Molten Core Previews

The Molten Core Previews started on Friday, so I'll chip in what I think of the two new cards that we've seen so far. First up is Friday's preview:

Eskandar's Right Claw
Instant Weapon-Rogue, Hunter, Warrior, Shaman
Cost:3
ATK:0
Strike Cost:1

You may remove an equipment in your hand from the game rather than pay Eskhandar's Right Claw's cost.

This card may seem relatively innocuous at first glance, but I think this card is going to do more to bring Gorebelly solo to the forefront. It's still a good weapon for the other classes as well, but I think solo Warrior will benefit the most from it.

Don't be deceived by the 3 in the top left corner. You will rarely pay the resource cost for this weapon. More often than not, you'll just pitch a spare equipment to drop this baby into play on turn one. Getting a weapon you can swing with on turn one is going to do a lot to help with solo Warriors weakest matchup, rush. Suddenly that turn 1 Merry or Teep isn't so daunting.

The free strike cost also means that you can use all of your early turns developing your board instead of using your important early resources to play and then strike with a weapon (unless of course you're using Kris or Fel Iron Hatchet, but you've still got to play those).

The fact that the weapon is also an instant helps to shore up another weakness in the Gorebelly solo deck. When you go for the Mortal Strike turn, if they remove your weapon to reduce the effectiveness (or should I say brutalness) of Mortal Strike, you can still drop one of these into play before the Strike resolves to go ahead and finish them off.

I expect this card to fetch a nice price when this Raid deck gets released.

Today's card was a little less exciting to me.

Core Hound Tooth
Cost:2 Shaman, Warrior, Hunter, Warrior
ATK:0
Strike:1

At the start of your turn, put a +1 ATK counter on CHT.

When your hero deals damage with CHT, remove all +1 ATK counters from CHT.

The only class that can really make any use of this card is Rogue because of how much they love their daggers. Even then, there are at least three daggers that are just better. Barman Shanker, Felstriker, and Scarlet Kris should all see play above this. The one use for this would be to let it build up counters until you have 5 or 6 and then unleash a flurry of Backstabs and Ambushes. Even then though, you've gone to a lot of trouble to get one more ATK than you would have with a Barman Shanker.

I think trying to make this huge for one turn is just being too greedy, but I bet a lot of people will still try.