The Comprehensive Echoes of the Infinite Preview

Finality

Tutoring a minion for 3 mana is a horrible deal, considering that similar 2-mana effects are proven to be weak without an additional upside. Death Knight does have some impactful Undead minions it may want to tutor, but we do not think they justify spending 3 mana on this spell.

For Finality to see play, Death Knight’s Imbue mechanic needs to be powerful enough to justify running a full package of Imbue effects.

We do not see this here. While Death Knight’s big upside is that its Imbue hero power is free, an attack buff is not worth building around unless we play a dedicated Handbuff Death Knight that runs minions like Nerubian Swarmguard, Gnome Muncher and Darkthorn Quilter. Furthermore, this kind of deck would suffer from a 3-mana ‘do nothing’ play in the early game.

We might be better off running Bitterbloom Knight, which tells us this card is too weak and would probably be fine at 2 mana, considering it is a class card.

Score: 1

Jagged Edge of Time

A 3-mana 3/2 weapon usually sees play if its bonus effect is strong enough. An Imbue trigger seems reasonable and makes this weapon compare well with other Imbue cards. This weapon should see play if either Death Knight or Rogue consider their Imbue effect valuable enough.

For Death Knight, the free hero power can be considered a low-hanging fruit that does not require us to commit many deck slots to support, but it will not be particularly powerful. For us to leverage the hero power, we likely need a dedicated Handbuff deck.

For Rogue, this hero power is great. Rogue’s dagger is not something that late-game-oriented Rogue strategies want to click. This is a 1-mana hero power, which makes it more flexible and easier to weave in. It provides the class with significant late-game value against control decks and mana-cheating potential. The quality of the minions should not be too good, but the Rewind option does slightly improve the average outcome. This is the hero power that Imbue Priest wishes it had.

We suspect that an archetype such as Elise Rogue will incorporate an Imbue package into its build. Jagged Edge of Time is a serviceable weapon that helps us fight for early game board control so that we can reach the value-centric late game that the Imbue package offers.

We suspect that Imbue Rogue will be extremely popular too.

Score: 3

Wicked Blightspawn

A sticky minion that can buff our weapon by 4 attack once its deathrattles resolve. That is a lot of damage being added if we have a weapon equipped, on top of a threat that resembles Piloted Shredder. The issue is that we need to have an equipped weapon before we play Blightspawn and that our opponent will likely ignore it to prevent us from swinging our weapon. Blightspawn has no immediate impact on the board either, so it is a slow card on paper.

It is hard to see this card being useful for Death Knight. The synergy with Foamrender exists but Blightspawn is completely useless until we find Foamrender. We could run a 3-mana weapon, but we do not have a weapon tutor, and we struggle to see a “Weapon Death Knight” package becoming competitive when we have no weapon durability booster.

For Rogue, this is easier to use, as we can simply dagger up before playing Blightspawn. This still requires us to run a dedicated Weapon Rogue deck, but Swarthy Swordshiner and Sharp Shipment are available to increase our weapon’s durability. It is also likely that Rogue receives further weapon synergy in the future, as Swordshiner/Shipment are about to rotate out of Standard.

Score: 2

Remnant of Rage

This looks like a powerful draw engine when properly leveraged. Remnant of Rage counts minions dying on both sides of the board, so while it theoretically fits a board-flooding deck, where it can more consistently be discounted via trades, it can also be discounted by board clears.

However, we do not think this minion is that easy to use, especially if we cannot discount it to 0 or 1 mana. We need to remember that killing minions often costs mana on our turn too, so it is unlikely that we can cheat out Remnant at the early stages of the game, where it would be most powerful.

For an aggressive deck, we need to have a sizeable board that our opponent could not clear, then use those minions for trades. Alternatively, we need a strong setup for it, like a Dangerous Cliffside or an Elise location with Nesting Grounds, which can only happen later in the game. For a defensive deck, we need to clear a huge board to fully discount Remnant. It is extremely unlikely that we can Corpse Explosion/Remnant of Rage on curve, for example.

In the immediate term, this minion is more likely to be successful in Blood-Ctrl DK, which does not have to cheat out Remnant early and can utilize Corpse Explosion to activate it in the late game with relative ease. The archetype does not have great card draw currently, so we suspect it will try to make Remnant work.

Score: 3

Bygone Echoes

Outcast cards that cost 4 or more mana are usually competitively dead. The deck that is required to support expensive Outcast cards needs to be extremely cheap and the Outcast card itself needs to be completely central to the deck’s game plan (Skull of Gul’dan, Glide).

We do not see it here. This spell is just a pile of stats. While Bygone Echoes summoning two random 4-drops without the Outcast ability does not sound terrible for 5 mana, it is not impactful enough for a constructed deck. Without an active Outcast, this spell is weaker than Spot the Difference. If its baseline effect is not good enough, it is not good enough.

Score: 1

Chronikar

A 5-mana 3/5 that provides a total of 9 attack in hero buffs over 3 turns. The initial Chronikar play is weak, but the subsequent buffs are worth a significant amount of damage in total. Another thing to consider is that Chronikar provides Demon Hunter with hero attack buffs that do not have an additional mana cost, which can help the class activate hero attack synergies more easily, such as Dangerous Cliffside and Illidari Inquisitor.

Our main issue with the legendary is that we do not see a great home for it. In a slower deck, the damage and hero attack synergy is less likely to be important. On the other hand, in an aggressive deck, this card is very slow and provides damage in turns where the game might have already been decided.

Our suspicion is that Chronikar can only see play as a curve topper for Aggro DH, where it is still questionable, and nothing else.

Score: 1

Press the Advantage

An insane form of Chaos Strike. Press the Advantage offers a split damage effect, which is significantly stronger, as it can deal with two 1-health minions cleanly as well as a 2-health minion. One damage is in the form of direct damage, which makes it better too.

Then on top of drawing a card, it gives us 1 armor. That armor is not too significant but represents another small upside to a spell that is already looking serviceable.

This card does a bit of everything, so it is extremely versatile and can fit into a variety of decks in both Druid and Demon Hunter. We particularly value it in Druid, as the class often needs serviceable spells that can support a minion-light shell and Press the Advantage can offer early game survivability without sacrificing card advantage.

Likely an automatic inclusion going forward in any late-game-oriented Druid deck and should be extremely popular in Demon Hunter too.

Score: 4

Enduring Roach

This looks like an Imbue Druid card. A 3-mana 3/4 is not a playable minion at its baseline, but the refresh effect means we can summon a Plant Golem for free while Roach is on the board, helping us accelerate our board development.

Dreambound Disciple is a powerful minion in Imbue Druid, so while Enduring Roach should be considerably weaker in the archetype, it can make the cut. Roach also has synergy with Disciple, as it is particularly powerful when our hero power is free from Disciple’s battlecry or deathrattle.

Demon Hunter’s 1-mana hero power means that Roach has a cheaper baseline cost, as the refresh effect always gains us 1 mana, but we do not see where Roach could see play. It is too slow for an aggressive deck and not impactful in a defensive deck. It is a beast, so it is technically a new activator for Silithid Queen’s Kindred, but we are not interested.

Score: 2

Splintered Reality

When is this spell acceptable for its cost? We think Splintered Reality becomes decent when it summons two 5/5’s. So, we need three Treants to die before turn 4 for Splintered Reality to represent a strong threat on curve. Obviously, this card scales further into the late game, which is an additional upside. In a Treant Druid deck, this spell looks fine.

The problem is that Druid does not have enough Treant cards in Standard. Witchwood Apple is the only early game Treant card available to the class that is remotely playable. Overgrown Beanstalk is a draw engine for a Treant Druid rather than an enabler for this spell. Grove Shaper and ‘TREEEES!!!” are slow.

Our guess is that this spell might make sense when the next expansion arrives. Otherwise, it is pointless.

Score: 1

Acceleration Aura

This spell’s wording might be a bit misleading, as Acceleration Aura does not provide us with a mana crystal for three turns, which is its duration. The turn we play the Aura is included in its duration, so we do not gain a mana crystal because the start of our turn has already resolved.

If we play Acceleration Aura on turn 2, we will get an extra mana crystal at the start of turn 3 and turn 4. We are paying 2 mana now for 2 mana later, which is a similar effect to Trail Mix.

Acceleration Aura is a powerful form of pseudo-ramping, as it can help us reach a particular power spike earlier. It is less explosive but arguably more consistent than Trail Mix. A good example is its incredible synergy with Elise, allowing us to play Elise on turn 3 and then play the location on turn 4, which sounds game winning in many matchups.

This Aura is also extremely useful later in the game. Druid will always find this kind of ramp card useful, because it is a class that is built to turn the corner by cheating out its win conditions. But Paladin’s access to it can be class warping. Paladin is currently extremely reliant on Gelbin and Ursol power spikes, so the option to cheat them out earlier by setting up an Acceleration Aura on turn 5 or 6 is a new weapon in its toolkit.

We just cannot see this spell being skipped over by either class. It should inevitably become a staple for both.

Score: 4

Twilight Timereaver

Timereaver is a pseudo-removal card that either reduces the pressure of an opponent’s board or helps us clean it up. The issue is that it is expensive, so it is difficult to combine with other effects to turn it into a full board wipe. Equality’s main upside is that it is cheap, so it can be played alongside another spell with relative ease. Timereaver’s mana cost restricts it from enabling a board wipe before the late stages of the game.

The attack debuff is not great either, because many minions in constructed have bonus effects that are not negatively impacted by the debuff and require complete removal. Timereaver only answers stat piles, and it does not even do that particularly well.

While the availability of this card in Druid does slightly pique our curiosity, it is simply too weak to be a legitimate survivability option for the class. For Paladin, Equality is just better.

Score: 1