The Comprehensive Echoes of the Infinite Preview

Hand of Infinity

This is a flashy weapon, as it allows us to kill any minion in play when we equip it. The effect is not too important if we are treating it as a board-control tool on curve. On turn 3, pretty much any minion dies to 4 attack. The upside is that the weapon scales well in subsequent turns.

The question is, do we want to pound bigger minions with our own face in the late game? It does not sound like a great idea if it costs us too much health. Unless those high-health minions are not equipped with high attack, we might avoid making those trades. At a pinch, this can be an emergency tool to take out something we cannot afford to leave up.

Where this weapon truly becomes interesting is a potential finishing combo. If we play Hand of Infinity and then Bloodsail Raider, Raider will become an infinite attack minion. Sacking it with Dissolving Ooze will then provide us with an infinite attack buff, which kills the opponent at any point one of our minions is not removed from the board.

This is a 3-card, 9-mana combo, with two cards that are “dead” draws, so it might be best used in an Egg of Khelos Paladin deck. The deck can afford to run two copies of Dissolving Ooze, and an Egg board makes it impossible for the opponent to avoid being killed by the buff.

If this weapon establishes itself as an early board-control tool that turns into a late-game combo piece, it will be competitive.

Score: 3

Synchronized Spark

While Spark goes face, a 4-mana spell that deals 3 damage is an unacceptable deal. For this effect to be remotely competitive, we need to use Spark to kill an enemy minion and land the buff on one of our minions.

This presents a problem. It is an inefficient removal spell that requires us to have a minion in play to be useful. Even then, a 3/3 buff for 2 mana is only slightly above the curve for the cost. Spending 4 mana on these combined effects is hardly impressive, especially when they are conditional on an enemy minion dying.

The only chance this spell sees play is in an aggressive deck that floods the board. In this case, Spark can help us deal with an enemy minion while increasing the pressure on the opponent. However, even in an Aggro Hunter/Paladin deck, we do not think Spark will be good enough, as it is too expensive and conditional.

Score: 1

Brutish Endmaw

A Dark Gift is roughly worth 2 mana, so while Brutish Endmaw is not impressive as a 3-mana 3/3, the net cost of the card is low once we drop our generated 1-drop. It can also be considered a reasonable turn 4 play.

We do not like this minion in Paladin, as Aggro Paladin needs turn 3 plays that set up Crusader Aura, which Endmaw does not do well. It makes us fall behind on initiative and has no synergy with late-game-oriented Paladin decks either.

We like it a bit more in Hunter, as it has synergy in Discover Hunter, Quest Hunter, as well as with Niri. It only belongs in a slower Hunter deck though, as a 3-mana 3/3 is too punishing to play in an aggressive deck and playing it on turn 4 is too slow. Likely a fringe card for the class that may end up in Quest Hunter post-rotation.

Score: 2

Triennium Rex

This minion does not seem to serve any particular purpose. A 5-mana 5/5 is terrible. Generating a random deathrattle minion seems like a weak effect, even if that minion gets a 2-mana discount. The pool is not of a high quality and possesses high variance. The Kindred condition is not as easy to hit as it may seem, as it requires us to run a sizeable Beast package.

While the tribe is often competitive in Hunter, we are not convinced it is worth running a curve of Beasts just to trigger this effect twice. We do not care about the value in Quest Hunter, as we would rather spend less mana on a 5-attack minion. This beast is simply too slow and random to properly leverage.

Score: 1

Chronoclaws

A 4-mana 4/3 weapon represents a lot of damage, but discarding three cards represents a massive drawback too. Equipping and swinging with Chronoclaws means we are completely giving up card advantage to close out the game, especially when we discard our highest value cards first.

There are two ways to work around this drawback. In Warlock, discard synergy could turn the drawback into an upside, but the class currently does not have any powerful discard targets in Standard. In Hunter, we can play an extremely aggressive Face Hunter deck that empties its hand every turn and runs Arrow Retriever. Face Hunter does exist in current Standard at a low play rate, but it may have to alter its build to fit this weapon.

Generally, Chronoclaws fits in well with the support Hunter has received this expansion. A Face Hunter with a 12-damage weapon does not sound bad, but the all-in playstyle may not be appealing to many players.

Score: 2

Battle at the End Time

This quest looks extremely difficult to meet the requirements of. The first part might be easy, as we just need to fill our hand, but emptying it is another story entirely. This requires us to run an extremely cheap deck, as any expensive card drawn will cripple our ability to complete the quest at a reasonable timeframe.

In Hunter, this is nearly impossible to do. A Discover Hunter can fill its hand easily but cannot dump it. A faster Hunter deck simply cannot accomplish this before the game has already been decided for it.

In Warlock, we might be able to dump our hand if we build a shell that resembles Un’Goro Quest Warlock, with cheap cards like Glacial Shard and Wisp. The question is whether the win condition generated by this quest can close out games with any reliability. Remember that any expensive win condition we add to the deck can brick our quest completion capabilities the moment it is drawn.

We believe the answer is no. Tick and Tock have no immediate impact on the board, and while they fill our hand back, they draw us the cheap, low-value cards that we filled our deck with. Tick and Tock’s deathrattle is our real win condition, but while it does sound intimidating in slower matchups to empty our opponent’s hand, it does not help us stabilize in faster matchups, as the dragons can be ignored.

Un’Goro Quest Warlock’s quest reward was relevant in any matchup. After it was buffed, the quest could be completed extremely quickly. This quest should take a significantly longer time to complete and has a weaker reward that has more counterplay. We will be surprised if it is competitive.

Score: 1

Acolyte of Infinity

A 3-mana 5/5 is fat. The drawback temporarily shuts down a card in our hand, but this can be considered a smaller drawback compared to discarding a card outright. If our opponent does not remove Acolyte, we continue to punch them for 5 damage. If Acolyte dies, we get our card back.

This is a 3-mana dragon, which Shred Warlock has been sorely missing from its curve, joining the other oversized dragons at the class’ disposal and a new dragon neutral it will also appreciate. Shred Warlock can now play Twilight Timehopper, into Acolyte of Infinity, into Fatebreaker, into Ruinous Velocidrake.

We are not sure it is enough of a difference maker for the next two months, but we suspect this archetype has a good chance of breaking out post-rotation, as it produces consistent pressure that a weakened format should not be able to deal with as effectively.

Score: 3

Endtime Survivor

A 5-mana 8/9 is massive and represents a minion that can be useful for both beatdown and control strategies. The activation is what will determine whether it can be competitive, which is the self-damage effect on our hero.

We believe Survivor will only see play in a deck that can self damage at no additional mana cost and activate it on curve, as the impact of its increased stats diminish the later the game goes. A Warlock life tapping and playing this on turn 7 is not good enough.

For Warlock, this is a difficult condition to meet, as it does not currently possess 0-mana self damage effects. Its best activators are Flame Imp and Spirit Bomb. A random Shred of Time off the top of our deck is not a reliable activator. Chronoclaws might discard it and we do not want to use it to kill minions.

For Warrior, it is a lot simpler, as it can damage itself by punching a minion with the plethora of weapon options in its possession. Dragon Warrior’s 5-mana slot is currently weak, while the deck runs both Brood Keeper and Stadium Announcer.

We think this card makes the card in Elise Dragon Warrior in the immediate term, while remaining an option for the class going forward, especially decks with turn 4 weapons.

Score: 3

Eternal Toil

This is a versatile ‘enrage’ card that has a lot going for it. When we use it on our own minions, it cycles like Slam. When it is used to remove enemy minions, it helps us develop our own board.

Many enrage effects fail to become competitive because they only do one thing well and are low-value cards by themselves that need to have minions in play. Eternal Toil’s ability to replace itself and not be useless when we fall behind should make it a reasonable option for aggressive Warrior decks. This will be a decent enabler for Stonecarver and possibly Time-Twisted Seer as well.

The synergies available to Warlock do not mesh particularly well with Eternal Toil. Warlock is mostly concerned with damaging its hero, rather than its minions. It does not seem like Gul’dan is getting a lot from working with Garrosh.

Score: 2