The LiquidLegends Lounge - Page 1513

Kun the Forgotten King:
By itself Kun is uninspiring. 10 Mana for a 7/7 and 10 Armor is okay, and decent in a Control-style matchup, but it's something you really want to be able to play sooner and/or with a supporting spell to fight for control (SEE: What Warriors do with Ancient Shieldbearer). Kun's other option effectively allows it to be played for free, which would be cooler if Druids weren't routinely dropping Arcane Giants for zero or near-zero cost on mid-game turns.

Where Kun shines is in concert with Aviana or Naga Sea Witch. Playing one of those two then dropping Kun will not only give you a 7/7, but the power to follow up with multiple other substantial threats. That is Kun's niche, and it probably won't see much play outside of decks designed to abuse that gimmick.

Lunar Visions:
At face value it's a weaker, less versatile Nourish with a conditional Innervate effect. Cards which combine the effects of two cards can be very powerful, but Lunar Visions is very situational. It's only comparable in value if it draws two minions, if you draw a spell or two it's just a worse Nourish. It's also unreliable, so if there's a specific combo that the cost reduction enables you'd probably prefer Innervate for reliability.

Lunar Visions could be good in a minion-heavy deck that's either tempo-based or has strong synergistic effects (e.g. Beast Druid), but the question is whether that cost reduction is worth drawing one less card and/or losing Fandral synergy. For the time being I don't think this will see much play.

Pilfered Power:
This is a competitive card. It's not universally better than either Wild Growth or Nourish, but it provides plenty of opportunities for strong plays. You might play this Turn 3 and only gain a single Mana Crystal, or you might gain 2-3 if your opponent hasn't been able to contest the board. Its worst case scenario, presuming it functions like its closest analog, is being played at 10 Mana to draw a card, and in ideal situations you can ramp harder than Nourish for less Mana.

While it obviously lends itself to Druid decks that aim to build a large board, this card is potentially useful for any Druid that plays hard to kill minions early on. It also lets decks that want to hard ramp without relying on Arcane Communion even more option. This will see play, and may even replace Wild Growth in some decks.

Lotus Agents:
Based on the gameplay videos presently available, it appears that you'll get a choice of 1 card from each class.

This card's high cost doesn't necessarily bother Druids, but it's still expensive and fragile for what it does. Unless fatigue is a concern Azure Drake is arguably better, especially as it synergizes with critical cards like Swipe, Wrath, and Living Roots. While class cards tend to be strong and discovering one should generally provide something useful, I'm skeptical Lotus Agents will see much serious play in Druid decks.

Mark of the Lotus:
As long as Fandral exists as a card this won't replace Power of the Wild. However, it might supplement Power of the Wild in Token Druid decks. Having more cheap options for boosting tokens is a big boon, especially when you can get potentially get stronger tempo plays off them.

Piranha Launcher:
Amusing but probably not amazing. While it can play well with Beast-based effects, it's Harrison-bait and invests very heavily in future value for a class that strongly values tempo. In many ways it's a worse Assassin's Blade, only without all of Rogue's tools for abusing weapons.

Grimestreet Informant:
Based on the gameplay videos presently available, it appears that you'll get a choice of 1 card from each class.

It's effectively a stronger Jeweled Scarab, minus the Beast synergy. That's a substantial concession for Hunter, but class cards are generally stronger than the average card, and having options that aren't locked to 3 Mana is potentially powerful. Given that Hunter is rarely running Jeweled Scarab at present (despite having a lot of powerful 3 Mana options) I'm skeptical we'll see this card in Hunter decks, but if Secret Hunter gives way to more traditional Midrange options it might make an appearance.

Kazakus:
This card is incredibly fun. How balanced it will be is difficult to tell without a comprehensive list of potential effects, but based on what little we've seen this will be a very potent card for any Mage, many Priests, and some Warlocks. Its body is a little weak, but being able customize a spell to your current matchup's needs is extremely powerful, though I imagine there will be plenty of cases where you're hunting for a specific attribute and miss.

The Reno-style requirement is a big deal though so don't expect this in every deck, just those that either play long enough games to activate Kazakus or can reasonably play with Reno.

Manic Soulcaster:
This is a very strong card. That the copied card is shuffled into your deck makes it weaker than Duplicate barring fatigue scenarios, but having an additional Flamewaker or Antonidas is absolutely nothing to sniff at. This won't see much use in Freeze Mage since it pollutes the deck with minions you don't really care about, but all other styles of Mage should be able to find a use for this.

Kabal Courier:
Based on the gameplay videos presently available, it appears that you'll get a choice of 1 card from each class.

Mages probably aren't going to make particular use of this card. Most Priest and Warlock cards are of very questionable usefulness to a Mage. There are more than enough useful Mage cards in the game, it doesn't need this to hunt for more value when it could simply be putting it in the deck. Granted, Mages do hurt for decent Turn 3 options since they prefer to hold on to Flamewaker, but they aren't hurting too badly on that front.

Wickerflame Burnbristle:
Anti-aggro thy name is Burnbristle. Despite being clearly anti-aggro Divine Shield ensure it won't even be worthless later. It's bound to at least draw removal spells, if not tank at least two hits. You could also throw one of Paladin's many Blessings on it for more healing, but it doesn't even need that synergy to be good. A shoe-in for practically any Paladin deck.

Small-Time Recruits:
This will likely only see play in minion spam decks, and only one copy. Past a certain point drawing minions to swarm with is less valuable than drawing your finishers, and if you run out of cheap minions this card becomes completely dead. While in theory you could use this to target Finley or Shifter Zerus or another hypothetical game-changing minion, there just aren't any strong enough to warrant throwing in a card that would easily end up dead.

Meanstreet Marshal:
There are so many ways to give this card the meager +1 Attack it needs to draw a card that it's practically a 1 Mana Loot Hoarder. Granted, most the the means you'd have available turn 2 are associated with aggressive decks focused on cheap minions, so that's where it'll see the most play, but don't be surprised if it makes an appearance in other decks as well.

Grimestreet Informant:
Based on the gameplay videos presently available, it appears that you'll get a choice of 1 card from each class.

Paladin has many ways to make use of 1/1 tokens, few cards that are bad options for discovery, and plenty of uses for Warrior and Hunter cards. While I wouldn't expect to see this necessarily in control-oriented Paladin decks, it certainly has a potential place in aggressive decks.

Getaway Kodo:
This card has a lot of potential both for Battlecry and Deathrattle decks (provided in the latter case that it still counts as a death for the purposes of triggering Deathrattles and N'Zoth). Half a Duplicate for 1 Mana is incredibly strong, especially when it means more Blackwing Corruptors, Tirions, or Aldor Peacekeepers or any minion with a high-impact when played. I'll likely revive my "Don't you hate having to trade into my Divine Shield and Deathrattle minions constantly" Redemption deck thanks to this.

Kazakus:
As noted previously, this card is incredibly fun and flexible. That said, Priest doesn't typically do well with Reno-style decks. While Kazakus can provide much needed flexibility to Priest, this is a card it'll effectively only play late in the game as an alternative threat that can be used as an early body in a pinch. Although with the wealth of new good cards coming its way maybe Priest can swing a Reno deck now.

Dragonfire Potion:
Congrats Dragon Priest is going to be a deck people other than Kibler can use to reach Legend. I'd potentially run this card in non-Dragon decks as well. Sure, it'll kill your own minions too, but then so does Auchenai + Circle right now.

The card is also flexible. Very often Priest faces situations where it doesn't have a board but a problematic 5 Health minion or two is sitting there, forcing the use of Entomb or Shadow Word: Death. Being able save those for more important targets or tempo plays is a big deal. Expect to see this card, a lot.

Drakonid Operative:
Congrats Dragon Priest now also has a minion that isn't awful if you don't already have a Dragon in hand. I mean sure, this card is better when you can discover one of your opponent's cards, but if there's one thing Ethereal Peddler proved it's that having the option to just drop a 5/6 on the board versus a struggling opponent can win games.

Of course, the discover effect is insane. Against other control decks you're almost certainly going to grab a big threat or a means of dealing with a big threat. Against aggro or mid-range you should still be able to grab something useful. This card is strong enough that you might see it in decks whose only dragons happen to be Ysera, Nefarion, and/or Alexstrasza simply by virtue of its strength.

Kabal Courier:
Based on the gameplay videos presently available, it appears that you'll get a choice of 1 card from each class.

Priest is the most likely to make use of this card. Both Mage and Warlock have cards which can shore up weaknesses in a Priest deck, and Priest decks are very rarely without Brann. Priest decks also struggle to find worthy 3 Mana minions outside of Blackwing Technician in Dragon decks and Injured Blademaster in Resurrection
decks. Getting a weak but notable minion on the board and discovering a useful card is nothing to sniff at.

Despite all of that, I'm skeptical that Control Priest is going to be more popular or effective than Dragon Priest, and that's where this card would find a home.

Pint-Sized Potion:
This spell is pretty crazy, and the primary reason why Control Priest might be a viable alternative to Dragon Priest. While it is only useful in combination with minions or other spells, it combos with a lot. Play with Cabal Shadow Priest to steal an enemy Sylvanas/Ysera/Emperor, play with Shadow Word: Horror to clear a board, play with Shadow Word: Pain to take out a big threat, or simply play with minions on the board to clear things with minimal losses. On top of all that it's a nice, cheap spell to combo with Priest of the Feast.

Kabal Talonpriest:
Remember when I said Priest lacks good 3 Mana minions? While getting the Battlecry off will be iffy on Turn 3, this is nevertheless a very strong card. In fact, it's arguably better than Dark Cultist was since later in the game you can ensure the buff goes on a specific minion without giving your opponent the opportunity to play around it. There might not be enough room for this in Dragon Priest, but there'll certainly be room for it in everything else.

Potion of Madness:
Shadow Word: Madness is a fun but bad card. While it can possibly kill two enemy minions, Turn 4 is late in the game for that and too often you can only kill one lowly minion for twice as much mana as Shadow Word: Pain. Potion of Madness, by contrast, is incredibly strong. It deals very handily with easily aggro pushes, and can even cause havoc later in the game when combined with Pint-Sized Potion. Unless the meta shifts dramatically away from aggro this will almost certainly have a place in any Priest deck.

Lotus Assassin:
Meh. It's not bad, but too often it's going to need to trade into something it'll die to anyway and/or get killed by AoE after restealthing. It's nice to see some support for Control Rogue, but without cards that allow Rogue to survive long games that style of deck isn't going to fly.

Lotus Agents:
Based on the gameplay videos presently available, it appears that you'll get a choice of 1 card from each class.

Rogue actually has a lot of reasons to be interested in Shaman and Druid cards. The self-healing, decent taunts, card draw, or removal available to those classes is all very appealing to Rogue. You might see this in Ethereal Peddler decks as a means of getting even more cards to hit with cost reductions, but Rogues won't often be able to afford spending 5 mana on something that will get taken out easily.

Counterfeit Coin:
If you had any hope that Blizzard was going to shift Rogues away from relying on Gadgetzan Auctioneer to be viable, I feel sorry for you. At present this card probably won't see much play since it's so utterly and ridiculously inferior to Tomb Pillager and an absolutely dead card until your Auctioneer combo is ready. It won't see play outside of gimmick decks until Tomb Pillager is gone, and perhaps not ever then, but it's clear that Auctioneer-based decks will be with us for years to come.

Lotus Agents:
Based on the gameplay videos presently available, it appears that you'll get a choice of 1 card from each class.

This card is a bit of a stretch for current Shaman decks. You might get a valuable token spell like Power of the Wild, or something to put on the pressure like Cold Blood, but there's far too many potential draws that are just uninspiring decks that lack the wiggle room to afford such a fragile, high-cost minion.

Kazakus:
Reno Warlock has been a thing in the past, and is probably the only Warlock deck that will end up using this card. Given a long enough game it could be used for Handlock, but generally if games go that long it's the Handlock's loss. Such a fun card though.

Kabal Courier:
Based on the gameplay videos presently available, it appears that you'll get a choice of 1 card from each class.

It's possible Warlock can actually make better use of this card than Priest. Zoo can get some value if it wants to expand its board without being completely vulernable to AoE, and Handlock likes cards it can play without diminishing its card count. It has some advantages and disadvantages compared to Dark Peddler, but it's good enough to see some use.

Grimestreet Informant:
Based on the gameplay videos presently available, it appears that you'll get a choice of 1 card from each class.

Maybe. Warrior hasn't run anything like Jeweled Scarab in any of its decks for a while, but that may be because it lacks many strong 3 Mana cards. Expanding that to all Hunter, Paladin, and Warrior cards has much greater potential. This probably won't be seen in Weapon Warrior since it's not aggro enough, but the potential to get strong control cards while dropping a small but meaningful body is there.

I Know a Guy:
There are a lot of bad taunt minions, but there are also a lot of good taunt minions, and being able to pick the one that will help against aggro versus the one that will help against control gives this card some potential. That said, current Control Warrior decks have lots of other, more reliable tools for dealing with aggro, so it's uncertain how much play this will see without knowing what else Warrior is getting.

Finja, the Flying Star:
Cute, but gimmicky. It'll probably end up in Murloc Paladin since it can get your Warleaders and Bluegill Warrior into play faster, but in typical Murloc decks it's fairly high cost for an effect that will be hard to proc. Mill Rogue might use this for easy Gang Ups/Shadowsteps, but again, the reliability is fairly low.

Patches the Pirate:
Getting an extra 1/1 when you play your first Pirate is a pretty decent aggro boost. I'm immensely curious how it works with Gang Up. In general it's a shoe-in for Pirate decks simply because it boosts early tempo and that's rarely a bad thing.

Wind-up Burglebot:
Neat, but a pretty huge investment when your opponent is likely to just kill it before it does anything, assuming there's anything it can even attack without dying in the process. It costs too much for what it is or does, and there isn't enough Mech synergy right now to make up for it outside of Wild decks.

Fel-Orc Soulfiend:
This is secretly a Priest card, though I suppose it could also be considered a Shaman card via Ancestral Healing. Playing a card that your opponent can literally ignore and watch die isn't generally a winning strategy, but Priest has lots of synergistic effects with damaged minions that make it a bigger threat. Despite that, I'm skeptical this will see play unless the meta shifts far enough toward aggro that Priest needs a cheap, strong minion to compete.

Big-Time Racketeer:
Strictly superior to Boulderfist Ogre, especially in a world with so many decks sporting Brann. It works better against aggro since you're not necessarily limited to killing one thing at a time thanks to having two bodies, and you also are less likely to get completely blown out of the water with just one spell.

Despite that, big stat stick minions aren't played in Constructed with good reason. Unless Mirror Image and Repentance become huge problems for a deck I'm skeptical this will see much play in existing decks. It just doesn't do enough barring the Brann combo to warrant a place.

Second-Rate Bruiser:
Very strong anti-aggro tech. It won't last long even if played for 3 Mana, but being able to drop a durable taunt minion on the cheap is no joke. It's not inspiring if you have to play it for 5 Mana, but in many control matchups you aren't necessarily making efficient use of Mana anyway. This will absolutely see play unless the meta becomes so control focused that Blizzard has to nerf Warriors, Priest, and whatever other control decks have magically made aggro and Zoo history.

Kooky Chemist:
If Confuse didn't enable swap deck archetypes, this card won't either. Sure, it's a 4/4 rather than a one off spell, but for present purposes it's largely inferior to its smaller cousin. There's the remote possibility that a future card has strong enough synergy with swapping stats to warrant playing this card, but until then it costs too much for an effect you'd rather have on a cheap minion.

Friendly Bartender:
More anti-aggro tech. It's not super strong on that front, but it's the kind of card that is just strong enough that aggro decks won't be able to ignore it. This won't be as prevalent as the Second-Rate Bruiser, but it's good enough that decks searching for a decent 2 Mana minion will likely pick it up.

Mistress of Mixtures:
I'm kind of astounded this and Friendly Bartender exist side by side, because this is so very, very much better as an anti-aggro card. In most scenarios it's doing 2-4 times as much for half as much mana, and even has synergy with N'Zoth. Not that you want to heal your opponent, but if your goal is control this card ensures you live long enough to establish it.

I mean, if somebody told you just after Naxxramas launched that a Zombie Chow was coming that also healed you, everyone would have thought you were crazy. Yeah, apparently things are crazy now.