Stalagg was also played, he will bring out the yet to be seen Thaddius. As Malon mentioned, we’ll have to wait and see just how good Thaddius is to determine whether both of these Legendaries warrant play in one deck. (Side note: As a Priest player, another 4 attack minion makes me sad, heh.)

Last but not certainly not least in this round, Spectral Knight. Unholy crap! This is an unreal card for a Common. Faerie Dragon’s beefier cousin just showed up, and it wants to have a word. Our staff’s early impressions have come in monosyllabic expletives, so I won’t post them here, but look forward to this guy being a great card against some of those spell-heavy removal decks. (I’m looking at you, Miracle Rogue.) So many five drops, so few deck slots…

Final update by Crow:

 We expect one more sets of five cards to be released today, so keep checking this post, which we’ll be updating continually. FINAL ROUND: FIGHT!

A cheaper alternative to Abomination, this could result in some interesting board control during the early game, especially if it’s on Turn 1 with a coin.

This is definitely a card that screams for strategy, especially with how many Deathrattle cards we’ve seen today that have benefits for your opponent. Off the cuff, a deck that’s heavy on battlecry effects would benefit from this card, and you could even combo it with Ancient Watcher to improve its usefulness.

A dangerous ability in the early game, where battlecries for card advantage or to pull out extra minions are incredibly common specifically because they’re inexpensive. Dropping this on Turn 1 will definitely draw out some early removal cards, but it puts your opponent off-balance either way.

Drops from Anub’Rekhan

A strong competitor with Harvest Golem, though coming in cheaper and throwing weaker mobs on the board. In keeping with the theme of cards in this stage of the reveal so far, though, it certainly seems to be a matter of throwing out inexpensive cards that can alter the early game in a noticeable way. If nothing else, it’ll raise the profile of the adventure more and potentially compel more players to look into delving in Naxxramas during the event once these cards start showing up in the wild.

That said, let’s get to the two heavy-hitters:

Looking up higher in the reveal, you’ll notice Stalagg and Feugen, whose Deathrattle effects taken together are what bring Thaddius into play. That strongly hints that you won’t ever actually CAST Thaddius, but will have to depend on a lucky draw with both of his cronies in order to get him on the board. This is a pretty risky build, but being able to drop an 11/11 as punishment for losing two other legendaries will certainly turn the tide in the late game.

It’s also been confirmed by Ben Brode that you don’t have to control both Feugen and Stalagg to get Thaddius out: you just need to control whichever one dies last.

… sweet sisters of mercy. Imagining the combinations is staggering, especially with how Stalagg/Feugen into Thaddius play will go and the sheer volume of deathrattles getting added in. It goes without saying that Kel’thuzad should be appropriately juicy as the centerpiece of the Naxxramas adventure, but knowing that his ability is going to persist turn by turn is devastating.

Keep it locked here as we do more analysis on the cards, and remember that the first wing of Naxxramas will unlock tomorrow. Have fun storming the necropolis!