Naxxramas Class Card Arena Review

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I am back with another Naxxramas Arena card review. I am going to finish up with the class cards. I am going to give each new card a value from 1 to 4. Here is how I break down the values:

1.Unplayable card – only take in the direst of circumstances

2.Playable card –not exciting, but not embarrassing either. Might be situational or require synergy with other cards to be good.

3.Good card – You are happy to have multiples of this card.

4.Elite card – Bomb level card- probably a built in two for one or better; or just a very efficient card.

Reincarnate – 1.5

I have not had the chance to play with Reincarnate, but it does not look like a very playable card. Certainly it is more in the vein of Avenge in terms of power level. You can manufacture scenarios where it does something great, but the average case cannot be very strong with this one. I am certainly willing to be proven wrong, but this card seems to need a lot of synergistic elements to be good, and it is very hard to draft for synergy in Arena.

Avenge – 1.5

This is a very situational secret that would be great if you could trigger it on your own turn. The fact that it can sometimes do absolutely nothing is a big issue. Obviously you wouldn’t want to cast it with just one minion on the board, but it can get blanked by a sweeper as well. Requiring at least two minions to be on board, that won’t be swept, for the card to be playable is kind of asking a lot. The card is also a miserable top deck in the late game most of the time. All of that said, if you do trigger this secret and it lands on a minion, it is decently powerful, though susceptible to silence effects. Being one mana does help quite a bit in allowing the card to be more flexible in when you play it in the mid game. I definitely wouldn’t want too many of these cards in my deck, if any.

Webspinner – 2.0

Webspinner seems to be a playable card for Hunter decks. It combos well with the many beast matters cards and is kind of like a 1 mana Novice Engineer. Granted you can get an Angry Chicken, but I believe on balance, you end up with getting a real card out of the deathrattle more often than not. I am not excited to be drafting Webspinner, but you could do worse.

Poison Seeds – 2.0

I have played a few arenas with Poison Seeds, mainly to try it out, and I have been somewhat impressed with what it can do. My initial feelings were that it was far too situational to be a real card in Arena.While it is very situational, it also can be quite powerful and a potential game winner. I still would not want more than 1 in most decks, but it does get better if you have a number of solid deathrattlers. It is afairly unique card in that it is usually pretty good if you are behind, but typically awful if you are ahead.

You can manufacture situations with deathrattlers where it is decent if you are at parity. The card combos well with Starfall, just wait until 9 mana and you get to destroy their board. The big problem with the card is that Druid’s main plan is to power out large taunt creatures that you don’t really want to turn into 2/2s.

Duplicate – 2.0

This is an interesting card that I have not yet had a chance to play with. It would be fantastic if you could trigger the secret on your turn. As is, it is a little awkward letting your opponent control which creature gets copied. Still, this card represents a lot of potential value. You do have to give up a lot of tempo to play this secret and then deploy the cards you get from it, which depresses just how good this can be. Another key point is that this is the only Mage secret that cares about your minions dying, so your opponent can’t be punished for just attempting to kill your worst minion first after they see you drop the secret.

Voidcaller – 2.0

The body is certainly below par, just look at Dark Cultist! Also, the ability is not card advantage, but a mana advantage, if you even have another demon in hand. There are a few expensive demons that are playable in Arena, but there are also a number of one mana demons where this ability just isn’t very impressive or useful. Again, it is risky trying to draft for synergy in Arena as you just can’t count on getting enough demons for this to be worth the mediocre body for the cost.

Dark Cultist – 3.5

Priest needed help in arena, and boy did they get it! This card is just great – super efficient, one of the more impactful three drops in general , and a very relevant deathrattle. I am excited to draft some Priest decks with this dude running around.

Anub’ar Ambusher – 3.5

Rogue made out well here with a hyper-efficient minion with a moderate drawback. A 5/5 just dominates the board, eating Yetis left and right. Coining this one out on turn 3 is a super powerful play. The drawback isn’t even that painful most of the time as you can control it at least some of the time. It could even be a bonus with SI:17 or other battlecry minions.

Death’s Bite – 3.5

This is a great weapon for warriors. Being able to take down a Yeti with its final durability is awesome. Being able to kill off a bunch of X-1’s is awesome. Triggering enrage on your minions can be awesome. Death’s Bite is solid with Armorsmith. This is a synergy card I can get behind – even without the warrior cards that work well with it, it does a fine job just taking down minions.

The class cards are definitely a mixed bag for Arena. A few seem to be great and some seem to be
a little too situational to be that powerful. I really like that they seemed to make an effort to boost
Priest with their class card and that the Mage and Paladin cards are on the weaker side of things. Over
time, Blizzard should be able to craft an Arena environment that is a little more balanced with the
introduction of new class cards. At the very least, I hope it means it is harder to get Flamestrike and
Truesilvers in large numbers.

Thanks for reading,

Ben Chapman

@bchap55