The Comprehensive Reign of the Black Empire Preview

Efflorescence

A 2-mana spell that draws another spell is not good enough to see play unless the additional effect is powerful enough. We have consistently seen these cards sit on the fringes of competitive play, a recent example in the current format is Reforestation.

Efflorescence doubles the effect of the drawn spell if it has a Nature tag. This is a powerful effect, but one that dilutes in effectiveness if our deck consists of a high number of spells. For Efflorescence to produce optimal results, we need to avoid running spells without the Nature tag, while running a curated number of Nature spells that have an impactful doubled effect.

Everything points to this being a fringe card. We think its best chance of being utilized is an Aggro Token Druid deck, which can afford to run a high density of minions and a low number of spells. Tutoring Wildwood Circle or Forest’s Gift could be powerful, as well as this set’s Deathblossom. A small upside to Efflorescence is that it cannot draw the other copy of the spell, which makes it a more consistent tutor than Reforestation if we strictly want it for that purpose.

Score: 2

Steward of the Vale

A 2-mana 2/3 that ‘discovers’ a card is not terrible, but we have little control over the generated minion’s cost. The Beast pool is not particularly high quality either.

Our biggest issue is that Steward does not fit into prospective archetypes. The most ‘obvious’ home for it would be Beast Druid, but this archetype has no interest in generating random garbage. It needs minions with appropriate handbuff synergies, so Steward does not offer it much beyond a faint chance of finding a beast it would already run in the deck.

We think this gets easily passed over for cards we intentionally want in our deck. We cannot afford filler here.

Score: 1

Primordial Bear

The baseline numbers for this minion are not impressive. A 3-mana 2/3 that deals 2 damage is weak. When we compare it to the 2-mana Savage Striker, it looks inferior, even though Bear’s damage can be directed face.

Where things get more interesting is Bear’s damage scaling with attack value, making it a strong candidate for handbuffs, such as Titan Sized or Freya. It essentially double taps into buffs, making its scaling potentially strong. A massive late-game Primordial Bear can offer a lot of damage to an Attack Druid, for example.

And this is where the Beast Druid archetype could end up settling in, joining with Attack Druid to form a hybrid deck, in which Primordial Bear serves as a linked payoff.

But without this synergy, we do not think Bear is a worthwhile inclusion. It is admittedly a very specific route for it to see competitive play, so we are not too enthusiastic.

Score: 2

Titan Sized

A 2-mana spell that both tutors a minion and provides a 2/2 buff to minions in hand is well above the curve for a handbuff card, so Titan Sized looks strong at first glance. Of course, it is limited to buffing Beasts, as it would otherwise be one of the most broken cards in the game.

This spell will likely become the strongest and most important card in Beast Druid, as well as the most highly sought-after mulligan target, as it enables every Beast minion in the Druid set that relies on handbuffs to scale its ability into becoming a worthwhile payoff.

Our issue with Beast Druid is what happens when we do not find Titan Sized in the opening hand. We have seen archetypes that were designed to be highly reliant on drawing a specific enabler early, such as Libram Paladin or Leyline Mage. They have proven to be weak due to their inconsistency at firing up their game plan.

Perhaps, this will push the Beast Druid package into a hybrid direction, where Druid does not overly commit and put all their eggs in finding Titan Sized. Regardless of where the package ends up, Titan Sized is an automatic inclusion in any prospective Beast Druid deck.

Score: 3

Aetherial Kindling

This spell contains two strong effects when packaged together. Summoning a random 3-drop is worth roughly 2 mana, while dealing 3 damage is equivalent to most 2-mana baseline damage spells. Most importantly, Kindling can go face, which means we are not reliant on the opponent offering us a target to play this on curve if we want to be mana efficient.

Current Ramp Druid decks have a gaping hole in their 3-mana slot, which they have tolerated due to the existence of Acceleration Aura, but Kindling could massively help the Druid fight for board in the early game, especially when it does not draw ramp.

Considering how strong of a performer Ebb and Flow has proven to be in Ramp Druid archetypes, we believe Kindling can offer similar utility. It is a more proactive removal tool that is particularly strong in the early game but remains effective later. Should be a common inclusion in the class.

Score: 3

Foraging Slyvern

Drawing cards on a deathrattle is significantly worse than doing so on a battlecry, as we cannot use the cards drawn on our turn. This is less relevant on turn 4 but makes draw tied to deathrattle much worse at the later stages of the game, when we usually seek reload.

Therefore, we consider Slyvern to be weak at its baseline. The upside is that it cannot be ignored due to its taunt, so our opponent has little choice but to trigger its deathrattle if it is interested in punching us in the head. But a 2/4 taunt for 4 mana is painfully slow.

Where Slyvern gets stronger is when it is the target of buffs. Not only do they scale well with its taunt, but they also increase the number of cards it draws on its deathrattle. Casting Titan Sized to buff Slyvern means it will draw 4 cards with 4 attack, which is a massive payoff tied into a sizeable taunt. There is even a risk that Slyvern will overdraw once we hit the late stages of the game.

Our conclusion is that Slyvern is highly reliant on a Beast archetype, or a Beast package, to function in a competitive setting, making its utilization narrow. Other Druid decks have better card draw options available to them.

Score: 2

Deathblossom

This spell generates two small minions with big deathrattles that, once popped, provide sizeable taunt bodies. The issue is that we are spending 2 mana on a spell that does not develop board, then spend more mana summoning 2/1’s that have no immediate impact on the board and can be ignored by the opponent.

Where this card becomes interesting is in a deck whose opponents cannot afford to ignore its board development. In an Aggro Token Druid deck, the plants represent sticky threats that drastically lower the effectiveness of AOE spells, which usually counter the archetype. They are also strong targets for buffs.

A wilder idea is to utilize Deathblossom as a N’Zoth enabler, making the Old God a feasible inclusion in a board-centric Token Druid thanks to its discount potential. This requires Token Druid to slow down its game plan but makes it far more resilient to defensive decks packed with removal.

And if we do have time to accumulate resources and stress the opponent’s removal toolkit over a prolonged game, Efflorescence tutoring Deathblossom does not sound so bad.

Requires Token Druid to pivot to a slower game plan, something it has rarely done in the past due to the nature of its game plan and the risk of giving the opponent an extended window of opportunity to turn the corner.

Score: 2

Curious Grimlynx

The final Beast in the Druid set, Grimlynx is another minion that double taps into handbuffs like Saronite Chain Gang, though it does so with two different minions. We have both a taunt and a rush minion, so we can both protect our face and respond to a threat in play.

We will note that the rush minion’s stats are likely to lead to inefficient trades and wasted buffs. A 5/2 rush minion trades 1 for 1 even against most 1-drops, while increasing its attack value is only relevant if we are trying to deal with massive threats.

Much like the other Beasts we have discussed, Grimlynx can only see play in a dedicated package supported by Titan Sized. Otherwise, it is an underwhelming 5-drop that is too slow and inefficient to see broader use.

Score: 2

Freya, Emerald Architect

The biggest buff card in the set, Freya offers a Lor’themar Theron effect on all our beasts, even those in hand. The effect hitting beasts in hand makes it much more powerful, as we are not reliant on digging into our deck to benefit from it. Furthermore, beasts we have already buffed with Titan Sized will see their stats scale multiplicatively.

Freya’s existence greatly encourages a Druid deck utilizing a Beast package to run ramp cards, as we would like to drop Freya as soon as we can. It unconditionally turns all our beasts into worthy payoffs without the need of further buffs. We anticipate that Freya’s metrics will be very strong and it will be a highly desired card even in the mulligan phase.

Where Beast Druid sinks or swims depends on whether its small number of strong buffs prove to be consistent enough to leverage its various payoffs. If not, it will be stuck in game states where its hand is full of mediocre beasts and nothing to boost them with. We suspect the best way to play to the deck will be to hard mulligan for Freya and Titan Sized while throwing away almost everything else. Not a glowing gameplay prospect.

Score: 2

Ammunae

This is a slow minion as an 8-mana 6/6 but grants a permanent game buff that copies every deathrattle minion we play from that point onwards. This highly encourages us to run big deathrattle minions with a likely N’Zoth and Umbra serving as the final payoffs.

We will note that even an innocent-looking Deathblossom becomes an extremely powerful card following Ammunae. The value potential of a Deathrattle Druid post-Ammunae should prove to be extremely difficult to deal with for a deck that is reliant on removal to win late-game matchups.

The issue is that Ammunae is a slow card that encourages greedy deckbuilding to optimally leverage. We are not convinced about the prospects of this deck’s survivability against early board pressure. It might be able to gain an absurd amount of life at the later stages of the game, protecting it from burn, but its ability to swing board control is limited pre-Ammunae. And we cannot count on Ammunae to ever influence aggressive matchups.

Score: 2

Final Thoughts

Black Empire Set Rank: 10th

Overall Power Ranking: 5th

We consider Druid’s set to be one of the weaker ones in this expansion, but it does not necessarily mean that the class will be weak. There are reasons to believe it will do just fine and some of it has to do with the nature of the expansion itself.

Black Empire is a very late-game-oriented expansion. The Ramp Druid historical archetype naturally thrives in a slower format where it is not aggressively pressured in the early game. The ramp mechanic also allows it to accelerate its late game faster than other classes, making it a good fit to utilize Old Gods.

Druid has some specific synergies with Old Gods too. It might be the strongest utilizer of Y’Shaarj thanks to Lady Azshara and Zin-Azshari, which allows us to copy Y’Shaarj on the turn we play it thanks to its 5-mana discount ability. Ammunae promotes a game plan that strongly aligns with N’Zoth. Druid’s propensity for summoning large threats could fit with Yogg-Saron. These Old God shells are not very reliant on a pushed package from the class set.

As for other directions, Aggro Druid is receiving some important cards from the neutral set that could revive it (Prototype, Vaultkeeper). It might even run N’Zoth alongside a swarming deathrattle shell. The Beast package looks a bit lukewarm but could feasibly merge with Attack Druid to form a new variant.

Druid will be hoping the format gets greedy, as it will provide the class with the breathing space to ramp into an Old God of its choosing. If an aggressive deck does end up tearing through the format, it will face more adversity.