This will be a fifth part of card review series for the upcoming expansion Rise of Shadows.
Part1
Part2
Part3
Part4

Keeper Stalladris:

Similarly to Khadgar from the last review, Stalladris is a push for some new kind of Druid, Choose One Druid? Umm, it looks a bit on the low side, 2 mana 2/3 is a nice body but this is not what the card is about, this won't be played on curve but in combo with Choose One spells of course. With the current Choose One spells Stalladris looks disappointing, only good ones I can see with this is Power of the Wild, Wrath or maybe a Starfall and this cards usually don't go well together in the same deck. I think it is too early to judge this card, but let's say they don't introduce any significant spell (which they will 100%) this card is garbage. One thing that kinda shows how much they want this to happen is with the reveal of Power of the Wilds new card artwork that is different depending on the choices, unlike the two same ones with only the name being different.

Lightforged Blessing:

Finally, the first Paladin card is revealed. Lightforged Blessing didn't look too impressive at first glance, but it can do more then it looks. Pyromancer seems like one of the good targets for this spell, as his effect procs after casting this spell there is a potential for a huge heal, followed with equality for another wave of healing. Another good target is The Glass Knight because with Lifesteal it will be really hard to clear him for any class that struggles to remove Divine Shields without using spells or with Mage-like Hero Power. Baron Geddon didn't see play in Paladin before, but with this spell it is becoming more likely. Any minion that does massive damage, especially those that have AOE effects will be really good with this card. Now it all depends if Paladin will need so much healing, but having one copy of this in the deck will help with any aggro deck. Gonna see play in maybe a new version of Holy Wrath Paladin or any Control Paladin that might come to life.

I also got to leave this here, as this is probably the most creative card reveal in Hearthstone history. So much work has been done just to reveal a single card!

Never Surrender!:

A new Paladin Secret card and its the first one that triggers off of spells. The effect is really strong, I can easily protect your minions from board clear that do damage or maybe even when the opponent tries to trade up with some minion buffs. This Secret might be played in aggressive Paladin or even Midrange Paladin decks even without support surrounding secrets because it has such a powerful effect that sometimes it doesn't even be a "secret" that this is on the board and it will affect the board nonetheless. Not much more can be said about it, a solid card, will see play in faster Paladin decks. The only problem here is if we will see aggressive Paladins since the tools they were utilizing the most, like Baku and Divine Favor are leaving standard rotation and that hinders their power level quite a bit.

Unleash the Beast:

A new Hunter spell and its packed with some value. We can see a clear trend that Blizzard is changing up the way Hearthstone will be played. Card advantage and resource management might be the way. Now for this spell, 6 mana 5/5 Rush, isn't that impressive but it can be played once more. A card like this will definitely be good for Arena but for constructed it might be just a bit too slow. Two 5/5s with Rush in one card is really strong but it reserves 12 mana which is probably too much for Hunter. The strongest part of this card is that it synergizes well with Zul'jin that can create a massive tempo/clear on the turn you play him. Other than that the card is pretty mediocre but might see play because it is a two in one type of deal card.

Vereesa Windrunner:

The second legendary for Hunter will be Vereesa Windrunner. 7 mana 5/6 a bit small for mana cost but she comes with a 2/3 weapon that after your hero attack you gain Spell Damage +2 for the rest of the turn. This is a bit weird, Spell Damage never was a Hunter thing. I mean, there are spells that are used to burst or for removal but not enough of them that are well suited to justify Spell Damage card in your deck. The only spell that will be quite a bit stronger with Spell Damage is Baited Arrow for easier Overkill proc. Hunter AOE spells, Multi-Shot and Explosive Shot didn't ever find meta involvement but maybe this and Zul'jin might create enough support for this cards to actually become somewhat good, doubt it but can see it happening. A problem with this card is that it is countered with weapon removal and we already have seen Wrenchcalibur, a Warrior weapon that puts bombs in the opponent's deck and because of it there is already a big chance most decks will run weapon removal making Vereesa worse.

For this card to see play, there need to be more spells that could benefit from Spell Damage and probably not that many other strong weapons in the meta to make it able to survive longer than one turn.

EVIL Genius:

A Warlock Lackey generation card. 2 mana 2/2 is mediocre, battlecry is sacrificing friendly minion for 2 Lackeys which can be used nice, especially in Warlock class as we've seen in the past. If we get another Egg card that Warlocks so much like to destroy, this card will be strong, well, maybe not strong but above average. The good thing about this card is that it takes a 2 mana slot and Zoo decks (where this seems to belong) were using Prince Keleseth and that was because a 2 mana slot had only couple of options, like Dire Wold Alpha and Knife Juggler. After Prince rotates out maybe it will be time for Warlock to populate that 2 mana slot and this card might just make the cut. Like I said if we see at least one or two more Egg-like cards that are actually giving you tempo when sacrificed this card will see play in Zoo decks, otherwise it will be just a bit above average card in a 2 mana slot.

EVIL Conscripter:

Ihgh! That's how I feel about this card. 2 mana 2/2 is mediocre stats but for Priest, this is actually really bad. Another thing is that it doesn't do anything until it dies. Okay maybe we see another Deathrattle support for Priest but still, I doubt this will be considered in decks like that. This card makes me wonder are we missing some information about Lackeys and how important are they going to be for individual classes, as we've seen in Rogue for activating Togwaggle. If not, this is just a really bad card, maybe in some other class I would consider it playable but for Priest, I just don't see it.

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Hench-Clan Hogsteed:

A neutral for 2 mana, 2/1 Rush that has a Deathrattle that leaves a 1/1 Murloc. The closest card we have is a Bluegill Warrior and that card doesn't see play. Okay, this leaves a token behind as a trade it has Rush instead of Charge. It's hard to say if it will see play, maybe it has some synergies with even like EVIL Genius we covered above. It has been shown that card that gets even the tiniest bit of change can go from unplayable to viable or even powerful, now is this that for a Bluegill, maybe. It is interesting that this card has two different tribes, Beast that leaves a Murloc token. Because of this, it has a great potential for some tribe synergies and Murloc tribe stronger now that so many board clears are rotating out.

It's an okay card, not the best but it will see at least some experimental play and maybe make the cut in some aggressive decks.

Jepetto Joybuzz:

More like a Jepetto Buzzkill haha. 8 mana 6/6, really bad for that expensive card but the battlecry is potentially game-breaking. This is a type of card design that I like and dislike at the same time. Yeah, it can create some funny moments from time to time, but if someone finds a refined deck, (I'm thinking of Rogue right now) that uses to draw something like Malygos and Faceless. All right, it sounds a bit far-fetched or inconsistent. But with already revealed Togwaggle Scheme, there is a consistent way to get 10 Malygoses into a deck and then playing this to draw them. The reason I dislike this card is that, either it will be just a meme level card, or if it finds a deck where it fits too well it will become annoying to play against and unfun to play against. Maybe if it gets too popular, we see more Bomb Warriors to stop it.

Other than disliking this card, I think it has a lot of potentials and will see play in some kind of Combo deck that relies on costly minions (Malygos) to pull it off.

Dragon Paladin Becoming a Thing:

Lastly, we have some Dragon synergies for Paladin. I have been waiting for this since we got introduced to Cathedral Gargoyle in Witchwood. Who? What? Haha, a card that has been "dormant" for a whole year that promised some kind of Dragon Paladin deck but never got enough support to build upon it. This year it is pretty clear that Dragons in Paladin class will definitely be an archetype worth looking into.

Bronze Herald, 3 mana 3/2 is a meh body but it produces so many resources. The two 4/4 Dragons that get added to hand cost 4 mana which is not that good but considering that they are free and just by having them in hand they enable further Dragon effects is really decent. Also, we can see another support card for this, Dragon Speaker, that will make this card look really strong, getting making two 4 mana 7/7 is so damn strong. We will see this card in conjunction with the next card quite a lot.

Alright, Dragon Speaker. 5 mana 3/5, it has a mediocre 4 mana body but with an effect that can give so much that it makes that 3/5 body feel more than enough. If it lands only on two Dragon this is +6/+6 in future tempo and since this will be played in a Dragon deck, of course, this will probably be an average result to expect if not more. Imagine Crowd Roaster entering the board with 10/7 that just destroyed opponents, huge minion. That is scary strong.

Dragon Speaker is the card that will be enough to make Dragon Paladin a meta potential deck and considering that we are in the Year of the Dragon, we might see more of it and this is very exciting.

Okay, that will be it for this review. I like where the game is shifting towards too, a resource management games, that might be a bit slower than we used to. Making players think about each card as a really important piece to win the game.

Thank you for reading!

,z3ll