The Comprehensive Core Set Preview

 

Murloc Tinyfin

We love the fact this card was added to the core set just because it’s the cutest thing, but we don’t believe in murloc decks and this isn’t even close to being an auto-include in them anyway.

Score: 1

Abusive Sergeant

This card hasn’t found a home since getting nerfed, and we don’t see that changing. It will be looking on with envy, as his buddy Leper Gnome finds his own place in Wild.

Score: 1

Arcane Anomaly

Never saw much play, don’t see that changing. There are better 1-drops.

Score: 1

Argent Squire

The taunt keyword is the difference between a meta-defining 1-drop and an unplayable one.

Score: 1

Cogmaster

This is an interesting, but weird card to put in the core set. Unless we get a Mechwarper-level enabler for aggressive Mech decks, we just don’t see it.

Score: 1

Elven Archer

One shot, one score.

Score: 1

Stonetusk Boar’s replacement

A 1 mana 2/1 rush is quite solid as an early game removal, and the beast tag makes us think that Hunter could possibly use it since it doesn’t normally possess great defensive tools.

Score: 2

Classes: Hunter

Voodoo Doctor

No one’s calling the doctor.

Score: 1

Worgen Infiltrator

Will be played if Greyheart Sage is played.

Score: 2

Classes: Rogue

Annoy-o-Tron

A solid early-game taunt that players are overestimating through distant memories. Mechwarper isn’t around to cheat it out, and Giggling Inventor isn’t around to summon two of them on the same turn. It’s okay, but fringe.

Score: 2

Classes: Board-centric decks.

Bluegill Warrior’s replacement

This is a solid attack value for a 2-mana rush minion. A class that’s lacking early game removal could possibly use it as an alternative.

Score: 2

Classes: Shaman

Bloodsail Raider

Usually pops up when an aggressive Warrior deck becomes meta. Solid threat for that archetype.

Score: 2

Classes: Warrior

Dire Wolf Alpha

This card used to be good. Not anymore.

Score: 1

Explosive Sheep

Very good addition to the core set that we think has a great chance of seeing play. Deathrattle decks looking for a defensive board clear should be highly interested. The presence of Animated Broomstick also makes it relatively easier to activate. Classes with self-damage mechanics possess natural synergy.

Score: 3

Classes: Hunter, Mage, Warlock, Warrior

Kobold Geomancer

No take candle.

Score: 1

Loot Hoarder

Generically useful cycle card that just lost its main competition with Novice Engineer rotating to Wild. If you’re desperate enough for the draw, you will consider it.

Score: 2

Classes: Any of them.

Mad Bomber

Just sticking around to grief arena players.

Score: 1

Murloc Tidehunter

Usually not even good enough to run in murloc decks.

Score: 1

River Crocolisk

With Bloodfen Raptor gone, only Crocolisk is left to hold down the fort. We’re not sure what that fort is, but there is some fort.

Score: 1

Sunreaver Spy

This card hasn’t even been very good in secret decks in the past and saw some fringe play in Hunter and Paladin. We think we can do better.

Score: 1

Toxicologist

This is primarily a Rogue card, as it has good synergy with its weapon buffs as well as its hero power. If you’re running Deadly Poison, you probably want to run this too.

Score: 2

Classes: Rogue

Youthful Brewmaster

Something extremely weird needs to happen for this card to see play. It’s happened before with Quest Rogue, but we’ll take a guess that it won’t happen this year.

Score: 1

Earthen Ring Farseer

This was the strongest source of healing in the neutral set back in 2014.

Score: 1

Flesheating Ghoul

The attack buff makes it slightly less embarrassing, but still not a card we want to run.

Score: 1

Ice Rager

How could they take away our Magma Rager???

Score: 1

Ironbeak Owl

There seems to be an effort to reduce the amount of silence effects in the game, which makes Ironbeak Owl more likely to see play if a class is desperate for this effect but doesn’t have a good alternative. Still, this should be an uncommon card.

Score: 2

Classes: Fringe tech

Jungle Panther

Just here to remind Hunter players that Huffer is gone.

Score: 1

Raid Leader

This card did get a meaningful buff, but token decks should still have better things to do. The only time this card ever saw play was when Baku limited us to half the cards available.

Score: 1

Spider Tank

Without Mechwarper, this is just filler.

Score: 1

Stoneskin Basilisk

Move away, Emperor Cobra, there’s a new poisonous 3-mana beast in town.

Score: 1

Chillwind Yeti

Good stats for the cost.

Score: 1

Dark Iron Dwarf

Zoo in 2014 things.

Score: 1

Grim Necromancer

The upgrade on Dragonling Mechanic that the evergreen set desperately needed.

Score: 1

Sen’jin Shieldmasta

TAZDINGO!

Score: 1

Gurubashi Berserker

The health buff makes it quite spooky in Arena. That’s about it.

Score: 1

Stranglethorn Tiger

Clearly overpowered with Menagerie Warden.

Score: 1

Stormwatcher

This card hilariously saw play once because of Corpsetaker. The strange things Keleseth did to Rogue.

Score: 1

Stormwind Champion

A starter deck champion. War Golem in shambles.

Score: 1

Sleepy Dragon

We’ve seen the dragon tribe pushed hard enough last year to know it’s probably taking a break and this is just filler.

Score: 1

Murloc Tidecaller

One of the first cards you add to a murloc deck, so if one of them ever ends being viable, Tidecaller will see play (unlike Tinyfin or Tidehunter, which are even more situational).

Score: 2

Classes: Murloc decks

Young Priestess

More Zoo in 2014.

Score: 1

Acidic Swamp Ooze

This card sees play even when it shouldn’t. It’s too much of a low hanging fruit answer to weapons, and there’s always one powerful weapon in the meta that attracts the attention of Oozes. Safe bet it sees play.

Score: 3

Crazed Alchemist

Very rarely does this card ever see play, and one of those rare utilizations was to answer Doomsayers.

Score: 1

Fogsail Freebooter

This might be a solid card in aggressive Rogue decks due to the near 100% uptime of a weapon being equipped.

Score: 2

Classes: Rogue

Nerubian Egg

This might be one of the most impactful neutral additions to the core set, and we feel like it might be staying for a year just to temporarily promote deathrattle decks. Nerubian Egg was unbelievably strong back in the day. Any buffs or self-sacking mechanics instantly made it a big nuisance in the early game. The best egg ever printed.

Score: 4

Classes: Nearly all of them, in theory.

Coldlight Seer

This card is important for murloc decks, since it helps snowball the board and make it more difficult to clear. Much like Tidecaller, one of the first cards you add to a murloc deck, especially now that Warleader is gone.

Score: 2

Classes: Murloc decks

Humongous Razorleaf

Razorleaf is stronger than Watcher when it comes to potential silence archetypes, but this is such a massive reach to assume they can exist. It only happened once before (Un’Goro) and that was when Priest had multiple silence effects as well as a way to actually kill opponents through Divine Spirit and Inner Fire.

Score: 1

Injured Blademaster

Priest in 2014. There’s no Cleric/Circle anymore and there are better 3-drops to Rally.

Score: 1

Lone Champion

He doesn’t need anyone, especially constructed decks.

Score: 1

Defender of Argus

The buff this card has received is quite meaningful and could push DoA to become a prevalent card in aggressive decks looking to leverage a board lead. More in line with a 4-mana Fungalmancer in terms of stats for the cost, possibly even stronger.

Score: 3

Classes: Aggressive decks

SI:7 Infiltrator

Not even a good tech card for secret decks.

Score: 1

Violet Teacher

The original 4-mana Gibberling.

Score: 1

Gadgetzan Auctioneer

Sometimes, Auctioneer still sneaks into a fringe, spell-heavy deck that looks to rapidly cycle into a win condition. Those decks are usually bad, but the potential is still there.

Score: 2

Classes: Miracle decks

Arcane Devourer

If Miracle decks were really, dumb.

Score: 1

Mini-Mage

Just to make sure Primordial Studies isn’t too good.

Score: 1

Southsea Captain

One of the strongest foundations for an aggressive pirate deck. When they show up, Captain shows up too.

Score: 2

Classes: Pirate decks.

Big Game Hunter

The mana cost reduction puts it in line with the changes to other forms of single target removal in class sets. Still not very playable, as removal is just too good these days to waste slots on this one even if targets for it exist.

Score: 1

Faceless Manipulator

Faceless Manipulator can have its moments, though they have been rare in Hearthstone’s history, especially with Mountain/Molten Giant gone as well as Leeroy Jenkins. Card’s just too slow these days.

Score: 1

Barrens Stablehand

The Dinotamer Brann of the Core set.

Score: 1

Clockwork Giant

A strange inclusion to the Core set, Clockwork Giant might have been the worst giant ever printed. Perhaps, that’s why it’s here.

Score: 1

Bloodmage Thalnos

One of the only cycle options left in the neutral set. Solid for spell-heavy decks.

Score: 2

Classes: Flexible.

Brightwing

One of the best 3-drops in the game. Zephrys wouldn’t lie to you.

Score: 1

King Mukla

Mukla usually shows up when an aggressive deck wants to beat up on ramping Druids. Other than that fringe scenario, it’s almost never good enough.

Score: 1

Baron Rivendare

This card wasn’t even played when deathrattle was far stronger as a mechanic. Even as a 3/6 non-legendary, it didn’t make a big impact in Hunter.

Score: 1

Overlord Runthak

Handbuffing is a slow mechanic, and this card is even slower than the average handbuff card.

Score: 1

Taelan Fordring

This is a very intriguing addition to the core set. The ability to tutor your most expensive minion can certainly be abused, as they are very often some of the most important pieces in a deck’s win condition. Even though the body is mediocre, it’s suitable for stalling. Hard to predict where it goes, but we can see it utilized by different kinds of decks in the future. You can think of it as a cross between Loot Hoarder and Lorekeeper Polkelt.

Score: 3

Classes: Potentially all of them.

Cairne Bloodhoof

Cairne received a nice update that makes it slightly more playable, but much like Savannah Highmane, times have changed, and slow piles of stats don’t get the job done anymore.

Score: 1

High Inquisitor Whitemane

Speaking of a Highmane, Sally has also received a buff to make her slightly less clunky. But the card is still highly situational and only advantageous when your board is already well established.

Score: 1

Baron Geddon

Here we have a situation where an outdated card gets buffed and becomes a more legitimate option for control decks to target board-centric token decks. The massive 7-health turns Geddon into a far bigger threat that can lock the opponent out of the game. We think this one could burn quite a few trees over the next year.

Score: 2

Classes: Druid, Control decks

Nozdormu the Eternal

One of the most inspired designs we’ve seen from Team 5, Nozdormu allows players to queue up Blitz mode Hearthstone if they both want it for the memes. Not a competitive card, and yet a card that could spark unique and amateur competitive tournaments.

Score: 1

Alexstrasza the Life-Binder

The flexibility of Alex is what sells her as a potentially fringe card for late-game strategies to utilize. It’s never a great removal card, a great healing card or a great burn card. But it can do all these things when needed.

Score: 2

Classes: Control decks

Malygos the Spellweaver

Much like its predecessor, Malygos has great synergy with one class in particular: Druid. The class’s ability to hard ramp and proceed to reload into a full hand makes for a juicy proposition. Druid’s common usage of cheap spells it can easily dump for no mana for an immediate impact on the board is also very enticing. We like this combo very much.

Score: 2

Classes: Druid

Onyxia the Broodmother

Onyxia has been updated to become a cracked version of Shu’ma. Her repetitive ability means she’s completely unignorable and very threatening, especially when paired with board buffs. Seems like a reasonable fit for slower token decks you most often find in Druid.

Score: 2

Classes: Slower token decks

Ysera the Dreamer

The strongest value generator in the core set, Ysera provides late-game strategies with some powerful cards it can use quite effectively the very next turn. It’s still quite a slow card and generation in expansions is likely to outclass it, but we can see some grindy control decks running it at their top end, and much like the other aspects, it’s most likely to find a home in Druid due to their synergy with ramp.

Score: 2

Classes: Druid, Control decks

Deathwing the Destroyer

Deathwing is ironically the weakest of the dragon aspects in Hearthstone following their update. It’s hard to find a role for it, as control decks will always have better forms of removal that don’t require them to sacrifice card advantage in the process, and as a 10-mana card, it’s too slow for beatdown strategies to be effective.

Score: 1

 

 

Core Set Summary of Ranks