The Comprehensive Into The Emerald Dream Preview

Grim Harvest

A spell that draws a single card is worth 1 mana. Usually, 1-mana cycle spells need some upside to see play, so to evaluate Grim Harvest, we need to figure out whether summoning a Dreadseed is worth spending 1 additional mana.

Crow Dreadseed is easily worth 2 mana if it had no dormancy. If we apply a 1-mana penalty for a turn spent in dormancy, its cost seems appropriate.

Hound Dreadseed would be crazy as a 3 mana, non-dormant minion, so a 2-mana penalty is worthwhile.

Serpent Dreadseed would be strong as a 4 mana, non-dormant minion, so a 3-mana penalty is worthwhile too.

To conclude, Grim Harvest looks like a positive play as in every instance the Dreadseed is worth the 1-mana penalty attached to Grim Harvest. Considering that Demon Hunter is a class that is desperate for playable filler cards, Dreadseeds look like a welcome addition. Grim Harvest might be the best Dreadseed card.

Score: 3

Nightmare Dragonkin

A 4/2 on turn 3 does a poor job when it comes to pressuring the opponent or fighting for board. The 2 mana discount theoretically gets us ahead, but we don’t have much control over where the discount lands. Even if the discount lands on an ideal target, Dragonkin costs a net 1 mana on a delay. That is not particularly impressive. Remember that Dragonkin sets us back on the board, so even though it is technically a 1 mana 4/2, it is not worth it if we are letting our opponent take control.

Dragonkin’s deathrattle is not worth building around either, so if we are ever playing Ravenous Felhunter, we skip this 3-drop. A strange card to have in the set. Seems to have no real purpose.

Score: 1

Defiled Spear

It is important to note that Defiled Spear cannot hit the same target twice, so we cannot stack attack buffs with the aim of bursting down the opponent. Should we utilize attack buffs with Spear, with the intention of hitting the opponent in the head, we can deal with an enemy minion at the same time. However, the secondary damage is random, so if there are multiple minions in play, we do not have much control over the outcome.

At its baseline, Spear’s 2 attack makes it a terrible weapon to equip on curve and even worse off curve. A 2 attack weapon on turn 3 is bad. On turn 4, it is outright horrendous. We will often have no ability to cleanly deal with the opponent’s threats when we equip Spear on 4. For example, any minion with 3 health survives a turn 4 Spear. Only a couple of 2 health minions and a bit of luck is a scenario where Spear can be strong on curve.

Considering how much that sets us back, we are not interested in building around this weapon with a robust attack buff package that we cannot even leverage to funnel more face damage. It is simply an unreliable form of board control.

Score: 1

Jumpscare!

The value of the Dark Gift keyword is around 2 mana, so ‘Jumpscare!’ discovers a demon for a net cost of 0 mana. However, there are two problems with the card. The first is that it discovers an expensive demon, so we cannot play ‘Jumpscare!’ in the early game and find a play on the next two turns. A similar card is Detailed Notes in Hunter. However, that spell has a discount on the minion we discover, which means we can find a playable 5-drop to drop on turn 3.

So ‘Jumpscare!’ is already inferior to Detailed Notes, which does not even see play in Discover Hunter. The second issue is that the two minions we do not select on the discover are shuffled into our deck. This is a clear drawback, as we are shuffling two ‘trash’ minions and worsening our future draws.

Considering that even without this drawback, this spell would be questionable, we think it has no chance of being competitive.

Score: 1

Dreadsoul Corrupter

Corrupter summons two Dreadseeds. One immediately and the other on deathrattle. The value of a couple of Dreadseeds is 2 mana, so Corrupter represents decent value for 4 mana.

Another small positive note on the card is that it is resurrectable as a deathrattle with Ravenous Felhunter, which can lead to us overwhelming the opponent with Dreadseeds value but can also interfere with a more desirable 4-drop we may want to resurrect.

Corrupter’s main problem is that it is slow. We are waiting for turns 6-7 for Dreadseeds to resolve if played on turn 4. Faster matchups might already be determined, and slower matchups will have minimal issue dealing with them in the late game. Further, a turn 4 4/4 is very weak initially, so Demon Hunter needs to be able to pivot to the late game when it runs a Dreadseed package. We are not sure it has the best tools to do that with Corrupter in its curve.

Score: 2

Ravenous Felhunter

Felhunter packs tons of value in its deathrattle. Not only does it resurrect a deathrattle minion, but it also summons a copy of it. So, we are looking at developing a 5/3, which is hard to ignore, as well as two high value 4-drops. That is 8 mana’s worth of a deathrattle, with a 5/3, for just 5 mana.

When looking at potential 4-drops to target with this card, it is hard to look past Arkonite Defense Crystal. Even in its nerfed form, a single Defense Crystal into Felhunter represents 24 armor and 24 health in taunts, half of them packed into our starship. That is an incredible line of stabilization which only requires us to play two minions. Remember that with Tuskpiercer added to Core, we can find this package with great consistency.

Another 4-drop that could represent strong value with Felhunter is Illusory Greenwing. Ball Hog is a more aggressive option that represents damage and sustain.

We think Felhunter could be the card that helps Demon Hunter bridge into its missing late game strategy, the first competitive one since Relic DH left our shores, but it is also a card that can slot into a faster deck for more mid-game pressure.

Score: 3

Wyvern’s Slumber

In terms of cost, Wyvern’s Slumber is the weakest Dreadseed card, as it budgets each Dreadseed at 1.5 mana, which is more than we would like. This is the price for its versatility as a Choose One card. However, the other option is not particularly appealing either. A symmetrical AOE effect that deals 2 and costs 3 is not good enough, especially when Immolation Aura has been in the Core set for a while and does not see competitive play.

We might still play Wyvern’s Slumber if we want to build heavily around Dreadseeds. A menagerie deck with Jug and Mug, for example, could make sense due to the double tribe tag on each Dreadseed. However, we suspect that Slumber will be the worst performer out of the three Dreadseed cards.

Score: 2

Ferocious Felbat

This is the card that could turn Demon Hunter into one of the grindiest classes in the game. Its deathrattle is clearly meant to resurrect one minion: Ravenous Felhunter. This turns into a value chain that feels endless for the opponent to deal with. Let us imagine what happens when we build around Arkonite Defense Crystal.

A single Arkonite Defense Crystal on turn 4, which then dies, followed up by Felhunter on turn 5. Including value stored in a starship, this is worth 24 armor and 24 health in taunts. A Felbat on turn 7 summons two Felhunters on its deathrattle, which summon four Arkonite Defense Crystals. You are looking at an additional 32 armor and 32 health in taunts. A single Crystal/Felhunter/Felbat curve is worth a total of 56 armor and 56 health in taunts. Consider Return Policy and the armor potential is obscene.

There is not a single aggressive deck that can get through this amount of stalling and sustain, so the only real counterplay is to either transform or silence the Felbat or ignore it while rushing the Demon Hunter down. Demon Hunter’s counterplay is then sacking it with a Carnivorous Cubicle.

A 7 mana 7/5 is admittedly a slow card, but if the format is not lightning fast and Felhunter on 5 manages to stall the game, Felbat can close out a significant number of games.

Indeed, Demon Hunter might become an armor stacking class at the level of prime Control Warrior. When you have this kind of survivability, you just need a reasonable win condition to compete. Even Kil’jaeden could be enough when you are boasting 100 armor.

Score: 3

Alara’shi

This card reminds us of Lady Prestor, but it transforms minions in hand rather than minions in deck. Alara’shi may have a more immediate impact, but it does not impose as much sustained pressure in the late game.

Demon Hunter also cannot tutor and play it as quickly as Druid could play Lady Prestor. The demon pool does possess decent value, but we do not think it is stronger than random dragons in their ability to close out games.

This is simply a weird, all-in card that requires to be built around aggressively with a lot of cheap minions but does not convince us of its ability to impose inevitability. It is disconnected from the rest of the set.

Score: 1

Omen

The Demon Hunter Wild God is… worse than Walking Mountain. A 10-drop that kills two things and deals 3 AOE damage to enemies when it dies, because this is never going to attack more than twice before the game is over.

This is worse than Walking Mountain because the big elemental can kill 4 minions in play and heal for 16, which is a much stronger effect than a delayed deathrattle that ultimately does not matter, especially in the context of Cliff Dive.

We cannot see this card seeing competitive play without some insane Big Demon Hunter support. The class does not have it, so we suspect Omen will be sitting in the collection, unused.

Score: 1

Final Thoughts

Into the Emerald Dream Set Rank: 9^th

Overall Power Ranking: 10^th

Demon Hunter has been a barren wasteland of a class for a while, plagued by polarizing designs that got severely nerfed due to play patterns. The class has not enjoyed a single late game strategy for 2 years, and, instead, relied on aggression or mid-game blow outs to win games.

The good news is that it is receiving the first promising angle to scale to the late game with a strategy that should be different from everything we have seen before from the class. With Arkonite Defense Crystal, Felhunter and Felbat, we are looking at a Starship Demon Hunter deck that generates armor at the level of peak Control Warrior. 

Some issues may arise when it comes to Demon Hunter’s ability to close out games or pressure with this strategy, but it might just be a Kil’jaeden angle, aiming to fatigue opponents with infinite armor. With burst damage leaving the format or getting nerfed in the 32.0 patch, armor stacking may become a legitimate way to win the late game. 

The bad news is that Demon Hunter is getting almost nothing else notable. The Dreadseed package is nice, but we are not convinced it can carry the class to the same extent Wildseeds carried Hunter. The two legendary minions in this set look useless, while aggressive Demon Hunters do not look closer to competing in the upcoming format than they were over the last expansion.

All that comes to our mind are thoughts about coping Menagerie deck ideas and Cliff Dive memes. Unless these ideas prove to be successful, the Emerald Dream may be where Illidan drops his blades and jumps into a tank.