FoO Review-Druids

The Sneak Previews are over and the cards are spoiled. As the rest of the country looks to Nationals and GenCon next weekend, I'm looking forward to the new FoO metagame. Before I start addressing that though, I'll do a card by card review here over the next two weeks to get everyone acclimated to the new set. Today, I'm going to start with the Druid abilities.

Call of the Wild

It's tough to say whether this card is good enough to replace Claw as the second form card in Cat Form decks, assuming of course anyone still plays Cat Form. It's almost like its own little pump like half a Predatory Strikes. It costs one less than Claw, but Claw has the ability to take out an ally. I would probably go with Claw, but Call of the Wild may take that spot.

In limited, giving yourself cat form is always good, and the extra ability to hit the hero can really add up over the course of a game.

Demoralizing Roar

Bear form decks aren't very popular and with the release of Mass Dispel and Tremor Totem, I don't really see them getting much better.

In limited, this effect can be huge. There's far less ability removal than in constructed and this can definitely break a game open. Just remember if you're drafting Druid that this is a Form card, so you can't play this and get into cat form.

Flight Form

The biggest initial use I can see for this card would be to stop one shot Warriors and Rogues (?). It's probably a decent sideboard card. You could probably also hide behind it for a while against an Affliction Warlock.

In limited, I would draft it very late and only consider it for my sideboard. Even then, it will probably never come in.

Force of Nature

This card is very good. It gives Balance Druids a very solid answer to Untargetables. It's not as good as Chain Lightning or Dragon's Breath, but it's not way behind. It actually has an advantage over Dragon's Breath because it can hit Untargetables. It also combos very nicely with Defias Brotherhood. I'm definitely going to look at the Boomkin Druid deck and this card is one of the reasons.

In limited, this is one of few Druid cards that is very, very good. You won't see one until pack 4, but if you're in Druid it's definitely a high pick.

Lifebloom

The only reason I see to run this card is if you're planning on using Faith Healer's Boots to try to recur allies. Other than that, while the card isn't terrible, there are generally better things you could be including in your deck.

In limited, it's probably playable. If you can spare two resources somewhere in the mid-game the extra health probably won't be insignificant. It's not a high pick, but one that you probably won't hate playing.

Moonfire

This is probably going to be one of the win conditions in my Balance Druid deck. Combined with Moonkin Form (and possibly Chromatic Cloak), it can deal a lot of damage in a hurry. It's also relatively impervious to removal if you manage it well. It's really versatile in that in can do just a little to bigger allies and then save itself before something else finishes them off. Then when it's not needed for that anymore, you can go back to spamming their hero.

In limited, this card can be a significant source of damage in the late game. A lot of games in limited come down to a battle of attrition and this helps both in eliminating allies and actually killing your opponent.

Prowl

I don't think this will help too much in bringing Telrander back to prominence. He's just got too much going against him now, especially with Mass Dispel running around. The one bright spot is that this is how they should have done Forms to start with.

In limited, I think it requires too much setup for not enough pay off. Stealth on your hero isn't that great. It's certainly not worth a precious card slot. If it comes as a benefit of something else, okay, but I'm not going to put a card into my deck just to gain stealth.

Tree of Life

This is a classic example of when to spot a weak card. This card on its own does absolutely nothing. So it requires other cards to make it useful. As a general rule, when a card requires other cards to make it useful, the effect you get out of the combo needs to be significantly better than the effect you would have gotten out 2 individually effective cards in the same situation. I'm sure there's some complex math problem to show exactly how much more powerful a 2-card combo has to be before it's worth including over two other individual cards, but I don't care that much to detail it here. Basically, I don't think this card does enough even with a card like Lifebloom to make it worth the slots in a deck. And the other effect of paying less for your abilities generally isn't worth the loss of tempo early to play this card and isn't needed late since you'll almost always have plenty of resources.

In limited, its umm...limited scope makes it even less playable. You're unlikely to get many healing abilities or Restoration abilities to take advantage of either effect.

Zephyr

The kid brother to Natural Selection and Nature's Majesty, this one is 1's all around. It kills a lot of stuff against a rush deck, but I don't quite think it's good enough to make the cut in Constructed. It gets better with Moonkin, but I still don't think that's enough. It's certainly not terrible, but I'm just not quite sure it's quite ready for the bigtime

In limited, you should have no bad feelings about playing it. Don't pick it high because it's not that good, but it's tough to imagine a Druid deck good enough that this doesn't make the cut.

Overall, I think Druids got a lot of solid cards with Force of Nature probably being the best. It will be interesting to see if the Balance Druids can come together enough to challenge the top dogs in the post-FoO environment. I'm not sure they've got enough to make it all the way to the top, but I could see a solid Tier 2 deck here that could be very dangerous in the hands of the right player.