The Comprehensive Deepholm Preview

Glowstone Gyreworm

Gyreworm resembles Sunspot Dragon. A lifesteal minion that can deal damage on Quickdraw, which provides an immediate heal on top of removal, but Gyreworm has a much stronger bonus that helps alleviate its Quickdraw condition. Rather than Tradeable, you can forge Gyreworm to turn the Quickdraw effect into a Battlecry.

This makes Gyreworm far more reliable, as it’s still useful when drawn at the “wrong” timing. Quickdraw is a weak keyword, so if we can erase it when we want to, we’re quite content.

But what’s also important is that Priest is one of the classes most desperate to run Ignis in its late game strategies. The addition of a good forge card to its pool of options is very impactful, especially for Reno Priest. Currently, it’s only happy to run Creation Protocol and Watcher of the Sun. Gyreworm seems like a better card than Watcher if you’re trying to stabilize, since it both heals and eliminates a threat.

This is a well-designed callback card for the year, incorporating both Forge and Quickdraw into its textbox elegantly.

Score: 3

Pendant of Earth

A minion tutor that gains armor equal to the minion’s cost. Since this is a discover effect, you can very easily funnel your choice to the most expensive minion if you’re interested in maximizing armor gain. The discover effect allows you to run a deck with a diverse set of costs. Even if you’re running a few cheap minions, you’re still likely to find something expensive enough for Pendant to look stronger than an old Shield Block. This makes the card good enough to go into Reno/Topior Druid, or Reno/Control Priest. The Nature tag is quite relevant for Topior Druid.

We can also lean harder into Pendant and make it gain more armor on average (Naga Giant is a good example). In a deck with a small package of minions, Pendant’s ceiling could be very high, but the fact it’s not overly restrictive, makes it very likely to see serious competitive play across multiple archetypes.

Score: 3

Shattered Reflections

This spell does a lot for its cost. It’s Faceless Manipulator (can copy enemy minions too) that adds a copy of the minion to your hand, while shuffling another to your deck. Sathrovarr was a 9-mana 5-5 neutral legendary that had the same effect but was restricted to friendly minions. It saw competitive play. Shattered Reflections is infinitely better.

The potential utilization in Druid is scary. This is a much more flexible enabler of Eonar compared to Cover Artist, while carrying incredible synergy with Fye as well. Fye/Reflections sounds like an extremely effective stabilizing combo that should end a lot of matchups. It allows you to summon three copies of Fye to the board in one turn. The fact it’s so good with two highly impactful Druid legendary minions makes it less likely to be a ‘dead’ draw. Any Ramp Druid deck will seriously consider it.

In Priest, it might be less explosive for the time being, but any kind of “Giant” introduced to the format in the future could quickly change things. Hilariously, it might not be a bad card to run in Automaton Priest.

We think this could be a serious build around card in both classes in the present and the future.

Score: 4

Crystal Cluster

This is one of our favorite designs of the set, with new space opened for ramp cards that do something else if you’ve hit your maximum mana. An early Crystal Cluster immediately sets you up for an Eonar/Yogg swing, even faster than a Nourish does.

If you’ve already ramped and hit the later stages of the game, Crystal Cluster turns into a massive wall of taunts. That’s 21 health in taunts split across three bodies, which is well worth a 6-mana investment. What’s nice about Cluster is that its effect is almost never wasted. The card is useful at any stage of the game.

While the Embrace of Nature/Nourish package has served Druid well, Crystal Cluster is an independently stronger card. With Topior Druid cutting Nourish and looking better for it, there’s an indication that the class would welcome an alternative. This is quite the alternative. We’re certain that Crystal Cluster will find a home and may become a foundational card for Druid over the next year.

Score: 4

Trogg Gemtosser

Trogg Gemtosser is simple to understand. If you’re at 7 mana, it will deal 7 damage. While the Finale condition makes it a bit more difficult to use, the effect almost seems too good to be true. Even on turn 3, Trogg Gemtosser is a reasonable play that can help you fight for board. The longer the game goes, the better Gemtosser becomes. At 10 mana, Gemtosser turns into a more flexible version of Astalor, since you have a lot of mana available to spend to clear the opponent’s board and direct more of that damage face. It’s effective at responding to enemy threats, but it’s also just a win condition by itself that you can leverage. Audio Amplifier is an interesting card to run in the same deck.

What really sells the card is that at no point in the game are we upset to have a Gemtosser in hand. Most cards carry a static power level, or one that “spikes” at a certain point. Gemtosser scales smoothly every turn, making it consistently useful. A powerhouse of a card that Druid will love, and Warlock will appreciate thanks to Doomkins.

Score: 4

Gloomstone Guardian

This card is reminiscent of a Mountain Giant, but stronger in the early game and easier to use. If you’re a Warlock, instead of hitting multiple life taps in the early game, you just need to forge Guardian once and have it ready to drop on turn 4 with no drawbacks and no ‘hand’ requirement.  It may have less attack, but the taunt is massive on an 8-health minion and should be more important in most matchups. This card is also amazing with Forge of Wills.

The only situation in which Mountain Giant is stronger is if you’ve just topdecked it, but the fact Guardian is not reliant on your hand size makes us think it is a worthy tradeoff.

Both classes will not mind having another useful forge card either. Embrace of Nature’s stock has fallen, which makes Ignis an increasingly awkward fit in Topior/Reno Druid.  Warlock has been missing a good class forge card, so Guardian may fill a need.

Score: 3

Elementium Geode

Kobold Librarian is one of the best Warlock cards of all time. Elementium Geode is a 2 mana Librarian that has a second draw trigger on its deathrattle, emulating Loot Hoarder. It’s obviously not as good as Librarian because of the mana flexibility, but it sure seems close. Drawing 2 cards for 2 mana on top of a body is a very good deal. This card’s self-damage carries synergy with Felstring Harp and the under-supported Imprisoned Horror too.

But regardless of synergy, we think nearly every Warlock deck runs Geode, especially the slower ones, since Warlock isn’t blessed with great card draw options. A class staple going forward.

Score: 4

Chaos Creation

A 6-mana Fireland’s Portal with a very steep drawback in deck destruction, but one that can be funneled into an upside thanks to Barrels of Sludge.  Chaos Creation seems like a great top end damage spell for an aggressive Sludge Warlock deck, one that could be particularly devastating if the opponent doesn’t have a board to soak the Barrel damage with. Just a couple of Barrels at the bottom of your deck can lead to Chaos Creation dealing 14 damage for 6 mana.

Together with Waste Remover, Sludge Warlock should rarely have dead Barrels sitting at the bottom of the deck without a use anymore. This spell is a great consistency and damage boost for the archetype.

It’s probably the most lopsided dual class card in the set, because for Mage, it just doesn’t seem like a good fit at all. You may argue that an aggressive Mage deck will not care about the drawback but doing it for the sake of a 1-mana discount on Fireland’s Portal seems excessive. If you can’t turn the drawback into an advantage, it’s a tough sell.

Score: 3

Soulfreeze

Freezing up to 3 minions for just 1 mana seems like a crazy good stalling effect. Soulfreeze is basically a 1-mana Cone of Cold, which would be unthinkable in the past. The drawback does exist, but it’s unlikely to deter Mage and Warlock from heavily utilizing the spell, since preventing the attack of three enemy minions is going to save you much more than 3 health.

Of course, the card isn’t good if it only hits a single minion, but it’s an absolute lifesaver in most other situations, especially in the late game when a 1-mana board freeze allows you to significantly outpace your opponent by developing threats on the same turn. Warlock can stall into Sargeras or Gigafin. Mage can stall into Inquisitive Creation or a Sif combo. The frost spell school is a nice consistency boost for Rainbow Mage too.

Soulfreeze should be a very popular card in late game strategies.

Score: 4