Sock Puppet Slitherspear
A 1-mana 1/3 with aggressive upside usually sees competitive play. Sock Puppet Slitherspear resembles Vicious Slitherspear but gets buffed by hero attack modifiers and weapons, rather than spells. The attack gained is not permanent, so we cannot continuously buff it, but it can still deal a lot of damage for a 1-drop if it gets enough support.
On top of it, it’s another 1-mana Naga, which makes it a strong candidate to be played in a Sharpshooter deck. We think Sock Puppet Slitherspear should see play in any variant of Shopper DH, as well as other aggressive decks in the future.
Score: 3
Return Policy
This is a very expensive discover spell that also requires you to have played a deathrattle card this game. The upside is that Return Policy triggers the deathrattle of the discovered card. For 3-mana, the deathrattle effect needs to be valuable.
It’s hard for us to think of a card that makes Return Policy worthwhile. Umpire’s Grasp doesn’t synergize particularly well here, since it already draws the only demon you care about in Window Shopper. Ci’Cigi is incredibly slow. Deathrattles of minions such as Ball Hog or Nerubian Egg don’t seem to be worth the mana investment either.
The only deathrattles that are “big enough” to make Return Policy seem worthwhile are expensive ones, but Demon Hunter isn’t a very suitable class for expensive minions. Relying on expensive minions also makes Return Policy a dead card for a large portion of the game. We can see a card being printed in the future that could make this spell more interesting, but it’s hard to see this making an impact in the foreseeable future.
Score: 1
Gibbering Reject
This is a persistent effect, so if the Gibbering Rejects don’t get cleared, they threaten to duplicate their numbers again the next turn.
Demon Hunter currently doesn’t have 0-mana hero attack enablers, so Gibbering requires a weapon to be equipped to activate on curve. The problem is that even if we have a weapon equipped, summoning a couple of 3/3’s for 4 mana is nothing to write home about. The Rejects are very unlikely to survive the turn after they’re played. They have no immediate impact on the board, while offering no protection.
It’s hard to get behind this minion. It’s too slow for a faster, aggressive deck, while not offering much value to a slower strategy.
Score: 1
Final Thoughts: Sock Puppet Slitherspear is a nice card for Shopper DH, but we’re not sure it’s enough to get the archetype back on players’ good graces. The other two cards look like short term duds at best. We don’t expect Demon Hunter to rise in its popularity.
