EPTIntroduction
Hello everyone and welcome to the League of Explorers card reviews. This will follow a similar format to the TGT card review where myself and a few other high-level players gave our initial takes on each card. We have changed our rating system somewhat after the feedback we got during TGT to hopefully make it more clear.
- 1=Unplayable
- 2=Almost certainly unplayable
- 3=Bad
- 4=Meh
- 5=Decent
- 6=Playable
- 7=Good
- 8=Very Good
- 9=Extremely Good
- 10=Overpowered
While this scale is far from ideal -- and still somewhat subjective -- it allows us to differentiate more between low-quality cards than the previous scale and it makes it more clear just what a certain rating means. As a result, our average ratings are a lot higher than in TGT. Having said that, we are a lot more optimistic about this incoming set than about TGT so even if we would be using the old rating system, the average rating would still be higher. We are also no longer use the ‘’possible rating’’ we used in TGT because we have already seen all the cards coming out. This set of cards is less combo-oriented than the Inspire effects of TGT.
Today’s guests are:
- Deathstar v3, creator of the Midrange Hunter with Deathlord
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/images/social/twitter.png)
![[image loading]](http://www.liquidhearth.com/staff/Hayl_Storm/twitchbutton.png)
- SenX, creator of the SenX Hunter
- Ersee, Dreamhack Winter 2015 Runner-Up and creator of the Midrange Shaman with Neptulon
- Modernleper, Top four at Dreamhack Cluj-Napoca and player on Team ManaLight
Concerning the Last Wing
Compared to the second week, last week had only a few potentially interesting cards. However even there both entomb and Anyfin Can Happen are doing decently well, with Zetalot getting legend with a Priest deck based around cutting value cards for entomb and ersee getting top 10 legend with a murloc midrange 0tk Paladin based on Anyfin can Happen. Sir Finley is doing well as a solid 1-3 drop Gorrilabot seems to be underperforming somewhat compared to what we expected, though that is more because of a lack of popularity of the Mech Mage archetype.
This Week's Powerlevel
This week again promises to bring some really good cards to the table with most prominently Desert Camel and Arch-Thief Rafaam. They are both cards on the completely different part of the spectrum with the former buffing the aggro/face Hunter archetype that is meant to keep the latter under control. Tempo Rogue is again getting an extra tool that might help them see more mainstream play.
Here are the individual rankings for each player:
Card Rankings
![[image loading]](http://www.liquidhearth.com/staff/Hayl_Storm/HS_Cards/LeagueOfExplorers/animatedarms.jpg)
Playable In
Current Rating: 2
Animated Armor
This card looks cool but just isn’t very good: first off no Tempo Mage deck would need this because they really aren’t afraid of losing life and second you might as well run a 5/4 for four mana with Taunt, because it can also protect your other minions.
![[image loading]](http://www.liquidhearth.com/staff/Hayl_Storm/HS_Cards/LeagueOfExplorers/archthief.jpg)
Playable In
Control DecksCurrent Rating: 8
Arch-Thief Rafaam
This card looks incredibly valuable on paper: you get to choose which artifact you want so you can always have the right one for the right situation. From the three, Mirror of Doom is obviously the best so I would expect that one to be chosen the vast majority of the time. The actual playability of this card remains to be seen since there might not be a place for such an incredibly greedy card in the current meta. On the other hand, Nefarian was already seeing some play and this card is a definitely strong version of Nefarian. If you compare this card to Ysera, its stats are absolutely worse but the effect is far better to make up for that. It is also less vulnerable to silence.
![[image loading]](/staff/Hayl_Storm/HS_Cards/LeagueOfExplorers/powerfulartifacts.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.liquidhearth.com/staff/Hayl_Storm/HS_Cards/LeagueOfExplorers/cursedblade.jpg)
Playable In
Current Rating: 3
Cursed Blade
This card is just not something that Warrior needs at the moment: they have enough weapons as it is and some lists are even cutting Fiery War Axe. Control Warrior also gets punished really hard by playing this since it will easily allow your opponents to burst through his armor. This card can essentially only be played on turn 1-3 because on any subsequent turn you are just going to be risking too much burn to your face.
![[image loading]](http://www.liquidhearth.com/staff/Hayl_Storm/HS_Cards/LeagueOfExplorers/curseofrafaam.jpg)
Playable In
ZoolockCurrent Rating: 4
Curse of Rafaam
While this card might seem decent, its big downside is the fact that your opponent is able to control the effect by choosing to discard it or not. If they opt not to, you just lost yourself some much needed tempo. This card's effect procs at the start of your opponents turn so you are guaranteed to get at least two damage in from it. The only way that this could be a viable play for any deck is by running it as a late-game reach card for Zoo locks, because mana generally doesn’t matter for them; however, there are plenty of superior options for that.
![[image loading]](/staff/Hayl_Storm/HS_Cards/LeagueOfExplorers/Cursedofrafaam.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.liquidhearth.com/staff/Hayl_Storm/HS_Cards/LeagueOfExplorers/desertcamel.jpg)
Playable In
Midrange HunterFace Hunter
Current Rating: 8
Desert Camel
This card has the potential to be (one of) the best cards in this expansion and completely shape the meta by itself. This card will essentially force people to have a one-drop in their decks because otherwise you can just lose the game to the immense tempo swing on turn three. Since Battlecries don’t work when minions get summoned on the board like this, Injured Kvaldir will probably take the place of Webspinners and Leper Gnomes in Face or Midrange Hunter. The downside on this card is obviously that the effect is symmetrical; as a result, your opponent will also get a one-drop. If you are playing a Face Hunter, the last thing you often want to do is give your opponent a free Chow since it will often take two of your early game minions with it and even trades 1-for-1 with the camel itself.
![[image loading]](http://www.liquidhearth.com/staff/Hayl_Storm/HS_Cards/LeagueOfExplorers/eeriestatue.jpg)
Playable In
HandlockDruid
Current Rating: 6
Eerie Statue
This is essentially a bigger brother of Ancient Watcher who can occasionally attack face. It may, therefore, be playable in Handlock, since they can both taunt this and silence it. On the flipside though, Handlocks will rarely have a clear board against them and also have Mountain Giants and Twilight Drakes which want to be played on turn four. Way back in the day, there was a Taunt/Watcher Druid that played taunts and Ancient Watchers in the early game, this card might fit into a reincarnated version of that deck: maybe even some kind of Wailing Soul interactions with Deathlords.
![[image loading]](http://www.liquidhearth.com/staff/Hayl_Storm/HS_Cards/LeagueOfExplorers/elisestar.jpg)
Playable In
Current Rating: 2
Elise Starseeker
This card is a more fun-oriented card, in reality it requires too many dead draws and mana to be effective and even then the effect is quite poor.
![[image loading]](http://www.liquidhearth.com/staff/Hayl_Storm/HS_Cards/LeagueOfExplorers/fossilrap.jpg)
Playable In
Current Rating: 1
Fossilized Devilsaur
This card is just unplayable: no one plays Ironbark Protector in Druid for a good reason and this card is strictly worse.
![[image loading]](http://www.liquidhearth.com/staff/Hayl_Storm/HS_Cards/LeagueOfExplorers/museumcurator.jpg)
Playable In
Current Rating: 5
Museum Curator
Deathrattle effects in general -- and Priest Deathrattle effects especially -- are extremely good so this card potentially really strong. The best existing benchmark for this card is Novice Engineer, a card that blizzard once deemed to be so strong that it needed to be nerfed. These days we doubt that even a pre-nerf Novice Engineer would see much play, because of its poor stats compared to the other current two-drops. Given that Priest Deathrattles have a higher chance of getting offered in discovers, this card will relatively frequently draw into Dark Cultist which ensures a relatively smooth curve.
![[image loading]](http://www.liquidhearth.com/staff/Hayl_Storm/HS_Cards/LeagueOfExplorers/ravenidol.jpg)
Playable In
Current Rating: 2
Raven Idol
This card is arguably worse than Tracking since Tracking gives options from your deck whereas this gives random options. On the other hand, Tracking would be an auto-include in Druid because it will allow you to easily draw your combo. Having said that, there are many Druid spells -- we don’t think you would ever want to use this for a minion -- that are just really poor quality so unless you can combo this effect with something like Auctioneer it is really not worth it.
![[image loading]](http://www.liquidhearth.com/staff/Hayl_Storm/HS_Cards/LeagueOfExplorers/tombpillager.jpg)
Playable In
Tempo RogueCurrent Rating: 6
Tomb Pillager
This card is suffering again from the standard curse for many four drops: it doesn't trade evenly against Shredder. The definite upside of this card, however, is that essentially this card is a really good Overload card: you pay four mana on turn four and you get that one mana back when the minion dies. Coins are also really nice for activating combo effects such as the Shado-Pan Rider or even a turn six Dr. Boom. The issue with this card is that it isn’t viable in the current Oil Rogue, so it fully relies on the Tempo Rogue archetype becoming viable. This may be possible with all the extra cards from TGT and so far we have seen a few Deathrattle/Tempo Rogues because of the raptor.
![[image loading]](http://www.liquidhearth.com/staff/Hayl_Storm/HS_Cards/LeagueOfExplorers/wobblingrunts.jpg)
Playable In
Current Rating: 3
Wobbling Runts
While the Deathrattle may look nice, it is actually going to be very hard to get this guy killed to activate it. As I say in my article on uneven stats, you want your deathrattle minions to have high Attack and low Health so you can use them to threaten your opponents and easily trade with them. This guy will often survive two or more turns and have very little impact during that time since your opponent can just ignore it and either punch your face or your other minions.
Thanks everyone for your time and if you have any questions/comments feel free to ask and we hope to see you again for the next evaluation of a batch of cards.
Daisyx is the most prolific writer on Liquidhearth and you can follow him here:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/lWQAJLe.png)
