Rastakhan’s Rumble will be the last Hearthstone expansion of 2018. The first batch of cards was announced recently on Blizzard’s reveal stream. Here are our initial impressions about what cards we are most excited to try out when they debut on Dec. 4.
The legendary reveals of the Rastakhan’s Rumble expansion
Zentimo
Zentimo is the legendary class of Shaman. With its unique effect and rather underwhelming stats, it is hard to see many situations where this card performs well enough for what it needs to make up for. The card could certainly see play in current builds of Shudderwock Shaman, using cards like Hex or Earth Shock to make use of Zentimo’s unique ability.
Hakkar, the Soulflayer
Hakkar, the Soulflayer is the new neutral legendary card, meant as counterplay to decks that draw their entire decks too quickly such as Druid used to be. This also opens up a variety of cool combinations with King Togwaggle, a card that allows you to switch decks with your opponent.
Gral, the Shark
Gral, the Shark is the kind of card we need more of in Hearthstone: a unique effect with a deck-building challenge. This card has the potential to be amazing if the players can find the right build for it. We are very much looking forward to toying with Gral in the near future!
The Beasts of the Rastakhan’s Rumble
Oondasta
Oondasta is honestly just fantastic. The main strength of Oondasta, being a neutral legendary, is that it can find its way into many different builds. The main two that come to mind are the current Kathrena Winterwisp Hunter, as well as some version of big dudes Druid with Tyrantus and the new Ironhide Direhorn being strong beasts for the Druid class. The main thing we are excited for is that Oondasta opens up a lot of exciting archetypes for everyone to explore when Rastakhan’s Rumble is released.
Ironhide Direhorn
As mentioned before, Ironhide Direhorn is a big beast for the Druid class. Using the new “Overkill” mechanic and a decent stat line with the Beast tag, this card has huge potential to shift how we think of the Druid.
Will Dragon Warrior make a return with the Rastakhan’s Rumble expansion?
War Master Voone
War Master Voone is the new Warrior legendary card in the Rastakhan’s Rumble expansion. With the effect of copying all dragons in your hand, this could mean the return of some type of Dragon Warrior. With other support cards, like Smolderthorn Lancer, some Warrior builds with Dragons might be worth revisiting.
*Note: War Master Voone was changed after its announcement. The current stats are 4 mana, 4 Attack, and 3 Health.
Smolderthorn Lancer
This card is very interesting due to its powerful ability, though we have a hard time finding a place for this card to shine. Requiring you to hold a Dragon is hard to do in current forms of Warrior, but it might just be what Mecha’thun Warrior needed to become a competitively viable deck.
The most interesting non-legendaries of Rastakhan’s Rumble
A New Challenger…
A New Challenger… is a solid card overall. With uses in both Wild and Standard format, as well as having massive synergy with the new Paladin Loa, this card has me intrigued. Control Paladin hasn’t been a deck for quite a while, but we would love to see it make a return onto the scene.
Untamed Beastmaster
Untamed Beastmaster is great. With so many different decks wanting to play Beasts in the Rastakhan’s Rumble, this card is sure to find its place in some of them.
Grave Horror
Grave Horror is very exciting given that one of my favorite decks of all time is Combo Priest. A card like this has such flexible use and amazing potential while not being auto-included in every deck.
Spirit of the Tiger
Spirit of the Tiger is Paladin’s new Spirit card. This card has some really unique uses with the expensive Paladin spells such as Spikeridged Steed and Blessing of Kings. Even Dinosize might make a return to the meta-game.
Raiding Party
Raiding Party has cool uses. My first thought went to what this card could mean for Odd Rogue in the Wild format. Draw cards in an aggressive deck are often very scary, though it is yet to be seen which weapon Odd Rogue would actually want to play in its build to make optimal use of the effect.
Discard Warlock
High Priestess Jeklik
High Priest Jeklik is the Warlock legendary of this expansion, and pushing the discard format again is not something anyone is particularly excited about. With the amount of support this archetype has gotten over the years, these four extra tools might finally make it become a reality.
Soulwarden
Soulwarden is a new epic minion available to the Warlock class with Rastakhan’s Rumble. It’s the second of four tools Discard Warlock has added to its arsenal this expansion.
Shriek
The other discard tools have a clear purpose, but Shriek is something new entirely. With a specific discard effect and an incredibly powerful effect, Shriek will likely see play in many builds of Warlock.
Reckless Diretroll
Reckless Diretroll is the fourth and final Discard Warlock tool. Once again, with the specific discard effect, this card becomes much better. While the main purpose of Reckless Diretroll will likely be in Discard Warlock. However, we could see this card making an appearance in builds of Control Warlock.
Hero Power Mage
Jan’alai, the Dragonhawk
Jan’alai, the Dragonhawk is the Loa of the Mage class. My first thoughts about this card are extremely positive. With the new Spirit cards and other damage-boosting options for the Mage Hero Power, this has the potential to become the new staple Mage deck.
Spirit of the Dragonhawk
While technically not announced today, we felt like we had to include it for clarity. The Mage Spirit makes your Hero Power also target adjacent minions.
Daring Fire-Eater
Daring Fire-Eater is the reason Mana Wyrm died. While the stats are basically nonexistent, the effect certainly makes this card a must-include in aggressive Mage builds. Its synergy with the Mage Loa and Spirit makes all the pieces come together.
Set fillers and nice artwork
Waterboy
Waterboy is solid. Not amazing by any means, but it has its place. With it being 1 health, a deck like Even Warlock would love to include this to help out with their defile setups.
Gurubashi Chicken
Gurubashi Chicken is a remake of the classic Hearthstone card, Angry Chicken. However, it now uses the Overkill effect instead.
Zandalari Templar
Zandalari Templar is a difficult card to assess. Its effect is just not that great since you don’t often restore health by the 10s in Paladin. Cards like Lay on Hands or Forbidden Healing are either too little or far too expensive just to activate a card like this.
Firetree Witchdoctor
Firetree Witchdoctor is further support for Dragon builds across all archetypes, though the stats are quite underwhelming for a random spell. This card is great for Arena and is unlikely to see much play outside of that.
That is all for today, so make sure to stop by again to stay up to date with all new card announcements coming in the Rastakhan’s Rumble expansion for Hearthstone on Dec. 4. The second reveal stream will be Nov. 28 on the PlayHearthstone Twitch channel. For more coverage, check out our first look at the Rastakhan’s Rumble expansion reveal at BlizzCon.
[Image credit: VG247]
