Snuggle Teddy
Snuggle Teddy is an early game taunt with a bunch of keywords. The combination of Elusive and Lifesteal makes it quite annoying to deal with, forcing trades into it. On paper, being able to soak a couple of attacks while healing yourself sounds good, but Snuggle Teddy becomes less impactful when it faces bigger minions that can cleanly trade with it and take advantage of its low attack value.
A 3-mana Snuggle Teddy should be particularly bad in the late game. The idea is that this is where the Gigantify 8-mana version comes into play. Although an 8 mana 8/8 taunt can act as a stabilizing force in theory, these types of expensive defensive minions are rarely successful in constructed. They are too expensive to make an impact in the faster matchups, and they are too clumsy in the slower matchups. Its keywords also do help it enough due to the existence of non-targeted, AOE effects, minion-based removal, and rush minions. Simply, there are plenty of ways to deal with Elusive minions.
A single look at Perfect/Twin Zilliax makes us wonder why we would ever run Snuggle Teddy? Even Reno Druid should have 30 better cards to play.
Score: 1
Overgrown Beanstalk
Overgrown Beanstalk summons a Treant before activating its draw ability, so it’s guaranteed to draw at least one card. Of course, drawing a card and summoning a 2/2 for 3 mana is not good enough in constructed, but Overgrown Beanstalk becomes an acceptable play with one other Treant in play. An Arcane Intellect which summons a 2/2 is fine. Once we draw three cards with Beanstalk, it becomes very strong.
The potential is there if we’re running a dedicated Treant deck, as the archetype currently doesn’t have a good reload option. Its ability to consistently flood the board can turn Beanstalk into a massive draw engine. Blood Treant and Forest Seedlings are available to enable strong and cheap Beanstalk combos. We like the card for the Treant Druid archetype, but we’re not convinced it’s enough to bring it back from purgatory.
Score: 2
Toyrantus
Another big taunt for Druid in the miniset, but this time in legendary form. Toyrantus is 6 mana 7/7 taunt with Elusive, which is a bad Hearthstone minion, but turns into a 14/14 if played at 10 mana.
If a card like Toyrantus works out, then it’ll be the first time. Huge, expensive taunts don’t line up well in constructed play because they are too slow in the aggressive matchups, while slower decks have more effective ways to work around them.
The big upside is that Toyrantus costs 6-mana, so you can play some stuff alongside it once you ping 10 mana. Its low mana cost still does not convince us it’s good enough to see play. Even a Reno Druid deck already has better stabilizing plays if it hits that stage of the game. We don’t want Toyrantus to dilute Summer Flowerchild’s draw.
A modern version of Soggoth the Slitherer, but only slightly less bland.
Score: 1
Final Thoughts: Underwhelming. Unless Treant Druid successfully emerges in the new format, it’s unlikely that these cards will have a positive impact on the class.
