The other day in my review of the March of the Lich King neutral cards (also with two added surprises!), I promised three new articles this weekend to complete my review of the set. Today brings us Druid, Hunter, and Mage Lich King cards. While I played little druid only played hunter to finish quests in wild, I played a ton of mage in all formats. I particularly enjoyed playing questline mage and hero power mage.
The genesis of these articles is that when I opened my packs from this set I continually said to myself, “Wow!” “Oh, cool!” or “That looks like a neat card.” I also wrote a couple of days ago that I finally found my peace with Hearthstone. I went from a hate/hate relationship to a tolerate the main mode/love Battlegrounds relationship. So, when I write these articles, know that I genuinely mean what I say.
Druid Lich King Cards Honorable Mention
Once upon a time, a particularly annoying archetype for druid was armor druid. I played it a couple of times when I thought a quest required me to gain a bunch of armor. It actually wanted honor, so I played the stupid deck for nothing. I never checked to see if they updated the deck with any of these new cards, but Anub’Rekhan seems like a fun card to play with a ton of armor.
Druid Lich King Card I Love
This card feels liek a really cool removal tool in an archetype that I’m calling “Undead Druid”. I have no actual deck in mind and I never actually researched any of this. However, it definitely feels like this card encourages such a build. If I get a quest to play druid, perhaps I will look up a deck and play it.
Hunter Lich King Cards Honorable Mention
This actually ended up being a tough pick and I thought about three cards. There’s nothing preventing me from picking three other than the rule that I set in the last article that I only chose three from each of the classes. The third I wanted to pick was Hope of Quel’Thalas. But, I like the perpetual spell damage and the autoremoval of these two.
Hunter Lich King Card I Love
I just love this mechanic from the other Lich King set. Discover two beasts and jam them together? Heck yeah, sign me up. I’m going to find a place for this in my Wild Hunter deck. Can’t wait to see the crazy shit that I build.
Mage Lich King Cards Honorable Mention
They seem to be pushing the arcane bolt thing in this set. It seems bad to me. It takes 8 mana to get one more damage? But, I’m sure I’m missing something and someone already constructed an OTK deck with this thing, some mana reduction, and spell damage. Stay tuned for when I play that deck. The Prismatic Elemental lets me discover (my favorite!) and from any class. Hell yeah, Casino Mage.
Mage Lich King Card I Love
I generally despise the randomness of Hearthstone. For whatever, reason, I softened my stance for this card. I have a spell mage deck that it seems like this could be a fun card as either a last resort or just for poops and giggles.
The Verdict
So far, none of the cards reviewed made me say the same things that I mentioned in my introduction. Not even the druid, hunter, and mage Lich King cards. Sure, some of the cards look fun. But, none of them wow me like I remember them doing so the other day. Either I felt better about the cards the other day and they aren’t as good as I thought or I’m just feeling more underwhelmed today. In either case, join me tomorrow and Sunday to see if I can find my groove again.
Why am I doing a Scholomance Academy notable cards article? A couple of weeks ago, I texted Chris that I was done playing Hearthstone. He replied, “I’ll believe it when I see it.” Ultimately, of course, he was right to question my commitment to quitting the game. However, if I’m being honest, I have no idea why I even play it anymore. I rarely have fun when I do and it usually ends up being a swear fest. And so it was with my latest threat to quit the game forever.
If you read the file name for this picture, it’s exactly how I felt.
I was playing as mage against a priest or a demon hunter, I think. Played the game pretty well. I mean, I’m not a pro player by any stretch, but I can usually hold my own in a game pretty well. That’s what I did in this game. I don’t remember how I ended up with an Archmage Antonidas on the board for lethal, but he was there. Well, at the beginning of my turn, Reno took care of all that. It cast Plague of Murlocs and I lost.
Live by RNG and die by RNG, right? Well, not so fast. Chris came up with an interesting conspiracy theory that I hadn’t considered. When I said something about the random effects, he responded, “Yeah, random.” I mean it’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility. There’s literally a card coded to allow you to discover the “perfect” card for your situation. What if the whole game were coded similarly? But, that’s a discussion for another time. Let’s talk about Scholomance Academy notable cards.
The truth is out there.
Demon Hunter
Shuffle and draw effects are always fun. This one in particular could neutralize card advantage if it’s the last card in your hand and you are playing against a control deck that wants a full hand. Or, it could simply shuffle trash back into your deck to dig for better answers. I like this card a lot even if it doesn’t fit the Demon Hunter theme very well right now. Maybe they’ll move to a more control build in future sets.
Another shuffle effect, but this time it only targets your opponent. Hmm, maybe they are gradually moving to allow for a more control type build for Demon Hunter. I’d like that because the current aggro only builds are tired and I’m getting sick of seeing them in the game. Variety is the spice of life after all.
Druid
Druid didn’t get much in the way of druid only cards. A lot of their cards are dual class (yes, that’s a thing now) and I’ll pick a few of them last. Everyone else loves “Survival of the Fittest” of course, because it allows you to do broken druid things. However, I’ve mentioned in the past that I really like the discover mechanic and the discount on the next spell is so nice. The runner is cool because it virtually guarantees the card draw next turn.
Hunter got even less in the way of single class cards. At least, their list is much shorter than the first two classes. Back in the day, Huntertaker was the most broken deck, maybe in the history of the game. This card makes me think of that deck. Plus, it’s a discover and discount card!
Mage has gotten a couple of these cards in the past that are improved by spell damage. This one is neat because it ties card draw to the mechanic. Can you tell I’m a blue mage in Magic the Gathering? I doubt that it’s possible (Chris always keeps me in check when I ask about MTG), but I wonder if there’s a way to break this card. 2 mana, draw 9 or 10?
This is another one of those removal cards that is okay. It’s one more mana than Frostbolt and only does one more damage. However, with spell power it could be better. Also, like Betrayal, players have to think about positioning to avoid a potential board clear. Plus, it is versatile because it can be single target removal. It’s a well designed card.
Paladin
This card serves a couple of purposes. First, it lets me highlight that the Paladin only cards are kind of garbage if this one is making the list. Secondly, it lets me talk about Spellburst, which is the new mechanic. It triggers when you cast your first spell of the game. It is a neat idea with a lot of utility.
As long as the attack on this minion isn’t lowered in some way or another, this is a neat effect. It basically guarantees removal on any minion that you attack. The first one is guaranteed with rush. After that, you have to hope that you don’t run into some priest attack lowering nonsense.
Nothing about this card is new or interesting. It’s a “just priest things” card with Spellburst. However, it does combo nicely with some of the other “just priest things” out there and could make for some interesting interactions.
Speaking of interesting interactions, just once I want to combo this card with Myra’s Unstable Element to steal my opponent’s deck and then draw all of the cards. I know that Myra’s is a rogue card, but that would just be too funny in my opinion.
Shaman
This card is very expensive and it’s effect is on all minions. Even so, the lifesteal effect is powerful and can help late game against a wide variety of deck types. You know what. Honestly, I have no idea why this card impresses me so much.
I don’t know that there are a ton of lower level shaman spells that will cause this to be recursive in the way that some of the other cards with a similar effect are. However, those are the most fun cards. When you discover into discover into discover and then toss down a mana cyclone for a bunch of spells.
Warlock
All of the Warlock only cards are garbage.
Warrior
Warrior weapons have had cleave for some time now. This one is more difficult to trigger because of the Spellburst requirement. However, with something like Shield Slam, it more or less guarantees a board clear. I mean, is Shield Slam even a card anymore? I guess it could be in the right deck. Oh, the warrior studies card could be fun, too.
This is just a big dumb card that sticks around for 9 turns unless it is silenced. It’s like a persistent, er persist (keyword from MTG) card that is sure to get maximum value for one of my opponents sooner or later.
Neutral
I’m not sure what the running gag is at Blizzard that they keep printing these Rager cards. Every single one of them is garbage (other than the rush one is decent in Arena, or it used to be) but every so often, here comes another one. I guess this one could eat an Earth shock. *shrug*
I’ve seen this card played a few times on streams. I just like the design of the card. It’s card draw, tethered to a condition. However, that condition is generally met on any given turn by pretty much every single class. I have a feeling this one is gonna see heavy play in Arena, too.
Blizzard messed around with a scry like effect with the Demon Hunter card. This one is much more in line with actual scry. With that being said, a Mage played this against me on the first day of the release and lost. Granted, that’s a small sample size and he might have been a terrible player. Still, we have one data point!
Multi-class
I think I mentioned earlier that I would get to Scholomance Academy notable cards for multi-class cards. Now is that time. I’m not sure what about this particular expansion made them create multi-class cards, but I’m glad they did. These cards were some of my favorites when I played the old World of Warcraft TCG. So, let’s take a look.
I’m just going to talk about these quickly because this article is getting kind of long and you probably stopped reading about halfway through. Wave of Apathy is a great card and it combos well with priest stuff. Flesh Giant follows the cost reduction of other giants and fits with both of the classes so well. Lord Barov is instant removal if you can give it rush. Runic Carvings is actually kind of dumb. Not sure what I was thinking including it. The Demon Hunter/Hunter weapon is neat because it has versatility. Finally, I love the combo effect. Having it in other classes, especially mage (and discover to boot!) is fantastic.
The Verdict
Those are my Scholomance Academy notable cards. This expansion introduces some interesting and cool mechanics into the game. The dual class cards are a great addition that is long overdue. I was frustrated with the game because of the Demon Hunter screw ups (and 5 rounds of nerfs) and the previous expansion was kind of lame. But, they made up for it with this one and I might actually play more. No, I won’t. Eff this game. (Just between you and me, I will, but I don’t want to lose face in front of Chris).
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