The Comprehensive Fall of Ulduar Preview

Data Reaper Report - Druid

Aerosolizer

In the early game, this card compares quite favorably to Plot of Sin, or other similar effects from the past, such as Landscaping. Aerosolizer is worth a couple of 2/2’s immediately, with another 2/2 Treant inside its deathrattle. On turn 3, it’s much better at fighting for board compared to Plot of Sin since it produces 50% more stats. It should be able to discount Cultivation just as quickly too.

The only ‘drawback’ is that it isn’t a Nature spell for Topior, but it looks like a no brainer inclusion for the variant that doesn’t run Topior and currently utilizes Plot of Sin. Pretty good addition to the archetype.

Score: 3

Forbidden Fruit

This spell can potentially offer an enormous amount of armor gain or damage to Druid. The cost-to-effect ratio isn’t great, but that is made up for by the fact it has such a high ceiling. Forbidden Fruit is a callback to ‘Forbidden’ cards that first showed up in Whispers of the Old Gods. Much like Fruit, they weren’t the most efficient cards, but they saw play because of their high value ceiling. The ability to simply deal 10 damage in the late game to close out an opponent, or stabilize with up to 20 armor, shouldn’t be underestimated.

Furthermore, Fruit can have both effects combined with either Embrace of Nature or Disciple of Eonar. That makes the card completely cracked.

Fruit is flexible as either a stabilizer or a damage source, but it shines particularly well in a Druid deck that runs the hero power package due to its synergy with Ignis and Spread the Word. It’s very likely to see play in a Druid deck that runs this package at some point.

Score: 3

Contaminated Lasher

Another 2-drop carrying the significant 5-spells condition. There are some big differences between Lasher and Shambler that make us believe the Druid 2-drop is more likely to make an impact. The first is that Druid’s late game strategies are very spell-heavy in nature, so activating Lasher is much easier for them compared to Demon Hunter. The second is that the ability is just more powerful. A +2 net mana refresh can allow the Druid to swing the game in its favor or execute a finishing blow more easily. Druid’s late game is very combo centric. Whether you shoot your opponent with Moonbeams, play a buffed Drum Circle, perform some Eonar/Freya shenanigans, or hit your opponent with an Ignis weapon, all these power plays can potentially benefit from the presence of Lasher.

While some of these win conditions are far from looking competitive currently, they might not stay that way forever. Lasher is quite likely to help one of them. Also, Lasher looks completely gross in Wild, which suggests that all it needs is just a bit more synergy. Has potential to be meta defining. Time may be the only thing it needs.

Score: 4

Final Thoughts: Aerosoilizer goes into Drum Druid. A Ramp Druid with the Hero Power package could try to leverage Forbidden Fruit alongside a Choose One package. Lasher is the most intriguing card that could enable new late game possibilities. May not make an immediate impact but feels inevitable. Yogg-Saron is a prime candidate to improve the class’ comeback potential.

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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