The LiquidLegends Lounge - Page 247

I think a lot of the new cards (Coldarra, Saraad, Thunderbluff, Kodo Rider, Lowly Squire, and probably a lot of other inspite cards) fit the archetype of "No immediate impact but you need to remove this ASAP". Or maybe "Board control -> Snowball advantage". Whatever you want to call it. Some of these are considered useless (Gruul, Illidan), some have been overpowering or consistently present/dominant (Undertaker, Knife Juggler), and some see good play rates despite not being OP/UP (Shade of Naxxarams, Frothing Berzerker). Generally I like these kinds of cards - they come at the cost of immediate value but necessitate a response from your opponent. Even a lot of hunters will attack an unbuffed Questing Adventurer instead of face, despite it being a bad card. These kinds of cards being prevalent at low mana values can slow down the game even if they don't provide early defensive options directly.

There's a lot of ways to look at these kinds of cards (imagine them silenced to measure worst case vs reward, see what comparable things they trade with, look for depth of combo potential, etc) but I'll mostly be interested in the earlygame ones like Lowly Squire to see how they affect midrange decks, which look like they'll be enabled big time in this set so far.

Otherwise, Maiden of the Lake is great. Compare it with Gnomish Inventor. Similar type of body that trades deceptively well vs cheap minions means that it's stat inefficiency isn't a big deal. Won't be as good as the card draw in a lot of the delicate combo decks that play Gnomish Inventor, but certainly enables value for control decks. I'd play this for sure in some control warrior decks - puts a tighter clock on aggro decks or forces them to remove it (which is awkward) so it fills a similar role to the one Yeti used to in old old old control warrior, but with better pressure. I could see it working in board control priest decks but it probably won't be enough to enable them.

Kodo rider is more interesting than most people think, I think. One of the reasons Illidan was never very good with old old old token druid was because the flames were too easy to remove at 1 hp, not just because his cost was too high for comboes and he was easy to remove (which were also problems). Kodo rider provides durable tokens, which is a property we don't really have yet in hearthstone (excluding maybe nerubian egg if you count it), and is decent value with a single activation. Biggest problem imo is that 3 attack is mediocre in a meta where things have adapted to patron warrior. Ironically, this card might be ok in some kind of patron warrior variation. Hard to play a 3/5 for 6 when I can get a 3/5 for 3 in the dragon tech goblin whatever and even that doesn't see a lot of play. I'll probably craft this card right away and play around with it a lot.