Here’s my picks for the best cards of the new expansion. Let me know what you think.
Demon Hunter
Glide - 4 mana draw 4 for an aggressive deck. That it can sometimes mess up your opponent is just icing.
Dual card: Ace Hunter Kreen - If you’re ahead on board, this thing can really shutdown an opponent’s ability to fight back. It also works well on defense by potentially preserving a lot of life if you were to attack with a Trueaim Crescent or Warglaives of Azzinoth.
Druid
Druid is tough because they got several powerful cards. But my initial pick is:
Gibberling - a 1 mana minion that can snowball an early game out of control in just a few turns.
Dual Card: Lightning Bloom - It was really tough between this and Speaker Gidra, but Lightning Bloom is more universally useful to a variety of archetypes and at all stages of the game. We know what a world with un-nerfed Innervate looked like and a lot of cards have since come out that were designed in a post-nerf Innervate world. Prepare to get blown out by early Gibberling-Lightning Bloom boards as well as Turn 4 Innervate/Coin - Lightning Bloom - Kael’thas into Survival of the Fittest.
Hunter
Wolpertinger - Alleycat 2.0, with potential upside. Alleycat saw play from its debut in MSOG til it rotated.
Bloated Python deserves an honorable mention because it just might hit the threshold for enough worthwhile deathrattles that Deathrattle Hunter could see a comeback. While we don’t have quite as many activators as we did back in the Year of the Mammoth days, there are things like Xixor, Nine Lives, Teron Gorefiend and Mok’Nathal Lion as pay-offs for this kind of deck.
Dual Card: Teacher’s Pet. This reminds me of Piloted Shredder. For 1 more mana, you get +2 health, beast tag, taunt, and a better outcome from the deathrattle. There’s 17 three cost beasts and only 2 of them, Desert Hare and Ironbeak Owl are low rolls. Even if this spits out a Silverback Patriarch, that’s essentially a significantly better Sludge Belcher. It’s also another option for the deathrattle hunter deck.
Mage
Firebrand - I see this thing similar to Dyn-o-matic. You can frostbolt to kill one minion and likely clear the rest of the board at that stage of the game while leaving you with a 3/4.
Honorable mention to Lab Partner because a Dire Mole with upside has to be at least ok.
Dual Card: Devolving Missiles - Just seems like a solid card and with the focus on buffs this expansion, this thing could be really frustrating to play against. And as a 1 mana card, it synergizes well with other things mages want to do, whether that’s fuel for Mana Cyclone, Magic Trick, controlling the board in highlander and another cheap spell for the quest.
Paladin
First Day of School - 0 cost cards are spooky and have often been strong. Even the meme Totemic Might now sees play. This thing is gas for an aggro deck and an easy way to activate any spellburst minions. Intrepid Initiate (neutral 1/2 spellburst - gain +2 attack) with FDoS is a turn 1 3/2 with follow up for turn 2.
Dual Card: Devout Pupil - Sunwalker is ok but just a bit too expensive. A Sunwalker that can cost even just 2 mana less is already pretty good and this thing can be even cheaper than that!
Priest
Cabal Acolyte - I had a hard time deciding for priest. In the end, I think Cabal Acolyte is the most consistently decent card. If you’re against hyper aggro, you can just throw it down as a 2/6 taunt for 4 mana. It comes down faster than Cabal Shadowpriest (at a cost). And while Convincing Infiltrator is a better rez target, if you rez this, you’re not that unhappy.
Dual Card: Raise Dead - 0 mana ‘draw’ 2 pretty good minions (Convincing Infiltrators, cough cough). The 3 damage to your face is pretty irrelevant in priest, especially if the minions being returned have defensive properties that will let you heal back up. It’s also another 0 mana spell for triggering spell burst. What sort of priest deck doesn’t want this effect?
Illucia is a wildcard. On the one hand, the fact that it exists can make some combo decks obsolete, or at least very risky. But it’s a card you’re gonna want to play later in the game and by then it’s just a 1/3, so you’ll need to have survived long enough to play it. And priest often has large hand sizes so do you really want to run it in a control type deck? I could see her in an aggro/tempo priest that uses her sort of like an Azalina to just refill your hand with some options to play after you’ve dumped your hand.
Rogue
Secret Passage - 4 mana draw 4 wasn’t crazy enough, there’s 1 mana draw 5. Sort of. In an aggressive deck, this is sort of like Myra’s Unstable Element but it doesn’t put you on the clock by destroying the rest of your deck.
Honorable mention to Self-Sharpening Sword. 3 mana deal 10 (over 4 turns) is pretty efficient. A single Deadly Poison makes it 4 mana deal 18.
Dual Card: Coerce - Rogue doesn’t have much hard removal and this seems very good, especially given how many cheap activators Rogues typically have.
Shaman
Instructor Fireheart - This just seems like a strong card, especially when you look at the pool of 1 mana spells for Shaman: Devolving Missiles, Earth Shock, Forked Lightning, Frost Shock, Lightning Bolt, Primordial Studies, Storm’s Wrath.
I could see Fireheart going into various different archetypes because it’s a self-contained value tool that scales well.
Dual Card: Lightning Bloom (again). That card’s nuts. Shaman also can benefit from the overload to some degree with cards like Vessina. That much mana can let you pull off Bloodlust combos quicker.
Warlock
School Spirits - I’m a little sketchy on the Soul Fragments concept, but this is definitely a decent activator for the synergies and it’s an aoe that doesn’t hit the warlock’s face, unlike Hellfire and Crazed Netherwing.
Dual Card: Brittlebone Destroyer. Warlock can pretty easily meet the condition of the card, making this a bit like a Kelidan that you can run multiple copies of.
Warrior
Troublemaker - Similar to Ragnaros or Priestess of Fury, but can potentially leave minions behind. Also has pretty beefy stats so it threatens to close games out quickly and is difficult to deal with outside of hard removal.
Dual Card: Lord Barov - Coerce was a strong candidate, but I think warrior getting access to another potential board clear, especially while Risky Skipper exists, is pretty nuts. Dr. Krastinov also makes a strong case in that he’s like Captain Greenskin but with Rush and potentially repeatable. Very strong for Livewire Lance/Ancharr decks.
Since there’s so many neutrals, I’ll break down by rarity:
Common - Intrepid Initiate: this thing looks pretty gnarly for a number of different aggro decks.
Rare - Voracious Reader: 2 mana 1/3 that can draw up to 3 cards is very strong. Jeeves saw play and this is significantly better, being both half the cost and only affecting you. Quite possibly one of the strongest cards of the set.
Epic - Transfer Student. It’s already found its way into decks so this is cheating a bit.
Legendary - Sphere of Sapience. Kind of a risk on this, but the ability to smooth out your curve, draw combo pieces you need, and shuffle away cards you don’t need is not an effect we’ve really had in hearthstone. This is a card that should test the skill of the player to determine whether to keep or not.
(YEAAAAHHHH)