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
You are being too harsh imo, given that we are evaluating a basic set here. These cards are not meant to be too powerful.
You should grade them keeping this in mind.
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ ZACHO TAKE MY ENERGY
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ ZACHO TAKE MY ENERGY
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ ZACHO TAKE MY ENERGY
I think you may be underestimating Nordrassil Druid, it’s not as strong as Anubisath Defender, but it can be played as a 1 mana 3/5 which has a potential synergy with cards like Arbor Up, aoe buffs or any buff really, also unlike Anubisath you don’t have to play expensive cards, you can just play her with any card that costs mana, of course getting significantly worse when you go below 3 mana.
Truthfully I think warrior is easily 10th and hunter should be 9th, as well as a possibility of swapping the ranks of warlock and shaman. Otherwise, this was very insightful. thank you.
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ ZACHO TAKE MY ENERGY
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ ZACHO TAKE MY ENERGY
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ ZACHO TAKE MY ENERGY