12 Awesome Hearthstone Cards Added in the Grand Tournament Expansion

ffronw

I am a meat popsicle
Oct 24, 2013
2,804
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12 Awesome Hearthstone Cards Added in the Grand Tournament Expansion

If you're looking to build some solid Hearthstone Grand Tournament decks, check out our staff's favorite cards from the new expansion.

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Barbas

ExQQxv1D1ns
Oct 28, 2013
33,804
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Ron, why did you go decide to throw all standards and consistency out the window and go 50% beyond the call of duty with this gallery? And how did this make it past the cards editor?

Holy Jesus. I can't recall being so pissed off in all my life.



I like the look of that ice rager card, though. I had an ice rager once.
 

The Wykydtron

"Emotions are very important!"
Sep 23, 2010
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I feel like every major Inspire card effect has to be multiplied by Fencing Coach. If you can hang on to your hero power until turn 6 or 7 with Priest and I think Priest is one of the classes who can get away with not using the hero power all the time, you can drop Confessor on curve and hero power on the same turn immediately for at least one free legendary.

I don't really know how good the new mechanics will be in practise but i'm super excited to try them out.

Also why no Avianna on the list? Just you watch, i'll make the best Ramp Dragon + Avianna combo Druid deck you have ever seen! Nefarian into Alextraza into Ysera into fucking Onyxia baby! THE DREAM! Also i'll get Charge from Nefarian, you just have to believe in the RNG so I can run one of the 8/8s right in there. Oh is that actually lethal with the attack bonus on Charge? It is exact lethal with Avianna being a 5/5. Nefarian confirmed OP against Warrior.

If we're living in the world where he's not armoured up to the fucking heavens anyway.
 

VanQ

Casual Plebeian
Oct 23, 2009
2,729
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Wait a damn minute.

Number two.


Is that Richard!?



The resemblance is uncanny.
 

ffronw

I am a meat popsicle
Oct 24, 2013
2,804
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VanQ said:
Wait a damn minute.

Number two.


Is that Richard!?



The resemblance is uncanny.
I'm more than a little upset that I did not make this connection myself. I would love it if Blizzard started incorporating hidden Looking for Group references in cards.
 

Kahani

New member
May 25, 2011
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It's rather telling that half the cards here are inspire cards, but not a single joust made the list.

I'm not really convinced by the Murloc Knight though. Murloc decks rely a lot on speed and synergy, so filling your board with 1/1 minions doesn't really help, especially if you've already had to give up a couple of slots to hero power minions as well. The combo suggested in the article would leave you with 7 minions on the board of which only 3 are actually murlocs (2 of them being completely random and without battlecries), 2 1/1 weenies, and a couple of fairly weak minions to mess with your hero power. You get a board that's not strong or fast and has very little synergy at all even if you get lucky with the random minions, and you've spent at least a couple of turns in the mid-game to set it up just at the point the big AoEs and taunts are available to counter it.
 

Slycne

Tank Ninja
Feb 19, 2006
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ffronw said:
I'm more than a little upset that I did not make this connection myself. I would love it if Blizzard started incorporating hidden Looking for Group references in cards.
I think it's a chicken and egg situation. LFG was influenced by World of Warcraft and Richard perhaps drew from the look of the undead, cause Cutpurse is certainly wearing some of the standard vanilla lvl 60 pre-raiding gear, like the Shadowcraft Hood. And that artwork was original made for the World of Warcraft TCG - http://www.alexhorleyart.com/wowtca3.html
 

ffronw

I am a meat popsicle
Oct 24, 2013
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Slycne said:
I think it's a chicken and egg situation. LFG was influenced by World of Warcraft and Richard perhaps drew from the look of the undead, cause Cutpurse is certainly wearing some of the standard vanilla lvl 60 pre-raiding gear, like the Shadowcraft Hood. And that artwork was original made for the World of Warcraft TCG - http://www.alexhorleyart.com/wowtca3.html
Also true, but it's even more interesting since Richard was a warlock. A warlock in a Shadowcraft Hood? I think I raided with that guy once.
 

Slycne

Tank Ninja
Feb 19, 2006
3,422
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Kahani said:
It's rather telling that half the cards here are inspire cards, but not a single joust made the list.
Well to be fair there are not actually that many joust cards in the set - there are way more inspire or hero power synergy ones, but I think the bigger issue is where Blizzard decided to stat the joust cards. Some of them are just really bad at their cost if you don't hit the joust. Also, the inherent nature of the mechanic make some cards awkwardly neigh-unplayable. For instance, Armored Warhorse is a card that looks more suited for aggressive decks, but that deck won't have the high cost minions to reliably win the joust.

King's Elekk and Healing Wave have the most potential to see play.
 

gonenow3

New member
May 2, 2015
54
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I like how most of the cards here are considered as terrible and unusable by pretty much everyone.

Confessor Paletress:

You really need to keep in mind here is that the average quality of the legendaries is actually pretty poor: there are quite a few 8/8 legendaries but there are also plenty of smaller ones. While doing some calculations, it turns out that a third of all legendaries are worse than 5/5, which is far below the minimum needed to make this card playable. It's slightly better with Fencing Coach but thats not saying much.

Cutpurse:

Only deck where Cutpurse may be decent in is Backspace Rogue, however, the poor stats and being useless against decks which summon early minions is not something Backspace Rogue is very interested in so it has little to no use.

Murloc Knight:

In general you don?t want to be using Hero Power in a deck like murlocs which is very aggro/tribe based. This card could only be good in the very late game when you have mana to spare but Paladin just doesn?t have any other murloc synergies besides this guy.

Wilfred Fizzlebang:

On average Thaurrisan will be better since it has better stats, can be played on turn six. The only way Fizzlebang is better is if it is paired with Fencing Coach but in general control Warlocks don't want to tap much past turn 6.

Thunder Bluff Valiant:

This is just a win more card. It does nothing for board and is basically just a beefier version of Flametongue Totem which barely sees play.
 

maddawg IAJI

I prefer the term "Zomguard"
Feb 12, 2009
7,840
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Eh, I agree on some and disagree with most of them.

Confessor, Varian and Eydis will probably make their way into some competitive decks, but I'm honestly not looking forward to most of the cards mentioned.

Darnassus Aspirant is good if you play it. Unfortunately, with Wild Growth being a permanent mana crystal and Aspirant being vulnerable to things like Frostbolt, Crackle, Flame Cannon, Dark Bomb etc etc, the former seems like a much safer pick. Not to mention, getting this out of a Piloted Shredder will almost be as bad as getting a Doomsayer.

Ram Wrangler, Argent Horserider and cutpurse all boast terrible stats for their mana costs and offer neglible effects. 5 mana for a free beast (If you have a beast) plus a 3/3 isn't bad, but if you can't get a beast out, its terrible. At 3 mana, Argent Horserider wouldn't be able to kill most 3 drops and some of the better 2 drops, heck, it wouldn't even be able to trade well with some 1 drops. plus the 1 health does it no favors either. Lastly, the odds of Cutpurse surviving long enough to hit your opponents face are fairly slim.

Murloc Knight is fine, Thunderbluff Valiant is ok if you're spamming totems and Fjola, while slow is still decent.
 

Battenberg

Browncoat
Aug 16, 2012
550
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gonenow3 said:
While doing some calculations, it turns out that a third of all legendaries are worse than 5/5
I worked it out as closer to a quarter of all legendaries (although I guess it depends exactly what you count as worse than 5/5). Also the average legendary stats post TGT will be around 5/6 plus you have a reasonable chance of getting a useful effect plus you can potentially play confessor and activate inspire on turn 7 with fencing coach setup. Even without that summoning a 5/4 and a 5/6 on turn 9 where your opponent is basically forced to kill the 5/4 or lose the game sounds pretty reasonable to me.

Basically what I'm saying is priest gets so few good cards, please just let us have this one!
 

gonenow3

New member
May 2, 2015
54
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Battenberg said:
gonenow3 said:
While doing some calculations, it turns out that a third of all legendaries are worse than 5/5
I worked it out as closer to a quarter of all legendaries (although I guess it depends exactly what you count as worse than 5/5). Also the average legendary stats post TGT will be around 5/6 plus you have a reasonable chance of getting a useful effect plus you can potentially play confessor and activate inspire on turn 7 with fencing coach setup. Even without that summoning a 5/4 and a 5/6 on turn 9 where your opponent is basically forced to kill the 5/4 or lose the game sounds pretty reasonable to me.

Basically what I'm saying is priest gets so few good cards, please just let us have this one!
Except having more minions on board is generally a bad idea. summoning more legendaries doesn't cause any issues for most decks.

Paladins don't care because of Equality / Eadric
Freeze mage don't care because it doesn't matter what is going to be on board
Having more minions actually makes Patron stronger
Druid will be looking to end the game on turn 9
Hunter will have won or lost the game by turn 9

For the most part this card is just way too slow to actually be good without fencing coach and even with fencing coach its barely passable
 

babinro

New member
Sep 24, 2010
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Some of my favorites in no particular order:

Refreshment Vendor 3/5 for 4: Battlecry: Restore 4 Health to each hero.

I fully expect this card to be the Sludge Belcher of TGT in that this card may become a staple in a ton of decks. This is a perfect anti-aggro card that's not a major hindrance at later stages of the game either. I'm expecting this card to see truly competitive play.

Twilight Guardian - Covered in the article and I agree. Dragons needed taunt and now they have it!

Elemental Destruction 3 mana (Shaman Card): Deal 4-5 damage to all minions (overload 5)

Just what the class needed! Shaman lacked reliable AoE as their other option often demanded the spellpower totem or luck to be truly useful. This card is useful in all stages of the game and is cheap enough to be followed up by a threat. Shaman just might become my new favorite class with this and the totem love. Definitely going to be a competitive staple.

Seal of Champions 3 mana (Paladin Card): Give a minion +3 attack and Divine Shield

I already hate this card. I dread playing against it and I look forward to using it. Divine Shield is already a pain offensively because a lot of removal is damage based. So someone aggressively attacking face with this card is a nightmare. Alternatively it can be used to make a weak creature trade with a stronger creature and stay alive while also becoming a major threat worthy of removal. I expect to see this card pop up in competitive play.

Sabateur 4/3 for 3: Battlecry: Your opponent's hero power costs 5 more next turn.

This is my sleeper hit card of TGT. It's stat distribution is perfect for trading with a lot of pesky creatures and it's kicker is a tempo hit for your opponent. The only problem with this card is it has no real synergy to it. It'll likely be relegated to 'tech' card in which many players will likely opt for other options.

Mysterious Challenger 6/6 for 6 (Paladin Card): Battlecry: Put one of secret from your deck
into the battlefield.

This card is pure FUN. I get that paladin's have the weakest secrets of any class but this card could breath some life back into that. Having a 6/6 that draws removal with built in Noble Sacrifice to protect, Redemption to revive and maybe even Avenge to buff seems interesting.
 

SlumlordThanatos

Lord Inquisitor
Aug 25, 2014
724
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babinro said:
Elemental Destruction 3 mana (Shaman Card): Deal 4-5 damage to all minions (overload 5)

Just what the class needed! Shaman lacked reliable AoE as their other option often demanded the spellpower totem or luck to be truly useful. This card is useful in all stages of the game and is cheap enough to be followed up by a threat. Shaman just might become my new favorite class with this and the totem love. Definitely going to be a competitive staple.
I dunno, it just seems to me like a worse Twisting Nether.

Granted, you can play it without the tempo loss of other similar cards like Flamestrike, but it kneecaps your next turn if you are forced to play it early. I don't see a whole lot changing for Shaman, which is a shame. Their best deck is still Mech Shaman, and the only reason that works is because it largely avoids Shaman's two glaring weaknesses: reliance on RNG and the fact that Overload is a terrible and poorly implemented mechanic.

As for OP, why is there no Tuskarr Jouster? No Eadric the Pure? Justicar Trueheart? There aren't a whole lot of truly powerful cards this expansion, and it's kinda disappointing how you could leave these cards out.
 

Nuuu

Senior Member
Jan 28, 2011
530
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SlumlordThanatos said:
babinro said:
Elemental Destruction 3 mana (Shaman Card): Deal 4-5 damage to all minions (overload 5)

Just what the class needed! Shaman lacked reliable AoE as their other option often demanded the spellpower totem or luck to be truly useful. This card is useful in all stages of the game and is cheap enough to be followed up by a threat. Shaman just might become my new favorite class with this and the totem love. Definitely going to be a competitive staple.
I dunno, it just seems to me like a worse Twisting Nether.

Granted, you can play it without the tempo loss of other similar cards like Flamestrike, but it kneecaps your next turn if you are forced to play it early. I don't see a whole lot changing for Shaman, which is a shame. Their best deck is still Mech Shaman, and the only reason that works is because it largely avoids Shaman's two glaring weaknesses: reliance on RNG and the fact that Overload is a terrible and poorly implemented mechanic.
Going of what other youtubers say (who are much better players than I), Elemental Destruction does have good use, not one for use in every deck, but a use for some. It's one that essentially gives shaman a CHANCE to come back when there seems to be none, say against a mech-mage who has flooded the board with mech-warpers and spider tanks while you've got nothing but a totem. Sure you may not have such an amazing chance since you didn't have a good hand to deal with it in the first place, but its more of a chance than lightning storm or the certain death you would have through playing nothing.
It clears the board of most enemies while not COMPLETELY crippling the shaman in the late-game, as well as making the opponent have to think twice on whether they should go all out in fear of Elemental Destruction. Lightning storm hasn't been a real threat for ages.
Don't forget shamans have Lava Shock, which isn't a bad spell, but hasn't seen use due to the lack of Overload use.