The Comprehensive Fractured in Alterac Valley Preview

 

Grave Defiler

This card isn’t inherently bad. A 1 mana 2/1 that copies a card in your hand is pretty good. The problem is the Fel spell pool. There’s just nothing that seems to be worth copying with this 1-drop. You can’t run a couple of Fel spells in your deck and expect Defiler to consistently activate in the early game. The card requires either a significant spell density or saving it to copy a specific Fel spell as part of a combo piece, much like Felosophy in Demon Hunter. We just don’t see it in Warlock currently, at least until another set arrives and it starts to make sense. We think it will eventually be good.

Score: 2

Hollow Abomination

Warlock has more reliable AOE tools, and 1 damage isn’t doing much on turn 5, especially when the effect isn’t persistent like Despicable Dreadlord. Yes, it can theoretically develop a big threat if the board perfectly lines up for it, but in most cases, it won’t. Abomination has no real synergies with the rest of the Warlock set and generally feels pointless.

Score: 1

Felwalker

Much like Grave Defiler, this card suffers from lack of support from the Fel spell pool. This could be a stronger Clumsy Courier if there was an expensive Fel spell that was worth cheating out. By cheating out, we mean playing a Fel spell on turn 6 that normally costs 7 mana or more. The most expensive Fel spell is Felfire in the Hole, and it costs 5. Sure, Felwalker can cast this and we’re basically developing a 1 mana 3/7 taunt on turn 6. Is that worth building a deck around? A highly conditional Anubisath Defender that only works reasonably well with one spell in the deck? No.

Score: 1

Seeds of Destruction

So, we’re playing a slightly stronger version of Ticket Master’s deathrattle for 2 mana. That doesn’t sound very exciting when you think about it. Yes, the rifts are Fel spells and that’s cute, but cute doesn’t win Hearthstone games. This does nothing on the turn you play it. You’re basically hoping to have card draw follow up so you can then pray to draw rifts and accomplish something that affects the board. Just highly questionable.

Score: 1

Desecrated Graveyard

This spell seems like a good fit for a Zoo Warlock deck running tokens and eggs. If you’re able to reload the board with small minions, you’ll be able to produce quite a bit of pressure over time, and if you’ve developed an egg on 2, this is an immediately powerful play on turn 3 that doesn’t require you to sacrifice any initiative. It might get tricky when an opponent constantly clears your board, but the early game snowballing potential just seems too good.

Score: 3

Full-Blown Evil

Devouring Plague is a decent card. This card deals one extra damage in the early game and carries late game scaling. That’s worth much more than a Lifesteal keyword. Ten asymmetrical damage points to the board on turn 6 is quite good, especially if you’re a proactive deck that does develop its own threats, in which case, FBE allows you to deal with the enemy board and then immediately push your advantage. This is something we think players might be underestimating.

And then, this removal spell could be very powerful in more passive archetypes too just because of how good it is with Mo’arg Artifcer. Add Runed Mithril Rod to the equation, and we’re getting to the point where we can consistently wipe a couple of giants without much difficulty. This spell will find a home.

Score: 3

Sacrificial Summoner

This is the kind of card that easily becomes broken. Imagine Summoner killing a Nerubian Egg and pulling an Injured Blademaster on turn 3. There are so many ways to build around it to abuse a certain mana breakpoint that we can’t see this not become a meta defining component at some point in the future. The potential stats for the cost are just too much to give a lukewarm score. Could make Zoo Warlock a viable deck on its own.

Score: 4

Felfire in the Hole!

You’re telling us we need to build our entire deck around Fel spells, including rifts since they seem like a natural fit for this card, just so that we can cast a 3 damage AOE in Warlock for 5 mana? Make no mistake, this card is unplayable if it deals 2 damage. You cannot put any significant amount of Shadow spells into your deck. So, you’re giving up an insanely powerful spell school, one that basically carries the class, for an Excavated Evil that goes face? And we’re supposed to play Felwalker to cast it? We’re lost.

Score: 1

Tamsin’s Phylactery

The more we think about this card, the more insane it looks. The format is about to receive a couple of disgustingly good deathrattle minions to go along with Phylactery, and thanks to Wicked Shipment, we can very cheaply fill our board with a deathrattle of our choosing. For example, we could run Korrak the Bloodrager and make a Nomi-like board of Korraks. But a direction that looks particularly ridiculous is a combo deck with near infinite damage centered on Humongous Owl. Tamsin’s Phylactery is just a ticking time bomb in Standard that probably breaks Wild format in some way too.

Score: 4

Dreadlich Tamsin

This hero card does way too many things for its mana cost. It’s one of the cheapest ones and doesn’t require any set up or build up. We’re dealing 3 AOE damage, drawing 3 cards and gaining 5 armor for 6 mana? With the bonus of shuffling 3/3’s into our deck and upgrading into an insanely good hero power? This card is Warlock’s Ultimate Infestation.

Yes, we lose our ability to further the Demon Seed quest, or discount Flesh Giants with our hero power, but… we don’t think we care. The fact we have played this card makes it more likely that we win the game because it does too many powerful things for what it costs.

Furthermore, Dreadlich Tamsin can just enable entirely new Warlock strategies that don’t run The Demon Seed. It might seem difficult to believe for some players, but this is the kind of card that can make The Demon Seed obsolete.

Score: 4

Final Thoughts

Fractured in Alterac Valley Set Rank: 7^th

Overall Power Ranking: 1^st

Warlock’s set could be split to two parts. There’s the Fel package that we’re not sure what it’s supposed to do, and then there are three cards that are possibly all in the top 10 of the expansion for us.

Those three cards could revitalize or enable completely new archetypes, and we’re not even talking about Demon Seed decks that could still stick around. Many even expect them to dominate. We personally don’t think that necessarily will be the case.

Dreadlich Tamsin is a 6 mana Ultimate Infestation. It’s going to see play and it will win games. We think it’s going to see play even in quest decks, but regardless of whether this hero card is ‘good enough’ for quest decks, it’s good enough for Warlock decks that we have yet to encounter.

Tamsin’s Phylactery could birth an entire deck by itself. We’ve theorycrafted a Humongous Owl Warlock deck. You’ll see it on Monday. It doesn’t look like a meme. It looks like an extremely consistent and defensively sound strategy with a very effective and realistic win condition. This could all sound very silly in a week and the deck ends up being a fringe meme, but that’s our bare bones impression of envisioning its actions. It’s not fragile. It feels more like Lifesteal Demon Hunter and Garrote Rogue than a Mozaki Mage.

Whether it’s in Zoo, or another deck, someone will break Sacrificial Summoner. It’s an inherently unfair card. Figure out a mana breakpoint where this cheats out something stupid and build a deck around that power spike. Desecrated Graveyard certainly helps with increasing the consistency of a shell that Summoner may thrive in.

And even if all these potential avenues whiff for the next 2 months (until new cards arrive that possibly break them), we still have Handlock and Fatigue Warlock to consider, though we do think Owl Warlock will be better than Fatigue Warlock. That’s a hunch.

To conclude, we’ll be shocked if Warlock isn’t up there. Either order is restored, and Demon Seed finds a place in the meta, or we get some wacky stuff introduced that makes us forget about “The Demon Seed” problem.