The Comprehensive The Great Dark Beyond Preview

Data Reaper Report - Druid

Arkonite Revelation

Arkonite Revelation is a Druid Common Arcane Spell for 1 Mana and has text - Draw a card. If it's a spell, it costs (1) less.

A very simple, but powerful card. Drawing a card for 1 mana is already a reasonable effect that’s borderline constructed worthy, but if we end up drawing a spell, it gets discounted by 1 mana, making Arkonite Revelation cost a net zero. Some discounts can be critical to helping us turn the corner, such as Crystal Cluster or Sleep Under the Stars.

This encourages Druid to run a deck that’s dense with spells, which is something that the class is naturally inclined to do through its ramp strategies. A decent minion count shouldn’t discourage us from running the spell either, as it’s serviceable at its baseline. With the Arcane spell school tag, Arkonite Revelation is the cheapest spell that can be doubled up with Starlight Reactor. This guarantees its inclusion in any Arcane Druid strategy.

Overall, we expect this spell to be a popular inclusion for every late-game oriented Druid deck going forward.

Score: 4

Sha’tari Cloakfield

Sha'tari Cloakfield is a Druid Common Minion for 2 Mana with 1 Attack, 3 Health and has text - Elusive. Your first spell each turn costs (1) less. Starship Piece

Note that Cloakfield discounts any spell, not just Arcane spells, making it easier to leverage. While a 2 mana 1/3 isn’t great, if we play a spell on the same turn in which we developed Cloakfield, we’ve only paid a net 1 mana for the body. It might be a small minion that can be killed easily through minion trades, but it is a threat that needs to be removed, as it threatens to give us another discount on our next turn. This gives it quasi-taunt.

Cloakfield is a cheap starship piece, making it easier for us to activate starship synergies. Its utility inside a starship is valuable, as it synergizes well with Starlight Reactor and makes it difficult for our opponent to deal with our starship through removal. A big, elusive starship can only be killed through minion trades, non-targeted removal, or Titan abilities. We think that establishes Druid’s starship as the most likely to stick an additional turn after launching.

Score: 3

Distress Signal

Distress Signal is a Druid Common Arcane Spell for 4 Mana and has text - Summon two random 2-Cost minions. Refresh 2 Mana Crystals.

Summoning a couple of random 2-drops is not a bad deal when it costs a net 2 mana. The only caveat is that it demands an upfront cost of 4 mana, but the refresh effect has clear synergy with Starlight Reactor. When doubled up by Reactor, Distress Signals summons 4 minions and refreshes 4 mana, making it cost a net zero.

This makes Signal a powerful board loading tool on the turn we play Reactor or launch our starship. It also fills our board, making Cosmic Phenomenon more likely to buff it. What we like about it is that it’s good enough to play as a standalone card when we need to contest the board early to survive, but scales exponentially in the late game. These are the kind of cards that Druid loves to have.

Score: 3

Astral Phaser

Astral Phaser is a Druid Rare Arcane Spell for 2 Mana and has text - Choose One - Deal 2 damage to two random enemy minions; or Make one Dormant for 2 turns.

Neither of Astral Phaser’s effects are particularly enticing. We have the option of casting Warrior’s old cleave spell, or a more expensive Red Card for a mediocre single target dormant effect. Dormancy as a form of removal has proven to be very weak in the past. This spell is also not very strong when doubled up by Reactor, as the second cast is random.

While Druid can appreciate some form of AOE and single target removal, the effects here are not powerful enough to be worth including in a constructed deck. This doesn’t feel like a spell that was even meant to be included in a deck, but rather added to Exarch Othaar’s random generation pool.

Score: 1

Starlight Reactor

Starlight Reactor is a Druid Rare Minion for 3 Mana with 3 Attack, 3 Health and has text - After you cast an Arcane spell, recast it (targets chosen randomly). Starship Piece

The cornerstone starship piece of Druid, Starlight Reactor doubles the effect of any Arcane spell that’s cast while it’s in play. This is a very powerful effect in the context of Druid’s Arcane spell pool, as it can help us build up massive boards or generate an incredible amount of value, possibly on the same turn.

The Arcane spell pool has multiple effects that refresh or discount mana, so Reactor can enable a huge swing turn in which we chain a significant number of spells. While not directly dealing damage or clearing boards, the indirect impact of doubled (or even tripled) Arcane spells can be game ending.

We believe this is the strongest standalone starship piece in the entire set. It makes our starship not require growing to a huge size to make an impact, as its ability does not scale with its attack value. It is so thought provoking that we had ideas on utilizing it without a big starship package, just from its potential as a miracle-enabling 3-drop that we can “resurrect” later.

Score: 4

Star Grazer

Star Grazer is a Druid Rare Beast Minion for 8 Mana with 8 Attack, 8 Health and has text - Elusive, Taunt Spellburst: Give your hero +8 Attack this turn and gain 8 Armor.

Star Grazer is Guff the Tough, Stormwind’s quest reward, in constructed card form. The “work” required to activate its effect is spending 8-mana and triggering its spellburst. Not a simple requirement considering its cost, but the elusive keyword makes it hard to deal with, especially if we’ve managed to ramp to it.

Star Grazer does present a question of where it fits in, but the answer is easy: this is the perfect addition to Dungar Druid. Not only does it get pulled with Dungar, but it’s also a prime target for Thunderbringer. Grazer provides sustain and off-board damage to a deck that’s very board-reliant. Hydration Station makes its effect potentially repeatable, suddenly turning Dungar Druid into a deck that can gain massive amounts of armor and outright kill the opponent with burst damage.

Should be an instant hit, if the deck is strong enough to compete.

Score: 3

Cosmic Phenomenon

Cosmic Phenomenon is a Druid Epic Arcane Spell for 5 Mana and has text - Summon three 2/3 Elementals with Taunt. If your board is full, give your minions +1/+1.

This spell is objectively cracked. Summoning three 2/3 taunts for 5 mana is already a strong effect for its cost. A 2/3 taunt is worth slightly less than 2 mana (considering we wouldn’t run it in a constructed deck), so the math checks out well for three bodies. For Druid specifically, this card is very valuable because it allows it to stabilize or buy time.

If our board is full, the spell’s effect isn’t wasted but turns into a board wide buff. The question on how often this can trigger is answered in the context of Distress Signal and Starlight Reactor. This 3-card combo costs 8 mana and summons a wide, buffed board of random 2-drops that should end the game in any faster matchup.

Cosmic Phenomenon’s versatility is remarkable, acting both as a defensive stabilizer and a board-buffing finisher, making it a potential inclusion in a wide variety of decks. A modern Hearthstone’s Spreading Plague. We expect that kind of impact.

Score: 4

Final Frontier

Final Frontier is a Druid Epic Arcane Spell for 7 Mana and has text - Discover a 10-Cost minion from the past. Set its Cost to (1).

We’re paying a total of 8 mana to play a random 10-drop from the past. This doesn’t sound great on paper, but it does have some potential to swing the game. It seems hard to justify its inclusion when there are plenty of ramp payoffs that provide a guaranteed swing (Eonar, Yogg, Zilliax), but in the context of Starlight Reactor, we get additional value for the cost, albeit randomly.

This is a hard card to evaluate without assessing the quality of the pool we’re tapping from, so we did take a good look at the pool of 10-drops we can discover from Final Frontier. We estimate that we are statistically likely to find an impactful discovery, as roughly a third of the pool are what can be called “game state changers”. A doubled Final Frontier gets us a quality 10-drop ~80% of the time. This convinces us that the impact of this spell is worth exploring, specifically in a deck centered heavily on Starlight Reactor.

Score: 2

Exarch Othaar

Exarch Othaar is a Druid Legendary Draenei Minion for 4 Mana with 3 Attack, 3 Health and has text - Battlecry: If you're building a Starship, get 3 different Arcane spells and reduce their Costs by (2).

Othaar generates 3 random Arcane spells and discounts them by a total 6 mana, which makes Othaar a net positive play in terms of mana. The starship condition is not difficult to execute and can be ready by turn 4 with a decent level of consistency. That seems like the recipe of a very powerful card.

The only slight on Othaar is that we can generate spells from any class, which means the level of synergy with Starlight Reactor is not as insane as it could have been. Nevertheless, this card provides a significant amount of discounted fuel for our Reactor swing turns, while having potential to help us turn the corner by itself.

In a starship deck, this is a no brainer inclusion. It’s a big incentive to run a starship package too. In a deck that focuses on Reactor alone as a miracle-enabler, it might not be consistent enough to be worth adding.

Score: 3

Uluu, the Everdrifter

Uluu, the Everdrifter is a Druid Legendary Beast Minion for 5 Mana with 6 Attack, 5 Health and has text - Each turn this is in your hand, gain two random Choose One choices. Choose One - ; or .

Uluu is a peculiar legendary that gains two Choose one effects from a very large pool of Choose One cards in Standard. They range from having little impact, modest impact, to powerhouse effects. The reliability here is not too high.

Uluu gets a penalty from us for being a terrible draw off the top, as it needs to sit in our hand for a turn to become potentially useful. Even then, there is no guarantee that the two effects will be impactful enough to be worth playing a 5 mana 6/5 for.

You can compare Uluu to Gorgonzormu. The cheese dragon is 2-mana cheaper, becomes a guaranteed net positive play the very next turn and its scaling is straight-forward and easy to plan for. Uluu is erratic and difficult to anticipate, while having no real scaling while it sits in hand.

What puts us off more than anything else is that Uluu has no synergies. It’s a single card value bomb, that isn’t particularly valuable, isn’t enhanced and doesn’t enhance the other cards in our deck. We just don’t see where it goes.

Score: 1

Final Thoughts

The Great Dark Beyond Set Rank: 4th

Overall Power Ranking:  5th

Druid is one of the classes that has a well-established, functional and competitive late game. That doesn’t stop it from receiving even more late game options that are very exciting and should place it at the forefront of the format.

Our opinion is that Starlight Reactor is the single best starship piece. It is so intriguing as a build-around card that we’re not even sure it needs the full starship package to function as a successful win condition. Its ability is potentially very powerful in combination with the Arcane spell package. We can generate massive, protective boards, while producing an incredible amount of value.

The fact that we can launch a ship after Reactor is killed and go off multiple times seems like a scary proposition for the opponent, especially when ramp is available, and we can have up to 16 mana on a single turn. It makes it a lot easier to execute a competitive starship strategy.

But exciting possibilities do not end there. Arkonite Revelation and Ethereal Oracle could put an Owlonius Spell-Damage Druid over the top. Specifically, Oracle is so good for this archetype, in draw consistency, survival and combo execution. Dungar Druid is getting some tasty new big minions to cheat out too.

The Ceaseless Expanse should be rapidly discounted in Druid thanks to its ability to ramp and quickly chain multiple cards together. We even expect it in a Reno Druid deck that’s not as consistent in its ability to do those things. Ceaseless Expanse’s interaction with Pendant of Earth is particularly enticing and makes us wonder whether we could run a spell-dense deck with just a few minions so that Pendant is always a full heal. Imagine if this tutor still generated armor!

The only thing that could give Druid serious problems is an aggressive format full of decks that rush it down and kill it before it’s able to turn the corner, but when it comes to the late game, Malfurion should remain king.

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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