The Comprehensive Fractured in Alterac Valley Preview

Clawfury Adept

This card seems like a very good deal. 2 mana 2/3 that can leverage your board into damage or trades, while also being reasonable on turn 2 since it affects your hero, giving you an early game ping. Any aggressive Druid deck is probably going to run this without much debate. The beast tag is a good bonus for set synergy. 2-drops that scale into the mid-game this well are hard to find.

Score: 3

Heart of the Wild

It’s important to note that if you cast this buff on a beast, it gets 3/3 in stats, so if you have a single beast minion on the board, this is on par for on-board buffs, but if you’re playing a board flooding beast deck, it can do much more than that. Has good synergy with the stealth mechanic that is also being pushed in the Druid set. We think Heart of the Wild requires you to lean harder on the beast tribe to be worth including, which means some sacrifices have to be made to make it work, but in this kind of deck, it’s not bad at all.

Score: 2

Dire Frostwolf

This is a sticky threat that guarantees some damage from the board and works well with buffs. The sticking point is that it’s quite slow and doesn’t have an immediate impact on the board, compared to Park Panther for example. Much like Heart of the Wild, we need to push harder on the tribe to make this worth including. Probably too slow for the standard Taunt Druid with Razormane Battleguard but synergizes well enough with Matriarch.

Score: 2

Frostwolf Kennels

This card is stronger than Dire Frostwolf since it comes down a turn earlier and works better in setting up Arbor Up or Heart of the Wild. It gives Druid some resistance and longevity through AOE effects, which is normally the Achilles heel of the archetype. Quite a lot of guaranteed stats for 3 mana, and an amazing activator for Matriarch.

Score: 3

Pathmaker

This card looks tempting on paper, but we did look at the available Choose One spells, and the pool is very narrow and underwhelming, to the point we struggle to find a great use for Pathmaker outside of Nourish post-Celestial Alignment or Runic Carvings. It’s not particularly exciting as a value card, and it’s hard to generate early pressure from it. It doesn’t work with broken up spells from Jerry Rig Carpenter either. Best shot is its interaction with Nourish after we played Celestial Alignment. That seems strong enough to merit some respect.

Score: 2

Pride Seeker

The early game mana cheating potential of Pride Seeker doesn’t seem worthwhile, especially if we’re looking to run Fungal Fortunes and minimize the number of minions we play. Its interaction with Nourish is what’s selling us on the card, since we can play it at any point before Celestial Alignment, and then have a 0 mana Nourish as immediate follow up on the same turn we play Alignment. That could allow the Druid to pop off without giving the opponent the initiative. Since the mana cheating potential is significant for this one specific deck, we’ll give it the tentative score.

Score: 2

Capture Coldtooth Mine

We know that Taelan saw a lot of play in multiple decks over the last 8 months, even when it wasn’t particularly good in some of them, but this spell is better. It’s cheaper, more flexible, and hits both spells and minions. Discovering a card for 2 mana isn’t a great deal, so we need a good reason to play it, but it’s serviceable.

Score: 2

Frostsaber Matriarch

The main reason why every beast card in this set is better. Matriarch is Beast from Below, an excellent tribal payoff that can very easily cost zero relatively quickly. It has some disgusting available synergies, most notably Oracle of Elune and Glowfly Swarm. There will be different types of Druid archetypes highly interested in abusing this card. Hard to see none of them succeed.

Score: 4

Wing Commander Mulverick

This legendary’s ability is hard to evaluate, just because it seems so meta dependent. Mulverick seems nuts in initiative-focused matchups where there is a lot of board tension, and it can simply swing the game wildly in your favor. On the other hand, it seems very weak if you’re facing defensive decks that carry a lot of removal rather than minions. It has great synergy with Matriarch, and it can completely solo answer things like Glowfly Swarm, but we’re not sure how consistently it can connect on curve.

Score: 3

Wildheart Guff

Even if we wisely assume that we’re not going to get to 20 mana in most games, Guff just seems too strong to exclude from any deck that relies on ramping. For 5 mana, we’re getting a Shield Block merged with a Wild Growth and acquiring an insanely good hero power that is extremely flexible and valuable for a ramping Druid deck. Guff simply opens so many possibilities for the class to execute in the late game. Auto-include if you like mana.

Score: 4

Final Thoughts

Fractured in Alterac Valley Set Rank: 4^th

Overall Power Ranking: 5^th

Druid’s set is a mix of serviceable and meaningful upgrades and potentially back-breaking build-arounds.

With Taunt Druid’s inclination to run beasts, it will be interesting to see what kind of beast package, if any, it will end up adopting. It’s certainly highly incentivized to run Matriarch, which would compete with the dominant Drek’Thar variant that recently popped up. Clawfury Adept is another easy inclusion, but competition for slots is very tight.

Of course, there is the possibility that the taunt package with Razormane Battleguard will make way for the new cards, but we’re a bit skeptical considering how powerful the 2-drop is still proving to be. Either way, Taunt Druid is a good candidate to remain a strong performer due to its early-game dominance.

In the late game, a lot of space is opened thanks to Wildheart Guff. Celestial Alignment could absolutely thrive in a slower meta, and cards such as Pathmaker and Pride Seeker could provide it with extra consistency. Druid didn’t get much in the form of new win conditions, but Guff is the kind of card that just increases possibilities. New or forgotten strategies could emerge thanks to his existence.

What we like about Druid’s prospects in Alterac Valley is how adaptable it is to any kind of meta. If the format becomes aggressive and board-based, Taunt Druid should be good. If the format skews to the other end of the spectrum and off-board win conditions become prevalent, Celestial Druid is likely to become a strong answer. Either way, there should be something for Malfurion.