Card Rotation Analysis: Warlock

Warlocks had a good couple of years. After a rough start, consistent support has given it a surprisingly varied bevy of competitive decks. But with huge portions of its power dependent on the soon-to-rotate Un’goro, Knights of the Frozen Throne and Kobolds and Catacombs sets, can it survive the upcoming rotation?

Un’goro: Warlock’s lowest point

Discard Warlock will be missed for the memes, if not for the competitive cards

Un’goro wasn’t a great time for Warlock. Most of the support the class received was for the dead-on-arrival Discard archetype. While some Discard Warlock pieces were temporarily competitive, the Quest and other Un’goro support like Cruel Dinomancer and Lakkari Fellhound were never really impactful.

Alongside these were some interesting but ultimately sub-par control tools like Corrupting Mist and Tar Lurker; but it was only Bloodbloom that made it into semi-competitive decks. Future control tools were far more important.

Overall, Un’goro’s neutrals will be more of a loss for Warlock than the class cards. Staples like Tar Creeper, Stonehill Defender and Firefly had far greater usefulness in decks like Zoo and Control Warlock.

Knights of the Frozen Thone: Gul’dan’s reign begins

We can’t talk about Warlock without talking about arguably the two most powerful cards it ever received, in Bloodreaver Gul’dan and Defile. These two cards have defined all mid-late game Warlocks. That both of these cards came in the same expansion seems ridiculous. That is until you remember two things; firstly, the preceding terrible state of Warlock, and that Warlock wasn’t even initially oppressive with these additions.

Will we ever see Defile’s likes again?

Still, it’s worth going over some of the other Throne Warlock cards. These are largely questionable, but Gnomeferatu, Despicable Dreadlord and even Treachery saw varying degrees of play. But the loss of these will be nothing compared to the crippling impact of losing Defile and Gul’dan. Without reliable late-game heal and burn, or absurdly efficient board-clear potential, Warlocks will struggle to go the distance.

Also, the loss of Keleseth will put Zoo at a disadvantage compared to more consistent Even decks. However, this is unlikely to cripple the archetype. For many, this will just be good riddance to a swingy and limiting card.

Kobolds and Catacombs: King Cube

So much power in one expansion

If Knights of the Frozen Throne laid the groundwork for Warlock’s power, Kobolds and Catacombs pushed this over the edge. The sheer quantity of incredibly powerful Warlock cards is mind-boggling. In one expansion, we got Dark Pact, Kobold Librarian, Catacylsm, Hooked Reaver, Amethyst Spellstone, Skull of the Man’ari, Possessed Lackey, Rin and Voidlord. Not to mention the omnipresent Carnivorous Cube.

Every single one of these cards was a key or powerful component in a high-tier deck. Without this expansion’s cards, Warlock will lose a huge amount of its best tools, especially ones that allow it to stabilise. Amethyst Spellstone, along with Gul’dan, formed the core of late-game Warlocks’ vital heal passage. Without these, any late-game Warlock will inevitably die to any burn-based aggro deck. Even Zoo will suffer from the loss of Vulgar Homunculus as a Keleseth alternative.

A gutted class?

Things aren’t looking great for Warlock. Almost all of the vital control and heal tools needed to survive to the late game have no real alternatives, either in Classic or in this year’s past three expansions. Even Zoo suffers, with core tools like Kobold Librarian, Keleseth and Saronite Chain Gang gone.

Warlock will need a lot of new generalist tools to survive outside of an extremely basic and neutered zoo-style deck. Hopefully, the inevitable back-swing won’t end up with either a terrible crash or another meta tyrant.

Images courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment via hearthstone.gamepedia.com.

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