Blizzcon cards and 2 more previews

I'm going to be really honest today. I've been very disappointed with most of the preview cards so far. I know not everyone out there play VS. System, but previews are also running right now for that game. The Previews for Marvel Legends (the next set) have been really good and for the most part the WoW previews have been meh with a few exceptions. They claim the previews are there to build up excitement for the new set, but my honest assessment right now is that while there are several playable cards and the set looks solid as a whole, there has been very little that's really exciting. The card that really has me the most excited right now wasn't even previewed (Slow) and only a couple of the previewed cards are really good (Dragon's Breath and Shadowfiend). The rest range from probably playable (Earth Shock, Avenger's Shield) to decent picks in limited (The Succubus and today's axe) to downright junk (Megamorph and Filthy Tricks). When you look at the previews for other games, they have previewed big time cards. Damnation, Enemy of My Enemy, and Mobilize are all big-time cards, the chase rares of their respective sets that were all previewed. They always talk about new abilities and keywords the set is introducing or new mechanics and synergies we can expect to see. I realize that not every set can revolutionize the game and not every card is King Magni Bronzebeard, but come on. So far, this set looks like more of the same stuff we've seen with a probable lean towards slowing the game down a little. Nothing about new abilities, keywords, nothing. Just some cards that could very easily already be out that are mostly going to collect dust. Anyway, that's enough ranting, on to the cards.

I'm not going to write out all the cards, but I will link where you can find them if you haven't seen them already.

Berserker Rage

This card is going to go ahead and just fall into the junk category for me. Warriors have far better ways that this (and generally cheaper) to get more ATK. If it were like Cruelty and gave the bonus all the time it would be ridiculous. As is, you don't really want it giving more than three ATK because that means you're pretty close to dead. The real problem with this card is that you can't play it on turn 4 against a beatdown deck because it's such a loss of tempo and playing it early against control isn't so good because they're not really doing anything to you early on. By the time you could actually play it and start swinging with it being useful there are far better things you could be doing than this. Not to mention that most Warriors that want to go long will be packing Wraith Scythes which doesn't combo well with this card. I just don't think this thing is going to see much play.

Stellaris

I'm not really going to go into why this card is not good in Constructed. The situations where it would be better than Annihilator, Krol Blade, Perdition's Blade, or even Fel Iron Hatchet are so few and well situational, there just isn't room for this thing in a Constructed deck. Having said that, it's still a top pick in Draft.

The following cards can all be found here.

Sword of a Thousand Truths is actually not terrible. I can definitely see it getting played if control decks do indeed get a boost in this set. It doesn't end the game as fast as Sulfuras, but against control decks forcing them to discard their hand may seal the game up anyway.

He Who Has No Life

I think it's great that they put these two cards in the game as it adds a great flavor to the game which is important to keep people playing. His 3 health, sadly, will probably keep this guy relegated to the sidelines. He trades with too many low drops to rely on keeping him alive and even if he can survive the ally attacks there are a lot of abilities and weapons that can also finish him off. I'm just not big on paying 6 resources to play a guy who can't win a fight vs. a 2-drop or gets one-shotted by a Perdition's Blade.

Tinkmaster Overspark

This guy actually intrigues me a little. At first glance he doesn't seem to be better than Jaina Proudmoore or the one-more-costed Magni, but I could see a deck using this guy. I'm not going to say that he's great or even that he'll see play, but I will definitely build an equipment based deck looking to use this guy in the endgame to get all dressed up.

Archdruid Hamuul Runetotem

He's big. That's about it. Horde decks don't usually break out the big drops and this is part of the reason why. I don't see any reason to expect this guy to get off the bench.

Lost!

This is a slightly modified version of Tooga's Quest with a slightly different tension. In the case of Tooga's, the tension is generally Is the loss in tempo from removing Tooga worth denying my opponent 2 cards? With Lost, that tension becomes At what point do I remove the goblin? Since you can't let it sit there and draw them an extra card every turn, you will eventually have to take it out. I think most of the time it will be an immediate thing, but it will be interesting to see how the tempo of aggro decks balances being basically forced to kill a 0/1. It could also be good as a way to suck out a removal ability in control on control matchups.

Tomorrow's Preview is supposed to be To Serve Kum'isha which we've actually already seen, but hopefully the FAQ will also be released tomorrrow so we should get to see some new cards from it as well.