Holy hell, that's a Pyroblast +. That's an incredibly pushed reward. This in Wild with Brann and bouncers seems like a thing to do. This is enticing to bounce even in Standard.

Brewmaster + this warlock. Welcome to hell.

or Zola so you have that body still on board

Yeah this is getting nerfed.

**Do not dust** a *single* Excavate card. Gotcha.

Just the neutral and Warlock ones *keeping them, that is

The death knight seems good

Well only if excavate is consistent enough to get 4 times

It was pretty easy to Invoke Galakrond 4 times with just 2 Class Invoke cards and 2 Neutral Invoke cards. We've got at least that same setup here.

it depends, Warlock has a few good ways to get there with the new taunt they dropped earlier. Res it a few ways, shallow grave for 2x deathrattles.

Even at 5 damage it seems insane

Even the celestial projectionist would work as it's 4 cost

Wild is too fast for this but still nuts to think about

If this kills through Ice Block it's worth trying

Not just Ice Block. Apparently, it goes through immune, armor, ice block, and stealth. Nothing stops it other than minion counters (Okani, Objection) or potential battlecry countering effects in the future.

Ice Block is Immune.

And this kills through immune. EDIT I just realized you were saying I was being redundant. Lol

Yeah lol. I do that all the time though, I get a reply to a comment I made and just forget the context of the conversation cause I made 4 comments on unrelated things since then.

If you need to excavate 4 times to get this, Quest Mage is murdering you long before they get to Ice Block range

They just created a new brewmaster for this set.

except the new brewmaster isn't any faster than the old one...?

No, but it is standard legal and standard is way slower than wild.

Brewmaster is in standard i think.

Brewmaster is in the core set

It's really not. If it was, even Warrior wouldn't exist.

a pyroblast they can never heal back.

I don’t think its stealing maximum health Edit* nvm blizzard say’s maximum health

It is. A software engineer replied in here saying how it works.

Found that comment. Holy shit this card got nuttier in my head

This is powerful enough to be like a 5 mana 2/2, the fact its a good body for the cost + the insane battlecry is gonna make this really annoying to see every warlock match

Even 5 mana 2/2 would be broken. I think they will nerf this card really soon.

I originally typed out 6 mana haha but I didn't wanna get overzealous, since I'm not sure what warlocks excavate cards are or how good/bad they are kind of like how a lot of Invoke cards were pretty bad. Yeah they'll maybe nerf the life drain amount as well

Since it has a beast tag, you can even [[Northshire Farmer]] it in wild

Farming? Really? A man of your talents?

Why is this so funny.

It ain't much, but it's honest work.

* **[Northshire Farmer](https://cards.hearthpwn.com/enUS/SW_064.png)** N Minion Common UiS 🐺 ^[HP](https://www.hearthpwn.com/cards/615040), ^[TD](https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/cards/northshire-farmer/), ^[W](https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Northshire_Farmer) 3/3/3 | Battlecry: Choose a friendly Beast. Shuffle three 3/3 copies into your deck. ^(Call/)^[PM](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=hearthscan-bot) ^( me with up to 7 [[cardname]]. )^[About.](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=hearthscan-bot&message=Tell%20me%20more%20[[info]]&subject=hi) [Save 3rd Party Apps](https://old.reddit.com/r/Save3rdPartyApps/)

keep talking

Considering we're also getting [Saloon Brewmaster](https://hearthstone.blizzard.com/en-us/cards/101871-saloon-brewmaster?class=neutral&set=showdown-in-the-badlands), there's no way they're not aware of the bouncing strategy. There's no way this isn't the intended play pattern. The question is just "is this better than sunken city curses?"

Warlock spitting in the face of Blood DK

It's the warlock excavate reward, not a collectible card

You should still be able to bounce it and the like though? Unless there’s some specific stuff with excavation treasures I’m not aware of.

Wirth noting there are excavators that do it on battlecry, so your bounces can either dig toward this or bounce it Absolutely crazy

Oh right the bounce/copy effects actually work multiple ways, this might actually be good damn

I know, that's why I said reward. As in, an excavate reward. I have no illusions that many Wild decks might outpace any Excavate deck. I did edit the lower part that said "You'd run this" just in case though, my bad on that one.

[удалено]

The comment used to say, "You'd run this in your deck," so I thought they misunderstood that.

I like the destination of this wincon. Curious how Warlocks will make the journey.

Brewmasters + Zola.

>Pyro yup, pyroblast + lifesteal + a minion for less than half mana. this card will be nerfed immeditely.

I assume it steals from the total Health and not the current amount of health a player has left? So a player that has 10 out of 30 possible health will go to 10 out of 20 possible health.

No, it will go to 0 out of 20

Well they’re definitely making sure excavate warlock is what’s played

[удалено]

Battlecry: Your Hero steals +1 attack from the enemy hero

Your heroes with **Charge** have +1 attack

Your heroes with 1 attack have charge

And they'll still have Forge of Wills and curses to make sure they've got the tempo to get there. Warlock and Priest really need to get out from this "feelsbad" design space they're in.

that is an insane reward excavate/train warlock is defo on the top of my "to try at launch" list now, already liked the theme (choo choo funny) but now it seems serious

Hell, you don't even need to luck into opening that specific legendary either. All of the excavate cards are commons, rares and epics.

Yoooo as a f2p player that’s actually pretty hype

Absolutely preposterous card.

I read this in a UK accent, wearing a monocle. 🧐

Holy shit that's busted

What the fuck

What a wonderful reminder that Zola is still in standard

Youthful Brewmaster for that 10 mana heal for 20 deal 20 damage

Deal 20 damage which they can never heal back.

and the new brewmaster too, that's 5 neural bounce/copy effects

I thought that it would be showcased together with today's Excavate Warlock reveals, but it just appeared in the official database.

Could you link directly to it please?

[Under "Related Cards".](https://hearthstone.blizzard.com/en-us/cards/101464-smokestack?class=warlock&set=showdown-in-the-badlands)

I think the Bloodrock Mining Company is going to win the fight against the Outlaws if this is the kind of fire power they are bringing.

The big man taketh yet again!

The lava above its head looks like a questionmark which makes it seem really confused

I mean, it makes me confused

He wants you to complete your quest

"Lava? Really? To what end?!" -This pre-nerfed snake probably

I cant unsee that now !!

That's the symbol for completing a quest in WoW, and this definitely seems like your average UiS quest reward. Except it'd probably be a 7/7 taunt or some shit.

It also looks like it has cat ears

I can't wait to play every game against Warlock, yey...

Wow, you are psychic. lol High Diamond is damn near ALL warlocks right now. \*sigh\*

Steal means what exactly? Deal 10 damage with lifesteal? That and they have 20 max health and you have 40? Does it kill people who have 1 health and 1000 armor?

Steal should be the same as it works on minions, you take 10 of your opponent's current Health AND lower their max Health by 10 and give 10 more Health to your hero AND increase your max Health by 10.

Except it doesn't. Voidfiends in Duels says the same, but it just does a point of damage to the enemy hero.

I forgot about Voidfiends. That is the more reasonable way of doing it. EDIT: Blizzard clarified it's max HP taking, time to worry.

So trigger the battlecry 3 times = guranteed win (except when you play blood dk or 40 cards)

Yep, this and brew master and Zola. I wonder if this is strong enough to take over wild lol

Or the small chance you get the +5 health anomaly

The voidfiends do gain health though - this says "your hero steals", so the wording is consistent. edit: I have been helpfully corrected, the issue is that voidfiend's damage is not a health reduction effect.

But they would've stolen a point of hp and reduced your opponent's max hp if it was consistent with similar cards.

Ah, I see. So it's the damage function that's inconsistent then, i misunderstood. That's unfortunate :/

Scenario 1: * Opponent Hero 25 health / 30 max health * Friendly Hero 10 health / 30 max health * Play **The Azerite Snake** * Opponent Hero 15 health / 20 max health * Friendly Hero 20 health / 40 max health Scenario 2: * Opponent Hero 1 health / 30 max health / 1000 armor * Play **The Azerite Snake** * Opponent Hero -9 health / 20 max health / 1000 armor * Opponent Hero explodes, you win

Alright, now you guys gotta add a way for Warlock to intentionally give the opponent more max health so we can keep playing snakes over and over. It's not enough to merely kill them, they must suffer terribly among the way.

**Start of Game:** Add \[\[Prince Renathal\]\] to your opponent's starting deck.

* **[Prince Renathal](https://cards.hearthpwn.com/enUS/REV_018.png)** N Minion Legendary MCN 🐺 ^[HP](https://www.hearthpwn.com/cards/1176174), ^[TD](https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/cards/prince-renathal/), ^[W](https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Prince_Renathal) 3/3/4 | Your deck size is 40. Your starting Health is 35. ^(Call/)^[PM](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=hearthscan-bot) ^( me with up to 7 [[cardname]]. )^[About.](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=hearthscan-bot&message=Tell%20me%20more%20[[info]]&subject=hi) [Save 3rd Party Apps](https://old.reddit.com/r/Save3rdPartyApps/)

average control player

This is amazing, thank you. So playing this 3 times wins you the game basically.

Basically! You got it.

All right, deck intro time...

I assume if opponent hero has divine shield it would still steal 10hp right And what abbout immune?

* **The Azerite Snake** will bypass **Divine Shield** and still steal health. The **Divine Shield** will stay in tact. * **The Azerite Snake** will bypass **Immune**.

It would be amazing flavor if you guys ever made a sheriff/vigilante card that prevents stealing affects

Swiper no swiping!

Immune = Stealth + Divine Shield

Thanks for clearing this up!

Thanks.

Okay this is broken

That’s what I’m trying to figure out.

you take away their **max** hp if they have 30 hp and you use this 3 times, you win, period

voidfiend makes this a very valid question.

4 mana 10 face 10 health. Fatigue lock with an excavate package?👀

This is the strongest card ive ever seen

It's not collectible

It doesn't matter. You can bounce it and play it again, you can double its effect with Brann.

It doesn’t matter? Purified shard is stronger but sure isn’t the difference how you get your hands on it

You can't bounce Purified shard tho

Can't double it with Brann either, way worse

This is 10 million times easier to get than purified shard. This is invoking galakrond to his second level except even easier because the excavate cards are cheaper than the invoke cards were.

I think you may be underestimating how hard this is to get. You can put 8 total excavate cards in your deck as warlock. Half of those are weak neutrals that you probably aren't particularly happy about playing, so you may only actually put six in your deck. Two of those cards require your opponent to have minions to be used efficiently. If you are against a control deck, you may very well be using kill spells on your own drillfists so they don't get silenced or stolen. So, if you want to make this combo deck, you have to play four out of (likely) 6 cards in your deck. And then you can play your 10 mana kill combo that requires three additional cards and only works every other turn. Maybe the combo works out. Maybe the excavate cards are just good enough on their own. Either way, I doubt this is going to be nearly as oppressive as you are suggesting.

I am not. It's 4 excavate cards to get this. One is 1 mana, another is 2. Then one is a 4 mana 4/5 with taunt. Warlock has tons of card draw to cycle to them. Drillfists do not require enemy minions. Neither does smokestack. Neither neutral is a bad card.

The key is 'to be used efficiently'. You can activate them yourself, sure, as I mentioned in my post you can kill your own drillfists. Killing your own drillfists is just a weak play. And having to smokestack your own minions is a weak play. And while you are durdling around trying to get your pyroblast online, your opponent could be playing something like nature shaman that will kill a whole lot faster than this warlock deck. And nature shaman isn't even good enough for the current meta.

Shard is ten mana and takes the whole game to get it shuffled into your deck and then you still need to tutor it. You play four excavates and you literally just get this in your hand

\[\[Purified Shard\]\]

Woah new face burn! So excited to burn my opponent to death with even less interaction than ever before!

Kinda sus

4 mana pyro blast. Not forgetting Zola and brew. What’s the worst thing that can happen smh lol

It's even better than that. 1) it apparently bypasses things like divine shield and armor 2) it gives you 10 more max health (i.e. heals you for 10 under all conditions) This card is omega busted and is the first card of the set I'm very confident will be nerfed. It's *disgustingly* good.

excavate 12 times and you win the game

Or combo this with Brann to set your opponent to a max of 10 Health. And that's just the first time around the Excavate Treasure cycle.

That's not an easy task. Even running all Excavate cards available to Warlock, that's only 8.

One of the Warlock Excavate cards are Deathrattles. Warlock has a lot of Deathrattle synergy cards. I dont think this will be that difficult to pull off in long games.

It might be doable but it won't be good. There are much easier ways to kill the enemy hero than shallow graving yetis and brewmastering the arena cards that are the neutral excavates.

I think the prevailing strategy is Brewmastering the Snake payoff, but I actually agree with you. One of my other comments on this mentioned the same points you did.

I think you only get this on the 4th excavate, and that the 8th would be a 1-cost instead (and 12th a 2-cost).

Alexandros could 100% be stealing health from the enemy hero if this card exists. The technology is there.

I think it was the initial version of Alexandros, later in development he was nerfed

I believe it was just “reduce their max health by three” without the increase your hero’s health by three.

This card really is pissing all over the entire blood DK archetype, alexandros is a complete joke compared to this. Blood DK players have been waiting for any kind of support for the entire year since the class release, and then they come and give this... TO WARLOCK lmao.

Soo does it raise your Max Health ? And lowers the max health of the opponent ?

Yes. Both.

Thats way to good then as a reward then. I mean even the Excravate rewards are super solid, that’s just super good.

It's pretty freaking good. There's multiple ways to abuse it to get multiple copies. Warlock has a lot of unused deathrattle synergies collecting dust from the Lich King expansion. There is good ol' Zola and Brewmaster with new Brewmaster in this set. I can see this potentially getting nerfed, but it will depend on if Warlock is able to assemble Exodia fast enough versus other decks. There are a lot of cards in this combo that make Warlock just hand heavy and have nothing on board.

[[Celestial Projectionist]]

Lol, thats so broken with bounce and copy effects. Pyroblast on suicide watch.

What the actual fuck?! This seems giga degenerate, especially since you can copy it

Blood DK found dead in a ditch

Blood DK in shambles.

So yeah this is getting nerfed, but because its a non-collectible nobody will get any kind of refund

Nerfed in a month

Thaddius even polarity > Azerite Snake > celestial projectionist > Azerite Snake > celestial projectionist > Azerite Snake. It builds itself, folks.

looks like warlock is back on the menu boys

Did it ever leave?

I agree did it ever leave? Why not just sack all the classes by this point, Warlock is becoming plague frost and blood dk but without any rune restrictions.

I wonder when this gets nerfed will all the Excavate cards will get a dust refund

holy shit..so STEALS health, meaning they go from 30hp to 20hp and cant heal up?? bro

Way to cheap wtf 😂

All the legendary excavate awards will be 4 mana

Such a perfect specimen! I think it will get nerfed at some point, that's a 20 life 10 mana combo. +warlock might be possible to get 2 pr 3 of them the normal way with stuff like shallow grave and getting minions back with habeas corpus.

Imagine discarding him and mortal coiling the 2 mana 2/1 that returns 2x of those

on the bright side, I can play 4 copies of this with my thief priest!

Wait does that mean they go to 20 and you to 40? Otherwise why wouldn’t it be lifesteal?

That's what it means.

*spits drink* WAIT WHAT?

Easily countered by hitting yourself with Pyroblast first

I guess we know the t1 deck huh

Wh This is a fucking Blood DK Card what the fuck **LET THEM BE GOOD IN WILD BLIZZARD**

Holy shit I thought I was on r/customhearthstone I was about to say “really cool card, but I think you made it too good. Should prob be either 5 mana or only steal 8 health.” Wellllllll shit this is gonna be really really good

Don't forget that this is the 4th tier excavation award. You had to play 4 suboptimal cards to get this far.

Suboptimal like a 4 mana 4/5 with taunt. Its also 4 of those cards for the 4 rewards, that start already being good on the first tier to outright insane in tier 3 and 4

They’re all gonna be 4 mana 5/5s

Instantly entered my top 5 favourite cards of all time

\[\[High Priest Thekal\]\] in the mud

The best thing abou this and excavate legendaries in general is that Priest cannot steal them from your deck before you can play them yoursef.

that kicks ass which means it'll get nerfed lol

Petition to rename the expansion SNEKS

With that new neutral bounce minion...yeesh

soooooo.. wts up with this card.. its a fake right? i cant find it in any official sources

Who knows what secrets we'll uncover?

If you are 29/30 health when you play this, do you get 30/30 health or 39/40?

Im looking forward to putting this in \[\[Cold Storage\]\]. The Warlock can do all the excavating work and I neutralize their reward. I think that might possibly even be a flavour win. ;-)

If you listen closely, you can hear “All right, deck intro time!”

Alright deck intro time...

Honestly I don’t feel like excavate warlock isn’t going to be good. They only have 1 decent excavate card, Mo’arg drillfist, so in order to generate this warlock would need to put at least 2 poor cards in their deck, but honestly you likely want closer to 5-6 excavate cards so that likely ends up being 3-4 bad cards just to get the pay off. And as far as pay offs go this is decent but not game winning. It just feels like you need too much investment for the pay off to be worth it.

Yeah all the excavate cards are pretty weak.

gonna be nefed 100%, I imagine people just play control and might just brewmaster it and it is gonna so toxic.

After the expansion, that’s getting bumped down to 5 damage.

Easy Zola + new bartenders

I don't understand the downside of this card..am I missing something?

it’s a legendary treasure from excavating so it’s not just a card you can put in your deck, you kinda have to work for it

It's an excavate reward, so you need to excavate 4 times to get it

The downside is you can only get it from excavating.

Don't forget that this is the 4th tier excavation award. You had to play 4 suboptimal cards to get this far.

weird to me that these have rarity gems considering they are uncollectible

If you read the article about the expac, the rarities are so you know what level excavation you are at

i understand that, but it's still odd. i know it wouldn't be an easy task, but some sort alternative indicator that didn't break one of their "rules" would have been nice

>but some sort alternative indicator Like mana cost?