The Comprehensive The Great Dark Beyond Preview

 

Data Reaper Report - Warlock

Abduction Ray

Abduction Ray is a Warlock Common Shadow Spell for 2 Mana and has text - Get a random Demon. Reduce its Cost by (2). Repeatable this turn.

Although this card does provide generation at a “net” cost of 0 mana, we still need to make a significant initial investment to generate value. This can set us well behind in constructed play. Paying 4 mana to randomly generate 2 minions is not something that we can usually afford to do.

There are some synergies for Abduction Ray in the set, such as Foreboding Flame discounting the demons further, or Archimonde resurrecting them, but we don’t feel confident about this strategy panning out. It doesn’t have great ways to swing the game after falling behind, besides trying to outpace the opponent through hopeful discounts on powerful demons.

We will be surprised if this card sees immediate competitive play. As it stands, we suspect it will need more support to be a worthwhile inclusion. If there was a way to discount Abduction Rays, then it might have been a good card to pair with K’ara.

Score: 2

Foreboding Flame

Foreboding Flame is a Warlock Common Elemental Minion for 2 Mana with 2 Attack, 3 Health and has text - Battlecry: Demons that didn't start in your deck cost (1) less this game.

This grants a permanent discount on generated demons for the rest of the game. Foreboding Flame’s body is the standard one for a 2-drop, so the ability doesn’t come with a stat penalty.

Of course, generating demons isn’t easy. It requires some sort of investment that can set us back on the board. But, if we can play a single discounted demon relatively quickly, then Foreboding Flame has already managed to pay for itself.

We expect this to be one of the stronger cards for its archetype, as it can set the tone early for the rest of the game, making all other demon generation cards better, such as Abduction Ray. But ultimately, we don’t rate this strategy very highly.

Score: 2

Heart of the Legion

Heart of the Legion is a Warlock Common Minion for 2 Mana with 3 Attack, 2 Health and has text - Lifesteal Starship Piece

A very simple starship piece, but one that can be quite valuable on its own, since it activates starship synergies faster. Of course, the main upside of Heart of the Legion is that it has lifesteal. Lifesteal is a keyword that scales with stats, so in the context of a launched starship, it can be a powerful keyword from a stabilizing perspective, especially in combination with Felfire Thrusters.

The stats for a 2-drop are decent enough. We can play it on turn 2 without the sense that we’re falling behind. Solid.

Score: 2

Felfire Thrusters

Felfire Thrusters is a Warlock Rare Minion for 3 Mana with 2 Attack, 3 Health and has text - Spellburst: Deal this minion's Attack damage to 2 random enemy minions. Starship Piece

This is not a great minion by itself, as it is an undersized 3-drop that requires us to activate spellburst to have a slight above the curve impact on the board. We’re paying 3 mana for a 2/3 and a Cleave. In many situations, we can’t afford to hold onto the card for a spellburst activation, so paying 3 mana for a 2/3 is very bad.

The upside in the card is in its starship scaling. Since it deals its attack value in damage, that number can go up significantly in the context of a starship. Add Heart of the Legion and that damage now heals us. Warlock’s starship appears to be one that’s focused on survivability, with the damage being restricted to enemy minions.

In a way, that’s a bit disappointing, as other starships have potential to close out the game. This means that Warlock’s starship requires pairing with a late game win condition to be effective. That could be a blessing, as it can theoretically accommodate different win conditions with greater versatility. But it could also mean that if Warlock does not find an effective finisher in late game matchups, a starship deck is not feasible in the class.

Score: 2

Infernal Stratagem

Infernal Stratagem is a Warlock Rare Fel Spell for 3 Mana and has text - Give a minion +3/+3. If it's a Demon, your next one costs (2) less.

A 3/3 buff for 3 mana is alright, which makes it slightly stronger than Blessing of Kings, but not good enough to see constructed play when Cursed Souvenir is clearly better (and not even impressive in a deck like Pain Warlock). The additional effect on demons makes it more interesting. We can buff an early game demon and cheat out another soon after.

In a demon-centric deck, this card should be serviceable, but it requires a critical mass of early game demons that allow us to consistently get the discount off. It’s not good enough in Pain Warlock, so it needs a different proactive deck to emerge. Otherwise, this isn’t a great card, so we consider it to be fringe in its playability. It may not happen this expansion.

Score: 2

Bad Omen

Bad Omen is a Warlock Rare Fel Spell for 6 Mana and has text - In 2 turns, summon two 6/6 Demons with Taunt. If you're building a Starship, summon them now.

This spell summons two 6/6 taunts for 6 mana if we’re building a starship. We don’t even consider the baseline effect on the card, as it should never realistically happen. Between 8 copies of starship pieces that are available to include in a deck, it should be near impossible to not find one by turn 5.

Which means that a Starship Warlock deck is getting a massive secondary payoff here that comes online very consistently. Bad Omen offers significant pressure on the opponent with two big bodies, as well as 12 health in taunts that can act as stabilizers in faster matchups. Once again, we’ll note that most aggressive decks in existence have an average game length of between 6 and 7 turns, which puts Bad Omen within the window of relevance to handle them.

In fact, we believe this card may prove to be a stronger starship payoff than the Warlock starship itself.

Score: 3

Healthstone

Healthstone is a Warlock Epic Fel Spell for 0 Mana and has text - Tradeable Restore all damage your hero has taken this turn. ( )

This spell has a lot of potential to enable massive health swings in different Warlock decks. The first thought immediately goes to Pain Warlock, a deck that can commonly deal 10 damage to itself in a single turn. A Molten Giant into Healthstone doesn’t cost the extra mana that ‘INFERNAL!’ demands from the deck to stabilize. Another example is Insanity Warlock, a deck that’s forced to run Harp to negate the scaling self-damage from the fatigue package that can become significant.

But slower Warlock strategies may also benefit from the inclusion of the card. Fine Print, for example, instantly looks like a more enticing prospect with the introduction of Healthstone. Perhaps, a Fine Print/Molten Giant/Healthstone combo may become a reality at some point down the road.

For 0 mana, Healthstone doesn’t need to do a lot to be useful. Even healing for 5 is a decent deal. Another big bonus is that Healthstone has tradeable, so when it’s not useful in a slow matchup, it can be replaced. We’ll be surprised if this card doesn’t have an impact on the class, whether immediate or throughout its time in Standard.

Score: 3

Black Hole

Black Hole is a Warlock Epic Shadow Spell for 8 Mana and has text - Destroy all minions except Demons.

A worse Twisting Nether that doesn’t affect demons on any side of the board. The intention is to play a demon-focused deck, which turns Black Hole into an asymmetrical effect on paper, destroying the enemy board while leaving our own.

The issue is that a demon-focused deck, such as the one that appears to be promoted in this set, needs to be proactive rather than reactive. An 8-mana board clear, no matter how skewed it might be towards us, is not something we want to play in a pseudo-tribal deck that runs cards like Infernal Stratagem.

Furthermore, it’s entirely possible that we’ll be facing other decks that run demons. Outside of a potential mirror matchup, opponents don’t even have to be demon-focused, they just need to run Kil’jaeden.

This spell’s usage is just extremely specific. Twisting Nether is better and rarely sees play. The class simply has far better options for AOE effects.

Score: 1

K’ara, the Dark Star

K'ara, the Dark Star is a Warlock Legendary Minion for 3 Mana with 3 Attack, 3 Health and has text - Spellburst: Steal 2 Health from a random enemy. (Shadow spells don't remove this Spellburst.)

The inverse of K’ure, K’ara’s spellburst is fueled by Shadow spells. Its effect deals damage to random enemies while growing its own health in the process. Playing a single spell means that K’ara grows into a 3/5. We can see how chaining multiple Shadow spells in a single turn can turn K’ara into a sizable threat that demands removal yet has a high health total that makes it sticky.

But when we evaluate the Shadow spells available to fuel K’ara, we’re not too impressed. We don’t think there’s a deck in Standard that can leverage the legendary into a serious kill threat, or a mulligan outlier.

Another noticeable thing about the card is the numbers. K’ure is all about the number 3. K’ara is all about the number 3 too, until we get to the health stealing part, which sticks out like a sore thumb as 2. We strongly suspect this card was nerfed in development. Stealing 3 health would have made K’ara very powerful, as 3 health is the magic number that deals with most early-game minions cleanly. Stealing 3 health would have also meant that K’ara’s health growth would be significantly faster and more difficult to deal with.

Its current form is tamer, as it doesn’t cleanly deal with most early-game minions. That’s a big difference maker in its ability to control the board or become a centerpiece of a combo finisher. K’ara/Reverberation just doesn’t deal enough damage to act as a reliable kill threat.

Could be a decent card in a deck that already runs a bunch of Shadow spells. We’re not eager to build around it more aggressively.

Score: 2

Archimonde

Archimonde is a Warlock Legendary Demon Minion for 7 Mana with 7 Attack, 7 Health and has text - Battlecry: Summon every Demon you played this game that didn't start in your deck.

Archimonde compounds “generated demon” synergies by offering a big board in one play, summoning all the generated demons we’ve played in a game. Notice that these demons don’t need to die. They just need to be played. They can’t be summoned, so Bad Omen does not work.

As a 7 mana 7/7, we need to think of how many stats would we need to summon to make Archimonde worthwhile. Taking into consideration that we consider Bad Omen to be “nuts”, we suspect that two generated demons of a similar size and board impact would be the low-end case of acceptable.

The main challenge is that these are demons we need to randomly generate and then spend mana on. Not an easy feat to accomplish by turn 7. It helps that Archimonde continues to scale into a full board in the late game, but our low opinion of this archetype sours our evaluation of the card. The good news is that unlike other cards in this set, Archimonde can fit into a deck that’s not as “all-in” with regards to the mechanic. Kil’jaeden alone makes his buddy look “feasible”.

Score: 2

Final Thoughts

The Great Dark Beyond Set Rank: 11th

Overall Power Ranking:  9th

What can we say? We’re not fans of generating random demons and hoping for the best. Warlock’s set doesn’t deliver on providing a reliable late game plan for the class, which is an issue that’s been bothering the class since the famous Agency patch during Whizbang.

First, Warlock’s starship is the least threatening one out of all classes. It’s strictly a survival tool. That would be fine if Warlock had a good win condition to complement its desire to go into the late game. Is the slow-scaling starship package the way to bring back Wheel of Death to competitive relevance? It does have some synergy with Forge of Wills too, but on paper, it has a lot to prove.

Perhaps, Wheel of Death gets an extra boost from Ceaseless Expanse and Kil’jaeden. Admittedly, these two legendary neutrals don’t work amazingly together. Kil’jaeden replaces the deck, rather than destroys it, so you want to Wheel first to discount Expanse and Fanottem. However, they could provide a safety net for playing Wheel.

Furthermore, the demon archetype looks very questionable to us. It’s hard for us to get behind a game plan that requires us to spend a full turn on Abduction Ray. High generation archetypes usually succeed because they have a massive swing turn, or strong survival tools. A Demon Warlock deck seems to lean into an incremental, aggressive direction instead.

We have the nagging feeling that this could be another expansion of Pain and Insanity Warlock. They might have success, but if they’re the only things worth playing in the class yet again, Warlock’s play rate may flounder.

1 Comment

  1. So Yrel can’t give the Libram of Judgment, 7 mana weapon? Then text on this card is misleading and deceptive.

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