The Comprehensive The Great Dark Beyond Preview

 

Captain’s Log

This card is simple and not too difficult to evaluate, as we’ve seen many similar cards before. If we don’t want to play an Arcane Intellect in a tribal, aggressive deck, which is what Draenei Warrior is shaping up to be, we need Captain’s Log to cost 2 mana or less to be a competitive card.

For that to happen, we need to have two Draenei minions in play. We think that’s a realistic proposition, considering we can have a single minion in play, drop an additional minion, then cast Captain’s Log. It’s also a realistic chance to have Captain’s Log cost even less than that, which makes it a significantly stronger card.

This card is limited to a single archetype, so its play rate is dependent on the success of the strategy.

Score: 2

Hostile Invader

Invader packs three instances of a 2-damage Whirlwind effect: Battlecry, Spellburst and Deathrattle. The deathrattle effect is slow, but the first two can be combined in a single turn with the help of a cheap spell. A 5 mana 3/5 that deals 4 AOE damage upon entrance is simply nuts. It is so good that it makes us even consider running Through Fel and Flames just to activate the Spellburst on curve. It’s probably fine to just combine it with Safety Goggles (strongest option), Shield Block, Garrosh’s Gift or Slam for the best results.

Of course, it’s also possible to just play it on curve with its battlecry alone, clear a board of tokens, while threatening to activate the spellburst on the opponent’s next reload. Invader looks like a crippling card to play against Evolve Shaman or Pirate DH. Any deck that relies on going wide can be absolutely destroyed by it.

The cherry on top is that Invader is a demon, which is a very rare tribe for Warrior. This makes All You Can Eat increasingly enticing as a tutor option in a deck such as Odyn Warrior. We expect Hostile Invader to become a staple card in every Control Warrior deck going forward.

Score: 4

Unyielding Vindicator

You can think of Vindicator as a minion that deals a delayed amount of damage, based on the next Draenei we play. A popular follow up to this card would be the neutral Ace Wayfinder, which would provide us with 5 attack on turn 5. This is ignoring potential handbuffs that could become relevant for this archetype. Crystalline Greatmace on turn 2, or Crimson Commander on turn 3, scale this damage up to the point it is very threatening. Cup o’ Muscle is another card we’re looking at as a great enabler of Vindicator.

We’ve always considered off-board damage to be an important trait that makes an otherwise predictable aggressive deck more well-rounded. Burst damage and finishing potential makes an aggressive deck more difficult to counter through removal. Although Vindicator does have a mediocre initial body, its damage ceiling convinces us that it will see play, if the archetype manages to carve out its place in the format. Otherwise, it will be forgotten.

Score: 2

Crystalline Greatmace

The cornerstone weapon for Draenei Warrior. Its handbuffing ability is a key enabler for several important synergies in the archetype, which can make this deck quite explosive in its ability to burst opponents down. However, there are some things we don’t like about this weapon.

It’s a 2/2 weapon. It is consistent throughout Hearthstone’s history that 2-attack weapons need to be extra special to see competitive play. The reason they struggle to make an impact is that they don’t reliably answer early game minions. 3-attack is the breakpoint in which most early game minions can be answered, save for a few outliers, such as Brittlestone Buccaneer. A great recent example is Metal Detector, which got buffed from 2 to 3 attack, turning it from trash into treasure.

The other issue is that Greatmace does not buff the health of our minions. This is a trait that historically doesn’t work well for handbuff cards. When they only buff attack, they don’t make our minions more resilient to removal.

The hope is that the extra off-board damage enabled by Greatmace makes it less important for the Warrior to stick minions to the board. Greatmace does buff attack by a massive amount for 2 mana. A single Draenei gets 4 extra attack from two swings, so it’s a crazy enabler of Vindicator.

Score: 2

Jettison

First Pocket Dimension, now Jettison. It feels like discover is being overvalued in design. A plain 2-mana spell that discovers 2 spells is likely not good enough to make it into constructed. At best, it’s borderline playable. Here, we have a spell that’s not even guaranteed to discover 2 spells and is very awkward to play on-curve. Unless we’ve played a turn 1 Armor Vendor, Jettison is not a relevant card on turn 2. That just doesn’t cut it. Later in the game, it becomes more playable, but it still feels terrible to lose 2 armor for the sake of such a mediocre effect.

Warrior’s late game is laser-focused on certain win conditions. It hasn’t been a value generation class for a long time. Even the attrition-based Reno Warrior does not run much discover power, if at all. We don’t think Jettison is an attractive card for late game strategies in the class. It might get better post rotation, but probably not. That armor cost is a dealbreaker.

Score: 1

Expedition Sergeant

Sergeant resembles Vindicator in the way it leverages a future minion to provide immediate damage upon entering the board, which scales with the minion’s attack value in a different way. This 3-drop causes a forced attack to happen to a random enemy, so it can go face. This forced attack does not expend an attack turn for the minion in question. It can gain rush and attack again.

Sergeant’s baseline stats are solid, so it doesn’t pay a significant penalty for its ability, which can be worth a lot of damage, especially with buffs. It works particularly well with Exarch Akama, which needs a way to gain an attack upon entering the board.

Much like most of this Draenei-focused set, this minion will see play if the archetype succeeds competitively. There’s a fringe case where some combo Warrior deck runs Sergeant in a small package with Akama, but we think the class has access to better late game finishers.

Score: 2

Stalwart Avenger

Notice that Avenger’s stats are swapped whenever a player’s turn ends. This means that it will always be a 7/2 on our turn, and a 2/7 on the opponent’s turn. This makes the minion very aggressive in terms of damage output, but difficult to remove for the opponent. Damaging the minion will impact Avenger’s attack, which makes for an interesting dynamic.

In general, this card is very good against passive decks that demand removal, while being less effective against proactive decks that have minions in play and can potentially value trade it away. For example, an Avenger following Sergeant is a devastating 1-2 punch against an empty board but isn’t as effective if we end up randomly attacking a 1/1.

Avenger also scales hard with handbuffs, which makes it more threatening and more difficult to kill. An attack buff, in this case, does help Avenger survive better against damage-based removal, so we like that about the card.

However, without these enablers, this is a terrible minion with no immediate impact. A vanilla 4 mana 2/7 is completely unplayable, so it’s very dependent on its surrounding support to be competitive.

Score: 2

Dwarf Planet

Kind of AOE. Kind of finisher. Dwarf Planet summons a huge board to attack random enemies, which can go face. The average attack value of a random 2-drop is between 2 and 2.5, so you’re looking at around ~12-15 damage in minion attacks. If we compare this to Sunset Volley, it comes out okay. It’s stronger into an empty board, but inconsistent into an enemy board, as minions can die and produce less stats in play once the attacks resolve.

Much like most other expensive spells, we don’t think it’s a realistic inclusion in late game Warrior strategies, even those that run ramp. Unless it can be cheated out with a big discount, we don’t think it will see play.

Lunar Trailblazer is a neutral 5-drop Draenei that can help us discount Dwarf Planet. We can see this package fitting into Draenei Warrior, but it requires minimizing the number of spells we have in the deck. We’re not convinced it’s a worthwhile tradeoff.

Score: 2

Exarch Akama

Akama’s power entirely lies in his ability. A 5 mana 3/6 is a terrible stat line, but the opportunity to attack multiple times in a turn with our board is very enticing. You can think of it as a scuffed Time Warp. This can be a powerful finisher in Draenei Warrior.

We believe this is mostly a Draenei Warrior card, because Exarch Akama ideally needs to be able to attack immediately when we play it. Otherwise, the opponent will never let it live. If we want it to survive a turn, we need to buff it, which brings us again to Crimson Commander and Draenei-focused synergies.

What can help us attack with Akama on the turn we play it? Expedition Sergeant is one. Stranded Spaceman is another. Through Fel and Flames works very well too. Note that if we play Sergeant, play Akama, and then buff Akama with Through Fel and Flames, we can attack with Akama again, giving our board three attacks in one turn! The only caveat is that Akama survives the first attack, which is random. Akama can also work in a combo Warrior deck. For example, alongside Grom Hellscream and Chemical Spill, or a buffed Leeroy Jenkins, but these finishers have issues with taunts and cost 10 mana.

Clearly powerful. Potentially game breaking in the future. Time Warp is Time Warp.

Score: 3

Spore Empress Moldara

Moldara adds Spores to our deck that scale with each Spore played. The first one summons one random 5-drop. The second summons two and on it goes, until the seventh summons a full board of 5-drops.

This legendary seems horrendous. The first few Replicating Spores are bad cards that we might draw instead of cards we originally put in our deck, making our deck less consistent, without the benefit of extra survivability that a Renathal provides.

The only type of deck that would consider Moldara is one that’s focused on pure attrition, without a game ending win condition. In this case, Moldara can help it delay fatigue while offering some threat density. But the fatigue clock is easily hard countered by Kil’jaeden or cards like Aviana, so we don’t think this path is ever realistic.

Replicating Spores do scale and may become threats in the late game, but the last copies of them are only going to be played very late in the game, at which point most decks have already found their win conditions, or alternatively, big board clears.

And on top of it all, we must pay a tax of drawing a 6 mana 6/7 with no Ogre artwork. Unacceptable.

Score: 1

Final Thoughts

The Great Dark Beyond Set Rank: 10^th

Overall Power Ranking:  8^th

Warrior’s set is an attempt to move away from established strategies and create a new, aggressive archetype that is centered on the Draenei tribe. This does pose a risk of stagnation for late game Warrior strategies but is an understandable direction in the face of Reno Warrior fatigue.

The Draenei tribe doesn’t feel fast enough or threatening enough in some classes, but Warrior does have a few cards that significantly improve its ability to close out games. What we like about the set is that it introduces off-board damage to a tribe that seems very board-centric otherwise. Akama is a threatening finisher that makes cleaning up boards imperative against the deck.

While support for late game strategies in the class isn’t prominent in this set, Hostile Invader is a massive exception. This is a powerhouse defensive card that we suspect will be a mandatory inclusion for any Warrior deck focused on survival. Odyn Warrior should benefit, especially when it has proven to be surprisingly vulnerable to being rushed down in some matchups.

Perhaps, this is the correct approach from Team 5. Reno and Odyn have 4 months left in Standard, so the best time to introduce a new, late game win condition for the class will be in April. Until then, players will continue to run Reno Warrior, even when it has a 43% win rate (pre-Renathal), while top legend players will enjoy Invader’s superb fit in Odyn Warrior.

We don’t anticipate Warrior topping win rate charts in the first couple of weeks of the expansion. We have some concerns that its potential archetypes could find themselves outclassed, but it’s unlikely that Warrior disappears from the scene.