So, quite a few of the new cards have been revealed, and I figured we could have a little discussion thread to talk about them as they are announced.

I'm probably not going to do every card in this opening post, but only the really crazy interesting (and one or two bad) ones.

First up, we have the card that everyone who plays arena is gnashing their teeth about...

Firelands Portal

I see why they're freaking out! In arena tempo is king, and this card is powerful removal and a fairly beefy minion! It's tough to imagine a truly "bad" minion that you could get out of this card. No Doomsayer or Ancient Watcher ruining your day. In fact, there are a lot of great statline minions you could get. Earth Elemental, Twilight Darkmender, Doomguard, and Leeroy Jenkins to name just a few. You could even wind up with Validated Doomsayer and get a chance at a 7/7! Seems powerful! In constructed I think it's probably a little too expensive to be used in the crazy fast meta that's currently sweeping ranked play, but we'll see.

Next, we have what I think is one of the neatest and craziest cards Hearthstone has seen yet,

Prince Malchezaar

Here we have a good statline 5 cost minion with a totally new mechanic. If you have Malchezaar in your deck at the start of the game, 5 random legendary minions are added to your deck. This is kind of insane for a lot of reasons. Obviously, legendary minions are really powerful, and if you get a lot of good ones in the random bonus you could wind up with a pretty nice setup for the game. In addition to that, games occasionally still go to fatigue and you'll be in a better position than your opponent since you have a 35 card deck, if it comes to that. Miracle decks that draw through all their cards may like this card quite a bit.

The obvious drawback is that your deck is full of cards you want to play and draw when you need them, and there's a good reason a deck of all legendaries doesn't work. It'll be interesting to see if this becomes this expansion's Emperor Thaurissan or Dr. Boom.

Speaking of unique cards, here's

The Curator

Man, this is a neat one. This guy has the statline, taunt, and mana cost of a Twin Emperor, and a really powerful but situational battlecry. There are plenty of trios that people have theorycrafted as being optimal for this card's draw effect. The currently accepted wisdom is Ysera, Corrupted Seer, and Stampeding Kodo, but there may be many other options as well. This card immediately seems most at home in a Reno Jackson deck, where wild card diversity is welcomed. However, to get full use out of that battlecry you'll need to have the cards still in your deck, so the trade-off is certainty of what cards you'll draw versus certainty that you'll get the full 3 cards drawn from this battlecry. Like many other cards in this expansion that have been shown, I worry that this may just be too slow. He doesn't really have much of an effect on the board for a 7-cost minion, but I still love how neat he is.

If you thought Zoo Warlocks just didn't have enough great cards, check out

Kara Kahzam!

I love the art, name, and just about everything about this card. I'm scared to have it played against me, but I do love it. This card is a 6/6 statline for 5 mana, which is slightly above average! And as a bonus, it's split among 3 minions, which is even better! Darkshire Councilman loves this card, and in general this seems to be an easy way to get a fast presence going after a big AOE on your board like Consecrate, but which is more valuable than something like Forbidden Ritual and more immediate than Imp Gang Boss. It also provides a very flexible board of Power Overwhelming options, allowing you to perfectly kill a 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, or 7 health minion. This probably won't be an auto-include spell into every Warlock deck, but it's definitely solid.

Next I want to talk about a card I'd love to be great but have some reservations about,

Ivory Knight

Ivory Knight is a neat card that has what I think could be crippling issues. The 4/4 statline is below average for a 6-cost card, but Discover is a powerful ability. Paladin spells however are in general pretty situational and very low-cost. You could wind up with a big heal and great removal from Avenging Wrath, but of the 28 Paladin Spells currently in standard mode a whopping 12 of them are 1-cost or lower. Only Forbidden Healing is zero cost, but the 14-mana heal next turn may make up for that. In fact, 8 more of those 1-cost spells are 2 to 4-cost, leaving just eight 5+ mana spells available for a decent heal. But, it gets worse: the big mana spells are paladin's most situational. From Holy Wrath to Enter the Coliseum, Anyfin Can Happen to Solemn Vigil, the most expensive paladin spells tend to be the niche ones. So you'll be discovering a bad heal and good spell, or a situational spell and good heal. Adding what may end up being a kind of lackluster and confused battlecry to bad stats, we have a mid-game card that's supposed to keep you alive with a pretty small heal in a very fast meta. We'll have to wait and see on this one!

Finally, I just straight up think this card is bad. It's...

Moroes

I have to say I'm completely baffled here. I don't understand the point of this card. Maybe he's there to nerf random legendary summoning cards like Prince Malchezaar and Confessor Paletress, maybe he's supposed to provide you targets for buffs. For a 3 cost card you should be expecting around 6 stats or a damn good effect. Moroes seems to have neither. Arcane Missiles, Swipe, Arcane Explosion, Consecration, Hellfire, and more are all available at this point or the next turn to ruin Moroes and his buddy's day, and even if they survive I'm not sure they'll be some giant help. Low cost legendaries are pretty cool, but Bloodmage Thalnos has a great value effect and Milhouse Manastorm has great stats. Sir Finley Mrrgglton has good stats and a great effect. Maybe Moroes will be used, but I just can't see it.

edit: Turns out I somehow misread Moroes and thought he only summoned ONE 1/1 Steward. As it stands, he's actually a Wisp factory! Which makes him... still pretty bad. Sure you could Power of the Wild a board of Stewards or Savage Roar with them, but Moroes probably isn't going to stick around for more than a few turns and ultimately there are better ways to achieve this same effect, like Violet Teacher. As it stands, he still seems too slow and situational.

So, there you have it. That's definitely not all the cards in the expansion, or even all the cards that have been released at this point, but I hope this allows us to get some discussion going. What do you think is good or bad? Am I dumb and wrong? Do you just hate Firelands Portal? I'd love to see more Hearthstone chat on GB, so let's do it!

Ivory Knight suffers from the crippling flaw of being a control card in hearthstone.

I'll say it's pretty tough to get back into this game, I took a really long break and didn't play any of the single player stuff past nax, so I am basically starting from scratch in terms of ranked play, but this expansion has me itching to get back in. It doesn't help that the IOS version is literally unplayable right now.

Real talk, the current meta in hearthstone I think is probably at the worst it has been at.

Most of the revealed cards are quite underwhelming to me, Malchezar is fun, but I am not sure it will be that good. Especially in how fast the meta currently is. Moroes might be the worst legendary printed.

@atwa: Yeah it's incredibly brutal in ranked. I'm 10-4 with a dragon warrior I just put together and the fast decks are just insane. This is the most aggressive deck I've ever played so I'm having to unlearn a lot of bad control habits. As far as just starting out you may want to recuse yourself from the ranked ladder. It's just nuts. I mostly play tavern brawl and do the adventures. This is the first time I've tried in months to climb the ladder.

I'll start off with the cards that you listed.

Firelands Portal doesn't really look playable. Either though I think the value for the cost is kind of nice, 7 mana is just so inflexible that tempo Mage won't want to run it. Maybe if Summoning Stone Mage will ever be a thing? Yeah, probably not. And yeah, completely destroys Arena balance.

Prince Malchezaar doesn't look playable at all. Diluting your deck with 5 random legendaries that won't help you when drawn when facing a 5/3 Trogg or 6/5 Councilman bashing your face isn't viable in the current meta. The only imaginable scenario I can think of when this would be playable would be if the meta was super control oriented and control Priest was really popular. In that specific case, having 5 more potentially removal-demanding cards, and ones that you can also transform with Elise, in your control Warrior could increase your chances in the matchup and you could just seek to win by fatigue. The problems with this are that a)all your other non-control matchups suffer HORRIBLY by not only having an underwhelming card, but also adding 5 more of them into your deck b)there is no control meta c)Priest sucks and is currently not a thing. So this is pretty bad. Cool for new players who want to play flashy cards and can't afford that many legendaries though.

Ivory Knight looks really awkward and like it doesn't fit into any particular Paladin deck. Maybe before WotG the class could've used just a body that heals you and gives you a card, but with the addition of Nzoth, control Paladin actually has a win condition now. Doesn't look playable.

The Curator doesn't really fit into any existing decks that I can think of. The only playable Reno deck, Renolock, seems a natural fit, but it's not like Warlock needs more card draw. It is a tutor effect though, so maybe if you had a dragon finisher that you really wanted to draw, this could have some use? I think it will see experimantation.

Kara Khazam is just not good enough to make the cut in Zoolock. The archetype has so many competitive deck slots that there's just no card I see them cutting for this. It suffers greatly from not being as flexible as Forbidden Ritual. Zoo dominates because it has a lot of cheap and flexible cards that can easily fit into your mana curve, along with having sticky minions. Silverhand Knight doesn't see play in the archetype, and its stat distribution is not much worse, but it has additional synergy with Brann. For similar reasons I don't even see making this into Renolock lists.

Moroes is bad. Even in the dream scenario in a control mirror when he can spawn a lot of tokens and your opponent for some reason has neither threats not removal, it's not good enough to seal the game or outvalue your opponent. You'd be better off just putting a big minion instead.

The only imo good card revealed so far is Kindly Grandmother. It comes off as at least as good as if not better than Haunted Creeper, the token it spawns also being a beast. Great value, sticky, cheap, amazing for beast synergy enabling, and a Deathrattle for Nzoth. I can definitely see it replacing Elekk as Hunter's go-to 2 drop.

Aside from that all the cards have been pretty underwhelming. I've been barely playing HS the last two months and I hope they're gonna do a better job of convincing me to return for the next adventure.

@imsh_pl: I think you're right on the money regarding Malchezaar. I like how novel him and the Curator are, but they're probably not going to be played.

Kindly Grandmother is so solid and obviously good I didn't even bother talking about it. I'd be really surprised if we didn't see it in most Hunter decks.

Some of the cards they've announced seem like they're designed for a different game.

Random hearthstone question. Does gold expire/is there a limit to how much gold you can have at one time? I have a little over 1000 gold saved up right now and if I do daily quests/win enough matches I should have enough to get the whole adventure when each wing is released... So long as gold doesn't expire and there is no limit.

@rongalaxy: Yeah, you can sit on as much gold (and dust) as you want. It never expires.

A couple of these cards are things I really want to try for specific decks, which is fun, but also usually a sign that they're probably not that good.

Ivory Knight seems like it has potential to bring N'zoth Paladin back into style, especially when you consider how almost-good that deck was, but it's definitely really unreliable. The one bonus to all the 1 mana secrets is that a lot of them aren't completely terrible for that deck. Redemption is crazy with taunts (especially Tirion), Noble Sacrifice is alright at stalling against some decks, and Repentance sets up Pyromancer combos. It's hard to say whether you'll be living long after playing a 6 mana 4/4 and only healing for 1 though. When I was playing the deck, there were a lot of turns where I just didn't want to play anything, and this is at least something to do on the turns that would be hero power pass while waiting for an Equality or Sylvanas turn. It also helps that N'zoth Paladin does extremely well with high value cards because it just has too many threats for most decks to handle, and Discover is a great way to get value from a card.

The Curator is potentially usable in Freeze Mage as a specific draw for Alexstrasza, but it might be too weak for its cost to fit into that deck. Freeze Mage is almost always playing from behind, so on turn 7, you want something like Flamestrike instead. Where The Curator could be used, however, is in very specific scenarios to increase the consistency of the deck. If you drop it following a Doomsayer turn or on 10 mana with Frost Nova, it could set up really difficult situations for your opponent. Aside from adding consistency, it could make the deck faster by giving a greater chance to have Alexstrasza's battlecry on turn 9--similar to how Mad Scientist increased the odds of having Ice Block in play. This is, of course, never going to happen because there are 7000 different kinds of Warrior out there right now, and only the Dragon/Tempo versions are "beatable" by Freeze Mage.

Malchezzar is a card I want to put into Priest, but that will never work. It adds a lot to the Entomb playstyle of dismantling your opponent's deck until they can't play anymore kind of how I thought Ivory Knight could work in N'zoth Paladin. Priest has a ton of turns where they just do nothing that could be filled with "useless" minions. The only problem is that you have to draw them, and if you're drawing them, that means you aren't drawing one of the Priest cards that you put in your deck, and if you aren't drawing one of your Priest cards, why are you playing Priest? Also, why are you playing Priest? I like Priest a lot, but it really really is in a bad spot. In order for this card to be playable in Priest, there would need to be more reliable card draw for the class, but it doesn't seem like that's something they want to do.

Most of the other cards (except Moroes) seem well balanced, and therefore not likely to be played. I do think Kara Kazham! has a better stat distribution than Silver Hand Knight and Force of Nature, but I'm not sure how it would work in Warlock. It's not better than the expensive cards Zoo usually uses and I'm not sure how much Renolock wants to fill the board because I don't have much experience with that deck. Firelands Portal is a little expensive for Tempo Mage, which already has strong high mana cards that aren't random effects; you want it in a Control Mage, and that hasn't really existed since Echo of Medivh, Healbot, and Duplicate left Standard.

Kindly Grandmother is the only obviously playable card, but I don't think it will actually change Hunter that much. You most likely replace Huge Toad with it. It actually makes Midrange Hunter significantly worse against Shaman and Zoo because it doesn't contest their early drops immediately and it has a real hard time against most follow ups (any taunt, Totem Golem, Zoo's 3-drops). It kind of reminded me of playing Museum Curator, which often felt like doing nothing because it's stats are so worthless. Kindly Grandmother is much better because you don't have to pay mana for the effect, but I wonder if it's just too slow of a tempo play.

I made a thing.

Yeah, some of these cards would be fun if Hearthstone was a regular CCG, but it's not. Like, the way I would play MtG in high school, you'd spend maybe $10-$50 on each set (I'm picking a really arbitrary average for my playgroup, but something like that), which really isn't very many packs. And yeah, you just make doofy casual decks where most cards are 1-ofs (other than commons), and bash them against each other, and it was fine. If you do that in Hearthstone, you get obliterated, maybe have some fun getting from rank 25 to 20, then get obliterated by decks full of legendaries and epics at rank 20 forever and have about a 10% win rate. New player retention seems like it most be terrible for a while now, given how cutthroat the ladder is.

The problem with Hearthstone is that it's actually really easy for a very large portion of the playerbase to get a TON of the available cards for free, and then it's also really easy to craft the ones you don't have, and then everyone can just play the top-tier, close-to-tournament-caliber decks. I was aware of the tournament caliber decks in MtG, but I didn't want to spend like $30-$40 ordering a bunch of rares online just to make one deck so I never made a very "good" MtG deck.

The Hearthstone designers still seem like they let through too many overpowered, way-too-high-value cards, and then they warp the whole format and make 95% of the rest of the set unplayable because it compares poorly. MtG has had its ups and downs, but I think they're generally better about having designers and playtesters that catch the really obscenely strong cards and tone them down a bit.

It's still a pity that there aren't even that many combo decks that rely on weird mechanics, because since basically every effect is attached to a vulnerable minion, you can't maintain any weird combo-centric board states for very long. Every combo is just some bullshit Charge interaction where you do 20+ damage in one turn, which is really boring.

@bisonhero: yep, it's honestly kind of crazy how easy it is to net deck and crush in this game. I was running a C'Thun Druid after crafting Twin Emps that was viable 3 weeks ago, but I had maybe a 20% win rate in the new season so I built a Dragon warrior. Now I'm considering crafting Grom, but I'm afraid the meta will shift again. I'm just telling myself that Grom is consistently useful and warrior is almost certainly not going anywhere anytime soon.

Ok. Standard disclaimer: I haven't played since the first few weeks of the Old Gods set. Made a few weird decks and enjoyed it. I don't know the current meta. But these arguments about card design being not right to solve the current problems with this deck or that deck sound as old as the CCG. Especially in the modern era of online information. These same gripes come up in Magic. This card doesn't do what I want. But maybe it does for someone else? Why is your complaint about Zoo lock overshadow the person who loves to jam out small creatures? It's all cyclical as long as there is new content. As soon as expansion 1 came out you began to cut off new players. Looking at magic again, despite the same if not worse on boarding because of the different levels of competitive magic and organized play, it is thriving. The competitive scene there has the same complaints lobbied against it constantly. Spells aren't powerful anymore. That creature is overpowered. Hearthstone lives and dies by the competitive scene. It seems to me like the problem Hearthstone should solve is that it truly doesn't have an easily accessible "kitchen table" format. This is a reference to Magic that someone earlier in this thread was talking about where $20 decks bash against other ones at your friends house. You jump in the nonladder matches on Hearthstone you will just as likely find top tier net deck. Net decking and card design and overall metagame aren't the problem. Segmenting the players into the type of match they want is the problem. (Note: I'm sure there are a bunch of things I'll think more in depth about after I publish this, but it's just my stream of consciousness sitting on my porch that you get to read or ignore now.)

Frostwolf Grunt just got power creeped out, the horror.

I've checked out of non-casual ladder for the most part, cause while I've got the collection and skill to likely hit the '5 and stuck' limitation most people naturally would, I don't have the time or interest to do so. I've also pretty much given up on Arena. You can't just keep expanding the card pool, while not reprinting key stable cards. You just make things even more random, and the have and have nots even more distant. The whole mode has a fundamental design philosophy failure behind it that without some radical shake-up, has lost interest to me.

That said, the single player stuff they have produced has gotten progressively better and better, and the Tavern Brawls are generally speaking more hit than miss these days due to them seeming to learn the "Don't just give us 'which 3 wild decks are broken under this circumstances, play those or nothing else" stipulations.

I'm excited to see what new cards we get, certainly. But at the same time, HS isn't control friendly. There isn't enough depth in the card-pool for there to be. Any strategy needs depth and redundancy. Aggro has that in spades. A lot of interchangeable 2-mana dorks and etc. Some better then others but all can do the job. Control doesn't have anywhere near that depth. And heck, 'destory all creatures' being set to need to cost 8 mana (and being basically unplayable because of it) says all you need too about that.

Still, the premise is nifty. The stuff should be worth the money if your actively playing (like me). Beyond that? Nothing to see here. Aggro is king, its just the HS way.

So far my favourite card might actually be Kara Kazahm, because it represents the first baby step towards a glorious future where Cho'Gall is playable. I don't think Kara Kazahm alone will make it happen, but come the next expansion I'll have my fingers crossed for more hot Cho'Gall buffs. Gotta keep hope alive and resist the temptation to dust him.

This happened in Tavern Brawl:

I feel like all the pros are over rating kindly grandmother a 2 drop that doesn't trade with other 2's or 3's immediately is pretty poor. maybe it's just me but i'd much rather keep huge toad and elekk in the 2 spot. The card reviewers keep saying that cards in the current meta aren't good unless they're aggro or counter aggro, and this is really neither until the deathrattle triggers.

@deucehs said:

I tend to agree. You play Kindly Grandmother, your opponent's next turn is their 2-drop completely ignoring the Grandmother and going face with Totem Golem or Alexstrasza's Champion or whatever else, then on your next turn you get to smash the Grandmother into something and deal one damage, then your opponent attacks again, then on your next turn you can finally attack with a 3/2. Granted, the card gets a lot better with Abusive Sergeant or Houndmaster buffing it. It'll see play, but it doesn't put the same pressure on the board that a 3/2 does or even a Fiery Bat, and I think it's kinda easier to deal with than Haunter Creeper was.

@bisonhero: Exactly. If the only thing the makes the front half trade is buff cards, it can't really be that good of an early game option. against zoo it's sort of good to kill all the 1-health guys (villager, tentacles, etc.) but against dragon warrior it's basically useless. The only redeeming factor i can see is that it's an early kill command enabler that can allow you to take out a councilman on turn 3, but the same can be said for current hunter 2's like toad and elekk.

@deucehs: The other positive I see is that setting aside the better effects of Huge Toad, King's Elekk, etc., the one thing Kindly Grandmother excels at is guaranteeing you still have something on the board by turn 4 to play Houndmaster on. If you play the dream of Fiery Bat, Kindly Grandmother, Animal Companion/Carrion Grub, then Houndmaster, your opponent would need some insanely specific series of removal spells to have destroyed all of your turn 1-3 beasts, so it's likely the Houndmaster will be able to buff something. If your turn 2 play was not a Grandmother and was a Huge Toad or King's Elekk, the odds of some beast surviving to the start of your turn 4 go down ever so slightly.

It's a slight advantage, but I do agree that the card is a little weaker than most people seem to think. I mean, it's a fine card, relative to a lot of the other pretty underwhelming cards from this Karazhan adventure that seems to have almost no mechanical theme whatsoever.

As BisonHero mentioned, it's really good as a synergy enabler. A curved Houndmaster that has a target is one of the most insane tempo plays that HS has imo, and assuring that it has a target is a great way to steal games.

Additionally, the newly revealed Zoobot has great synergy with Grandmother. You can buff and let her trade into 3/2s, or buff the Big Bad Wolf to have two 3 defense minions if you're facing a 2/3s or Feral Spirits.

I also think that a sticky Beast in play shouldn't be undervalued.

So... the card revealed during the Fireside Gathering...

Yeah... I think this might just be the worst designed card in Hearthstone.

The thing I hate about this card and I think we'll all come to hate in the future is that this particular card is the worst case of earlygame RNG winning or losing games we've seen in Hearthstone so far. Because a 1in3 or a 1in2 chance to just SPAWN a 3/3 on turn two along with your 2 drop decides games.

You thought Juggler or Shredder was bad. Imagine if Shredder read "Deathrattle: Summon Millhouse Manastorm or Doomsayer".

@imsh_pl: So, the dream is Malchezaar's Imp -> Succubus (Summons Silverware Golem) so that you draw the card I guess. It's definitely a strong board but the inconsistency will probably make it still unplayable. Assuming you're going first, you have a 1/3 chance if you get the combo to discard Silverware Golem, but that also assumes you actually pull all three cards. Plus is Mal's imp even worth it over Flame Imp or Voidwalker just to draw another card when you discard? Discard lock still seems like it's not going to happen since ultimately, discarding cards sucks.

@quid_pro_bono said:

The whole thing does remind me a lot of Beast Druid, where Blizzard is gambling a LOT of class card slots that could've been spent on other card ideas on Beast Druid (and Discard Warlock) "happening", but in both cases there just isn't quite enough synergy, and/or there is synergy but the minions themselves just don't have enough value. Also a lot of the cards are huge whiffs like Knight of the Wild.

@bisonhero: It seems an odd thing to try to force discard lock. Hand lock and Zoo are so, so strong, and good archetypes for the class. As many people have said, I doubt discard will ever be a thing until a graveyard where you can pull cards back from discarding is created. There's just too high a chance that you'll discard something you need. It's why Fel Reaver, while not a bad card in its own right, never saw play because you could trash potentially vital portions of your deck.

@quid_pro_bono said:

I think Blizzard is mad that people largely play Doomguard when it's the last card in their hand, or play Soulfire in rushdown decks where you just discard a 1-mana minion you don't care about. They're like "no, you're supposed to be actually just playing Succubus willy-nilly at any time, because of the value [not even remotely true -BisonHero], and then use Warlock hero power to dig yourself out of the horrible card disadvantage hole you've dug for yourself", which is not how anyone wants to play the game. Then it took them like 3 waves of cards for them to finally realize that no one is ever going to play anything other than Soulfire and Doomguard unless there is actually any synergistic reason to play other discard cards.

fwiw, Fel Reaver was played a bit in Druid because the stuff that was destroyed in the deck didn't really matter as long as you drew at least one copy of Force of Nature and Savage Roar. Losing cards in your deck isn't that bad, but losing cards in your hand is much, much worse. Soulfire and Doomguard work because they give guaranteed immediate damage; you hurt the size of your hand, but who cares because the guaranteed damage puts you much closer to winning. Succubus is bad because it doesn't guarantee the damage whatsoever, and Dark Bargain similarly does no damage; it hurts your hand size with no guarantee of actually accomplishing anything.

Oh no! Power creep on Tentacles for Arms!

Joking aside, the warrior weapon looks like it will fit nicely in a control warrior set up. I'm assuming that the weapon loses 1 durability for each swing you take so if you want to clear something like ritual:tentacles, ghoul is still your best bet.

Druid spell is also really good (at least for arena). Also we see that Blizzard is doing a portal theme for each class like they did with the 0 mana cards in Whispers of the Old Gods.

@acura_max: Yeah at first glance the warrior card is really good, but I'm still trying to figure out why you'd run it when you presumably have 2 brawls in a heavy control deck. I guess it does let you keep your board. If you are playing a heavy control warrior it makes a lot of sense to trade health and armor to potentially remove 4 minions.

@quid_pro_bono:

I don't think it's nearly as inconsistent as you think. If you manage to, at any point before turn 4, discard Silverware Golem without missing a drop, you're going to almost always win the game. The are just no cards in the game that can outtempo a 0 mana 3/3.

There are currently 3 cheap discard cards - Soulfire, Darkshire Librarian, and Succubus. You could easily modify an existing Zoo deck to include Librarian (Soulfire is already ran) and Golem without sacrificing the deck's integrity.

I'm not sure why you're mentioning Mal's Imp, you don't need him for Silverware Golem's effect.

@imsh_pl: Sorry, I meant that's what the designers seem to be intending for the discard deck's early game by including Mal's Imp synergy. And, well, it's exactly as consistent as I said. 1 in 3, if you discard on turn 2 and go first. It's worse if you go second. I don't love those odds. Obviously this is assuming one golem in hand.

Moonglade Portal being rare makes Firelands Portal's common status even sillier.

Usually cards with a higher rarity have more complex/unique effects, but these cards are pretty much equal on that front. Not to mention that Babbling Book is a rare while the incredibly similar Webspinner gets the "Common" tag.

Ben Brode and Senior Game Designer Mike Donais weighed in on the Firelands Portal controversy. Basically, they both acknowledged that arena balance is out of wack. They suggest they Blizzard might pull some strings and make individual cards appear less to balance everything out. Though, I'm not sure how that is different from just changing the rarity other than the fact that you won't need more than 40 dust to craft Firelands Portal.

http://www.pcgamer.com/mike-donais-on-one-night-in-karazhan-whether-priest-really-has-a-problem-and-if-fiery-war-axe-is-the-best-card-in-hearthstone/

PC Gamer: Kripparian, who’s the most prominent Arena streamer, had a really negative reaction to the new Mage spell Firelands Portal. [See video above.] It wasn’t that he thought it was a bad card, it was that he felt it shouldn’t have a common rarity, because that will mean it’s picked too regularly given how powerful the effect is. How do you decide the rarity of non-legendary cards, especially with Arena in mind?

Mike Donais: It’s a good question. We care a lot about that, and when we set our commonalities we look at which cards in the set are good in Arena, which cards are not too good, which classes need a buff and which classes don’t. So there’s a two-part answer to that question. The first part is that there are three [new] Mage cards: two commons and a rare. We looked at the three mage cards, and two of them are really good in Arena, while one of them is not as good in Arena—it is more situational. So we put the one that was not very good at common, because we wanted to make sure that in Arena Mage had that kind of weaker card there at common. And that left the other two cards. Babbling Book and Firelands Portal are both very strong in Arena, so we made [Firelands Portal] a common and [Babbling Book] a rare. But for Warrior and some other classes we put both of the strong cards at common, specifically to help those classes out in the Arena.

PC Gamer: I’m not sure that will calm Kripp down. What’s to stop you just having two rares and a common for Mage instead? What would that break?

Mike Donais: It’s an idea we’re thinking about. Actually, it would be a little bit weird if Mage gets two [rares] and everyone else gets two commons, but it’s a valid point. Something to think about. We actually are thinking about whether we can do some engineering work to give us more control over Arena, and help us balance out Arena using percentages and technology. That’s a lot of work, and involves some big rewrites, but in the long run I think that might help us with the trade-off that it might be a little bit more confusing for players if the cards have different percentages. So it’s not something that we’re locked in on, or sure about, but we’re thinking about it.

I'm gonna be posting cards from the livestream, sans commentary:

Aaand, that's all the cards.

So Arcane Anomaly is the Lowly Squire of the set? Where you can see what they were going for, but it gains stats too slowly to really matter? In Mage, Mana Wyrm still seems better, and I can't see the other classes using Arcane Anomly much, except I guess spell heavy Druid decks with Innervates could use it, but I don't see it happening. They've certainly learned their lesson from Undertaker.

I like what they're trying with Spirit Claws. Shaman often lacks an early game weapon because no one likes Stormforged Axe. People either just play Rockbiter Weapon, or Rockbiter Weapon and then late game they have Doomhammer. Powermace had its time in the sun, but isn't in Standard anymore. Spirit Claws is an interesting experiment, though seems like it'll be really inconsistent.

It's nice that Blizzard recognizes that the incentive to play secrets in your Hunter/Mage deck is dramatically lower without Mad Scientist to basically give you a free draw and free mana. Still, not sure these cards are enough? Hunter can't afford to use up deck slots on secrets because they have no card draw, and Mage kinda just has better cards to run in general except in specific long-game Ice Barrier/Ice Block situations. Cloaked Huntress would be mildly helpful in a Lock 'n Load deck, but that's kind of a big ask to have it in play when you cast Lock 'n Load. Medivh's Valet maybe has some promise in decks that run Ice Block.

Wicked Witchdoctor seems to have learned a lesson from the way-too-RNG design of Tuskarr Totemic. It's just way too silly when you get Totem Golem or Manatide Totem or Flametongue Totem.

Swashburglar reminds me that it's really interesting to watch Blizzard completely change course with how Rogue card draw works. In Classic, it was Sprint, and then some spells gave you a free card cycle (Shiv, Fan of Knives). Then at some point they decided to completely axe regular card draw in Rogue, and new Rogue card draw is pretty much only doing burgle-themed cards (Burgle, Undercity Huckster, Swashburglar) or copying cards (Gang up, Trade Prince Gallywix, Shadowcaster), or the occasional Discover effect/whatever you want to call Xaril, Poisoned Mind. Sadly, Rogue continues to fall back on neutral card draw from Azure Drake and Gadgetzaan Auctioneer, and the cards in Classic, which is a design space Blizzard will be trapped in forever unless they dramatically alter a bunch of cards in Standard.

Looks like Priest got shafted again. Purify looks like 2 mana cycle Purify into a better card because typically I don't want to silence any of my minions as priest.

The lack of the word "random" on Onyx Bishop makes it really interesting. I hope that isn't just a mistake.

5 mana battlecry: resummon injured blademaster

I'm baffled by Purify. Silence is 0 mana and can silence enemy minions, meaning the draw-a-card effect is valued at 2+ mana? I feel like I'm missing a trick here.

@spunkyhepanda said:

Yeah, I was recently thinking about how bad Silence is because it's just never worth the deck slot. What could they do to make it even remotely playable? Making it cost 1-mana and draw a card after the silence is maybe reasonable, but sadly they aren't in the habit of buffing Classic cards (or any of the legion of underpowered-but-could've-been-interesting cards), so it's bad forever I guess. Also I'm just ripping off Mass Dispel, but really, I don't see how else you make Silence appealing other than making Ironbeak Owl or Spellbreaker.

I suspect they really want you to Purify your Ancient Watcher or Eerie Statue or Corrupted Healbot. You could purify neutral Ogres so that 100% of the time they go where you want them to. Which is a funny gimmick I guess, but I think people will get bored of it within like a week. Or if you want to go to older cards you could Purify your Fel Reaver or Deathlord? Purify should almost cost zero mana, because even if it was free, your deck full of Ancient Watcher and Eerie Statue and Corrupted Healbot is going to be pretty bad unless you draw exactly Purify or a bunch of other random Silences you would be obligated to run. This feels like they second try at what Wailing Soul was trying to accomplish.

Priest got fucked hard, looks like they'll have to wait to be viable. I keep looking at Nightbane Templar... That card is fantastic, right? It's not just me?

@quid_pro_bono said:

Yeah, it seems like it could really help an aggressive Dragon Paladin deck get things done.

@bisonhero: yeti on turn 3 is so dope. Opponent will have to really make mountains move to deal with it. Or hellfire. Still though.

@quid_pro_bono: The thing is, at any other time in Hearthstone history, Nightbane Templar would be super dope. But right now, eight zillion people are playing Warrior at any gave moment, so Nightbane Templar will immediately get hit by Ravaging Ghoul. So instead of super dope I think it is merely regular dope. It's decent against most non-Warrior classes, though.

Violet Illusionist: Free Cho'gall spells/lifetaps, Fool's Bane synergy? Pretty good, in theory. A lot of the cards on this stream have got me excited like the others didn't. Except poor priest.

Purify is the worst card in the entire expansion, 2 more mana for only being able to silence your own minion and to draw a card, and no card that synergies with it.

Got my 500 wins in Priest yesterday, I am just sad.

@atwa: congrats, you're officially a Hearthstone masochist. It's sad that priest keeps getting such bad cards, because I like the ideas behind the core of the class. Resurrecting and stealing is really cool.

You know, purify isn't as bad as it may seem. Coin ancient watcher into purify is pretty nice. Silithid swarmer and eerie statue aren't bad either. With the position priest is in it could have easily just been silence a minion, draw a card though. Could put some sunfury protectors and faceless shamblers in there too. Could be...not terrible? The biggest problem I've had when trying to make a priest deck is surviving to late game and this at least has *some* potential.

edit: was watching karazhan stream and someone in chat mentioned moat lurker -> purify. You'd probably be running sylv for nzoth anyways so throwing moat lurker in isn't a terrible idea with the flexibility to use it as removal with purify.

The card is awful, just absolutely terrible. Priest already had Silence for 0 mana, this card wont suddenly make silence priest a thing. They didn't even introduce any card that synergies with it in the expansion. The archetype has always been available, but not played because its not good, and has no room whatsoever in the current meta. Priest still doesn't have any good 2 drop, still doesn't have enough reliable board clears. And will still just get chewed through by any aggressive deck.

Priest didn't need more gimmicky, situational shit. They lack the core, strong units and removal that so many other classes have. The card just doesn't make sense from a value standpoint either. Power World Shield is 1 mana, Silence is 0 mana, combining these and removing an upside from both means its somehow 2 mana?