Fires of Outland: The Loot

Today was Friday which means another of our weekly previews leading up to the release of Fires of Outland. Today we got a look at the loot cards in the new set. Since I don't play the MMO, I'm obviously not going to talk about the in-game awesomeness that these new cards bring. I will tell you what I think about these cards in the TCG though.

Goblin Gumbo
Instant Ability
Attach to target ally. Ongoing: Attached ally has -2 ATK. When Goblin Gumbo enters a graveyard from play, put it from that graveyard on top of its owner's deck.

The card is definitely not terrible. It's going to be a solid card against rush decks. It's almost like a re-usable Polymorph against little allies. The cost is low enough that it's not out of the question to play it. The extra benefit though can sometimes be a drawback.

First, a quick rules point. If they have some way of removing the target before Gumbo actually attaches, it will not go back to the top of your library since it never entered play.

Now to the downside of the card. It goes back on top of your library. I know at first glance this seems like a good thing since you get to keep using it over and over, but a savvy player (particularly one with a lot of cheap allies) will just start running the targets into whatever can kill them so that you either have to stop playing the Gumbo or keep drawing the same card every turn like some bad episode of The Twilight Zone.

Overall, I think the potential to essentially lock yourself out of the draw step will be this card's downfall, but it is probably worth testing out.

The next card is Gone Fishin.

3
Ability
Ongoing, (2), Exhaust -->Draw three cards and skip your next turn. Use only on your turn.

I'm not going to lie, I don't like this card at all. It's got the potential to be very, very bad. When you break the game down and say that there are three very basic types of decks, aggro, control, and combo. One of those has absolutely no use for this card. I have a hard time imagining a control deck wanting to skip a turn to draw some cards, even if you can recursively draw those cards. I could be wrong on this, but I can only see a very small window where a control deck would want to use this card against other control decks. Even in that very small window (between say turns 5-8), it's pretty risky, especially given the ease of card draw through quests. Even if you did ever activate this, I can't really see using it more than once or maybe twice, which means you would generally be better served by completing say, In Dreams. The fact that you have to use it on your own turn means you are not only giving your opponent two turns, but also advance knowledge of the second turn. This is much worse than say Lay on Hands skip your turn because you can use it at your opponent's end of turn so they don't get to play that turn knowing they have another free one coming.

This card actually seems like it could be really good in an aggro deck. In the mid-game when your opponent has just wiped out all your allies, and you have nothing left, skip a turn and get some new cards or skip two turns and take a mid-game mulligan (of course, giving your opponent all those turns kinda undoes all the extra card drawing. While I'm not going to say that this is either incredible or not worth it, I will certainly try it out in my aggro decks.

It's the last type of deck where cards like this really scare me. WoW is yet to see a viable combo deck (unless you count Gorebelly, which isn't purely a combo deck), but these are the kinds of cards that fuel them. This card is essentially three free cards to a combo deck on its kill turn. Knowing that you fully intend to win this turn means you won't have another turn to skip. Getting 2 of these into play is just unfair should a combo deck ever rise up as that will be 6 cards for it the turn it goes off. Right now, I don't see any immediate problems, but just having cards like this in the game begins to open the door. So far, the designers have done a good job of keeping things like this in check so I'm not too worried, but this is definitely the type of card you look for when trying to "go off."

We also got a free peek at Battle Preparations. This card to me is just awful.

Ability
Cost: 4
Allies can't attack until after your next turn.

Sure, it combos nicely with Gone Fishin (in the same way that Sentry Gwynn combos with From the Shadows). The aforementioned janktastic combo aside, this is another prime example of what control decks don't need. If a control player is going to take his fourth turn to do absolutely nothing, then he deserves to lose. Turn 4 is one of the most important turns in a game (except control on control) and doing nothing to either develop your own board position or hinder theirs is not the way to win matces.

Ironically, I could see a use for this card in aggro vs. aggro matches. I could see an aggro deck possibly playing this on say turn 6. Not only do you keep your opponent from doing any damage to you, he also can't take out any of your allies on his turn. While it's not spectacular, it may be worth testing. Unfortunately, this is supposed to look like a control card, but the only remotely feasible application of the card is in aggro decks.

Our last preview card is the loot I most want (because it's going to fetch some super prices on eBay). It's Spectral Tiger

Ally
Cost: 4
ATK/Health: 4/3
Alliance:Elusive allies in your party have +1 health.
Horde:Allies with ferocity in your party have +1 ATK.

While this guy will be a fine pick in draft (although he would be better as a 3/4) I'm not sure that he makes the cut for Constructed. On the Alliance side, Elusive allies have really been replaced by Untargetable ones so his ability isn't really going to do anything and he's just not as good as Moira for two reasons. One, his 3 health makes him much more likely to get killed by a single 2 drop, and two, he doesn't destroy equipment.

On the Horde side, despite the fact that he has 1 more ATK, I still think that Hippo is just better. Ferocity is worth more than one point of ATK. He might be OK as a second 4-drop in an aggressive Horde deck, but I think that I would rather play Zarg there despite how easy he is to kill. One thing that I have come to realize with WoW is that you just can't play allies who have good abilities when they stay in play for more than one turn because they generally won't stay in play more than one turn. Allies generally need to have an immediate effect on the board to be worth playing and this guy really doesn't.