One Night In Karazhan Weekly Review: The Prologue and The Parlor

Introduction

The Prologue

Introduction to the adventure, not much going here, but sets our adventure story: beat the boss and you’ll get: enchanted-raven and firelands-portal

enchanted-raven

Constructed Opinion:

Blizzard is doing so much to make Beast Druid viable and this card reinforces that.
A strong 1-mana beast minion for an aggressive beast druid build. One of the aspects that beast druid is missing is a strong curve and this card certainly fills that 1-mana spot

Might be viable in: Beast Druid

Arena Opinion:

A possible pick, a very strong 1-drop considering that you would be willing to build your arena deck towards beast synergy but consider your other options before picking this card. (zombie-chow is still the best 1-drop and seems to be that way for a long time)

Summary: Strong 1-drop, could see play in both Constructed and Arena.

firelands-portal

Constructed Opinion:

In an aggressive meta where you opponents are Dragon Warrior, Aggro Shaman and Zoo Warlock, you barely get a game to turn 7 or more.
Mage’s 7 slot is actually the flamestrike slot and Tempo Mage doesn’t have time to get another late game card (Their biggest fear is losing the board early to other meta decks) Hence, the card is more viable in Control Mages.
5-drop minions have a pretty wide range of outcomes, but most are strong and have good stats.

Might be viable in: Reno Mage, Other Control Mages

Arena Opinion:

Could possibly see some play, as Mages drop rate on flamestrike has been lessen for every expansion/adventure and it is a common card, but the high cost forbids it for taking multiple copies in an arena run. I’d say it’s playable but not that great.

Summary: Too slow in Constructed, could see play in some Mage archetypes, a little too slow in arena too.

The Parlor

Second wing in the adventure, three bosses as usual and defeating each boss unlocks cards as the following:

Silverware Golem: deadly-fork and silverware-golem

Magic Mirror: arcane-anomaly and pantry-spider

Black King: ivory-knight and protect-the-king

deadly-fork

Constructed Opinion:

First of all, the deathrattle grants a COST 3, 3/2 weapon to you hand.
Makes it really bad since currently Rogue suffers greatly from aggro decks, and heavily relys on a good start to get a headstart in racing your opponents. This card doesn’t do that, with poor stats and even a bad deathrattle, if they changed the text into EQUIPING then it would be playable.

Might be viable in: Deathrattle Rogue

Arena Opinion:

Not a bad pick up for Rogue, but sadly it just takes too much time to get value. However, weapons are rare in arena (even deadly-poison too) so he might be convincing to pick if you’re desperate for a weapon buff.
Rogue has soooo many minion weapon buffs now, making our poor fork overshadowed by them. (buccaneer , goblin-auto-barber and southsea-squidface)

Summary: Bad in Constructed, have better alternatives in Arena.

silverware-golem

Constructed Opinion:

Warlocks and discarding cards have always been an ability that Blizzard tries to make it work (Best discard cards are: doomguard and soulfire) but this card is not reliable at all.
The only discarding Warlock archetype that works is Zoo Warlock.
You need a small hand size to make you random discarding actually land on him and Zoo Warlock needs a strong curve in the early game to maintain board presence. Having this card in your starting hand means a dead card until you get a soulfire or doomguard to activate him.

Might be viable in: Zoo Warlock

Arena Opinion:

Too gimmicky to actually work, wouldn’t see play much. But a 3/3 for 3 is not too bad

Summary: Could see play in Constructed, more gimmicky in arena.

pantry-spider

Constructed Opinion:

very bad stats distribution, a 1 attack minion is very bad in a tempo game since it doesn’t kill anything even 2 1/3 dies to a 3/2.
However, for classes that has beast synergy such as Hunter and Druid, this card could be a staple card that your goal is to want a beast to stick on the board so you can buff it next turn with houndmaster or mark-of-yshaarj but still, it trades badly

Might be viable in: Midrange Hunter, Beast Druid?

Arena Opinion:

Worse than Constructed, both 1/3 dies to a 3/2 and it trades very badly to any 3-drop in the game. Even you have a very good beast synergy deck this card is still bad. Do not pick it.

Summary: Bad in both Constructed and Arena.

arcane-anomaly

Constructed Opinion:

a weaker version of mana-wyrm. Getting extra health on a 1-drop minion with 2 attack is not worthy at all.
The most relevant deck for this card is Tempo Mage or Yogg Druid.
Tempo Mage already has mana-wyrm and Mana Wyrm is better, more attack means it is dealing damage and trading good (Well, most of the time Mana Wyrm would go face) while Arcane Anomaly doesn’t.
No slot to be for Yogg Druid as it doesn’t synergy with the deck at all.

Might be viable in: Tempo Mage, Yogg Druid

Arena Opinion:

Could possibly be a substitution for Mana Wyrm or decent enough if you have some spells. The upside is it trades very well with a 3-2 making it a handy 1-drop.

Summary: No decks to play in Constructed, okay in Arena

Ivory Knight

Constucted Opinion

Bad stats for a 6-drop (could compare it with azure-drake orethreal-conjurer for similar effects) even with heal (which is unreliable for a big heal (5 or more))
Why would you include this in a paladin deck? I try to answer this question for this card. Do you want the body, the draw or the heal? and this card is mediocre/underpowered in all aspects. It gives you a small body for its 6 mana cost, unreliable discover and unreliable heal. Moreover, the only archetype paladin deck that can afford to run him is Control Paladin or N’zoth Paladin.
N’zoth Paladin has a stuffed deck/list already so finding space for an unreliable card is very risky.
So, I’d say this card might get some tryouts to test his power.
After some play testing, he’s quite reliable in giving big heals.

Might be viable in: Control Paladin/N’zoth Paladin

Arena Opinion:

Being a rare, he eats up the chances of other better rares (aldor-peacekeeper , muster-for-battle) so he kinda nerfs the power of paladin a bit. However, his discover ability is very welcome in arena, as he gives you a chance to get another better card. But still the drawback of stats and cost makes him a mediocre and unreliable. (You wouldn’t want to draft him and expect to get a tirion-fordring out of his discover ability)

Summary: Could see some play, but he’s just mediocre in every aspect, mediocre in arena too.

protect-the-king

Constructed Opinion:

Unleash the taunts? This card might be the reason why Blizzard made bolster. However, the current warrior archetypes aren’t taunt Warriors, so this card may have potential to start a new breed of Bolster Warrior.
Unlike unleash-the-hounds you cannot cash in the value from your pawns directly. Besides, this card is barely useful, I cannot think of a dream situation that this card will turn in useful. Well.. at least it’s the ultimate counter to forbidden-ritual no matter how much tentacles are spawn.
Even with a full 7 minion board from your opponent, you just get 7 1/1 taunts that’ll at least buy you a turn, you cannot capitalize from them.

Might be viable in: Bolster/Taunt Warrior

Arena Opinion:

Similiar to Constructed, hardly useful. But could work the wonders with cult-master and oh yeah, how could we forget bolster , but if you aren’t getting these combo cards, stay away from this card.

Summary: No usefulness in both Constructed and Arena

Wing Reward

After you have completed the wing you will get: moroes , cloaked-huntress and arcanosmith

Moroes

Constructed Opinion:

The stealthed imp-master himself, a great substitution for imp-gank-boss when he rotates out.
However, is very prone to ravaging-ghoul and all AOE spells. In the other hand he can punish you opponent a bit in swarming the board if left unanswered for a few turns, but still weak to AOE.

Might be viable in: Zoo Warlock

Arena Opinion:

Not too bad, considering other choices are something like lorewalker-chow ornat-pagle , AOE spells are rare in arena now. However, he’s not a game changer, just a value grinder.

Summary: Could see some play in both Constructed and Arena.

arcanosmith

Constructed Opinion:

Very bad card, a 0/6 taunt does nothing (it is simply a heal 6). I cannot think of any deck that can afford running a card like this (maybe Reno decks but meh)
a 4 mana for 3/2 is just trash even with the 0/6 body (which you can hardly gain any value from)
Could see play in gimmick priest buff decks.

Might be viable in: Priest Buff decks

Arena Opinion:

Worse, totally unplayable in my opinion. Does nothing on the board and bad stats.

Summary: Bad card for both Constructed and Arena

cloaked-huntress

Constructed Opinion:

Well, bad news is Hunter rarely run traps in their decks now (at most is 2 or 3) so you will hardly get that free trap for 0 mana.
is mediocre for the current 3-mana slot of Hunter, could see some play due to its great stats, if it had beast in its name I’d say it would be a great card.
Much produce a new breed of Secret Hunters (similiar to Secret Paladin) where you go all-in dropping 3-4 secrets after playing this guy, then rely on top-decking empty hand effect hunter cards. (quickshot , core-rager , brave-archer)

Might be viable in: Midrange Hunter , Secret Hunter

Arena Opinion:

Great stats, could sometimes get the trap synergy.

Summary: Underpar in Constructed but okay Arena.

Class Challenge

Priest: priest-of-the-feast

Shaman: maelstrom-portal

Priest of the Feast

Constructed Opinion:

A pretty annoying minion, 3/6 for 4 is very solid. However, his ability is not very relevant for priest.
Irrelevant in any current priest archetype, the healing doesn’t help you win games and priest doesn’t have that much spells for you to gain too many heals.

Might be viable in: Control Priest

Arena Opinion:

If you’d pick this card, it’ll be just because it’s handy stats. The healing effect is quite difficult to pull off, considering the minion based game in arena.

Summary: Irrelevant in Constructed , okay in Arena

maelstrom-portal

Constructed Opinion:

Not too bad, considering the lack of AOE spells in Shaman, also works really well with a spell power totem too.
But hardly contests lightning-storm because of the tight deck Shaman has, and 2 lightning-storms are already abundant for Shaman
In Control Shaman this card is even outclassed but both elemental-destruction and Lightning Storm.
Aggro decks have no AOE.
First Shaman AOE with no Overload.

Might be viable in: Midrange Shaman

Arena Opinion:

Possibly playable but still contests lightning-storm for the same rarity and also requires a spell power synergy to be devastating.

Summary: could see some play in both Arena and Constructed, but outclassed by lightning-storm

Featured Deck

My pick of the week is ivory-knight , and I’m going to include him into Murloc Paladin deck.

So, our dream is to maybe get a third anyfin-can-happen from our MVP ivory-knight. You could add some humility for more defensive options too.

Keep in mind that we don’t have lay-on-hands as a reliable late game draw anymore, so our hopes of healing goes to our humble Ivory Knight!

Final Thoughts

And that’s my review for One Night in Karazhan First Wing the Prologue and the Parlor, hope you guys enjoy it. Feel free to discuss the cards and your opinions in the comments and I’ll see you all next week.