The Comprehensive Across the Timeways Preview

 

Tachyon Barrage

6 split damage for 2 mana is an extremely good deal. We have seen 6 damage cards find constructed play for 3 mana, so Tachyon Barrage is well above the curve for a 2-mana spell. It doubles up as both a board control tool and a burst finisher.

The drawback involves shuffling two Shreds of Time into our deck. These Shreds will deal 3 damage to our hero when they are drawn, for a total of 6 damage. However, this damage takes time to occur, compared to Barrage’s immediate effect, and may not even resolve by the end of the game considering we are likely playing an aggressive deck that frontloads power and wants to close out games quickly.

In addition, shuffling Shreds of Time allows us to activate powerful minions in the mid-game that rely on casting them from our deck. Another important synergy to consider is Devious Coyote, an extremely impactful neutral minion for aggressive decks that has perfect synergy with Tachyon Barrage.

We expect this spell, as well as the Shreds of Time package, will become an important piece for aggressive Warlock decks going forward.

Score: 3

Twilight Timehopper

A 2 mana 4/4 is an extremely difficult minion to remove on curve that can exert a lot of pressure on the opponent. Unlike other Shreds of Time shufflers, Timehopper is a more proactive, independent play in the early game, making it a more suitable setup card for our Shreds of Time consumers.

Though the package fits aggressive decks best, it does not offer much in terms of early game pressure. It is up to the Warlock to build an early game minion shell that can complement it. Timehopper is the one card from the package that gives the class some support in that aspect, helping it dominate early boards and putting opponents on the back foot.

The more passive opponents become because of Warlock’s pressure, the more likely Warlock will get value from its Shreds of Time cards, and protect its own depleting health total in the process.

Score: 3

Ruinous Velocidrake

The first Shred consumer, Velocidrake copies itself when its battlecry is activated. This makes it a 5 mana 10/10 with rush across two bodies. That is an insane stat line for a 5-drop, with the capability of completely swinging the board while presenting a 10-attack threat to the opponent.

The drawback of dealing 3 damage to ourselves is negated by the likelihood of Velocidrake preventing the opponent from being able to pressure us. The consistency of its activation should be high, as it is a turn 5 play with 6 copies of activators in our deck.

We remember Faceless Corruptor from Descent of Dragons, which was a 5/4 rusher that transformed another friendly minion into a copy of itself. So, it was a doubled 5/4 rusher that required us to have a minion in play and consumed its stats. Velocidrake is not dependent on us having minions in play and produces better stats for the cost.

Faceless Corruptor was a meta-defining rush minion in a powerful expansion that was known for some of the best rush minions in the game’s history. That format was stronger than any format we have seen in the last year.

Four months earlier in Saviors of Uldum, Untapped Potential Quest Druid became competitive largely thanks to Oasis Surger, which turned into a doubled 5/5 rusher, just like Velocidrake, upon completion of the quest. It was a monstrous performer in the archetype because it completely swung back the game when the Druid fell behind.

It is understandable that a class payoff for a mechanic built around a drawback should be stronger, but respect should be given to this card. It is one of the strongest rush minions we have ever seen.

Score: 4

Entropic Continuity

Mark of the Lotus with the Shreds of Time shuffle effect. Some players may scoff at Warlock getting a ‘weaker’ board buff than an older card, but there is something that needs to be clarified about Mark of the Lotus before we can judge this card properly.

Mark of the Lotus was one of the strongest board buffs in the history of the game. A 1 mana spell that buffs our board by +1/+1 is drastically cheap for the effect. Board buffs are usually never this efficient. This spell was so strong that even Ramp Druid decks, such as Jade Druid, were rewarded by playing it. To this day, Mark of the Lotus is the first board buff you add to an Aggressive Druid deck in Wild. Before Arbor Up or anything else.

Warlock receiving Entropic Continuity means it is nearly guaranteed to establish a meta-defining board-flooding deck during this spell’s time in Standard. The math of this card is simply too good for it not to happen. This is a deck-warping win condition that will encourage a Shreds of Time deck to run many cheap minions, such as Zergling, while relying on the package’s mid-game threats to top out the curve.

Score: 4

Fatebreaker

A 4 mana 7/7 with lifesteal when it is activated. Fatebreaker is not just a massive threat we can slap on turn 4 to compound on early game pressure, it is also an extremely powerful minion in aggressive mirrors, as it threatens to heal the Warlock for a significant amount, which makes it difficult for the opponent to win a face race.

One counterplay to the Warlock’s strategy is to pressure their life total and count on the Shreds of Time to wither them down. But an ignored Fatebreaker makes that impossible. This is a priority target to remove for slower decks because of its size, while being a priority target for faster decks because of its lifesteal.

The one weakness Fatebreaker has is removal, as it does not make an immediate impact on the board when compared to Velocidrake.

Score: 3

RAFAAM LADDER!!

Drawing 3 cards for 4 mana is a weak effect, as it is not efficient enough when evaluating constructed-worthy draw engines. It is a 4 mana Arcane Intellect and arguably worse.

For a “Draw 3 cards for X mana” to see play, it either needs to be cheaper (Backfire) or it needs an impactful bonus effect at 4 mana (Dubious Purchase). This spell’s ‘bonus effect’ only speaks to the characteristics of the cards it draws and has no impact on the board state or our hand state (no discounts).

We understand this spell was made for the sake of Rafaam, as it can potentially soft tutor Rafaam minions, but a Rafaam Warlock is expected to be a slow deck that needs to be extremely defensive-minded and may not be able to afford to spend 4 mana passing a turn. Ancient of Yore, with its package consisting of Ultralisk Cavern and Eternal Layover, may prove to be a more suitable draw engine for the defensive shell that will be required to accommodate Rafaam.

In this case, it is hard to play Rafaam Ladder in a deck alongside the Yore engine. We think the class will pass on this card, regardless of Rafaam’s competitive viability.

Score: 1

Bygone Doomspeaker

A disruption card that allows us to Rewind in case we get an undesired effect. Doomspeaker gives us two shots to hit an important win condition from the opponent. Alternatively, it gives us another chance if we are not happy with what we have discarded ourselves.

This can be considered a more consistent disruption tool than Dirty Rat, depending on the nature of the opponent. Dirty Rat can only pull minions, which makes it arguably stronger against spell-heavy decks with minion-based win conditions, but the card is generally terrible in the early game and a huge liability in many matchups.

Doomspeaker can be played at any point of the game without any fear it will backfire on our board state. It can discard any type of card, including weapons, locations and spells, which makes it more broadly effective against a wider variety of decks and less likely to be as niche as Rat.

But unless we are playing an aggressive deck with discard synergy, it is purely a disruption card that does not further our own game plan and might even hurt it, so its usefulness will be dependent on the nature of the format and whether defensive-minded Warlock decks will be able to compete and use this card.

We do believe that Doomspeaker is likely to be utilized whenever slow Warlock decks are viable, as these archetypes tend to be vulnerable to high lethality strategies that can get countered by Doomspeaker. We also think it is likely to be overrated, as every disruption cards tends to be.

Score: 2

Divergence

This spell is strongest when we are splitting an expensive minion with a powerful battlecry or effect. Its mana cost is extremely prohibitive at 5 mana, so the splitting action realistically needs to win us the game. That is a steep requirement for Divergence to be playable.

However, the class does possess the capability of playing a deck with an extremely impactful and small package of minions, led by Agamaggan. This shell was meta-defining at the height of Dorian Warlock, which terrorized the format for a couple of weeks in the first half of Un’Goro.

We believe Divergence can essentially replace Dorian’s role in the archetype, possibly changing the top end slightly to be more accommodating of the spell’s potential. For example, Incindius now becomes a strong consideration for the deck, as the elemental is extremely powerful when split into two smaller bodies, shuffling 30 damage into our deck. Elise can be split to generate two 10 mana locations to cheese with Agamaggan. Fyrakk is another powerful late game minion that can become an oppressive Divergence target.

This spell’s role seems niche, but it might be easier to make work than it initially seems, especially when Fractured Power on 2 sets it up a turn early and we can tutor our big minions with Rotheart Dryad.

Score: 2

Chronogor

A 6 mana 6/7 that draws 2 cards is not good enough for constructed play, but Chronogor has underlying synergies that need to be considered.

The first is that it draws our highest cost cards, so it acts as a tutor for our top end in the same way as Ursine Maul. This effect is powerful as it makes our late game more consistent, which is particularly important if we are playing the beatdown role and need fuel to close out games.

The second is that Chronogor can draw our Shreds of Time for the opponent, as they cost 0 mana. In this case, our opponent will take 6 damage from the Shreds. This does require us to give up on Cursed Catacombs, as we do not want to give our opponent that spell. It is a significant restriction considering how good Catacombs is, but it does turn Chronogor into a far more powerful card.

Just to provide an example of what Chronogor turns into if we build around it properly: 6 mana 6/7 that deals 6 damage to the opponent, draws us Naralex and Fyrakk and draws the opponent two cards.

The main obstacle for this to work is that Warlock may find more success by leveraging Entropic Continuity with a low curve rather than fooling around with a tutored top end. We are interested in this direction in case Warlock’s board flooding capabilities do not turn out to be as powerful as they may seem.

Score: 2

Timethief Rafaam

Rafaam is the largest fabled legendary consisting of 10 Rafaam minions with costs from 1 to 10. It increases our deck size to 40, which means we will have 30 cards of our choice + the 10 Rafaam minions.

The win condition is straightforward. Play every Rafaam minion from 1 to 9 in any order, then play 10 mana Rafaam to win the game. This requires us to spend nearly 40 mana on Rafaam minions before we can activate Timethief Rafaam (Murloc Rafaam gives us a 3 mana discount on one of them and Giant Rafaam gets discounted by other Rafaam minions).

This win condition is incredibly slow. While Rafaam minions are not bad cards, there is little chance we will be able to complete the requirement before we hit a very late point in the game, when most games have already been decided. Rafaam can only work in an extremely defensive deck that looks to prolong the game as much as possible. It will look to beat aggressive decks through survival and use Rafaam to beat other defensive turtles.

Another issue is that Rafaam is extremely vulnerable to disruption. It is enough for us to lose a single Rafaam minion to lose all functionality of the win condition. If we mill a Rafaam minion. If one of them gets discarded, pulled by Rat and so on. All Rafaam minions need to be played, not just summoned!

It is hard for us to see this legendary being competitively viable, considering it is so much slower than some of the slowest win conditions in current Standard, such as Colossus and ‘Wheel of DEATH!!!’. We think Rafaam Warlock will likely be extremely vulnerable to any kind of late game lethality, any clock that is faster than its own.

It is hard to knock this card’s exceptionally fun design. This is the kind of deck that can gain a high play rate even with a low win rate. Players will be desperate to make it work, but we think it will be an extremely difficult challenge to push it to a viable enough win rate. We hope we are wrong.

Score: 1

Final Thoughts

Across the Timeways Set Rank: 1st

Overall Power Ranking: 1st

Life is good when you are a Warlock. The class possesses a couple of elite strategies already, with a late game that is blessed with fallback options. It is getting an extremely promising package of cards to birth a new aggressive archetype, a change of pace from what the class has been doing recently. It is also getting the most fun fabled legendary in the set, despite its questionable competitive prospects.

Starting with the old, Quest Warlock is the most well-rounded deck in the format currently, which makes it hard for us to believe that it can significantly fall off without a transformational expansion, which we do not expect this one to be.

Egg Warlock’s prospects are admittedly less optimistic. Its success will be dependent on the balance between aggression and control. The more successful aggressive decks we will see emerge, the more it may struggle to keep its performance above water. An increase in late game lethality may also prove to be problematic if opponents find a way to kill the Warlock while bypassing the board.

When we look at a Shreds of Time Warlock, we see different directions. A board-flooding build can take advantage of Entropic Continuity to snowball on opponents hard and fast. This electric pace could prove to be too much to handle for any deck that does not have a plethora of AOE. We can also play a Pain Warlock style to activate Party Planner Vona on 6.

Alternatively, we could take advantage of Chronogor as a late game tutor and build the deck with a higher curve and a larger focus on going tall. We suspect the faster iteration will be stronger, but we would not write this iteration off if defensive decks are rampant.

This archetype has a strong chance to be an early frontrunner of the expansion. Its cards are simply mathematically strong. Its primary weakness, which may curb its success, is any kind of pressure on its life total.

When it comes to diversifying its late game, Warlock is getting more options. Divergence is a card that can revive and rework the dead Dorian Warlock archetype. Rafaam will be many players’ favorite card, one that they will be desperate to make work. A Rafaam Warlock deck has an easily telegraphed win condition that makes the experience of playing against it far less frustrating. We will consider it a huge design win if it becomes competitively viable, even if we are not optimistic about it. A large contrast to what we think about Dragon Mage.

We will be shocked if the Warlock class flops this expansion. Too many things need to happen for it not to sit near the top of the format.