With the complete adventure set finally revealed, it’s time to dive into the full 45 cards that make up One Night in Karazhan. We’ll look at each of the nine classes to see what impact their three new cards will have before getting into the 18 new class-neutral cards. What will this mean for the Arena? What will be the impact to the Standard ladder? What about the Wild ladder? Just kidding, no one cares about the Wild ladder. Let’s dive in!
Druid
*Yawn* Oh we have to start already. Okay, okay, sorry I was looking at the three new Druid cards and I dozed off for a moment. Enchanted Raven and Menagerie Warden are pretty lackluster outside of a Beast-synergy Arena deck. Being able to copy a creature essentially makes the Warden a two-for-one. The Raven as a one-drop can usually trade up, but not always, so it really only fits into decks that can capitalize on it being a Beast.
Moonglade Portal is kind of a two-for-one but not really. It’s more like a one-and-a-half-for-one but at six mana you can do way better. A random six-cost minion is good, but what’s better is just putting the six-cost minion you want into your deck.
Hunter
Is Cloaked Huntress good? Can we combo it with Gadgetzan Auctioneer and a ton of Secrets to make the weirdest Hunter deck ever? This deck sounds awful but what else would you do with Cloaked Huntress? Sure, Hunter Secrets are pretty good, and playing them for free is fantastic, especially if you can do it on-curve meaning you play the Huntress and then immediately play some Secrets. But really, why?
Kindly Grandmother, similar to Enchanted Raven, doesn’t seem that much more exciting than say Harvest Golem except it’s a Beast instead of a Mech so I guess you can suit it up with Houndmaster? That doesn’t sound great to be honest.
Lastly we have Cat Trick which was a missed opportunity to put three 1/1 Panthers with Stealth into play making it a pun on Hat Trick. Way to drop the ball on that one Blizzard. Instead we get a free Jungle Panther which isn’t bad, don’t get me wrong, but is it better than some of the other Secrets we could play? I don’t think so. Moving on.
Mage
Babbling Book is fantastic and I’m not looking forward to it being in literally every single Yogg Mage deck from now on. It’s not Mana Wyrm but it’s a solid effect and cards that replace themselves with Pyroblast, Fireball, Polymorph, Frost Bolt, Rolling Torch, and so on seem pretty good to me.
Firelands Portal is hilarious. I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life in the Arena making people wonder if I’m going to play Firelands Portal or Flamestrike on turn seven. You can play around one. Can you play around both? That sounds like a good way to lose. People are pretty pissed off about this card and I don’t blame them. Mage is good and now it’s better. Balance? Whatever.
Every time I see cards like Medivh’s Valet I shake my head. There’s no good Secret deck. It’s not good in Standard. It’s not good in Wild. It’s not good in the Arena. Blizzard. Stop trying to make fetch Mage Secrets happen. It’s not going to happen.
Paladin
I’m glad Nightbane Templar now exists for the Paladin-Dragon deck I always wanted to play but didn’t because I couldn’t put two 1/1 Whelps onto the board. Obviously Paladin loves putting 1/1 creatures into play, so why not? I wouldn’t draft this and then expect to get a Dragon but if I already had a Dragon, and a Darkshire Steward, then sure, I might draft Nightbane Templar.
Silvermoon Portal on the other hand seems pretty bad. There are a lot of bad two-drops. There are a lot of good ones too, but at four mana is it worth it? You would need a lot of synergy, like Fjola, to make this card worthwhile. Even then isn’t Blessing of Kings way better than this? Yes. Don’t even think about it.
Ivory Knight is unplayable. If your six-mana creature can’t deal with most four-mana creatures then don’t play it. The odds of getting a great spell from the Knight are pretty low. If you’re playing a Paladin/Yogg deck then you can put Ivory Knight in it and then you can set your computer on fire because you shouldn’t be playing Hearthstone.
Priest
Haha, does it matter? I mean, Priest is so bad they couldn’t possibly make it better with just three cards. Okay, I’ll take a look at them and humor you. Give me a second here.
…
…
Did they manage to make Priest worse? Priest is still the worst class in the game, but now I also have to look at three more terrible cards while browsing my collection? Why do you forsake us so, Blizzard? Why?
Rogue
Swashburglar is the best-named card in the set, hands down. It also has great art. Look at that Zorro-style bandana mask. Look familiar?
Oh yeah.
Blizzard is really pushing this idea of Rogue impersonating other classes and it’s funny, but is it better with Ethereal Peddler? I’m not convinced but since I love combo decks I’m sure as hell going to try.
In the meantime we also get Deadly Fork which is just hilarious. How is that fork a 3/2 creature? You can use that fork to kill a lot of things that forks shouldn’t be lethal against. What kind of kitchen is Medivh running here?
Shaman
You know how sometimes in a card game you can tell exactly why a card was designed? Maelstrom Portal is one of those cards. You can just imagine some designer at Blizzard enjoying their aggro Shaman deck when along comes Zoolock deck after Zoolock deck and Forbidden Ritual after Forbidden Ritual and then we get Maelstrom Portal.
Spirit Claws is sweet and expect to see it picked very, very highly in Arena. In case you’ve forgotten, one of the basic totems gives Spell Damage +1 so Spirit Claws is almost always very likely a 3/3 weapon for one mana which is absurd. Acidic Swamp Ooze just got that much better.
Wicked Witchdoctor is cool. It’s not a 7/7 but it costs four so I guess it’s not that good? Free totems is nice though. Does the 7/7 give you free totems? Oh, it doesn’t matter, because it’s a 7/7, for four mana. Am I doing this right?
Warlock
Kara Kazham! is actually a Magic the Gathering card called Bestial Menace. I guess when another game has designed over 15,000 cards and your game is kind of similar you’re bound to copy things from time to time.
Malchezaar’s Imp and Silverware Golem are hopefully going to finally make the Discolock deck competitive. This is the one with things like Fist of Jaraxxus and Succubus and while the variance is pretty high the hilarity factor is also great and Discolock is probably the best name for a Warlock deck yet, so please, please, please make this work Blizzard!
Warrior
Fool’s Bane is basically Brawl but for the Arena where you’re less likely to see Brawl (except for some reason every Warrior you play against has Brawl and now they’re going to have Fool’s Bane too so why do you even bother playing this stupid game).
Is Ironforge Portal better than Shield Block? Four mana is an interesting place for a random creature. I’m going to say yes, because it gives you immediate board presence while Shield Block doesn’t. So this may actually see constructed play. Don’t quote me on that, unless I’m right, in which case you heard it here first (or on Reddit, but I swear this is an original idea).
Unleash the Pawns is going to be super annoying until you remember you drafted Maelstrom Portal. Good job, you. A bunch of 1/1’s doesn’t seem too threatening without Charge, to be honest. There’s simply too many prevalent board sweep abilities to make this worthwhile in any format.
Neutral—Common
Arcane Anomaly is not Mana Wyrm. It’s not even close to Mana Wyrm. Don’t pretend it’s Mana Wyrm. The Arena doesn’t even have remotely close to enough spells to make Arcane Anomaly worth picking. At best it’s going to become a 2/4? 2/5 maybe if you have a coin? It just hardly seems like a good one-drop. You can do better no matter what class you’re playing.
Four mana is an important part of the Arena curve and Arcanosmith may be really good or really, really bad depending on the situation you’re in. Like, if the situation you’re in is “playing Hearthstone Arena” then Arcanosmith is probably really bad. But, if you’re somehow stuck in an alternate reality where the creatures of Azeroth are real and you need arcane armor, then Arcanosmith is probably really good.
Menagerie Magician and Zoobot go hand-in-hand so we might as well talk about them together. I’ve often felt that one of the biggest letdowns of the Arena is how difficult it is to build fun combo decks. You almost always end up just a few pieces shy of a deck that feels playable. You might have a few good Murlocs or Dragons but the parts never come together. Karazhan is trying very, very hard to rectify the problem with Menagerie Magician and Zoobot and a Legend we’ll talk about later but it’s probably not enough. Good lord I wish it were. I would Arena constantly if I could reliably force Murloc-combo two out of three times.
Speaking of Dragon Combo in the Arena and also in constructed we come to Netherspite Historian. Discovering a Dragon is just about the best thing you could possibly discover. Almost all the Dragons are at least good while most of them are complete game changers. Maybe I won’t be able to force Murloc-combo in the Arena but Dragon-combo could be on the menu. Unfortunately I think that requires playing Priest so maybe we’ll rethink this plan.
Pantry Spider is a definite flavor win. We’re one card closer to being able to play an all-Spider deck and call it Spider man and then our work here will be done. Otherwise Pantry Spider is probably a complete failure of a card. Getting a total of 2/6 in power and toughness for three mana isn’t awful, but it isn’t very effective either. Sure, maybe you can follow it up with Flametongue Totem, in which case congratulations, but for the most part pass on this one.
Pompous Thespian is holding Annoy-o-Tron’s head in Shakesperian fashion. Just let that settle in and enjoy the humor before realizing that Annoy-o-Tron is still better than Pompous Thespian.
I’m looking forward to putting Runic Egg in my Zoolock deck so that I can use Overwhelming Power and/or Abusive Sergeant to make it a one-mana Loot Hoarder. Then I’m looking forward to realizing that a one-mana Loot Hoarder that requires an extra investment likely isn’t worth that investment and I should just run Loot Hoarder. The point of the story is that I miss Nerubian Egg in Zoolock.
Violet Illusionist is going to be really good in any deck that relies heavily on weapons to deal a ton of damage and clear the board. I can’t think of any class that currently operates like that, but maybe Violet Illusionist will make such a strange deck suddenly playable. Otherwise you should run Violet Illusionist in your Priest decks so at least you can’t accidentally injure yourself when you use a healing power with Auchenai in play which we all know you do. You probably did it last week. I did.
Neutral—Rare
Avian Watcher should read “Battlecry: If you control a Secret we’re so very, very sorry so here’s some bonus power/toughness and Taunt to make up for the fact that your opponent is going to easily play around all of your Secrets.” In other news Blizzard is still trying to make Secrets happen.
Book Wyrm should finally make Dragon Priest a Tier 1 deck I think. What do you think? What do you think about Priest? Don’t be shy.
I love me some Deathrattle shenanigans and Moat Lurker has Deathrattle shenanigans written all over it. Destroy your own Deathrattle creatures. Destroy Moat Lurker. Bring them all back. Destroy them all again. Play N’Zoth. … Profit! What’s great about Moat Lurker is that it’s only a 3/3 so it dies so easily! What’s awful about Moat Lurker is randomly putting it into play with Moonglade Portal. Oops.
Neutral—Epic
How early can you play this in a dedicated deck? I think you could probably get it out as soon as turn four with the Coin and a couple cheap spells every turn. Is that any good? An 8/8 is almost always good but is that what a deck full of spells wants to be doing? At the very least it should buy you a turn or two to draw into Yogg.
Neutral—Legendary
Barnes is going to be fantastic in N’Zoth decks. Unless you summon N’Zoth, which is probably what’s going to always happen when you play Barnes. You could also play Barnes in any deck that relies on in-play synergies like a Murloc deck. Yes, I know, I am dying for a Murloc combo deck in the Arena. Can you blame me?
Medivh is just generically good. Like, you can’t really complain about a 7/7 for eight mana and getting Atiesh on top of it, the first Neutral weapon as so many have pointed out, is icing on the cake. Medivh should also fit into most of the Mage decks already running Yogg and Antonidas but it also fits in pretty much any Yogg deck. It also may make Acidic Swamp Ooze even more prevalent on the ladder.
Moroes is exactly what Zoolock decks needed because we didn’t already have enough ways to put extra creatures into play. Also Darkshire Steward is going to be very, very friendly with Moroes. I think it’s a safe bet that this is the Karazhan Legend you’ll be seeing the most of on day one on the Ladder after the Adventure wing is available.
If you like variance you’re going to love Prince Malchezaar. Playing with Malchezaar is almost like making all your decks Tavern Brawl decks. I don’t think Malchezaar is going to see a lot of ladder play because a lot of Legends are just awful. No one wants Millhouse and a pair of Nat Peagles. Especially not at the cost of diluting your deck. On the other hand, adding five Legends to your Arena deck is going to be gravy.
The Curator is the icing on the cake of some kind of weird mid-range deck. It doesn’t run a lot of Dragons, Beasts, or Murlocs, but the ones it does run are either combo pieces or board-control pieces. Alongside Moroes, The Curator will likely have the most impact on the ladder from day one. As time goes on I think the value of the Curator is only going to go up.
Rich Stein counted down his years of toil at the Magic tables before he could retire, mercifully, to the peaceful digital landscape of Azeroth.