The Comprehensive Restoration of Azeroth Preview

Tame Pet

The first card that is part of the “Animal Companion” package in the class. The goal of this new archetype is to keep upgrading future Animal Companions into bigger random beasts, turning cards that summon Animal Companions into board haymakers eventually.

Tame Pet is a 1-mana cycle spell, which is not good enough to see play unless the effect is worthwhile to the deck, so its usage seems limited to the Animal Companion archetype. We are sceptics of this package, as it is a slow-scaling strategy in a class we are not convinced can afford to prolong the game with its current tools.

The one notable synergy Tame Pet has is with Confront the Tol’vir, which can repeat it and further scale our random beasts while drawing cards. It is possible that a partial package does find its way into the existing Face Hunter archetype as a result.

Score: 2

Spiritspeaker

While this minion seems to fit the Animal Companion package, we can see it being played in other Hunter decks, especially of the aggressive kind. Animal Companion would be a decent spell at 3 mana if we always had control of the outcome. We are spending 4 mana on a discovered Animal Companion with a 2/2 attached, which can be valued at 1 mana.

We would not say this card is a guaranteed inclusion in Face Hunter, but an on-demand Huffer, on top of having a Leokk in case we are ahead on the board, is intriguing enough to consider.

Score: 2

Nurturing Nature

A 2/2 buff for 2 mana is unacceptable. Stronger buffs than Nurturing Nature have not made it to constructed play. This spell is conditional twice! The board buff is reliant on us having a beast in play, while the hand buff effect is reliant on us having a beast in hand. These conditions pigeonhole the spell to only be considered in decks with a high beast count. Even in such a deck, we are underwhelmed by the effect.

Nurturing Nature does not seem to have any coherent synergy with the rest of the set either. Feels like a throwaway card to make up the numbers, one that Hunter players will mostly ignore.

Score: 1

Migrating Elekk

The second Animal Companion upgrader. A 3-mana 3/4 with taunt is not good enough to see play as a standalone card, so Elekk is reliant on the package to work out.

Elekk does curve into Spiritspeaker, but we are not convinced this is a powerful curve. A 3/4 taunt on turn 3 into a random 4-drop with a 2/2 on turn 4 is not impressive. We would need to play Tame Pet earlier for this to be a more reasonable play. The fact it is hard for us to see this Hunter deck convincingly winning board in the first 5-6 turns of the game makes it a hard sell.

Score: 1

Wasteland Vanguard

A 3/3 that casts Arcane Missiles is nowhere near worth 4 mana. Casting two Arcane Missiles makes the card more acceptable, but the condition is unreliable and is particularly weak if the Hunter falls behind. Vanguard is more powerful if we are ahead, as the opponent may only have one vulnerable minion in play, letting us clean it up while pushing face damage.

A card that is mostly good when we are already in a winning position is not convincing. It is also notable that Vanguard is likely weak against defensive-minded decks that do not look to fight for the board in the early game.

Vanguard seems too slow for Face Hunter and does not have great synergy in slower Hunter decks. Most importantly, it is terrible if we are in a losing position, when it is less likely to trigger. We think it is a skip.

Score: 1

Roam Free

The most expensive Animal Companion upgrader. Roam Free scales up the cost of random beasts by 2 and summons one of the three possible beasts immediately. Note that we always know exactly which random beasts are currently in the Companion pool before we play Call of the Wild on turn 8.

How good is Roam Free as a standalone card? Assuming we have played Elekk and Tame Pet, this summons a discovered 7-drop. The 7-drop pool is solid defensively but produces little pressure on the opponent. Even if this card summoned a discovered 8-drop, it is hardly considered above the curve for 7 mana. For this card to be good, Call of the Wild needs to follow on turn 8 with the hope of overwhelming the opponent.

It all seems very dependent on finding the cards in the right order.

Score: 1

Talya Earthstrider

Talya is the “game changer” for the Animal Companion package. All Animal Companion cards now summon +1. This means that Animal Companion summons 2, every trigger of Broll Bearmantle summons 2, while Call of the Wild summons 4.

The issue? It is a 5-mana 4/6 legendary with no other impact on the board. If the deck does not find Talya early, it will be harder for the Hunter to overwhelm the opponent with value as it cannot afford to hold its Animal Companion cards until it finds Talya.

We can see a scenario where this archetype can apply a lot of pressure on the opponent, but only if it is allowed to by a passive opponent that also lacks the removal tools to be able to deal with the growing beasts. Not convincing.

Score: 1

Final Thoughts

We will be surprised if Hunter’s Animal Companion deck works out. It looks like a Hunter deck that wants to go late game but does nothing besides spitting out stats, which might prove to be one-dimensional. We could see some exploration with Face Hunter running a partial package.