Is anyone else ready for Dark Portal?

For me personally, one of the funnest things about card games is deck design. I love trying to stay one step ahead of the metagame and designing decks meant as a foil to those sitting on top. I love having the option to play something that might not be lighting the world on fire results-wise but gives me the element of surprise while still being a powerful deck choice.

I think we're approaching critical mass with the current metagame. Sure, Sen'Zir decks are starting to show up in response to the migration toward control. But to anyone who read my TCGPlayer article here, you could have seen the move to mid-range Hunters coming in response to all the rush hate they had to face. Seeing Shaman decks also start packing bigger mid-game allies to beat Alliance control decks before they get into their powerful end game makes me think that Dizdemona's time in the spotlight is just about over (unless she gets help in TDP, obv.).

Now we seem to be in a spot with 2 very good mid-range decks. One (Grennan) is very good vs. the Hunter rush decks while the right build is also pretty good vs. the Warlock control decks. (The version I'm talking about here is very aggressive in the mid-game with Hippos, Moko, Tewa, and the Warlock-hating Karkas). Sen'Zir on the other hand is very good vs. the Warlock control and pretty good vs. Hunter rush.

Now we're facing a strange situation. Most of the time a metagame will go through cycles. Deck A rises to the top. Deck B surfaces and hates out Deck A. Then when Deck B gets to the top Deck C shows up that can beat it. As Deck C starts to hate out Deck B, Deck A returns to the scene since Deck B has fallen on hard times. It's not always this simple, but metagames are usually rather cyclical.

In World of Warcraft right now, Grennan seems to be too good to get hated out, especially since the Sen'Zir decks dominate Grennan's toughest matchup. Elendril rush decks will get a little help from the fact that they can sometimes race the Sen'Zir decks, but still have to face down the mad cow. As long as Grennan remains prominent, I just don't see Elendril returning to the top of the heap. So we're stuck in a rut.

Enter, Dark Portal. This set will almost double the available card pool which should really help out a lot of decks. It's going to introduce a whole set of new heroes and seemingly powerful racial abilities. Choosing which hero goes in your deck will be more difficult since Alliance Warlock won't mean Dizdemona by default. I think the new set will be a shot in the arm for deckbuilders and it happens to become legal the week of Darkmoon Faire-Austin, which I will be lucky enough to attend.