The best cards from Hearthstone’s Descent of Dragons expansion

Blizzard has finished revealing all of the cards for Hearthstone’s Descent of Dragons expansion, due out on December 10. After looking through them, and all of the new mechanics coming in the expansion — like Galakrond, Legendary dragons, and Side Quests — I’ve picked a dozen (or so) of my favorite cards in the new set.

Not all of them will define the meta, but they look like interesting cards to play.

Depth Charge

1-mana neutral minion, 0/5 body
At the start of your turn, deal 5 damage to all minions.

This is an anti-aggro card in a similar vein to Doomsayer. The difference is this can be played from turn one. Aggro decks will have a hard time answering this card that early. It prevents them from taking an early lead on the board and snowballing. A control deck will mulligan hard for this if facing a class with a popular aggro deck.

Kobold Stickyfinger

5-mana neutral minion, 5/5 body
Battlecry: Steal your opponent’s weapon.

We’ve had anti-weapon tech cards before, usually Oozes, but his one is different. Rather than destroying a weapon, it gives it to you. The most prevalent weapon in the meta is Bomb Warrior’s, Wrenchcalibur, but Supercollider is also a possibility. If you’re worried about the new card, Ancharrr, a simple Ooze (and a cheaper card) is probably the better play.

Wyrmrest Purifier

2-mana neutral minion, 3/2 body
Battlecry: Transform all neutral cards in your deck into random cards from your class.

I’m starting to think Blizzard thinks Bomb Warrior needs some counter play. Playing this will cleanse bombs from your deck in addition to cards like Corrupted Bloods. While this could be thought of as a Neutral Renounce Darkness, the same randomness that plagued that card would make this one unlikely to see serious play.

Corrupt Elementalist

5-mana Shaman minion, 3/3 body
Battlecry: Invoke Galakrond twice.

This is one of the best Galakrond support cards printed in this set. Play this after you’ve completed the Shaman Quest Corrupt the Waters and you take Galakrond from his base form to his final form in one play. This would also activate the Galakrond hero power. You spend 5 mana and have a  3/3, plus two 2/1 Elementals with rush, and you buff Galakrond.

Valdris Felgorge

7-mana Warlock minion, 4/4 body
Battlecry: Increase your maximum hand size to 12. Draw 4 cards.

While Galakrond for Warlock looks to support a Zoo type of deck, this card is one of several in the set that supports a more Dragon / Handlock type of gameplan. This will make Mountain Giants cost even less. The new card, Dark Skies, could do up to 12 damage. Card advantage (having more cards in your hand than your opponent), gives you more options on each turn. This gives Warlock almost a permanent card advantage.

Sky Raider

1-mana Warrior Pirate, 1/2 body
Battlecry: Add a random Pirate to your hand.

I don’t know why, but Blizzard wants to resurrect the Pirate Warrior archetype. Sky Raider is a 1/2 that can draw your second copy of it and put a 2/2 on the board if you have the new card, Parachute Brigand That’s a possible 3 / 4 worth of stats on turn one. You can see why Depth Charge might be needed. Between this an Ancharr, a potential Pirate Warrior has good card draw, a must for any aggressive minded deck. Most Pirate tribe cards have a low mana cost so you should be able to play them quickly.

Crazed Netherwing

5-mana Warlock minion, 5/5 body
Battlecry: If you’re holding a Dragon, deal 3 damage to all other characters.

Duskbreaker was a powerful tool for Priest while it was available in Standard. This card has the same text, but for Warlock — and it also hits face. Warlock might not have all the healing tools as Priest, but it still has plenty with cards like Siphon Soul, Aranasi Broodmother, Deathweb Spider, Vile Necrodoctor, High Priest Jeklik, etc.

Amber Watcher

5-mana Paladin Dragon, 4/6 body
Battlecry: Restore 8 Health.

This is one of several heal cards for Paladin in this set. Antique Healbot is still a popular card in Wild, and this card fills the same roll in Standard (at least for Paladins). This is also a Dragon and activates all the Dragon tribe synergies. This could strengthen the OTK Holy Wrath combo deck.

Platebreaker

5-mana neutral minion, 5/5 body
Battlecry: Destroy your opponent’s Armor.

This is meant as a counter to Control Warrior decks, which are the only ones who stack enough armor to make this worthwhile. Like all tech cards, its use will depend on whether Control Warrior is prevalent enough in the meta to justify including it. Against other decks, all you have is a 5/5 for 5 mana. In my best Gollum voice: We hates it.

Goru the Mightree

7-mana Druid minion, 5/10 body with Taunt
Battlecry: For the rest of the game, your Treants have +1/+1.

Blizzard is doing all it can to encourage a token / Treant deck. The expansion is packed with Treant cards: you can get card draw from Aeroponics, powerful buffs from Treenforcements and Goru, and Treant generation for Shrubadier. A turn four Landscaping into a turn five Aeroponics would be a strong play. The new Neutral Legendary, Shu’ma, provides yet another board refill for this deck. Eventually, your opponent will run out of answers. Token Druid was a strong deck for a time, and this might keep it a solid tier two deck.

Murozond the Infinite

8-mana Priest Dragon, 8/8 body
Battlecry: Play all cards your opponent played last turn.

This is a Tess Greymane-type effect. It plays both spells and minions, but the spell targets are random. Like Tess, any Battlecry minions Murozond summons don’t fire their Battlecries. This was likely done to keep the card from going infinite, although given its name, it would be cool if it did.

This could be Tempo equalizer. Your opponent plays Flamestrike and then a 3 drop to get board presence. You play Murozond, and now you’re ahead on the board again. If your opponent played a bunch of Secrets, play Murozond. Now, you have a bunch of Secrets, and you know what your opponent’s Secrets are. If your opponent played Puzzle Box of Yogg Saron, play this, sit back, and watch the fireworks.

Grave Rune

4-mana Priest spell
Give a minion Deathrattle: “Summon 2 copies of this.”

This is similar to the Carnivorous Cube card from Kobolds and Catacombs. There are going to be some interesting applications of this. You can trigger it yourself with Wretched Reclaimer. It has some limited combo potential, perhaps another finisher in a Silence/Divine Shield/Inner Fire deck. Placing Grave Rune on a Leeroy Jenkins, and activating Grave Rune with Holy Smite is an 18 damage play. A resurrect Priest deck would put this on Khartut Defender or Convincing Infiltrator. The Ironbeak Owls might be necessary inclusions in all decks if Priest is a popular class this meta.

Bad Luck Ablatross

3-mana neutral minion, 4/3 body
Deathrattle: Shuffle two 1/1 Albatross into your opponent’s deck.

This is another card meant to disrupt your opponent’s deck. Placing two 1/1s in their deck is a powerful play against almost any archetype. Bad Luck Albatross doesn’t draw another card. You’re forcing your opponent to either play a weak 1/1 or pass the turn. By the time you play this, an Aggro deck is looking for a finisher. This denies that. Control decks want to draw their big, powerful cards. The only deck I wouldn’t recommend this against is a Token Druid.

This would also work as a tech card against the various Highlander cards like Zephrys the Great. Playing this will stop those effects until your opponent draws an Albatross.

What else?

Those are some of the more interesting cards I’ve seen, but what about you? What cards are you excited to get your hands on? Which cards will define the meta in Descent of Dragons?

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