Click-Clocker
Argent Squire with buff upside for mechs. This is the only 1-drop in the format with the mech tag, so it should be played in every deck of the tribe. Pretty good.
Score: 3
Classes: Paladin, Mage
Pelican Diver
This might seem like a reasonable early game removal option for some decks, but it gets progressively worse as the game goes late and there should always be something better.
Score: 1
Piranha Swarmer
We would only like to generate this from Schooling. Putting it in our deck is a very different story. Terrible standalone.
Score: 1
Murkwater Scribe
Scribe might be an underrated card. The ability to discount a spell could be very powerful for some classes looking to cheat out a big spell a turn earlier, or alternatively frontload power in the early game. The Naga tag is relevant too. Should see play.
Score: 3
Classes: Demon Hunter, Druid, Hunter, Mage, Paladin, Priest
Naval Mine
This card could be stronger than Humongous Owl in the Phylactery combo deck depending on the meta. The full combo does half the damage at 56 but doesn’t care about the opponent’s board. The problem is the supporting shell for the deck after rotation. It looks difficult without Mo’arg Artificer, Tour Guide, Armor Vendor, Backfire and School Spirits.
Score: 2
Classes: Warlock
Rainbow Glowscale
Major upgrade on Kobold Geomancer! The extra health and the Naga tribe makes this one competitive. We can see it being played in a Naga deck that cares about spell power. Competition amongst the tribe is heavy and this card does little by itself, but if you’re reliant on damage, you will look at it.
Score: 2
Classes: Hunter, Mage
Security Automaton
2-mana Undertaker for mechs. This card can grow very quickly in a dedicated mech deck if left alone. Wouldn’t see play in anything else, but quite a nice addition to these decks’ snowballing potential.
Score: 2
Classes: Mage, Paladin
Tuskarrrr Trawler
A vanilla dredge card isn’t quite good enough for decks looking for sunken synergies, but luckily for Trawler, it’s a pirate! That means it goes straight into Quest Warrior without question, as it costs 2 mana. Any cheap pirate for the deck means we get the quest completed faster and more consistently, and that pretty much all that matters.
Score: 3
Classes: Warrior
Pufferfist
This is one scary pirate and looks particularly tasty in Rogue because of our turn 2 dagger. The class’ natural weakness is AOE so having this persistent affect be so easily available seems strong. This also goes straight into Quest Warrior and might be devastating alongside Defias Cannoneer and phase 2 of the questline. Just good.
Score: 3
Classes: Demon Hunter, Rogue, Warrior
Reefwalker
Interesting card in Shaman because of the Elemental tag, the return of Bloodlust and the class’ synergy with Schooling and Anchored Totem. We’re a bit concerned with the lack of card draw available to such an archetype if it’s built low to the ground, but this is a sensible standalone card with decent stats for the cost.
Score: 2
Classes: Shaman
Seascout Operator
A non-mech card for mech decks. What sells us on its place in such decks is how good it is as a follow-up to Automaton. Gives a way for these decks to spread wide and control the board better.
Score: 2
Classes: Mage, Paladin
Slimescale Diver
There are always better removal options available for defensive decks. Diver isn’t a reliable way to deal with single target threats because you’re giving your opponent a turn to play around it, and dropping it pre-emptively is something that hasn’t worked for poisonous cards in the past. Not even good enough in a murloc deck because of how slow it is.
Score: 1
Treasure Guard
This is a decent defensive card. The stats are annoying for a taunt, helping you stall the game a bit. Plus, it provides you with a cycle effect. Much, much better than Loot Hoarder and the Naga tag could be relevant too. High health has some synergy in Priest because of Bless.
Score: 2
Classes: Priest
Baba Naga
This card just doesn’t do enough for the cost and condition. It feels like a Blackwing Corruptor from 2015. Perhaps we’re going back to that time but after building a lot of decks across all classes, we just couldn’t find a place for this one.
Score: 1
Excavation Specialist
Worse than Tuskar Trawler because of the cost. The discount doesn’t make up for the fact we’re playing a vanilla minion and it’s even more expensive. We shouldn’t be that desperate to dredge.
Score: 1
Selfish Shellfish
4 mana 7/7 with a backbreaking drawback on a deathrattle. We don’t think this is good enough to go into beatdown aggressive decks because if this card is ever dealt with by single target removal, you pretty much lost the game.
However, this is an amazing card for Silence Priest and a scary target for Whispers of the Deep.
Score: 2
Classes: Priest
Azsharan Sentinel
Vanilla taunt with a slow deathrattle. There’s no constructed deck that should target dredging Sunken Sentinel. Even Reno decks should do better.
Score: 1
Gangplank Diver
The pirate tag saves this card because it offers some potential burst damage alongside Mr. Smite. More of a combo piece than a tribal card.
Score: 2
Classes: Paladin, Rogue
Gorloc Ravager
An incredible draw engine for murloc decks that greatly supports their potential viability. Drawing 3 cards for 5 mana on a 3-drop body is very good business. There’s also the possibility we run Ravager in a non-tribal deck, just to fish out some specific pieces such as Finley and Mutanus, but we’re a bit more skeptical of the tutoring plan.
Score: 3
Classes: Shaman, Warlock
Barbaric Sorceress
This is a very weird card with a very specific deck building restriction. You must run a deck with very high-cost spells to make use of Sorceress’ ability, and we’re talking about a card that costs 6 mana and represents a weak taunt body. Payoff is unlikely to be worth it, especially when it’s very matchup dependent.
Score: 1
Helmet Hermit
We don’t even think this is a good Silence Priest card.
Score: 1
Vicious Slitherspear
Strong 1-drop for aggressive decks. Naga tag relevant. Sits in the same niche of the rotating Intrepid Initiate. Harder to remove and has higher damage potential but requires constant support. Great name and initials too.
Score: 3
Classes: Demon Hunter, Hunter, Mage
Crushclaw Enforcer
There are potential decks that run a cornerstone Naga minion they may want to aggressively tutor, and Enforcer could serve that role. Not too bad in decks that run more of the tribe either, but far less effective. We don’t think it will be ubiquitous, but it might go somewhere.
Score: 3
Classes: Demon Hunter, Mage, Priest, Shaman, Warlock
Twin-fin Fin Twin
Rushing Saronite Chain Gang. Works well in murloc decks and other generic handbuff decks where it can serve as a big comeback card. Very likely to find a home somewhere. One +1/+1 buff on this card and it already becomes very strong.
Score: 3
Classes: Druid, Paladin, Shaman, Warlock
Mothership
This card is an impressive pile of stats with an immediate impact on the board and some stickiness. The deathrattle will almost always produce stats worth over 3-mana when put together, with Explosive Sheep being the weird outlier, so it’s a good deal.
Will likely see play in mech decks and perhaps even deathrattle decks.
Score: 3
Classes: Mage, Paladin, Rogue
Amalgam of the Deep
We expect this card to be everywhere. If you’re playing a tribal deck, Amalgam offers an excellent rate for a 2-drop that’s tough to beat. A 2 mana 2/3 that discovers a minion of the same tribe is insane. Of course, we need to have a minion on the board, so it’s not an automatic home run. But this is still very easy to activate considering that many of the tribal decks have cheap minions to pair with it, or minions that are particularly sticky. Best Amalgam ever made.
Score: 4
Score: Mage, Paladin, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock, Warrior
Smothering Starfish
Pretty nutty silence effect. This is a tech card that’s likely to be used because people love tech cards, even when they’re bad and make no sense. The only place where Starfish is not a tech card, but part of the deck’s general strategy, is Silence Priest.
This screws Snowfall Guardian in particular.
Score: 2
Classes: Everywhere, Priest
School Teacher
Neat design. The important thing to note is that the Nagaling will be able to target the spell they learned, in the same style of Swampqueen Hagatha. Pretty good 4-drop, as it doesn’t pay too big of a stat penalty. Two battlecry effects and two naga bodies in one card. Should be useful.
Score: 3
Classes: Mage, Priest, Rogue, Shaman
Slithering Deathscale
This card is too slow. The effect is powerful but needs to happen about two turns earlier for us to get behind it. By the time we get to 7 mana and juice this up, most games against aggressive decks have already been decided. Needs to be tutored as well, so just too much work. Find cheaper AOE in your class cards.
Score: 1
Naga Giant
The earliest we can play this card for free is turn 6, and realistically it only happens on turn 7 after we’ve played Scale of Onyxia or Miracle Growth. So, this is not 8-mana Flesh Giant in a Demon Seed deck since we need to spend mana to discount it.
Naga Giant offers a perfect threat for a spell heavy Druid, though we do give up Kazakusan. Will likely find its way into other decks in the future too.
Score: 3
Classes: Druid, Mage
Sir Finley, Sea Guide
We think this card gets a little overrated by players who overvalue a mulligan reboot. At the cost of a card, you better do something meaningful with the effect besides playing it and praying for a better hand. Finley also doesn’t help you much if your hand size is small.
Indeed, this card is mostly intended to help decks with big sunken synergies find more consistency. Another cute usage of the card is in Maestra Thief Rogue, where Finley offers similar Gnoll discounting prowess of the rotating Secret Passage.
Pretty good. Not game breaking.
Score: 3
Classes: Hunter, Mage, Rogue, Warlock
Ambassador Faelin
Big value card, but that value sinks to the bottom of the deck and you need to dredge it out. A Chillwind Yeti is quite the price to pay, so we need a very good reason to make the investment and find those colossal minions (they’re all admittedly strong). Interesting and may lead to the creation of a weird deck. Works well with Sir Finley and Harpoon Gun.
Score: 2
Classes: Hunter, Weird dredge decks
Blademaster Okani
Okani has made major waves in the current meta, and we expect it to be a popular card in the future as well, but its power against the field may come down a bit if we start moving into a… “board-based meta”. The more minions a format has on the board, the easier it is to trade into Okani and prevent the counter. We’re not planning to put it in every deck on day 1 of Sunken City… for now.
Score: 4
Classes: All of them.
Ini Stormcoil
A mid-game payoff for mech decks, Ini is a bit slow and dependent on us having a good target to land the ability, but it is powerful. Let’s say we have a 3-attack mech on the board: Ini turns that into 6 rush damage on top of a 4/4 for 5 mana. Remember that she makes an entirely new copy, so that damage can’t go face. Pretty good, but not amazing.
Score: 2
Classes: Mage, Paladin
Queen Azshara
Azshara offers a complementary piece to a deck’s win condition. With a fairly high cost, mediocre body, and intense activation requirement, she’s not going to be an overly ubiquitous card.
However, if you’re a spell-slinging deck interested in 10 damage for 2 mana, Xal’atath is quite strong. Ring of Tides can help you duplicate a spell, which can also be a very powerful reward you can plan for. Horn of Ancients and Tides of Golganneth are a bit more random and provide some help in a more dire situation.
There will likely be a strategy that utilizes Azshara well, but her value doesn’t immediately translate to a win. Your deck needs to carry most of the load. This ain’t Kazakusan.
Score: 3
Classes: Demon Hunter, Mage, Priest, Shaman, Warlock
