More Molten Core Previews

Today I'm going to catch up on the previews I missed last week and finish up this week's.







I'm sure you've already seen these cards, so I'm going to save myself the time of copying them here and just get straight to it.







Azuresong Mageblade.







This card seems really good to me in terms of pure ability. After the first draw, you will get at least one card every other turn, which seems like a bargain at 1 resource per card. When you combine it with other card draw, such as quests or the extremely powerful Evocation, the Mageblade becomes a card drawing machine. I could see this card ending up in Mage and Warlock control decks based on its sheer power.





Now the downside. Mages are pretty awful right now, and Warlock decks seem to be focused on the early and midgame. Control decks are dying right now because the game and the environment is just so fast. This is the type of card that is kind of like a freight train. It takes a little while to get it going, but once it gets going it's almost impossible to stop.





The fact that the card costs 4 and then you won't get the first card from it for at least one more turn if not 2 means this card will only chip in one or two cards in a typical game in the most popular current decks. One or two cards hardly seems worth this type of investment. It's when the Mageblade allows you to draw 6, 7, or more extra cards that the weapon starts to truly shine. Based on the current environment of pure aggro and mid-range aggro decks with games rarely going past turn 7 or 8, games just don't last long enough for the Mageblade to become powerful. We'll see if this card helps control decks at all in their fight to get back into the metagame.





Legplates of Ten Storms





This card seems pretty solid. If it cost any less, I am sure it would be incredible. At 6 it might take a while for this thing to kick in. But it does have a DEF value of 2, which is solid. The bigger question is, is this card better than Helmet of Ten Storms and is it viable to play both in the same deck?





This card does more damage than the Helmet for less resources. However, the Helmet also has the healing effect which seems like it would be important in the type of Shaman deck that would run these cards. There's no way a Shaman rush deck is going to be packing high-end armor, so these would only go into some kind of Shaman control deck. The Legplates will probably be easier on you resource wise than the Helmet, but they also run the problem of being an overcosted piece of armor when you run out of Shaman abilities. The Helmet can always be used at least once per turn, whereas the Legplates require an ability to be played before they can be used for anything other than their DEF. However, you can get the damage prevention AND the ability from the Legplates.





I could go on and on about which one is better, but the bottom line is they are both pretty good. The only question is, will some sort of Shaman control deck rise up that can take advantage of these good armor pieces.





Nemesis Leggings





I'm not going to spend much time talking about the Warlock leggings. I don't play the MMO. but Gary does (more like used to but I digress) and he told me that the Warlock leg armor was the best of the bunch so I was expecting big things from Nemesis Leggings. Sadly, they just don't do that much.





Right now, there are only three abilities that a Warlock can attach to their opponent, so the better application would be as a sideboard card against decks that like to attach things to their hero, I don't know, like perhaps Cat Form, Predatory Strikes, etc. That seems like the best function for this card right now, but even then taking your turn 5 against Telrander to basically do nothing doesn't seem like the best play.



Benediction



We all knew this one was coming. This card was referenced on the Dark Portal card Anathema. This card is essentially Anathema in a mirror universe. One potentially exciting little bit on these two staves is that they are far more difficult to get rid of when one is in the graveyard than most weapons. If your opponent tries to remove one from play, you can simply exhaust your hero and replace the target with its mirror cousin. A deck capable of using both Anathema and Benediction seems unlikely, and putting one in as a way to protect the other doesn't seem like it's really worth it, but it's an interesting application nonetheless.



As for what this card actually does, it definitely gives Priests a potent weapon. Benediction will present the possibility of Priests drawing two, three, or even more extra cards per turn. Now if someone can just find a viable Priest Healing deck. Benediction's biggest drawback is the fact that it can only be played by Priests, who are currently duking it out with Rogues for the title of least played class in the game.

Shadowstrike

There's no way this card is going to see any play before the release of Fires of Outland at the earliest. On its own, the weapon is rather bland. 3 cost and 3 ATK with a whopping 3 strike cost and two-handed to boot. Krol Blade is just infinitely better. The extra ability is what even gets this weapon into a playability discussion and right now the only hero that can wield the weapon and use the ability is Aleyah Dawnborn. Considering how she's not exactly setting the tournament world ablaze right now, I would say we'll need to wait until a different hero can use it.

Even then, it hardly seems worth it. The strike cost is simply too high to warrant this as a main weapon. In the early game you'll have to choose between swinging with it and developing your board. The right pick here is almost always developing your board. This means that Shadowstrike will only be worth the investment very late in the game when you have enough resources to strike with it and still play other cards. Even then, it's not necessarily worth the invest so much as it's not a total disaster to swing with it.

Even if there were more Enchanters who could use the sword, there are better ways to draw two cards than paying a total of 4 and saccing a weapon that you probably never swung with. The only reason I could see playing this is if you are really scared of getting your weapons destroyed and want something to do with them in case your opponent goes to blow them up. Even then, I would say you are probably paranoid and should just fork over the cash for some Stronghold Gauntlets.