Goblins vs Gnomes Review - Episode 43

Hello!

• Scott is on the show this week
• Topic: Goblin vs. Gnomes Expansion Review
• Reasons to be happy this week
• News: Upcoming reveals at PAX East!

What Kind of Review Is This?!

It’s not a complete review.

There are 123 cards in this expansion, and we took 3 hours to review 30 cards in Naxxramas! Instead, we picked a sampling of cards to talk about — the ones we think you should really care about.

For each quality level, we each picked 3 cards to talk about:

• 1 card that you must craft
• 1 card that you must draft in Arena
• 1 card that you must avoid in both cases

If people want to hear us review more cards, we might do a similar feature for each set of class cards in the new expansion too. Just let us know in the comments below! in the future: Class cards, we pick 2 cards total:

Neutral Cards – Common

There are a lot of very strong common-quality cards in the expansion, which is great for Arena and makes it easy to craft cards for constructed! Look here before you invest dust into the more expensive cards, that aren’t always as good as these commons.

Best to Craft: Piloted Shredder

• Josh says: Always passes the vanilla test. Lots of fun surprises too!
• Scott says: Solid value. Lots of fun.

Best to Craft: Antique Healbot

• Scott says: That much life can make a real difference in some decks. It’s expensive, but leaves a body of substance behind. Helps most when you’re behind on life, but not necessarily on board.
• Josh says: This has caused me to win and lose many games. Best healing many classes have access to.

Best to Draft: Annoy-o-Tron

• Josh says: Always useful. It’ll hold off a rush early, trade with 2-health minions easily, and absorb two big hits in late game.
• Scott says: I remember saying I loved the look of this guy before we could even play with him. And sure enough, he performs just as I’d hoped.

Best to Draft: Micro Machine

• Scott says: Deceptively strong. Starts as a 2/2 for 2 by the time stats matter. By your turn, he’s a 3/2. Anything above that is awesome. He’s great w/ coin.
• Josh says: Tremendous potential for a tiny investment (2 mana). If you can land some sturdy taunt around it, or some extra health on it, it can win games.

Best to Dust: Lost Tallstrider

• Josh says: A dumb card for a dumb bird. Will rarely kill more than one creature. Take Chillwind Yeti instead. Also, why is it wearing goggles and a bullet bandolier?
• Scott says: Pure vanilla in a sub-optimal stat configuration. At least he’s a beast.

Best to Dust: Flying Machine

• Scott says: Add haste and we’d be talking. Instead, it’s just too slow and vulnerable to be worth playing with.
• Josh says: Have to avoid dreaming best-case scenarios here. I’ve seen one person combo it with Blessing of Kings, and every other play has been lackluster.

Neutral Cards – Rare

There was a surprising lack of desirable cards at the rare quality level. I think you’ll be dusting a lot of these in order to make more commons or epics.

Best to Craft: Arcane Nullifier X-21

• Josh says: Another good variant in the line of taunt defenders. With Senjin Shieldmasta, Sludge Belcher, and this you’ll have a mid-game taunt creature for any type of deck you’re building against.
• Scott says: Seems okay, but would probably rather have Tazdingo most of the time.

Best to Craft: Jeeves

• Scott says: Jeeves has been overlooked IMO. In cheap mech decks, he’s quite strong. After all, how much would you usually pay to draw just 1 extra card?
• Josh says: This guy has sit in my hand so many games, because it’d benefit my opponent just as much or more than me. Fine card, but not my cup of tea.

Best to Draft: Bomb Lobber

• Josh says: Awesome effect on a decent body. In Arena, it’s not hard to play this when there’s only one enemy out.
• Scott says: Yup. This guy is the real deal.

Best to Draft: Lil’ Exorcist

• Scott says: Best of fairly bad choices. Everyone tends to have some Deathrattle in Arena.
• Josh says: Pretty bad card after the Undertaker nerf. I see this drop as a 2/3 more than anything else. Susceptible to silence.

Best to Dust: Gnomish Experimenter

• Josh says: Stats are woefully underpowered — and a 1/1 card is barely a card. Would rather have a Raptor for 2 mana. You can craft Commons better than this with the dust.
• Scott says: Ignore any thoughts about ‘turning a minion into a 1/1’ unless you planned on drawing and playing every card in your deck.

Best to Dust: Target Dummy

• Scott says: Proves Wisp isn’t the only worthless 0-cost card Blizzard can make.
• Josh says: Just in case Shieldbearer was just a little too useful for you.

Neutral Cards – Epic

Now this is where it gets interesting! There are a lot of interesting mechanics at the epic quality level, and not all of them are traps! Have fun with these ones.

Best to Craft: Enhance-o Mechano

• Josh says:It’s fun! And it’s actually quite solid. If you can hit this onto 2 minions, I say you hit value. And sometimes you’ll get even more.
• Scott says: A bit of a win-more card, but can help at parity.

Best to Craft: Hobgoblin

• Scott says: For fun!
• Josh says: Some cool possibilities for sure. Plus, very funny!

Best to Draft: Piloted Sky Golem

• Josh says: A nice body that can trade and replace itself? that’s exactly what you want in Arena! This is the Harvest Golem 2.0
• Scott says: Like Piloted Shredder, but an even better value.

Best to Draft: Recombobulator

• Scott says: Arena card quality is often lower, and there isn’t much synergy. Think of it as getting a free re-roll (and heal) on any crappy minion you own.
• Josh says: Surprisingly useful, and often just a raptor — which is just fine by me. Even good late game — kill something and then swap it to “heal”

Best to Dust: Mini-Mage

• Josh says: Such a weird creature. There are much better options for stealth damage minions and MUCH better options for cheap spell damage minions. This is actually more vulnerable than non-stealth spell power options.
• Scott says: He’s a hard sell over Jungle Panther.

Best to Dust: Junkbot

• Scott says: Well-named. Needs 2 activations before he’s profitable. Good luck with that.
• Josh says: This card is pure dumb. The 5 cost is just insane.

Neutral Cards – Legendary

These are the cards we dream about — the coolest of the cool. And Goblins vs Gnomes doesn’t disappoint! There are tons of great Legendaries to add to your decks.

Best to Craft: Sneed’s Old Shredder

• Josh says: It’s not a perfect card, but it’s the best way to play with all those fancy Legendary cards I can’t afford. Buy one Legendary, get them all for free!
• Scott says: So much fun! Usually a pretty good value.

Best to Craft: Troggzor the Earthinator

• Scott says: Such incredible value if your opponent has any spells at all, really.
• Josh says: We talk about “hyper-scaling” champions in League of Legends — and I think it’s time to use it for Hearthstone. This champion scales out of control crazy fast against a spell-heavy deck. I’m happy to help it burninate all of the peoples.

Best to Draft: Dr Boom

• Josh says: Even generalist gaming sites like PC Gamer are having public debates over whether or not this card should be nerfed. It gives you a big body that must be dealt with, and a couple small bodies that have a big impact even if they’re removed. Brutal board control swing in Arena.
• Scott says: Debatably overpowered right now. Biggest weakness is BGH, and even then you keep the Boom Bots.

Best to Draft: Foe Reaper 4000

• Scott says: In arena, where there tend to be less hard removal, this guy is king.
• Josh says: Yeah, notice that he damages them, but doesn’t take combat damage back from those extra minions. Brutal board bully.

Best to Dust: Hemet Nesingwary

• Josh says: There are much cheaper, much more universal ways to kill almost any beast in the game. Especially with Hunter losing popularity.
• Scott says: Effect is highly conditional, and stats balance is bad. Might be good in the new world championship tourney format though.

Best to Dust: Mimiron’s Head

• Scott says: It’s a trap! He’s a novelty for sure, but not actually good.
• Josh says: I desperately want this card to be good, because it’s just so darn cool. But, alas, Blizzard has done everything it can to make sure you have to align 500 stars to make this happen. So cool when it does, though.

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