Introduction

Usually during vacation, I find a second (or third, or hundredth, or whatever) wind and write furiously that lasts me a few months before I run into another block. However, I struggled yesterday and last night to write that article. Hopefully I can write my way through it and at least provide decent content over the next month and a half until school ends and figure it out over the summer. Right now, I need to concentrate on Hearthstone Festival Part 2.

The next three classes I need to cover in this article are Hunter, Mage, and Paladin. Historically, I hate Hunter. Both playing and playing against the class. However, I built a jank (because of course) deck that uses both Yoggs and the shattered C’thun card that I like to play for quests. Mage is probably my most played class (maybe Priest) and the only deck I have that could even be considered meta. Finally, Paladin just sort of exists and I play it as a last resort. So, this might be the least fun article to write for this series. Can you stand the excitement?!

Hunter

Decent: Fun as a barrel of monkeys? I’ve got a lovely bunch of bananas? Honestly, I have nothing else to say about these cards. They…do…things…maybe things that some players find useful an consider interesting. None of that applies to me. So, let’s just move on, shall we?

Good: These cards also do things. The Arrow Smith and Jammer do things together. I’m sure some degenerate out there already figured out how to abuse the Arrow Smith for a one turn combo kill with the Jammer as additional BM. The soloist is just a solid early minion with upside. Not even I can find anything bad about that.

Great: In the last review article (*cough* last year *cough*), Blizzard threw us an easy one with Beast Druid. This time around, they give us a similar soft ball with Beast Hunter. I suppose you might be able to put something together with the “good” cards and Naga supports. Stay tuned. I might just do a follow up article with an alternate deck for each class.

Beast-ravaganza Hunter

Mage

Decent: Elemental Mage is a tried and true Wild archetype and every now and then they try to make it viable in standard, too. Not knowing all of the cards or potential strategies, I decided against trying to make it work here. Initially, I thought about it, but the heart of the cards pushed me in another direction.

Good: Independently, I like all of these cards. Even in the right deck, they work pretty well together. But, I’m not really trying to win games with the deck I put together. I just want to have fun and actually go infinite with either of my “star” spells. So, I’ll stick these cards here and call it a day.

Great: As soon as I saw “Infinitize”, I knew they wanted me to attempt to do just that. Then, I saw Manastorm as a card and didn’t even care what the effect was. That card synergizes, lore wise, with a card called “Infinitize the Maxitude”, so in it went. Then I found two other spells that are just dumb and, hey, I can’t pass up a dumb and fun deck.

Dumb Spell Mage

Paladin

Decent: These cards do what Paladin does. They summon small dudes and then buffs them. Honestly, that’s the most annoying archetype for me to play against. But, if that’s your bag, you do you.

Good: I could have included the murloc in my deck, but I wanted the divine shield for my face instead of the buff on the minions. I like the idea of the harmonic/dissonant cards. But, so far none of them impressed me thus far. Lead dancer teases potential with buffs, but again, that’s not what I want to do with Paladin.

Great: Divine shield. This minion gets a divine shield. That minion gets a divine shield. Those minions lose divine shield and I get a 5/5. I get divine shield! We all get divine shield! Wait, is Blood Knight Standard legal? Time to build my deck. (Note: Blood Knight is not Standard legal.)

The Verdict

Hearthstone Festival Part 2 gives fun cards that make two of the classes I hate playing more fun for me. It also gives me some fun cards to play for my most entertaining class. Two more parts to go. Hope to be finished by Saturday. I want to record Ready Player One episode 2 tomorrow, so hopefully I get both done. For now, that’s it on Hearthstone Festival part 2 and return hopefully for part 3 tomorrow.

Decks built in Hearthstone Top Decks. Not the greatest deck builder, but I like the aesthetics of the screensot.