This will be the second part of a card review series for the upcoming expansion Rise of Shadows. I wanted to make a review with a higher amount of cards but the reveal process is slow for now so I wanted to share what we have for now. We got some unique types of mechanics that might open up brand new archetypes in the game but we can't be sure before the whole set is revealed.
Part 1

Togwaggle's Scheme

First up we have Togwaggles's Scheme. 1 mana Rogue spell that generates value and more importantly generates new cards into the deck. This card reminds me of Gang Up, but fortunately, without Coldlight Oracle in Standard format, we won't be seeing new Mill Rogue deck anytime soon. The artwork itself hints about its synergy with Pogo-Hoppers laying in gold behind Togwaggle. There aren't any other obvious targets for this card, I mean, you would definitely want to have something like 5-6 Zilliaxes in the deck for that sweet sustain that Rogue lacks or many Tess Greymanes but for the most part, Rogue uses Shadowstep to bounce strong battlecry minions and because they are returned to hand you are immediately ready to replay the card. Myra's Unstable Element decks might be suitable for this card after you draw your whole deck you can refill it with only minions you want to keep slamming every turn. Since this is only the second card revealed from Rouge I think that we will see something that will help in creating a new archetype or even further enhance the ability of Myra's.

That said, Rouge always appreciates cheap spells, because of the possibility to get utilized in Miracle style decks, drawing extra cards with Auctioneer, activating combos, etc. It won't be surprising to see this card played in any kind of Rogue deck.

Swampqueen Hagatha

The second card today is also the second super-villain card revealed, Swampqueen Hagatha. 7 mana 5/5 with an interesting battlecry that reads: Add a 5/5 Horror to your hand. Teach it two Shaman spells. Now, this is an interesting card. What does it actually do at what is Horror? Well, Horror is a 5 mana 5/5 that gets a battlecry that will cast two Shaman spells that you picked when playing Hagatha. The way it works is similar to DK Rexxars Hero Power Build-a-beast. One thing to know is that one Discover will have all target spell and the other one will have all non-targeted spells to pick from. For example, you can get: Frost Shock + Lightning Storm or Lightning Bolt + Blazing Invocation or Lava Burst + Eureka!

Horrors battlecry will trigger both and the targeting spell is cast like any other targeting battlecry.

This card sounds really cool, but is it any good? 7 mana 5/5 that doesn't affect the board the turn its played can always feel clunky, but then again, Horror can be used to swing the board so it isn't that bad to sacrifice some tempo to get the payoff turn-two later. One other thing is that this will be a nice addition to Shudderwock battlecry pull as it will create another random Horror and replay the battlecry of Horror that was already played.

This card is interesting but the problem is that Shaman spells on average aren't that powerful so we need to see some strong spells get introduced or this card won't be that impressive after all.

Oblivitron

Another legendary, this time for Hunter, Oblivitron. A 6 mana 3/4, Mech, with a tempo/value effect. It feels like this card missed the party for a Standard format since Hunter will be losing Play Dead and Terrorscale Stalker when this expansion rolls out. For 6 mana Oblivitron's body is really small sized but the Deathrattle might compensate when it activates. Best combo with this card seems to be Mechanical Welp that would spawn a free 7/7 while preserving the Welp on the board that can create another 7/7 afterward. Even though this might seem strong, there are no other Mechs that would do something similar and that brings inconsistency, Weaponized Pinata looks decent but for now, these are only Mechs that look suitable for this kind of interaction, maybe, somehow, even Spider Bomb but it doesn't feel that strong.

Another inconsistency with this card is that it will summon any Mech from your hand so that limits the deck designed even though Mech decks usually run many different mechs and the Magnetic aspect of some of them won't be as good with this card in play.

If we get something other besides Firework Tech to activate deathrattles or help the deathrattle Mech archetype this card will shine, otherwise it pretty mediocre. Necromechanic, anyone?

Lazul's Scheme

Another Scheme spell, this time for 0 mana, reduces the Attack of an enemy minion by 1 until your next turn and of course, it upgrades each turn which means that it will reduce more attack the longer it sits in your hand, 2,3,4...,10 etc. This card can be used in so many ways, some better than others but it doesn't feel too strong because on its own it doesn't do anything. The first thing that comes to mind is setting up free trades, lowering minions attack to 2 or lower to take it with Cabal Shadow Priest or even comboing with Topsy Turvy after reducing minions attack to 0 and then killing it or just "healing" yourself by negating one attack from a minion. I can see this being used in an OTK combo Priest with Divine Spirits where you can create a sneaky lethal by reducing enemies big enough minion to 3 or less attack to take it with Shadow Madness and then double Divine Spirit and Inner Fire/Topsy Turvy to finish it off, its a 5 card, 8-9 mana combo, doesn't seem like a big requirement to pull it off. One thing to keep in mind with this combo is that when using Lazul's Scheme on a target you plan to take, if it's attack is lowered to 0 you can't use Topsy to finish the combo, that would only kill the minion, so in some cases, Lazul's timing is really important.

This card has many uses, it has a combo potential and some other niche cases where it can help, it will definitely see some play, as a 0 mana card it can easily fit in many decks at least as a 1-off.

Unfortunately, this is it for this card review, we only got 4 cards since my last post. As the expansion release date is 9th of April they might give us bigger batches of cards revealed at once.

Thank you for reading!

, z3ll