The Comprehensive March of the Lich King Preview

Data Reaper Report - Warlock

Scourge Supplies

Scourge Supplies

This is an incredible source for card draw for almost any late game Warlock strategy. It is better than Arcane Intellect because it synergizes with Runed Mithril Rod and helps churn through our deck to get to its important pieces. Of course, we didn’t forget about discard synergy, but Scourge Supplies is not reliant on that package to succeed. It’s going to see play regardless, as it’s arguably better than Impending Catastrophe in slow decks that don’t run Mithril Rod since it’s not reliant on another piece to play.

Score: 4

Walking Dead

Walking Dead

A much better version of Silverware Golem printed over six years later. This still doesn’t excite us in any way, since it needs to be played with a sizeable discard package, and a sizeable discard package doesn’t look good in any archetype we’ve tried to put it in. It suffers from a similar problem as the Outcast package in Demon Hunter. It doesn’t offer genuine paths to victory, just some moderate board swings we need to jump through hoops to accomplish. But for us, the discard package is worse because it’s not even guaranteed to occur. It’s entirely reliant on randomly discarding the ‘correct’ cards in our hand. We despise this kind of gameplay and think it’s very outdated for modern day Hearthstone.

Score: 1

Infantry Reanimator

Infantry Reanimator

This card can be quite powerful if it’s added to a specific package meant to repeatedly resurrect Dar’Khan, as we’ve shown in our article last week. We’re not as interested once we expand the undead package since it doesn’t have many game-changing resurrection targets. It’s theoretically ‘good enough’ to resurrect Walking Dead with Reanimator, but that means we have Walking Dead and the dreaded discard package in our deck. No thanks, we’ll take our Dar’Khan.

Score: 3

Twisting Tether

Twisted Tether

A hybrid of Assassinate and Righteous Defense specifically limited to undead minions. Righteous Defense is barely good enough for a Renathal Paladin deck, so we’re confused why this card costs more mana while being solely restricted to undead minions. As if it’s a clear upside to run undead minions in Warlock? This card is probably not good enough at 3 mana, so 4 mana makes this completely unplayable. You’re not running a 4-mana hard removal card in any kind of potential Warlock archetype.

Score: 1

Savage Ymirjar

Savage Ymirjar

It’s very cute that anyone thinks we would run a Doomguard that can’t go face just because it has extra 2 attack. Is it because we might randomly discard a Walking Undead or a Soul Barrage? Is it because we can potentially resurrect it with Reanimator, provided we don’t discard the Reanimator when we drop this on turn 5? Or maybe Amorphous Slime can discard Ymirjar and summon it without its drawback?

Here are the problems. Cards that sit in our hand waiting to be randomly discarded can only be as good as the cards that discard them. Amorphous Slime discarding Ymirjar, or Reanimator resurrecting Ymirjay seems okay, but why would we do that when we can specifically fish for Dar’Khan, a much better standalone card that we can play from hand… without killing our hand? It’s a hard pass.

Score: 1

Soul Barrage

Soul Barrage

Soul Barrage, more so than Walking Dead, is a terrible card to play from hand. It is incomparable to cards such as Dark Skies and Full-Blown Evil, which are much more efficient at clearing the board at 3 mana. Granted, Soul Barrage can go face, but that might make it even worse if you’re looking for a board-specific swing.

So, the only way Soul Barrage is good is if it gets randomly discarded. We’re hoping to find this in Scourge Supplies, discard it with Savage Ymirjar or perhaps a Lakkari Felhound/Spawn of Deathwing. Hoping, or coping.

Score: 1

Shallow Grave

Shallow Grave

Play Dead and then Stay Dead. Shallow Grave is a powerful spell as it activates any deathrattle minion we develop twice for just one extra mana compared to the meta defining Hunter spell that was released in Knights of the Frozen Throne but really made its mark during Witchwood and Boomsday Project.

This spell can work well with many deathrattle minions. Amorphous Slime is the standout from this set and the one we’re most interested in, but there are also Burning Blade Acolyte, Naval Mine, and Nerubian/Foul Eggs, which could see the card included in a faster deck centered on an Imp Warlock shell.

Grave’s potential in the future is obvious since any new deathrattle available to Warlock could become an instant consideration for a new deck. It’s the type of card you can safely assume will see competitive play, and it’s just a matter of time.

Score: 3

Amorphous Slime

Amorphous Slime

This is the stronger type of a discard effect, since it discards a specific type of card, which we can engineer through deck building to get a desired result. Slime has a reasonably threatening 5-attack body that you can compare to an average 3-drop. It’s difficult to ignore and it can cheat out a big threat once it dies. If you cast Shallow Grave on it, it will summon two copies of the discarded minion. This is very comparable to Possessed Lackey, which had worse baseline stats but a stronger effect, as well as a stronger and more consistent tribe. Slime does have decent activators on-demand, with both Shallow Grave and Grimoire of Sacrifice available.

Amorphous Slime should not be underestimated. The only reason it isn’t a surefire winner is that the undead tribe doesn’t have a Voidlord equivalent. But it does have Dar’Khan, and this kind of effect always finds a way to compete in some capacity.

Score: 3

Devourer of Souls

Devourer of Souls

This is a very versatile card. It has solid baseline stats for a 1-drop, and since it’s so cheap, it’s very easy to combo it with other cards in the same turn. An immediate and obvious application for it is in Phylactery Warlock, where it amplifies the damage potential of Naval Mine far more easily than Queen Azshara ever did. It can be played in faster decks that run eggs. It can be played in slower decks that have high value deathrattles. The fact that it only costs 1-mana means it’s so easy to get really good value from it. To make it a worthwhile play, it’s enough to transfer a single decent deathrattle to it. It is very likely to find a place for it in future formats.

Score: 3

Dar’Khan Drathir

Dar'Khan Drathir

The premier undead minion for Warlock and the one you want to pull from Amorphous Slime. Dar’Khan is an expensive body at 8 mana for its 6/6 stats. But its ability combined with lifesteal means it is worth a 12-health swing upon entrance. The fact it has lifesteal means that removing it through trades is very difficult without healing the Warlock for much more. It’s important to understand that Dar’Khan not only protects, but it also attacks. For a lot. If Dar’Khan is ever left alone to attack, it can deal 12 damage to the opponent and heal the Warlock for 12. Every turn. That is not sustainable for the opponent whatsoever, so it demands immediate removal.

And the best thing about it is that it can be resurrected by Infantry Reanimator and tutored by Flesh Behemoth. So, Warlock can cheat out Dar’Khan and repeatedly resurrect it with reborn. That is probably the most promising direction in this Warlock set and this kind of package can be shoved in multiple archetypes without high deckbuilding cost.

Score: 3

 

Final Thoughts

March of the Lich King Set Rank: 11th

Overall Power Ranking: 10th

We don’t think this expansion has a truly unplayable set, but Warlock’s set is a bit of an oof. We really don’t like the expanded discard package and don’t think it can reasonably work in either existing or new archetypes. The main problem is that late game strategies don’t want to lose key pieces of their plan, and they don’t have a reliable way to target the discarded cards.

This is true for faster decks too. We can’t see how frontloading some power through random discards can ever beat the consistency of the Imp package and its ability to support a late game win condition such as the Curse package. We did try taking Imp Warlock and slapping a discard package on it, and all we wanted to do was to switch back.

We do like a smaller undead package of Slime, Dar’Khan, Behemoth and Reanimator. There is little variance here, there is a consistent plan and it’s small enough to be inserted in both Imp Warlock and a slower Control Warlock without much trouble.

Another promising avenue involves Phylactery Warlock. The deck is losing Defile back to Wild, which is a massive, massive loss. But it’s getting Scourge Supplies, the best card in this Warlock set, to fuel its Runed Mithril Rod. It’s also getting Shallow Grave and Devourer of Souls, two cards that may become meta defining tools for the class eventually, if not immediately.

So, here’s something you may wonder about our assessment. Imp Warlock is still around and is a very strong deck now. Why would we not rate the class higher considering it’s going nowhere? This is a bit more subtle, but the general trend we’re noticing from the sets of several classes is that they’re looking much stronger against Imp Warlock specifically.

The Demon Hunter matchup is going to be a different ball game. Hunter’s Ricochet Shot and Eversong Portal. Warrior’s Sunfury Champion. Rogue’s Putricide. Death Knight is also a class that we expect to do very well into Imp Warlock in all its archetypes. Blood’s removal and life gain. Frost’s AOE effects. Unholy’s board control tools. We can go on and on.

Bottom line. It’s going to be tougher to win with the same Imp Warlock list, so if Warlock can’t reinvent itself, it might end up lagging.