The Comprehensive Fall of Ulduar Preview

 

Data Reaper Report - Warrior

Sanitize

This card is an absolute game changer for Control Warrior. Sanitize is a 4-mana version of Reckless Flurry without the cost of losing your armor. Reckless Flurry was a staple in Odd Warrior. On top of that, you have the option to forge Sanitize to make it gain 3 armor before the AOE takes effect. This means that you’re guaranteed a 3 damage AOE at minimum if you cannot combo the card with other forms of armor gain.

Sanitize gives Warrior an AOE effect with insane late game scaling. Currently, the only form of mass removal Warrior has is Brawl. Trial by Fire is powerful but carries a finite amount of damage. So does Bellowing Flames. Sanitize allows you to cleanly deal with massive boards, which are often the cause of the deck’s most difficult matchups (for example, Drum Circle).

Furthermore, Sanitize becomes really cracked post-Odyn, since it allows you to utilize your armor gain to wipe a board while also pounding your opponent in the head at the same time. This card could give the Warrior significant percentages in matchups such as Control Warlock, Drum Druid, Relic Demon Hunter, and Pure Paladin. It fills a big hole, perhaps the only hole, in Control Warrior’s removal toolkit.

To make things even better, it means Warrior can now run 4 strong forge cards to consistently activate Ignis. Sanitize is the perfect addition to the deck and might push it to another level.

Score: 4

Battleworn Faceless

A 2-mana Faceless Manipulator that targets damaged minions, Battleworn Faceless is a very intriguing card that could open new opportunities to the class. It reminds us of Bloodsworn Mercenary, which was a meta defining card in Enrage Warrior. Faceless could provide similar impact.

There are some caveats though. Battleworn Faceless doesn’t synergize well with Chorus Riff or Anima Extractor, since handbuffs that hit it are wasted once it transforms. This might not be a deal breaker since the minion is so cheap, but in the current iteration of Enrage Warrior, Mercenary would be stronger.

One advantage Faceless has is its ability to target enemy minions. It can fully copy a damaged Titan, for example. Its cheap cost makes it a prime candidate to be utilized in burst combos with Crazed Wretch. It’s just so flexible that it’s very likely to make the cut somewhere.

Score: 3

General Vezax

Vezax is a bit difficult to wrap your head around. The card’s abilities mean that Vezax is guaranteed to resummon himself one more time if you can kill it on the turn it’s played, offering you a baseline 7/6 rusher that spawns at least one other 7/6 rusher. However, if you have a high amount of armor, you can theoretically keep running Vezax into threats multiple times. It is potentially a one-minion board clearing army into enemy units that have 6 attack or more.

Another way of looking at Vezax is as a very sticky threat. If you’re playing Control Warrior and have a bunch of armor, it’s very difficult for the opponent to clear it off the board without a silence or transform effect, essentially making it a Rattlegore-esque threat. What’s clear is that Vezax is quite good if you have a lot of armor or have a Craftman’s Hammer equipped.

The problem is that Control Warrior isn’t too eager to load up armor in the early stages of the game since it likes saving armor gain for the post-Odyn stage. Once Odyn is played, the game is going to end soon after, so the window of opportunity to utilize Vezax isn’t that big. Vezax is also not an amazing card to draw off Chorus Riff since it’s a bit slow.

We suspect Vezax will face stiff competition but has the potential to be included in the 30-card version of Control Warrior. It’ll likely be a staple in the slower, 40-card version.

Score: 3

Final Thoughts: Control Warrior looks scary and might be the deck to beat once the mini-set launches. Sanitize shores up its primary late game weakness. If players are willing to pilot Enrage Warrior, Battleworn Faceless is an exciting card to try in the deck. Vezax is also a nice card for Control Warrior, but Yogg-Saron could be better!

1 Comment

  1. On the Mindbender on a outcast DH with a glaivetar can do a lot of dmg and inst to hard to buff the glaivetar and set up a turn lethal since sigil draw 4 cards.
    On Mage, im using Tainted and Meddlesome(since few draw spells) on elemental mage and yap is agro.
    On Rogue i just played on Tendrils since looks like the most fun and random noosenses.
    On Warlock Encroaching Insanity was great on fatigue imp ,really fun doing 7-8 dmg with crescendo,the only problem is if you dont win at turn 7-8 you will die because the amount of self fatigue you did to yourself and Harp cant save you.
    And yap Yogg is good for remove and more random tendrils

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