Eleven new cards have been revealed today with the promise that more cards will be revealed in the coming days. There are a number of interesting taunts such as Tar Creeper. However, some of the cards seem to be the usual. Blizzard is trying to push mage towards secrets and hunter towards control. There's a card to make sure that the dominating archetype from last season will stay down after the nerf. And there are a couple fun cards that don't look like they will appear outside of "fun" decks.

All in all, we have seen only about 15/350 cards so we can't say what the meta will look like. But it appears promising.

Things of note

• Quest cards can be counterspelled.
• Nether Portal does indeed spawn 2 imps every turn! And the portal itself takes a minion slot on the board but it can't be destroyed once activated.
• Un'Goro Pack via Elise the Trailblazer doesn't mimic in-game packs. It has better chances for Legendaries and gives a guaranteed epic. I believe the Senior Designer Pete Whalen said that you were very likely to get at least 1 legendary per time you use the card.

It's only 11 new cards, they said the tokens don't count towards the overall card count. There are around 130 cards in this expansion.

So far it looks like they're trying to slow the meta down, but we'll really have to see more of the cards to get a real feel for it. They've definitely failed at it before!

Elise seems cool since she's essentially Malchezaar but doesn't ruin your draws, and you can get spells and stuff. Explore Un'Goro seems like it'll be a fun idea but you essentially pay 1 mana to play any card. Definitely will be fun to mess around with. Shellraiser and Tar Creeper both seem like solid anti-aggro cards, although Lakkari is definitely an aggressive card. I think it will mostly see play in zoo to protect the smaller minions. Control decks are going to be too wary of discarding so much. The warlock quest is interesting, since all quests seem to be better in longer games and discarding is very bad in the long run.

Dinosize seems very slow and has the added detriment of being worse on strong minions. You basically want to buff a Silver Hand Recruit with this, which makes it an 8 mana 9/9 which is bad. Especially up against Swamp King Dred, 7 mana 9/9 which is proactive. I'm of the opinion that this is really good design on Blizzard's part. It's a well-statted legendary that has an impact on the board right when you play it, but doesn't have the drawbacks that Icehowl has. It also has an obvious counter (poisonous minions). Sherazin is a neat design but also seems slow and confused. Miracle rogues do play large card turns, but they do it when they want to win the match on that turn. Bringing Sherazin back to life does nothing because it comes back with summoning sickness. The effects on the token as its leaves light up is pretty cool though. The design just seems confused.

I'm optimistic about Un'goro. I'm not a super competitive player and can find the joy in the silly cards.

I have no idea what they were thinking with Arcanologist. Sure, it's not as good as Mad Scientist, but that was one of the most broken cards the game has ever seen. We've seen 2 mana 2/2s that draws being almost unanimously auto-includes whenever they pop up. Not only is this a 2 mana 2/3 that draws, but it's not just a draw, it's a tutor. The card could've been a 1/1 and still seen regular play in certain decks. The only reason I can see for making this card would be that Mage is completely in the shitter with Ice Lance and Flamewaker gone.

@ares42: This really makes me think that the mage quest will almost certainly be "Play x number of secrets." Agreed that it is potentially almost as broken as mad scientist, except this time it's also a river crocolisk. We'll certainly be back to the days of having to deal with Ice Block in every mage game again.

Explore Un'goro is a fun renounce style card, Tortollan is worse than Priest of the Feast, Lakkari is pretty good but if discard is good then Warlock will be super annoying I imagine, Felhound is good if they print another Silverware Golem, Arcanologist is a great card if control mage is a thing, Elise is trash unless the meta is super slow, Golakka is cool, Tar Creeper is not named close enough to Magma Rager, Dinosize is lategame burst in paladin; unpredictable, Sherazin seems like trash but might be okay if they can get Rogue to work some other way than always, Swamp King is a hunter legendary.

@quid_pro_bono: Lakkari Felhound sounds like a card that could bite them in the butt later on if people discover an aagro deck that effectively uses it. During the stream, the developer said that they were hoping that this card would push a control discard warlock. However, I don't think that is happening for the reasons you stated.

@ares42: It's also a 2/3 mage common. Since you are more likely to see spells in arena, this sounds like mage will have more tools to compensate for the reduced chance to draft flamestrike.

@acura_max: ultimately the problem they're facing is that I think discard is one of the worst things you can do in control. Warlock would almost need their legendary minion to redraw some of their discarded cards to make it work, it seems.

Edit: I should add that I only mean a control archetype centered around discard seems like it won't work. I think the quest is probably pretty disgusting in zoo since it summons 2 3/2 imps per turn.

Rumors are saying that the expansion might come April 6th. The evidence is as follows:

1. Amazon Pre-orders for the expansion stop at April 5th at 11:59PM
2. If you speed up your clock, the ribbon on the free brawl pack will be removed and it will look like it can be opened.

Also has anyone seen the promo videos for the new expansion? Abed from the TV show Community is in it and he is pretty funny. I am excited that we will get to see more of these since they are coming in episodes.

@acura_max: I like the promo a lot, it's cute and Danny Pudi is great to see. I really hope that some of this charm carries over into the solo content they've been talking about. I'm sad that we'll never get another adventure, I really enjoyed them.

We got two new cards

Crystalline Oracle - It looks like this card can be a staple in priest decks. Drawing a card for one mana is usually pretty good. It certainly looks better than thoughtsteal which is draw 2 cards from the opponent's deck for 3 mana. The downside is that you don't get immediately swashbuckler or thoughtsteal.

Sunkeeper Tarim - I'm having doubts about this card. We never really saw Eaderic the Pure lately or frequently during the Grand Tournament. On the other hand, taunt is very good on this minion since everything else will be 3/3.

@acura_max: I don't have it in front of me, but the wording on Crystalline Oracle is way wordier than on stuff like Thoughtsteal and Shifting Shade, right? Maybe too many new players thought that Thoughtsteal literally stole the cards from your deck.

@bisonhero: it's the same exact wording.

@bisonhero: Shifting Shade and Thoughtsteal actually have the same wording. So this is pretty consistent.

@acura_max: @ares42: Alright then, I'm crazy I guess. Somehow it sounds way more awkward when I read it now.

Another card! This one seems pretty okay - basically a tutor but gives you a copy of the spell instead of burning it in your deck. Probably pretty situational since Priest spells are situational anyways. I could see wanting to cast, say, a third shadow word pain/death or a third dragonfire potion vs Jade. Solid effect for an epic.

Sunkeeper Tarim seems like a solid midrange/control card for Paladin, but it really depends on if they have the tools to become relevant again in this expansion. One thing many people are missing is that his effect works on your minions as well, so you could drop him on a board of recruits and other low level paladin minions to buff them up and attack that same turn, while providing some taunt. It'd be nicer if they were 3/2s, naturally, for consecrate, but it's not impossible to imagine having, say, Thalnos on the board and then dropping Tarim/Consecrate for a board clear and buff.

Crystalline Oracle is... huh. Well, every class needs a Webspinner in Blizzard's new world, and Priest is no exception. Really wish this was a 2/2 or 1/2 2-mana card, though. Seems odd to force a 1-mana float since you'll have your quest for turn 1, but whatever. Main issue is that I can't imagine a scenario where you'd want to drop this card before Mistress of Mixtures.

@quid_pro_bono: Shadow visions could be a way for you to get your combo pieces for priest if you're doing something like velan's OTK. You could also find shadow word pain or death. But that feels a bit slow. If I'm facing down totem golem on turn 2, I don't want to wait til turn 3 to remove it.

@acura_max: Yeah. Velen combo could work but at 7 mana without Thaurissan he'd have to survive a turn since 3 mind blast is 6 mana, which seems like a total pipedream. Velen has a huge target on his back. It'll definitely see some play in OTK priest but I'm guessing it shines as a flexible control option because you Discover a copy.

Tarim could potentially be good in handbuff paladin as an anti-jade tech (now that Eadric's gone), but it's kinda unplayable against aggro (you're buffing their board) and control (you're hurting your board more than theirs). 3/7 taunt for 6 is an insane body for handbuff though, so if the meta shifts from aggro to more midrange maybe it has a place. He might also just be a solid buffing card for more tempo/aggro oriented lists.

Crystalline Oracle seems like a hard sell unless elemental priest becomes a thing, since it's always less tempo than Northshire or Mistress of Mixtures, and is usually going to be less value as well. Shadow Visions could be good for Kazakus Priest, as (a) you need 30 unique cards anyways and (b) there are a lot of spells you would like to be able to play twice, but it's probably too slow to work in most decks.

Tarim is one of the best legendaries in the game, Paladin might suck anyway though. Oracle is good and very random a la Babbling Book/Swash. Shadow Visions is alright, could get triple divine spirit or something equally stupid. Quadruple Kabal Talonpriest (i.e. every arena deck).

Another card - Warlock legendary. Definitely a "high skill" card if you consider dumping your entire hand and ensuring you only discard this high skill. The biggest drawback being that this is an even worse dead draw than cards like Bolvar later in the game because you'll probably be looking to discard a set amount of cards earlier in the game, and you may wind up in a situation where you can never buff this. However, obviously, even a 6/6 for 2 is completely insane. Kind of sucks that to play a viable discard lock you'll have to get two legendaries, though.

This might sound completely nuts, but I do wonder if Curator will be run with this card to give a chance to get it in the middle of the game if you didn't draw it earlier.

@quid_pro_bono: I genuinely wonder if Curator will be even remotely playable in any deck anywhere now that Standard will not contain Azure Drake or Sir Finley Mrrrgleton. With no Blackrock or TGT, there are way fewer Dragons in Standard in general, and Un'Goro seems like it has more of a Beast/Elemental focus.

The Blizzard dream of people actually running goofy menagerie decks with dragons, beasts, and Murlocs never happened, but unless Un'Goro has some real bangers for dragons and Murlocs, even the usual use case of Curator to tutor for very specific cards seems less viable.

More cards! Blizzard posted a treatise on elemental design. Looks like they get bonuses based on if you played an elemental the previous turn. http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/blog/20634742/hearthside-chat-elementals-of-ungoro-with-mike-donais-3-20-2017

Here's a list of all the card they added the elemental tag to:

1. Water Elemental
2. Anomalus
3. Ragnaros Lightlord
4. Lightspawn
5. Dust Devil
6. Unbound Elemental
7. Fireguard Destroyer
8. Rumbling Elemental
9. Earth Elemental
10. Fire Elemental
11. Neptulon
12. Al’Akir the Windlord
13. Arcane Anomoly
14. Ice Rager
15. Magma Rager
16. Frost Elemental
17. Baron Geddon
18. Ragnaros the Firelord

Without further ado:

Stone Sentinel - 7 mana gets you 18 in stats, but they all get flamestriked or dragonfire potioned or hellfire/abyssaled. Seems kind of rough. Obviously completely unplayable without the synergy which is not a great thing. (Also it seems like they're trolling hard with the 7 mana 4/4. Reverse meme)

Ozruk - nightmarishly bad without the synergy! Seems completely unplayable. You'd need to play 2 elementals the previous turn to get a buff worth 9 mana, and even then it just seems really slow. Anything over 5/10 makes this a huge target for execute, siphon soul, polymorph, deadly shot, etc. Baiting out a hard removal with a large minion on turn 8 is possible but you'll definitely want to play at least one elemental which could heavily telegraph what you're doing for your opponent. It's worth considering that Soggoth is arguably a better card than this and still didn't see any play because he's just too slow.

These guys both give a 1/2 elemental that costs 1, presumably to help you get your synergies off. These both seem fine, and decent activators for your elementals.

Overall I have to say I'm not super impressed with this mechanic. It encourages less reactive play, as you'll just be thinking about what elementals you want to use and trying to ignore your opponent's actions.

@quid_pro_bono: Maybe if all the Warrior elementals have Taunt, then all of them + Ozruk could make it into the mythical Taunt Warrior deck?

I CAN DREAM, OK?

But yeah, Ozruk seems like the kind of crummy neutral legendary they printed back in GvG and TGT that's a mildly interesting effect but is absolutely too expensive and too much work to pull off. Like Gazlowe or something.

Wow Ozruk seems really bad. Soooooooo slow, with having to play elementals the turn before its going to be pretty hard to get value from the battlecry it seems.

Zavas is a cool card, Shadowverse style. Unfortunately in HS that just amounts to a better means to activate the quest, but turn 7 Doomguard + 8/8 or 10/10 Zavas is solid.

Too early to judge the elemental cards really, other than lol Inner Fire gimmicks.

@atwa: Yeah, it seems like most times it'll be 5/10 or 5/15, and it's just not that impressive even when it works? Like Ancient of War, your opponent either immediately has a polymorph/hex/whatever, or they don't and have to trade their whole board into it. If they don't have the spell, they probably lose regardless of whether it's 5/10 or 5/15 unless they have multiple 6 toughness minions out.

Plus there's the part where it's such a terrible topdeck if your hand is empty.

@bisonhero: It seems really bad to have a 9-mana minion so dependent on having elementals in hand. Top-decking a 9-mana 5/5 sounds like hell.

I think if the taunt was can't be targeted by spells it would be interesting, if too similar to Soggoth.

This morning we have 3 new cards and a leak.

The shaman quest is murloc based, as some people theorized. I was kind of hoping for an elemental quest to work with their synergies, but somebody had to get the murlocs! Megafin is the quest reward. He's kind of a Neptulon on steroids. Considering a murloc deck dumps their hand pretty quickly and Shamans have few card draw options, getting 10 murlocs in hand on turn 6 or 7 seems pretty awesome. This is definitely a sillier quest than the others, though.

Primalfin Lookout seems kind of awesome - discovering murlocs is pretty powerful if you can somewhat reliably get warleaders or more bluegills. The real question is if a shaman murloc deck will ever reach the power of Anyfin Paladin. With Finja and Call in the Finishers in standard I think it's possible but we'll have to see.

I know it seems insane since this is pre-release card spoilers but I'm still going to spoiler text this anyways. Galvadon was shown to be a 5 mana 5/5 today, and since he's the quest reward and understatted compared to the Priest and Shaman counterparts, we know his text is pretty sick... And it is. A japanese stream confirmed accidentally that the text on this card is Battlecry: Adapt 5 times. This is kind of insane. You could theoretically get +3 health, + 3 attack, Taunt, Poisonous, Immune to spells and hero powers. Or any other insane combination of adaptations. No word yet on what the quest is but Galvadon really does seem genuinely great. I assume that you'll be able to pick the adaptations in a discover format like the other adapt cards, but that remains to be seen. If they're random adaptations this card loses a lot of it's power.

If the leaked card text is real I think this card gives paladins an extremely strong option for the middle of the game. The question now is if the quest is feasible.

Shaman legendary minion announced: Kalimos, Primal Lord.

When you play Kalimos you get to pick from four possible invocations. Deal 3 damage to all enemy minions, fill your board with 1/1 elementals, restore 12 health to your hero, or deal 6 damage to the enemy hero.

These effects on their own aren't super amazing but since you get to pick one, this is effectively the most flexible card ever printed in Hearthstone. Hard to imagine this not being an auto-include for every Shaman deck, assuming that turn 8 is a thing we can get to again.

@quid_pro_bono: If you've ever done the murloc quest summoning 10 murlocs is not necessarily the easiest thing to pull off unless your deck is absolute shit (Tidehunter is the only one that counts as two); it's more of a late game control "finisher" but not a very good one compared to Anyfin or even just Finja.

@fredchuckdave: If the quest read "play 10 Murlocs" then it would be quite difficult, but summoning 10 Murlocs seems achievable. Call In The Finishers gets the quest 40% of the way there, and the deck would hopefully have enough card draw to stay alive with Coldlight Oracles and uhhhh, whatever card draw they hopefully give Shaman in this set now that Ancestral Knowledge is gone.

@quid_pro_bono said:

Shaman legendary minion announced: Kalimos, Primal Lord.

When you play Kalimos you get to pick from four possible invocations. Deal 3 damage to all enemy minions, fill your board with 1/1 elementals, restore 12 health to your hero, or deal 6 damage to the enemy hero.

These effects on their own aren't super amazing but since you get to pick one, this is effectively the most flexible card ever printed in Hearthstone. Hard to imagine this not being an auto-include for every Shaman deck, assuming that turn 8 is a thing we can get to again.

It's flexible for sure, and I can see how they're going for Kazakus-like card that is very adaptive to the matchup, but I wonder if it'll have the same issue as Xaril where no one effect is super crazy powerful enough. Man, though, imagine if Xaril let you pick the way Kalimos does - maybe it actually would've been in more decks instead of just getting Discovered by Journey From Below.

I'll admit the mini-Flamestrike seems by far the most attractive and potentially a huge tempo swing if you're behind, but the health restore or hero damage aren't quite as exciting. The Onyxia effect can be game winning only if you and your opponent are both pretty much in topdeck mode. You're probably right that it'll be an autoinclude at least when the set releases, just to test it out because it has so much potential.

@bisonhero: You can't really have a quest that's reliant on drawing one specific card (of which you have two copies) and expect it to be consistent; except again as a lategame card which is counter intuitive for murloc decks.

I'm late but for some reason I had the exact same reaction to that card's text, and then I looked it up and realized it was the same as the similar Priest cards

Is the wording just fucking stupid and nobody noticed before or is the fact that it's formatted a little differently enough to just fuck us up that easily?

Another new card today.

Taz Dingo power creep!!!!

Seriously though, another very good anti-aggro card.

@bisonhero: I guess what makes Kalimos seem so good is that I can't think of something better than him for turn 8 shaman and the cards around that time (Fire Elemental on 6, Stone Sentinel on 7, Kalimos on 8, maybe Ozruk on 9?) gives a really strong board and good tempo.

Theorycrafting with these elemental cards shows just how much they play into the curvestone thing, though. Not very interactive.

It feels as though Blizzard wants to make Shaman the new dragon priest. Elementals look even more inconsistent than dragon priest in that you can't use the same dragon for the entire match. For example, I can draw deathwing and then use him to activate every dragon I draw for the entirety of the match even though I can't play him. But when I only have stone sentintel in my hand on turn 7, I'm going to feel really sad that I played a 7 mana 4/4. And if I draw early, I can't use it to activate my other elemental cards.

That being said, I'm fine with shaman not bulldozing everyone on ladder for another year. Year of the Kraken? More like year of the Shaman.

Paladin Murloc - Hydrologist

Solid 2 mana minion with an upside. Better than hitting hero power on turn 2, and since Paladin secrets are all 1 mana you'll be able to play it quickly. The problem is that all the Paladin secrets in standard are kind of bad - hopefully they get a good new one.

If you were excited to play rogue during this expansion you may be a little bummed out to see this quest, the Caverns Below. Play means play from hand, so you'll have to either use Thistle Tea, Mimic Pod, and Shadowcaster to try to copy one specific minion or use Shadowstep and Pandaren bounce cards to replay them. Probably a bit of both. For your troubles you'll get Crystal Core, which seems kind of neat but insanely slow. 5 mana to do nothing that turn is absolutely brutal. If I wind up pulling this card from my packs I may try to do something with a low-cost minion deck that has powerful effects. Argent Squire, Loot Hoarder, Acolyte of Pain, and Shaku the Collector are just a few cards that could work really well if they were 5/5. Mass Dispel meta???

Mimic Pod seems like a really solid card. The mana cost doesn't make it kind of unplayable like Thistle Tea. Could find a spot in Miracle rogue, if it sticks around after losing Conceal.

Edit: Worth considering that if you have a weapon equipped, you could OTK with 2x Bluegill, 2x Southsea Deckhand, and 2x Stonetusk Boar for 8 mana. Also all Shadowcaster copies will be 5/5 for 1 mana. There is a lot of potential for some silly fun in this deck.

Crystal core is straight garbage compared to Jade

I think that Crystal Core + Hogger/Moroes/Violet Teacher/Onyxia could be pretty interesting combos. I doubt it will be a top tier deck but I could see it being some fun.

Crystal Core + 2x Southsea Deckhand, 1x Patches, 2x Boar, 1x Bluegill PogChamp; how slow does the meta have to be for that to be vaguely viable? At least like turn 13-15 on average I'd guess.

Crystal Core certainly seems like the weakest of the quest rewards so far. I think it has potential but it is extremely slow.

Crystal core seems like the quest and reward were designed by two non-communicating teams. Seeing the quest I got excited that they'd be pushing mill rogue, and then reading the quest reward completely dashed that.

Another card has appeared. This one appears to be similar to a desert camel that lets you draw a specific card instead of playing it. The stats aren't great and I'm unsure what impact a 1 drop will have around turn 5. This card could probably be good if it combos with the hunter quest. Though, that remains to be seen.

Another cards has popped on PC Gamer. In mage, I'm probably still going to use frostbolt. The interesting part of this card is that it is a neutral. I wonder what other classes could do with more freeze effects. It could also be that this could just be an arena card like Frost Elemental. It certainly looks like a good 1 drop to have in your opening hand for tempo.

@acura_max: the warden I think is an attempt to help hunters avoid dead draws later in the game, but this card still seems really weak. It says a lot about the state of hunter that it will probably be run anyways.

Glacial Shard seems like a good general anti-aggro card in the early game. The problem of course is that it's extremely weak against the pirate opening. Even if it freezes a pirate, it can be removed by Rusty Hook or Patches. So it's an anti-aggro card that isn't really that strong against the current aggro packages. Pretty unfortunate.

@acura_max: Freezing Potion Powercreep Kappa

Firebat just revealed his card, and it's weird!

https://media-hearth.cursecdn.com/avatars/318/233/636259111408380478.png

This card essentially rewards meta knowledge. 99% of the time you'll get the guess right, so this is a 3 mana 3/3 draw a card in your opponent's deck. As Trump would say: "This card is insane!" Lol at another priest 3 drop, though.