Photon Cannon
A plain 2 mana spell with the standard 3 damage. Reducing the cost of Protoss minions should be important in a Protoss deck, but we cannot get the discount if the opponent doesn’t have minions we can kill, unless we want to target our own minions, which we shouldn’t. It can be used as burn, but then it’s just a Dark Bomb with no added text. Sometimes, that’s good enough, especially in Rogue.
Score: 2
Chrono Boost
Tutoring 2 cards is easily worth 2 mana, so spending an additional 2 mana on a 3/4 charger sounds good. From every angle you look at Chrono Boost, you see a source of card draw that should become mandatory in Protoss decks. The only possible slight on it is that it doesn’t have the best synergy in a slow deck, which normally wants cheap draw and doesn’t care about a charge minion as much, so it will likely use the Zealot to trade.
Score: 3
Warp Gate
4 mana is a heavy initial investment on doing “nothing”, but Warp Gate’s discount sticks for multiple turns until it is spent on a minion. We could even stack the discounts across two charges on a single minion, summoning a 12 mana Protoss minion on turn 6. This is probably the most important minion discount enabler in the Protoss set, one that also fully discounts Void Ray with one charge. A turn 4 active Void Ray isn’t the worst way to bridge into a turn 6 with the second charge of Warp Gate.
Score: 3
Void Ray
A Void Ray that costs mana is weak, but when discounted to 0, it becomes very powerful. A 5-attack divine shield minion helps us knock out a threat while developing our own. It has great synergy in Rogue specifically thanks to Breakdance and Shadowstep. It is also a prime target for Warp Gate, in the case we need an early stabilizing play. Should be a common choice in Protoss decks.
Score: 3
Artanis
This hero card is objectively cracked. Two Zealots are well worth 6 mana, so for 1 extra mana, you add a permanent discount on future Protoss minions, 5 armor and a strong hero power for board control purposes. It’s hard to see decks passing on Artanis. Not only is it a mandatory inclusion in Protoss decks, but we can also see aggressive decks such as Zarimi Priest using it without any further synergy. It’s the Leeroy Jenkins of hero cards.