Azsharan Gardens
Smuggler’s Run for Druid, with further Sunken upside. This is not Arbor Up, but it is a pretty good handbuff card for an aggressive Druid deck. The only problem is that aggressive Druids still want to run a bunch of spells, and you need high minion density to make the best use of Gardens. But maybe this is the kind of card that, alongside Aquatic form, pushes the class into this direction.
Score: 2
Flipper Friends
It’s no Scale of Onyxia, but Flipper Friends does offer a pretty good removal option for Druid in the mid-game. Considering that the class is encouraged to run expensive spells with this set, we can see this card make the cut. Another thing to keep in mind is that the Otters are beasts, so the card nearly fully discounts Frostsaber Matriarch by itself and activates potential Sea Giant swings. Can see different kinds of Druid decks utilizing it.
Score: 3
Miracle Growth
Druid loses a lot of card draw in rotation, and Miracle Growth can certainly help. This card is basically a much stronger version of Ancient of Lore. Note that the taunt is summoned after cards are drawn, so even if we have 2 other cards in hand when playing Miracle Growth, we’re making a 5/5 taunt while drawing 3. That’s a good deal and often we’re going to go bigger than that. This card helps us stabilize, draw, and counter pressure. Great synergy with Naga Giant, a neutral that Druid will surely attempt to utilize.
Score: 3
Aquatic Form
This card is basically a 0-mana Tracking. Even if we’re ignoring sunken synergies, does any Druid deck ever pass this up? If we’re playing ramping Druid decks, this is an incredible card to draw later in the game for added ramp payoff consistency, and you’re still likely to find a playable card to draw earlier. Aggressive Druids will likely run it because their curve is cheap, and possibly to support sunken synergies they’ve been given in the set. It just goes everywhere. Moonlit Guidance 2.0.
Score: 4
Dozing Kelpkeeper
Kelpkeeper shouldn’t be considered a 1-drop and is likely to be a weak mulligan keep, but the angle from which this card is viewed favorably is by comparing it with Umbral Owl and Goldshire Gnoll. It allows the Druid to combine a big spell with Kelpkeeper on the same turn and get a decent swing. It’s flexible enough that we can play it at any point in the game and bank mana costs over multiple turns. The downside is that it’s a worse card to draw off the top compared to Owl and Gnoll. But still, this is a decent replacement for Umbral Owl in spell heavy Druids, especially if the Naga minion type ends up mattering.
Score: 3
Green-Thumb Gardener
This is a reverse Arcane Tyrant/Anubisath Defender or a modified Omu. If you have an expensive spell in hand such as Scale of Onyxia or Miracle Growth, Gardener can be a free 5/5 once you hit 6 mana. We can’t play this as follow-up to Miracle Growth and it’s a bit awkward to play on the same turn as Scale, but free stats for ramping Druid decks usually get played.
Score: 3
Bottomfeeder
Solid stats for a 1-drop, but solid stats for a 1-drop are currently not good enough for aggressive Druid decks, as can be seen with Enchanted Raven which failed to make the cut in both Beast Druid and Taunt Druid. For Bottomfeeder to be good enough, its sunken form needs to be a worthwhile card to get from Aquatic Form. The priority is clearly to find Gardens, but perhaps a 3/5 Bottomfeeder is a decent consolation prize to combo with Oracle of Elune. Feels fringe.
Score: 2
Seaweed Strike
This card is quite strong when activated, being able to deal with two minions on the same turn or dealing some face as well, but how often is it going to be activated on turn 3? It feels quite like Moontouched Amulet or Feral Rage in that regard, where it’s unlikely to be a good play early but scales better into the late game thanks to some synergies. Would be played in a dedicated Naga Druid deck, but nothing else, and a dedicated Naga Druid deck seems like a very optimistic undertaking.
Score: 1
Colaque
This card is a massive defensive stabilizer that also puts quite a bit of pressure on slower decks. An aggressive deck basically must chew through 16 effective health once it comes down. It’s almost a Solar Eclipse/Cenarion Ward by itself, though it’s obviously weaker considering it doesn’t provide you with armor on demand. The utility in slower matchups is there too with an opponent forced to clear an 8-health turtle shell before being able to touch a threatening immune minion with 6-attack. There’s a lot of competition for 7 mana cards in Druid, but it should get there.
Score: 3
Hedra the Heretic
Hedra can serve as an effective win condition in board-based matchups. As a 4/5, you don’t need to spend too much mana on spells for her to make a strong play, so she shouldn’t be that difficult to fuel with cards such as Nourish, Flipper Friends, Miracle Growth and Scale of Onyxia. She’s a bit worse in slower matchups, as she can be dealt with through mass AOE, but she’s still a huge threat than can end the game if the opponent doesn’t have an answer. Solid build-around card that can help Druid turn the corner.
Score: 3
Final Thoughts
Voyage to the Sunken City Set Rank: 3rd
Overall Power Ranking: 5th
Druid is another class that lost so many cornerstone cards in rotation that many are concerned with how it will perform in the future. However, it seems like it did get the kind of powerful set it needed to stay afloat. Aquatic Form is a massive consistency boost across the board that every Druid deck will play. It also received some nice additions through core set changes. Living Roots and Wrath will help the class with early game removal, while Nourish at 5 may partially alleviate Wildheart Guff’s thirst for Overgrowth.
The new archetype that could emerge in this expansion is Giants Druid, or ‘Water Druid’. The potential of ramping into high-cost spells and developing Naga Giants is something we’re particularly excited about. With Flipper Friends, Scale of Onyxia and Sea Giants, we’ve got the board swinging capability that a ramping Druid deck needs.
Aggressive Druid could also stick around, though the loss of Arbor Up does hurt a lot and we don’t think they got too much support in this set. Azsharan Gardens might be suitable for a minion-dense Taunt Druid archetype. Beast Druid will have to make do with Heart of the Wild as the Arbor Up replacement, but thanks to Flipper Friends, could leverage Sea Giants as well.
And finally, we still have Kazakusan. We won’t lie. It may have lost a ton of cards but we still like the look of the deck after building it. We might not be able to play Kazakusan as early and as explosively as we did before thanks to insane ramp support, but the card’s late game finishing power is still there. With a format dropping in power across the board, we may not notice the difference.
