The Comprehensive Embers of the World Tree Preview

Avatar of Destruction

A very expensive taunt with a huge, asymmetrical AOE effect tied to its deathrattle, one that should wipe an opponent’s board. AOE effects tied to deathrattles are not particularly strong, as the opponent is likely to trade into the minion anyway. Board wipes are strongest when their timing is optimal, not when the opponent gets to decide when and how to trigger them.

Spending 9 mana on a 9/9 taunt is never a constructed-worthy play. This minion is incredibly slow, yet useless in slow matchups and susceptible to removal. Shaman does not currently possess compelling ways to cheat it out. Cliff Dive does not look like a great fit for this minion. Dungar/Ohn’ahra is the only path that makes Avatar of Destruction look remotely acceptable, but we have little faith this will work anytime soon.

Score: 1

Flames of the Firelord

A fancy Flamecannon with an extremely greedy condition to upgrade it further. If the big spell condition has been found out as limiting, what is this supposed to be? Building a deck with enough 8+ cost cards is so restrictive, while an active Flames of the Firelord is not even that strong. You can think of its activated form as a 2 mana Deadly Shot, which is nice, but hardly worth building around to such an extreme extent.

A baseline Flamecannon is not good enough. It would require an extremely greedy deck to see play, so we doubt it works out.

Score: 1

Emberscarred Whelp

There are two ways to view Whelp. The first is as a 3-drop that discovers value, which we can play the following turn for a small mana cheat. We generally like cards that help us curve out more consistently. Those have proven to be competitive options for decks in the past and present (Scarab Keychain, Creature of Madness). Whelp is a 3-drop that gives us a good turn 4 play.

The second way to look at it as a Trail Mix, helping us bridge faster into a power spike, such as Murmur. The issue is its battlecry, so we do not like how it interferes with Fairy Tale Forest’s consistency in Murmur Shaman. It is a decent evolve target for Imbue Shaman.

We can see this card being useful, but we are not sure it is enough to help Shaman’s current predicament.

Score: 2

Final Thoughts: This is an underwhelming set. We are not too optimistic about Shaman’s chances of becoming stronger or more prevalent with this mini-set. We think Shaman’s best card in the mini-set will be a neutral.