Another week closer to the release of the Rise of Shadows, and four new cards have been revealed. This includes the Priest Legendary minion Madame Lazul, Warlock spell Rafaam’s Scheme, as well as the two Warrior cards Omega Devastator and Improve Morale. All of these cards might be low impact on the meta.
Madame Lazul
The Priest Legendary, Madame Lazul, might be the most promising of these revealed cards. As a three mana 3/2, her minion stats leave a lot to be desired. However, she can discover a card that is currently in your opponent’s hand. This is a very powerful effect in control matchups.
The card is reminiscent of Drakonid Operative. The big difference being that Operative was a terrific tempo play, while Lazul isn’t so much. Operative was more to grab a card to keep card advantage, while Madame Lazul helps you to know what is currently in your opponent’s hand.
If the meta slows down, which it likely will when the rotation hits, Madame Lazul will be a decent card. It doesn’t require Dragon synergy like Drakonid Operative does, so that is the likely cause for her Legendary designation.
Rafaam’s Scheme
This time, they have revealed the Scheme card for Warlock. It appears to be a Zoo style card, summoning a 1/1 Imp with an additional one summoned for each turn the card is in your hand. Considering this card is three mana, holding the card in the opening hand would produce three 1/1s on turn three.
3/3 worth of stats on turn three is not very impressive, especially when it’s spread across three minions. They get traded off easily and die to single damage AOE effects. Even if this card were to come down with five or more imps, it would be unlikely they stay on board.
To get value out of the card, it will have to be paired with buff cards like Grim Rally. Anything that gives the Imps more health will allow them to maybe see the next turn of play. Zoo isn’t shaping up to be too good when the rotation hits, especially since much of its power came from Prince Keleseth.
Omega Devastator
The line of Omega cards were introduced in The Boomsday Project. The Hearthstone team are bringing back the concept with Omega Devastator. It is a four mana 4/5, but when on 10 mana crystals it does 10 
damage to a minion.
Omega Devastator suffers from the same problems that all of the Omega cards have. They are good cards when you have 10 mana, but not that good when played for their vanilla stats. Because you need cards to be played before 10 mana, it’s better to run something else over Omega cards.
The meta could shift to be much slower, which would give Omega cards more value. The second problem is that this card is in Warrior. Warrior is a control class that needs removal tools in the early game, not late. Execute, Shield Slam, and Brawl are all cheap and great removal tools. Omega Devastator will be able to be discovered from Omega Assembly and Dr. Boom’s hero power, so it could be a great card in those pools.
Improve Morale
Another Warrior card, Improve Morale uses the new Lackey cards in its text. In terms of a standalone card, it doesn’t really impress. Dealing one damage and getting a random one cost card isn’t crazy. Especially in a class like Warrior, which thrives upon defensive tools.
Where Improve Morale is good is when it is able to activate other cards. It’s a good activator for Execute, as well as Grommash Hellscream. Getting the Lackey that discovers a spell could also be good to help discover more removal for the Warrior.
The card could be potentially used in a Tempo Warrior of sorts. Cards like Slam and Inner Rage used to be popular picks when Warrior could play for Tempo. We could see more cards that synergize with Improve Morale and Lackeys to be used in Warrior so that a new archetype can be born.
Check out all of the Rise of Shadows cards as they get revealed here.
Images courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment via their official website.
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