The Comprehensive Reign of the Black Empire Preview

 

Clockwork Boars

A couple of Boars for 2 mana is not an impressive package, so Clockwork Boars requires specific synergy to be justified. This spell’s most likely home is an aggressive deck that looks to swarm the board, potentially with synergies that leverage either its beast or mech tags.

Slower Hunter decks that are more focused on value rather than pressure will pass on this card, even if it does act as a decent activator for Mimiron. We are not convinced that a purely aggressive Hunter deck will work in the upcoming format, but the class rarely stays down for long when it comes to its aggressive strategies, so this does have a good chance of seeing play at some point in its time in Standard.

Score: 2

Flamespitter

An underwhelming weapon, as it only has the dreaded 2-attack breakpoint, but one that generates two copies of a powerful spell. For Flamespitter to see play, the penalty of a bad weapon needs to be eliminated by the upside of Overdrive. The ability to give rush to a minion at zero mana cost can be valuable, especially in decks that run deathrattle minions.

Hunter does receive some decent deathrattle support, so Overdrive represents a useful card for its prospective strategies this expansion. It may also serve as a catalyst to a Hunter deck built around Egg of Khelos. Never a weapon you casually run in the class, but one that needs strong follow up turns to leverage Overdrive with. Synergy-dependent.

Score: 2

Mechacycle

Note that Mechacycle’s deathrattle can summon one random 4-drop or multiple cheaper mechs. Our general, sweeping calculation to evaluate random summons, which have become increasingly common in Hearthstone’s design over the last couple of years, is to value it at X-1.

Meaning that Mechacycle’s deathrattle is worth roughly 3 mana. Add the initial 3/3 taunt body that cannot be ignored, forcing the opponent to pop the deathrattle, and you have a strong value package for 4 mana.

Mechacycle provides a decent follow up to a Flamespitter, allowing us to immediately trade into an opposing minion and pop the deathrattle. It is also a very sticky body that makes Mimiron and Bombardment easier to activate, while the neutral Vaultkeeper offers a consistent and natural follow-up on turn 5.

This minion can be considered an upgraded version of Piloted Shredder. Annoying to deal with, but synergy-dependent rather than a standalone card we are happy to run.

Score: 2

Tinker

A slow value-generation card, but Overdrive once again is offered as the big upside for sacrificing some initiative. The Mech pool is not of great quality but Assemble does make the quality of the average minion higher.

We think this card would slot into the same decks that run Flamespitter. For Overdrive to be good enough, we need a deck that is packed with deathrattle minions that represent good Overdrive targets. This would swing the game in the Hunter’s favor more than the setback caused by spending mana doing less a turn or two earlier.

We do consider this card to be slightly better than Flamespitter, as it is cheaper and can be fit to fill the curve more easily than the commitment of a weapon that cannot cleanly remove a large portion of early-game minions in the format.

Score: 2

Bombardment

It is not difficult to see that this spell’s baseline effect is completely unacceptable. A 5-mana Deadly Shot with 3 hero damage is far below the competitive thresholds of what cards at this cost should be able to do.

However, its activated form in the presence of a mech becomes significantly stronger. Randomness becomes easier to control when the effect is amplified. Destroying two minions carries less variance into an opponent’s board.

On top of it, 6 damage to an opponent’s hero is now Fireball territory. The total package becomes far more tempting for 5 mana. The question will be how easy it is to activate Bombardment.

The Hunter set, as well as neutral cards, offer plenty of sticky deathrattles as well as swarmy cards that should make it harder for the opponent to deny us from activating Bombardment. Mechacycle is an ideal setup card for this spell, while Unstable Prototype is a cheap enabler that puts the opponent in a lose-lose situation on whether to answer it.

Bombardment requires a robust Mech shell to make work. Its expensive cost means it strictly belongs to a dedicated tribal deck, rather than one that dabbles with them.

Score: 2

Tank Regiment

This minion has a lot of numbers on it. Three 3/3 bodies on top of hero damaging deathrattles. Clearing a Tank Regiment means taking 9 damage to the face, nearly the equivalent of a Pyroblast. Even if we cannot hit face with it once, by entering the board, it already does its job of stressing the opponent’s removal toolkit as well as their life total.

And then we must consider its handbuff potential, since it summons exact copies. Tank Regiment makes Unstable Prototype a desirable card in the class, along with Overdrive generators. A single Prototype resolving its two deathrattles turns Tank Regiment into a 15/15.

The primary top end threat for a Mech Hunter deck and a major handbuff payoff, but largely depending on the archetype’s success to see competitive play.

Score: 2

Primal Rockfang

Team 5’s attempt at pushing deathrattle-gaining cards further. We know these cards have a clear weakness, which is their dependency on the board state. They need viable targets to connect with. We also know that gaining a deathrattle is a significantly slower effect than activating a deathrattle. Rockfang does not make an immediate impact upon its entrance.

Gaining two deathrattles possesses a higher ceiling, but this ability increases the dependency on our board state to leverage optimally. We now need two good deathrattles in play, which becomes unlikely if our opponent is conscious and taking their own turns.

While Rockfang can technically connect on a couple of small deathrattles to get the value that supposedly meets the vanilla threshold for a 3-drop, its uselessness when we fall behind is a significant price to pay.  We are not even sure this is a good enough minion to play in an Egg of Khelos deck, since Sewer Swimmer is more flexible to use.

The average outcome in a normal back and forth Hearthstone game should be unimpressive unless the Hunter is practically swimming in deathrattle minions.

Score: 1

Reload

This might be one of the most impressively designed high-cost Hunter cards we have ever encountered. Reload is a chain-discover effect that allows us to continually generate spells until we have reached or exceeded a total cost of 8 mana. Every spell we discover is discounted until it is free, or until the total cost hits 8.

This means that on turn 8, we can generate multiple spells and cast them on the same turn. Reload’s net cost is zero, so it is a value-generating card that does not force us to fall behind, if we are careful about the way we discover spells and commit to spells we can cast immediately.

For example, if we have 4 mana left over to discount, picking a 5-mana spell risks us falling behind too hard, as we cannot play it immediately. If we are methodical about the way we pilot a Reload turn, we should be able to play nearly 8 mana’s worth of spells with great consistency, as most Hunter spells are cheap.

Reload offers Hunter two routes: gain card advantage by hoarding discounted discover value or gain a full late-game turn’s worth of resource. Both options are incredible for the class and make it far more difficult to run it out of resources.

It is difficult for us to ever pass on this card, regardless of the Hunter deck in question and its specific synergies. Even aggressive Hunter decks may want to top out their curve with it. This is a generalist, do-it-all, late-game powerhouse.

Score: 4

Mimiron

This legendary minion works in a similar way to Zephrys, as it offers us the supposedly “optimal” cards based on a board state. However, Mimiron is far more specific in its pool of discovers, only picking from a particular group of tech cards.

This means that if the opponent has a high-value deathrattle minion, Mimiron will offer us a silence. If the opponent has a weapon equipped, it will offer weapon destruction and so on.

Tech cards are generally bad, but if we had the chance to only pick them in their optimal situation, they would be far stronger. Mimiron accomplishes this scenario, with the effect packaged into a cheap 1-mana minion that makes it easier for us to immediately play the tech card we discover.

The mech condition does restrict its usage on paper, but Hunter is highly encouraged to run mech minions thanks to this set, and utilizing some mech minions does not necessarily mean we have to play a Mech Hunter deck. We can envision a Hunter deck with some number of mechs that can activate Mimiron relatively consistently without a full tribal commitment.

Regardless of the Hunter deck, whether it’s fast or slow, Mimiron will become a card it will try to accommodate.

Score: 3

Kronn the Impaler

Kronn is a unique late-game finisher that causes all our minions to shoot damage to the opponent’s side of the board. It includes itself, so if we have a 10-attack minion and a 2-attack minion in play, playing Kronn will cause us to take three random shots of 10, 2 and 6 damage.

This damage can go face, which immediately turns it into a prospective win condition that can execute an OTK in theory. However, due to its massive cost, Kronn requires support via massive discount effects, such as M.O.T.H.E.R. or an Agamaggan from King of the Underbelly. Another possible enabler is N’Zoth, as we can discount it to 0 mana when given enough time and play it alongside Kronn.

This does seem a bit optimistic, especially when we are talking about the Hunter class, which is less equipped to prolong the game and survive to a combo than others. Regardless of which combo we choose to pair with Kronn, it leads to greedy deckbuilding that can be punished by any sort of aggression.

However, we are suckers for late-game lethality. It is enough for one pathway to be figured out for a Kronn deck to become competitive. It does not require an elaborate setup and Hunter decks utilizing Kronn are not likely to be limited to win only through Kronn.

The availability of King of the Underbelly/Agamaggan is a big reason we are not writing the prospect off. Hunter can drop Kronn for 7 mana alongside a 9/9. That combo is already worth 25 damage with nothing else in play. Pair it with a board-clearing N’Zoth and you have 30 damage that can be easily funnelled face.

Greedy, but not delusional.

Score: 2

Final Thoughts

Black Empire Set Rank: 9th

Overall Power Ranking: 11th

Hunter has been nerfed to death and required a transformative set to launch it forward. Instead, it may have been sent to repent in tribal hell. It is not that this set is terrible in the traditional sense. There are some good cards. But compared to some of the more intriguing options seen elsewhere, it is relatively underwhelming. Considering that the class is basically non-existent currently, that does not bode well for its ability to catch up.

The Mech Hunter archetype has tools to establish a board-centric deck that contains a surprising amount of damage. It can also exhibit a surprising amount of longevity with N’Zoth, the most suitable Old God for the class in general.

But the deck looks a bit too fair, which can mean one of two things. Either it is not powerful and it does not see play, or it is adequately powerful and it… sees a little bit of play. Ultimately, Mech Hunter is unlikely to be an attractive deck with a strong player base.

More interesting angles could be an infinite N’Zoth loop or some combination with Agamaggan and Kronn, but these prospects require a level of setup and time that the class may not be able to accommodate. Perhaps, the bright light of the set is Reload, which is an all-purpose reload card, but Hunter needs to do powerful things between turns 1-7 for Reload to matter.

Taking all things into consideration, Hunter will most certainly be the expansion’s underdog at launch and have everything to prove. Let us hope that Hunter players make us look silly in a couple of weeks.