And at one mana, it's a slow card that can fill in as the opportunity arises, because you'll rarely have the perfect card.
It has great synergy with Fandral Staghelm, a card that's already included in most Druid decks. This card will be a staple if Druid Jade decks work.Īnother card that will be a big part of that deck is the Jade Idol. And if the Golems are strong by this point? A 3/6 taunt and a 5/5 Jade Golem is a lot of stats for six mana. If by the time you play this card you don't have the Jade Golems pumped up a bit, the six mana and taunt at least adds in survival, something the previous card doesn't. Cards like Jade Lightning or Jade Shuriken, while overpriced for what they do, at least help enable survival while triggering Jade Golems, something a 2/3 on four will have a lot more trouble doing.Īnd to illustrate that, here's the Jade Behemoth which does help with survival. There will be an upper limit on how many Jade cards even a Jade deck can include, simply because players will need other cards that help survival until the Jade Golem factory really gets churning. While it's an obvious inclusion in a Jade deck, I can't help but think that this is one of the marginal Jade cards. This card is even weaker than the previous ones without a Jade deck because without the synergy, it becomes a slightly worse Razorfen Hunter, a card that's already less expensive at three mana, and never sees competitive play. The Jade Spirit is a tri-class card, playable by all of Shaman, Druid and Rogue. The Shuriken likely will see only very limited Arena play, with Eviscerate also being a common and a much preferable one. It's an obviously weaker card than Eviscerate without the additional text, so like the Blossom and Lightning, won't see play outside of a Jade deck. Jade Shuriken may have the toughest time seeing play, simply because the Jade Golem style is a bigger departure from existing meta-Rogue decks than either Jade decks for Druid or Shaman. You may see this in Arena as it's common and you don't necessarily have a choice to simply play Lightning Bolt or Stormcrack instead. Shaman doesn't have an exact spell that does precisely four damage to any enemy, but Lightning Bolt does three for half the cost, Stormcrack does four to a minion for two mana and one overload, and Lava Burst does five damage for three mana, two overload. Like the Jade Blossom, Jade Lightning has limited utility outside Jade decks.
That pretty much leaves Jade Blossom strictly limited to Jade decks as the 1/1 token just won't be enough value for non-Jade decks given that this card will be a dead draw late-game. However, it's missing an important aspect of Wild Growth, the ability to draw a card if you already have ten mana. Even in its worse case scenario, it's a Wild Growth and a 1/1 token and a lot of times, it will be better than that. Jade Blossom ties into the general theme of Druid ramping into its higher-mana cards, a two-mana Wild Growth attached to the Jade Golem. We start off with three of the class-card Jade Golem-enablers. This lack of upside is what doomed the Inspire mechanic. You lose time to pump up these Jade Golems, but the upside effect is legitimately terrifying. And once you've taken the time to play Jade Golem cards, once you get into 7/7 or 8/8 or 9/9 Jade Golems later in the game, your opponent will have a great deal of trouble dealing with the board. But each subsequent Jade Golem summoned gets +1/+1 added to their stats from the previous one. Jade starts off as a 1/1 card, a simple token. The Jade Lotus's nod to a more a non-linear style of play relies on the Jade Golems that their cards summon. Cards that trade time for value have generally not been successful as the effects have either not been strong enough to compensate for the tempo loss or if they have had a powerful effect, thet cost was simply too high. A great two-drop then a great three-drop and then a great four-drop, wash, rinse, and repeat. What do I mean by linear? In many of Hearthstone's most successful decks, the play style has been extremely tempo-based. Like the other "card gangs" in MSG, the Jade Lotus comes with their own unique deck flavor and also like the others, it's one that encourages a less linear style of play. We've talked quite a lot about the Grimy Goons and their hand-buffing cards and The Kabal and the various potion cards, so now we get into the final member of the warring triads, The Jade Lotus. In previous rundowns of the cards revealed from the imminent Hearthstone expansion Mean Streets of Gadgetzan, we've talked about the tri-class cards and the general theme of three gangs fighting it out, represented by cards with similar mechanics.