The mini-set is just a couple of days away. By the end of this article, we will know all the cards that are coming to shake up the Hearthstone meta. The next report will arrive on June 8th to cover the Audiopocalypse meta, but a podcast will be out earlier (likely Sunday) to provide our initial impressions of the format.
First, let’s go over the cards that have been revealed earlier today.
On Dexerto, we found out that Demon Hunter and Rogue will be joining blades. Demon Hunter will also be performing a rhapsody!
All four forms of Rhapsody look quite powerful on paper. The baseline 3-damage symmetrical AOE is worth about 3 mana for constructed play, while the additional effects certainly seem favorable for the extra 2 mana cost. Resounding Rhapsody allows you to get rid of sticky deathrattle and reborn minions easily. Angsty Rhapsody is worth a lot of card advantage. Emotional Rhapsody helps you race an aggressive deck. Wailing Rhapsody is a big board swing, comparable to Priest’s Harmonic/Dissonant Pop.
The drawback of this card, much like all the rotating cards we’ve seen in this set, is the absence of consistency and reliability. There is no way to know what kind of effect will be active on the turn you want to play it. There is no fixed rotation, so you need to hedge your bets.
Tough Crowd carries significant implications for both Rogue and Demon Hunter. It is only a useful card in outcast form and terrible at its baseline, but when it’s active, it’s a Sap that you can use on your own minions in some situations.
For Rogue, this could be a viable removal tool that works really well with Shadowstep, but its outcast condition means it is not the most reliable card to activate. Miracle Rogue might be the best fit, since it has a lot of cheap cards it can get out of its hand easily, but the deck tends to hoard resources for Sinstone Graveyard. Spending them just to free up Tough Crowd might not be ideal.
For Demon Hunter, it offers the class a way to deal with big threats, something that the class normally struggles with. However, the card is very reactive, so we’re not sure it’s a great fit in the current build of Outcast DH. Furthermore, its addition to the outcast pool means that Wretched Exile and Felerin the Forgotten lose some of their consistency. A generated Tough Crowd could be clutch in some situations, but it could also clog up your hand.
Risa is an expensive initial investment, but pays for itself on additional uses if you can attack with your hero on the same turn. You can keep a 1-mana Risa in your hand and use it every turn to clear an enemy minion, as long as Risa doesn’t die in a trade.
Setting up hero attacks for both Rogue and Demon Hunter in order to bounce back Risa is not too difficult because of their hero powers, but it’s probably best to use Risa in a deck that runs weapons for maximum efficiency.
Feno has revealed the curious cooperation between Druid and Warlock, as well as more hero power synergy for Malfurion.
Popular Pixie is a hybrid 2-mana version of Tour Guide and Blackwald Pixie. You can use it to store a hero power for the next turn, in order to set up Zok for example, or you can use it to cast two hero powers in one turn, which can offer quite a bit of burst damage and sustain to a Druid deck that runs Groovy Cat and Free Spirit.
Druid doesn’t currently care to run Tour Guide, so for Pixie to see play, the flexibility to choose to refresh hero powers has to be worth the deck slot investment. It might encourage Druid to increase its focus on the hero power package.
Blood Treant is basically a 0 mana 2/2 that deals 5 damage to your hero. However, due to the change to the immune mechanic, you cannot avoid this damage by playing Void Virtuoso. It will still cost you 5 health to play Blood Treant even if you’re immune.
This makes Blood Treant less appealing, as it’s a very expensive upgrade to a Wisp. Even if you’re playing an aggressive deck, taking 5 damage can end up backfiring. The card doesn’t have any synergy with an Imp Warlock deck, while an aggressive Druid deck doesn’t currently exist and is unlikely to emerge thanks to this card alone. We don’t like writing off cards that cost no mana, but it’s hard to see the big picture here.
Doomkin is a very unique card, as it doesn’t just ramp you ahead, it also slows down the opponent. This effect can be devastating, especially if you can cheat out Doomkin a bit earlier thanks to other ramp cards or an Innervate. Denying ~5 mana from your opponent throughout the course of a game, or delaying a key mana breakpoint, is no joke.
For such an effect, it’s appropriate that the cost will be high. A 6 mana 3/4 with no immediate effect isn’t something you slap into a deck with no second thoughts.
We do see more synergy in Druid than Warlock here. Ramping into Doomkin means you’re denying more mana from your opponent over time, but whether it’s a good fit for Summer Flowerchild remains to be seen.
Druid’s 2nd duet partner will be Priest, as revealed by Zeddy. Priest is also getting a buff minion for an Overheal deck.
Ambient Lightspawn is a 3/4 that gives another minion a 2/2 buff on curve, which is not bad for 4 mana, but any further heals on top of it will activate additional buffs. This gives the card a lot of snowballing potential.
The awkward part of the card is that Finale and Overheal can clash with each other. If you activate Finale with Lightspawn, you don’t have the mana to heal it on the same turn. This increases the importance of pre-loaded heals, such as Fan Club, Tour Guide and Idol’s Adoration, so you can get multiple buffs from Lightspawn on the same turn. Will this card help make Overheal Priest viable? It’s a step.
Funnel Cake is an exciting effect, particular for Overheal Priest. It can heal up to 3 minions on the board, activating their overheal ability while refreshing up to 3 mana crystals. This means that it’s not just a utility healing spell, but one that can help you cheat mana and accelerate your board lead. It does depend on you having enough minions in play to maximize its effect, but if you’re playing an aggressive deck that floods the board, Funnel Cake can be quite backbreaking for the opponent.
For Druid, this isn’t as good of a fit, since it doesn’t utilize minions with the overheal mechanic, so the mana fresh ability has to be good enough to justify playing it.
Fan Boy is cheap buff minion that can have utility in both Druid and Priest, as a comeback enabler. Giving a minion rush is the less exciting option of the two, since it is much worse than Animated Broomstick. Giving a minion lifesteal opens up a lot of possibilities, as the keyword can scale extremely well with some cards that are not balanced around it, as Apotheosis has proven in the past.
Mostly, Fan Boy is an ideal card to run in a deck that is centered around big threats, since it turns those big threats into comeback tools if they’re not answered.
Finally, we’ve reached the section of our Vicious Syndicate exclusive reveals. These are the last cards of the Audiopocalypse mini-set!
Warlock’s second dual class pairing is with Mage, and Fiddlefire Imp generates you two fire spells, one from each class. As a 3 mana 3/2 that adds two cards to your hand, Fiddlefire Imp doesn’t seem too bad, but we do know that random generation is much worse than discover.
Mage fire spells are mostly burn or AOE effects. Warlock has fire three spells: Arson Accusation, Hellfire and Immolate. We’re not sure these are the types of cards that defensive decks from these classes are interested in generating. The card is slow, so even though it’s an imp, it’s not a good fit for an Imp Warlock deck. Mage’s current discover options are likely superior too, though it could be an option for Rommath decks.
This card is very interesting as its utilization could be drastically different in each class, but we see a lot of promise in both Mage and Warlock here. Reverberations can copy a minion you have on the board and the minions die from any damage. This works the same way as the vulnerable minion you summon with Jandice Barov.
This spell works best with minions that carry valuable static effects. For Warlock, Reverberation could be a great fit in Chad Warlock because of Amorphous Slime, Flesh Behemoth, Enhanced Dreadlord and Dar’Khan Drathir. You can think of it as a cheaper Cover Artist. Cover Artist is already a good enough performer to be a fringe option in the deck, so Reverberation should be a strong consideration.
For Mage, both spell damage synergy and removal utility could be at play here. Copying Aegwynn, or whatever minion inherits Aegwynn’s effect, could offer tons of burst and reach for a Spooky Burn Mage variant. Alternatively, you can target an enemy minion and ping it. You destroy the enemy minion and end up with a vulnerable copy of it on your board.
The best is saved for last! Fanottem is a massive, stabilizing threat that costs an unplayable amount of mana at the start of the game, but becomes playable as you get close to the end of your deck. Considering that Control Warlock builds aren’t super blessed with card draw and even shuffle extra cards to their deck with Symphony of Sins, Fanottem seems like an odd fit at first glance.
However, one card changes that, a card that Warlock has been flirting with already: The Jailer!
By playing The Jailer, you delete your deck, which means Fanottem costs 0 mana and can be instantly played on the same turn, threatening to end the game on the spot. It may lose its taunt ability with immunity, but if the opponent cannot kill the Warlock on the Jailer turn, it becomes impossible to burn them down considering the 15/15 lifesteal body that’s ready to attack. Fanottem is also tutorable with Movement of Pride. Alternatively, you run Jailer in your primary build and put Fanottem inside an ETC in order to make sure Movement of Pride has a more immediate impact.
So Warlock has an interesting late game alternative to the Big Undead plan. Will it take it up? Find out in a couple of days.
We’ll see you there,
The Vicious Syndicate team.