I'm disapointed in the cards to be honest. There's nothing here to shake up the meta, and there aren't really any good tools that will knock paladins off their high horse.

I don't know anything about the meta but it'll probably become more difficult for it to change as more cards come out, unless they start rotating cards out.

Couldn't agree more! I really, really wanted Ulduar as an adventure, too.

Also, here you can see all the cards and all the bosses:
http://www.hearthhead.com/news=249803/a ... -explorers
I guess they are just 5 because there will be a lot of "Escape in X turns" matches... which is another source of disappointment for me: one of the things I enjoy when I roll adventures for the first time is to discover what the bosses say and how they are related to their World of Warcraft counterpart.

the introduction of Murloc Tinyfin means that, on average, Murloc Knight's ability becomes less potent. so, technically, this release makes Paladin weaker.

Not sure what Lady Vas'Jar is doing here, she doesn't appear anywhere near the four zones the expansion takes place in.

Let's see, thoughts on cards. First of all, I'd like to say I'm pretty hopeful about Discover as a mechanic in itself. Straight random would be terrible, but a choice of 3 means you should get at least one decent option, and you have the flexibility to choose according to your current situation.

there was a 1/3 murloc in the set too, i think that's probably less than average value for murlocs.

how do you know that the Curse will cost 2 as well? I don't see that anywhere.

tokens are at the bottom of the page i linked earlier

I'm going to try Reno Jackson in Secret Paladin.

And only play 1 Challenger/Muster/Shieldbot/etc? Not sure if I think that is very wise.
Although I assumed it only counted your deck at construction, but I guess it becomes better as the game goes on. Having to track it is kind of obnoxious though.
Another card for fatigue mage? :q

Excavated Evil: Very strong board clear option.
Entomb: Strong and flavourful removal. I like the design.
Museum Curator: Cute card. Probably playable. Its hard to grasp how strong discover is right now.

All cards have been spoiled since day 1 and all of them are awesome.

even reliquary seeker?

As if Imp-losion for 4 couldn't get more obnoxious.

The problem with Hearthstone, or the current meta, is that lots of cards make it impossible to maintain card advantage against them. Cleanly removing a Shielded Minibot, Piloted Shredder, Mysterious Challenger, Dr. Boom, AND Tirion Fordring is such a weighty proposition that paladins curving out just wins games, because all of those cards are extremely hard to 1 for 1 against on curve, let alone 2 for 1. And none of them require a further mana investment then just going down, the way something like Ball of Spiders does. We also have cards like Divine Favor that just punish your opponent for trying to maintain any semblance of a hand instead of dropping things on the board (although that is the only competitive one right now).

None of the expansion cards really combat this or force any sort of meta change to drag the meta away from the beast that it currently is.



Jungle Moonkin is just awful. 4/4 for 4 is awful stats if the ability isn't amazing.

Mounted Raptor is not good enough to fit in any current deck, other than maybe aggro druid (and that's a big maybe). It's a slightly more aggressive Harvest Golem, and that's not being run anywhere. The main reason for that is a 2/1 (which is a likely drop from this) trades with too many hero powers and random damage sources.

Raven Idol has a chance to be another Unstable Portal, so I have absolutely no idea to evaluate it and this is card number 1 to watch on my list of things that might do something. You can theoretically get any minion or spell in the game from this. At the same time, without the mana discount, it's hard to argue for this kind of thing because a specific GOOD card in your deck is usually better than a random one outside of it, and unstable portal seriously would not see play without the discount. 1 mana IS more disposable though..... no idea what this will do to be honest. People will try it, and it will be visible on ladder though just because it's easy to throw into any budget deck and expect it to do SOMETHING sometimes.

None of the Hunter cards fit in current decks. Seems to be a theme. The problem is that none of them are good enough to force a new archtype either. No one wants to play the camel to tutor a Leper Gnome over just more damage, and the other two seem to just be quite bad.



Animated Armor does not help you keep board control and trades cleanly with too many things like Piloted Shredder. 4/4 stats is really bad if your opponent can ignore the effect by just trading with it, in a meta where minion trading is what top decks do anyways. And it's almost useless vs slower decks.

The 6/3 for 5 is bad. That stats are horrendous and a random spell isn't good enough to make up for it. Mages have enough good spells to begin with.

Forgotten Torch will probably see play. It's going to 2 for 1 and/or do a lot of face damage a lot, and it's not like 2 mana vs 3 matters that much in a fatigue mage. I can see 2 of this, 2 of frostbolt, and 2 fireball becoming a thing. Then again...... I say it's card number 2 to watch.


Anyfin can happen is stupid. It essentially assumes you are going to draw and/or get value from both murloc knights, and it can completely whiff.

Keeper of Uldaman is probably going to see play, because it's very close to hard removal in a class that doesn't really have access to a ton of it, while also doubling as a buff for your dudes. But yes, it might not see play just because it's in the most overcontested slot ever in paladins ever.

sacred trial is awful.

Excavated Evil is awful, because it gives a copy to your opponent and they really will be happy to see that. It's highly unlikely you are going to get a second use out of this if you are losing too, while if you are winning you.... still are unlikely to get a second use out of it. And the wipe isn't that much better than the 2 damage 2 heal one, while being usually worse than lightbomb for any board with tons of relevant stats.


Entomb is.... very good. It's also an insult to Recycle. It's an assassinate with a silence on top and a chance to play the darn thing later in the game. It should see at least a little play.

Museum Curator has **** stats, meaning it sucks. A deathrattle card you really want should just go into your deck instead of a 1/2 body for 2, which is never really a thing.

The rogue cards have potential (although the 5/4 for 4 is probably still just terrible), but none of them fit in a current deck or force an archtype strongly enough to make rogues immediately competitive. Maybe the rest of the expansion will help? I don't think so though.

I have only some idea how to evaluate the shaman cards. It feels like they are just throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. Murloc card is definitely something to watch, but I think the other 2 are going to end up not forcing a change or seeing top tier play.

Dark Peddler is the warlock card to watch. It's got just enough stats to do something while having just enough card advantage to make up for the 1 missing attack. It's going to depend on how good the average card is. Notable it can get spells.

The warrior stuff is probably just a no. Control warrior don't need none of that.

Out of the neutral cards, I think Rafaam, naga sea witch, eerie statue, and tomb spider are worth keeping an eye on. But none of this stuff is going to shake up the meta either.

I'll have uses for all these cards if they give us more deck slots.

yeah i wonder when they'll get on that

What are you talking about mjack. The deck that Excavated Evil is good against, typically doesn't want to draw it, especially not against the kind of deck that packs it in the first place. It's a sweeper that will sometimes screw over their draw. I'm not calling it amazing, but the shuffle effect is a benefit, not a drawback. If you can't reliably field a board presence (like Dragon Priest), then it could very well be better than holy nova.
Museum Curator can pop a divine shield, kill a leper gnome or receive a Velen's Chosen. It's better than using hero power on t2, and it can Discover early game cards against aggro and threats against control.
Raven Idol is pretty different from Unstable Portal. UP is in Mage, which is much better at taking advantage of spells than Druid is. Raven Idol also has the primary advantage in consistency, while UP is good because it cheats you mana. Minions from UP cost 1 less, those from RI cost 1 more. Could still be good though, but I'm not entirely sold.

It might just be because of the type of decks I play, but Secret Paladin feels fairly fine to me. My biggest issue are typically the variants that play Murloc Knight, which is silly hard to deal with if it comes out on an empty board. Anyway, since Dr. Boom, Grim Patron and Secret Paladin were all largely unexpected to be the forces they ended up as, it feels silly to me to complain about how an expansion doesn't impact the meta game, unless you were able to successfully predict those in the first place.

torch won't 2 for 1, it'll 2 for 2, since the token it creates presumably eats up a card draw. I don't know what fatigue mage is like, but adding a card to your deck might make it worth it.

Museum curator is card advantage. The card to compare it to is novice engineer. The bodies a bit better but the real question is whether or not picking one of three random deathrattle cards ends up being better than drawing a random card from your deck.

The big difference between raven idol and unstable portal is that raven idol takes the best of 3 random cards while unstable portal just takes a random card. Unstable portal then obviously also has the potential to ramp into a big creature if you get lucky and curve out with it.

I know there were mixed feelings on grim patron and mysterious challenger, but were people really not able to tell that dr. boom would break the game?

It 2-for-1's in the sense that you get an extra card in your deck. I did not think about the draw, but it would probably go in a fatigue mage anyways. And a 3 mana fireball is really nice card to replace your normal draw with.

Museum Curator has useless stats and no tempo, meaning that you are literally just better off putting an aggressive or high end deathrattle in your deck depending on what you are playing.