The doors to the Military Quarter are now open! Time for another set review. As always the grading scale breakdown can be found in my first Naxxramas set review.
Dancing Swords
Constructed: C-
Arena: C
The Military Quarter had a lot of cards that challenged me to grade them and it started with Dancing Swords. If I’m looking at raw stats this card is awesome. But the Deathrattle cancels out this card’s upside. I do not want my opponent drawing cards. And 4 Health is not impossible to deal with. There are plenty of Spells and Minions that kill Dancing Swords.
Dancing Swords is a little more desirable in Arena as it is not guaranteed that your opponent will have an answer. 3 Mana is an important slot in an Arena deck and I know there will be instances where I will run this card.
Spectral Knight
Constructed: B
Arena: A-
Do you like Faerie Dragon? Yes. What about another efficiently costed version for later in the game? I’ll take two.
I can’t find a proper downside to this card in either formats. No, you can’t target it with a Shattered Sun Cleric or Abusive Sergeant. But I have no interest in running this card in my Zoolock deck anyway. This is just a solid card that requires no combo for value.
Edit: As mentioned in the comments Spectral Knight can indeed be targeted by Shattered Sun Cleric, Abusive Sergeant, and similar cards. Please disregard the above attempt at finding something wrong with this card. Turns out it's damn near perfect.
In Arena this card is such a strong contender for the 5 Mana slot. Azure Drake is the undisputed king as far as 5 Mana Neutral Minions are concerned and it’s a Rare. Spectral Knight is a Common!
Deathlord
Constructed: C
Arena: C-
Deathlord and Dancing Swords need to hang out. Another card that at a glance looks like a snap pick. But the downside to this card is such a terrifying risk. Deploying a minion from your opponent’s deck is not worth it in my opinion.
This card makes me hope that my opponent has great Minions in his hand, so I don’t run the risk of deploying them from their deck. I would love for Deathlord to get Silenced. This is the first card I can think of in Hearthstone where Taunt is a liability.
However if you listen to last night's TAC you can hear Dills talk me into giving Deathlord a higher grade. This card does have a place in anti-aggro Priest decks.
Baron Rivendare
Constructed: D+
Arena: F
This is a fun card. Baron Rivendare has the potential for so many absurd things to happen. However he really has no upside by himself. 1 Attack isn’t going to kill much of anything or put your opponent on any kind of timer.
In constructed there is a Shaman deck going around using Baron and Reincarnate for some pretty interesting turns. Having played it myself it’s really fun but really inconsistent. I can’t really think of any deck where Baron is going to shine. Maybe down the road when there’s a lot more Deathrattle to choose from.
In Arena, as with all Legendaries, I have to look at Baron and then imagine any two other Legendaries beside him as my choices. There is almost no other Legendary card in Hearthstone that I wouldn’t pick over Baron in Arena.
Reincarnate
Constructed: C+
Arena: C-
Here is a card that I think falls very comfortably into the C range. Reincarnate has so many options. You can kill your own Minion cause it’s been silenced, or is down to one health. Positive Deathrattles can now be triggered whenever you desire and you get the Minion back afterwards. It can even be used in a pinch as soft Silence on an opponent’s Minion.
Where Reincarnate starts to fall flat is that there are multiple scenarios where it is a dead card. I definitely do not always want to kill my Minions.
Voidcaller
Constructed: B
Arena: B-
Voidcaller achieves what I think Baron did not. It’s a fun card that is quite playable. This demon doesn’t quite pass the vanilla test with flying colors, but it’s close. The existence of the Yeti makes Voidcaller a tougher sell. But if you’re running multiple demons in your deck, Voidcaller is a must have.
In constructed you will have more control over how many demons are in your deck. Realz ran a new Demonlock deck in the recent VGVN tournament and Voidcaller was highlighted quite well in those games.
In last night’s TAC Dills and Jocelyn both talked me down a bit on Voidcaller in Arena. But I’m going to pull a Dills and be generous to the Voidcaller because I believe in this card. There are enough common demons available to Warlocks that I am willing to take this bet on Voidcaller in Arena.
Garrett Weinzierl is the founder of Amove.tv and the host of The Angry Chicken, Into the Nexus, and A-move Radio. Follow Garrett on Twitter @GarrettArt.