
We are coming very near to the release date of the Rise of Shadows expansion. There are still a lot of cards left to be revealed, but most of the Legendaries revealed don’t have a great level of power. This time, we see two more class Legendaries and a neutral one: Commander Rhyssa, Fel Lord Betrug and Jepetto Joybuzz.
Commander Rhyssa may be the most interesting of these three minions in terms of value plays. A Paladin card, she is a three mana 4/3 that makes secrets trigger twice while she is on the battlefield.
The most interesting of synergies right off the bat is with the new Paladin secret No Surrender. When the opponent casts a spell, it gives all friendly minions plus two health. With Rhyssa, this would give all friendly minions plus four health. Four health could easily allow your board to survive the majority of AOE removal spells.
There’s also other secrets like Noble Sacrifice. We can’t yet confirm how all the secrets interact with Commander Rhyss, but Noble Sacrifice could summon two 2/1s rather than just one.
Outside of her effect though, she is quite a strong tempo play. You would most of the time prefer a 3/4 to a 4/3, but anything more than 3/3 stats in the three mana slot is always great. Expect her to see some play in some form of aggressive Paladin decks running secrets.
A Warlock Legendary, Fel Lord Betrug also has some interesting interactions with its card text. An eight mana 5/7, whenever you draw a minion with him on the battlefield, it will have a copy of it summoned with Rush, dying at the end of the turn.
There’s a lot to take apart here. First of all, a 5/7 in the eight mana slot is quite poor in terms of stats. However, if you can draw a big minion with the Warlock hero power on this on turn 10 you can get a good single target removal since the minion drawn will have Rush.
Betrug could also be combined with The Solarium to get up to three minions with Rush. You discard the cards from Solarium anyways, so the minions dying at the end of the turn isn’t a big problem. The big synergy is if you are able to get valuable Deathrattle minions out of Betrug so that them dying at the end of the turn can actually be a benefit.
Fel Lord Betrug is also a Demon so he gets all of those demon synergies. Anything that buffs demons or pulls them from the hand will make this a better card. As of now, it’s hard to say if he will be good. He sort of needs an archetype that specifically uses his effect towards a win condition to make running an eight mana 5/7 worthwhile.
Jepetto Joybuzz is a neutral Legendary minion that creates some interesting possibilities for Combo decks. An eight mana 6/6, he draws two minions from your deck and turns them into one mana 1/1s.
A 6/6 for eight mana is obviously not a very good body, but Combo decks rarely play minions for their stat lines. The fact that Jepetto Joybuzz can turn expensive minions into one cost ones makes pulling off certain combos very easy.
He could turn Hakkar The Soulflayer, Meach’thun, Malygos, and more into one mana versions of themself. It’s much more important to use these minions for their effects than their bodies. Reducing their cost opens up possibilities to maximize damage or simply win the game with Mecha’thun.
Relying on Joybuzz to hit one of your combo pieces can be problematic when you just draw the card before he can be played. Specifically Rogue has some back up to that scenario where they can use Togwaggle’s Scheme to shuffle more copies of their combo piece into their deck. It will be interesting to see what people can come up with to utilize his effect.
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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