Guard Duty
This spell reminds us of Paladin’s Immortalized in Stone, but upon reviewing the random taunt pool, we can confidently say that it is significantly better. The important thing to understand is that the 6-mana pool for taunts is nuts. There are 12 taunts and the worst one (Hamm) summons a 5/5. Four of them can heal us and others have high value deathrattles. The 4 and 2 mana pools are worse, but the value of this card at 7 mana seems significantly better than Immortalized in Stone. Having said that, being better than the Paladin spell does not make it constructed-worthy.
Summoning so many stats in play can offer pressure in slow matchups and provides strong stabilization in faster ones. The main question is then which Warrior deck plays this card? A spell heavy shell with a focus on minion tutoring may opt for it. A Hydration Station Control Warrior may decide it is better than Marin as an Elise activator.
This spell represents a strong push in terms of power for cost. It does not have remarkable synergy with anything, which penalizes it for constructed play. However, it can act as a secondary, standalone win condition in faster matchups, while remaining useful in slow matchups. We like this one.
Score: 3
Barricade Basher
If we ever need to rely on this minion to chain clear boards as Control Warrior, we are in trouble. Basher is unplayable on curve, unless we specifically have Safety Goggles, with terrible baseline stats and only useful if we chain it with armor gain. Even then, we should have better ways to clear the board than a miracle Basher play.
It could be argued that Basher is good enough as a fake 5-drop with a hero power. Would a 5 mana 6/5 with rush be good enough though? We would not take a second look at that card and Basher is not significantly better.
If this minion could go face, it might have been very powerful. As it is, it represents dust.
Score: 1
The Great Dracorex
This dragon makes Control Warrior reconsider Chemical Spill and Succumb to Madness. Dracorex is a 5 damage AOE in minion form that can be cheated out and resurrected to repeatedly clear enemy boards. This is a highly defensive late game dragon, which changes the way we look at a Control Warrior dragon package, in contrast to the failed value approach that was led by Ysondre.
It is possible that a Warrior deck that looks to add more survivability to its toolkit will consider running Dracorex alongside Succumb to Madness, especially one that relies on the quest to win late game battles.
Dracorex is not even terrible to play on turn 8, as it wipes the board and threatens to do so again, putting the opponent in the position of either killing it or remaining unable to redevelop. We still have some doubts on whether this legendary is necessary for Control Warrior to run in the immediate term, but it offers a legitimate win condition in faster matchups that could represent an alternative, or a complementary piece, to Tortolla. Very nice to tutor with All You Can Eat thanks to its double tribal tag too.
Score: 3
Final Thoughts: Warrior is getting one of the better sets here. Control Warrior will mostly be experimenting with Dracorex. Guard Duty may surprise players due to the number of stats it can develop.
Behemoth mask better than advertised when you consider elise location. Even the single raptor off the 1 drop becomes a massive life gain and removes 2 minions with the 8/10 rush body.
Wow, think I’m just crafting cards here. Have never not bought a miniset but guess this is a first. It’s like they aren’t even trying…
This is going to be #epic!