It didn’t take too long for people to call out their favorite legendaries and fandral-staghelm, hallazeal-the-ascended and twin-emperor-veklor are a few of the most talked about legendaries in this set. But are those the top tier legendaries? Or are they the next Troggzors? Well, find out, as I review all the Class legendaries and talk about their strengths and weaknesses and not only give a final verdict, but offer deckbuilding ideas around them.
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Class Legendaries
- Anomalus (Mage) – Wow, this card is a hard one to guage. Mage decks so far, apart from freeze mage, are pretty board focused with spells being used as removal and not really a win condition. This legendary totally goes against that by providing an unconditional Chillmaw style deathrattle, albeit on steroids – an 8 damage nuke to both sides of the board compared to Chillmaw’s meager AND conditional 3 damage AOE. This card should be played in a late game focused deck like a Yogg-Saron deck – outfit it with Frost Novas, Doomsayers, Blizzards, Cabalist’s Tome etc. and use this as an additional AOE effect that is a threat in itself due to its high attack. However, due to its non versatile nature, I would rate this a a low tier legendary.
- ragnaros-lightlord (Paladin) – Ragnaros’ uncorrupted version is a champion of the Light. Instead of bashing in faces, he is now mending injuries and dealing a LOT of damage along with it, what with having 8 attack. I was kind of doubtful about this one, since the effect didn’t seem like something that would be THAT relevant seeing as it does next to nothing the turn it’s played and out-healing the opponent isn’t that great of a win condition. But man, I couldn’t be happier about being wrong about this. This is a core part of nzoth Paladin and the new Healadin. This is definitely one of the better legends to come out of The Old Gods expansion and if at all you like to play Paladin, this is a must craft.
- chogall (Warlock) – I tried to make it work. Tried it in all sorts of control + combo warlock decks, but it just didn’t work. Why? Well, the effect just doesn’t have good synergy with ANY of the warlock spells. This is one to avoid crafting for sure, but if there is a good spell for warlock in the upcoming sets, this has the potential to be pretty insane. But, as of right now, he’s dead weight. If you want to try him out, put him in a Renolock deck and use him as a 7 mana 7/7 with Battlecry: Deal 3 damage to your hero and 4 damage to an enemy minion ( with shadow-bolt ) or deal 3 damage to your hero and destroy a minion (with siphon-soul )
- malkorok (Warrior) – This is a potential game winner or game loser rolled into one. He can give you a doomhammer, or a cursed-blade just as often, either winning you the game or losing you the game. But, if you look at the other weapons, you can get an arcanite-reaper or truesilver-champion and so on, and gain you an insane amount of value and tempo (since you can immediately use the weapon unless you’ve attacked before). A 6/5 body is worth 5 mana, meaning his effect must equip and weapon worth 2 or more mana, which it does most of the time. The upsides of this card severely outweigh the downsides of the card, leading it to becoming a pretty essential part of Tempo Warrior, which is, as of now, one of the top tier decks. The versatility of the card makes it even more of a winner to me – use it as extra damage in a slightly more aggressive deck or use it as a control tool in Control Warrior. This is a must have for Tempo Warrior and should be high on your crafting lists for this expansion, more so if you’re a warrior player.
- herald-volazj (Priest) – I’d say this is similar to Cho’Gall. How so? Well, the effect is pretty good, just like Cho’Gall’s effect, but there are no cards yet that can abuse the effect. That makes it extremely low priority as a craft right now but don’t be surprised if this becomes really good in upcoming expansions with some whacky combo. As of right now, he could see play in N’Zoth decks, where he can copy a valuable deathrattle or effect (for example, playing him in a Reno deck with confessor-paletress, but there just aren’t any cards to make use of his effect).
- hallazeal-the-ascended (Shaman) – This is another sleeper of the set in my eyes. Shaman is playing a midrange deck that is highly minion based and runs only 1 or 2 direct damage spells, if any. Also, the heal doesn’t really matter in such a deck since you’ve probably already lost if you’ve been pushed off the board. I tried him out in a midrange shaman deck and I found that I was just using him as a vanilla 4/6 for 5 mana most of the time and soon replaced him with a more impactful late game legendary. All in all, he’s not bad but he isn’t that great either. If control shaman becomes big, with 2 of elemental-destruction and a ton of late game, this guy is a sure include as I’ve had success with a list like that! (Look up TidesofTimes’ control Shaman)
- princess-huhuran (Hunter) – I’m no hunter player but I was super excited about this card. It had a good body and a plus side without affecting its stats. It’s even got the beast tag! I was looking at the insane value it would get, by triggering Sylvanas or Savannah Highmane, etc. But, there just weren’t any absolutely insane synergy with any cards – if your Highmane was alive for a turn, you’re probably already winning, getting it to trigger on Sylvanas is hard since it is a high priority card to remove and there were no other deathrattles that had enough value (that would also be played in a Hunter deck, so no twilight-summoner). In wild though, this would be amazing, with all the deathrattles like Piloted Shredder, Mad Scientist, Sludge Belcher, etc. But, as of right now, this is seeing very little to no play currently and unless we get some really good deathrattles for use in Hunter, this may just be the troggzor-the-earthinator of the set.
- fandral-staghelm (Druid) – The most hyped legendary, but like the others (Herald Volazj, Princess Huhuran) suffers from having no insane synergy. I mean, having a 4/6 charge minion, or discovering a spell and minion for 1 mana sounds really good and is great value on paper but it is not “awesome” enough to warrant a must craft of this fellow. If you want to play druid, this one is great and is a sure craft, but surely isn’t one that will challenge for top legendary due to lack of the absolutely insane synergy cards. What this needs is a minion or spell whose Choose One effects combined have a N’Zoth or C’Thun like almost insta-game winning play to push Druid and Fandral to Tier 1. This has seen a lot of play in C’Thun and beast decks where cards like living-roots, wrath and druid-of-the-claw are staples already and Fandral adds value to these already great cards.
- xaril-poisoned-mind (Rogue) – Miracle Rogue and N’Zoth Rogue really benefit from this card. The cheap spells are great with gadgetzan-auctioneer and also have good synergy with your leeroy-jenkins burst win condition (+3 attack toxin, shadowstep-like toxin and even stealthing your cold-blooded minion or edwin-van-cleef, among other things. nzoth-the-corruptor revives it and the spells are pretty useful here as well – return N’Zoth to your hand and replay it next turn, or push for lethal with the 2 damage spell or the +3 attack toxin. This card is overall very amazing and is a must craft if you like Rogue as it can generate so much value with its toxins.
Note: The legendaries who have their pictures up are the top tier ones for their respective classes. Malkorok is indeed debatable, but given the power of the Tempo Warrior deck, I have decided to rate it higher than his closest rival – Fandral Staghelm.
To finish the article, here’s a ranking of the class legendaries, from top to bottom:
- ragnaros-lightlord
- xaril-poisoned-mind
- malkorok
- fandral-staghelm
- hallazeal-the-ascended
- princess-huhuran
- chogall
- herald-volazj
- anomalus
(As another note, I have rated Cho’gall higher than Volazj mainly because he can fit into RenoLock since they use shadowflame and shadow-bolt. Herald Volazj on the other hand is really hard to use especially since Priests don’t usually have more than 2 minions out on board at one time in my experience, much less have something good for Volazj to copy.)
