Azsharan Scavenger
Scavenger’s stats are quite mediocre for a 3-drop. Luckily, Warlock has decent dredge cards so you should be able to find Sunken Scavenger consistently, and the payoff is significant with a complete buff to every murloc no matter where it is. This does provide Murloc Warlock with some longevity and late game scaling.
Score: 2
Sira’kess Cultist
Awful body for a 3-drop for a payoff that is so slow and unreliable as a win condition that it hurts us to think about it. Not sure why we need to pay such a massive penalty for an effect that doesn’t reliably win even if we survive into the late game. No immediate board impact. No resource advantage. Just a 3 mana 2/3.
Score: 1
Dragged Below
Again, we are faced with a card that pays such a massive penalty for the effect of giving the opponent an Abyssal Curse. Should we mention that there can be a maximum of 7 curse cards in our deck, so even under the assumption we copied one with Tamsin, our 8th curse will deal 8 damage to our opponent since we exert no pressure on them and they can just play the curse in their hand and avoid half the damage? Should we also mention that even if we somehow add the last three curses to our opponent’s hand on the same turn, we’re dealing a whopping 21 damage? All this work when we can deal 112 damage with Humongous Owl. A 4-mana Shadowbolt is a bad card.
Score: 1
Rock Bottom
1 mana to summon two 1/1’s in a Murloc deck. The tokens are murlocs so they can be buffed by all the murloc synergy cards, and they also activate Chum Bucket. Not a bad card for the archetype, but not something that ‘makes’ the deck either. You can play this on turn 1 and find a decent follow-up or save it for Chum Bucket. We suspect that Murloc Warlock will be a bit slower to get to the board and mostly save up resources to maximize its handbuffs.
Score: 2
Voidgill
Pretty strong stats and ability for a 2-drop only tempered by the fact it’s a deathrattle so the buff isn’t instant. This does affect how this card performs later in the game, since you can’t play it and follow it up immediately with additional buffed bodies. Still, this is a solid early game minion.
Score: 2
Bloodscent Vilefin
This is a weak turn 4 for the potential upside of a bigger swing the following turn. You’re often going to use Vilefin to dredge Sunken Scavenger, which allows you to develop multiple buffed bodies. The problem is that we’re playing an aggressive tribal deck that needs the board to snowball, and yet we’re playing a 3/4 on turn 3 and a 4/4 on turn 4. That doesn’t strike us as something that’s going to perform well against other aggressive decks, which are likely to take the board away from the Warlock and not let go. In slower matchups, the stats might stack up and become intimidating, but we’re not enamored by the idea. The comeback mechanics for Murloc Warlock aren’t quite there and finding Gigafin off Vilefin is a bit of a pipe dream you can’t count on.
Score: 2
Chum Bucket
This is probably the strongest support for Murloc Warlock. The card has slightly awkward anti-synergy with itself. After all, if you’re flooding the board with Murlocs, your hand size is small, but if you don’t aggressively take the board, Chum Bucket isn’t as powerful. Still, this is a strong buff on par with Conditioning on turn 5 if you have one murloc on the board. Will be necessary to dodge damage based AOE and overwhelm the opponent, as well as swing back in faster matchups through the sheer power of sea men.
Score: 3
Abyssal Wave
Yeah. Abyssal Curse cards are bad and cost too much. We’ll remind you that Entitled Customer is much stronger than this card and struggles to see play. A 6 mana 4 damage AOE is worse than pretty much every competitive spell of a similar effect and cost that’s out there. All for a weird payoff that doesn’t end games. Strange.
Score: 1
Za’qul
Boy, it is going to be funny if this archetype somehow becomes competitive, but we wouldn’t hold our breath. Sure, let’s count on a singleton legendary minion that costs 5 mana to turn our slow and unreliable damage into slow and unreliable healing. Or we could just play Spice Bread Baker, run better removal, and deal a billion, unpreventable damage instead to end the game. Hello?
Score: 1
Gigafin
This is some effect. Developing a 7/4 and a 4/7 taunt while destroying the opponent’s board seems like an extremely powerful play that can completely take over a game. Of course, the stipulation is that if Gigafin is killed before his maw goes down, the opponent’s board comes back.
This means that when it comes to board-based matchups, Gigafin can absolutely end the game. Initiative-focused decks that look to pressure will often not have the direct removal necessary to kill Gigafin, and it’s protected from rush minions by the Maw. You could just use Grimoire of Sacrifice to guarantee the Maw dies, but the card clearly isn’t as effective against slower decks or decks that play off the board. Still, just forcing the opponent to kill Gigafin and prevent the opponent’s board from attacking for a full turn is pretty good. Is it worth 8 mana? In some decks, it probably is.
Score: 3
Final Thoughts
Voyage to the Sunken City Set Rank: 10th
Overall Power Ranking: 9th
Big question marks surround the Warlock class. With the Demon Seed likely dead through rotation, and the supporting shell of Owl Warlock partially gone too, we’re not sure what the class has to do to compete.
There is no way Curse Warlock was designed with these numbers. We strongly suspect that this archetype was nerfed during development, because it feels like every single card it’s supposed to play costs one mana more than it should. There is some potential for inevitability through complementary pieces such as Brann, Zola and Azshara, but the proposition seems highly optimistic. We’ll be surprised if this deck ends up being good, but if it’s been strong through development to the point it was nerfed, then maybe it’ll surprise everyone.
We do like Murloc Warlock better. It’s got strong late game scaling. The buffs could become overwhelming for a deck that sits back defensively and tries to deal with the waves of fish people. The issue we see is Murloc Warlock’s early game. It’s probably going to be easy to take early game board control against it, and it’s all about whether the Warlock can swing back and turn the corner in the faster matchups after Chum Bucket has been played.
What’s left? Can Owl Warlock survive rotation, and perhaps turn into Naval Mine Warlock? It’s going to be a challenge to make Mithril Rod work without Backfire and Tour Guide. The combo is intact. The damage potential is there. We just need to find the proper supporting shell. We’re less optimistic about Reno Warlock. It’s got no real win condition. People forget that Reno Jackson was genuinely strong in Standard for exactly 4 months once he got Kazakus as a buddy. There are not enough Highlander payoffs now. Demon Zoo is probably dead on arrival. Imp Gang Boss and Voidwalker aren’t getting it done.
Everyone, circle around the Chum Bucket, and pray to the Murloc God.
