Just yesterday, Blizzard posted the latest in their string of teaser previews for the upcoming Blackrock Mountain adventure. I saw the title of the blog post – “The Dragons of Blackwing Lair” – and immediately rushed to look at what I was certain would be sweet, sweet new dragons so I could get my fix.

What did I find? Not a dragon in sight! Sure, there was a banner image with Nefarian looking imposing, and a whole lot of words about how he and his minions hang out in Blackwing Lair and cook up all new technicolor dragons, but not a single actual Dragon card! Talk about false advertising!

I don’t like being teased about my dragons. A few years ago, Magic had a set called “Dragon’s Maze” that contained not one, not two, not three – but ZERO actual dragons! How do you have the word “dragon” in the title of your set – or teaser post – and not actually have any dragons? Thankfully, Wizards of the Coast learned from their mistake, and the new “Dragons of Tarkir” set that just released is chock full of dragon goodness. Blizzard and Hearthstone have clearly learned a lot from Magic and its mistakes over the years – let’s hope this is another place where they heed the lessons of their forefathers.

In all seriousness, while I am still chomping at the big for more actual dragons to play with, the new cards that were just revealed are pretty exciting – even if they aren’t dragons.

Something that I’ve noticed in my time playing Hearthstone so far, particularly since the release of Goblins vs Gnomes, is that there tend to be certain staple neutral minions that make up the core of certain types of decks. Because each class only has so many class-specific minions to choose from, in order for themes like Deathrattle or Mechs or Dragons to show up in constructed play, a great deal of their effectiveness has to be weighted in neutral minions. We saw this with Undertaker in Naxxramas, Mechwarper and Tinkertown Technician in GvG, and I feel like we’re going to see it again here in Blackrock Mountain. Blackwing Corruptor looks to be one of those dragon-deck staples.

Blackwing Corruptor is a very powerful card. It’s basically a slightly smaller, slightly less expensive Fire Elemental, which is one of the strongest minions in the game. You lose one point of health and one point of attack for the one mana discount, and in exchange only get to use the damage battlecry if you’re holding a dragon. This clearly makes Blackwing Corruptor a much more conditional card in terms of the kinds of decks in which it can be included. It also makes it a much weaker topdeck in a long game in which a player’s hand is likely to be empty when it’s drawn.

Four vs five health is a pretty big flashpoint in terms of vulnerability. Four health minions die to commonly played cards like Truesilver Champion, Piloted Shredder, and Swipe, while five health is much more stable. That said, the value of three targeted damage is significantly higher at five mana than it is at six, since creature health increases as the game goes on. A Blackwing Corruptor can come down with The Coin to immediately answer a Piloted Shredder, or clear out something like a Mechwarper, Snowchugger, or Mana Wyrm before the board gets totally out of control. It can also team up with the other sure to be dragon-deck staple that is Blackwing Technician to clear out bigger minions, like Druid of the Claw or Sludge Belcher, generating a huge board presence advantage and tempo swing.

If “dragons are awesome” weren’t already reason enough for me to build decks, Blackrock Mountain has already provided quite a few strong incentives for others to join in on the fun. Blackwing Corruptor is certain to be one of those. What I’m really hoping to see are at least a few solid class specific dragon tribal cards. The class specific Mech minions and Mech synergy cards like Goblin Blastmage and Powermace really did a lot to provide identity to the different Mech-based decks to come out of Goblins vs Gnomes, and I hope to see something similar happen with dragon decks after Blackrock Mountain. It w0uld certainly be a shame if every dragon deck ends up being just an identical mix of minions with a few class specific spells thrown in.

Is this supposed to be one of the dragons of Blackwing Lair the blog post title was teasing? Sorry, including “dragon” in a card name does not make that card a dragon, as much as you might want it to be the case. This does feel like something of a lost opportunity to make a dragon tribal synergy card, and leads me to think that my hopes to see any class specific dragon cards may be for nothing, especially since we’ve already seen a second Mage class card in Flamewaker.

That said, even if it has nothing to do with dragons, Dragon’s Breath is still an interesting card. I’ve seen some chatter about how the cost reduction for each minion that dies makes it pair well with mass removal effects like Flamestrike, but how often do you Flamestrike and kill five minions and really need a bit of extra damage to go along with it? To me, Dragon’s Breath feels like a card that fits better in a deck with its own cheap minions that you’re trading into your opponent’s minions to let you generate powerful board swings for a low cost.

It’s much easier to ensure that you can cast Dragon’s Breath for a reduced cost when you have minions of your own, since it counts all minions that died this turn, not just those controlled by your opponent. Every straight up trade you make on board reduces Dragon’s Breath’s cost by two. If you crash your Mad Scientist into your opponent’s Knife Juggler, you end up with a secret and a three cost four damage spell out of the deal, which certainly isn’t a bad deal.

That said, my biggest concern with Dragon’s Breath isn’t that it’s difficult to find spots where it can be effective. I’m more worried about whether most Mage decks actually want conditional targeted burn effects on top of Frostbolt and Fireball already. Those two spells are both more efficient and easier to use than Dragon’s Breath, so it’s hard for me to imagine a deck that really wants to cut either of them to fit this new card. While a minion heavy deck may be able to enable Dragon’s Breath effectively by trading, most of the time a minion heavy Mage deck with burn spells usually prefers to use that burn to either clear opposing taunts out of the way or to finish their opponent off by going to their face. Trading isn’t really what you’re usually looking to do, so what incentive is there to play a card that is only good if you’re already going against your deck’s general plan in the first place?

I don’t think Dragon’s Breath will turn out to be a major player in the new metagame after the release of Blackrock Mountain. It just doesn’t seem to offer enough in return for its lower impact and higher conditional cost than the existing burn spells available to the Mage class. That said, I won’t be terribly surprised if I’m proven wrong. Cost reduction mechanics have traditionally been among the most powerful things available in TCGs, and even the most innocuous looking free spells can turn out to be outrageously broken in the proper context.