hearthstone Oaken Summons & Kingsbane Reveals: Kobolds & Catacombs

[Zadina 923]

A Common Druid Spell and the Legendary Rogue weapon were revealed overnight.

The Druid card was uncovered by Rosicky on Douyu.com.

This is a pretty good deal for only 4 mana and it's natural that many Warrior players are salty Druid got this card. After Grizzled Guardian, this is the second Druid card from Kobolds & Catacombs that has "Recruit a minion that costs (4) or less" synergy. This makes me think that they are trying to push for a new type of Druid deck, since Oaken Summons - seemingly a fine card - doesn't really fit into any of the current Druid archetypes. Oaken Summons also paves the way for the recently revealed Ironbark Golem to see play.

The second card is the Legendary Rogue weapon, Kingsbane! It was revealed by Tsuki on Facebook.

So, as the memes predicted, this is what Blade Flurry died for! According to Peter Whalen, the "it keeps any enchantments" is part of the card itself and not the Deathrattle. Therefore, Kingsbane retains its enchantments with Doomerang, but not with Rummaging Kobold since the Kobold will just create a new weapon. This weapon also makes the Rogue Spellstone slightly less terrible, since its Deathrattle contributes to the Spellstone's ugprading process. Along with Valeera the Hollow's hero power, we can have some duplicate shennanigans! Lastly, Kingsbane cannot be countered by weapon removal and it can help prevent fatigue.

Obviously, Kingsbane has potential. but I think it's slightly overhyped. The main problem is that you have to draw it again: while Rogue doesn't lack card draw, it's realistic that you will use this 2 or 3 times at best. In Standard, Kingsbane can probably complement Mill Rogue and it can perhaps create a new kind of Weapon Pirate deck (see Naga Corsair and Southsea Squidface). This card will truly shine in Wild Oil Rogue, where just a single buff from Tinker's Sharpsword Oil can create a very painful-to-deal-with weapon for your opponent.

Let us know what you think about these cards in the comment section below! We will continue to closely monitor Kobolds & Catacombs card reveals, news and updates in our expansion hub.

Card images belong to Hearthpwn.

[VaraTreledees 138]

Oaken summons is 1 more  mana then shield block and gives 1 more armor, draws a card AND plays that card for zero, seems pretty good.  Druid synergizes less with armor but still looks good.  The rogue weapon is amazing and I am hype for it, I love it.  Probably going to be trash tier in standard, still going to play with it though.  It could make oil rogue great again in wild.  Oil rogue is one of my all time favorite decks, right next to maly miracle rogue, fatigue warrior and control/reno priest.  I really want to try this in a standard miracle rogue.  I don't have much hope for it, but I will have fun stabbing priests and druids in the face with it.  Deadly poison is already a playable card in miracle, leaching poison looks like it will be great with this card as well.  Also could finally make Luckydo Buccaneer a playable card.  Entirely possible that with sonya and this you could make a value oriented jade rogue.  Won't be top tier, maybe bottom tier 3, which isn't bad.  Definitely playable.

Edited December 2, 2017 by VaraTreledees

[Bozonik 94]

1 hour ago, VaraTreledees said:

Also could finally make Luckydo Buccaneer a playable card.

I’ve tried various Pirate Rogue builds quite a lot. I always end up cutting Luckydo, not because the it’s hard to trigger but because the deck doesn’t hugely want a 6-mana 9/9. If you want a big body, you just play the 5-mana 8/8. Getting it out a turn earlier is more important than the extra stats.

[Synesthesy 114]

Kingsbane is an extraordinary card - the value of a weapon that can have: poison, lifesteal, attack buff, is big - but it has the problem that is a 1 cost card that has to be drawn, actually more then once. It suffers the same problem of Prince Keleseth, you must draw it nearly in your starting hand to gain full value from him, but the Prince doesn't make half deck useless if you don't draw him, while the weapon buff wouldn't be good without the weapon himself.

[Kuster 10]

Why not simply have the "keeps any enchantments" on top of the text box, above the deathrattle effect? 

This would prevent confusion. 

But at this point one can only assume that they actually try their best to make the text as mystifying as possible. Maybe because this way potential bugs can be brushed off as the intended effect. Honestly, as a player with a MTG background this annoys the living hell out of me. Cards break the game's rules all the time, it makes the game fun, but in order for that to work out the text has to be clear.

Just to illustrate, back when the legendary paladin weapon was spoiled, I honestly considered at first that the "when it dies, reequip this" could be outside of the deathrattle effect (which would make it a lot stronger, as silence would only cancel the buff, not stop the weapon from returning). After a while I convinced myself that it wasn't the case for sure, and couldn't remember any case of a card that had a deathrattle effect and another separate effect listed afterwards. But here we are.
 

Edited December 2, 2017 by Kuster

[Oxygen 446]

1 hour ago, Kuster said:

Why not simply have the "keeps any enchantments" on top of the text box, above the deathrattle effect?

Because the information is not relevant unless the weapon can be somehow preserved beyond death, which is indicated by the deathrattle.

[Caldyrvan 377]

No matter how the text is or should be, text like this are pretty confusing for everyone not constantly reading forums or such, some just jump into the game, maybe looking for a deck on pages sometimes but that's it.

For the cards ....

Oaken Summons: not sure what a druid wants to recruit with that. Ofc there are several minions used that could be recruited but nothing really valuable (besides Fandral Staghelm) that makes this card a good pick (looks nice for arena though).

Kingsbane: obviously an attempt to make weapon buff cards more viable for rogue but in standard I doubt that a single weapon that can make better use of them will make this any good. At least it's pretty cool that it works with Doomerang. I know currently not a good card but I liked it the moment I saw it and I used it sometimes and it was fun :)

Edited December 2, 2017 by Caldyrvan

[Kuster 10]

2 hours ago, Oxygen said:

Because the information is not relevant unless the weapon can be somehow preserved beyond death, which is indicated by the deathrattle.

True, yet my suggestion would lead to 1 second of confusion, shortly eliminated by reading the deathrattle effect, whilst how it was printed just isn't clear even after you read it all.

To be honest, what I really think should be done would be to finally come up with some serious formatting for the text box, stop using multiple terms for the same effect, you know, keep it consistent. But given that they don't seem to be interested in doing that, at least working on making their own mess a little less confusing.

But I don't see how you could argue my suggestion isn't objectively clearer.

[SMOrcMan 76]

Not entirely sure that druid needed another strong control card but whatever.

 

Rogue weapon might see play in some sort of control rogue since they generally draw a lot of cards and usually fatigue if the game goes on too long.

[Ragnaroasted 1]

Kingsbane is definitely going to be added to mill rogue decks. I mean, all you have to do is play it and hero power each turn. That, combined with possible Leeching Poison and/or extra damage in the form of Deadly Poison (etc), could be very nice in contesting Bloodreaver Gul'dan's and Shadowreaper Anduin's hero powers during the actual fatigue turns.

[Caldyrvan 377]

I'm still not convinced and I'm not sure what the greater cancer is, highlander priest or mill rogue.