Fires of Outland Previews

There are 5 new cards I haven't covered yet. I'm sure you have seen the four from the Sneak Previews and the one on UDE's site today. Now I'll tell you what I think about them.

Dragon's Breath
Mage Instant Ability
Cost: 3

Fire Hero Required.

Your hero deals 3 fire damage divided as you choose to any number of target heroes and/or allies. A character dealt damage this way loses all powers this turn.

This card is at least a step in the right direction for control mages. The biggest problem with this card for control mages is that control mages draw a big advantage from being frost mages. Don't be shocked if this card ends up like a little mini-Chain Lightning for aggro Ta'Zo decks. When they get the opportunity to take out 2 allies with one card or 1 big protector, it can really swing the early tempo in their favor. The fact that it's an instant is also good as is shuts off ferocity. Alliance should also get a Fire Mage this time around which will open this card up to them as well.

Unfortunately for control mages this is Fire spec'd, which means the frost mages can't use it, and it still has that one nasty word in it, target. Jeleane Nightbreeze remains a major problem for Mages and this card does nothing to help that problem.

Overall, it's a very solid card that will probably end up in a lot more aggro decks than control decks.

Kulvo Jadefist
Alliance Ally
Cost:3
ATK/Health:4/4

Protector
When Kulvo Jadefist attacks, he has -2/-2 this turn.

I was actually a little surprised to see this card as Alliance. I expected it to be Guardian something for the Horde. I'm going to say right now, that I think for control decks this guy might be better than Parvink for one simple reason, Parvink has a nasty tendency to die to Perdition's Blade. Kulvo, with his 4 butt is bigger than most removal abilities at that point in the game, bigger than Perdition's Blade and bigger than any ally that's going to attack him. So in the face of a Perdition's Blade he will either take an ally out with him instead of just dying to the blade, or be an effective Time Walk as your opponent won't be able to make any more attacks if they want to wait until the next turn to finish him off with the Blade. If they don't have a Blade, Kulvo will still almost always result in the same 2-for-1 that Parvink does with the exception that his 2-for-1 will result in 2 allies being removed from the board which is actually a better 2-for-1 than the 1-for-1 board trade with the extra card in hand you get from Parvink. It will definitely require some testing to determine which three drop fits in control decks now, but I'm a pretty big fan of Kulvo right now.

Hurlorn Battlechaser
Horde Ally
Cost:4
ATK/Health: 2/1

Long-Range
When Hurlorn Battlechaser enter play, he deals 2 ranged damage to target hero or ally.

Talk about guys that don't suck. This guy is really good. Despite the fact that Jeleane and Merry are running around everywhere, this guy will almost never be without a target. His long-range will rarely have a measurable effect on the game, but it will mean that your opponent has to deal with it immediately. If you have a couple protectors who could keep him alive for a couple of turns he can completely decimate your opponent. I wouldn't ever expect that of him, but the fact that he will almost always be 2-for-1 is very good. One of the things I like about this card is that it's probably not very good in a rush deck. One of the traps of designing good control cards is not accidentally making them also really good in rush. Chain Lightning is a perfect example. This card is definitely pure control because rush doesn't generally want to spend four resources for 2 ATK.

Arcane Blast
Mage ability
Cost:3

You pay (1) less to play Arcane Blast for each other card in your graveyard named Arcane Blast. Your hero deals 3 Arcane Damage to target hero or ally.

While this card isn't spectacular it could find a home in a Ta'zo aggro deck. Three damage for three resources is about normal so the first one is just an average card. But if you can draw more than one, every subsequent one just becomes better and better. With the Dragon's Breath above, Ta'zo has access to a lot of very efficient burn. It will be interesting to see if it can somehow translate into a competitive deck.

To Serve Kum'isha
Quest

Pay (2) to complete this quest. Reward: Reveal the top three cards of your deck. Put a revealed card with cost of (3) or more into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your deck.

This is another really good quest. I like the fact that the quest selection continues to get better. I already like the other quest we've seen from this set Corki's Ransom. This one is another really good one, especially for control decks. It's almost impossible for a deck like Warlock control to miss with this card. It makes me wonder if there is one for cheaper cards to though which would also be really good, but I digress. I think that UDE has seem some of the concerns over the beatdown decks and are releasing some good control cards to show us that hopefully FoO will help bring balance back to the metagame. These cards are all pretty solid, with a couple of them having the potential to be outstanding. I personally am really looking forward to this set.